Aug
12th
2017
Points of Canon: S7x14 - Fame and Misfortune · 7:54pm Aug 12th, 2017
Before we start, I wish to direct your attention to this tweet:
https://twitter.com/M_A_Larson/status/896407881678962688Unless it got deleted. It basically said “Wasn’t my idea.”
1. Which is supported both by the on-screen appearance of the books and Twilight’s lines in Castle Mane-ia…
Now, let’s proceed. The subject of this episode is the infamous Journal, the printed book – but, it’s the part which I’ve mostly been ignoring as redundant, the entries written by the Mane 6 and company, the so-called Friendship Journal. So I will be referencing it. While both books are bound together in the printed version, it appears that in Equestria, they are distinct volumes,1 and nopony even mentions Celestia and Luna’s diary throughout this episode. I was sort of worried they would, but they didn’t. :)
- Standard chronology markers: Friendship castle is in evidence, Starlight is in evidence, CMC sport their cutie marks.
- That old lady that last turned up in Discordant Harmony is walking with a zimmer today. Hm.
- Twilight knows Toola Rula and Coconut Cream by name, and we didn’t. They address her as “Princess Twilight,” which most foals don’t, if my memory serves me right.
- Toola Rula is the first pony ever who has different colors between her mane and tail.
- Twilight has a quick-clean-self spell which, nevertheless, looks exactly like a shield.
- How, exactly, did Twilight manage to stick the journal so deep into the shelves, anyway? You’d think this sort of item would be located in her desk drawer, or in a similar location, it has high sentimental value. Why is it among the other books?
- The Friendship Journal is in a hideous state by this point in time. Rarity complains about the smell, and even Applejack describes it as “overripe,” which would also normally mean the smell. Did someone eat it?
- The Cutie Map table is there. Yes, this is chronologically important: It’s missing from several of the current comics, despite them being strongly tied to specific episodes temporally.
- Rainbow claims that a smushed apple is present among Applejack’s lessons. The printed journal includes nothing of the sort. She likewise claims that Fluttershy’s lessons are too tiny to read. This is also not exactly correct as per the printed book, though Fluttershy’s font is indeed two times smaller than the rest. She also claims that Rarity’s entries are unreadable – which is definitely not correct as per the printed book, even though the font is, in fact, more calligraphic as Rarity states – but Granny Smith’s is much more so. Likewise, the rips and tears that Applejack observes in Rainbow’s entries are not present.
- Pinkie’s page explodes in confetti. Which would imply nobody read this particular entry since it was written, otherwise they would trigger the confetti.
- Starlight knows a spell for book duplication, which she used when making copies of “a certain manifesto.” Magical book duplication is a thing, though apparently, not something typically used in preference of a printing press. The spell, incidentally, reverses the damage, and I think we’re meant to believe that the printed version we got is the result of the cleanup performed by the spell. The original is not consumed and remains unaltered.
- Starlight learned the spell “years ago,” which is important for chronology of her career.
- Notice also, that Starlight’s propaganda books were not printed in a traditional manner, but duplicated with this spell – but who wrote the original for those?
- Funny, I don’t remember any of the books being described as a “manifesto.”
- Fluttershy lampshades that she forgot about a lesson, but doesn’t tell us which one it was. Not like it matters.
- “Remember this one, when I helped Daring Do?” Exists on page 4, refers to Daring Don’t.
- “Cheese Sandwich. Party cannon. Birthiversary!” Exists on page 21, refers to Pinkie Pride.
- Twilight suggests publishing the journal with the intent to let other ponies learn the lessons therein. Which implies that no defining theoretical work on friendship quilled by Twilight exists up until this point, or even upon the completion of this episode.
- Cloudsdale has street vendors, not seen up until this point. There were shops before, but no street vendors.
2. I’ve had to interact with vendors directly when my book was published, but giving them a single copy was not part of the activity. Instead, I had to read them a lecture on what the hell it is that they’re actually selling.
The process of getting the book into circulation is incredibly strange – Twilight directly brings a copy to a street vendor. Who is a pegasus, and thus cannot duplicate it by magical means.2
- The newsstand in Canterlot has a pretty obvious mangled-English “News stand” written on the sign. Notice also the magazines, very rarely seen. And again, two copies given to the vendor. Don’t they have any form of book distribution networks?…
- And all the Canterlot Friends are in Canterlot today. What, Twilight, you aren’t even going to come say hello?
