Mariusioannesp Speculates Wildly: Season 5 Episodes 12 and 13, Friendship Games, and More! · 6:09am Jul 3rd, 2015
Greetings, my Brony Brethren!
Quite a bit of news this week. Equestria Daily gave us the names and synopses for "Amending Fences" and "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?" of MLP and a Trailer for Equestria Girls: Friendship Games.
“Amending Fences”
S05, E12
Air Date: July 6, 2015
Synopsis: Twilight realizes she was a less than stellar friend to her former buddies in Canterlot, so she returns with Spike to make amends.
“Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?”
S05, E13
Air Date: July 11, 2015Description: Princess Luna enlists the Mane 6 to search for and locate the Tantabus, a magical force that threatens to turn the dreams of every pony into nightmares.
First off, we can see that the titles match the ones on the leaked episode list that I’ve already speculated on in a blog. Equestria Daily already considers the list legit. I remain a bit unconvinced. One of the alleged episode names is “What About Discord?” One would imagine it has to have Discord in it. However, John De Lancie himself has said some things I find interesting, particularly in his interview with ILoveKimPossibleAlot.
Here, he says that the last Discord episode was about jealousy and the next one he doesn’t know. The jealousy one is obviously “Make New Friends But Keep Discord” from a few weeks ago. Now, there could be many explanations for this. He could be intentionally not mentioning a future Discord episode this season because we’re not supposed to know about it yet. It could be they haven’t made the episode yet, which seems very unlikely. Or the accuracy of the list will diminish as the season goes on. Perhaps because it was a proposed list of episodes, and they ended up not doing some for whatever reason. Or perhaps Discord isn’t in the episode titled “What About Discord?” That also seems very unlikely. My Marius sense is telling me though that “What About Discord?” is a legitimate episode about Discord. I remember reading somewhere on Equestria Daily that the guy who orchestrated the Fiendship is Magic comic series said he wanted to do a comic about Discord, but the higher ups at Hasbro said no. In his experience with other cartoon series, this is usually because the cartoon series has its own plans for the characters. So, I hereby speculate that “What About Discord?” will be about Discord’s origin story.
Anyway though it already looks like my predictions may be very wrong. I originally speculated that “Amending Fences” would be about Apple Bloom or the Cutie Mark Crusaders and Diamond Tiara undergoing growth. Instead, It’s about Twilight Sparkle making amends with those acquaintances she had in Canterlot. You know, the ones we saw all the way back in the pilot. 
So once again, they’ll be shining the spotlight on some more background ponies. And we may be seeing more of Lyra and Amethyst Star aka Sparkler. Maybe they’ll bring in Moondancer into the show for the first time who was mentioned in the pilot. (She has already appeared in one of the comics.) Maybe they'll clarify whether Colgate is really named Minuette, or do some kind of send up of the fandom name for her. Either way, this seems like it will be a cool episode. It’s been a good long while since we’ve had a Twilight episode.
The revelation of what this episode is about made me start reevaluating some of my other speculations on the rumored episode list. I speculate now that this “Crusaders of the Lost Mark” might be the episode where Diamond Tiara undergoes growth. What if perhaps Starlight Glimmer steals Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon’s cutie marks, and then it’s up to the CMC to get them back, in the process possibly get their own cutie marks. I still think this could be the episode where the CMC get their cutie marks. Still, the suggestion by many that Apple Bloom will probably be the last to get her cutie mark has made me rethink that a bit. Looking back at some of the episodes I couldn’t make heads or tails of, I think there is room here for episodes where each CMCer gets her cutie mark. One such episode is “Scare-Master”. As I mentioned in my previous blog, “Scare-Master” I imagine has to do with Fluttershy because it’s title is similar to Season 1’s “Stare Master”, but that episode also had the CMC in it. What if this episode is about Scootaloo learning to fly from Fluttershy because Fluttershy has always been a weak flier. It’s almost genius in how unexpected it would be. And then Scootaloo would get her cutie mark. “The Mane Attraction” I’ve speculated is about some kind of performance. Perhaps it will be about Sweetie Belle getting her cutie mark by performing in public finally. As for Apple Bloom, I haven’t the least idea. We’ll just have to see.
As for “Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?”, I had hoped it would a sort of day in the life of Luna and Celestia like the Luna micro-series comic. Instead, it will still involve Princess Luna, but along with the Mane 6 searching out something called the Tantabus that threatens to turn everyone’s dreams into nightmares. It still sounds though that at least this episode will focus primarily on Princess Luna, which will be a first for the series. I wonder though about this Tantabus. It’s not a thing that appears in any pre-established mythology. What is this about turning dreams into nightmares? Is it somehow connected with the Pony of Shadows or Nightmare Moon? Speaking of Nightmare Moon, Equestria Daily once share an interesting MLP trading card while attempting to glean clues about the future of Season 5. 
It’s a Nightmare version of Celestia. I sense this most likely will be appearing in this episode. I imagine Luna will have a nightmare about a Nightmare Celestia, and this serves as the catalyst for Luna and the Mane 6 searching for this Tantabus. Then again, the cards aren’t necessarily the best source of information. The Cheese Sandwich card mentioned Yakyakistan, but he wasn’t in “Party Pooped” unfortunately. Either way, It sounds pretty interesting. I look forward to Luna having her own episode for the first time.
As for the trailer for Equestria Girls: Friendship Games, I am very excited! This could be the best Equestria Girls yet. I was quite surprised to see how much we see of the human Twilight Sparkle, or "Sci-Twi" as she is apparently officially known. She apparently has some kind of magical locket or amulet that might be responsible for opening portals to what looks like Equestria. Despite that, it almost looks possible that the pony Twilight might not figure in this film that much. That would surprising, especially after they jerry-rigged the mirror to work at anytime in the last film. We’ll also be introduced to the Crystal Prep Academy, which appears to be the equivalent to the Crystal Empire. Other than that, we’ve got archery, motocross, and from what we’ve heard of the songs here, they sound just as great as those in the last film.
One more thing. My Marius Sense is telling me for some reason that possibly we might see a cameo from the Littlest Pet Shop in this film involving Sci-Twi. (You know because she has a dog.) That could possibly indicate that Crystal Prep Academy might be located in LPS’s Downtown City. I don’t know why I feel this way. I could just be some hopeful delusion. I don’t know. Maybe because there have been some LPS cameos in one of the recent MLP comics. 
Look closely. It’s Buttercream. The sweet shop, the sweet, sweet shop (Ah-ooh)! You have to love the candy shop!
So, Diamond Tiara has a doll of Penny Ling. What, her dad can’t afford an actual panda?
And this example of a skunk in Cheerilee’s class is Pepper!
And it’s not like MLP itself hasn’t alluded to LPS before. 
So, those are my thoughts on these recent developments in MLP. What do you all think of my madness?
God bless you all. God bless America. And God bless Equestria.
That Nightmare Star card is very interesting. I look forward to potentially seeing an evil Celestia.
I don't think Crystal Prep would be in Downtown CIty. I'm all for an Equestria Girls/Littlest Pet Shop crossover in the future (if The SImpsons and Family Guy can get away with it then why not EG and LPS?) but I think the humans in EG and the humans in LPS are in two very different locations.