Friendship is Card Games: Princess Luna and the Winter Moon Festival · 12:21pm Feb 21st, 2023
Thank you for your patience. Philadelphia is hardly getting banished to the moon—heck, I didn’t even open Call Up Emrakul to Help during the Un-Known event—but it’s still kind of appropriate that a book starring Luna ended up getting delayed because I was out of town.
The first chapter of this Luna-focused book is “The Glorious Sun.” I anticipate some degree of sibling issues.
We actually open on nighttime Canterlot. Luna would normally take solace in the light of her moon in the subtle beauty of moonlight on the city’s towers, “but tonight was a different story. Tonight had social obligations.”
I do love the deep struggle of the introvert who wants to protect and guide her ponies but is at best neutral towards the idea of actually interacting with them.
Ah. These particular obligations are the Summer Sun Celebration, of which Luna is understandably not fond. Celestia says it’s meant to be a time to celebrate her sister’s return from both exile and corruption. Luna can only see it as a reminder of those mistakes… but she’s still the guest of honor.
Interesting to note that her presence at the Celebration constitutes “a rare appearance outside of the ones she made in their dreams.” Luna never was one for the spotlight, but after going mad from the entire nation taking her and her work for granted… Well, no one said she wanted to be in the public eye much. Just acknowledged as something more than “the other one.”
… Oh wow, the guards actually sent out patrols to find the mare of the hour. Luna is really uncomfortable.
Luna, in a combination of old habits and nerves, announces herself to the patrol in the Royal Canterlot Voice, then proceeds to internally berate herself for frightening them. Notably, one of the guards is named “Glimmering Shield,” and now I’m wondering whether Shining Armor has his own cadre of suspiciously similar unicorns to go along with his sister’s.
Celestia is as excited for the Celebration as Luna isn’t. Despite the older sister’s insistence, it’s clear which one of them the crowd came to see, from the looks of admiration to the aurora-colored ribbons in their manes to the literal flags with Celestia’s cutie mark on them.
Still ecstatic at having her sister back after centuries, Celestia doesn’t see any of this. “Besides,” she says, “it’s one of the only nights a moon when everypony gets to see us together.” Putting aside the use of “moon” as year, it seems Luna not attending events like the Grand Galloping Gala is as traditional as Celestia having to. Also, we get a reference to the Smooze attending the last Gala, providing a temporal touchstone.
Luna feels the celebrants eagerly awaiting dawn are disrupting her peaceful, silent night. Interesting contrast to the versions of her I’ve seen who are astonished and flattered by nightlife culture.
As the sisters prepare to bring in the longest day of the year, we cut to Ponyville, where the Crusaders are trying to convince Applejack to let them go to Canterlot to discuss an idea with Princess Celestia. They insist that even dragon mail won’t suffice; it’s “official royal business” they need to discuss face-to-face, and that they’ve already been referred to Celestia by Twilight. (This is explicitly called out as a lie.)
Applejack, busy with actual farm work, doesn’t have the available willpower to resist her little sister (or the needs of the plot) and crumbles… though not without insisting on a chaperone. The Crusaders, in a rare display of cutie-mark-unrelated forethought, already asked Big Mac. (Also, we get a perplexing attempted countryism in “Granny’d have mah neck faster than ya can shake an apple-seed maraca at a tree bear!” AJ has never been Berrow’s strong suit.)
Big Mac falls asleep almost from the moment the train pulls out of the station, freeing the Crusaders to discuss their true intention, planning a festival for Luna. Sweetie Belle asks a question I’ve wondered myself: “There’s a Summer Sun Celebration, so why not a party for the moon?” Moreover, she insists this falls under the CMC mission statement by getting Luna to appreciate her true self.
“Now all they had to do was convince Princess Celestia to go along with their plan, too. It would be a piece of mooncake.”
Good idea invoking baked goods with Sunbutt, girls, but we’re only fifteen pages in. This will likely be more complicated.