- That next bookshop looks like Manehattan, and they seem to have gotten at least ten copies. Manehattan retail, at least looks sane – there’s a reasonable promotion campaign going on the billboards. For some unclear reason, a pony is photographing the billboards.
- Quite a few of these foals standing in line next to Ponyville school are new, never seen before ponies.
- Ponies play hopscotch. Which, I think, also comes up in A Canterlot Wedding, but we don’t see it very often.
- Apple Bloom refers to an upcoming Cutie Mark Summer Camp, which is presumably the subject of Marks and Recreation, the upcoming episode 21 of Season 7. This sets this episode as happening in spring or summer, but not autumn.
- This is probably the first ever stallion with earrings.
- So those four fans come by asking to sign their copies of the journal, but they “didn’t read them” and can’t say what were their favorite lessons. How exactly did they become fans, then?…
- Rarity is hiding behind a newspaper, which contains an article with a picture of the journal’s cover. There is a rating under the picture: 1.5 out of 5 stars.
- “Who does she think she is? Certainly she did a fine job setting up the Ponyville Days celebration, but does she really believe it was a success just because of her? The nerve!” Notably, Rarity’s entry regarding these events in the printed book contains no such claim or even a statement that the celebration was a success. Even Twilight lampshades that. These two ponies sound like they’re her competitors, but since when Ponyville is big enough to have any?… Also, how is it that they don’t notice Rarity running away in tears?
- “Ponies keep stopping by to tell me my entries are hilarious!” To be honest, Pinkie, the ones I’ve seen aren’t.
- Ponies laughing madly at Pinkie’s every line is pretty strange. “Classic Pinkie! She’s even funnier in real life.” “YOU’VE KNOWN ME FOR YEARS!!” Well, Sasaflash and Berry Punch certainly did. Which is precisely why this whole scene is quite senseless.
- Rainbow Dash has a pretty ridiculous number of fans among pegasus fillies, at least 13 seem to have cornered her on a random cloud. One is still wearing the Rainbow Dash fan club T-shirt. Which changes color between frames – it started out as blue but is pink in the next frame. Is this an animation error or the application of the same magic that changed the text on Luna’s T-shirt in Zen and the Art of Gazebo Repair (Friendship is Magic #9-10)?
- The spa and the beauty salon are mysteriously back in the places they spent most of the early seasons in. The spa is on the right today.
- Twilight levitates two ponies aside without so much as looking in their direction.
- All the ponies who want to know why Fluttershy keeps learning the same lesson over and over again are wearing glasses. You know what, dear storyboard artist, that’s racist.
- Notably, one of those four ponies is a crystal pony stallion in a non-crystal state. The guy with the cutie mark in nuclear physics. I really wonder why he cares.
- Rarity is still using her red sewing machine.
- The Rarity-hate is really surprising. But Lemon Hearts leading the crowd of Rarity-haters is even more so. Did Rarity steal her latest boyfriend or something? This is consistent throughout the episode, as Lemon Hearts keeps her anti-Rarity sign throughout.
- Sweet Apple Admirers uniformly wear stick-on cutie marks with apples and hearts. I wonder, why don’t we see something of the sort, say, among rabid pop star fans?…
- Selfie! Also, yet another Polaroid-style camera with a non-Polaroid style lens.
- So basically, the reason why Big Mac is carrying other ponies’ luggage at all, and Granny Smith is feeding them, is Applejack getting caught in the literal interpretation of her statement that “friends are like family.” Did anyone tell Applejack that friendship is not necessarily bidirectional?
- Granny Smith is still remarkably spry. As in hauling at least 30 plates at once.
- Another pony with a five-o’clock shadow that could never be a proper beard if grown.
- The photos on Twilight’s mirror are unchanged from A Celestial Advice
- Throughout the entire proceedings, Twilight continually laments how everyone ignored the friendship part of the friendship journals.
- Berry Punch has a sign with Twilight’s cutie mark and hearts on it. So does Lotus. Quite a few ponies are wearing T-shirts with cutie marks of the Mane 6.
