Friendship is Card Games: Rollercoaster of Friendship · 11:10am Jul 8th, 2018
A bit ironic that they seemed to forget to advertise this special rather than the one involving memory magic. Still, it’s here and we can take a look at something I don’t believe we’ve ever seen before: A story set in the human world that’s longer than a few minutes and doesn’t focus on Sunset or a Twilight.
I have so many questions about Equestria Land. Given the later talk of characters, it appears to be similar to Disneyland in that it’s based on the work of an animation studio, but what company in the human world is creating fiction that so closely resembles the neighboring universe of pastel horses? There’s talk of Appleoosa, Neighagra Falls, Nightmare Moon, the Dragonlands, and a siren-form Adagio mascot costume! This is simultaneously one of the most fascinating and most frustrating glimpses at this world’s culture that we’ve ever seen.
… In fact, we might just have an explanation for that Discord plushie all the way back in the “Perfect Day for Fun” music video.
If nothing else about her, I do like how quickly Vignette Valencia establishes her character. Right away, we can tell we’re dealing a woman who can’t see past her own ego and hasn’t just bought into her own hype, she’s become the majority shareholder.
Meanwhile, I kind of want to know more about that first costume designer. I like her design and respect her limited patience with Vignette.
The phone’s magic is certainly fascinating, not least because we have three data points on the rogue magic and can attempt to extrapolate some trends. To wit:
• The magic always imbues an inanimate object.
• The magic often, but does not always alter the imbued object’s appearance.
• The magic often, but does not always have a spacial component (teleportation, banishing, etc.) This might apply to the watering can, depending on how it refilled itself.
• The magic helps realize the desires of the first person that uses the object post-enchantment (though how it interprets that desire varies from object to object.)
• Enough damage to the object will dispel the magic (the value of “enough” varying from object to object.)
More data would be nice, of course, but this still useful.
Furthermore, Vignette’s wish says a lot more about her, but we’ll get into that in a bit.
Thank you for the rapid character introductions, Pinkie.
Pinkie’s reaction to being paid to go to an amusement park is… Well, it’s not the most suggestive part of the special, but it’s on the list.
I wonder if Applejack ever gets harassed on social media for her flagrant applecentrism.
The shipping is strong with this special from start to finish. I suppose I should thank SaintAbsol for making Rarijack canon in the Oversaturated World.
I adore how Twilight cannot let something as ridiculous as “The Internet mailman” stand. Though she’s lucky that Pinkie didn’t let her have it for that “Technically.” I suppose Maud hasn’t met human Mudbriar yet.
Stinky Bottom’s Discount Hat Emporium existing in both worlds amuses me.
Why do vision boards persist in being a thing? (Though this does explain where and how Applejack picked up the practice.)
Hmm. Did Rarity just tell Applejack that this was her dream from a young age, or were they actually in kindergarten together? Because the latter sounds quite adorable and would be a logical assumption given their equine analogues.
Applejack, this is literally why they say “Don’t quit your day job.” There must be at least half a dozen countryisms for how foolish you were.
On the other hand, given Bulk, the smoothie stand will probably beg you to come back.
“Snapgab,” eh? Nice to have a canon Bland Name Product to add to the list.
I’m not at all surprised that Rarity posts images of her work. How better to advertise in this day and age, especially for a teenager?
That foot-stomped applesauce cannot be sanitary.
You’d think the lead costume designer would have people to actually make the designs. I get the feeling that Rarity insisted she give everything her personal touch without quite realizing the magnitude involved. This Rarity hasn’t yet dealt with rush orders, bulk orders, and bulk rush orders quite like the other.
Good to see Indigo Zap still exists.
Oh, Applejack. Already regretting her decision.
I wonder how many interesting science fact bots Twilight has written.
I have never related more with Applejack than I did when she looked through Vignette’s Snabgab feed. Seriously, what’s the point of all of it?
(Also, wow. That #bangs clip is one of the most suggestive things to come out of this franchise since… well, Auntie Applesauce sexually harassing that poor bellhop, actually. But before that, I don’t think anything short of the Dazzlings in full seductress mode can top it.)
