Season 5 Bingo · 10:07am Apr 5th, 2015
Did you all see that neat new pony stuff that came out recently?
I can see why people are so enamored with Sonata Dusk and Sunset now. 
More seriously, I watched both Equestria Girls 2: Rainbow Rocks AND the Season 5 Premier today for the first time. I have to admit that I preferred Rainbow Rocks; it was a big improvement over the first movie, and after I noticed Vinyl Scratch with her headphones on during the first song, I waited the entire rest of the movie for that to come around and be plot relevant.
I was happy that I was not disappointed.
That movie had some good parts, and I actually enjoyed a fair bit of the music in it, but I actually disliked the final song of the movie, which was pretty disappointing. There were some good jokes in there, and the whole thing flowed a lot more smoothly; oddly, it was sort of the reverse of the first movie, as the worst part of it was the pony world section, which felt terribly contrived.
Flash, too, felt almost like an afterthought; he didn't really contribute anything meaningful to the movie, and just sort of was there to be bitter.
Sunset, on the other hand, got an entirely new personality and was much improved as a character; alas, that was because the Dazzlings mostly seemed to inherit her personality, save for Sonata, who got to be the dumb, cute one (and therefore, the most likable of the trio). Still, the three of them being able to interact gave them more personality and let them make more jokes, and it ended up working a lot better in the end.
The Season 5 premier was a bit less thrilling to me, though it was still decent, if imperfect. I was very happy to see them make good use of Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, and I think that they did a good job of carrying their roles. There were some pretty good jokes in there, including the implication that Applejack's special talent is, as one person in the stream put it, "being a hick". Some of their lines while they were equalized were quite good, and the terrible overacting of the ponies while trying to be deceptive was amusing.
Sadly, looking at Derpibooru, some folks were confused even by their obviously terrible acting, and thought that, somehow, the ponies who were acting really were brainwashed.
So why wasn't I thrilled by it? Well, there were a few issues. Spike being casually left behind actually ended up sticking out to me after watching Equestria Girls 2, when everyone except Spike was left behind for reasons. The sharp contrast between Spike wanting to follow Twilight into the mirror world (for a very small bit part) versus him staying behind in this episode actually felt pretty weird, and it just further highlighted the arbitrary nature of omitting him (or her friends) from adventures when they clearly have a reason to go. The gag about forcing Fluttershy to go along was decent enough, but it still felt weird to me.
The other odd bit that jarred me out of the narrative was the loss of the mane six to Starlight Glimmer. That scene felt very awkward, and the "Why are you standing there when you could be fighting" bit just felt wrong - as it does every time the mane six just randomly stand around for no reason when something important is going on. It just feels out of place and jarring, and you can see the strings of the narrative. "They have to lose here," it says, as the railroad plot goes along apace.
It isn't that they can't lose, or shouldn't lose - it is that it just felt like they stood there and lost, and it was all the more strange given at the end of the episode Twilight pops up and blocks Starlight's blast. There were other potential ways of doing what they were trying to do there, and instead they just sort of arbitrarily lost so they could be put into a reeducation camp.
For those of you who were with me during Season 4, I made a bingo sheet prior to season 4 to try and predict what would come to pass during the season. I had a pretty good record then. I'm not sure if I really want to do as well with my season 5 sheet; some of the things I put on there are things I don't particularly want to have happen, but expect might happen.
A few words before the actual bingo board: I tried to exclude things which have happened in more than one season, or things which were nearly certain to happen. Thus, I didn't include things like "A New Alicorn" (which has happened in 3/4ths of the seasons) or "Trixie Returns". I also excluded things like "Twilight Forgets She Can Teleport" or "A Pegasus Forgets They Can Fly" because they happen so frequently. Instead, I tried to go with things which either were rare events or simply haven't happened at all, but which might.
I made the bingo sheet tonight, hence why I put "Marksism" in the middle. I have managed to avoid season 5 spoilers (though I'm sure that will fail quickly enough as the season goes on) so I don't really know what is slated to happen this season, though I have heard rumblings of a background character episode, and thus I excluded that from the list as well.
We'll see how much of a seer I am as the season goes on.
A few pre-emptive clarifications:
The "Direct Equestria Girls Refernce" requires that they actually reference the events of Equestria Girls; Flash Sentry showing up in the background doesn't count, as I'm sure he'll pop up again at some point as a background pony.