- Pinkie hid in a jar after making it safely into the castle. And that involved getting a jar.
- “I cannot even go to the bathroom without someone telling me how cool I am.” You would think Rainbow would be used to that in particular, remembering Parental Glideance.
- Rarity has a habit of measuring ponies for clothing, or at least, does so when she is stressed. Even though she has to have Fluttershy’s measurements on file.
- “Canterlot Chronicle” is, presumably, a newspaper. And the first newspaper caught seeking actual interviews in primary canon.
- “My character?! We are real ponies! This journal is a record of things that actually happened to us!” Statement of medium-unawareness accepted.
- “Twilight was better before she got wings.” Did that lady actually have any experience of Twilight before she got wings or not? Because I’m pretty sure we haven’t seen her around before Season 4.
- “Fluttershy is just so painfully shy, it’s hard to relate, come on!” Now, a moment here. This lady was in the group Fluttershy just yelled at.
3. The correct answer is “very, very distantly.”
“Are Pinkie Pie and Applejack related or what?!” Interesting tidbit. Statements in Pinkie Apple Pie do permit to calculate just how they are related, if my memory serves me right.3 But the phrase in the Friendship Journal on page 16 does not. Pinkie just wrote, “Oh my gosh, I’m an Apple” and “Being an Apple is the most awesome thing ever!” and the surrounding entries by the Apples make no statements whatsoever regarding Pinkie being related to them.
- Bon-Bon is wearing an Apple fan hat. Notably, Lyra Heartstrings sports no paraphernalia.
- I think this might actually be the first time a heartsong is explicitly used to calm a crowd, and importantly, it fails. They do stop to listen through it, though.
- Pinkie’s verse in the montage depicts a therapist with the traditional couch. Therapy is a thing. Strange that we don’t see it more often.
- The entire crowd outside the door remains unattended by the end of the episode, and I’m betting we shall never know what happened and how the situation was resolved, because it will be entirely forgotten in the next one. Well, maybe there will be a comic…
Geez, anthill much?
It's a selective shield. Matter not part of her gets pushed away. Hold your breath when you cast it.
Or that Pinkie sneaks back into the library to reset it every time somepony sets it off. Tell me you don't believe she would.
Dear Hasbro,
Please explain to me why my little darling is reading communist propaganda. I purchased "The Manifesto of Equality" because of the association with the show and the nice smiling pony that was advertising it. I did not expect my child to start talking about surrendering her individuality and suborning the other children in her class into some kind of cult!
I would appreciate a refund.
Bloody tourists photograph everything.
4631838
Oh, I believe she would. But I also know she claimed she didn’t see this journal in a really long time, so she probably did nothing of the sort. :)
Somebody pointed out that it's a reference to this scene from "Apple Family Reunion".
That's the most efficient way to do it, really.
starting (at skin) shield vs (not me) expand to (r=1)Shelves are fairly commonly deep enough to double-shelve. That she did when she's such a library-org-freak is what stood out to me.
…on what evidence?
Fabricate and amanuensis and photocopy/write are one of the spells I find to be most useful in terms of upsetting a setting.
Senseless laughter not being Pinkie's thing is, I believe, the point…and also perhaps poking fun at shows like Big Bang Theory where the audience laugh track triggers at literally every line where there's not a comic beat.
Fanfiction.
Also, thuogh we already had autographs being a popular thing, I think, this supports it, and also "mint-condition" sorts of things.
And somepony from Fillydelphia; has it shown up in primary aside from "Swarm"?
Does that out AKY=DD to everyone, like I suspect it does?
"I am [Popstar]" seems to get binned under "loony" rather than "fandom", more than otherkin and therians, I guess?
First named newspaper? What happened to Buried Lede and his interview set that is the frame story of "The Saddle Row Review"?
Hey, we finally have to contend with the Mane 6 having real fame! For what they did! In a manner suspiciously-specifically-erasable by Shadow Lock's one that "can erase the contents of a copy of a book, and make everyone who read it forget the contents," though only if it also affects magical copies thereof… and Twi "wishes she never released it".
