Aug
10th
2017
Points of Canon: S2x13 - Baby Cakes · 8:35am Aug 10th, 2017
When they’re back from Bronycon, there will be a lot more posts for them to not read.
- First time we see the Ponyville hospital. Also, the first time we hear the full names – “Cup Cake” and “Carrot Cake.”
- The symbol on the hospital is white cross on a red field, surrounded by four pink hearts. This shifts subtly as the series progresses. They should have gone with the caduceus…
- Carrot Cake is apparently one of those stallions who has a beard, but shaves it, because here, we see him with a stubble that disappears a month later. There is no way this fragmentary stubble would grow into a nice looking beard.
- Applejack’s question regarding how one of the twins is a pegasus and the other is a unicorn, while both parents are earth ponies, as well as Cake’s answer, was our first proper introduction to the complexities of pony genetics.
- “Easy. My great-great-great-great grandfather was a unicorn, and Cup Cake’s great aunt’s second cousin twice removed was a Pegasus. That makes sense, right?” This phrase, together with the shifty eyes, has been interpreted in every direction over the years. Upon reflection… No, it doesn’t make sense. The second part, in particular, does not. First part does. But rather than suspect infidelity on the part of Cup Cake, I suspect that since there’s clearly no way to be “5% unicorn,” while expressing the traits of all three tribes at once is a mystical feat, it means that the genes for each of the three tribal phenotypes will always manifest fully. Therefore, any pony family can have a certain chance of this happening eventually, and the Cakes just won the lottery.
- Rainbow is aware of the pegasus magic surges, – because that’s definitely what those are, I’m pretty sure all tribes get surges – and both Rarity and Twilight warn Carrot about unicorn magic surges. Wouldn’t this imply they had some familiarity with what other toddlers of their tribe did? When did they get it?
- That Carrot Cake knows that he has a unicorn in the family six generations up means a very extensive family history was kept.
- The cold open where the children are born is separated from the rest of the episode by one month – Pinkie starts the rest of the episode with a monthiversary song. During which she jumps out of a cake far too small to contain her.
- Ponies use disposable diapers, and have apparently used them for quite a while. Humans only did that since 1948. See chemical industry.
- Carrying things on their heads is much more common than carrying them on their back for ponies. In this episode, both Pinkie and Carrot Cake do this multiple times.
- Cup Cake smelled that the babies need a diaper change from a different room, long before Pinkie did from directly next to them.
- While changing the diaper, Carrot holds the extra diapers with his tail and handles the used diapers with his teeth. Poor guy.
- Baby powder is involved in the diaper changing procedure. I’m not sure exactly how can ponies get a diaper rash, but apparently they can.
- Children are fed with baby bottles. Does anyone breastfeed in Equestria? I wonder.
- Pinkie wears a wristwatch on her right foreleg. It’s a customized watch face with her face on it, and the time shown is 12:36. According to the watch, it took the children up to 12:48 to finish eating, so, about 12 minutes.
- Yes, Pinkie spent the entire time staring at the watch and watching the time go by at an accelerated rate, why do you ask.
- Pony babies need to be burped. Which, I suspect, is an artifact.
- Even at a month old, pony babies can run.
- “Great cinnamon sticks, I completely forgot.” Pretty unique expletive, that.
- Cup Cake carries the babies in saddlebags with holes for the legs. Which would be completely impractical if there weren’t two of them, I wonder how the singular baby carrying bag works.
- “I have to finish this report for the Princess summarizing all my other reports to the Princess.” Spike is holding 13 different pieces of paper and six more are on the floor. Judging by the color, they are indeed individual reports, so – 19 different pieces of information? Why would this even be needed anyway? If that were just an excuse, we wouldn’t see Spike being used as a paper holder, and later on Twilight comes to help, so it’s definitely a real phenomenon.
“Babysit? Now? When there’s a swarm o’ hungry caterpillars headin’ this way? I gotta get all these apples picked before they get swarmed on!”
- How does Applejack know about the caterpillars?
- Wouldn’t this imply picking all the apples in the orchard… again?
- “I got tickets to the Wonderbolts airshow this afternoon. Gotta dash!” Rainbow has attended at least one Wonderbolts airshow, not that this would be surprising. I wonder where it is held. Cloudsdale?
- So why are they asking only the Mane 6?… They haven’t shown signs of being particularly close before, but the Mane 6 are there to see the newborns as well…
- The twins are not in diapers while the Cakes are in the middle of packing up to leave for their catering job, but suddenly acquire them seconds later. This is, unfortunately, a common animation error.
- “Y’know, I used to have an ant farm, but I had to get rid of it because… I couldn’t find tractors that small!” I honestly don’t know if we should consider this evidence for the existence of tractors or not, because it was Pinkie who said it. No farm observed to date used tractors.
- Pinkie’s further schedule involves solid food. Human babies typically only start eating solid foods between 4 and 6 months of age, while the twins are just one month old…
Among the bath toys Pinkie brings are:
- A full inflatable boat. Ponies have those.
- A steamship of some kind.
