Points of Canon: Rollercoaster of Friendship

I only have this and the Choose Your Own Ending series left remaining to complete my collection of televised Equestria Girls material, I think. And since those latter are inherently self-contradictory, I can’t consider them canon until a different story corroborates one of the alternatives, so I’m not in a hurry to analyze them.

And once I’m done with this one, I suppose it’s time for another RTAC series post…

• Chronology markers: Legends of Everfree is an obvious dependency, and certain statements within make Mirror Magic a hard lock too. Statements inside certify it’s summer.

  I also suspect that, unless Pedestrian school actually is eternal, this is currently the chronologically latest episode of televised Pedestrian canon, occurring sometime in early Summer 4P – i.e. after the end of high school. Why:

  • They’re basically running out of summers anyway. It is possible for Legends of Everfree to occur in late Spring 3P, since it’s called a “field trip” rather than a “summer camp”, even though the latter is what that trip resembles the most, the season is not hard locked to summer by any lines I could find. However, it still needs to be followed by not one but two yearbooks.
  • Rarity sought a summer job. But then she gets offered and immediately accepts a job that goes way beyond a summer job – a “lead parade costume designer” is something a theme park like this would have need of all year round, since parades are something it does regularly. This job involves bossing around a number of people, and even one parade includes a hundred cast members. It’s a career starter, not a summer job – and a damn good career starter too.
  • This episode is shippy to the extent hardly ever observed before – the only one that comes even close is the much shorter Star Crossed, and even the ship itself seems to be treated by the characters as a much more mature and serious affair than a date.

  They never say anything outright, of course, but the story makes considerably more sense if they’re not going back to school in September, or at least, not going back to CHS.

• “Experience the world like you’ve never seen it before, at the one, the only, Equestria Land!”

  • 1. With the exception of Dewey, who only gets mentioned because Photo Finish can’t keep her mouth shut

    Notice right off that “Vignette Valencia” is a much more human name than just about any Pedestrian name caught so far¹ – the given name “Vignette” might be unusual, but wouldn’t be too much out of place, and “Valencia” is an actual surname.

  • And at the same time, Equestria is leaking into Pedestria somehow anyway – especially strange, because the amusement park shown has no pony theme whatsoever, not even a pony mascot.
• “Where am I gonna find a new costume designer for the light parade with only two weeks left?” The actual problem Vignette should be worrying about isn’t that she isn’t going to find a designer in time, but that whatever designer she does find won’t be able to finish the job in time. But then she could blame it on the designer, I suppose.
• “I need a stress salad!” As far as I’ve been able to determine, this term is unique to Vignette, or at least, to Pedestria – googling comes up with no clear hits other than itself. Later on, Fluttershy implies she recognized it as a “stress salad,” and Rainbow outright declares it such immediately upon seeing it. I am not exactly sure what differentiates a stress salad from any other kind.
• This is the third incident so far observed with a random wisp of magic infecting a random object. The previous ones were in Mirror Magic and My Little Shop of Horrors.
• “Only way to feel better is getting ten thousand likes with the perfect salad pic.” Later, Vignette cites 3 million followers. 0.33% followers liking her pictures actually sounds kinda low, and something she should be worrying about.
• “Hey, did somebody install a new app on my phone?” Trusting anyone to install apps on your phone when you’re the public face of a company and depend on your social media popularity for your livelihood is a recipe for disaster, but notice that Vignette says “somebody,” implying that multiple people might have had access and she can’t even name the whole list.
• “’Cause I like it!” She probably thinks it really is a new app. Sufficiently advanced technology and all that.
• The mall has two separate recycling bins for recyclable and non-recyclable trash. Good to know.
• “Rarity and I applied for summer jobs at the new theme park.” See above for chronology considerations.
• “Applejack, you’re perfect for the job. And, well, my résumé is less apple-centric.” Notice that a caramel apple girl job still involved a resume. I don’t think service industry jobs like these typically do, do they? Might well be wrong here.
• “That was about as calm as Pinkie Pie on Cake Day.” Pinkie’s reaction implies that this is a specific day that she could miss, but what exactly did Sunset mean?
• “Okay, okay. Same time. One, two…” This scene is relentless shipping fuel. Especially coupled with the later “We planned to spend the summer together, and… that’s what we’re going to do. Riiiiiiiight?” from Rarity. Notice that Applejack quit her old job for that prospect. Nothing is outright declared, of course, but this theme continues throughout the episode, and even gets distracting at times – Applejack being the only one to hug Rarity, showing facial expressions that look very much like jealousy, admitting jealousy verbally, etc, etc. Rarity, in turn, never calls anyone other than Applejack “darling” in this episode. What’s interesting is that there’s no buildup visible that would get the relationship to this state – and there’s nothing throughout the other numerous shorts that I would interpret as such a buildup either.

• “Obviously, the internet mailman gave you the wrong letter. I know that’s not how the internet works, but I’m trying to cheer you up.”

  • Actually, no, Pinkie, that’s exactly how the Internet works if the mail is automated and you don’t give the IT people enough time to do things properly. If the mail is not automated, though, it’s all on HR.
  • While saying that, Pinkie sticks her fruit cocktail paper cup into her hair, and it remains there for quite a while. She later uses her hair to store a park map…
• “Just a sale at Stinky Bottom’s Discount Hat Emporium.” Pedestria also has such an establishment. The Equestrian one was mentioned in The Saddle Row Review. Notice that Applejack is registered to receive sales ads from the place.
• “This has been your dream since… since kindy-garten.” “Mmm… Preschool, actually.” I can’t exactly figure out the distinction. Can anyone elaborate?

• “My name is Vignette Valencia, and to answer your first question, yes, I’m that ‘Vignette,’ but no, I do not think I’m better than you just because I have three million followers on SnapGab.”

  • Vignette might be an uncommon name, but is not unique in Pedestria.
  • SnapGab is an Instagram-workalike. Whether Instagram itself exists or not remains unknown.
• “I don’t even know why you applied for a job like that. Not with a SnapGab feed like yours.” Rarity had her own SnapGab feed, and either listed it on her resume or had it discoverable by her full name. Which is it?
• “And before I forget, don’t put anything on that table. Especially your phone. No reason. Just a super-important rule I made up, ’kay?” That feels a bit non-sequitur. I’m not sure if this is the same table where her phone was when the magic found it or not, and even if it is – why would Vignette ascribe any importance to the table, when she initially correctly concluded it was her phone?
• “I could not be happier… makin’ foot-stompin’ applesauce the old-fashioned way with my family.” Considering the technique isn’t even normally used with grapes except for show purposes, and I doubt it would work with apples at all, I wonder what the deal is here.
• “I wouldn’t miss your big night for the world! Whoa!” Chances a ~2015 phone survived dropping into a vat of applesauce like this are pretty low, and increase with years as more phones get glued shut and waterproofed.
• Trixie, Lyra and Bon-Bon appear to have come to the park together. I wonder what connects Trixie with those two. I also wonder why exactly are they running away scared from a haunted house.
• “What should we do first? Appleloosa Wild West Stunt Show? Nightmare Moon’s Haunted Castle? Sugarcube Everything?!” All of these are things in this park. Notice that we don’t actually see a haunted castle in the park, just a house. In fact, most of the objects the park supposedly contains are not readily identifiable on screen.

