• Member Since 26th Sep, 2011
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FanOfMostEverything


Forget not that I am a derp.

More Blog Posts1330

  • Sunday
    Friendship is Card Games: Mane Event

    So, as I have come to understand, the main G5 IDW line has been replaced by/subsumed into a series of mini-series and one-shots that feels like the equivalent of a network trying to kill a show by bouncing it around the schedule. Hopefully I’m being paranoid there.

    Read More

    8 comments · 160 views
  • 1 week
    Rumor Gathering

    While diminished from its peak, the Writeoff is still very much an ongoing concern. Regrettably, while I actually had an idea for the most recent prompt, my Saturdays are packed to the gills and thus I didn't have time to compose it before the submission deadline. As such, I have employed Dueling

    Read More

    2 comments · 140 views
  • 1 week
    Friendship is Card Games: Wondercolts Forever: The Diary of Celestia and Luna

    The next entry on the schedule was issues #21 and 22 of the G5 mainline, but those have failed to manifest, making me wonder if that line’s actually been ended in favor of the various mini-series currently in progress. And among them, I only have one released issue unaccounted for. As such, it’s time to turn to the next pony novel… which does not contain ponies.

    Read More

    6 comments · 168 views
  • 2 weeks
    Incident of Examination

    There's a Crystal Prep-themed Sunset shipping contest on at the moment, and one castoff idea I had got me wondering about Sunset attending CPA... and running against a logical issue. At least I got

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    0 comments · 194 views
  • 2 weeks
    Friendship is Card Games: Tell Your Tale, Season 2, Part 2

    Looks like that Leap Day hypothesis carried some weight. The long-form episodes should be interesting in their own right, but we’re not looking at one this week. Let’s see what there is to see.

    Read More

    5 comments · 184 views
Sep
24th
2017

Friendship is Card Games: A Health of Information · 11:28am Sep 24th, 2017

Ahoy, mateys! It may be a bit late for Talk Like a Pirate Day, but after captaining Admiral Brass and crew to the top eight of me local prerelease, I be feeling saltier than a piece of hardtack soaked in sea spray. Now, let’s see what happens when a literal yellow-belly has to address a mate’s case of scurvy.

Ah, crisscross moss. It was a lot easier to find in the early 90s.

Fluttershy, you can fly. Why are you making the zebra do all the work? Though I suppose Zecora might have volunteered after showing Fluttershy where to find the moss.

Nice to see that Sweetfeather Sanctuary hasn’t stopped being a thing, though oxen being on the potential visitors’ list manages to add even more ambiguity to what species are welcomed than that giraffe.

Heh. Visual callback to “Filli Vanilli.” Though isn’t this fellow a pediatrician?

How many different diseases lead to cardiac drum solos and bubble belching?
Also, I’m going to assume that that diagram of a pony head and brain isn’t to scale.

:twilightoops: Holy crap. That’s one heck of a reproductive strategy. Fascinating, but disturbing on a lot of levels.

Yeah, surely the figure of ancient myth both existed and is still alive!
… Okay, in Equestria, there are actually rather good odds of that. Still, it doesn’t seem like something to choose as a Plan A.

“Are you… cooking?” That intonation implies so many things about Twilight’s cooking skills. I love it.

Wow. When Twilight sighs over the prospect of looking through every book in a library, you know it’s bad. At least she’ll have an excuse to implement a new sorting system.
… Okay, it is downright surreal to see Twilight Sparkle tell another pony to take it easy on the research.

“Old Ponish.” Well, at least it’s not Pony Latin.

Oh, wow. Was not expecting Meadowbrook to get another mention. Though if she hailed from the Hayseed Swamp, a.k.a. the home of the Cajun ponies from “Somepony to Watch Over Me,” then I guess the “eastern” in “eastern unicorn” meant “(south)eastern Equestria” and not whatever phenotype Mistmane was.

Double wow. References to plague masks in My Little Pony. This episode’s just full of surprises.

Great mages don’t die. They just fade away disappear.

