• Member Since 1st Sep, 2013
  • offline last seen Dec 27th, 2020

Eyeswirl the Weirded


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More Blog Posts53

  • 248 weeks
    The first canon siren appearance in years! (spoilers for Sunset's Backstage Pass!)

    And they are neither villains nor what we might call redeemed!

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    10 comments · 1,201 views
  • 258 weeks
    Stories I Almost Wrote, #8

    And here's the second one I haven't touched in years. Rest in peace, Love Biting.

    Notes/discarded scenes!

    ---
    Slamming the door to his chambers, Blueblood snorted in annoyance.

    "What has gotten into them lately?!"

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    2 comments · 640 views
  • 258 weeks
    Stories I Almost Wrote, #7

    It's been over three years since I even thought about updating this, so I might as well bury it. Rest in peace, Royally Ruffled Feathers.

    First, the notes. They're as jumbled and out of order as usual, but I tried to tidy up at least a little bit.

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    3 comments · 620 views
  • 277 weeks
    Bubble, Bubble...

    Hello again! Remember the span of months in which Sucker For A Cute Face inadvertently produced spin-off clopfics and one bonus chapter? Well, now there's a side story set about three months after the main one, which you can read Here!

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    7 comments · 685 views
  • 278 weeks
    Stories I'll (Probably) Never Write, #8!

    Been a while since one of these, huh? Over a year since the last plot bunny dump, two years since the last of the type detailing a story I never really tried to write in earnest. I'm not sure why I'm keeping track of that.

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    5 comments · 554 views
Apr
30th
2016

Soooo, I just saw No Second Prances! (Spoilery!) · 5:08pm Apr 30th, 2016

...And it reminds me a bit of the situation in SFaCF, specifically between Sunset and the Dazzlings.

Okay, episode gushing first (spoilery bits!):

For one, it was hilarious, Trixie easily delivering the funniest lines even when pushing herself through her show after apparently losing her first and only friend, partially because of our very own Princess of Friendship. Is it strange that, while Trixie wanted to 1-up Twilight by befriending Starlight, Twilight wanted to impress Celestia with Starlight's progress? At the scene with the bushes, I figured Twilight might have been willing to really give Trixie a chance, but didn't want to risk looking bad in front of Celestia, whom she's apparently still obsessed with pleasing.
Even if both actually value Starlight's friendship, both were using her in their own ways, but Twilight doesn't get called on it, nor for making Celestia wait apparently the whole night. As usual, the protagonists can just do whatever and nobody bats an eye. Trixie's deadpan "Way to go, dum-dum," bit made me laugh, that was what I was getting at there.

There were a bunch more funny/cute moments, but Trixie, of course, steals the show, even in small ways, like making a tiny, silverware Trixie. Her borderline suicide attempt with the manticore, though. A little dark, Hasbro, a little dark.

Anyway, I had a point here, and not on a purple hat. The way Starlight struggles to make friends while Twilight tries to coach her every step of the way reminds me of Sunset trying to do something similar for the sirens, (very mild SFaCF spoilers now) with Adagio being the only one to resent her for it. The obvious difference, of course, is that (NSP spoilers again) the sirens aren't on either end of a poisonous friend situation as Twilight feared (unless you count their interactions with each other, in that they're all a little abnormal), though I can easily imagine how differently the story would have gone if Human Trixie had become the sirens' first actual friend instead of Adagio's favorite toy.

Another tiny similarity is Angel really liking Starlight, the same thing having happened with Adagio. If only she hadn't left before Fluttershy got there, they might have actually had something. Afraid I won't be writing that one, though.

Now, you may be wondering; "Does any of this actually pertain to anything that's going to happen in future SFaCF chapters?" And my answer is "Probably not, no, but can you see why Sunset has done her best to let the sirens make friends on their own as they wished, and how much better things have gone because of it?"
My version of Sunset is better at the whole Friendship thing than the 'Princess of Friendship' herself, just like she was under the stage in Rainbow Rocks, and I find that hilarious.

Comments ( 18 )

Yep, loved the episode. Twilight was hilarious as she was in her 'obsessed with making sure she looks good in front of Celestia' mode. Kind of nice to see the reoccurring flaws that some of the mane six have. Twilight sucks at forgiveness, we already saw that with Discord.

Admittedly, Trixie didn't start into her manipulation until it looked like Starlight was going to pick Twilight's dinner over her and her show. Which kind of makes sense since she already explained that she badly wanted to beat Twilight at anything. Even her getting too far into the moment of beating Twilight was so like her, though she quickly came back to herself when she realized what she said.