• “Uh, which character is that?”

  • We actually never see any characters, do we?
  • Notice Photo Finish taking the photo.

• “She’s famous on SnapGab, which you’d know if you actually logged in once in a while. You’re missing my ‘One Cupcake Every Day’ series.”

  • Applejack eschews SnapGab, but does have an account.
  • Pinkie ran a series of daily posts for we don’t know how long.
• “Why, she’s my best friend at the park!” Notice that this cheek kissing ritual is not something we’ve ever seen the Humane 7 do amongst each other, or, well, do at all.
• “I’m your… ‘friend’… who gets to boss you around!” Notice that Rarity had to signal to the others to laugh at that. Notice also that they understood. Except Applejack, apparently.
• “Rainbooms? Why is that familiar? A hundred thousand followers?” Rainbooms have a social media page with 100k followers. That’s actually ridiculously good for a school band, and a good start to an independent music career!
• “Focused consumer-centric demographic, too? Does your curated content consistently aggregate across multiple platforms?” This phrase is a bullshit word salad start to finish. Now, it’s a question whether Vignette believes that it’s bullshit or not, and whether Nick Confalone meant it to be bullshit or not.
• “That’s been my power phrase since I started my first company. A middle school girl selling artisanal handmade mascara.” Does that seriously count as a company anywhere though?…
• “Logistical question: How’re we supposed to get our instruments?” Actually, here’s a counter-question: Why would this be an issue?
• “What did you have in mind? Dragon Lands Drag Racing? Ooh, the Appleloosa Runaway Train! Ooh, Neighagara Falls Barrel Flume?!” And all of these are also things at the park.

• “Excuse me! I know I am not seeing a lapped zipper on that faux fur! A lapped zipper is simply a stuck zipper waiting to happen!”

  • Rarity is addressing pretty much the only trace of actual Equestrian imagery in the park: a heavily mutated siren – Equestrian, reptilian form – mascot character.
  • That doesn’t look like a lapped zipper – if it did, cartoon resolution wouldn’t let us see it at all.
  • For that matter, what kind of zipper finish would Rarity pick for faux fur, other than a lapped zipper?…
• “I mean, look, a four-hundred-foot vertical drop right into these loop-de-loops and a corkscrew?” Rainbow is pretty afraid of this rollercoaster herself – more so, in fact, than anyone else riding with her. We’ve seen Equestrian Rainbow push her fear onto others before, but Pedestrian Rainbow is afraid more than the average human around her.
• “Uh, Applejack. You’re who they hired to be the caramel apple… girl?” Remember Nine to Five? The party in the Apple barn to which Micro Chips was invited and, say, Flash wasn’t? Here, apparently, he doesn’t recognize Applejack for some mysterious reason.
• “Vignette said she wanted cool nerd chic. I’d say she found it. Wouldn’t you?” Why would Vignette want that here, I wonder.
• “I don’t understand. You want me to pretend I’m someone else tonight?” Notice that Rainbow is not present when Vignette accosts Fluttershy: Vignette, presumably, summoned her through a message, and she left Rainbow alone. I wouldn’t trust her with this park alone…
• “All caps, Helvetica, sixty-five. ‘Fluttershy: Bad Girl.’ Spiked hair, ripped tights.” Helvetica definitely doesn’t go with spiked hair, ripped tights or bad girls. The only way Vignette could certify she has no taste better is by specifying Comic Sans.

• “I’ve already commissioned an A-list graffiti/sneaker artist to tag up a custom guitar.” This is accompanied by showing a sketch on her phone.

  • Notice that to do this, one would have to be on call. Or Sunset. That said, nothing prevents Vignette from outright lying here, and I doubt she can tell one graffiti artist from another in the first place.
  • The guitar on the sketch is pinkish purple, which is hardly a color to associate with bad girls either.
  • Notice that Vignette didn’t even wonder which instrument does Fluttershy play.
• “You’re right. If collab-ing isn’t your thing, that’s your life decision to make.” More misuse of buzzwords.

• “You like prizes? We got prizes!”

  • Even the prizes in this park are rather generic stuffed animals, though some of them are horse-like.
  • What happened to the pawn shop Flim and Flam had in A Case for the Bass?

• 2. Electromagnets under the table would be my preferred method.

  “Do you know what’s not rigged? The laws of physics. Assuming no air resistance and a vertical displacement of zero, horizontal displacement equals initial projectile velocity squared times the sine of twice the launch angle divided by the acceleration due to gravity.” Assuming this messy line with “horizontal displacement” and “vertical displacement” means “the projectile lands at the same altitude it started from”, Twilight means to say d = \frac{v^2 sin(2\theta)}{g} which is exactly the variation of the formula given in Wikipedia for the simplest case of ballistic projectile. The same formula turns up in Twilight’s notebook later, with the correct syntax, but an unreadable \theta that looks like a 0.

  • The problem with this formula is that launching a projectile far enough should be the least of Twilight’s worries.
  • The other problem with this formula is that the only connection it has with actual objects is g

    – which is a problem Twilight later recognizes.

  There is a number of ways to rig the rings to behave as they do in this scene,² but it should have been immediately obvious to both Twilight and Sunset that there is no legit way to get a ring to stick, after the first throw. Twilight should have switched to telekinesis, but didn’t…

• “Let there be light!” Did Rarity seriously try to light up a costume with mains voltage?… She should know better.
• “Uh, have you seen Fluttershy? See, she went wanderin’ off with Vignette and then just disappeared.” So how exactly does Applejack know that? The last Humane 7 member we’ve seen with Fluttershy was Rainbow. Why is Applejack searching for Fluttershy, but Rainbow apparently isn’t?
• “I don’t like to lose.” Good to know, and not really a trait Sunset had a chance to display before.
• “Oh, she was with me, super scared of this ride, but I think she went off with Vignette.” Full stop. Now, the obvious explanation is that this scene is out of order, and this is how Applejack even knew Fluttershy went missing. But then another question arises: Why was Applejack looking for Fluttershy in the first place, if that really is the scene where she found out that Fluttershy went off with Vignette?
• “No frowning allowed!” Pinkie pulls down the map of the park Applejack is looking at as she says that, and this closeup of the map shows us another mascot character the park seems to have – some mutated version of Goofy in a sailor uniform, by the looks of it. It’s quite hideous.
• “It all looks the same! Is this real life? How long have we been here?” Twilight’s notebook contains a crude drawing of two girls winning a parakeet, which is your shipping fuel if you want any.

