Aug
20th
2017
Points of Canon: S2x23 - Ponyville Confidential · 12:33pm Aug 20th, 2017
Low mass media. 
- Featherweight gets this cutie mark in this episode – apparently, during the lesson. I’m pretty sure his name was not changed upon getting the mark, because none of the children make a mistake. And thinking a name up would take half a day anyway.
- Notably, Silver Spoon is excited by this event, but Diamond Tiara is not.
- Foal Free Press is explicitly a school paper at this point. Later episodes, however, muddle the issue a lot…
- Even though it is a school paper, it has a graph on the front page. Is that the average SAT score over time or what?
- The applications for newspaper Sweetie and Scootaloo try are: Using it as packaging material, giving it to birds for nesting, a paper ship. Not shown is papier-mâché that Scootaloo refers to, which is probably the origin of the sap-like liquid they’re covered in.
- Use as the packaging material involves Rarity sending a vase by mail. Er… why? To whom?
- The CMC clubhouse appears, giving us a hard lock.
- So where did Apple Bloom get that picture of a child journalist that seems to have inspired her?
- The stacked newspaper-like objects in the corner of the clubhouse are there way before the CMC write for the Foal Free Press.
- “Such a good idea!” Notice that Scootaloo was quite unenthusiastic about the idea yesterday.
- “Now, as you know, our editor-in-chief graduated last year…” Someone actually graduated from this school. Not a given!
- “What’s an editor-in-chief?” You’d think
the dictionarySweetie Belle would know what the word means. - The standard complement of learning aids – telescope, globe, microscope – are still present in the classroom.
- Notice that Diamond Tiara left the room with everyone who did not want to be involved with the newspaper, but returns right as Cherilee announces that there’s a new editor this year. This was very, very deliberate. The roll-out poster with DT’s face also makes pretty clear.
- Featherweight uses the usual semi-rigid camera mount.
- “But Namby-Pamby was a great editor.” Poor kid.
- Rarity is using her red sewing machine. And this time, we can clearly see a driving belt connected to something underneath the table. You would expect a pedal, most times. Other appearances of the sewing machine do not show one.
- Scootaloo, contrary to earlier appearances, cannot hold her own weight in the air.
- Photos of baby Apple Bloom show non-disposable diapers, kept closed with a safety pin, giving us a potential time frame for their introduction: within the last decade. There’s also a baseball bat in her toy chest. Notably, this photo is color.
- One of the photos shows Apple Bloom in diapers chased by a puppy Winona. This, actually, puts a limit on Apple Bloom’s highest possible age, if that is Winona and not, say, her mother: There’s no way in hell Apple Bloom is older than about 13, and most likely, she is 7-8 like I originally thought.
- The machine used for printing Foal Free Press is a mystery. It looks most like a mimeograph and the black ink spots agree. However, newspaper routinely contains color photos. Getting those with a mimeograph is possible, but is a real bitch to do and would require more ink colors. Gluing in photographs would be a lot of labor the children can’t really put in for the printing volumes observed, and in any case, newspapers come off the press with photos in them already in at least some scenes. At the same time, the machine is blatantly muscle-powered, so if there’s magic involved, the machine does not have anything to do with it. And yet it spits out papers pre-folded.
- The school also has a basement. Ponyville really has a thing for basements…
Snips and Snails get stuck together with bubblegum.
- Ponies have bubblegum.
1. Friendship Is Optimal is a notably hairless pony universe.
Separating them requires shaving their coats off. Ponies have coats. Some people think they don’t,1 so I just thought I’d point this out.
- Notice that the cutie mark is part of the coat rather than skin, and is not simply projected over the coat – it’s a color change in the hairs of the coat: Both of them have the marks partially shaved off, but the remainder of the mark is still visible.
- Notably, being written up in the paper makes them popular, enough for their hoofprints on the paper to be desirable – but only for a a day at most.
- “We couldn’t fit all of our names” – actually, why?
- The CMC have a thermos of what has to be coffee, judging by the color. Thermoses exist.
- So why didn’t Sweetie Belle show off her work to Rarity first thing? It’s not like the collective pseudonym was born out of the desire to keep secrecy. Or did they just lie to DT?
