"There's One Brony, There Could Be Others" [episode spoilers!] · 4:29pm Aug 20th, 2016
I get why some people are mad over The Cart Before the Ponies, but I can't see the hate for 28 Pranks Later. That one's just so fun! Plus, you've got this hierarchy:
The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well; The mane cast teach Rainbow Dash not to wrong others by committing the same wrong and then wronging her the same way.
28 Pranks Later: All of Ponyville bands together to teach Rainbow Dash not to wrong others by committing the same wrong to illustrate why wronging ponies that way is bad.
Ponyville Confidential: Rarity wrongs Sweetie Belle, not to teach her anything, but because she's a bad sister, and later uses the incident to illustrate for Sweetie why wronging other ponies in the same way is a bad thing.
So yeah, "Better than Mare-Do-Well" isn't high praise, but I'm still pleased with it. Also, everyone (rightly) praises Andrea Libman for her zombie Pinkie voice at the end, but the best part of that whole episode is Rarity's zombie act. It's just perfectly overdramatic in a way that fits her to a T. I died.
This week, we watch as a million headcanons cry out in terror before being silenced. That's right, it's the one about the changeling! :V
I guarantee this episode is going to make a lot of fans howl, but I liked it. The worst thing I can say for it is that it's like half the changeling fics I've ever read (the other half, of course, being the ones which are now canon-dead). I mean, Kevin Thorax is even confirmed in-episode to be a special snowflake. It's like, give me a break, right?
But no, I had fun with this. I loved the xtreeeem continuity with Starlight wanting to fuck her boyfriend who lives in pony Canada see Sunburst again, I love all the stuff we can now say for sure about changelings, I even liked the song, if it's no "Pony I Wanna Be". Yes, Spike fucked up, but he has a long history of buckling under pressure, and that's exactly what happened in that scene. I think my favorite part, no lie, is the title.
Also, I realize two things. First, this season is like two different shows: The Starlight Glimmer Show, and MLP:FiM season two. Seriously, either SG's in the episode, doing dumb shit (thank god she didn't take up too much screen time this time), or we're back in "Twilight's wings don't matter" land. The second thing is, you know it's a Crystal Empire episode not because you see it in the background of the train, but because someone, usually Twilight, name-drops Shining and Cadence.
So, what have we learned?
-Changelings can talk
-Changelings can think for themselves
-They can turn into non-ponies
-They can turn into basically anything, inanimate objects included (I suspect this will be the cause of a whole new wave of clopfics)
-They're born as grubs (point of discussion: Do they pupate or just go through an imago phase?)
-They're normally tied to Queen Chrysalis's will, so yeah, they're generally born evil
-Oh yeah, Chrysalis has finally been name-dropped in the show, hallefuckinglujah
-Even the nicest changeling needs to eat love
-Twilight doesn't want to kill them
I guess I can cancel that sequel for OCTASCRATCH DOWN BEST FOR ROMANCE YES. :V
A Hearth's Warming Tail
Gauntlet of Fire
No Second Prances
Spice Up Your Life
The Times They Are a Changeling
Stranger Than Fan Fiction
28 Pranks Later
Flutter Brutter
The Crystalling
The Cart Before the Ponies
Applejack's "Day" Off
The Saddle Row Review
On Your Marks
The Gift of the Maud Pie
Newbie Dash
Luna's Future
Say Goodbye to the Holiday
Seeds of the Past
Hearth's Warming Eve Is Here Once Again
It's Gonna Work
Pinkie's Present
A Changeling Can Change
Derby Racers
Can I Do It on My Own
Out on My Own
They did refer to her by name in the Season 5 finale.
But yeah, this definitely marks one of the major headcanon massacres of 2016.
True shape shifters in the making, right?
*mutter mutter mutter*
I liked mine better...
Haven't we gone through the same song and dance enough times at this point for people to know that fanfic is all about divergence from canon?
If your fic requires the Changelings to be the Borg, write them as the bloody Borg. If your fic requires a special snowflake, write a(nother bloody) special snowflake.