Next chapter, we have another hard cut, this time to a beach somewhere in Equestria after Nightmare Night. Luna soaks in the peace and solitude “after a long night spent watching over Equestria’s skies and lands,” but then we have a truly perplexing bit about how “Guarding the night was no easy undertaking, but somepony had to do it. Princess Luna felt lucky that the job was hers.”
… So what, Luna is the sole pony keeping watch over the entire nation from sunset to sunrise? This may be another Berrowism I decide to ignore.
In any case, Hearth’s Warming Eve is approaching, and it happens to be Luna’s favorite holiday, from th way snow shines in moonlight to the visions of sugarplums dancing in pony heads to the wreath Celestia has made for her every year since they were fillies.
A thought of how they never suspected one would betray the other summons Nightmare Moon from the waves, and the whole “guarding the night alone” thing becomes something I can brush off as dream logic.
Interestingly, when the Nightmare proclaims she will always be a part of Luna, Luna doesn’t deny it, saying that the two will always be connected. She is able to conjure up a tidal surge to send Nightmare Moon packing, then end the dream. Moreover, while this isn’t the first time Nightmare Moon’s appeared in her dreams, the appearances are happening less often since the Bearers (and Spike, who gets a direct mention) helped her come to terms with her guilt.
The sound laughter draws Luna to her window, letting her spot the approaching Crusaders. (Interestingly, despite having intervened in each of their dreams by this point, she doesn’t seem to recall their names.) Apparently, they’ve already approached Luna about the moon festival idea, and she wants nothing to do with it.
We get a bit more description of Luna’s quarters, “her star-map-covered walls and the glowing dream orbs hanging from her ceiling,” which raises a few interesting questions. She follows the Crusaders’ voices and goes through secret passages around the throne room, listening to them constantly interrupting each other’s suggestions: Sweetie’s volunteering Rarity to craft a ceremonial robe, Scootaloo’s asking about Luna’s favorite games, and Apple Bloom’s trying to cater with every moon-themed pastry she can think of.
Celestia, for her part, is absolutely on board with the whole affair… up until the Crusaders admit that they’ve asked Luna directly, and she declined. Celestia reflects on how Luna no longer craves admiration as she once did, and how she seeks solace where other ponies fear to tread.
We get a fascinating bit of history and a tale of Luna forging peace between mountain dragon colonies and “the bat ponies of the western caves.” And a wonderful moment of Celestia spotting her sister on the balcony and letting her know she’d been spotted without outing her to the fillies. Out loud, she tells the Crusaders that they’ll have to find a different way to celebrate Luna. Once out of her little sister’s line of sight, she tells them it can be a surprise.
Ten out of ten for sororal dynamics, minus several million for good thinking. Still, reentering the public eye is a natural development from moving past the misdeeds of the Nightmare.
Celestia caps her decision by enclosing herself and the Crusaders in a force bubble, with an illusory moon and snowfall demonstrating just why the winter is the perfect time to celebrate Luna. Aside from the longest night of the year, she too appreciates the beauty of moonlight on snow.
She sends the Crusaders back to Ponyville with one condition for the proposed Winter Moon Festival: Twilight and company have to agree to arrange the event. not exactly helping the impression you rely on those six to do everything, Tia. The good news is that they’re all in Twilight’s throne room. The bad news is that they’re all concernedly looking at the Cutie Map.
Huh. Only after Applejack said something did i realize that Big Mac is unaccounted for. Is he still asleep on the train?
… Oh. It’s Risk. Or rather Whisk, the game where you try to achieve global domination through building the best bakery chain. Pinkie was winning, naturally, with Rainbow Dash grousing about a lucky roll that meant “your party cannon artillery took out my cupcake infantry.” (Other proposed games are Settlers of Canterlot and Monopony. I’m pretty sure the latter deals aggravated damage to Twilight.)
The Bearers are thrilled to hear about the festival, complete with Pinkie doing a literal ”Just look at the time!” meme with “her Party Watch.” The whole “Luna said no but Celestia said sure” aspect raises some eyebrows, but the Crusaders wheedle the more hesitant Bearers into going along with it.
Rarity is entirely on board… and her proposal for elegant, understated decorations include “a hundred-hoof-tall statue of Princess Luna in the center,” and I can feel the impending doom even before Apple Bloom declares that the event will be perfect.