• “It’s a crime to fake security badges, you know. I’m a fake cop, but I can send ya to real jail! … Why didn’t ya tell me you were a Deputy Fun Inspector?!”

  • By itself, faking badges of any kind other than government-issued ID is not a crime in any jurisdiction, I’m pretty sure. Using them to impersonate someone might be, and even then not necessarily. That said, even a security guard who isn’t a senile old man would not necessarily know that, and even if they did, it’s in their interest to say otherwise.
  • This guy must’ve met Pinkie already.

• “I am so sorry about that, ma’am. Uh, here’s my workstation. It hasn’t been fun-inspected in years.”

  • Wait, full stop. How is it possible for a station to not have been inspected in years if the park is just opening today? Because in the beginning of the episode, Applejack says the park is “new!”
  • Notice that while this station does include five screens for CCTV and a block of what has to be video recorders for said CCTV, this is a two-guard station – there should be one watching the CCTV and one moving around, at least. A park of this size would need a lot more security. Radio noises indicate there probably are, but they would need at least a locker room, which isn’t present at this station.

• “You are going to represent the touchstones of cool throughout the ages! … How do you feel about shaving your head? I only ask ’cause you’ll definitely have to do it for the wig.”

  • Notice that the idea of touchstones of cool throughout the ages does not appear to cause rejection in Rainbow, but the actual description of the particular touchstone Vignette means for her does. I guess Rainbow doesn’t recognize that most of the things she considers uncool now once were thought of as cool.
  • Pretty sure that there would be no real need to shave the head to use a wig, even with Rainbow’s hair, but Vignette doesn’t have to know that.
• “Is Vignette zappin’ my friends with a magical phone?! … She makes ’em disappear, but where do they go?” The disappearance is sufficiently visible through cameras for Applejack to identify the phone as the cause and assume that the disappearance is not some kind of irreversible disintegration.
• “Aw, man! Are we trapped in a magical phone? Typical.” This line, as well as the much later “We’re no strangers to getting stuck in magical objects.” mean that Mirror Magic has already happened.
• “One hour until wheels up, everyone! The light parade waits for no one! Tick-tock! Tick-tock!” Notice that over time, Rarity accumulated much deeper responsibility for the parade than just clothing design.
• “Why am I seeing neon pink and yellow on that dragon’s tail?! Is this a beast of legend or a safety vest?!” No legit dragons in Pedestria.
• “I suppose Applejack has better things to do than final fittings and sound check!” Someone did get her unique guitar to the stage, though. Same about Rainbow’s unique guitar and Pinkie’s drum kit.

• “If you’re so innocent, then how do you explain this?! Say goodbye to your mannequin thingy!” So let me get this straight…

  1. Vignette realizes that she is about to have to prove her innocence. Already something mildly strange, since she certainly doesn’t believe anything she is doing is actually wrong, but whatever, let’s assume so.
  2. She finds someone else’s unprotected phone being charged. It’s turned off – no phones show this big battery-charging screen if they’re actually on, and they don’t show it all the time either, because burn-in – but even a cold start does not require a password or fingerprint or anything. Ok, lots of people are that careless with their phones. I guess NFC-based payment options or fingerprint readers have yet to catch on in Pedestria.
  3. Applejack does not realize that this is not Vignette’s phone. When it’s not the same model – even the camera is in a different location – and Vignette’s phone has a custom case that makes it really distinctive. Which is very hard not to notice, because she’s constantly handling the thing. But ok, maybe Applejack is not very observant.
  4. At no point the Humane 7 even consider that this demonstration might’ve failed simply because Applejack didn’t invoke the phone’s magic correctly, so we very nearly get a repeat of the Canterlot Wedding in Pedestria – and that, I find very, very dubious…

  Oh well, the story is what it is. I guess they’re all just tired.

• “But that’s what she does to everyone! YOU’RE NOT SPECIAL!” That obviously came out wrong, but notice that it would only be properly hurtful if previously Applejack said the opposite, and on screen, she never did.
• “The Throwbacks, formerly known as the Rainbooms.” Now, here’s a logical problem… Vignette’s interest in the Rainbooms is predicated on their 100k follower count, as seen when she is first introduced to the name. Rebranding them down to the name immediately before the performance would basically throw this asset away, and runs contrary to her stated purposes. Even assuming an unstated purpose of siphoning off their 100k follower count somehow, through getting herself into the band, the rebranding would not help it. Does she actually have any idea what is she doing and why?… See the pet theory regarding the effects of magic on Pedestrians proposed while chewing through Mirror Magic – Vignette is apparently getting stupider and moodier as the episode goes on, producing decisions which are more and more irrational.
• “Now then… That’s better.” Notice the faux Rainbow still sports rainbow, rather than blonde hair that Vignette initially wanted, when faux-Fluttershy’s outfit is more or less exactly as Vignette described.
• “At least Rarity and Applejack are still free. Maybe they can get us out of here.” Notice that neither Fluttershy nor Rainbow actually did eat the stress salad for some reason, it’s still untouched.

• “It worked! Applejack, we’re stuck in Vignette’s phone! I found a way to hack her apple popper app to route a VoIP connection to your IP address!”

  • This is only possible if Applejack’s service provider assigns public IP addresses to phones – otherwise Twilight would have to hack a lot more than just Vignette’s phone – and that is only possible if it has adopted IPv6, or if the Pedestrian Internet is magnitudes smaller than ours, which would have made Vignette’s 3 million followers a much bigger deal.
  • Applejack’s service provider sets up VoIP on their phones by default – there’s no way Applejack did it herself – which is a very interesting policy that implies rather eccentric pricing plans, heavily slanted towards Internet use even for users interested in talking minutes.
  • Notice that an easier way didn’t work: Fluttershy’s phone was not responding, and yet we know this isn’t a pseudospace so much as it is a locked room. Was the room shielded from the start, or did the phone’s magic take care of that?
• “You’ll need to remotely install a virus that creates a backdoor admin account, which you can use to reset all the permissions on her phone and make a proxy backup.” Notice that the idea to simply wrestle Vignette for her phone – or even the idea of a phone that isn’t locked by default – did not occur to Twilight, when Applejack, with her super strength, would have quite an easy time doing it. That said, the term “proxy backup” is a bit meaningless in this context…
• Twilight’s actual voice is heard first, and the voice from the phone is delayed by about 200ms. Possibly less. Which is actually pretty quick for such a roundabout signal path!
• “Then she took my picture, and I ended up here, violating all known laws of space and time.” Notice that Micro Chips doesn’t suppose his senses are failing him at any point, instead, he immediately assumes laws of physics were violated.
• “If her phone teleports that many people into this tiny room at the same time…!” Actually, there’s no way the entire park’s crowd would fit into the frame – at best, a thousand people at a time, and Vignette’s actual screen shows that no more than fifteen people in a time fit with her default settings. Still, the risk exists.
• “Our friends are in that crowd!” Which particular friends is Rarity talking about, I wonder? Because the Humane 7 are all here.
• “I’m sure Vignette’s getting more corrupted by Equestrian magic every minute!” Notice the acknowledgement that Equestrian magic is corruptive from Sunset. I expect that doesn’t come easy.

