Friendship is Card Games; Cosmos, Part 2 · 1:51pm Jan 5th, 2020
This week we usher in the new year by returning to one of the more controversial official stories of the last one. Let’s see just how much of the Cosmos arc is worth the foofaraw.
Act the 3rd: … And Far Too Many Stars Have Fell on Me…
The ponies fleeing from Cosmos raise an interesting question: How long was she on this world, and how did the assorted magical titans not know about her if the populace fleeing at the sight of her? (And, you know, the tentacled monstrosities she left in her wake.) Furthermore, how much damage had she caused if stores and orphanages were even still a thing? A stable enough society for something as luxurious as high fashion doesn’t exactly say “reign of chaos” to me.
As for Cosmos targeting said orphanage, it’s interesting. Did she really go for something so cliche, or has Discord painted her in a darker light in his retelling? Really, all the flashback scenes are at least a little dubious when one considers that Discord’s the only one other than Cosmos herself who can say what happened, and we can’t really trust either.
“But her idea of chaos was dangerous.” Yeah, definitely twisting things for the audience. I suppose Discord may mean intentionally dangerous, but this definitely comes off as post hoc amelioration of his own misdeeds.
It’s certainly interesting to get a proper look at Cosmos before she was sundered and scattered. Similar chimeric construction as Discord, but with bilateral symmetry and more overtly harmful components, especially the cobra-hood mane and the scorpion tail. Discord is a hodgepodge. Cosmos is actively toxic. One who can apparently turn Discord into a puppy if he can be trusted, though as I said earlier, that’s a big if.
Poor Big Mac. He’s never been one for big cities. Certainly not big cities where anything and everything is for sale. Thank goodness for Capper.
i do appreciate how Capper has enough experience with Pinkie to just ask the other guy.
Surviving the Muck Marathon isn’t actually guaranteed? I can only hope that’s exaggeration.
I have several questions about some of these events, especially the bird levitation. Pinkie can probably handle the lemon stacking and butter eating just fine, though. (And on that note, that’s a caber they’re eating.)
That said, I do appreciate how several Klugetowners feel like they fit better into Equestria than most of the generic anthro animals we saw in the movie… though the miscellaneous greenskins do raise some taxonomical questions. Goblins? Orcs? Dragon relatives of some kind?
Nice touch with Capper hedging his bets. It’s good to have a rogue in the party as long as his sticky fingers actually work in your favor.
Interesting that Zecora can get controlled by a Cosmos star. And that she can shake off that control when the diarchs can’t. I suppose her magical strength is just on the cusp of what Cosmos can control. Good thing Pinkie never directly touches one.
Huh. Apple Bloom’s the last member of the party I’d expect to get sore hooves. She’s out and about every day… though I suppose I should consider the rocky terrain. She’s probably also the sort of person who wondered why Gandalf didn’t just ask the Eagles to fly the Hobbits to Mount Doom. (And before you write something, yes, I know it was a covert mission and air support would draw Sauron’s notice.)
You know, I completely missed Big Mac’s kilt until Apple Bloom pointed it out?
No, Zecora doesn’t always talk like that. It’s rare to see her employ an ABAB rhyme scheme.
Real subtle, Cosmos. They’ll never suspect a thing.
It takes some serious chutzpah to call Celestia “Stretch” to her face, even when she isn’t being possessed by a cosmic horror. Even more to pull a switcheroo on her.
The villain has a point, Zecora. Act first, quip later, especially when you speak in verse.
Celestia vs. Big Mac makes for quite the striking image. Ultimately futile, but still.
Oof. Big hit to Capper’s dignity.
Part 4: All Together Now
Firstly, let’s take a moment to regret that this alternate cover has nothing to do with the story.
Yeah, that wasn’t just flinging herself through the stars. I feel fully justified in making Cosmos a planeswalker.
I do like the idea of these two helping make Wonderland what it is. Meanwhile Earth-616 was too passé, and the DC multiverse too bizarre even for them. Truth be told, I’m not even sure if there is a DC multiverse at the moment; the thing’s collapsed and redivided some many times over the years.
“That’s my style—mild chaos. Just enough to get the ponies to remember you.” Uh huh. Sure, Discord. Not like you ever tried to annihilate the very concept of harmony or anything. The thought of him respecting the diarchs’ claim on the nation is equally laughable. But this still feels more like ass covering than retconning. He probably knows his audience finds this ridiculous but feels the need to provide it anyway. After all, this is the part where he admits how he enabled Cosmos.