Easy there, No-Time Toulouse. You can always sleep on the train. Assuming there’s a line there. Or Twilight could request an air chariot on royal authority. Finding a cure for a thus far incurable disease would certainly merit such an exercise of power.
… They’re going to fly there on their own, aren’t they?

I do like the use of couplet failure as a sign of Zecora’s deteriorating health.

:facehoof: Yup. Princess of Friendship, folks. Can’t delegate her way out of a paper bag. That or her delegation instincts are the same as every other alicorn’s: Make Twilight do it.

Twilight, you’re in the middle of a settlement in a swamp. At the very least, somepony lived here recently enough to keep the place in decent repair.

I adore how Twilight approves of living in trees. RIP Golden Oaks. Also, I’m pretty sure this is the same species of tree that Zecora lives in.

Fluttershy is a surprisingly skilled digger.

Fluttersquee is canonically diegetic. This episode is amazing.

Interesting to note that Cattail’s cutie mark incorporates part of Zecora’s. The spiraling sun appears to have some universal meaning of herbal medicine. Makes me wonder how asking Celestia to cure Zecora would’ve panned out.

Someone needs to write the full journals of Meadowbrook.

:facehoof: Oh for fuck’s sake.
Sorry, but Meadowbrook was explicitly described as a unicorn in “The Cutie Map.” Happy as I am to see an earth pony mage, the continuity contradiction is incredibly frustrating. I suppose there can be more than one Meadowbrook, or unicorn-written history might have changed her tribe in the telling. Looking at the actual line, Twilight says “I haven't studied Eastern unicorns as much as I should have,” so it’s also possible that she’d made a mistaken assumption. Still, I shouldn’t have to cover for the writers on this one.

On a less headdesking note, interesting to see Meadowbrook use crystals to heat her cauldron rather than, you know, fire. Same as Snowfall Frost in “A Hearth’s Warming Tail.” I suppose if the crystals give of a constant heat, they’d be incredibly useful for alchemy. Especially if earth pony magic could encourage their growth; they look like they’re coming right out of the floor.

Yup. Beak and everything. Now all Meadowbrook needs is to stuff it with aromatic herbs to ward off the miasma.

Yikes. Good thing Zecora’s case of swamp fever hasn’t proven nearly as infectious. Of course, Ponyville isn’t located in the same habitat as the primary vector, so there’s that.

I like the flashbees. Less Equestria’s usual pun-based ecology and more Avataresque chimerae. You know, barring the queen’s crown and ruff.

Holy crap. Do those stings cook you from the inside!? Meadowbrook was definitely smoking as she fell to the ground. Also, given how the stingers came out clean, these appear to be more horents or wasps than bees.

I had a big rant here about how cheap it was that we didn’t see Meadowbrook get the honey. At the time, I thought it happened over the course of a commercial break rather than an immediate cut to black and the next journal entry. Oops. :twilightsheepish:

So… how does the greater medical community not know about flashbee honey? I suppose Meadowbrook never came across another town that lived near the body horror trees.

Oh dear. I guess the fever’s incubation period just takes less time when it’s not straight from the flower.

Hmm. Subtle desaturation on Fluttershy as she gets sicker. Nice touch.

I’d be more upset about Fluttershy discounting the utility of telekinesis when gathering honey if she were better rested.

Very interesting to see Fluttershy struggle for altitude. Does the disease have an adverse effect on magic, or is this just a matter of exhaustion?
Also, dang it, Fluttershy, Mind Over Matter is already a card.

Wait, who sent a message from Ponyville, and how did they know to come to this particular part of the swamp? Did Twilight and Fluttershy tell anyone but Zecora where they were going?

Amazing how many things magic can’t do these days, isn’t it?

Hooves crossed, eh? Interesting addition to pony idioms, but how did that one originate?

And then the queen immediately dueled the intruder for rule over the hive… or not.

:raritydespair: Oh good lord, the branches come out of the sores. That is disturbing on several levels.

How would Zecora know Fluttershy learned something? Granted, that’s a safe bet when the Mane Six go on an adventure, but did they take the time to recount the journey before curing her?