It’s easy to feel the green-eyed monster when your eyes are already that color.
You’d think the PR director and the lead costume designer wouldn’t be directly linked in the chain of command. At least, I would. Really, Vignette’s reach over Equestria Land, especially in terms of hiring personnel, is downright staggering.
Pinkie doesn’t do forced laughter.
Rarity, you have no excuse for not introducing Applejack, and you know it. You were literally talking to her a minute ago.
The Rainbooms have a hundred thousand followers? How many people have seen them transform? Granted, it’s a lot easier to claim special effects are involved with video footage, but still.
“We sing songs together” is probably the best answer to that question.
How well would melted crayons work as mascara? I get the feeling that the answer is “The wax resolidified in the tube; I want my money back.”
This is fascinating. Before Vignette ran her mouth, I never felt like I was on the old end of a generation gap.
The screaming exchange was predictable, but it still made me smile.
I can’t help but think of the Arrow 18 Mission Logs when seeing Dash’s reaction to the coaster. Ludicrous speed is a lot less fun for her when she isn’t control. (Of course, it does clash badly with “Grannies Gone Wild,” but the coaster’s more extreme and Dash hasn’t been psyching herself up all day for this one.)
It’s funny. When Microchips was still an unnamed background human, I called him Neutrino, on the basis that he was small and didn’t interact with the plot. Now he’s been explicitly identified and interacted with. Never would’ve seen that coming.
And so we see the full truth of Vignette’s philosophy. It isn’t just BYBB. It’s BYBBADBV: Be yourself, but better as defined by Vignette. She doesn’t see people. She sees mobile set pieces she can use to maximize demographic coverage and increase her follower count.
And really, that’s the most frightening thing. Vignette barely needed a push from the corrupting influence of magic abuse. She was already corrupted by the feedback loops of social media. I’m not saying that all social media is evil—heck, even Fimfiction qualifies as a social media platform—but Vignette represents its worst excesses given flesh. She’s so addicted to seeing her numbers go up, she doesn’t seem to see people as real unless they’re on the other side of a screen. And, indeed, her magic gives her the power to take what’s on the other side of that screen and make it real… ish. The resulting holograms are as hollow and vapid as Vignette herself; they’re all style and literally no substance.
I am not comfortable with the idea of Flim or Flam giving Twilight anything that could be described as “bump and tingle.”
Also, I’d ask what happened to the pawn shop, but this is the Flimflam brothers we’re talking about. The only place where they can work a sustainable business model is one where people expect to be ripped off.
Twilight’s first mistake was involving herself with the Flimflams. Her second was working in a frictionless vacuum. Her third was assuming that there weren’t any magnets in the bottles or rings.
Applejack and Rarity both have points. Honestly, one trying to make the parade work and the other making sure their friends okay is a reasonable division of labor. Each is just so caught up in her personal mishegoss that she can’t consider the situation from the other’s perspective.
Nice touch with the perfect transition from frustrated Rarity to the purple-maned white horse plushie in the exact same position.
I assume the game tickets cost money; otherwise, the Flimflams’ joy in collecting them is more than a bit odd.
Much as I love seeing Sunset and Twilight doing adorkable things together, I can’t help but feel that telekinesis is the answer to this particular conundrum. Still, human Twilight has shown that she rarely if ever considers magic when science can potentially solve the problem. (Plus, you know, the glowing aura on the rings might be a bit of a giveaway.) Combine that with her obsessiveness and Sunset’s temper and need for supremacy, and this was pretty much inevitable.
That poor child. First he gets traumatized by Juniper Monstar, now this. At least he gets that parakeet plushie later.
Way to tempt fate, Sunset. Though it is telling how much these girls are becoming seasoned adventures/traumatized victims of circumstance. (The only real differences between the two is the tone of the setting and how voluntarily they get into these situations.)
Megan is wise to your prevarications, new Firefly. (I’m still tickled by the G1 callback.)
