Animated Atrocities #5: All Bottled Up · 10:19pm Jul 17th, 2023
Animated Atrocities #5: All Bottled Up
I’ve been meaning to cover a StarTrix episode for quite some time now to show why I can’t ship them. I just couldn’t find a good stinker. Road To Friendship and Student Counsel were good episodes, To Change A Changeling was mainly focusing on four leads, and so it came down to this or Horse Shoe In, and ultimately this one was worse.
The episode begins with Starlight and Trixie in the kitchen of Twilight's castle. Starlight is making a tray of cupcakes and Trixie is being bad at magic. Starlight explains to Trixie that reason the spell isn't working is because she isn't visualizing a teacup when trys to turn something into one. After this Trixie is actually able to do the spell and I'm the process of thanking Starlight for her help, ruins the cupcakes Starlight was making. Something doesn't make Starlight too happy.
Starlight reveals that she was baking these to give to Twilight and her friends for their Friendship Retreat, why some people used to insist she’s a bad friend when she does stuff like this, I will forever be clueless as to why. Also, I’m counting that as shipping fuel.
*Desperate*
Oh shut up, I need to have a leg up on the other Starlight ships SOMEHOW.
Trixie suggests a bag of pretzels be the replacement for the cupcakes and walks off without a care in the world. This understandably makes Starlight angry and a big red cloud forms over Starlight's head. Yes, that’ll be important later. We then cut to the train station where Spike, Starlight, Trixie are saying goodbye to the mane 6 as they prepare to go on a friendship retreat.
After Twilight offers to let the three of them go, at least I assume she was including Trixie, Trixie then puts Starlight in a position where she is forced to give Twilight the pretzels. Twilight seems kinda picky and says they will not get hungry on the train(it’s in a nicer way than I made it sound), and after that, they leave.
It's also worth noting that when Starlight said it would be safer that no one be at the castle when Trixie is practicing magic Trixie just says Starlight can go back in time and fix any problems. This makes Starlight visibly uncomfortable. After this we cut to Twilight's castle where Trixie wants to practice a teleportation spell and doesn't really care when Starlight she should practice an easier spell first.
Wow, what a gal, amirite? So Starlight explains how her magic is tied to her emotions and whatever she’s feeling fuels what she does. Guess how Trixie responds, she brings up Starlight's history with her village and cutie marks. This understandably makes Starlight angry and another red cloud forms over her head. Trixie doesn't notice this, somehow.
Trixie then wants to teleport Spike but since Starlight is in-character and not made stupid for the plot, she is against this idea since Spike’s a living being which upsets Trixie. Okay seriously, I know Trixie’s supposed to be annoying to justify Starlight’s rage but we need to still find something to like about her. And no, her being a thorn in Starlight’s side is not funny, it’s annoying and I feel only those who really hate Starlight or just salivate whenever Trixie opens her mouth would enjoy that.
I’m going to skip the subplot with the Mane Six since it adds virtually nothing to the plot and continue on with what StarTrix is doing.
They then decided to try and teleport an apple sitting on the friendship map. Spike has the smart idea to move out of the way, because knowing Trixie something will go wrong. And wrong it goes, because Trixie teleports the map instead of the apple, because of course she did. Starlight obviously freaks out about this and Trixie does not care in the slightest.
Trixie tries to brush everything off as Starlight yells at her, yes, you heard me correctly, yells at her for what she did but Trixie is just so happy that she teleported something and disregards the fact Starlight tried to give her a warning before she did the spell. I hate her more and more just by typing this.
After this, Starlight runs to the kitchen after a giant red cloud forms over her head again. Spike is in the kitchen and Starlight explains to him that it's her anger causing magic storm clouds. Starlight then finds a bottle and bottles up her anger. When Starlight returns to Trixie she continues to obnoxious and anger Starlight some more, causing her to bottle up more of her anger.
Now if I’m gonna be honest, Starlight could very well be right by doing this, she said this never happened before and the magic could be very dangerous so I fully sympathize with what she’s doing here. Starlight then asks Trixie what the last place she was thinking of was because that's probably where the map table. Trixie of course doesn't remember and suggests getting some cinnamon nuts because it may jog her memory. She also throws in a line that she was craving something sweet because she couldn’t have any teacakes. Can someone blast her PLEASE?!
We then cut to various places the map may be and we can see Starlight look pretty stressed. It turns out to be in neither of places they search in and Trixie blissfully suggests it may be in the crystal empire, something Starlight is even more annoyed by. Trixie then notices the anger bottle and causes it to break when she tries to take it from Starlight.
Starlight’s anger then infects Granny Smith, Bulk Biceps, and the jeweler. On that topic, why do people get mad at this? Yes, Starlight’s bottle was what caused them to go psycho but Starlight never meant for that to happen, heck she was trying to STOP it from being released in the first place.
The now possessed trio are now yelling at Trixie saying everything that made Starlight mad at Trixie. After they cause a bit of mayhem and eventually Starlight frees them from anger, explaining to Trixie what was going on. Starlight then finally confronts Trixie about everything that was going on and why she's mad at Trixie. Starlight also fixes the damage caused by the trio infected by Starlight's anger. The trio even forgive Starlight and yes, I buy this since they’re nice ponies and probably understand Starlight wasn’t exactly dealing with something pleasant.
After that Trixie actually apologizes for being so annoying to Starlight. She actually seems to feel bad about everything and didn't actually realize she was angering Starlight. After that and thanks to a little help from Bulk Biceps, Trixie remembers where the map is. It's at the Ponyville Spa because Trixie was thinking about how much Starlight meant to her when she teleported the table.
They then retrieve the map table and return it to Twilight's castle just before the mane 6 return and find out what happened.
So the liar reveal plot actually ends with them getting away with it. Y’know what, I’m okay with this since Starlight didn’t deserve to suffer for what happened this episode. And that was All Bottled Up. A very flawed and kinda bad episode of MLP. Trixie was very annoying throughout and Starlight had to suffer way too much. This is another case of a Starlight torture episode, they are rarities but when they happen, they are atrocious.
Honestly, this makes me question some of the friendships in mlp.