Run CMC

It's me again.

(Spoilers ahead. Yar.)

There isn't as much wind in the metaphorical sails today. CMC episodes aren't my favourite. That said, as always these days, I like the episode.

Bullying

I'm not stranger to this. But the thing is, it stopped, right at the crucial stage. It was always different people, different places. I went to a small primary school and a quite segregated highschool. The last four years of highschool were incident free. Have I ever told any of you that I got punched twice in my first year of highschool? Funny story. I've seen how little power teachers have to stop this sort of thing but I got lucky. Really, really lucky. That comes with being the academically talented stream at the state's flagship public school. Sheltered from the storm I guess, because I know it was out there, for a while at least. At some point my whole year pulled together and as I understand things most of it stopped. Around the time the year two years below us showed up. A lot of animosity there, there were a couple of full blown fights. But with no in-year animosity and the trouble elsewhere socially I was awkward but fine.

So today's representation didn't bother me one iota. Largely because I was the most godawful tattletale. Shoot me, but I've always been better at dealing with conflict indirectly. And my story deviates from everyone else's there in that for me it worked. My school had some truly awesome conflict management training and applying that any differences I had with peers got sorted out quickly. Thus it's blue vs orange as to my understanding of how everybody else's life goes. I have my own reasons for disliking periods of my life in highschool but this isn't one of them.

The CMC

Aren't the mane 6. Which really is the only reason I don't look forward to their episodes as much. Otherwise I enjoy them, having a younger sibling their antics strike a chord. If I had to order the three in terms of preference I like Scoots the most, probably because she's the least developed member of the group (Scoots episode coming up soon, I'm pumped). Other contributing factors include her character design, and the fact she's a pegasus. I don't know why, but I do have a favouritism towards pegasi. It started with Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, but expanded to Scoots, Spitfire, Soarin, Cloudchaser and Flitter as well. So I guess I'm against the pro-unicorn standard set by EQD but not by much. Sweetie Belle is second best, because d'awww. She just tries so hard. AB is last on my heirarchy, but not least and not my least favourite pony. She's cute, and she's country, and she has that adorable accent.

In this episode we had some priceless CMC moments. Sweetie Belle and Scoots were both in tip-top comedic form, with Applebloom as the foil. Best part was their more polished group dynamic, you really got the feeling that these were three ponies who did everything together. Oh and the subtle nods to their development both physical and in-character was nice.

Babs Seed
I knew which direction this was going from the moment she first did that thing with her tail. Still the way the character played out and developed was completely beleivable. Her inner city accent was pretty sweet, but the highlight is her presence. The way she talks down Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon at the end is glorious. And that thing she does with her mane. Yeah Babs was a pretty good introduction to the cast, and we'll probably see her again sometime. Also she references a big sister, but doesn't cite a name. That might be relevant to some of you, or not.

That one line
Rarity's edible emergency boots. I had to stop playing the episode I laughed so hard at this. It's just so Rarity. The image is glorious, Rarity arrives at a party to find her boots are out of season. So she quickly retires to the cloak room, destroys all evidence and emerges fabulous and within trend.

Reference Jokes

Not much to go by this time. Stand out was the A-team musical reference while they sabotaged the float. Also I don't know if it was or it wasn't but the CMC posing in their capes semed like a distinct reference to the Powerpuff Girls. I'm down with that.

Song
Not going to the top of my favourites list, but definitely not to the bottom. The whole sequence was well put together, and and the CMC doing a song together that wasn't their theme song was really nice. Not that the theme song was bad, it was just... masquerading as bad.

Shipping
It was a CMC episode so nada. Well, that's not true. We've got a whole bunch of still frames. Seriously, there's a couple of sequnces where you can pause at random moments and catch the CMC doing bedroom eyes at each other. I feel dirty just writing that. The bedroom eyes thing is true of any number of sequences, it just so happened I caught some A-grade exploitable stuff by accident.

Also Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash stood next to each other at the parade. ... For the first segment. (I'm sooo pathetic ). Oh and if anyone cares to examine things too closely, we have Rarity borrowing a powder from sugarcube corner directly tied to her edible boots. Okay I'll admit, that's all so tenuous it hurts. I'm in withdrawal, sue me.

Bottom line
It was good, best CMC episode in a while and I guess it was my favourite for the season to date. Maybe. I don't consider 2 parters and slice-of-life episodes by the same criteria, so I guess it takes top spot. For now, tune in next week for the return of the Great and Powerful Trixie.