We move back to Luna’s perspective and her more esoteric duties, including sorting out territorial disputes between creatures looking for places to hibernate through the approaching winter. This seems like the kind of thing Fluttershy can take care of, but it’s implied that Luna’s the one who oversees the situations in Equestria’s remote wilderness… which raises the questions of what the wildlife’s been doing for the past millennium and how they reacted to her return. Still, I do appreciate the element of ponies as nature’s caretakers that largely fell off after the early seasons.
Bizarrely, Luna has something akin to the Cutie Map, a similar holographic projection of Equestria she’d made with Star Swirl in her youth. (Also a “Royal Dream Register,” but we get no details there.) It detects a disturbance between a chimera and a manticore… and then she calls in the owls Castor and Pollux, who definitely always existed and aren’t just Berrow’s awkwardly incorporated headcanon, to watch over Canterlot in the meantime. At least she has someone helping her in her duties.
We do also have a moment with Tiberius, Luna’s pet opossum from the comics, so I suppose I can’t complain too much. 
Luna is wise in the ways of chimerae, coming armed with apples and ricotta. It may well be the same one that tried to eat Apple Bloom, now menaced by a mated pair of manticores and their two cubs. (Sorry, “corelings.”) Luna announces herself at full Royal Canterlot Volume… and fires “a blast of incandescent white magic” that gets all the creatures present to calm down and listen to her. That may the most explicit bit of card game magic I’ve seen in MLP.
In any case, Luna’s ability to communicate with manticores from the Journal of the Two Sisters allows her to act as both negotiator and interpreter, and she resolves the matter with hopes that the two groups can become friends in time. This reminds her to go check on the safety and peace of mind in Ponyville, because the male manticore may have roared loud enough to awaken them, Luna needs to make amends for it, and she has to get to the next plot point somehow.
Don’t get me wrong, this is a fascinating extension of her duties, but it comes out of nowhere and ends in a ham-handed means of shuffling her off to where the plot next needs her to be.
Interesting to see both that Luna almost never gets cold and that she can “listen to her dream senses” to detect disturbed sleep. Though in this case, she just needs her eyes, because Pinkie has a massive stockpile of Winter Moon Festival supplies ready to go behind Sugarcube Corner. Luna considers letting it pass for a moment, but “the moment passed. And after it did, Luna knew just what she had to do.”
Well. That’s not at all ominous.
We open in Apple Bloom’s dream, where it’s warm despite the snow on the ground and the Crusaders are setting up for the Festival. Luna enters as a white rabbit, albeit with the dark blotches of her cutie mark, and performs covert psychic reconnaissance. (“Dream spying” is such a harsh term.)
Luna believes the dream festival reflects the plans for the waking one—because of course she would assume that a dream is completely literal and representational—and sheds her disguise to intervene… only for her distaste for a festival designed by literal children runs up against her desire to spare those children’s feelings.
Interestingly, because Luna being there makes sense in the context of the dream, Apple Bloom doesn’t yet realize she’s dreaming, “which meant Princess Luna could alter it to her liking. She could make this festival as weird and silly as she wanted through the power of dream suggestion. Then Apple Bloom would think it was her idea.”
Our hero, ladies and gentlemen! Subliminally programming a child for her own amusement.
Apple Bloom awakens convinced that they need to decorate the whole event in pitch black. “So dark that nopony could see anything at all!”
Apple Bloom’s breakfast is strawberry pancakes. I can only assume that we’re either before “Honest Apple” or there’s a supplier other than Strawberry Sunrise in town. Or she’s still dreaming.
Amusingly, the manticore roar was heard in Ponyville, but Sweetie Belle thought it was Rarity’s snoring. (Presumably her parents are on another vacation.)
In any case, Apple Bloom lays out Operation: None More Black—raising questions of who is charge of this festival, given that Celestia all but commanded the Crusaders to cede it to Twilight and company—and insists that they don’t need lights if everypony in attendance gets a pair of “moonglasses.”