"Behold! The Preat and Towerful, Trisky!" *collapses* Loved that moment.

Her borderline suicide attempt was very dark, but over the top, much like herself. And I loved how much of a tsundere she became, blue that blue dragon from last episode away! No one, pony or otherwise, out tsundere's Trixie! :trixieshiftright:

Huh, yeah, I think it would have been very interesting to see Trixie befriend the dazzlings. There are a few short ships of that happening, but usually it's Trixie x Adagio. There's also a wonderful short story of Trixie becoming corrupted and becoming a siren thanks to Adagio's manipulations.


I felt bad for Flutters, she seemed really sad that Starlight abandoned her party like that. Apparently no one likes the crazy animal lady. :fluttercry:

And yeah, Twilight has some failures on the friendship front, but, to be fair, she also was being hit badly by her own personal flaws. Her extreme desire to look good in front of Celestia took precedence over everything else. It's not an excuse, but it is a big part of her character that Sunset doesn't have over her head.

3907745

Kind of nice to see the reoccurring flaws that some of the mane six have.

Indeed, but it'd be nice if those flaws were acknowledged in the show a little more, preferably something other than Fluttershy living up to her name too much again.

Twilight sucks at forgiveness, we already saw that with Discord.

She did okay with Luna, but she was technically a separate person, apparently. No points for giving Sunset the accusing stink-eye the next time she saw her, though.

Admittedly, Trixie didn't start into her manipulation until it looked like Starlight was going to pick Twilight's dinner over her and her show. Which kind of makes sense since she already explained that she badly wanted to beat Twilight at anything. Even her getting too far into the moment of beating Twilight was so like her, though she quickly came back to herself when she realized what she said.

True, she did say beating Twilight was just a bonus. As she ended up ditching Celestia entirely, at least we can say Twilight definitely wasn't just using her either. :pinkiesmile:

Huh, yeah, I think it would have been very interesting to see Trixie befriend the dazzlings.

I think I've had Trixie at least interact with them in some way at least once in all of my siren stories, but it never seems to go anywhere. I should fix that some time... :trixieshiftleft:

And yeah, Twilight has some failures on the friendship front, but, to be fair, she also was being hit badly by her own personal flaws. Her extreme desire to look good in front of Celestia took precedence over everything else. It's not an excuse, but it is a big part of her character that Sunset doesn't have over her head.

Sunset seems to have a bit of a problem with her temper, particularly in the first and third movies, and that's where things usually go wrong for her. I'd say more, but then I would be giving possible spoilers to things that may or may not pertain to future SFaCF chapters. :trixieshiftright:

I actually had a different sense of some things than you.

For one, I really disliked how Twilight was the only one to apologise, even though Trixie blatantly manipulated Starlight and Starlight herself deliberately embarrassed the heck out of Twilight. Her concerns about Trixie were right, Trixie was using Starlight to one-up her, and yet she has to be the one to say she's sorry because Twilight always has to be the one to do so. Ugh.

And I'd bet money it'll be a tiny minority who feels like I do because most people will just be fangasming over Trixie's return.

3907864
I don't know if that's quite right either. By the look on her face, Starlight seemed to think Trixie was going to risk her life with an absurd stunt whether she was actually there or not, but it wouldn't have hurt her to at least let Twilight know what she'd be doing instead of attending the dinner. Why she didn't think to try to talk Trixie out of it, I'm guessing she didn't want to risk having a disagreement with her new friend so soon.

Also, Twilight was only right about Trixie when she expressed her distrust, which was what got Trixie to act so manipulative in the first place, making them right about each other. She may not have said the words, but I kind of got the impression of an apology out of "The Pathetic and Friendless Trixie's Way-To-Go-Dum-Dum-You-Really-Messed-It-Up-This-Time Repentance Tour." Starlight might not have apologized, but she was kind of the victim twice here.

Twilight apologizing for wrongdoing doesn't seem like a problem to me, and as she's the main character, she's usually going to be making the most mistakes to apologize for, learning the all-important friendship lessons in the process. Granted, she didn't apologize for anything specific, but as it was directed at Trixie, one guesses it's the distrust, not being almost as manipulative with Starlight as Trixie proved to be.
Starlight wasn't quite perfect either here, but she was the most open and honest about her feelings throughout, nothing up her sleeve but a willingness to make friends, exactly as Twilight told her she should. Maybe Twilight and Starlight (and maybe even Trixie) returned to the castle to find an unamused Celestia, Starlight being the one to explain things to her?