• Notable things at the parade:

  • The non-costume costumes seen in the very beginning of the episode are somehow retained, despite Rarity’s efforts.
  • The siren costume coexists with the wild west cowboys, and I do wonder what the story behind that is supposed to be.
  • Vignette can’t sing worth a damn, and apparently didn’t know that.
• “No amount of online success is worth it without my real life friends to share in it!” Rarity has never been in a situation where she doesn’t have any real life friends at all due to being the only gay eskimo in her tribe. Lucky girl.
• “People are saying that rainbow laser thing was the coolest light parade show they’ve ever seen!” At least, that gets rid of the masquerade problem: The crowd thinks this was part of the show.

Some analysis

• To date, all three objects that are known to have been infected by randomly floating magic wisps – the mirror, the watering can, the phone – were various shades of electrically conductive and likely to contain aluminum. The mirrors are silvered mostly with aluminum these days, most likely material for non-plastic watering cans is also aluminum – painted or anodized – and phones are often built on aluminum frames. Twilight’s original magic attractor device in Friendship Games seems to have been built inside a compact, for which aluminum is also a likely material. I wonder if there’s a connection.
• Notice that Vignette avoided the full demonization treatment – probably, due to never acquiring enough magic in her actual body – but did not avoid the other effects, they still manifested, just to a lesser degree.
• Naming the theme park “Equestria Land” is very weird: While the theme is reflected in naming the park elements, almost none of the Equestrian imagery seems to have filtered through. What’s the story with that? How did that work? Why don’t the Humane 7 comment on any of that? Sunset might not recognize the Appleloosa or Nightmare Moon, but there’s no way she doesn’t recognize Neighgara!

Comments

[Mitch H]

Preschool is like one or two years, before kindergarten, which is as much part of basic education as the numbered grades, to the extent that it's often referred to as 'K-12'. Preschools are independently run private services/schools, or part of dodgy government services intended to give a 'leg up' to the disadvantaged.

It's exceedingly controversial whether preschool offers any actual long-term advantage.

I really like the observation about aluminum being a magical conduit. Note that a lot of the major gemstones - rubies, emeralds, and sapphires - contain aluminum oxides. Thus, those geode things from Legend of Everfree onwards.

[DannyJ]

Repeating a comment I made on FOME'S blog for this special:

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.

This still applies. "Sugarcube Everything" is another strange one for this, since an actual Sugarcube Corner also already exists in this world. Equestria Land in general is supremely fucking strange, and in the entire run of Equestria Girls, it still bothers me more than almost anything else.

[Samey90]

“Hey, did somebody install a new app on my phone?” Trusting anyone to install apps on your phone when you’re the public face of a company and depend on your social media popularity for your livelihood is a recipe for disaster

Or maybe she thinks she'll get more followers if her nudes get leaked.

I don’t think service industry jobs like these typically do, do they?

I had to bring a resume to work in Tesco. No interview, though - they just called and asked me to come to work.

[Super Saiyan D]

Been puttin' in work lately, Oli.

[howard035]

The final countdown.

I also suspect that, unless Pedestrian school actually is eternal, this is currently the chronologically latest episode of televised Pedestrian canon, occurring sometime in early Summer 4P – i.e. after the end of high school.

This is exactly what I was afraid of. This movie really feels like it is set after the end of high school, for many reasons you've pointed out. And it fits a lot better with all the previous movies and shorts if it is summer 4P. The big problem is we know there will be future movies and shorts that show the girls in class, so declaring this in summer 4P feels like setting ourselves up for major problems down the road.

It may end with us all endorsing Mitch's idea, that in this little universe, as Bowling for Soup so famously warned us, "High School Never Ends."

Notice right off that “Vignette Valencia” is a much more human name than just about any Pedestrian name caught so far

But isn't Valencia a subtype of orange, amongst other things? Is it really less of a pony name than Golden Delicious?

“Only way to feel better is getting ten thousand likes with the perfect salad pic.” Later, Vignette cites 3 million followers.

It also pushes back against the "tiny bubble dimension idea" if there are 3 million other people following Vignette.

I don’t think service industry jobs like these typically do, do they? Might well be wrong here.

These days they seem to. She could also be using resume as slang for job experience, which is something I've heard.

This scene is relentless shipping fuel.

Yeah, this whole movie makes human Rarity and Applejack about as shipped as Bon Bon and Lyra.

I can’t exactly figure out the distinction. Can anyone elaborate?

At least in the US, pre-school usually refers to daycare up to kindergarten, and then kindergarten is the first year of class.

That’s actually ridiculously good for a school band, and a good start to an independent music career!

The videos of them displaying magical powers probably help. They may also help hide their magic, ironically. Every time people say "those girls are using magical powers," people assume it's a stunt to promote the band.

This phrase is a bullshit word salad start to finish.

It actually makes perfect sense to me. Valencia is noting that the Rainbooms fanbase is focused in the demographic that advertisers love because they are heavy consumers, and asking if their videos, which she assumes are curated, are evenly spread across multiple forms of social media, thus testing if the Rainbooms have been doing a good job building a large, profitable fanbase hedged amongst the dominant platforms. This in turn determines if giving them space in the parade will generate significant new followers and engagement towards Vignette herself and the park.

God it's depressing that I know that.

• “What did you have in mind? Dragon Lands Drag Racing? Ooh, the Appleloosa Runaway Train! Ooh, Neighagara Falls Barrel Flume?!” And all of these are also things at the park.

Do we have a theory yet on how Pedestria has the names for not only cities that it could easily have local equivalents of, like Manehatten or Appleloosa, but the Dragon Lands, which Pedestria could not have. I ask because this park could be a fictional setting, or a historical setting, but right now it seems like a weird mix of both.

• Rarity is addressing pretty much the only trace of actual Equestrian imagery in the park: a heavily mutated siren – Equestrian, reptilian form – mascot character.

I can't live in a world where that's not Adagio under that costume.

Notice that to do this, one would have to be on call. Or Sunset.

Considering the size of the city, and how famous "Flanksy" seemed to be in that short, I suspect whoever this graffiti artist is, they're taking credit for Sunset's work.

• “You’re right. If collab-ing isn’t your thing, that’s your life decision to make.” More misuse of buzzwords.

Again, I've used collab-ing like this in my office. I looked up Nick Confalone to see if he's ever worked in social media or marketing, and the dude was/is a Vine star himself.