In all, this was an engrossing episode, and I enjoy it a great deal when I watch it without pausing. But the minor contrivances and single tremendous contradiction really stand out when watching in full analysis mode.

Still, an enjoyable adventure with a good lesson. No need to be as ill-tempered as a hive of flashbees over it, especially when it can inspire cards like these:

Unsniffle Elixir 1W
Instant
Remove a -1/-1 counter from each creature you control. You lose a poison counter.
Draw a card.
Equestrian hedge mages can concoct cures that defy the greatest medical minds of other planes.

Sweetfeather Oxen 3W
Creature — Ox
Sweetfeather Oxen has hexproof as long as you control a green permanent.
They’d go to the spa in town for their coat treatments, but they can’t fit through the doors.
3/4

Disequilibrate 1U
Instant
Target creature gets -5/-0 until end of turn.
Rebound (If you cast this spell from your hand, exile it as it resolves. At the beginning of your next upkeep, you may cast this card from exile without paying its mana cost.)

Fade into Myth 2U
Sorcery
Put target creature on top of its owner’s library. If that creature is legendary, that player shuffles his or her library.
Meadowbrook’s ultimate fate remains a mystery to this day.

Cross Reference 1B
Sorcery
As an additional cost to cast Cross Reference, reveal two cards from your hand that share a card type.
Search your library for a card of the shared type, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.
Sometimes reading between the lines isn’t enough.

Into the Mire 2B
Instant
Target creature get -1/-1 until end of turn for each Swamp you control.
”If you must slog through the quag, make it quick. You could get sick.”
—Zecora, zebra shaman

Unspeakable Act 2B
Sorcery
If you control a Swamp, you may pay 4 life rather than pay Unspeakable Act’s mana cost.
You draw two cards and you lose 2 life.
Cattail never did tell anypony else all the things he tried to get some flashbee honey.

Allergen Burst 2BB
Instant
Distribute three -1/-1 counters among one, two, or three target creatures.
The pollen of the feverblossom tree begins to transform its host the moment it’s inhaled.

Epidemic 3B
Enchantment
Whenever a creature dies, proliferate. (You choose any number of permanents and/or players with counters on them, then give each another counter of a kind already there.)
Plague spreads like wildfire, with none of its kindness.

Burrow Beneath R
Sorcery
Target creature gets +3/+0 until end of turn and can’t be blocked by creatures with defender or flying this turn.
Fluttershy has developed many skills to keep in contact with as much of the animal kingdom as possible.

Pounding Pulse 1R
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +1/+0 for each Song you control and has first strike.
”There’s a party in all of my organs.”
—Vinyl Scratch

Shock Sneeze 2R
Instant
Target creature you control deals damage equal to its power to target creature you don’t control. If the creature you control has a -1/-1 counter on it, it gets +4/+0 until end of turn before dealing that damage.

Flashbee Queen 3R
Creature — Insect
Other Insects you control have menace.
Raid — At the beginning of your end step, if you attacked with a creature this turn, create a 1/1 red Insect creature token with flying.
Countless soldiers guard her egg-bloated majesty.
2/2

Aggressive Response G
Instant
Target creature you control gains hexproof until end of turn. If that creature is the target of a spell or ability you don’t control, it gets +2/+2 until end of turn.
The flashbees only saw the Stare as a challenge.

Pathology Report 2G
Enchantment
Whenever one or more -1/-1 counters are put on a creature you control, draw a card.
Whether rural healer or modern practitioner, every doctor first needs to determine what the disease is.

Descendant of Meadowbrook 3G
Creature — Pony Shaman
When Descendant of Meadowbrook enters the battlefield, put two +1/+1 counters on target creature you control.
”I ain’t as talented as my kin, but I do know a thing or two.”
1/2

Healer’s Mask 2
Artifact — Equipment
Equipped creature gets +0/+2 and can’t have -1/-1 counters put on it.
Equip 1
The mask both blocks contamination and keeps the patient from seeing the healer’s concern.