We get names for Luna’s charioteers from “Luna Eclipsed,” Echo and Nocturn (sic.) Also a brief history of bat ponies… and the implication that they’re somehow immortal. She first met them shortly after the dragon-bat pony dispute that was one of her first acts as a princess, separated from their colony and cornered by a dragon who clung to his resentment of their kind. (Why he resented them is left unexplained.) When Berrow says they “offered to serve her as her royal guard forever after,” she seems to mean it. 
(And yet, despite all that, they still need sunglasses in the light of day.)
Twilight has an entirely reasonable reaction to an unexpected diarch in Ponyville: “Is everything all right back in Canterlot? Is Equestria in mortal peril again? Do you need me to—”
Luna reassures her that everything’s fine, including interrupting just what Fluttershy did to the bugbear. She claims she’s here looking for a Tarax Hippo, likely a corruption of the taraxippus, a spirit in classical Greek myth used to explain horses inexplicably flipping their crap. Much like the original, the Tarax Hippo’s soul purpose in life (or possibly undeath) is to frighten ponies. Also, Luna hasn’t seen one in “a few hundred moons,” which would logically include a good chunk of her banishment.
Seriously, it’s like Berrow forgot that Luna’s been indisposed for a millennium.
Twilight tries to call a meeting about the monster and definitely not about the guest of honor arriving early to her own surprise party, but Luna assures her that the Tarax Hippo won’t dare approach her. (She has no idea if this is actually the case if there really is one.)
Luna heads to Sweet Apple Acres to see how her inception has played out… and it turns out that the Apple family has a “’free sample’ barrel” just sitting on the property. I’m pretty sure Luna just assumed that and stole an apple.
The Crusaders are unloading a massive stockpile of moonglasses—basically magical night-vision goggles—that Vinyl and Octavia happened to have on hoof. After engaging in another absolutely shameless meme reference, Apple Bloom also insists that her other idea, necklaces of garlic rather than beads, will be a big hit with Luna.
Luna is thrilled that warping the mind of an innocent child has gone exactly as she’d hoped, and hopes that both the festival ponies are planning for her out of the kindness of their hearts and her own reputation will be ruined as a result. (Yes, Celestia going behind her back to make the event happen is bad, but this may be worse.) As she turns to depart, she hears the Crusaders declare their plans to stop in with the Bearers to see how they’re doing, and groans at all of the minds she’ll have to invade to finish ruining everything “without hurting anypony’s feelings.”
Some ponies will literally drive their subjects to madness rather than go to therapy.
When Luna returns to Canterlot, she’s so bothered by this turn of events, she bursts into the throne room and demands that Celestia explain herself, the narration directly likening her expression to Nightmare Moon’s.
Celestia promises this will be fun, and Luna agrees to go along with the idea more because she knows her sister and the Ponyvillians will find an alternative way to surprise her than actually wanting to. Plus, this way she can actually provide some input… and some surprises for everypony else. Luna much prefers dishing it out to taking it in that regard.
There’s a lovely moment where Luna thanks the moons and stars for a peaceful night after setting the former. In Latin, no less! It gets much less lovely as she goes over the suggestions she’s provided, ranging from terrible food to hideous insects to invisible decorations. Meanwhile, I’m getting flashbacks to “Every Little Thing She Does” in terms of a reformed villain’s cavalier attitude towards the Mane Six’s mental autonomy.
It’s Rarity who recognizes something’s amiss. Even Luna struggled to get her to make itchy wool cloaks rather than dresses. Once she goes looking for a hat she bought in the same dream and realizes it’d be hideous in real life, the whole illusion collapses.
“Whoo-ee! I sure am excited that Princess Luna gave me the idea to serve somethin’ different than apples this time.”
Okay, so the illusion might not have been long for this world anyway. Still, atypical Rarity W given that this is a Berrow novel.
… or not. Because Rarity thinks that all of the suggestions are things Luna wants at the Winter Moon Festival, but was too shy to ask for directly. Well, giving the benefit of the doubt can certainly be part of Generosity.
The nature of the festival is entirely logical: Whereas the Summer Sun Celebration involves staying up all night to see the sunrise, the Winter Moon Festival runs all day until moonrise… and then frolicking under the stars “until they were too tired to move.”