Revisit non-capital town means "revisiting a town other than Canterlot and the Crystal Empire". Obviously, Ponyville is excluded as well, as the mane six live there.
Gay character actually has to make it clear that the character is, in fact, gay (or at least, bisexual); merely being fabulous does not count. So Hoity Toity and Steven Magnet don't count unless they have actual boyfriends or hit on Big Mac.
Scootacripple requires that the show actually make it explicit that she cannot fly. Season 4 pretty much said "she probably is never going to be able to fly", but it didn't actually say it outright. I don't know if season 5 will actually go there or not; we'll see.
Also, in case you missed it earlier, Mistletrapped's fourth chapter went up today.
You should have put 'cutie mark crusader gets a cutie mark' in the middle so that no one will win.
And yeah, I know you can get other rows/columns too, but you STILL won't win because that square is just THAT powerful.
2947982
I predicted that a Cutie Mark Crusader would get a cutie mark last season as well (it was one of my relatively few failed predictions), but I'll keep on guessing it until I'm right. Or the show ends.
2947990
There is, of course, a third option.
2948004
The Cutie Mark Crusaders aren't all going to die.
2948005
WOW, GUY. Why would you assume that I was going to say that? I mean, come on, just because I have that kind of weird humour and I say a lot of shit doesn't automatically mean that my first instinct is to curse them to a horrible death!
Give me some credit, here, man.
Only two of them are going to die, obviously. The remaining one (Sweetie Belle) will overdose on sadness pie but have her soul suspended indefinitely by Rarity who decided to delve into black Tartarus magic, causing everyone else in Ponyville to turn into zombies with a taste for freshly-baked pastries. Also, her head will continuously explode as part of the curse. And clearly you can't get a cutie mark under such extreme circumstances.
Come on, throw me a bone next time.
2948009
Someone in the writeoff actually wrote a story about two of the crusaders dying and the third one being cursed to forever be a 12 year old blank-flanked filly, who couldn't even kill herself.
So someone already went there.
2948008
Yeah, that episode had to have been inspired by Harrison Bergeron.
But, you know, for the kids.
2948017
Yes, but in my scenario, she dies by eating too much pie. Remember Se7en? Yeah. That's right. So she's all gross and Slimer-like. AND HER HEAD ASPLODE.
Totally different, miriet?!
Yeah fine, I'll go... kill something else then. *grumble*
2948034
*pats*
It's alright, it happens to the best of us.
I assume by "final song" you mean the duel in the finale, which I also found lackluster. The actual last song is Shine Like Rainbows, which is my favorite in the movie.
2948040
Yes, the song in the duel, not the credits song, which was fine.
2948038
Possibly, though the fact that she tried to abscond with the talents of the mane six - and the fact that she separated out their talents in the first place - suggested to me that she had some other, ulterior motive.
Also:
Rarity shuts down SpikeSpike grows a personality and Rarity takes a shine to him
FTFY
2948058
She grabbed their talents BEFORE they screwed up her utopia, though. She must have had some reason for doing that; it doesn't make sense for her to grab their motives and separate them out for the purpose of revenge before they've done anything.
For some reason I thought this was already confirmed awhile back. Yep, it is a free square.
2948068
She's a control freak who wants power and needs therapy.
Derpy has spoken already though.
It felt off to me too, but I can kinda see why they did it; his inherent lack of a cutie mark probably would've changed the scene where they were all locked in the cottage. It certainly would've been interesting to see though, since once the mane six lost their marks they also began to lose their personalities. I'm curious how it would work for characters like the CMC and Spike. Is there a direct correlation between a pony's cutie mark and their special talent? What if there is no cutie mark in the first place?
It was also odd to me how easy it seemed to steal cutie marks. Granted, Starlight said she "studied for years," but if any old unicorn can just do some "research" and suddenly know how...
It makes me wonder if stealing cutie marks is a common crime in the less pure parts of Equestria. How much do you think a cutie mark would go for on the black market? How about a princess cutie mark?
2948017 2948038 It reminded me of The Giver before either of those things, especially since they used the word "sameness" so much.
Top horizontal row looks to me like your only shot. Everything else has things that won't happen.
edit: muh predictions
i.imgur.com/PtxtoFG.jpg
Oh, cool--now you can go looking for the good Rainbow Rocks stories.
Both of them.
But seriously, I thought you'd already seen it. You didn't seem too hung up on reviewing that one short story of mine.