3907970
That's just it, though. I'm not even really disagreeing with you in general, but it's a situation where all ponies involved acted badly and only one of them was mature enough to say she's sorry. When Twilight came to apologise, Trixie acted like everything was her (Twilight's) fault. It would've taken what, two seconds to add an apology of her own instead of just giving her what she wanted (Twilight saying she's better than her). And even though it IS Twilight being the mature one, I guarantee it's not going to be seen as that by most people and we'll have a flood of "Twilight doesn't deserve her title" memes.

Like this, this is already happening. It's all pushed onto Twilight Sparkle like everything's her fault. And if all the writers can think of with the setup of Starlight as Twilight's friendship pupil is having Twilight mess up/having it look like she's just messing up, then the whole thing becomes a joke.

Ah, I dunno. This episode, I want to like it, but there's a few details that irritate me to no end.

Or we could just "assume" that while the episode ended where it did, the passage of time didn't stop and everything was resolved properly at a later time, like joining Celestia at dinner and telling the story to her, with apologies and cuddles and stuff. We don't need to see everything that happens in their entire life, especially the things that this show has been beating into our heads all the time for 5 seasons. I was more weirded out by Trixie's voice. I know it's the same actress, but hearing her speak in anything else than Great and Powerful language was... eerie.

Anyway, to change the topic...

The Angel scene was priceless and made me laugh the most out of the entire episode. I don't know what it is about me and having cruel animals get along with "bad" people/ponies, but it just seems like comedy gold. And yes, it reminded me of Adagio's scenes too.

3908374
I think Twilight (and Starlight) got the point that Trixie regretted what she did, but I agree that it wouldn't have hurt to verbalize it.

I agree that Twilight dropping the ball over and over, or even it just looking that way (as opposed to more of what we see in the start of the episode; Starlight struggling for very Starlight reasons), would be kind of a dull situation if that's to be the whole season, but in this case, people might be a little less sympathetic to Twilight because Trixie very clearly understood her mistake. Twilight was made a princess precisely because she's supposed to get this stuff now (at least I think so, mastering Starswirl's friendship spell that didn't even seem to do anything unless cast wrong being the deciding factor), but in her defense, maybe Discord's betrayal is still relatively fresh in her mind and she was scared to see Starlight go through the same thing (which she kind of did)? Of course, if that were the case, it again wouldn't have hurt to verbalize it rather than just have Twilight look really distrustful. Writing goof, maybe?

3908501
Writing goof. Like Spike At Your Service suddenly taking away Spike's skills so he can be uncomfortable to have around.

Well, maybe not that bad, but Twilight needs an episode where things aren't presented like she shouldn't be Princess of Friendship in the first place.

3908507
That would be nice, yes. Her lesson at the start of the previous season finale felt like a good example, showing how/why her friends, and friendship in general, are important to her and such, but that's a heck of a lot trickier to write episodes for, I bet.

Celestia has it so easy, all she has to do is very slowly wave a fireball around in the sky to keep her title. If the hardest part of her job is managing the country, I say we re-label her Princess of Politics :trollestia:

3908485
I smelled a Starlight And Fluttershy episode at that scene. :pinkiehappy:

3908522
Haha, the Fluttershy part was bittersweet! I felt bad for her at the end. That sigh...

By the way, one of my favourite parts was Rainbow Dash blasting off like gunshot. Literally. Goes to show that that one just isn't normal.

And... I guess I'm starting to like Starlight's neurotic self more and more. She has issues.:pinkiecrazy:

3908549
Flutter-butter will get her day with Starlight, I'm sure. Possibly in the episode I think is due to have the same name. :yay:

I don't normally root for Rainbow, but that takeoff was pretty cool.

I can hardly wait for Starlight's own Lesson Zero. The only question is whether or not the student will surpass the master. :eeyup:

That's a good point I hadn't realized about Twilight. I feel like she wasn't really worried Trixie would corrupt Starlight and turn her evil, she was worried Trixie would make Celestia pick a card and do magic tricks at the dinner, and her main motivation this episode was to prevent herself from being embarrassed.

3907785
In fairness, the last time she saw Sunset there was a demonic transformation followed by attempted murder. Accompanied by a monologue about trashing Twilight's home country and an implied death threat and Twilight's hero/mentor/second mother. The fact that she turned around and spent most of her time near Sunset being civil or outright friendly actually says a lot more than that glare did.

I mean, it was a bit hypocritical since Twilight was the one who left Sunset with her friends as part of a plan to reform her, but just because Twilight believes in second chances doesn't mean she has to like the people getting them. That and if you think about it Sunset may have been the most evil villain, depending on character interpretation. Sombra and Tirek are the only ones that can actually claim to have done comparably evil things while not influenced by outside forces or suffering some form of insanity. Probably, it does depend a bit on what you think of Nightmare Moon and Discord. Also depends partly on how much you factor in motive.