The "if we weren't flawed, there would be no lessons" is …blatantly wrong and disturbs me as a philosopher; minorly paralleling the "there must be evil for good to have worth or meaning" argument. There are, after all, conflicts between blue and orange, or ivory and eggshell, or dress styles, or resource conflicts like "Over a Barrel"…
Shipping fuel in PP pouncing AJ.
4631863
The fact that she has to explain it suggests it's not standard.
Oliver, i cant understand how you manage to tolerate the pain of analyzing all these contradictory details.
That episode was... very on the nose. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet.
4631863
I don't think Daring Do is ever actually referred to by name in Dash's journal entry... but those fillies stalking her clearly knew about Daring somehow. I guess it's always possible that Dash slipped up and revealed the secret to that specific group, but given that there are clear discrepencies between the version of the Journal of Friendship we can actually read and the one that exists in-universe, we can't say either way for certain.
I know that his story is supposed to tie into the season finale or whatever, but I honestly thought for a while there that Shadow Lock was going to be the resolution to the episode's conflict. Twilight would just call him up, say she needs a favour, and he'd effectively make the angry mob "unread" the Journal. I realise that with the way his spell works, that should be a really big problem for the main six, but I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd ignored that, or maybe had Starlight whip up a counter-spell that gives them exemption.
It just seems like this is a problem that Shadow Lock's power is uniquely suited for dealing with. Granted, I don't know what applicable message we could take from the episode if the conflict resolved that way, but... it didn't really get resolved in the end anyway, so...
I've never enjoyed being talked down to quite this much. Like this episode.
Something's been bugging me about this episode.
It's not the on-the-nose commentary on fandoms. Other episodes have been meta, and still good. It's not the song, even though it felt non sequitur. It's not the individual scenes, each of which was appropriate and at least a few were moderately funny. It's not the unrealistic way the various readers reacted, since that's the point of the episode. It's not even the unrealistic scale of the distribution method, since I'm happy to let Pinkie Pie form a band and break up and have other adventures on her way to Yakyakistan in an afternoon.
No, I think what's bugging me is that the episode premise requires the main cast to be stupid. Not one of them thought there might be any problem at all releasing their unedited journal entries. I don't expect them to have anticipated the specific problems, but none of them thought, "Let me check if it gives A. K. Yearling's name" or "Can I take out this bit about my little sister" or just "That was kind of embarrassing... are you sure you want everypony to read this?"
You can probably just use Starlight and dump the rest, right?
I guess her grandkids raised enough money selling food at a fancy party that she could afford it.
As nerds who studied G3, we sure did.
The answer to several related questions is: The journal was blown up in the library by Tirek, and dug out along with the few remaining possessions Twilight could salvage. That's why it is so battered. It was the first book she shelved, before she got replacement books, which is why it was behind everything else. I'm curious what happened to the bookmarks Discord put in there as well.
Did she just copy the Cutie Marxist manifesto, or did she write it herself? My guess would be the latter, if she was trying to maintain total control of her followers in Our Town, she'd want them all reading words she created.
Which books?
Yup. Even as late as S6 Gladmane knowing Applejack and Fluttershy's identities was a mark of him being more savvy than the average pony. In many ways this permanently changes the setting, since not only are the rest of the Mane 6 now famous, people know everything about them, not just those few times they saved Equestria.
I think we have to assume the number of copies is cartoon resolution. Why? Because if printing presses are an old enough technology that it is economical for kids to run school newspapers, publishing should be pretty advanced and straightforward.
I would wager we are seeing Twilight drop off autographed copies and taking the opportunity to meet with booksellers and give them a brief version of the same lecture you did.
[Though Twilight's lecture was about lessons in Friendship, not the Autobiography of a Smooze from Obscuria]
Wish I'd bought real estate in Ponyville in S1, with the way the town is growing it has to have tripled in value!
Also, don't forget Twilight remarks that the purpose of people learning about the adventures of her and her friends isn't marketing. What's next, Flim and Flam giving away the books for free so adults will want to buy plastic dolls of the Mane 6 and give them to their fillies?
Possible they meant they didn't read those copies, as that would mean those copies are no longer mint.