Hmm. Mascot reminiscent of Horace Horsecollar. Hardly surprising for a place called Equestria Land, and it supports the “based on in-universe animation” hypothesis.
Hoo boy. Pinkie’s gone full Ministry of Morale. I can only hope it doesn’t end in her strung out on Mintals as she tries to optimize the fun of theme parks across the nation.
Also, if Pinkie made her uniform out of what she found in the trash, who here threw out dry macaroni, and why?
When the Flimflam brothers take such pity on you that they give you something, you know you’ve hit rock bottom.
A bit hard for a work station to not be inspected in years, for fun or otherwise, on the day the park opens. I’m just going to assume that age has done to the park security guy’s brain what sugar and laughter magic have done to Pinkie’s.
“You are going to represent the touchstones of cool throughout the ages.” Given Vignette’s later customizations, she has a very… unique history of cool.
I suppose it’s too much to ask that Applejack could get a recording of Dash getting uploaded?
I do like how the girls are resigned to getting trapped in another magical subdimension. Same crap, different artifact.
Yes, because simply accusing someone of being evil worked out so well the last time someone tried it in this franchise. (That said, was the other phone unlocked or what?) I’d be more peeved with the others not trusting Applejack, but she did an excellent job of disassembling her own argument in the most embarrassing way possible. Still, Sunset poking her would’ve been welcome.
They say every girl is cursed to become her mother. In Applejack’s case, it skipped a generation.
The fight shows some of the underlying narrative skeleton in how it’s necessary for the plot, but it was well-telegraphed. This is stress on both ends coming to a head in twin eruptions that devastate the local emotional countryside, including what may be the worst possible thing anyone can tell any iteration of Rarity: “You aren’t special.” Ouch.
The dress-up app appears to have an almost purely mental interface: Think of the hairstyle, top, or bottom, press the corresponding icon, and drag it onto the selected person. Simple, elegant, and probably impossible without magic. Even if it were technically possible, there’s another aspect of it that wouldn’t be nearly so user-friendly.
I’d say something about how Dash isn’t blonde, but we’ve seen how quickly Vignette can change her mind.
Vignette Valencia: Not just a narcissist, she’s also a literal psychopath!
Nice to see someone remembered her abilities in a timely fashion.
I see Twilight went to the Hollywood school of hacking. A shame she doesn’t have access to multiple keyboards and monitors, a dimly lit room, and sunglasses. Still, her rapid-fire nonsense jargon is on point.
The white room is an anticlimax, but there's a bit more too it than there seems. Plus, the camera never did point at the wall with the door, so there’s no indication of what it looks like on that end, including whether or not there’s a knob or even a easily visible seam in the wall. (Sure, Pinkie knew they weren’t in Valencia’s phone, but she’s Pinkie.) There’s definitely something more to the room than just being the teleportation exit point. The salad was still fresh, calls to Fluttershy weren't going through, and Twilight had to hack her way through Vignette's phone to contact Applejack. I suspect that when Valencia’s phone transformed, that room was stripped of everything within to prepare it as the reception bay, up to and including any doorknobs. Then it got some degree of magical isolation from the outside world for good measure.
Is this a bit much based on a cartoon salad and a few throwaway lines? Yes. But it leaves me more satisfied, so I’m sticking with it. And at least Dash and Twilight look duly ashamed once they realize what’s really going on. (And, again, not the first time these girls have been involuntarily teleported by Equestrian magic. I can hardly blame them for making the assumption.)
I do appreciate Microchips’s shock and horror as his understanding of the universe got turned on its head. It’s one thing to see someone else use magic. It’s quite another to experience it for yourself.
Not much left that wasn’t already corrupted, Sunset, but it’s nice that you think otherwise.
Huh. Hadn’t noticed that the Adagio costume is getting roped on the Wild West float until now. That just raises further questions.
I feel like the only metrics Vignette uses are the ones produced by the little voices in her head.
