My Little Pony XL: The Plot Thickens!

[Soras Teva Gee]

Hey guys wanna know what I just noticed about this particular shot.

They may have let something out of the bag here see focus on the two at the center of attention. Zoom In. Now ask yourself...

What's missing here?

Answer:

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CADENCE'S WINGS!

Dun Dun DUNH!

[Deadly]

Hey guys wanna know what I just noticed about this particular shot.

They may have let something out of the bag here see focus on the two at the center of attention. Zoom In. Now ask yourself...

What's missing here?

Answer:

Spoiler

Show

CADENCE'S WINGS!

Dun Dun DUNH!

Season Finale, silliness

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Eh, wings are often missing when clothes are involved.

I'm more worried about their curious dance style. Looks very... human to me And look how happy Lyra looks, well OK maybe not happier than you'd expect, but still.... I call it now, Cadence is really a human in disguise! A brony with a trans-dimensional gate even!

[Soras Teva Gee]

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A brony with a trans-dimensional gate even!

Yes I finally found a crack theory I can get behind!

[Pokonic]

I'm not sure I'd call this place particularly safe, really, between the threats to the cosmos, marauding armies of the dead, kidnapping, compulsive lies and bondage.

Hey now, I only promote four of the five things you mentioned!

[Deadly]

Yes I finally found a crack theory I can get behind!

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His name is Stu, and he brings all his brony friends with him.. they all wanted to be their favorite pony of the mane cast, and there were a lot of them

[OracleofWuffing]

EDIT:...And what's this edit of the Last Round-up that everyone is talking about?

The Last Round-Up got changed on the iTunes release. Originally, Rainbow Dash's opening line is "Careful, Derpy!" but in the edit, she just says "Careful!" Likewise, Derpy's voice is higher-pitched after the edit, and her eyes are slightly less spinny. The Friendship Express version has the original scenes. After the Derpy scenes, the episodes are otherwise identical.

There was a thing when this all happened with pitchforks and overreacting and some say the reaction was justified, but yeah, it's hard to stay mad for long when ponies are involved, but some folks are still mad. More or less the change was made because people wrote in to Hub that it was offensive to the mentally challenged, and while it wasn't the writer's call, the writer didn't know Derpy had such connotations at the time the episode was conceived.

[Athaniar]

Finally clicking on Rarity brings up a rather slick Pony Creator. Also very nicely done if a touch simple, its probably a little slicker then pony creator but without as many options. Still some very nice stuff there. Tragically it only wants to Print so if you want to save your creation I guess you have to Print Screen it and clip out you pony with shop. Or extract it with a background from Microsoft's Document Writer program (.xps files) if that's possible.

I'd not call it simple, really. In some categories it has much more to choose from than the fan-made one, especially clothing. It's a pity it lacks a menu system, though.

[Hawkfrost000]

So recently a question has been growing more and more urgent in my mind. Is there a Metal Pony? If not will one of you help me create one?

DM

EDIT: also what is this ATORS thing, it sounds awesome!

[MCerberus]

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His name is Stu, and he brings all his brony friends with him.. they all wanted to be their favorite pony of the mane cast, and there were a lot of them

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And of course that brings us to the famous making pudding scene from Rugrats

Stu, what are you doing at 4 AM?
Making inter-dimensional portals for all my friends.
Why?
Because I've lost control of my life.

[Gamerlord]

I just had an odd thought....what would happen to Discord if he came into contact with the Poison Joke?

[Soras Teva Gee]

I just had an odd thought....what would happen to Discord if he came into contact with the Poison Joke?

He remark on how he was glad his gardening is still in good order.

[Deadly]

So recently a question has been growing more and more urgent in my mind. Is there a Metal Pony? If not will one of you help me create one?

DM

Fluttershy is most metal pony!

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Don't know if that was what you were thinking, but there it is

[Maxtronaut]

So recently a question has been growing more and more urgent in my mind. Is there a Metal Pony? If not will one of you help me create one?

By metal pony, do you mean the music? Or do you mean like sweetie bot?

[Pokonic]

I just had an odd thought....what would happen to Discord if he came into contact with the Poison Joke?

What Soras said. I would bet that the better half of chimrical creatures existant, like the Manticore (What flys like butterfly and stings like a bee? I dont know, but you could ask this thing!), where all creations of his as well, hence the Everfree is basicly the wildlife preserve of chaos.