On the day of the Festival, Luna is shocked to see the Tarax Hippo haunting Lyra’s dreams. She tells herself the unicorn must have been researching the entity in old texts, and I can’t decide whether Lyra being the one researching bygone creatures is a nod to the fandom or not.
Celestia enters, dressed in lunar blues and jewels like glittering stars, providing Luna with a gown the color of the moon. (It’s unclear where she got them. I can only assume it was a different designer than whoever provided the gowns for Twilight’s coronation.) As they depart, the guard bows to Luna and recites the same thanks she gives to the moon and stars every night. It’s a touching moment, and I wish I didn’t have the bad taste of Luna’s sabotage in my mouth.
Back in Ponyville, Rarity is deeply regretting that earlier benefit of the doubt, with nothing but Dash’s slumping snow-batponies to show for decorations and everypony adorned in scratchy wool and garlic. (Twilight has an exhibit on lunar phases set up, and I legitimately can’t tell whether Luna gave her any ideas.) Apple Bloom’s invited some mysterious special guests, but beyond that, everypony’s dreading the coming festivities.
Only as Luna sees the Festival in practice, warts and all, does she realize that the holiday is truly meant to celebrate her. Not Nightmare Moon or Celestia’s triumph over her, but the true warden of dreams and mistress of the night.
Before she can go from comprehension to regret—assuming there’d be regret—screams sound from the crowd. Lyra says she saw “a ghost-beast!” and the Tarax Hippo appears for the first time in centuries
… and it’s literally a hippo. “The monster was almost like a normal hippopotamus, except with pointy teeth, and a shimmering, translucent body.” Amazing. Truly amazing.
The diarchs stand together, having sent Twilight to evacuate and guard the townsponies. (I know, I’m as shocked as you.) Luna realizes her earlier excuse may have summoned the entity… or it may be the garlic, weirdly enough. Then a manticore comes out of the fire swamp, roars at the Tarax Hippo… and that makes it fall into a trance, then fall asleep. Celestia whisks it off into the Everfree, and I have the distinct sense that Berrow realized she was running out of pages and/or time before her deadline.
Ponies applaud, and “The bat ponies, the mountain dragons, and manticore joined in.” There was no indication of the first two groups in that quote ever even being here until now, but apparently they were Apple Bloom’s special guests.
Again, Celestia explicitly said that peace summit happened “when we were young princesses.” G. M. Berrow apparently has no concept of the passage of time. Also Zecora is here? And apparently had a stake in that conflict?
At least there’s booze. Or “spicy rainbow juice. It made Luna feel warm and fuzzy, even in the snow.” And Luna does transmute everything into the party the ponies had originally planned, with Celestia’s help. Good to see her make amends at the end, and confess both her interference and the inadequacy issues that drove her to perform it.
In all, this has some interesting concepts and some genuinely good character moments, but the plot itself is more than a little reprehensible, the continuity is deeply confused, and the resolution is almost incomprehensible. Luna deserves better than this… and now I’m wondering what Berrow’s dreams were like while she was writing this one.
On that note, let’s see what I can dream up with this foundation:
Pacification Flare 1W
Instant
Target opponent skips their next combat phase. You and that player each draw a card.
“Perhaps now we can settle this reasonably.”
—Princess Luna
Presumed Innocence 2W
Instant
Spells target opponent controls can’t be countered this turn. You gain protection from that player until end of turn.
Rarity found the loose thread of Luna’s influence, but assumed the princess had her own reasons for such odd suggestions.
Shining Elite 2W
Creature — Unicorn Soldier
First strike, lifelink
Myriad (Whenever this creature attacks, for each opponent other than defending player, you may create a token that’s a copy of this creature that’s tapped and attacking that player or a planeswalker they control. Exile the tokens at end of combat.)
2/2
Military Rations 4W
Sorcery
Create four 1/1 colorless Food Soldier artifact creature tokens with “2, T, Sacrifice this creature: You gain 3 life.”
Not all armies march on their own stomachs.