I really don't understand people's need for their fics to be 'validated' by canon. If the writing's quality enough, the story will stand up.
I think my only problem with this episode was how quickly Shining just... accepts the changeling. Like, I would expect at least a hesitant acceptance, like giving Thorax an, "I'm watching you" look. But nope, just sing a song, and make ponies instantly forget about being brainwashed while their wives were held captive underground for days/weeks and replaced by someone who wanted to take over the country.
4160853
It's mainly a joke at this point. Calm down, good sir.
4160863
Among those of us mature enough to have open minds? Sure. But just try explaining this concept to all the anklebiters running around the site downvoting anything -- even retroactively -- that spices things up in such a way as to contradict canon. If you've not seen at least one poorly-spelt comment about how 'this isn't what the show did', then I wish I had your luck.
We're almost certainly going to get compare-and-contrasts to Gauntlet of Fire in this episode: both of them establish canonical empires of different species, both of them are about said species being *mostly* "less nice" than ponies, and both of them are about spike finding the one outlier, befriending them and letting the audience see an example of "oh, look, they can be good after all." And both Ember and Thorax have gotten/are likely to get
insane amounts of clop written about them, particularly with Spikea good deal of attention from the fandom now and for at least a couple of years to come. And, honestly, I like it when one-off characters become popular enough to become fandom darlings, so I'll gladly welcome them into the ranks of Zephyr Breeze andsex godQuibble Pants.I'd rank this slightly higher than Gauntlet of Fire, if only because I've seen plenty of tsunderes in my lifetime and Ember was pretty much tsundere to a T. Thorax didn't have much of a personality aside from being a woobie, though, so I'm willing to admit I'm not impartial about ranking one over the other. And in any case, it won't be long before the fandom starts churning out truly epic fics about them, and I'm very much looking forward to them.
Oh, and while there's admittedly been a lot of great songs this season, I'm also very happy that Spike gets a solo song. Cathy really nails it on "A Changeling Can Change", voice-wise, and i hope we get to have more spike songs in the future.
4160863
This is also the biggest problem I have with this otherwise fine episode. Actually, they can always come back to this and have Shining's suspicions show through in a subsequent episode. If so, the writers may have set this up for future drama between Spike, Twilight and Shining Armor. And if they didn't, then I can see a whole lotta fanfics delivering on this theme!
Well, for starters, Dash seemed like Season One Rainbow Dash throughout the whole episode. She was far too arrogant, and far too OOC. The real Rainbow would not stoop to hurting her friends in any way, shape, or form, and she definitely would not do that to the whole town.
Second of all, I feel like the whole zombie apocalypse felt cliché as f**k. You could clearly see when each and every jump was going to happen, and despite it being well-themed around the subject matter, it still seems to have taken ALL of its' inspiration from The Walking Dead by AMC and Telltale Games. Because of it, none of it seems special, unique, or truly exciting to watch.
Finally, there's an important saying:
The whole zombie apocalypse thing is WAY TOO MUCH of a punishment for poor Dashie here, and it also makes no sense. That's like Twilight saying, "Hey, everypony, let's nuke Ponyville to get back at Rainbow Dash!" With everyone else just jumping on the bandwagon because they feel like it. If anything, they could have also just stripped Dash of her wings and hair colours for the day, forcing her to be a regular old earth pony for 24 hours. And the fact that it was all to get back at her just pisses me off. If someone you like pranked everyone, would YOU cause something that could potentially get S.W.A.T. on your ass?
I think my only complaint about this episode is that I feel the issues involved were too much for a single one, i.e. it should have been a two-parter. The Crystal Ponies (and especially Cadance and Shining Armor) came to accept Thorax a lot too quickly for my tastes. Buuuut, this is MLP, not reality, so I'll just take it with a grain of salt.
4160800
Did they? :O Oh shit, in the AU! HERP
Well, I guess this is confirmation that they know her name in baseline Equestria, too. :B In case anyone was concerned about that.