Theory: What if the complaining fans don't believe the book is real, but instead a series of parables Twilight and her friends wrote to promote friendship, a sort of "Chicken Soup for the Soul" kind of deal? It would explain a lot about why they treat the book like a fictional story, and when they complain about the Mane 6, they're complaining about what they see as characters those gals have decided to portray.
Looking at their faces, they do see her, and then kind of grin. I think they knew that was Rarity behind the newspaper the whole time.
The printed book may not be a complete representation of the in-universe book in this episode.
Sassaflash is trying to follow the fad, and to a drunk pony, everything is funny.
Need to come up with a Watsonian explanation for this. Any idea if these switches occurred before the S2 opener? If not, maybe Discord made the two buildings switch places occasionally, and for some reason the Elements of Harmony never ironed out that bit of chaos.
Are we neckbeardians considered a race now?
He can't decide if he should be positive, negative, or neutral towards Fluttershy.
Doylist time: Most of the fan caricatures these ponies represent were big around S2-S3, when people really did complain about Rarity a lot, she hadn't gotten all those juicy S4 episodes yet. That's why they're saying Jim Miller wrote this during S4 and the script sat on a shelf for a few years. It's also why Spike wasn't seen in this episode, since when they updated the script, they gave all his lines to Starlight.
That is a very good point, and I bet in future episodes we will see exactly that.
Depending on if this episode is actually right after the last one, Applejack is probably really sensitive to pushing away "family."
Kind of feels like a new-testament issue. They're so focused on the friendship miracles, they forget that the miracles are only their to teach a lesson or something like that.
Stress Couture was the best line of the episode.
It works on multiple layers too, because remember what Fluttershy just yelled at her? How you need to learn lessons multiple times before your behavior changes? And the Fluttershy fan next to that lady flinched when she said Fluttershy was unrelatable.
What did the crowd actually see? From their point of view, did the Mane 6 just stand there and sing a song? Did they hear background music, or just the Mane 6 singing A Capella?
Should have been a diamond dog acting as therapist, IMHO.
Looking back at your anthill post, I'm remind of Hex, a computer made that partially runs off an anthill.
4631863
Yeah, but Fabricate can only be cast by mighty wizards, and it doesn't really transmute or create things, just shape things, and the caster has to be a master craftsman already.
I believe Flim and Flam are from there.
It has to, unless my theory that most ponies think the stories in this journal are made up is true. Well, it tells people that Daring Do is real, not necessarily that AK Yearling knows her. Not that it matters, Daring Do's enemies know she is AK Yearling already.
I was so sure when Starlight went off to go "Fix things" she would be casting Shadow Lock's spell on every copy of the Journal except Toola Roola and Cocunut Cream's. I suspect the only reason she didn't use magic to solve her problems again was because this was originally supposed to be Spike doing it. Should we assume that the spell was cast off-camera, so the show can reset status quo without having to confirm mass mind control used on the populace (again)?
4632216
That's a really good point. I think they just quickly glanced at the book a bit before giving Twilight their permission. On the other hand, it is a universal human truth that when we have the full context of events, we assume everyone will interpret the story in a similar manner, even if they don't have the full context themselves. Look how many celebrities and politicians are constantly having to apologize for/walk back comments they made: In their minds when they made the statement, it all made sense in context.
4631863
That’s Doylist. Now give me a Watsonian explanation that doesn’t involve brain parasites. :)
“mint condition” has been previously applied to comics in The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows.
The printed text of the Friendship Journal doesn’t even mention Daring Do, it just says “coolest pony ever.” The phrase Rainbow reads from the journal, however, is present and concludes the entry.
Why “am?” You’re missing the hearts. It’s “I love [popstar] so much I got a cutie mark in it.”
Oh, right, that one.
Not we. They have to contend with the Mane 6 having real fame. It is highly unlikely that they actually will.
Then they’d have to relearn all the lessons. Again.
It’s also pretty much non-sequitur as it answers a question that wasn’t really asked.
Aside from the hypocritical humor that 4632321 pointed out, I have to add that this kind of thick-headedness is one hundred percent accurate inside any fandom. Countless times I’ll see someone on an internet forum make an argument that hinges on a factually, demonstrably untrue statement about canon. Someone else will point out why that statement is wrong, and they will quote from canon to make their point, and the first person will have no answer. And then an hour later, the first person will just repeat their argument verbatim—having either forgotten that they were proven wrong, or hoping that everyone else has forgotten.