- Pound Cake is actually capable of snapping off a water tap when just one month old.
- And here’s that monkey toy in the background. Looks like it constantly turns up around babies in Equestria, even though there’s still no clear sight of actual monkeys beyond those yetis in primary canon.
- “Babies take a lot of work, and some ponies are just not cut out to handle the responsibility.” Well, we know Twilight had to raise Spike, so she would know…
- “This is a crib. It is only to be used for napping, sleeping, and on occasion with permission, as a pretend old-timey Western fort.” Further evidence that modern Appleloosa settlers are imitating “old-timey Western” settler culture. Also, first evidence that settling the said West involved military effort.
- “We do not put anything in our mouth that we cannot safely and properly digest, so stop slobbering on that toy this instant!” What, not even pencils?
- …That crib is only meant to contain earth ponies, isn’t it?
- Even at one month old, Pound is capable of sufficient lift to walk on the ceiling and dragging Pinkie around, let alone simple flight.
- Likewise, Pumpkin is capable of telekinesis on the scale of hundreds of kilograms if not more, self-levitation, and phasing through solid matter.
- Pinkie carries a whole bucket of water on her tail.
- Pinkie narrates a Lesson Zero pattern letter to Celestia. She is not shown sending it or writing it, however, she says the event happened “today” – so hard lock against Lesson Zero.
Dammit, I hate that sound.
I'm trying to keep up.
I won't be at Bronycon until tomorrow morning, so I still get to pester you!
Rarity's experience with surges could've easily come from Sweetie Belle. Twilight's and Rainbow's knowledge likely came from their parents regaling them with stories of their own infantile exploits. Heck, Bow and Windy have photographic evidence of some of it.
For Twilight, it's also possible that she read about it. Or that Shining Armor was the one who shared his memories of what she got up to while still in diapers. Or the moment before she got her cutie mark might be seen as a very late surge. A lot of possibilities in her case.
Not while the show's TV-Y.
A counterweight of diapers, wipes, formula, etc.?
I've wondered this myself. It's like the Cakes don't have any friends their own age. (Well, no living ones...) Maybe the "Emergency: Consult Bearers" reflex is baked into their minds at this point.
Well, Pumpkin is a unicorn. Presumably the dictum is a bit different for the non-telekinetic.
4629470
Start working on the next one then. :)
I don’t think they would make a very good counterweight. I would make something to put on the top of the back, myself – point is, here are those specialized side carrying bags, but by the time anyone carries a singular baby, they tend to just sit on top.
…A guess: Most of the other ponies they could ask are at the same party the Cakes are supposed to cater. That puts the question “why weren’t the Mane 6 invited” up, though.
Because the Cakes definitely do have friends their own age – Burnt Oak, for example, should be one.
Nope, unicorn dictum can’t be different, since acquisition of consciously controlled telekinesis may get delayed and often does. Sweetie Belle can’t reliably use telekinesis for writing until she’s at least six or seven.
Apple orchards don't harvest all in a single pass, and different cultivars have different maturity cycles. Dunno how earth pony brokenness affects that, but you'd think that they'd influence in favor of less hassle rather than more. And later seasons feature bulk pesticides and 'pest ponies', but we'really still here in the 1880s as far as Applejack's concerned. Granny won't drag her into the agrichemical future until later I guess.
I just showed this episode to some new parents whose son was at the time exactly one month old. Of course he didn't get through the episode without needing a change. At which point they discovered Daddy hadn't gotten the seal right on the diaper.
The cake twins can already run around because (I’m told) real-life foals can walk within hours of birth.
I think the easy answer for Mr. Cake's shiftiness and impossible genetic explanation of Pumpkin and Pound is this: Dude is infertile, his wife got sperm donations.
This actually fits really well with the comics. We know Twilight did a really crappy job at first, before she shaped up. People tend to project a lot on their own faults.
4629470
Maybe they figure after the number of times they've let Pinkie missing a shift slide because one of the other five needed Pinkie for a friendship emergency of some kind, they're kind of owed.
Animation error, or parenting error?
4630081
Animation error. They don't get a moment to put on the diapers before they reappear.
Unlading a back-carried cargo will be more difficult.
teat-feed would seem more the compound, wouldn't it?
The Mane 6 are known to be multiracially integrated in this Earth Pony town…and are close friends of Pinkie. Friend-of-a-friend rather than somepony off the street makes plenty of sense.
Given that it's to replace horse power, they shouldn't show up until the writers truly stop thinking about technology implications.
t is interestingly at-odds with the need to develop mouth-dexterity.
Perhaps it is reinforced against their magic surge power.
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Moo. Sapient female nipples.
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Do the caterpillars care? If not, AJ's gotta harvest everything anyway so as not to feed the plague.
ew. Dare I ask?
4630476
Dare, dare!
Nothing explosive. It was just the usual, beyond its proper bounds. New parents are fully of diagnostic news about what the color of baby poop portends, btw. Like taking the auspices.
4630517
Hmm. Is studying the auspices, the movements of birds, or haruspicy closer to that…