3909736
Considering that it was Sunset who called for help in the first place and that she was with her friends when Twilight arrived, giving her that look is odd at the very least. If she suspected it was a trap or an ambush Sunset was setting up for Celestia (Sunset didn't know Twilight happened to get the book just that day, but dumb luck to the rescue?), why was she exclusively cautious of Sunset rather than wary of the situation overall?

Plus, I think Sunset was influenced, corrupted, or otherwise out of her mind after she transformed, because she goes from releasing Spike without more than being asked ("I'm not a monster.") to lobbing fireballs of death without a second thought. Or maybe she was lying, not sure, but months after the last time Twilight sees her, seeing that she's surrounded by her friends and all is well (apart from the siren problem), Twilight's first act upon being offered help standing up is to glare at her. Maybe it was just to put stress on Sunset for story reasons, making her talk with the Dazzlings sink in a little more?

3909748
Could be. As I said, a lot comes down to how you interpret things. I like the idea that the magic caused her worst character traits to run wild, without her good traits to hold them in check. Afterwards, she was horrified and basically learned how to do the opposite (make her good traits govern all her behaviour instead of her bad ones). If I ever stop being lazy long enough to write any of the ideas I've had, that will be the usual characterization I use. I think Twilight just needed a moment, since the last time she and Sunset had spent any time together there was some attempted homicide. I mean, I've held grudges for longer over less.

I do agree that Twilight tends to suddenly suck at friendship when it helps the story, but in this episode at least there's the Celestia factor. Twilight has a history of freaking out and becoming highly irrational when she's afraid of failing Celestia in some way. The irony being that this isn't the first time she made the situation worse by trying to make it better. Twilight really needs to learn how to game the education system, that would have completely resolved this episode and Lesson Zero with no problems.

The irony is, Trixie was just an egotistical showmare who made a few bad decisions, and Twilight doesn't trust her, Starlight did far worse and she's like "Second chance, right here." Bit weird, especially after Twilight did forgive her after Magic Duel.

3909977 Thats one of many thoughts this episode brought up for me, actually. especially considering the scenario in Magic Duel involved a Trixie who'd been through a lot, nursing a grudge, and finding one of apparently many magic relics that just so happens to give you great power at the cost of mentally affecting you in some way. if not the fact that Celestia was involved in this, which sets Twilight off on nervous-9, id be surprised she'd even be capable of opening her home to Starlight, or while their goals were different, into the Crystal Empire- after all, Starlight can't say some external device made her do what she did.

speaking of which.. apologies in advance, but my hammer hand is itching wildly, so...

*smacks a Rant and spoiler button (for No Second Prances) with a big fake mallet*
I HATE Starlight Glimmer. more specifically, i hate how she has been shown to us since the season 5 finale and on. i raged the heck out of her villain schemes (I quite dislike time travel. lets not talk of the S5 premiere), didn't like the montage in the finale (because it felt they skipped over a lot of key stuff- i like Sunset/discord styled slow burning face-turns.), and still can't buy a lot about her on a personal level. and yet despite all that... i like this episode for one major reason. I liked how her and Trixie got along. Trixie really made this scenario for me, and if this was what holding another meeting with her back was for... worth it. I hope we see her more often from here on. they really do work well together in my eyes, and it really brought the episode up for me, the two as a team- coming to an understanding over their feelings of second chances.

HOWEVER. the first half of this episode was just... rgh. and twilight throughout didn't help. Ive heard it said that the series isn't told in a consistent order (holiday episodes, for example making that point), but considering Starlights addition to the cast, not to mention a baby's Crystalling as of recent, some of the things we're seeing now just makes me ask HOW was it not covered yet and really throttled that fact into the light for me. i had this feeling during the last CMC episode specifically (really, you three were staring at your marks long enough for a baby to be announced, born and crystalled?) but this one took the cake. and made it beforehand.

Why didn't twilight go over with Starlight about sudden use of magic on other ponies? making the cake was one thing, but the spell on big mac? wut? and since she seemed to be the one so conscious of her actions during The Crystalling, why did she do that, or jest how she was about prior actions? how was she friends with the mane 6, and yet never met big mac, ms. Cake, or heard about the Wonderbolts until now? Especially since unless im forgetting, we saw her in the cakes bakery and at sweet apple acres during the montage? maybe its the heaviness of recent events, but I'm having issue getting through some episodes now because thoughts like these interrupt the flow.

All that said... still got enjoyment out of me for this episode. must have done something right for me to still like it as i did.

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