4631891
Nothing shocks me, I’m a scientist.
No, really.
4632321
With her propensity to temporal magic, no. :)
Mostly plausible, but I don’t think the journal can be conclusively placed into the Golden Oaks library at the time it was destroyed. I’ll need to double check that.
Bookmarks are also missing.
I wonder where the Journal of the Two Sisters was, and whether that got blown up…
Starlight’s village contains multiple titles of Equalist literature, as far as we can tell on the cover. None of them were referred to as a “manifesto” up until here.
And this will get noticed by the writers when? :)
I’m not sure you’re allowed to simultaneously believe that I am a Smooze and that I am a neckbeardian.
Then they would be able to name their favorite lesson, or at least a favorite pony.
Well, some of the complainers certainly think so. But how would they interact with, say, the Rarity-haters, when the leading Rarity-haters are explicitly motivated by things they know actually happened?…
They haven’t occurred before its air date, but they have occurred before in the chronology.
Neckbeardians aren’t. People with reduced vision are a social group, and mocking it like that is at the very least in bad taste.
In that case he could just give her one of his electrons as a pet and be done with it.
This is sort of plausible, but the entire cause for this episode is the existence of a journal, which wasn’t a thing until S4. Did the original script imply that their letters got published instead?…
Only thing I actually found amusing, to be honest.
We don’t know for sure. But we know they don’t start arguing again until after Twilight switches back to normal speech. They very definitely stayed quiet for the entire duration.
4631863
4632417
Laughter is infectious (hence the existence of laugh tracks in the first place), and ponies have a stronger desire to belong to the crowd than we humans. A few out-of-town ponies expected Pinkie to be constantly hilarious, so they interpreted everything she said as a joke and forced themselves to laugh. It snowballed out of control from there, and even Ponyville natives who should have known better got caught up in the mania.
Now I’m reminded of the recurring joke from Look Around You, series two, where various characters are such huge fans of various technology or concepts that they change their last name to fit. Nigel Computer shows off his favorite computer games, Patel Synthesizer talks about the future of electronic music, and the “Birds of Britain” documentary was created by Ian Crow, Phil Finch, Leslie Pigeon, and Robin Robin, among others.
4632040
Compare to my Idea I Will Not Be Writing #3.
It sort of is, but that would involve actually seriously thinking about the series as a whole, which, as far as I can tell, is not something that is done in these circles.
I think the closest we'll get to resolving the crowd is Rarity mentioning how fads come and go. Presumably the plan is to weather the storm and hope the journal doesn't become the basis for several competing religions.
So you and Alondro have something in common!
I love it when professionals write fanfiction, you can see their trade skills bleed through in a way that gives the characters moments of depth veyond their behaviorisms! :)
4632467
I checked. Last place it can be seen is actually in the library of the Everfree Palace. But then we see Twilight back at the library that night. It's hard to think of a reason why she wouldn't take the book with her back to her home/library.
Only people who already agree with you read manifestos, so if you're trying to convince people to join your cult, you call it generic literature.
I see no reason why not. Look, the Smooze is a rather chunky guy with poor social skills and one friend who snacks compulsively and lives with someone else. If he had a reddit account he'd be all set. But seriously, as a spectacled-American I am rather bothered by the use of glasses to portray Fluttershy's fans in a negative light.
They might think the parts they know to be true (i.e. Rarity participated in the setting up the festival) to be true, while the parts that they don't know about they assume to be made up. In this case to make Rarity look good, but in general to provide parables about friendship.
Would explain her negative attitude later on.
The journal was only written in during S4, I believe. Twilight has those extra letters she got back from Celestia, she could have included them. Apparently some of the events referred to in the journal don't take place during S4, but I can't remember which one.
True. This feels like something we will see more of.
Are you still doing that Bingo?
4632743
Notice that the nuclear scientist guy never had glasses on him before, as well.
…also would cause them to be attracted. Shipping!
I am, but right now can’t be bothered. :)
4632477
pbs.twimg.com/media/C3XjeLwWEAEQED2.jpg
It's true. And it hurts.