Nick Confalone is a children’s TV animation writer in Los Angeles who has written for Disney
Channel, Disney XD, Cartoon Network, Hasbro, and PBS. His Vines have been featured on
The Ellen Degeneres Show and CNN, screened in the Tribeca Film Festival, and listed among the
“Top 33 Vines of 2013” by Mashable. Professionally, he has created Vines for top international
brands including Amazon, AT&T, Disney, Gap Kids, and Unilever. He is currently Story Editing the
My Little Pony: Equestria Girls web series for Hasbro.

Interesting that he basically resembles Vignette Valencia.

• What happened to the pawn shop Flim and Flam had in A Case for the Bass?

Based on their Equestrian counterparts, they get bored of any business that's not at least a little shady (shadier than pawn shops and casinos, even). I bet if they were asked they would say this is to raise money for a new extension on the side of their pawn shop.

exactly the variation of the formula given in Wikipedia for the simplest case of ballistic projectile.

Hehe, the funny part is to me, this whole thing was word salad.

Twilight should have switched to telekinesis, but didn’t

Then she'd be cheating.

• This guy must’ve met Pinkie already.

Or in Pedestria, Fun Inspectors are a real thing! Perhaps they are part of the same agency as Federal Booty Inspectors?

How is it possible for a station to not have been inspected in years if the park is just opening today? Because in the beginning of the episode, Applejack says the park is “new!”

1)Maybe the park was bought by new owners and rebranded? 2)He said "fun-inspected." Maybe a Fun Inspector hasn't inspected it in years?

Notice that over time, Rarity accumulated much deeper responsibility for the parade than just clothing design.

In poorly managed workplaces like this (and clearly Vignette is a poor manager) power tends to accumulate to the one confident, competent employee, until the collapse under too much responsibility.

Oh well, the story is what it is. I guess they’re all just tired.

The characters or the writers?

See the pet theory regarding the effects of magic on Pedestrians proposed while chewing through Mirror Magic – Vignette is apparently getting stupider and moodier as the episode goes on, producing decisions which are more and more irrational.

Yup. You rebrand them after you've co-opted their members through initial performances. Honestly, Vignette never seems that smart at any part of this movie. She seems like a really hot girl who likes to pose on social media, got a bunch of followers, and clueless theme park executives hired her for her follower count rather than her intelligence.

Notice that the idea to simply wrestle Vignette for her phone – or even the idea of a phone that isn’t locked by default – did not occur to Twilight, when Applejack, with her super strength, would have quite an easy time doing it.

To be fair, depending on what Twilight knows of Vignette's phone powers, she could point and capture almost instantly, before Applejack got near her. That said, I had that same thought when watching this movie, that no one thought of just running up behind, grabbing it and running off. Maybe even the Rainbooms aren't totally immune to Pedestrian magic dampening their intellect?

Actually, there’s no way the entire park’s crowd would fit into the frame – at best, a thousand people at a time, and Vignette’s actual screen shows that no more than fifteen people in a time fit with her default settings. Still, the risk exists.

I was still shocked the film would even imply that everyone in the park will be squeezed into a horrible paste and murdered by being compressed in there.

I also wondered why Applejack didn't just use her strength to tear that building apart.

for which aluminum is also a likely material. I wonder if there’s a connection

I remember in early pony fics aluminum was treated as more valuable than gold, which it once was on earth. Aluminum is also the only isotope that has been on earth in its current form since the planet was formed. So I could see it being magically significant.

• Notice that Vignette avoided the full demonization treatment – probably, due to never acquiring enough magic in her actual body – but did not avoid the other effects, they still manifested, just to a lesser degree.

I guess you only transform if you wear the object.

My current theory is that the Dazzlings made some money on the side writing up fictional novels about "Equestria." Obviously the sirens have changed a lot since they sold the rights. Or, they are the hidden theme park executives, trying to use their stolen money to build a stable financial empire now that they can't use mind control, and the siren is there to throw off their enemies.

Overall a pretty bad movie unless you really like Rarijack shipping. At least we learn more about Sunset's character, she is still incredibly competitive.

[Oliver]

4965076

But isn’t Valencia a subtype of orange, amongst other things? Is it really less of a pony name than Golden Delicious?

“Golden” is not a valid human first name, is it? “Goldie” might be, but that’s not her name. “Vignette Valencia” is a valid pony name if “Valencia” is cultivar of orange, which would make it a hybrid name. Otherwise, it’s just a human name. In any case, it feels more human to the ear than any of them.

It also pushes back against the “tiny bubble dimension idea” if there are 3 million other people following Vignette.

Nobody ever saw those guys in one place at one time, so they are still allowed to be database records not corresponding to any actual people.

It actually makes perfect sense to me. Valencia is noting that the Rainbooms fanbase is focused in the demographic that advertisers love because they are heavy consumers, and asking if their videos, which she assumes are curated, are evenly spread across multiple forms of social media, thus testing if the Rainbooms have been doing a good job building a large, profitable fanbase hedged amongst the dominant platforms. This in turn determines if giving them space in the parade will generate significant new followers and engagement towards Vignette herself and the park.

Then you’ve seen more people misusing those terms too. I don’t just say that, I honestly tried to parse the phrase:

“Focused consumer-centric demographic, too?”

A demographic is a selection of an audience where the selection proceeds according to demographic criteria – primarily age and gender. Due to the way different age groups have common characteristics, as a human’s social life goes through multiple stages with relatively short transitional periods between them, this is a useful selection criterion. As such, a “demographic” cannot be “consumer centric” – all demographics contain consumers, just for radically different products. Valid things that can be consumer centric are policies, strategies, campaigns – but not demographics. Different elements of this phrase simply do not go together.

“Does your curated content consistently aggregate across multiple platforms?”

Curated content is content that someone, a “curator”, selects for publication, just like a museum’s curator’s primary job is to select what gets exhibited. The most common situation is curating as part of aggregation, i.e. selecting various items from other feeds to repost in your own as your primary posting activity, a less common is selecting what gets published at all. The phrase “your curated content” would imply that the Rainbooms curate content, which I’m pretty sure they don’t do, not on their band page – the band page is a source of content, not an aggregator, and there’s no way they generate enough content to need to curate it before posting at all, there’s only seven of them.

Let us be charitable and assume that by the phrase “your curated content” Vignette means “your content that others curated” which would be grammatically awkward but possible. The word “aggregate” means “assemble in one place” – in the context of social media, typically, in one feed, which is by nature contained in one platform, even if it is duplicated. So the phrase “consistently aggregate across multiple platforms” makes no sense at all. But even if it did, while the metrics on one platform might be available to the Rainbooms, unless they have their own feed on multiple platforms, and everyone reposts that in turn instead of going to the primary source, there’s no way they have data on how far their publications got aggregated on multiple platforms.

Sorry, I might not be a practicing one, but I am a sociologist. I did doublecheck with google to make sure the prevailing usage didn’t change the meaning of those terms under me.

I ask because this park could be a fictional setting, or a historical setting, but right now it seems like a weird mix of both.