A couple of things bothered me about this episode:
1) The map/etc is throwing the Element bearers out onto missions without any explanation of how it knows anything at all about the situations it's going to put them in (obviously this is not the last time we'll see this happen), and then apparently reeling them back in on completion. It definitely makes "plot device" an appropriate term, though.
2) Like you said, is was stupidly easy for single unicorn to "study a spell" and steal the powers of the Element bearers. It bugs me that cutie marks are now "canon" as apparently containing all potential talent and power for anything at all, rather than being a mark of something special already present in the pony. Twilight even states that "it represents such an important part of who you are". They might just as well have gone the whole way and turned ponies into simple animals without a higher thought capacity than a horse without the magic of their cutie mark. That at least would have been an interesting revelation (and scary), instead of being a confusing one.
So this episode felt just a little bit flat to me, but overall it seemed pretty well done. Among other things, Pinkie was hilarious, and I did get a big kick out of the map being flank-powered.
2948050 Which would be terribly creepy since he is a little boy.
2948835
You guys have to keep making these weird grammatical errors, sheesh.
Oh, and it might be worth noting that I never said "Rarity bucks Spike". Just sayin'.
2948835
Serious question: why is this a bigger deal to most fans than the fact that he's a dragon and she's a pony?
If you're at the point where you could conceivably be attracted to someone not even of your species, someone whom you aren't evolutionarily equipped to either mate or pair-bond with, someone most of whose secondary sexual characteristics do not even register in your mind--I've got to think that age has to be the least of your worries.
Don't worry, Spike! I understand the importance of hoofball and hoofball statistics. I'm sure you didn't feel left behind at all!
I didn't mind having Starlight get the jump on Twilight; it's the others standing around that was kind of annoying, especially RD when all she wanted was action the whole time. I mean, I guess that can be the running gag of the premier; RD wants action and doesn't get any ever, but it didn't do much for entertainment. At least in Canterlot Wedding they lost due to overwhelming odds. They could have at least struggled with the number of background ponies and maybe Fluttershy makes a miraculous escape so she could still do her hero thing (we'd lose the tweet gag, but oh well). The standing around in Daring Do even at least has the explanation of them just being star struck by the realization that Daring was/is real. This fight scene just wasn't very wholesome... (now wishes Starlight took them out one at a time and RD gets at least a little heroic and takes the hit from Starlight's spell so somepony can escape, OH WELL).
grumble grumble
Rainbow Rocks was good, and the last part of the finale song was good... the battle just needed some more back and forth with a little more oomph from the sirens.
2948191
Once. And never again after the controversy. Hence why it is a square. She was notably mute in her appearances in season 4.
2948387
Well, if you remember Starswirl the Bearded's original version of the cutie mark swap spell, if you listen to the rhyme, it sounds an awful lot like an attempt to steal a bunch of cutie marks and give them to himself.
And, well, in The Giver, people DID have individual talents, and there was that engineer mentioned who was fairly exceptional. They didn't discourage people from using their talents, just from standing out. And even then, that one girl had the wrong color hair, and they didn't "release" her at birth for it or anything.
2948481
Aha! Participation!
Well, that's not an unreasonable set of guesses as to which ones will occur. Could happen. If I don't get a Bingo because stuff I don't want to happen doesn't happen, that's not a bad thing. References the Expanded Universe and Direct Equestria Girls Reference aren't things I really want to see happen (nor is Royal Baby, for that matter).
2948776
I had not! But the stories were comprehensible even without having seen it, so I guess you all must have done a good enough job with them that it didn't matter.
All two of you.
2948835
Is there a term for a literal plot device? If so, it is definitely one of those.
And it makes their butts into cell phone ringers.
Well, we've seen mutually conflicting information about them. I mean, look at the cutie mark swap spell - it swapped what they thought their talents were, but it didn't actually give them special abilities at the other talents, nor did it change their personalities at all.
Seems more likely that cutie marks are an outward sign of your inward magic; I suspect her talent is akin to Tirek's, in that she's taking not only your cutie mark, but your magic - the cutie mark merely being a symbol thereof. She noted that if she had removed her own cutie mark, she would have lost her own magic.
Most likely, the = sign is something of a seal or curse that serves to subdue the pony it is attached to (or to simply keep their magic from returning to them, as it seems apt to do the moment anything goes wrong).
Yes, yes it would.
And Rarity isn't a pedo.
And can also do better.