4632472
Actually, upon reflection, ponies being more susceptible to memes and viral social effects in general would explain a lot of oddities in observed crowd behavior.
They must never see YouTube. NEVER.
4632321
Doesn't really make sense, though. Then again, humans often don't, either
he can't decide how to spin it, no, so he's looking for something to color his opinion. A partisancle.
that
makes a lot more sense
Uh…"Over a Barrel"? "You gotta share, you gotta care"? Wasn't that to calm down a crowd? Or did that not count as heartsong?
4632321
Only to create great stuff. Creating literal tons of anything easy is easy. Also, wizards have high Int, so being good at crafting isn't that hard.
…it's a Transmutation spell.
Also, material components are consumed during casting.
Raw materials are a material component of the spell.
To create things of up to 15 GP (30GP for poisons) out of nothing, combine wth feat: Eschew Materials.
4632467
<insert clopfic here>
4632960
I wonder if the interplanar telegraphic journal (Sunset's) is compatible with this Publishing Spell. Internet incoming! And hey, if such a live journal is compatible with scrapbooking, cat pictures!
4633042
I don’t think it does. Or rather, if it was one, it failed to spool up properly at all – no visual or temporal breaks whatsoever, music supplied by actual Spike rather than nothing in particular…
It’s a very different kind of musical performance from your typical heartsong, isn’t it?
Interesting idea. I suspect it doesn’t work, though: Copies are not identical, they’re cleaned up. Which suggests that magic might not get copied over either.
…Speaking of magic. Was any magic involved in the actual Friendship Journal? It was so tightly connected to the keys to the chest… Maybe, it not getting copied over is why it bombed so hard?
4633042
It might be like a Japanese fandom, which are a generation more advanced than Western fandoms. Over there if there is a popular soap opera running and the actors who play the romantic leads don't pretend to be dating in real life, people flip out! That kind of surrealist blurring of reality might fit a bit with the herd mentality of ponies.
So normally the spell uses up equivalent matter of the same type in the crafting, but if you take a feat you can get a 15 GP discount? For a 9th level wizard casting a 5th level spell, they'd generally charge 450 GP for the service, plus the cost of material components. At the same time, the most expensive hireling you can pay for costs 15 GP a day (Sage). Unless you need a statue out of marble like now it seems simpler to just hire a craftsman.
She's got quirks and he's got quarks.
But more seriously, this guy does add a lot of weight to that crazy fandom theory that the Crystal Empire under Sombra was a nuclear power.
4631863
Sadly, I have to report that Big Bang Theory is filmed in front of a live studio audience. That's real people laughing at things that aren't funny.
But yeah, Starlight apparently had a Equine Equalists Revolutionary Publishing Corporation. This means something.
I can't find my copy, but Sharyn McCrumb wrote as an epigram in Bimbos of the Death Sun something to the effect of 'authors build castles in the clouds; then readers try to move into those castle-clouds.' Which... is awkwardly literal in Equestria, I grant you.
It *was* noticed at BronyCon that the episode was a big take-that at fandom - people were projecting copies of the episode on corridor walls here and there. The convention itself apparently doesn't 'do' episode screenings, so I only saw like two minutes of the episode from looking over someone's shoulder in a crowded corridor.
Sorry to double-comment, but I had forgotten a thought which occurred to me while watching the episode: the ending is strangely reminiscent of Nock's parable of the Remnant. In the end, Twilight-the-friendship-prophet needs to concentrate on her filly Remnant, not the uncomprehending crowd outside her door.
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Funny, people on the 4chan interpreted the same to mean “the show is only for the little girls, and you all are irrelevant.”
Which would be amusing if it were true, (still might be, but I think it’s undecidable) since every example of printed self-help literature that ever came out under the pony banners was really horrid as such.
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Considering that I cooked this theory up pretty much solely based on the fact that he exists… :)
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Well, I assume you be-the-wizard. There are much more efficient ways that D&D core magic breaks economies; Wall of Iron into Fabricate being a much stronger example…but we're disussing the wrong hasbro property.
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It's easy enough to manipulate that, too, with plants laughing and also signs that light to cue audience reaction ("applause")