The park is weird, period, and there’s no explanation whatsoever of why it has the names of Equestrian locales, but not the imagery…

Again, I’ve used collab-ing like this in my office.

…You might want to find a new office.

Hehe, the funny part is to me, this whole thing was word salad.

It felt like this to me too, but then I actually got it parsed. The weird part is using the word “displacement” – notice that the Wikipedia article uses the much more mundane word “distance” throughout.

Then she’d be cheating.

And?

1) Maybe the park was bought by new owners and rebranded?

Possible regardless, but I doubt the locals would ever call it new then.

2) He said “fun-inspected.” Maybe a Fun Inspector hasn’t inspected it in years?

That would imply a Fun Inspector has inspected it at least once in the past, though, right?

The characters or the writers?

Both.

I also wondered why Applejack didn’t just use her strength to tear that building apart.

She probably spent a while conditioning herself not to do that sort of thing. Same as why Spike doesn’t use his flame as often as he should – when he does it carelessly, ponies get burned.

I remember in early pony fics aluminum was treated as more valuable than gold, which it once was on earth. Aluminum is also the only isotope that has been on earth in its current form since the planet was formed.

The one problem with it being magically active in general is that it’s 8.3% of Earth’s crust by mass – so either only pure aluminum is magically active, (which would prevent all the aluminum-containing gems from having their significance due to aluminum content) or only certain crystal structures involving aluminum are, and most of manufactured metallic aluminum is actually pretty amorphous…

I guess you only transform if you wear the object.

Nope, Juniper never wore the mirror.

My current theory is that the Dazzlings made some money on the side writing up fictional novels about “Equestria.”

Impossible, actually: There is no way they would know the words “Appleloosa” or “Nightmare Moon,” then, because both postdate their departure from Equestria.

There might be some other expat though.

[howard035]

4965302

Then you’ve seen more people misusing those terms too.

Oh absolutely. In powerpoint slides on marketing, where you lose a lot of the meaning but you have a line simple enough to fill one bullet. You're correct that consumer-centric demographic doesn't really mean anything, but you show it to an advertiser and they will know we're talking 18-35 year olds with some disposable income who are still forming buying habits.

"curating content" is a BS word I've seen marketers put on their resumes, it means whoever is in charge of the Rainbooms' MyStable page probably pinned their most popular videos to the top of their feed so they'll always appear above the fold. Aggregate is not the correct verb to refer to whether they are collecting content in app like Hootsuite that lets you manage and engage with followers across a bunch of different social platforms (something that only corporate brands or professional social media influencers like Valencia would use), but its meaning can be decoded if you have spent enough time with people who take a series of large buzzwords, hammer them into a sentence, and expect you to understand them because they are in 44 point font.

You might want to find a new office.

I'll run that up to flagpole, get a 10,000 foot view, and see if this feedback really shifts the paradigm in moving the needle.

[howard035]

4965302
From Nick Confalone's background, I think he's had to stare at some of the same PowerPoints I have. He's a professional social media influencer tasked with helming an important creative development in the family-friendly fantasy space. I.E, he just made a script where he's a woman, he's opening a theme park instead of writing a script, and then he just has to add in the Rainbooms and DONE.

That would imply a Fun Inspector has inspected it at least once in the past, though, right?

Yup. I mean, calling dedicated theme park inspectors "Fun Inspectors" isn't really THAT outlandish, is it?

so either only pure aluminum is magically active, (which would prevent all the aluminum-containing gems from having their significance due to aluminum content) or only certain crystal structures involving aluminum are, and most of manufactured metallic aluminum is actually pretty amorphous

Given that all the magic seems to be relatively close to the portal, do we still believe it's radiation flaring out from the portal?

Impossible, actually: There is no way they would know the words “Appleloosa” or “Nightmare Moon,” then, because both postdate their departure from Equestria.

There might be some other expat though.

I was afraid you might say that. I hate positing never-revealed characters, rather than making use of existing ones! It violates conservation of narrative!

[Oliver]

4965566

… but its meaning can be decoded if you have spent enough time with people who take a series of large buzzwords, hammer them into a sentence, and expect you to understand them because they are in 44 point font.

But isn’t that’s the definition of bullshit word salad? People talking about things they don’t actually understand while pretending they do.

I.E, he just made a script where he’s a woman, he’s opening a theme park instead of writing a script, and then he just has to add in the Rainbooms and DONE.

*bites back the long tirade regarding how G4 is the prime example of how TV industry has the very same problems software industry does but harder, but never even tried to adopt the solutions software industry did evolve, and instead seems to be preferentially adopting its mistakes.* That observation deserves a blogpost one day.

Yup. I mean, calling dedicated theme park inspectors “Fun Inspectors” isn’t really THAT outlandish, is it?

It’s not, of course. I just don’t think it’s a reopening theme park.

As a side note there was one theme park in Pedestria before. In the Perfect Day for Fun music video.

The one problem with it is that it would have you think that every time you’re seeing the front door of CHS, you’re looking through the columns supporting a rollercoaster.

Given that all the magic seems to be relatively close to the portal, do we still believe it’s radiation flaring out from the portal?

We have the frames in Legends of Everfree plainly showing wisps escaping through the cracks in the base of the ex-statue, so in the absence of other potential sources…

I was afraid you might say that. I hate positing never-revealed characters, rather than making use of existing ones! It violates conservation of narrative!

Me too, but – it doesn’t have to be a character we don’t know, does it? Lots of interesting options.

Our only requirement is that they have to have been able to depart later than Episode 1, because at that time, Appaloosa already existed.

[howard035]

4965597 Ah. I thought of word salad as more random words thrown together than any attempt to convey a specific idea. In this case, there is a bit of understanding of what the person wants to convey, they're just using a lot of fancy words to say "I see a lot of people advertisers want to reach like you, you put out a lot of stuff and it's well organized, and you look at people's reactions to it in many different places." That sentence is straightforward, but not nearly impressive enough. A big part of the reason for jargon in any industry is to demonstrate one's own knowledge of the lingo.

*bites back the long tirade regarding how G4 is the prime example of how TV industry has the very same problems software industry does but harder,

Hehe, I know software engineers who call their process story-grooming. So would the movies be more of a waterfall development while the shorts are kanban agile, while the multiple-endings series are more scrum?

Me too, but – it doesn’t have to be a character we don’t know, does it? Lots of interesting options.

Our only requirement is that they have to have been able to depart later than Episode 1, because at that time, Appaloosa already existed.

Hmm. Some version of Stygian jumps to mind. In Equestria he's written multiple best selling novels, and in the comics his dark counterpart can apparently reach out through dreams into other dimensions. (And his dark counterpart was never in Limbo).