Pyre Crystal 2
Artifact
T: Add C to your mana pool.
T: Add R to your mana pool. Pyre Crystal deals 1 damage to you.
1R, T, Sacrifice Pyre Crystal: Pyre Crystal deals 2 damage to target creature or player.

Feverblossom Willow (bg)(bg)
Creature — Plant
Defender
Wither (This deals damage to creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters.)
Whenever a creature with a -1/-1 counter on it dies, return Feverblossom Willow from your graveyard to your hand.
Its seeds plant themselves.
1/3

Swamp Fever BG
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant creature
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a -1/-1 counter on enchanted creature.
When enchanted creature dies, search your library for a Swamp or Forest card and put that card onto the battlefield tapped. Then shuffle your library.

Flashbee Swarm 1RW
Creature — Insect
Flying, first strike
When Flashbee Swarm dies while attacking, create two 1/1 red Insect creature tokens with flying.
Their aggression is matched only by their sheer numbers.
2/1

Great Mage Meadowbrook 4GW
Legendary Creature — Pony Shaman
When Great Mage Meadowbrook enters the battlefield, remove all -1/-1 counters from creatures you control, then put two +1/+1 counters on each other creature you control.
Creatures you control can’t have -1/-1 counters put on them.
3/4

Hayseed Shantytown
Land
T: Add C to your mana pool.
T: Add B to your mana pool. Activate this ability only if you control a Forest.
T: Add G to your mana pool. Activate this ability only if you control a Swamp.

Comments ( 24 )

“Old Ponish.”

I quite liked that! It sounded both plausible and cute. :)

Being someone on the black-green side of Magic, I liked this episode for its very swampy theme, and some really nice nature visuals too. But yeah, I also found myself frustrated by some really questionable logic, both in-story and out of it. If they're going to skirt around the fact that Meadowbrook died, that's fine, but they could have easily done it without introducing the weird contradiction of Meadowbrook being simultaneously a legend and a living pony. Given Fluttershy's desperation she would still have gone on the quest anyway; it's not like we needed to believe she's still alive.

The other big issue was Twilight's utter uselessness - again, for no real reason because she didn't actually need to come on the quest at all. Fluttershy would have gone without her either way, and Meadowbrook's descendant was there so it's not like Fluttershy had no support. Heck, he might have had a chance to be interesting if he hadn't had to share screen time with Twilight.

Fluttershy was great though. I hope she gets to keep the mask. :yay:

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

Twilight says “I haven't studied Eastern unicorns as much as I should have,” so it’s also possible that she’d made a mistaken assumption.

This is plausible, outside of gross condemnation of the writers. :B I'd actually forgotten about this particular detail.

And then Starlight didn't correct her because she hadn't studied eastern unicorns at all and was just pulling a random name out of the "shit, who had mystic artifacts" list. :V

This episode once again proved that ponies live on a death world. I mean Feverblossom Willow? Bugs that cook you from the inside out? I can see why there are very few ponies willing to live outside of large settlements. As for a Meadowbrook being a earth pony, Twilight could have meant that it was eastern unicorns that wrote the most about her.

Nice to see that Sweetfeather Sanctuary hasn’t stopped being a thing, though oxen being on the potential visitors’ list manages to add even more ambiguity to what species are welcomed than that giraffe.

Especially considering that oxen are not a species, but castrated male cattle.:twilightoops:

Yeah, surely the figure of ancient myth both existed and is still alive!
… Okay, in Equestria, there are actually rather good odds of that. Still, it doesn’t seem like something to choose as a Plan A.

It should have been Plan C at best, but I suppose the writers didn't have enough time to show Fluttershy and Twilight trying other options first.

Sorry, but Meadowbrook was explicitly described as a unicorn in “The Cutie Map.” Happy as I am to see an earth pony mage, the continuity contradiction is incredibly frustrating. I suppose there can be more than one Meadowbrook, or unicorn-written history might have changed her tribe in the telling. Looking at the actual line, Twilight says “I haven't studied Eastern unicorns as much as I should have,” so it’s also possible that she’d made a mistaken assumption. Still, I shouldn’t have to cover for the writers on this one.