Nice to see magical girls can still give speeches and transform with impunity in this day and age. Also very interesting to see Rarity act as the central focus of the magic. Rather than a generic rainbow blast, she creates something, an extension of her geode’s ability. This could prove very useful indeed…
Hopefully this made Vignette take a long, hard look at her life. Hopefully that lesson will stick for longer than the rest of the night.
Hopefully the park drops her like a hot potato.
Seems like they never did get Fluttershy’s tambourine onto the float.
Sunset and Twilight’s faces both after Dash knocks down those bottles and when they carry the spoils of victory… Yes. Just yes.
Given the cheering professional costume designer, it definitely looks like Rarity’s career is still on the upswing. Good for her.
In all, this was an interesting combination of familiar plots. A little “Canterlot Wedding,” a little “Canterlot Boutique,” a little “Rarity Takes Manehattan,” and an admittedly rather large scoop of “Mirror Magic.” Throw in tantalizing looks at magical mechanics, human culture, and more shipping fuel than the combined gas tanks of every FedEx truck on Earth, and I found a lot to enjoy about this one. That said, the line between real and virtual friends is drawn more sharply than it needs to be, and as even my compliments note, this one was rather derivative. It definitely doesn’t compare to Forgotten Friendship. Still, I don’t think I’ve ever been genuinely disturbed by a human villain like this before. A thirst for conquest, knowledge, or recognition is one thing. Total, solipsistic disregard for human life is quite another.
And now for the rest of this blog, dedicated to all my adoring followers (and the rest of you ingrates 
):
Caramel Bonds W
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant creature you don’t control
Whenever enchanted creature attacks or blocks, you gain 3 life.
Sweet bindings lead to bitter recriminations.
Fun Inspector 1W
Creature — Human Soldier
At the beginning of each upkeep, if you lost life last turn, you gain 2 life.
She will not rest until even the meaning of the word “frown” is forgotten.
2/2
Internet Famous 1W
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 for each creature card in exile.
Some draw upon otherworldly sources, patrons unseen but felt in the power they grant. Others just spam hashtags until they get some attention.
Megan’s Radiant Rainbow 2WW
Legendary Sorcery
(You may cast a legendary sorcery only if you control a legendary creature or planeswalker.)
Exile target creature and all other creatures with the same name and controller as that creature. Your opponents can’t cast spells with that name for the rest of the game.
Centuries ago, equinity’s last hope claimed her first victim.
Piercing Light 3W
Sorcery
Destroy target artifact, enchantment, or tapped creature.
In Rarity’s hands, the magic of Harmony becomes a precision tool that eradicates problems quickly, cleanly, and elegantly.
Crystalline Defense U
Instant
Buyback 3 (You may pay an additional 3 as you cast this spell. If you do, put this card into your hand as it resolves.)
Target creature you control gains hexproof until end of turn.
Diamonds are a girl’s best ward.
Backup Holograms 2U
Creature — Illusion Band
Whenever Backup Holograms becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it unless you sacrificed a Song this turn.
”They won’t be winning over Neighponese crowds any time soon, but they’ll do.”
—Vignette Valencia
4/4
Fashion Without Form 2U
Enchantment
When Fashion Without Form enters the battlefield, manifest the top card of your library. (Put it onto the battlefield face down as a 2/2 creature. Turn it face up any time for its mana cost if it’s a creature card.)
Fabulosity 2U (2U: If this enchantment isn’t fabulous, put a gem counter on it and it becomes fabulous.)
1U: Turn target face-down creature face up. Activate this ability only if Fashion Without Form is fabulous. (if it’s an instant or sorcery, keep it face down.)
Flimflam Carnies 3U
Creature — Human Rogue
U, T: The next time target player would flip a coin or roll a die, you choose the result instead.
Few games of chance are actually left to it.
2/3
Snap Judgement 4U
Instant
Look at the top five cards of your library. Put two into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
Rarity can make or break a year’s worth of designs in a matter of seconds.