[Oliver]

4965606

Hehe, I know software engineers who call their process story-grooming. So would the movies be more of a waterfall development while the shorts are kanban agile, while the multiple-endings series are more scrum?

editorial.designtaxi.com/editorial-images/news-TwoKindsGraphicDesigners161116/1-funny-graphics-two-kinds-of-graphic-designers-in-the-world.png
More like this, I think

One thing worth particular notice is pretending that a collection of Flash assets is their institutional memory.

Some version of Stygian jumps to mind. In Equestria he’s written multiple best selling novels, and in the comics his dark counterpart can apparently reach out through dreams into other dimensions. (And his dark counterpart was never in Limbo).

And his dark counterpart would hire Vignette and Flim+Flam, wouldn’t he.

[howard035]

4965609 Oh, don't get ME started on version control.

And his dark counterpart would hire Vignette and Flim+Flam, wouldn’t he.

Yup, assuming Gladmane turned him down first.

[Fylifa]

• “That was about as calm as Pinkie Pie on Cake Day.” Pinkie’s reaction implies that this is a specific day that she could miss, but what exactly did Sunset mean?

Cake Day could be slang for Birthdays. Because when you get older you don't want to be reminded of the crushing weight of mortality

Trixie, Lyra and Bon-Bon appear to have come to the park together. I wonder what connects Trixie with those two.

Just friends?

“I don’t like to lose.” Good to know, and not really a trait Sunset had a chance to display before.

Oh I don't know...

Like the great sage DWK points out, In the first Equestria girls movie. Sunset actually gives up when Twilight refuses to give the crown. It's only when her friends praise Twilight her and call her a real princess does Sunset lose it.

And while Sunset might practically (and literally) be an angel post-harmony beam, she does seem to slip. Remember with Wallflower, her reaction was to steal the memory stone during Wallflower's heartfelt song. And she gets pretty aggressive overall in that movie. If Trixie wasn't there, Sunset probably would have resorted to clobbering instead of the friendship speech thing.

Compare it to 1000 year ago Luna who after feeling un-appreciated, on impulse decides to transform and bring eternal night.

And Luna Eclipsed, Luna who after feeling un-appreciated, on impulse cancels Nightmare Night.

I don't think getting harmony ray'd fixes personalities as we might think. Maybe suppresses it for awhile.

“But that’s what she does to everyone! YOU’RE NOT SPECIAL!” That obviously came out wrong, but notice that it would only be properly hurtful if previously Applejack said the opposite, and on screen, she never did.

Applejack is not good with confessions.

Applejack’s service provider sets up VoIP on their phones by default – there’s no way Applejack did it herself – which is a very interesting policy that implies rather eccentric pricing plans, heavily slanted towards Internet use even for users interested in talking minutes.

Wi-Fi Calling is a thing though! You can argue that service providers even encourage it now to take stress off the Cell Towers even in the age where every plan has unlimited minutes.

“I’m sure Vignette’s getting more corrupted by Equestrian magic every minute!” Notice the acknowledgement that Equestrian magic is corruptive from Sunset. I expect that doesn’t come easy.

Notice that Vignette avoided the full demonization treatment – probably, due to never acquiring enough magic in her actual body – but did not avoid the other effects, they still manifested, just to a lesser degree.

I don't know. Vignette seems to be base-level horrible. I mean they didn't even even rainbow beam her face this time around. (IE Wallflower herself seemed to be suffering and when they destroyed the memory stone they rainbow magick'd it.) Here Vignette has no monologue to even suggest anything remotely redeemable and Rarity just railgun-shot the phone. Instead of the usual Harmony Together Friendship Ray.

In a way I like the idea that some people are just bad. Just like some ponies are just bad.

There might be some other expat though.

4965566

I was afraid you might say that. I hate positing never-revealed characters, rather than making use of existing ones! It violates conservation of narrative!

I still cling to my pet theory! It even uses someone we see in Rollercoaster

[Oliver]

4965762

Cake Day could be slang for Birthdays.

I know. The question is more about whose birthday would that be.

Like the great sage DWK points out, In the first Equestria girls movie. Sunset actually gives up when Twilight refuses to give the crown. It’s only when her friends praise Twilight her and call her a real princess does Sunset lose it.

A great argument I’m going to steal.

Compare it to 1000 year ago Luna who after feeling un-appreciated, on impulse decides to transform and bring eternal night.

Would it surprise you that this isn’t what I think actually happened?

Wi-Fi Calling is a thing though! You can argue that service providers even encourage it now to take stress off the Cell Towers even in the age where every plan has unlimited minutes.

In some places, maybe. Here, they’re way too greedy for this and most don’t even do VoLTE.

I still cling to my pet theory!

Actually, it gives me an interesting idea…

[Scottbert]

Hangon, is Equestrialand actually themed after Equestria? HOW? How does anyone know all this stuff? I mean, it's not like people have been milking Sunset for details...
"This is Sunset Shimmer, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, and Fluttershy!"
Poor background human.
Okay, Vignette recognizes the word rainboom so I guess SHE'S an amnesiac from Equestria (Edit: Or... not? What? Where does... how does any of this 'Equestria Land' make sense otherwise? Sigh.)
Weird that Sunset hasn't recognized anything but maybe it's all stuff that was after her time or out of focus for her (nightmare moon, sugarcube corner...)
That was a siren costume! But I suppose Rarity and Applejack are distracted.
"We have red and green and everything in between" you clearly only have red and brown, buddy
Scitwi mapping out the perfect throw doesn't matter when it always is thrown off AFTER landing...
"It hasn't been fun inspected in years..." didn't this park just open...
'Blowin smoke up your... chimney' can you SAY that on children's television? What POSSIBLE other interpretation is there for such a saying?

Alright. The white room gag was so funny I will overlook all problems with it.

"No amount of online success is worth it, without my real-life friends to share in it!" Children's show morals for the 21st century.

Given the situation, you'd think the Rainbooms would play one of their old songs, but instead they play an all new song that's suspiciously appropriate to the situation! I guess we just never saw them play it before.

Wow, the Rarijack shipping in this episode.

---

They’re basically running out of summers anyway. It is possible for Legends of Everfree to occur in late Spring 3P, since it’s called a “field trip” rather than a “summer camp”, even though the latter is what that trip resembles the most, the season is not hard locked to summer by any lines I could find. However, it still needs to be followed by not one but two yearbooks.

Maybe Pedestrian 'High School' doesn't use the American 4-year system. Maybe it's like Hogwarts. Although, you'd think the girls would visibly grow between 12 and 18, so there's probably no Watsonian explanation.

I am not exactly sure what differentiates a stress salad from any other kind.

The idea of "Stress <Food>" seemed pretty clear to me -- It's <Food> that you're eating because you're stressed rather than because you're hungry. The choice of a salad is because she's health conscious and/or vegetarian (which i considered another hint that she's from Equestria, but no)

“That was about as calm as Pinkie Pie on Cake Day.” Pinkie’s reaction implies that this is a specific day that she could miss, but what exactly did Sunset mean?