Dream Disruption 1U
Instant
Put target creature or planeswalker spell on the bottom of its owner’s library.
Without the crushing weight of guilt, Luna found the vestiges of the Nightmare far easier to deal with.
Gemini Strix 2U
Enchantment Creature — Bird
Constellation — Whenever Gemini Strix or another enchantment enters the battlefield under your control, you may pay 1U. If you do, create a 2/2 blue Bird creature token with flying.
Luna rarely asks for help, but she knows where to look.
2/2
Trade Summit 3UU
Sorcery
Exchange control of target nonland permanent you control and target permanent an opponent controls that share a card type. Those permanents gain protection from Trade Summit until end of turn. That opponent may copy Trade Summit and may choose new targets for the copy.
Festivity Scheduler 4U
Creature — Pony Wizard
Festivity Scheduler has ward X, where X is the number of creatures in your party. (Whenever it becomes the target of a spell or ability an opponent controls, counter it unless that player pays X. Your party consists of up to one each of Cleric, Rogue, Warrior, and Wizard.)
At the beginning of your end step, if you have a full party, take an extra turn after this one. This ability doesn’t trigger during extra turns.
3/4
Devoted Moonguard 1BB
Creature — Bat Pegasus Soldier
Flying
Devoted Moonguard and legendary creatures you control have “Ward — Pay life equal to Devoted Moonguard’s power.”
Eternalize 5BB (5BB, Exile this card: Create a token that’s a copy of it, except it’s a 4/4 black Zombie Bat Pegasus Soldier with no mana cost. Eternalize only as a sorcery.)
2/2
Dream Suggestion 2B
Instant
You control target opponent the next time that player searches their library this turn. While they search this way, they may cast any number of nonland cards they find without paying their mana costs. If they do, you control them while each spell cast this way is resolving.
Recurring Nemesis 3B
Creature — Nightmare
Flying, menace
At the beginning of your upkeep, if Recurring Nemesis is in your graveyard and a player has no cards in hand, you may return Recurring Nemesis to your hand.
Madness is always looking for a gap in mental defenses.
3/1
Deepest Darkness 4BBB
Enchantment
Other black permanents you control have indestructible.
“There lies a quiet solace beneath the moon for many who cannot withstand the blinding day. The forgotten, the lost, the never found, these are my charges.”
—Princess Luna
Manticore Cub 1R
Creature — Manticore
At the beginning of combat on your turn, if you control a creature with power 4 or greater, Manticore Cub gains flying until end of turn.
Great for any pet owner who doesn’t mind playful bites, pounces, rakes, stings, wing slaps, and disembowelments.
2/1
Grudgebearer Dragon 4RR
Creature — Dragon
Flying
Grudgebearer Dragon has double strike and menace as long as it has a -1/-1 counter on it.
Persist (When this creature dies, if it had no -1/-1 counters on it, return it to the battlefield under its owner’s control with a -1/-1 counter on it.)
4/4
Roaring Manticore 4RR
Creature — Manticore
Flash
Flying
When Roaring Manticore enters the battlefield, creatures you control get +2/+0 until end of turn.
Some generals refuse to settle for a meager bugle.
4/4
Orchard Bruin 1G
Creature — Bear
As long as you control four or more Forests, Orchard Bruin gets +2/+2.
By the time Fluttershy was able to coax one bear out of the Acres, three more had taken up residence in the west field.
2/2
Snowed In 2G
Snow Instant
Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn by nonsnow creatures.
There is a tranquil beauty in watching moonlight on snow from inside a warm house… and admittedly less of it when a yeti charges through that house.
Territorial Struggle 2G
Sorcery
Choose target creature you control and target creature you don’t control. Each of those creatures gets +1/+1 until end of turn for each land its controller controls. Then they fight each other.
Without Luna to mediate, monsters opted for older negotiation methods.
Seasoned Seer 3G
Creature — Zebra Shaman
Flash
Domain — When Seasoned Seer enters the battlefield, target creature gets +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the number of basic land types among lands you control.
A well-traveled shaman knows many tricks, including impeccable timing.
