Dessa

Also, LOVED this ep.

Tales gets a cutie mark in image memes. Pony Joe. Pinkamena Diane Pie. Gilda. Just sayin'. Ugh, can we retire the term "political correctness" please? Even advertisers are getting tired of Rush Limbaugh. You want the truth about bullying? It's complex! Far more than could be addressed in a 22 minute episode that needs to fit in some jokes between the serious bits. Truth is, bullies ARE sometimes bullied. Not always, but sometimes. Really, I think you make some fair points dude. Some of them I thought of myself, but coming in with "political correctness" and "stockholm syndrome" and all these fancy two bit words hurts you more than it helps. Truth is, the proper response to a bully really depends. There's no magic bullet. Sometimes, it IS to ignore them. Sometimes bullies just intensify when you try it. Sometimes, beating the bully up makes them stop. Sometimes, the buly get friends and intensifies (or is someone you cant beat up to begin with). And sometimes, telling an adult DOES get you help, while other times, the adult is incapable or unwilling to solve the problem. All of these fancy platitudes about "relying on authority is bad" or "children should rely on adults as part of a support network" are too simplistic to address the ENTIRE spectrum of bullying (Not all kids HAVE a network, after all. We live in a sad world). Truth be told, a kid can only do so much about a bully before he's out of options. If we want to end bullying, it's up to us as ADULTS to put a stop to it. If the world was full of responsible Applejacks, we'd be solid. But it isn't. Sometimes the people who should be responsible don't know what to do, or are intimidated by the bullies themselves, or simply say "it's just kids being kids" and ignore it. You used your authority to stop bullying. What would you have done if you could not kickban him? If you answer "get the mod to ban him," you're a hypocrite.

In regards to storytelling, I'm with this lady: And to me, this episode felt more gag-driven than character driven. Storytelling, despite the assertions of some, is not just another word for "plot." Predictable plotting doesn't preclude good storytelling, and I think previous episodes are examples of this.

I kinda like the "Aquastria" pun.

This doesn't even make any sense. Whitehawke is pointing out, with specific examples and detailed explanations, why he felt like these were examples of bad writing. Not just lame jokes, but actual poorly structured storytelling. Nopony is saying Polsky can't tell a good joke. He's actually pretty good at this. We're saying he has trouble telling stories well, which is a seperate criticism. Because, poke fun at Faust's humor if you wish, the show has never been as consistently plotted, chatacterized, and set as well as it has been since Faust was at the helm. And that includes the Polsky eps.

Given how many times Pinkie has been the one to locate Twi's book, an episode about multiple Pinkies would seem like the perfect place to call that back. Heck, make the scene actually worthwhile by letting it be a subtle clue about the real Pinkie. Twi: Where is that book? Pinkie: It's right over heeere~♪ Twi: Pinkie, how did you find it?! Pinkie: I saw it last week when I helped you clean, silly! Man, maybe they should hire me.

Interesting. But the wording on the book of it being a "brand new" location makes me think that will be its first introduction (which makes it less likely it will be cartoon canon, IMO).

No, Ginger, you sound like awesome, and I look forward to your thoughts on every episode. You're one of the few people I feel who can give me satisfying answers even when I disagree.

Not to mention the hoary old racial tropes I thought cartoons had long since buried.

Over a Barrel was a horrible episode, but I'd argue that Feeling Pinkie Keen actually DID have depth. I find it a strength that it leaves its moral open to viewer interpretation. Also, Pinkie Pie isn't a spaz the whole time. Sometimes, she has feels without zipping all over the screen and screeching every other line at top pitch.