Compress BB
Sorcery
All creatures get -X/-X until end of turn, where X is the number of creatures on the battlefield minus 3. (If there are one or two creatures on the battlefield, their power and toughness don’t increase.)
In a world of billions, elbow room is an all-too-precious resource.
Frustrated Resignation 2B
Sorcery
Each opponent sacrifices a tapped creature.
Vignette’s mercurial whims and impossible demands soon left her with nothing but toadies and yes-men. She failed to see the problem.
Compounded Disasters 2BB
Sorcery
Target player loses 1 life, discards a card, and sacrifices a creature.
”Sometimes everything that can go wrong decides to do so all at the same time.”
—Rarity
Undying Determination 3BB
Enchantment
Whenever a creature you control dies, you may pay B. If you do, return that card to its owner’s hand.
For all the progress she’s made, Sunset still will not tolerate failure.
Bold New Vision 3R
Enchantment
When Bold New Vision enters the battlefield or the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice a creature. If you do, reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a creature card. Put that card onto the battlefield, then put all other cards revealed this way on the bottom of your library in a random order.
Smoothie Bumbler 3R
Creature — Human Citizen
Players can’t gain life.
He needed work. So does his technique.
4/3
Apple Peddler 1G
Creature — Human Citizen
Soulbond (You may pair this creature with another unpaired creature when either enters the battlefield. They remain paired for as long as you control both of them.)
As long as Apple Peddler is paired with another creature, each of those creatures has “T: Add one mana of any color.”
0/2
“Photo Booth” 1G
Enchantment — Song
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a verse counter on “Photo Booth”.
2G, Sacrifice “Photo Booth”: Until end of turn, up to two target creatures get +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the number of verse counters on “Photo Booth”. If those creatures are paired with each other, they gain indestructible and hexproof until end of turn.
Befuddled Farmhand 2G
Creature — Human Citizen
Protection from artifacts
”Darn newfangled gizmos. The world was a lot better before all these bleeps and bloops.”
3/2
Degenerate Siren 2G
Creature — Siren Horse
Degenerate Siren must be blocked if able.
R: Target creature can’t block Degenerate Siren this turn.
”These bodies are horrible things, but keeping our old ones in this world would have been even worse.”
—Adagio Dazzle
3/1
Salvaged Armaments 3G
Enchantment — Aura
Delve (Each card you exile from your graveyard while casting this spell pays for 1.)
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +3/+3.
”It’s not dumpster diving, it’s recycling!”
—Pinkie Pie
Honed Katana 2
Artifact — Equipment
Equipped creature gets +1/+1, has bushido 1, and is a Samurai in addition to its other types. (Whenever it blocks or becomes blocked, it gets +1/+1 until end of turn.)
Equip 2
Honor given shape.
Rainbow Coaster 3
Artifact — Vehicle
Rainbow Coaster can’t be blocked by monocolored creatures.
Crew 3
Crew with multicolored 1 (Tap any number of multicolored creatures you control with total power 1 or more: This Vehicle becomes an artifact creature until end of turn.)
5/3
Applesauce Vat 4
Artifact
Tap an untapped creature you control: Put a charge counter on Applesauce Vat.
2, T: Remove all charge counters from Applesauce Vat. Add G for each counter removed this way.
”Less chatter, more splatter.”
—Granny Smith
Electronic Mailman 4
Aritfact Creature — Construct
When Electronic Mailman dies, draw a card.
With Equestria’s magic comes its love of puns.
2/2
Vignette, Cyberpsychopath UBR
Legendary Creature — Human Rogue
3B, Sacrifice another creature: Exile target creature.
1UR: Create a colorless Illusion creature token with power equal to the power of target creature card exiled with Vignette and toughness equal to that card’s toughness. Exile that token at the beginning of the next end step.
2/2
Upload 1(wb)U
Instant
Exile target creature. That creature’s controller draws a card.
Before the transferees lose themselves in the infinite flow of data, they send back one final missive hinting at the wonders to be found in cyberspace.
Nerd Chic 1WU
Enchantment — Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 for each artifact you control.