2/2
Dream Orb 2
Artifact
T: Add one mana of any color. This mana can’t be spent to cast a spell from your hand.
Bits of the dream realm brought into reality have tremendous, if enigmatic potential.
Robe of the Moon 3
Artifact — Equipment
Equipped creature has protection from all colors.
Equip 4
All pales before the immaculate silver weave.
Blockbuster Partillery 8
Artifact Creature — Construct
Prototype 2RG — 3/3 (You may cast this spell with different mana cost, color, and size. It keeps its abilities and types.)
When Blockbuster Partillery enters the battlefield, it deals damage equal to its power to up to one target creature or planeswalker.
8/8
Lunar Colossus 9
Artifact Creature — Golem
Alicorn (This is also a Pony Pegasus Unicorn.)
If it’s neither day nor night, it becomes day as Lunar Colossus enters the battlefield.
Trample
Lunar Colossus doesn’t untap during your untap step unless it’s night.
The most dramatic tribute to Luna yet.
9/9
Conceptual Extraction 1(ub)
Sorcery
Search target player’s library for a card and exile it. Then that player shuffles.
Cipher (Then you may exile this spell card encoded on a creature you control. Whenever that creature deals combat damage to a player, its controller may cast a copy of the encoded card without paying its mana cost.)
Dream Rabbit 1(gu)
Creature — Rabbit Illusion
G: Dream Rabbit can’t be blocked by creatures with power 2 or less this turn.
U: Dream Rabbit can’t be blocked by creatures with power 3 or greater this turn.
“Nopony dreams of rabbits. They merely host them for a time.”
—Princess Luna
2/1
The Cavern Accords RWB
Enchantment — Saga
(As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice after III.)
I — Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control. It fights up to one target creature you don’t control.
II — Each player discards their hand, then draws that many cards plus one.
III — Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Tarax Hippo 3BR
Creature — Nightmare Hippo
Menace
Whenever a creature you control with menace deals combat damage to a player, exile the top card of that player’s library. During any turn you attacked with a creature with menace, you may cast that card and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast that spell.
4/5
Festival Sabotage 4BRG
Sorcery
Destroy any number of target creatures with different powers and any number of target noncreature permanents with different mana values.
Seeing only mockery in the planners’ dreams, Luna felt wholly justified in returning the favor.
As you've pointed out, there sound like a lot of inconsistencies w/ the established canon. I wonder if nobody's checking Berrow on this stuff.
Still, lovely idea to give Moon-butt some joy. Poor mare sounded like she needed it.
pbs.twimg.com/media/Fpftcy5WYAAvcDt?format=jpg&name=large
This book is another example of how the chapter books are, at best, baffling in interesting ways. And most often just baffling
I forget, have you done Princess Cadance and the Spring Hearts Garden yet? That one was my favorite, with the closest thing to an actual coherent plot with actual character arcs.
In fairness, Berrow isn't alone in making a hash of the flow of time in G4. A Health of Information also conflated the time of mythic heroes with the recent past, with Mage Meadowbrook who lived over a thousand years ago and also she still has living relatives, her house is still standing, and all her old stuff is still there, presumably while Cattail waits to see if she's going to come back and get it.
Have we seen Luna in a Gala episode? I know she wasn't in "The Best Night Ever", and I don't recall her in "Make New Friends but Keep Discord".
That's why my fics have Luna (and dream magic in general) be really, really scary if you think about it too hard.
Given Luna's mental affinity, I'd've gone with Huginn and Muninn if not for the target audience probably missing the reference.
Which is part of what makes it so scary. Hippos are murderous, spiteful bastards. (No, really.)
5714597
To be fair, Cattail is explicitly called one of Meadowbrook's descendants, not just relatives. But if she has descendants, Twilight shouldn't be so surprised about meeting one, because she lived so long ago that she'll almost definitely have a lot of descendants. (A story I'm working on has a zebra learn that she's descended from a famous zebra hero of old, only to shrug it off: "If she had any foals, probably one in five zebras are descended from her by now.") Although this can be excused if Cattail can directly trace his genealogy to Meadowbrook, like how Christopher Lee could directly trace his genealogy to Charlemagne, which would be quite rarer. No excuse for everything else, though.