That said, the trail of illusions keeping the princesses from encountering Cosmos does at least explain how they didn’t know about her… at first. Again, goodness knows there were plenty of other eyewitnesses.
Wait, the Crystal Empire is father from Ponyville than Klugetown? That definitely doesn’t seem right.
“I was not aware emeralds came in ‘bushels.’”
“They do if you’re doing it right.”
Lovely Rarity moment.
Speaking of lovely character moments, I do like the reminder that Cadence has her own history of near-Twilight level organization in the comics.
Juice bar and funnel cake? Dang, I want to go to the Crystal Market.
I do enjoy the brief dissertation on the experience of eating gems. Not necessarily the best use of comic real estate, but fascinating… though I do have to wonder why nopony involved ever questioned Spike about this before. And there’s still the question of whether Rarity can taste the difference.
Speaking of, she is good.
Interesting how different portions of Cosmos can react differently to their hosts’ quirks.
And there’s the big shift, trying to portray Discord as a Mxyzptlk-like wandering n-dimensional trickster rather than the conquering force of chaos that he was. And with Fluttershy as his audience, is it any wonder?
As for wiping out all memory of Cosmos… Yeah, I can actually see the reasoning behind that. After all, the alternative is cults worshipping a being sealed in the outer darkness, and that never ends well.
I do love how she can bring him to heel when it’s really important.
Oh. I had noticed a prevalence of ladybugs in the earlier issue, but I hadn’t thought about what they could mean.
Hmm. More sealed treasures. The Mask, the Sword in the Stone, a chained coffin, the Batphone…
You’d think Rarity would find the chariot with tentacle runners just a touch concerning. Hardly the expected aesthetic for anypony involved.
And then Cosmos played Polymerization. (Or, given how she added up stars, maybe it was a Synchro Summon.)
In all seriousness, this is simultaneously an awesome and quite disturbing visual, one of the more horrifically twisted things to come out of this franchise.
Episode Five: I Hate Myself for Loving You
Ooh, nice touch. In the final installment, we get Cosmos narrating the opening scene. And apparently the Andalusian constellation vanished very recently, given how Discord had already been released. He might have been better served in flinging the one he found back into space.
Nice to really appreciate the scale involved. Put together ungodly amount of magic and the mass of six ponies and you get quite a lot to work with.
“What is happening? Why is she so big. I hate eveything about this.”
I can hear this in Tabitha St. Germain’s voice, and it is wonderful.
Interesting issue with Applejack not knowing what the story is with giant monster. She knows the stars are evil, and Cosmos referred to herself by name while fighting Applejack in Twilight’s body, but AJ has no reason to think the giant, havoc-wreaking chimera is the same thing as the malicious mental influence affecting her friend, to say nothing of the obsession with Discord.
Heh. Pinkie’s right, this is a foe worthy of a season finale. Or premiere, but the intensity seems more fitting for the end of one.
Pinkie does have a good plan. going too deep into the specifics against a foe with unknown and unknowable capabilities just means you’re setting yourself up for failure. Simple goals and open-ended execution do seem the way to go. Her speech is incredible. Her llama toss less so.
“Oh yes, let’s run toward the giant monster in a blind panic and see what happens.”
“That’s the plan!”
“I was being sarcastic.”
Magnificent.
I feel like two panels were placed out of order. Pinkie’s tossing a star in one and removing it from the bracer in the next.
the way the heads of Cosmos’s host keep appearing out of the writhing horror of her body is more than a little disturbing. As is turning Pinkie into a G4 toy. Very meta. The way she deals with the others is also pretty disturbing.
Ooh, subtle touch with Cosmos diminishing as Spike eats the stars. Nice.
It is nice to see Discord properly applying his understanding of friendship. Though with as toxic an example as Cosmos, it isn’t hard to see how she was anything but a true friend.
And there’s Cosmos’s true nature laid bare: the spirit of malice. And also apparently an energy being who fed on terror by causing mass murders going by how she invoked the name of Redjac. The implication that she’s behind virtually every evil in the world is probably more posturing than anything.
Turning Spike into his canine form was a great way to lighten the mood after that.
Interesting to see Cosmos retained a physical form even after all the stars were destroyed. You’d think she’d return to incorporeality.