- “Can you please keep it down with all the laughter? I’m trying to… hey!” At the time, Sweetie is staying with Rarity, rather than with their parents, otherwise she’d just go home if she needed quiet.
- “Are you snooping through my saddlebag?” Notice the singular saddlebag.
- “It’s so much juicier than anything in the boring old Ponyville Express.” A newspaper called “Ponyville Express” exists.
- …The spa and the beauty salon switched places again.
- Canterlot Friends are in town. Attracted by the news of a fresh new source of gossip, no doubt.
- “Pound and Pumpkin Cake Trip to the Store Ends in Tears.” The question is, what the hell were they doing in the jewelry store in the first place?
- Judging by the source of the vibration, the jewelry store is the building shaped like a jester’s hat. I always thought that was the party supplies store.
- “Send ’em twenty copies, and if they run out of those, we’ll send ’em twenty more!” As of this moment, the print run is in the hundreds.
2. I still have one, I should know.
The newspaper articles are typed on three-button typewriters. A relatively easy way to make one is an electromechanical system based on iambic key for Morse code, and we know ponies have telegraph… A purely mechanical chording keyboard of any kind would be a gigantic pain, even more pain than our typewriters.2
- “The best hooficure I’ve ever had!” Also the first time the series uses this word.
- Notably, Spike is also getting a cucumber mask. I wonder whether it actually does anything for him or he’s just imitating Rarity.
- “The Great and Powerful Trixie’s Secrets Revealed!” Wait, so why is Trixie a subject of conversation so many months after her last appearance, when most other gossip subjects get forgotten in weeks, if not days?
- Rainbow’s voice does not change at all while she has that piece of cucumber in her mouth, and she doesn’t swallow it up until Spike comes to pull it out. Funny, but strange.
- “Celestia Just Like Us” That’s pretty good evidence that Equestria has no lèse-majesté laws. It is also the origin of the fanon that Celestia is obsessed with cake. It would also require Featherweight to catch her in it – either in Canterlot or during a visit. How did that happen?…
- “Mayor Not Naturally Gray!” So wait. She is not naturally gray. Let’s assume she dyes hair to look older, but she was mayor before any of the Apple Trio were born, as the Perfect Pear tells us – and did not dye her hair then. So what would be the point and how old is she really?
- Hooficure involves lacquering the entire bottom of the hoof, it appears. Also, Twilight’s hooficure involves a colored lacquer, that is not the same shade as her hoof itself.
- “Forget it, I don’t like ponies touching my hooves.” Actually, why?
- The newspaper photo of Spike includes a bubble pipe and a fez. So what is the purpose of the bubble pipe? Watsonian, please.
- Big Macintosh is caught on a photo handling the Smartypants doll, requiring this to be a post-Lesson Zero episode.
- Spike burns a newspaper with a green flame, this time.
- “Fluttershy has tail extensions.” I actually suspect this one is where Gabby Gums transitions to outright lies: Fluttershy displays masterful tailikinesis which tail extensions would surely interfere with. This is further supported by the Cakes being surprised to know they’re breaking up.
- “I grabbed as many copies as I could, but it was too late!” That’s at least 50 copies, and probably quite a bit more. Has to be a print run in the thousands by now.
- “She’s reprinted my diary! How could Gabby Gums possibly get access to my private diary?!” That’s the first we knew Rarity keeps one. This comes up much, much later in Friends Forever #29 so she continued the practice.
- Rarity opens the door with a hoof in a very bipedal fashion – rearing up and knocking it in with the right hind hoof.
3. Sic. :P
“Et tu, Gabby Gums?!” Ponylatin.3 Also, somepony in history or fiction said “Et tu?” when they were getting betrayed.
- “It is an invasion of privacy, just like when I snooped through your saddlebag.” Privacy is a social norm. Which is a bit counterintuitive for a herd species.
- “Do you really think that writing nasty things and making everypony feel horrible is your destiny?” Rarity associates cutie marks with destiny more strongly than anyone else on record, come to think of it.