I'm with ZephyrBurst 100%. Here's why this episode was shallow: Pinkie sees 2 events, wants to go to them both. So she creates a clone. Here's the first problem: she still doesn't get to experience both events. Now, this could be USED to make a point about the lesson, but instead, she just hears about another even and doubles further. Suddenly, it doesn't matter anymore that Pinkie can't go to every event, and the problem becomes too many pinkies. We can relate to wanting to be two places as once, but too many pinkies is just a cartoon gag. In the end, the method applied should be no more effective at finding the real Pinkie than a fake one. Pinkie is distractable. My rewrite: Pinkie hears about AJ's barn raising and RD's beach funs, and laments an inability to go to them both. So our conflict here is established: You can't be two places at once, and sometimes you have to make a hard choice. Everyone faces this from time to time -- it's universally relatable. She has an idea and goes to the pond to double herself. She sends her clone to the barn raising and hangs out with Rainbow Dash. While with Dash, she has a GREAT time, and forgets about her earlier dilemma, but afterward meets up with her clone who tells her how AWESOME a time she had with AJ and friends, and she questions her decision to hang out with Dash: What if other Pinkie had more fun? Conflict: still unresolved. (The original story resolves this conflict right here, which was its mistake). So as Pinkie struggles with this, she overhears about the fun she missed at Flutterhshy's, and she changed her plan. She will deploy a NETWORK OF PINKIE PIES to monitor ALL THE FUN STUFF going on in Ponyville, and use this information to always be where the fun is. This, too, backfires. First, Pinkie is at Twi's house, having a blast, but then she gets a resport from another Pinkie that there's a conga line at Rarity's, and she HAS TO BE THERE because "OH I LOVE CONGA LINES" Then when she gets there, she hears about how Granny Smith just finished one of her tastey Zap Apple pies and everyone KNOWS those are the BEST, so she goes there... She's starting to show wear, get tired. Once she's at GS's place, another Pinkie tells her about another totally awesome thing, and on the way to that thing, she hears about another, and another. There's so much fun stuff to do! Meanwhile, the pinkies have been doubling, and there are too many. Parties are getting too hyper. Things are being destroyed. Pinkie hears about this and panics. She just wanted to have fun, and now everything was going sour, but there's not enough of her around to solve it. She enlists the help of AJ to round up the Pinkie Pies, and Twilight to help sort them out. But how do we know which one is the REAL Pinkie? The mane 6 quiz the Pinkie Pies in a big montage with lots of silly gags and dialogues, and we end up interviewing one Pinkie Pie who talks about how she thought it all sounded so fun, and oh why couldnt I have just had fun with Rainbow dash at the pond, etc. In other words: what distinguishies the real Pinkie from the others is that the real Pinkie has learned something, and the others have not yet done so. Twilight zaps the bad Pinkies away. In the end: Dear Princess Celestia (in Pinkie's Voice): Today I learned that you can't be two places at once. Sometimes there are just too many fun things to do, and not enough you to do them. But we shouldn't spend all our time worrying about what we can't do, and instead focus on worrying about the fun stuff we CAN do. You should never let something going on somewhere else ruin your fun. * * * This is a quintessential pinkie lesson that focuses on the most human element of the conflict, but presents plenty of opportunities for the same gags from this episode that we loved. Instead, we get an episode about how funny all those Pinkies are, and the conflict is merely "what to do with all the Pinkies." Weak episode, IMO.

If there's a rival con in NY, 6-8k seems optimistic

What about outstate Orioles fans? After their surprising playoff run this year, might that bring in a lot of traffic from outside the city?

Okay, so he beseiges a city. We get to see the sky flash dark a few times. He depressed ponies. We get to see ponies mope around a little. Hebattles Cadence 1 on 1. We get to see Cadence's horn shine, and the sky flash a couple times. He nullifies Shining Armor's magic, but we don't actually see it happen. We get to see a crystallized horn. These are fine and good, because they build tension. You don't have to constantly see the guy to see his power. But it feels like it's building toward a showdown. Instead, the second we get a good look at the guy, he's vanquished. Everything the heroes had to do was already done, and they did it under the safety of a big glowy bubble. Even when Twilight faced his enchanment on the door, it was so abrupt that it was immediately apparent it was an illusion. If this was given a couple more minutes (taken away from one of the other filler-ish scenes in these eps), it could have had much more impact than it did. Every direct sort of encounter with Sombra resolved so quickly, that all of the tension built was kinda wasted.

I thought it was a good ep, just poorly paced. There semed to be a lot of streches where very little was happening. This could easily have been one ep with good edits, or the time from 2 eps might have been better spend developing Sombra. Mind you, I'm not saying sombra needed a bunch of lines, but it would have been nice to get a more direct taste of his power. Maybe the mae 6 could have brought the elements of harmony, only to see them fail. We're told Sombra is powerful, but I'd like to SEE it.

As Americans, it is our duty to spell things differently than them. For now, I suggest you spell it m0m.

HA! Yes!

Still, it is curious that the ponies in that DVD cover image above have "Twinkle-eyes" along with the Twinkle-eye I posted above. Related? You never know. The writers do like to borrow from G1-3 obscura.

We don't need to be catered to. We're already watching the show.