4160863
This is obviously the power of song. :V
4160988
Oh boy. :D
Arrogant, self-centered asshole Dash has been the norm more or less since season four, definitely since last season.
It's most definitely an homage, re: the rest of this paragraph. If you didn't like it, that's fine, but I appreciated A) doing zombies in pony finally, and B) the cookie thing being a zany, creative way to get zombies into a G-rated environment.
I dunno. Rainbow was pranking numerous ponies (and donkeys) around Ponyville, with very elaborate pranks. The whole town coming together to prank her back seems fitting. Plus, she's kinda thick, you really need to drive lessons home for them to stick. :V
4161023
I won't say it needed to be a two-parter, but you're right that it certainly could have been. I mean, we hit the start of act three, and you realize there's only 7 minutes left in the episode, and you know they have to shoehorn something in for a happy ending, and a song's about the best way to go for that.
You forgot the part where the staple of almost every changeling story, the changeling detection spell, has just been confirmed as not being canon. They have to rely on passwords and social cues.
Also, we've confirmed that the feeding process can happen passively, with no negative health effects.
And that the empire most at risk of changeling infiltration has a military entirely consisting of earth ponies.
4161305
And pegasi. :V
4161644 There were pegasi in this episode?
4161650
The yellow guard? And the one next to him, at least when they first meet the guards, they were both pegasi.
4161687 Oh.
So, my couple of things here: using "Sunshine, Sunshine" as the cue/test seems like a bad idea, since it was something that had explicitly come up in the S2 finale, with Chrysalis (if she's capable of reflection at all) presumably afterward realizing it as an important moment of losing Twilight's trust, and if nothing else, having been there to see it, along with probably at least some other changelings already in Canterlot.
Second one is the changeling at the wedding in "Slice of LIfe," a wedding where Shining Armor was also present. So, SoL happened after this, or it's been flushed down the memory hole? (Or maybe he just never saw the changeling there because reasons.)
I think I know which one I prefer.:V4161901
Once I got over my gag reflex upon hearing Sunshine, Sunshine, I thought the same thing, too. Also yeah, this does dick to explain Kevin, though it's perhaps worth considering SoL as just not a canonical episode...
4161933
Yeah, the memory hole/non-canonicity was the explanation I preferred.
"The Times they are a Changeling" is the story of how xenophobia can ruin a once vibrant land. It is the story of a nation learning to get over their prejudices and accepting a refugee with open arms, even though that refugee looks like people who have harmed them in the past. I thank the writers for having the guts to promote such a message at this important time.
Good glimglam/sunburst fic when? That's your new review quest.
4162502
It'll be easy once there's a sunburst tag. :V
#Wheresthelie
4163360
Make it happen.
Base it off the song from Avenue Q.
4163648 I missed my chance to see Avenue Q last time it came out my way because I was broke and disorganized, which song do you speak of?
4163652
"My Girlfriend, Who Lives in Canada" :V
4160863 Bla, blaw, blaw, untimate power of song, bla, blaw, blaw, Pinkie only exception ironically, blaw, bla, blaw, cannon at this point.
4161933 4161305
It is an explanation that fits a lot of the facts, and not limited to these events. :V
Also, it should have occurred to me sooner, but there either they should have believed that the spell Shining Armor cast at the end of the S2 finale would have worked as a changeling detection spell (and bear in mind, there wasn't anything to indicate it was some kind of special event/EoH type deal, he was just casting a spell he would normally have been able to cast on his own with the power of Cadence's love since he was exhausted), or this whole paranoia thing should have happened then. Or, of course, every pony in Equestria is a moron.
4162135
The problem here is that doing so with the set-up of "almost all of the Other group are born evil, and you have every reason to believe that Others can mind-rape you into believing things that aren't true or acting according to their wishes instead of your own (and you know at least some Others can and do) so at best you need to take a trust-but-super-strongly-verify approach" strikes me as the wrong way to implement it.