- “…and I’m not gonna let you goody-two-horseshoes take that away from me!” Where’s the other two horseshoes?…
- “Maybe Rainbow Dash will have a story for us. She’s always good for some gossip.” We very rarely catch her in it.
- Twilight is capable of casting a building-sized shield. Notably, Spike calls it a “force field.” I wonder if it is somehow limited to a list of targets or not. If it isn’t, this effectively closes the library down for everyone.
- Diamond Tiara didn’t attempt to tease the CMC for the entire episode. Who was that girl, and what did she do with the real Diamond Tiara?
Forgiveness is easy to come by in Ponyville. The biggest mystery of the episode is the printing technology, which doesn’t make much sense.
Hey, if the water table's low enough, why not?
Unless the Royal Guard is stupendously useless, I suspect Celestia allowed this as a way to spread humanizing (equinizing?) foibles amongst the populous. Or simply because it amused her.
A sophisticated appearance? That requires some cultural assumptions, but it does appear to be what he's going for.
I don't know if I want to applaud or groan at "tailikinesis."
Getting literally dragged to your destiny will do that.
Presumably, they're not as good.
Why antagonize them while they were useful to her? (See also "Twilight Time.")
4641624
Well, considering the aboveground buildings got destroyed twice in about a year, at most two, it certainly makes sense.
I’m just wondering where the assumptions are coming from. :)
This particular term was coined by Cursed Quill, if my memory serves me right.
…A guess: You would wear the prettier, better, “good” horseshoes on your front hooves, relegating the back ones for the dirty work of kicking stuff.
She had ample time to start doing it before she ever discovered they were useful, though…
I think Diamond Tiara antagonizes others (mainly the CMC) both for social posturing and for entertainment. As editor-in-chief of the school paper, she’s explicitly in charge of her peers, and the work is pretty engrossing in its own right. She no longer needs to tease the CMC to accomplish her goals, so she stops.
I took it as the opposite. My headcanon is that tailikinesis is exclusively an earth pony power (or, if you insist that Rarity holding that cake box in “Party of One” was something more than super-rigid curls, then earth ponies are much more dextrous with their tailikinesis than pegasi or unicorns). Fluttershy’s the one exception—a pegasus with earth pony levels of tail control—precisely because of her extensions. The hair probably came from an earth pony.
As for why she has extensions in the first place, I think it was FOME who came up with my favorite explanation: Fluttershy regularly donates her tail to the Equestrian version of Locks Of Love, and she doesn’t want her suddenly-shortened tail to attract attention.
Very loose; people didn't stop using cloth diapers after disposables came out.
yeah, paper-drying/folding rollers would take up far more room.
Actually, why?» Has a possibly interesting story combined with her penchant for hovering.
[fact dispute]
She had the CMC doing her bidding, and thus only need spin it right to gain mother's approval. This is likely where everyone gets the "DT's talent is command/leadership". Besides, she's using them to belittle everyone else. And didn't she try to blackmail them this ep? Does that not count?
4641624
I think I coined "tailikinesis" but I'm only 98% on that. P. sure all M6 have been observed doing some variety thereof.
4641968
Her mother does seem to explicitly demand victory over the blank-flanks, though.
Also, we've seen RD hold something with tail, but damned if I can remember what, offclaw. Rarity has tail-flicked a design off an easel, too. I need to collate my PoC notes somewhere…really hate searching blogposts due to false hits from sidebars.
That explanation does sound nice
4641968 I think I agree with you on earth ponies having much more dexterous tails, and most of the stories of Gabby Gums being partially true.
They live next to the Everfree Forest. Can you blame them for having a few safety bunkers around?
And now I'm tempted to write the Takes of Namby-Pamby, and how his shame drove him to greatness.
A thousand years old, just like every other monster in the series.
In a changeling cocoon. This must be the point she's captured and replaced. We never do see the original again.
4646400
No, but I can blame everyone else for not remembering they do and not making use of the basements in their stories.
Notice the chronology, too. If the kid graduated, he would be up there in the workforce by Season 7.
Surely you meant “mobster” instead.
Actually… Was she invited to the wedding in Slice of Life?
4646409
I don't remember seeing her there, but the Rich family would certainly want to try and swing an invite as "the most important family in Ponyville".