I can’t help but feel that Twilight really shouldn’t get a medal for this one. Zecora’s iffy as well. They really didn’t contribute towards fixing the problem. At least Spike got more than anyone else.
And that was the Cosmos arc. And honestly, it’s really not so bad. Yes, there’s some attempted Discord whitewashing, but it’s all coming from him. The only thing we know for certain is that he got a bunch of powerful beings to sunder and banish Cosmos; beyond that ,who knows what actually happened? Memory’s a tricky thing, especially when shaded by time and extreme emotion as this was. Aside from this, it was an enjoyable spectacle.
Now, let’s see what wonders I can make from this.
Grand Reversion 3WW
Sorcery
Put all artifacts and enchantments on the bottom of their owners’ libraries.
Once Spike swallowed the last star, all of Cosmos’s power unraveled, leaving the world as it should have been.
Lampskull Crane 1U
Creature — Bird Mutant
Flying
When Lampskull Crane enters the battlefield, scry 1.
When Cosmos wasn’t paying attention, her powers sometimes twisted life into novel curiosities rather than ravening horrors.
2/1
Teach Humility 2U
Instant
Until end of turn. target creature or planeswalker becomes a creature with base power and toughness 1/1 and loses all other card types and abilities.
“It worked for Luna. Eventually.”
—Discord
Capper’s Acquisition 3UU
Instant
Until end of turn, if target opponent would draw a card, instead that player skips that draw and you exile the top card of their library. You may cast that card as long as it remains exiled, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any type to cast that spell.
Sealed Coffin 1B
Artifact
Whenever a creature dies, put a blood counter on Sealed Coffin.
T, Remove three blood counters from Sealed Coffin and sacrifice it: Create a 4/4 black Vampire creature token with flying and lifelink.
Uncage 1B
Sorcery
Return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand.
Escape — 3B, Exile four other cards from your graveyard. (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its escape cost.)
Discord despises all prisons.
Malice Laid Bare 1BB
Sorcery
Target player loses 1 life, discards a card, sacrifices a creature, and puts the top card of their library into their graveyard.
One glimpse of Cosmos’s true form can drive chaos sane.
Klugetown Drudge 2B
Creature — Orc Advisor
At the beginning of your upkeep, each player loses 1 life.
No one knows where the orcs came from, including the orcs. Their one joy in life is inflicting their perennial malaise on others.
2/3
Omnimonger 3B
Creature — Lizard Monger
2, Sacrifice a permanent: Draw a card. Any player may activate this ability.
“Sentimental value? Don’t worry, I can make change for precious memories.”
3/3
Diving Stomp R
Instant
Diving Stomp deals 2 damage to target creature or planeswalker. If you control a creature with flying, Diving Stomp deals 3 damage to that permanent instead.
Pegasi always have the high ground.
Muck Marathon 2R
Sorcery
Creatures you control get +2/+0 until end of turn and can’t be blocked by creatures with flying this turn.
The Klugetown marathon was once just a long race, but the nature of the land added so many bizarre and disgusting obstacles that the organizers embraced the mess.
Ominous Starfall 5RR
Sorcery
Ominous Starfall deals 6 damage divided as you choose among any number of targets.
Miracle 1R (You may cast this spell for its miracle cost when you draw it if it’s the first card you drew this turn.)
Aberrant Oak 1G
Creature — Plant Mutant
T: Add G.
4GG: Monstrosity 4. (If this creature isn’t monstrous, put four +1/+1 counters on it and it becomes monstrous.)
Aberrant Oak can’t attack unless it’s monstrous.
0/2
Malicious Growth 1G
Instant
For each player, choose an attacking or blocking creature that player controls. Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt by creatures not chosen this way this turn.
Vines writhe, and a war becomes a sadistic duel.
Planar Cartography 2G
Enchantment
Whenever Planar Cartography enters the battlefield or a player planeswalks to a plane, you may search your library for a basic land card, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.
Operatic Treadmill 3
Artifact
T, Tap an untapped enchantment you control: Add two mana of any one color.
Pinkie Pie excels at competitions that shouldn’t exist.
Sucker Punch W(br)
Instant
Sucker Punch deals 5 damage to target tapped creature.
“Nopony ever expects the princess of the sun to knock out their teeth.”
—Princess Celestia
Font of Cosmos BR
Enchantment
1(br), Sacrifice Font of Cosmos: Target creature gets +3/-3 until end of turn.
