Princess of Pain [episode spoilers!] · 4:28pm Sep 24th, 2016
Man, I love Viva Las Pegasus. :D You've got heroes helping villains without reforming them, Gladmane's a total hoot, there's tons of amazing background ponies, and the new setting is a ride from start to finish. It's just everything I want out of post-S3 episodes. Observations:
Does anyone else think Twilight sounds like she has a cold in the first scene? Also, I do believe there are Penn and Teller ponies in this episode. Watch early on for the maroon and teal pony in the black suit; I couldn't see who was with him, but you see him twice in two shots. Also, Gordon Ramsay was doing the catering! You'd have to watch this episode ten times to find all the background stuff.
This week, Starlight Glimmer fucks things up with a spell.
Well, that was an episode. :B I really don't have much to think about this one. I mean, I kinda wish they'd made a bigger deal about mind control specifically being a bad thing, but "Don't cast spells on your friends" is really the closest I'm gonna get. Maybe if I cared more about Starlight, I'd have gotten more out of this episode. Oh well. At least now I know I can alleviate my social anxiety through dark magic!
Meanwhile, can we talk about the fact Twilight Sparkle has created life D: Like, holy shit, mind control is certainly evil, but Twilight has truly ascended to godhood! The very laws of nature bend to her whim! She needs to be stopped.
Also, Applejack disapproves of applesauce.
A Hearth's Warming Tail
Viva Las Pegasus
Gauntlet of Fire
Dungeons and Discords
No Second Prances
Spice Up Your Life
Stranger Than Fan Fiction
28 Pranks Later
The Fault in Our Cutie Marks
Buckball Season
The Times They Are a Changeling
Flutter Brutter
Every Little Thing She Does
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
Derby Racers
A Changeling Can Change
Can I Do It on My Own
Find the Purpose in Your Life
Out on My Own
This was basically Lesson Zero, but with a neglectful narcissist mindraping ponies more or less on purpose instead of a panicky student mindraping ponies more or less by accident.
Oh, and guess which one faced more opprobrium?
Ugh, I should just accept that I'm never going to like a Starlight Glimmer episode and stop watching them altogether, but I'm a completionist at heart
"What made you think casting a spell on your friends to do your bidding was even remotely a good idea?"
/Not sure whether to make a "You HAVE met Starlight Glimmer, haven't you?" quip, or a pot-kettle-black one.
Visual gag of the episode: Everyone looks like sheet during the magic hangover, with bagged eyes and messy manes. Except for Rarity, who won't let a little thing like that get in the way of being fabulous.
This wasn't my first enjoyed Starlight episode (I had fun with the Crystaling, mostly owing to Sunburst), but it was the first one where I actually enjoyed Starlight's character. She felt like a better-done S1 Twilight: a nerd wizard looking at friendship as a class or equation. But whereas Twilight made it look easy, generally becoming the voice of common sense and empathy (who saves the world, becomes a princess, etc.), Starlight struggles with it. One could very easily see someone who looks at friendship as a school problem making the decisions Starlight did in the quest for an efficient solution, and I'm retroactively disappointed we saw less of that in S1 Twilight.
General reception outside Fimfiction has been positive for this one. I wonder whether it'll be another of those episodes, like "Crusaders of the Lost Mark", that's noticeably worse received in the fanfic community than in the fandom as a whole. For what it's worth, I really enjoyed today's episode -- but then I also really enjoyed "CotLM" and indeed "Lesson Zero", so that probably makes me ineligible to have an opinion about anything.
4224536
I won't say it's bad, just eminently forgettable.
4224450
Well, I mean expectations are a lot higher for Twilight than Starlight.
"Starlight, I'm back! Did you destroy the world and/or snub a long-planned dinner date with Celestia?"
"Um... no?"
"Yay! Progress!"
Seriously, at least it was better than the Trixie episode.
You didn't put the "bake a cake" song Pinkie sings in the episode on your song rankings list? For shame!
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to cordially welcome you to Harem Fic Week. All the hypnosis fetish stories you could ever want, with the buzz multiplier of 'episode response fic'.
Welcome to die.
I still wanna know what was up with the pony-in-a-bubble game machine at the casino.
4224536 Don't you take any guff for loving Lesson Zero! That episode is freaking brilliant.
However, you do like Bats!. You get guff for that. Lots of guff.
4225209 I do indeed like "Bats!" (though not as much as I once did) despite its obvious flaws. And "Rainbow Falls", come to that. Guff comes with the territory.
They were my exact thoughts
Luna did it first! Cape -> bats, toy spiders -> real spiders.
Now we know what alicorn magic really is!
4224730
It's just a LazyTown cover, who cares :V
4226153
There was a reason that stuck out to me: I was introduced to the song via the Lil Jon mashup. On which note, I would have found it hilarious if Starlight's reaction had been "
Uhh,What? We're on a schedule, no time for a song. Okay?"4228392
I can't hear that song without immediately hearing NOW BREAK IT DOWN, BITCH