I was so thrilled about the show having an earth pony mage and sorceress that I didn't notice the retcon on the first watch, and even now it doesn't bother me that much. It's a minor discontinuity compared to an episode like, say, “Where the Apple Lies,” although that probably sets the bar awfully low.
The theory of Twilight mistaking Meadowbrook's tribe would have worked better if Twi had acted surprised to learn that Meadowbrook was an earth pony. But it could be that the eastern unicorns wrote the most about Meadowbrook, as TitaniumTao suggested.

4677268
While draft oxen are often castrated, oxen are not always so. Any cattle used as draft animals are oxen -- even bulls and cows.

Yeah, surely the figure of ancient myth both existed and is still alive!
… Okay, in Equestria, there are actually rather good odds of that. Still, it doesn’t seem like something to choose as a Plan A.

To be fair, they did seem to ditch that particular aspect of the plan early on -- Fluttershy and Twilight's actual trip was based on the hope that she might have left behind something of use, despite her physical absence.

Twilight: Fluttershy, I am so incredibly proud of you for using your research skills to figure this out! But Meadowbrook lived ages ago, and didn't she disappear?
Fluttershy: Mm-hmm. But if we go to Hayseed Swamp, maybe we can find something she left behind! Something that could lead to a cure!
Twilight: It seems like a long shot, but I guess it's possible.

On another note, Twilight's disappointment when Fluttershy packed the cauliflower bites instead of her muffins -- and her smug look when Spike admitted he ate them all -- was just adorable.

This was definitely the kind of episode that's not especially dark on your first watch but starts to have all sorts of implications the more you think about it. If nobody found a cure apart from Meadowbrook and Fluttershy, how many ponies were transformed into trees throughout history without anybody being able to do anything? And if the trees' entire reproductive cycle is based on transforming other creatures into more of their own, did all the trees we saw in the episode start out that way? Were they just random animals or did Zecora start the episode hanging from some poor sod's former body? I know that in his review for the episode, Dr. Wolf brought up the question of what if the reason the Everfree is as strange as it is is because a not insignificant portion of its trees used to be living ponies at some point?

And on that cheerful note: I'm aware that that's almost certainly not what happened, but I've seen the possibility brought up and now it's stuck my head. If the existence of conditions that can turn ponies into trees is a thing that canonically exists, maybe now we know what actually happened to the Apple parents?

What boggles my mind is that we've gotten two Zecora episodes in a row now, and yet after 7 seasons we still don't know anything about zebras as a race/faction, aside from what we can assume with Zecora as an example.

I used to think the griffins had it bad, but it turns out the zebras are playing the long game with us. :raritydespair:

4677234
That or people just assumed and she wasn't around to correct them. It's not like we saw any evidence of what she looked like.

4677588
That could be true as well, the old Unicorns might be more tribalist and given her a race change in the histories.

For some reason I thought I saw a horn on Meadowbrooke's head. Looking back I realize I hadn't, but at the time I didn't even notice the contradiction. :twilightoops:

I guess it's too obvious and no-one wants to point it out. So I will.

Fluttershy could have been a tree.

You got it wrong.

Flashbee Swarm 1RW
Creature - Insect
Flash
Bee (Something something stingy stingy also probably an equivalent of flying)
2/1

Still, I shouldn’t have to cover for the writers on this one.

You mean, like we all cover for the writers on literally everything else?

Or there could hace been more than one Medowbrook. Heck, there could have been more than two! There are actuak records of multiple people's accomplishments being attributed to one person before and we only found out because of people recording things that ecplicitly give credit, often with a "Dude of the City of X, not to be confised with Dude off City Y" type notation.

So if people in various areas kept just writing down "Medowlark did X" and years, decades, even centuries later someone tried to reconstruct the history of one Medowlark and found lots of references to that name from the time she was alive they might naturally attribute it to her if thebsources didn't clarify.