Fabulosity — WU, Tap three untapped artifacts you control.
As long as Nerd Chic is fabulous, artifacts you control have hexproof.
Haunted Castle
Land
T: Add C.
T: Add W. Activate this ability only if you control a Swamp.
T: Add B. Activate this ability only if you control a Plains.
The souls within echo Nightmare Moon’s madness and remorse.
Wait... If the Sirens have been in the world for millennia, could they have influenced pop culture to create Equestria Land???
No, they were pre-Nightmare Moon?
But what else could've been dumped through? No, nothing should've been dumped through, after Nightmare Moon??
Remember, kids, use the Snapglob and Instasmacks and your brain will rot! Go outside! Talk to people! Listen to what I am saying to you, I am obviously important!
Magnetism is negligible given the other forces involved. The way these things are usually rigged is by unbalancing weights in the rings.
It's important to remember that rigged doesn't nescessarily mean cheating just that the game is set up to seem simple and easy while in reality it's actually alot harder to win then expected, like a claw game.
I honestly didn't mind the white room reveal. I was initially disappointed that they seemed to be reusing the plot from Mirror Magic but then honestly laughed when it was revealed to be a random white room. The fact that it's implied the room wasn't even locked made it even funnier.
God damn the shipping is strong in this one, I'm pretty sure the show staff would make RariJack official in an instant if they were allowed to. At least EQG is making sure it earns that TV-Y7 Rating.
4897218
I'm thinking maybe both in this case, with magnets being the weights. That first ring Twi threw was a ringer, but then popped off. So my guess is the weights are the first line of defense against a win, with maybe electromagnets in the bottles to throw off anything that does land. Probably triggered by a hidden switch or remote.
Prior to the second movie, the portal between worlds was open every thirty moons. It’s highly unlikely that nobody else managed to slip between the two worlds in the Mirror’s thousand-year-plus existence. Maybe one of them just happened to be not-Walt Disney.
4897262
Write it.
I sure related to Applejack when looking at Vignette's social media account... I don't see the big deal with self-indulgent selfies like that--heck, I find it obnoxious (like Vignette herself). I usually just take pictures to show that I'm doing something I want to remember, like visiting a really cool place or having fun with my family. Even then, I prefer posting art and stories, because my imagination is wild and I need an outlet.
I found this an... okay special. It had a lot of great moments, but this villain is just so weak. I was hoping that she'd use that phone to change things into her vision instead of a repeat of what Juniper Montage did to the Humane Seven (although the prospect of teleporting a large crowd into a small room, leading to who-knows-how-many people getting crushed to death, is kinda horrifying).
I just assumed that Rarity was to thank for the Dagi-siren suit.
Like you, I'm rather perplexed by Equestria Land and all the questions it raises, and I'm not sure I like the direction EqG's world-building has been going lately. When this franchise started out, the human world was just presented as a bizarre alternate universe. The thousand year old alicorn's counterpart might be an ordinary high school principal in this world, but both worlds undeniably had a Celestia. But then starting with the reveal of Tirek being a video game character in the human world, we've started getting this "Equestria is human fiction" trend, and it really clashes when you see examples of both approaches side by side. The one that bothers me the most is Nightmare Moon being an Equestria Land character, when Luna is a real human woman who works at the local high school, and there's apparently no relation between the two. That's just weird.
Aside from that, this special was okay. It wasn't the most original thing, and there were a few questionable moments, but I liked the novelty of a Rarity and Applejack-centric special, I thought the white room joke was funny, and I liked that it condemned rampant social media obsession. Vignette was horrible and annoying, but I think she was supposed to be, so that's fine. I did like how much of a complete sociopath she was. It was a nice change of pace from previous villains and their at least semi-sympathetic motivations. I wish she hadn't been forgiven and let off the hook at the end, given that, but hey, that's just what happens to villains in this franchise, so whatever.