Drink deep, and shed both form and sanity.
Tendrils of Cosmos BR
Creature — Tentacle Horror
Tendrils of Cosmos attacks each turn if able.
BR: Return Tendrils of Cosmos from your graveyard to your hand. Activate this ability only if an opponent lost life this turn.
They flail wherever their mistress has passed.
3/1
Sundry Booth RG
Artifact
At the beginning of each end step, if you discarded a card this turn, return a card at random from your graveyard to your hand.
2RG, T, Discard a card: Draw a card.
Klugetown sells everything no one ever asked for.
Twisted Synthesis 1BG
Sorcery
As an additional cost to cast this spell, sacrifice any number of creatures.
Search your library for a creature or planeswalker card with converted mana cost equal to or less than the sacrificed creatures’ total converted mana cost, put that card onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library.
Feed on Slaughter 2BR
Instant
Destroy target creature. Add BR.
Too grim even for Shadowmoor, the malice elemental stalked through the Multiverse, gaining power and intelligence with every kill.
Meandering Motivation 3GW
Instant
Cascade (When you cast this spell, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card that costs less. You may cast it without paying its mana cost. Put the exiled cards on the bottom of your library in a random order.)
Creatures you control get +2/+2 until end of turn.
Cosmos, Spirit of Malice 4BR
Legendary Planeswalker — Cosmos
+2: Up to two target creatures each get +2/-1 until end of turn. Those creatures can’t block this turn.
-2: Any number of target players each sacrifice a nonland permanent. Each player who does reveals the top card of their library and puts it onto the battlefield if it’s a permanent card.
-11: Untap all nonland permanents your opponents control. Until end of turn, gain control of them, they lose all abilities, and they become black and red Horror creatures with haste and base power and toughness 3/2.
6
Crystal Market
Land
Crystal Market enters the battlefield tapped.
T: Add C.
2, T: Add two mana in any combination of colors.
To an Equestrian, unimaginable wealth. To a dragon, a peerless buffet.
I was under the impression it was the comet's passage back in the first arc of the comics that physically pushed Cosmos' stars out of the sky. I could actually see the Empire being further from Ponyville, they've always taken the train there but the M6 made it to Klugetown by walking if I recall correctly.
Not only is the DC multiverse intact, but there are also currently multiple Multiverses overtop of one another. The Dark Multiverse, where everything that could go wrong has and has steadily become less interesting the more focus put on it, the main one, apparently the New 52 and the Silver Age have their own universes despite continuity being restored, and presumable the tv shows and movies have their own multiverse since the Crisis on Infinite Earths special has only affected them and not the comics.
No, the current growing problem is time. According to Time Master Rip Hunter, "Hypertime is broken." We don't know what that means yet, other than that a ton of books are having a final confrontation with whoever their arch-nemesis is even though they're supposed to be fighting the Legion of Doom in Scott Snyder's Justice League book. Apparently, the next Crisis is going to be about Hypertime.
It's probably like the Running of the Bulls: nobody will care enough to save you from your own stupidity.
Zebras be too wild even for the concept of wildness.
Stupid Complicated Game Alert: Capper's Acquisition can be cast during the opponent's upkeep to steal their normal draw step. Please don't make cards that can do that, at least not without making you jump through more hoops than just casting a spell. (Example: Chimney Imp can created a hard draw-lock in Mirrodin Limited, but combining two individually unplayable cards into a game-winning combo is fine and this requires an admittedly-amazing third card on top of that)
Stupid Complicated Game Alert: Aberrant Oak is only prevented from attacking by its last ability; it can still block and use its mana ability, and can even use the latter to help pay for its own monstrosity.
Stupid Complicated Game Alert: Planeswalker cards that aren't currently planeswalkers won't lose loyalty when they take damage, and won't die from lacking those counters until they start being planeswalkers again. Sarkhan has had reminder text about the former, but Teach Humility doesn't really need any because the now-creature is probably going to die if it takes damage anyway.
Inside Baseball Alert: Font of Cosmos is referencing a cycle from Journey Into Nyx (I can't link Gatherer searches because they have square brackets in their URLs). Note that the linked card is outright against everything Erebos believes in, and none of the other members have anything to do with the monocolor gods either.