Stupid Complicated Game Alert: If Robe of the Moon has one or more colors for some reason, its granted protection will cause it to be unequipped as a state-based action.
5714596
5714597
Nobody checks anybody for continuity (except the fans, and they don't count). Allow me to cite my source.
5714604
That's:
a) insightful
b) depressing
And c) insightfully depressing.
Aw man. I keep hoping the chapter books I don't have access to will seem like a good time, but skipping to your final words, and then reading the whole thing of this one… yeah, hot mess would be polite. And as I'd just rewatched "Every Little Thing She Does", the inception manipulation does not sit well with me at all.
But yeah, there's some neat tidbits here and there (hey, crossing off a Risk cameo in official MLP media, nice!), and some aspects of Luna and Celestia's characterisation shine from spotlighting them… but yeah, maddening, baffling, nonsensical plot, and even worse continuity (despite a few welcome nod to past books and comics). Luna deserved so much better. The more of these chapter books I read, the more I'm convinced G.M. Berrow didn't so much drop in writing quality as much as was kind of always a crafter of muddled messes, most of them just weren't read by the majority of MLP fans.
Hmm, okay, interesting start, potentially good conflict, could go a number of ways and get a good message across. Maybe this book might be a pretty good...
...
...
derpicdn.net/img/view/2018/2/21/1661979.jpg
...
CAN I JUST FIND A SINGLE GODDAMN MEDIUM WHERE THIS FRANCHISE ISN'T STUPIDLY LAISSEZ-FAIRE ABOUT FRIGGING BRAINWASHING?!
And no, I don't care how "subtle" or "minor" it is - you're directing changes to someone else's thoughts and/or will and that is WRONG, goddamnit!
Like... is this just a me thing? Am I the crazy one here thinking that one's own mental autonomy should be even vaguely valued, let alone absolutely inviolate as I thought was a reasonable view? Is the way this get handled, as only evil if you're doing it for villainous ends and, if a hero does it, only a problem in as much as their goal is... is that just the way everyone else sees it?
Like... I'm genuinely sorry I'm freaking out like this and, once I've calmed down, I'll probably be happy to delete or amend this comment if you want, but... I just cannot understand how this keeps happening!
5714596 5714643
It's interesting to contrast this book with the Daring Do trilogy, where Berrow had much more freedom to work with in terms of filling in blank parts of the map and establishing the supporting cast, thus making inventions on par with Luna's role as monster mediator feel much more organic. The constricting effects of canon can hit even the official fanfic, it seems.
5714597
Cadence's book is, appropriately enough, scheduled for May 21st on my current schedule, assuming no further alterations to the G5 content schedule.
And as 5714600 noted, Cattail as a sort of attendant to Meadowbrook's legacy does make some sense. Certainly more than if her house and possessions had been perfectly preserved in the middle of a swamp without anypony to maintain them.
(And yes, RW, I'm well aware of the terror that is an irate hippopotamus. Also, Luna as Odin is certainly a fascinating concept, though not the first god I'd think to connect to her.)
5714746
It's clear that Equestria has a very different attitude towards the sanctity of a person's thoughts compared to us. Even those "reform spells" Twilight was planning on using on Discord strike a worrying note. I'm not saying this to forgive the writers for their cavalier attitude towards mind control—as I hope the review made clear, I am not okay with Luna's actions in this story—but the trend does suggest a degree of culture clash.
5714763
It was less "Luna is Odin" and more "Thought and Memory make better names for avian familiars for a mental mage than Castor and Pollux". The latter is a reference to Greek mythology, but nothing more, with no subtext. (I know, children's book. I'm still allowed to gripe. The little girls' show had subtext!) Besides, Luna can't be Odin; she doesn't a big hat or a bushy beard or a travelling cloak.
...Hey, Starswirl, we need you to put your eye out and tie yourself to a tree for nine days so ponies can get runes!
5714770
It's also a reference to the night sky: Castor and Pollux are the twins of the constellation Gemini.
These things take time, don't rush it