Given we have Talk Like A Pirate Day and National Backup Day (that was yesterday, I just learned), some form of 'Cake Day' as a semi-official thing seems plausible. It also seems plausible that it's a holiday Pinkie invented and then forgot the specific date of, like how Equestrian Pinkie forgot her own birthday.

Alternate possibility: Sunset made up 'Cake Day' for the saying she just coined, and Pinkie immediately assumed it was a real thing she somehow hadn't heard of.

What’s interesting is that there’s no buildup visible that would get the relationship to this state – and there’s nothing throughout the other numerous shorts that I would interpret as such a buildup either.

Probably only this particular writer liked it. Since they don't have a writing room or coordinate anything...

“This has been your dream since… since kindy-garten.” “Mmm… Preschool, actually.” I can’t exactly figure out the distinction. Can anyone elaborate?

When I went through the educational system, Preschool was for like 3-5-year-olds and essentially daycare with the occasional arts-and-crafts group activity (My memories of this time are extremely spotty -- I remember learning our birthsigns and making bumblebee-shaped kites out of paper, and that I understood addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division when other kids barely knew math). Kindergarten was for 5-6-year-olds and basically 'grade zero' of elementary school, learning the most basic concepts like the alphabet and only lasting a half-day (I remember basically nothing about it except a vague mental map of the classroom.)

why would Vignette ascribe any importance to the table, when she initially correctly concluded it was her phone?

Maybe she's smart enough to consider alternate hypotheses like that anything else put on the table also becomes magic -- but was too busy to get around to testing it? Although she did only have a few hours and she was busy with other things...

“I could not be happier… makin’ foot-stompin’ applesauce the old-fashioned way with my family.” Considering the technique isn’t even normally used with grapes except for show purposes, and I doubt it would work with apples at all, I wonder what the deal is here.

It's artisinal, organically-made applesauce. Probably sells for a high price to people who care! ...I really hope this isn't a thing.

"Does your curated content consistently aggregate across multiple platforms?"

I feel like the writer meant to put 'trend' instead of 'aggregate'... then again, maybe Vignette is the one misusing the word.

Does that seriously count as a company anywhere though?…

It does in her heart.

“Logistical question: How’re we supposed to get our instruments?” Actually, here’s a counter-question: Why would this be an issue?

I figured the park is far away from their homes -- possibly an hour or more (It's not like Rarity has parents to go home to... Never mind that she mentions Sweetie Belle later...)

The party in the Apple barn to which Micro Chips was invited

His name is Micro Chips? Seriously?

Why would Vignette want that here, I wonder.

She heard it was trending! Geeks obsess over things and follow each other, or something like that, right? Whether that he'd be better placed in the park's social media department than the caramel apple booth is lost on the writer or on Vignette is the question...

Twilight should have switched to telekinesis, but didn’t…

Right? I kept waiting for her to recognize it was rigged and cheat back, although maybe she's too honorable to.

The last Humane 7 member we’ve seen with Fluttershy was Rainbow.

I figured Applejack talked to Rainbow Dash off-camera; Maybe she was waiting in case Fluttershy returned to the rollercoasters while AJ was out looking for her?

“I don’t like to lose.” Good to know, and not really a trait Sunset had a chance to display before.

Was the gaming short before or after this?

How is it possible for a station to not have been inspected in years if the park is just opening today?

Zero is a number of years, technically / it's never been inspected / this guy is senile / this guy is looking for even the flimsiest excuse to slack off.

and assume that the disappearance is not some kind of irreversible disintegration.

This is a children's show! We don't irreversably disintigrate people! We drain their magic!

At no point the Humane 7 even consider that this demonstration might’ve failed simply because Applejack didn’t invoke the phone’s magic correctly

This bugged me, too. At least Rarity realizes later, when she remembers Applejack doesn't lie about these things. (I chalk the battery charging indicator up to cartoon resolution)

(Issues with VoIP to Applejack's phone)

I initially assumed this was simplified technobabble to cover the more complex hacking Twilight would have to do to ACTUALLY hack a phone, but maybe Scitwi got all her friends to install Skype/Discord/etc and she called that? Where this all falls apart is with the room reveal -- Twilight claims she hacked Vignette's phone from inside, but if she wasn't inside the phone... what was she doing?
Idea: The teleportation process disrupts phone connections. Fluttershy only needed to reboot her phone or toggle airplane mode, but had no reason to try. Twilight probably tried a whole bunch of things based on the premise of being 'inside a magic phone' and reset her connection somewhere along the way -- as soon as she saw she was getting an internet connection, she concluded she'd 'hacked Vignette's phone'.

Which particular friends is Rarity talking about, I wonder?

Their schoolmates, although this is obviously a looser use of the word 'friend'.

he immediately assumes laws of physics were violated.

He does go to a school where magical stuff keeps happening...

Rarity has never been in a situation where she doesn’t have any real life friends at all due to being the only gay eskimo in her tribe.

What. I listened to the song, but what's the analogy here?

[Oliver]

5036147

The idea of “Stress <Food>” seemed pretty clear to me

It is. The problem is that Rainbow and Fluttershy later immediately identify that the salad is a “Stress” one visually, when the idea would imply it would only be identifiable as such through context.

His name is Micro Chips? Seriously?

Yes. Cue the “micro soft” jokes.

Was the gaming short before or after this?

Long after.

I initially assumed this was simplified technobabble to cover the more complex hacking Twilight would have to do to ACTUALLY hack a phone, but maybe Scitwi got all her friends to install Skype/Discord/etc and she called that?

mVoIP is a thing. Still uncommon in our world, but a thing nonetheless.

Idea: The teleportation process disrupts phone connections.

Nice one.

What. I listened to the song, but what’s the analogy here?

I thought it was pretty clear.

The “only gay eskimo” situation arises when one is, (or as it occasionally happens, becomes) through whatever circumstances, a member of a persecuted or shunned minority/subculture that is otherwise normally distributed across the population.

Typically, at certain patterns of population distribution – especially your typical US suburbia – someone ends up being the only member of that minority within physical communication range. Whether because the density of the minority is not high enough to place another one in range, because of local fluctuations, or because their own mobility is reduced, doesn’t matter.

Since the minority is shunned/persecuted, they often cannot have “real life friends” and online communication becomes the only way they cling on to social life and occasionally, sanity.

People in big dense cities occasionally encounter this problem from the other end: There are other gay eskimos in physical communication range, but since the gay eskimos don’t advertise themselves, (because they’re shunned) it’s impossible to find them among the tens of thousands of people living in the immediate vicinity, and until they stumble on an appropriate online forum, they never find out they could have real life friends.

Seriously, this sort of thing never happened to you? You’re unusually lucky for this site.

[Scottbert]

Seriously, this sort of thing never happened to you? You’re unusually lucky for this site.

Oh, I parsed it backwards, I thought you were saying she was the only gay eskimo and I couldn't make sense of it.