Inside Baseball Alert: Mongers were... a thing in Mercadian Masques. The four I didn't link were given additional creature types by an update, but apparently nobody could figure out what Squallmonger was supposed to be.
5180461
>Capper's Acquisition
Paying five for a turn of it isn't enough of a cost? Plagiarise straight gives you their draws for the turn for one less (and also nightmares from the 10th ed art)
It's pretty bad when eldritch forces have a tiff, though I'm glad they finally did a toxic "friends" arc. Even if it very much reads like 'Discord's crazy ex attempts to destroy the world over his new squeeze'.
And speaking of which, I ship Quest for the Gravelord and Sealed Coffin so hard. Sundry Booth is also very nice.
5180476
The existence of other cards that are obnoxious for the same reason doesn't make the mentioned card any less obnoxious. In fact, it arguably makes it more obnoxious by providing additional copies of the effect. Also, as far as feelbad moments stealing the draw isn't quite as bad as stealing the actual cards.
You usually catch these details.
But on the other hand, this is Andy Price. Guy's art is a proverbial Where's Waldo of easter eggs so... weighing hands gesture
According to the official map, they look about the same distance. So it checks out.
Yeah I know MLP is loose with supplementary material (and not-tight with show material...), but that's the best we're gonna get.
Funny on its face, but also allows characters to technically still be a part of the story even when they are more or less lacking agency.
Hmm... well, you're not wrong, per se. Saying that Discord's simply lying or, at the very least, exaggerating, intentionally or not, certainly makes sense. But I think the problem is less with what he says and more with how it's framed. The thing is, we are given absolutely no indication that Discord is an unreliable narrator, nothing to suggest, visually or verbally, that he's misremembering or covering his arse and no reason to suspect that what we're being told is in any way inaccurate other than the fact we've seen evidence to the contrary. And yet that evidence is never even alluded to, such that if someone hadn't seen the relevant episodes, they'd have no cause to think anything was up.
And bear in mind, I'm someone who loves unreliable narrator stories - Rashomon, Hero, The Ugly Truth, Doctor Who and the Pirates to name but a few. When it's well done, it's one of my favourite tropes. But you have to give indication that that's what you're doing, you have to be able to see the story being told and distorted, otherwise you're just doing what you're trying to show your characters doing.
Plus, even if we could say that it's simply Discord's deception instead of the comic's, there's the fact that no one ever calls him on it. Let's face it, even after his redemption, Discord's always been incredibly duplicitous, among other faults. And yet, no one even questions the authenticity of his recounting? Fluttershy doesn't call him out on his "just a trickster" line when she knows perfectly well what a monster he used to be (to say nothing of the fact that undermines the whole idea of his redemption in the first place)? Heck, even Cosmos herself doesn't try and get his allies to distrust him and undermine her opponents' unity. Admittedly, it wouldn't be particularly effective and she may not have bothered, but it would have been something to hint at the truth.
But we're given nothing. No indication at all that the comic is not either wholly ignorant of Discord's history or actively deceptive about it. It seems to all indications to believe what it's spewing.
Now, to be clear, I'm not saying that you're wrong to interpret it as Discord simply bull****ing. On the contrary, I think it's an excellent bit of headcanon that does make far more sense than the alternative. The problem is that headcanon, by definition, is something created by the reader rather than the work, so cannot be counted in the work's favour.
Also, Cosmos as the "spirit of malice" is... iffy. Harmony having its antithesis in Chaos makes sense, but Chaos and Malice seem to have little in common besides being abstract concepts and it kind of makes you wonder just how many other spirits are out there waiting to screw up lifekind's day.
That said, I do agree that it's certainly not worth getting bent out of shape over (this post's length notwithstanding
). That is, even less than one should get bent out of shape over such things in general - it is just a comic after all. But besides that, its relationship with canon is inherently uncertain, it's certainly not going to feed back into the show and, license or no, there's little reason to think of it as anything more than officially-published fanfic. And its not as if the poorer stuff on this site's going to have an impact on the overall franchise. Heck, I'd argue the show itself has done far worse and there are certainly parts of it I'd like to scrub from consideration (and, in the case of the finale, one part I do, but that's neither here nor there).
So, no, I wouldn't say this is catastrophic or harmful story. But I do think it's a bad one. But, hey, I nevertheless respect and appreciate your opinion on the matter.
I was going to give my final thoughts on the Cosmos arc, but 5180773 put it better than I ever could've.