I ran Beckett Brass in my prerelease, too! I was in a 2HG teamed up with Nayasaurs. I even almost got to download somebody's boat.

That or her delegation instincts are the same as every other alicorn’s: Make Twilight do it.

I like this notion. Especially with how confusing those delegation-targeting impulses must have been before Twilight's existence.

I liked this episode. I particularly liked how Fluttershy is extremely motivated when she feels responsible for another's problem(s). It's a nice change from freezing up in a ball of guilt and fear like one might expect.

Equestrian hedge mages can concoct cures that defy the greatest medical minds of other planes.

I am extremely tickled by the notion that such a thing might thwart a Phyrexian invasion of Equestria. Just sleepily hoofing them a jar of unsniffle elixir and telling Jin Gitaxias to call them in the morning.

Heh. I got that reference. Into the Mire reflects Quag Sickness's typical use-case, anyway.

Ooh. I want Epidemic in my Atraxa deck. Heck, I want it in my Liliana deck!

Pathology report, meanwhile, would be perfect for a Hapatra deck...

That is some chilling flavor text on Feverblossom Willow.

Wow. Meadowbrook blink ETB deck, anyone?

Really neat design on Hayseed Shantytown. I wish there were lands like that.

4677229
Oh, she's not dead. Have you seen the S7 finale synopsis?

4680989
No.

I'm going to assume that your comment is completely non-spoilerrific. :rainbowwild:

Better late than never. :twilightblush:

4677234 4677268
I like the idea of Mistmane and Meadowbrook being part of a sort of legend exchange program. After all, the last we see of the former, she's helping earth ponies.

And yes, Equestria is a nightmarish pastel hellscape.

4677390
The Apple parents succumbing to swamp fever would definitely be an interesting twist, though I doubt the show will give us anything definitive on them one way or another. But yeah, the grove of swamp fever trees seems to have as many dark implications as a gorgon's statue garden.

4677503
At least it leaves a wide field of possibilities for writers.

4677680
Firsuits are one thing. Never being able to take one off is quite another.

4678148
I do regret not finding a way to give them flash, but I wanted them to be as attack-oriented as possible to reflect their aggression. That precludes adding an option to play them on an opponent's turn.

4679001
That isn't what "literally" means. On a less pedantic note, there's using dubious aspects of the writing as springboards for story ideas, and then there's dealing with canon contradicting itself. Guess which one I prefer.

4679121
That's certainly a possibility. Heck, I suspect something similar happened with Star Swirl, who, like Twilight, may have had a whole herd of astronomically named contemporaries whose accomplishments got folded in with his.

4680988
If I ever get the good admiral's trigger to resolve, I'm definitely going to have to remember to call it "downloading." "I pirated your Regisaur! Now to flood Megaupload with copies of it."

I like this notion. Especially with how confusing those delegation-targeting impulses must have been before Twilight's existence.

Clearly, this is why the princesses were actually able to do things before Twilight was born and why they can't now.

Seeing Fluttershy act decisively in the service of others is always a delight.

If/when I get back to My Little Praetor, I'll definitely need to work in Meadowbrook's legacy.

Lastly, Hayseed Shantytown is based on an existing land. One that's getting reprinted in Iconic Masters, no less!

4683776
Huh. And I was going to give Iconic Masters a pass.

4683776
And now I've got this mental image of Ravnican pirates privateering for the Simic Combine or for the Izzet, releasing krasis blueprints to the public where any hedge mage (with the right tools) could make their own frog lizard.

4684937
At first, I read that as "hedge maze." By would that have been an interesting twist in "Return of Harmony!" :rainbowlaugh:

4685004
Discord would totally be down with frog lizards.

:facehoof: Oh for fuck’s sake.

Pretty much exactly my reaction, too. Although, unlike yourself, I kinda stayed at that for the rest of the episode. Positive points or not, I'm a stickler for these sorts of things, and such a major contradiction is beyond my ability to forgive. This is a bad episode by my reckoning. That said, if you haven't seen it already, my own theory for this nonsense can be found here.

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