And Spike's crush is pretty shallow and seems to be largely based on the fact that Rarity is hot
and also is a unicorn with a purple mane which definitely has no psychological implications whatsoever about mental development.2948943
Pedophilia has to do with psychological/intellectual development and parity in a relationship; we consider it unethical because it is exploitative. If someone never undergoes puberty for medical reasons, once they're an adult, it isn't considered wrong for them to get into relationships or whatever; we tie it to mental development.
As such, while him being a dragon may make it less likely a pony would be physically attracted to him, what makes the relationship immoral is the fact that he is a kid. The fact that he's a dragon and she is a pony has no moral implications.
Plus, Spike's face is kind of ponyish (more so than the rest of him) and he has been noted as being "cute" by ponies. And judging by the brony fandom, the whole "ponies are quadrapeds" thing doesn't seem to be that much of a barrier. Ponies aren't very human-looking, and yet many people are attracted to them, suggesting that other attributes are more important, at least in a cartoon.
So... yeah. The fact that he's a dragon doesn't really matter.
I mean, it could matter later on down the line when he is old enough for relationships and ponies don't find him physically attractive, but we'll see.
2949058
Ah, yes.
Well, in Fluttershy's defense, there weren't nearly enough characters there for a decent message.
2949454
Flight to the Finish seemed to imply it pretty heavily, but it never made it explicit. Rainbow Dash's awkward speech about Scootaloo maybe never flying seemed like it was pretty clear to me that Rainbow Dash knows (or at least is pretty sure) there's something wrong with Scootaloo (physically), but that she's trying to play it off as "maybe you will, maybe you won't, doesn't matter" because she thought it would be a softer blow than saying that she was cool even though she was a penguin.
2948943 homosexual relationships are ones in which the participants are neither evolutionary nor anatomically suited for each other, and they seem to get along just fine. Sadly, we may be more likely to see a confirmed heterospecific relationship in the show than a confirmed homosexual relationship.
2949363
Maybe my views on Sparity are skewed since I can't see the mane six as any older than, like, 16 or 17 (in human years). The beneficent social structure and the aid of personalized skill magic allows ponies to become self-sufficient at a comparatively lesser stage of mental growth than humans do. And for all the show tells us over and over how Spike's a baby dragon, he sure acts like he's 11 or 12 (again, human equivalent).
It seems to me (from Spike's perspective) like puppy love, or having a crush on the babysitter. From Rarity's perspective though, yeah, she can easily do better, but if she couldn't, I don't think it would rise to the level of immoral exploitation.
Besides, ponies reproduce asexually through budding. One day they get a lump on their neck or foreleg, and next thing you know it falls off and becomes a pony blob. Romance is something entirely separate.
2949695
Followed for using a word I've never heard before.
I'd rather Starlight had been well-intentioned but overzealous. Because she made some good points, and cutie marks are creepy.
I'm holding out for a better plot arc.
Bidents are linked to Pluto in Greek mythology. Tirek, who also stole cutie marks/magic, escaped from Tartarus, and Shimmer referenced 'our plan', clearly not meaning the ponies in the town.
We will see.
I totally didn't realize the 'Marksism' thing until I saw your bingo. That's sort of clever.
2950775
2950737
I'm still disappointed that her name wasn't Carla Marks.
This is why no one ever asks me to name ponies for them, though.
2950737
I don't think any of her points were actually very good, though cutie marks are (debatably) kind of creepy.
Though we all know that Cheerilee's cutie mark marked her as a gardener but she'd be damned if she wasn't a teacher.
It would be a great visual gag in some episode for her to be watering some flowers exactly like her cutie mark in the background in some episode. Maybe she has a secret stash of them somewhere to keep her talent satisfied.
2949789
I knew those evolutionary biology courses would pay off somehow. 
Yay
2950737
The fact that Starlight took the Mane Six's cutie marks forced them to overthrow her society. Had she not done this, the Mane Six would have faced a much more difficult and interesting moral question. Would they still have felt compelled to show the villagers the error of their ways? What means would the Mane Six have been justified in using to liberate the villagers? It would have been a nice way to exploring the extent of Starlight's brainwashing, though that would have probably been too dark a direction for the show to go.
2950896 Well, I think I could charitably re-interpret her view into something that would compare favorably to, say, believing some ponies should dig ditches, and others should be princesses and live forever.
2947982 Strangely enough this turns out to be one of the first squares ticked. Everybody forgets about Babs