Also, I really like her power. Seriously, her ability is a phone that can teleport anything it photographs to a random white room, and then construct a 3D hologram of the subject of that photograph, which she can then alter at will. That is such a convoluted and weirdly specific ability. It's basically a fucking Stand. And just like Movie Magic and Forgotten Friendship, the battle against her is more like a puzzle than a fight, as the girls are separated early on, and can't just rainbow laser the problem away until the main character first figures out how their enemy's power works, and then overcomes it on their own to reunite the gang. Just like a Stand battle. They even have to attack the phone with their powers rather than Vignette directly. Seriously, EqG at this point has gone full JoJo, and I love it.
Now I am envisioning a card mockup of a smiling Celest-AI on a computer monitor with pony Equestria as background :)
4897204
I think 4897262 has the right of it. Equestria directly inspiring some animation pioneer makes a great deal of sense. It would even explain how Celestia had what little knowledge she claimed about the human world back in the first movie; she got it secondhoof.
4897271
Vignette did remodel the Rainbooms; she just didn't have a chance to make much use of her abilities, be they teleportation or hologram projection, before the girls stopped her. (And all things considered, that's probably a good thing.) But yeah, at the end of the day, this one seems more useful as a toolbox for other stories than as a story in its own right.
4897370
I've considered the possibility, but I'm not sure if that's too petty for Rarity or precisely petty enough.
4897371
As noted above, I think Zennistrad's onto something with the "fiction based on a trip to actual Magic-Horseland" hypothesis. As for Tirek, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the video game antagonist were based on an actual historical or mythological figure in the human world.
Also, it was an enjoyably novel approach to have the villain start as a monster rather than turn into one. Though I have to wonder what to call her Stand. I'd suggest『Take a Selfie』but that's the last thing Vignette should do with it.
4897406
Hey, with a name like Upload, is it any wonder my mind turned to the Optimalverse?
4897446
I like the general idea of "fiction based on a trip to actual Magic-Horseland," but it's still got problems. This is clearly a well-established franchise that Equestria Land is based upon, so whoever went to or came from Equestria to get the inspiration must have done so a long time ago. Yet the Dragonlands and dragons in general were a mystery to ponies until Ember took over as Dragon Lord, which was a very recent event. And unless Rarity was responsible for the Adagio costume, then we can count Sirens as another obscure piece of Equestrian history that I wouldn't expect our hypothetical world-hopping Walt Disney to know about.
And none of this solves the problem of Tirek, either. Even if the video game character is based on a mythological figure, that would still make Tirek explicitly fictional in a world where everyone else minus Discord seems to have human counterparts. And if the video game character is based on a real historical figure, then we have to answer the questions of either why Tirek is still a centaur in the human world, or why human Tirek inspired a centaur character. I mean, Vlad Tepes inspired Dracula, but even Dracula was still humanoid. Maybe video game Tirek is like... Castlevania's interpretation of Dracula, or something.
I'm being pedantic about this, I know, but it just bothers me, because I know there's not actually any canon answer to this.
Also, what are you talking about? Her Stand name is obviously『Jem and the Holograms』
When Vignette first tested her magic phone and created the salad, I didn't realize it was even a hologram. I thought it was an edited replication. With the visible screen bars and static, I thought that was an indication of the materialization still finishing. That or a stylistic indicator for the audience (like Chrysalis's clones having a gray filter). I thought we would get a new Goth!Fluttershy, and a Fifties!Rainbow Dash. I was extremely let down when I realized they weren't characters at all, and didn't even seem to interact with anything.
Also, what are you pulling from with the card about the katana?
4897699
I did suspect that mind and/or wardrobe control might be involved. Still not sure whether or not I'm happy that that wasn't the case...
Honed Katana comes from Microchips asking Applejack for, among other things, "a samurai sword" to cut through the caramel in which he covered himself. Pony-based excuses to draw on Kamigawa block mechanics are few and far between, and that one was a layup.
I loved the white room reveal and was hoping for a land card. Oh well, guess I'll have to write it myself, as well as mocking up... like, half of this. There's a good chunk of these that are just great. The first two especially stand out: Of course I can't resist a good "calories = life" card like Caramel Bonds, and I'd love to toss Fun Inspector in my Aurelia deck, as it already has Boon Reflection and plenty of opportunities to deal negligible damage to myself as part of a greater plan (Prodigal Pyromancer comes to mind).
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Thinking about it, I don't think land is the way to go...
Reception Area 2U
Enchantment
If a creature would be exiled, return it to its owner's hand instead.
"Oh good, we weren't disintegrated this time."
—Twilight Sparkle
a siren-form Adagio mascot costume!
I haven't even seen the episode yet, just screenshots, and this is the funniest thing I've seen in a long while. Part of me wants to think that's Adagio inside of it as this is the only job she and her sisters can get right now.
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Wouldn't it have looked better if Rarity made it?
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She's under both pressure and a deadline, and the girl has had her moments of pettiness.
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Why are we wondering about pioneers who have visited Equestria in the distant past. We already know who it is,
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Vignette is just her employee, park was entirely her idea. She probably wonders why Majesty wished herself a pair of wings and renamed Ponyland to Equestria, Rainbow of Light slows her aging, considering it has all 6 elements in one.
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I suppose I can see a smiling Rarity handing that outfit over to Adagio. Of course Dagi will try and get revenge at some point.
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Well Vlad inspired a vampire by eating his dinners in fornal dress while watching his enemies be impaled. Stick historical "Tirek" on a horse with a big horned helmet and you have an iconic look that can be repurposed into a horned centaur monster.
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I believe both series are still getting better in many respects. Villain redemptions is not one of those things.
Gleefully erasing people from reality (as she said was one possible option, she obviously didn't give a flying feather) should lead to more than just a pouty "I don't have any friends, I'm just popular on social media. Woe is me."
Especially when everything points to her not having been corrupted by the magic, but by the power it gave her. She was already prone to abusing any and all authority over others.
Which is especially frustrating as Vignette was really easy to hate as a bad guy. Shallow, cruel, self-centered, she was fun to watch and to dislike. So why don't we get the actual emotional catharsis of actually seen her taken down? They can still reform her afterwards, whatever.
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Well, now, that might explain a lot.
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...Huh. So the forced last-minute redemptions really are forced. I suppose it's good to keep your franchise thematically consistent and on-message, but I do wish the writers had more creative freedom with this sort of thing. EG doesn't have any recurring villains like the show does. Maybe it would if this restriction weren't in place.
How has it taken me this long to discover that some wonderful person has combined the ideas of blogging their insightful thoughts on each episode (as good as the Everything Right/Wrong With series) along with designing really well-designed Magic cards based on the episode?? Your work is awesome and I'm going to be reading through a whoole lot of your (terrifyingly prolific) past blog posts...
The most memorable moment reading the cards here was that I love how "Photo Booth" grants extra bonuses if the two target creatures are
shippedpaired. It was not subtle, that song, was it?4929767
Enjoy! I have accumulated quite a backlog over the years. And yeah, they weren't even hiding it.
Jordan179’s story I Guess It Doesn’t Matter Anymore has a possible solution to the Nightmare Moon issue. One of the bits of lore in that story says that 1000 years ago, earlier incarnations of Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna ruled as the Angel Sisters, or the Sun-Queen and Moon-Queen. However, when the Sun-Queen killed Nightmare Moon instead of banishing her to the Moon, the Cosmic Concepts decided to do away with having the Sisters be immortal avatars, and instead decided to create mortal avatars which would reincarnate continuously. Presumably, Equestria Land’s Nightmare Moon attraction was inspired by the legend created by those events.
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Huh. I've read I Guess it Doesn't Matter Anymore (and pretty much all of Jordan179's work, because the SWSV is amazing,) but either I missed something, I didn't read sufficiently between the lines, or Jordan posted a comment explaining this that I never saw; my own recollections of that story don't recall any explicit mention of immortal god-queens.
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The only things in the story itself were vague references to the Moon-Queen. I do remember Jordan explaining the rest somewhere, but I can’t remember where.