[MCerberus]

What Soras said. I would bet that the better half of chimrical creatures existant, like the Manticore, where all creations of his as well, hence the Everfree is basicly the wildlife preserve of chaos.

So that means Twilight's assignment into Ponyville, right on the edge of the forest was:

"To my faithful student,

Go grind some levels pl0x."

[Eakin]

So that means Twilight's assignment into Ponyville, right on the edge of the forest was:

"To my faithful student,

Go grind some levels pl0x."

Well, Celestia's plan in the first two episodes basically boiled down to "power up some Macguffins and defeat the final boss in the resulting cutscene" so pretty much.

Maybe the friendship reports are actually their form of save points?

[Deadly]

Just in case anypony still has their pancreas! Scootakitten!

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[Pokonic]

So that means Twilight's assignment into Ponyville, right on the edge of the forest was:

"To my faithful student,

Go grind some levels pl0x."

"Dont go past the green field yet, the Dragon Cave is higher up than the rest of the town, but the Alchemy Trainer there should have warned you of that already."

Maybe the friendship reports are actually their form of save points?

Dear Princess Celestia,

When aggroing monsters, let the party druid attempt to distract it first. Otherwise, pull it into the area furthest away from the rest of the casters and let the melee fighters take care of it.

[Man on Fire]

In another thread on this forum somebody asked me what my issues with Return of Harmony Are. Sadly thread was closed as I was writing and I couldn't post it on time. Therefore, I'm putting it here.

Okay people, this is going to take a while.
- Complete waste of cool villain. You don't just throw somebody like Discord away so easily, not after how awesome he was in first episode. We never really seen him doing anything in the second part, once he won he was just sitting there and waste time.
- Complete waste of plotline for stupid deus ex machina. Why re-brainwashing ponies was so easily? Twilight just forces them back by her magical horn and that's it? I'm supposed to belive that spell of GOD OF CHAOS was undone by mere Unicorn just snapping her fingers?
- We really should see more of the corrupted Ponies. Once they go their ways only Rainbow Dash and Applejack gets any attention. It just feel like sucha a waste - why we couldn't see more of cruel Fluttershy or greedy Rarity or anything with angry Pinkie Pie? I mean, seriously, they cut out her re-brainwashing completely. Why you went through such lenghts to brainwash the poinies and then undo it so easily?
- And what's with the method of saving them anyway? It's so convinient it smells of lazy writing. It would make much more interesting story if each of the main cast would have to confront their inner demons, fight them and accept them to some extend. It would make their characters deeper and more flawed, which is a good thing. Instead they get away without having to confront what turned them into their opposites and end completely unchanged.
- By the way, why am I supposed to cheer for Twilight when she did exactly the same thing Discord did, namely mindraped four innocent girls so they can serve her goals? Only he mindraped four of his enemies, she did it to her closest friends.
- And what's supposed to be the message of this episode anyway? "If something make your friends change and drift away from you, you shoud force them to be your friends again"? "Never accept change and always climb to the past"? "Force your friends to be how you want them to be"?
- Not to mention that you cannot spell "mindrape" without "rape" and former is by many assumed to be metaphor for the latter. Because if we would mention it, then message of this episode becomes "Rape victims should be raped again and they'll be fine".
- Some say that this was Star Trek refference - mindmelting or something. If that's true, then f*** this show. You don't throw the plot out of the window to do reference to old tv series your target audience won't get anyway!
- Seriously, this should have been plot of entire second season, there was no reason to just smash it into two episodes. They tried to cram too much and ended cutting out the good parts. It's probably the biggest waste of the plot I ever seen in my life.
-And where was Celestia during all of this? She send the girls and then send back some letters - I would be expecting something else from ultra-powerful ruler whose country was attacked by setting's Satan equivalent.
- Same goes for Luna.
-And why they turned Rainbow Dash in a moron who cannot say the difference between her hometown and normal cloud? What was that supposed to be, foreshadowing of turning her into second Wheeler that came in following episodes?

[Gamerlord]

In another thread on this forum somebody asked me what my issues with Return of Harmony Are. Sadly thread was closed as I was writing and I couldn't post it on time. Therefore, I'm putting it here.

Okay people, this is going to take a while.
- Complete waste of cool villain. You don't just throw somebody like Discord away so easily, not after how awesome he was in first episode. We never really seen him doing anything in the second part, once he won he was just sitting there and waste time.
- Complete waste of plotline for stupid deus ex machina. Why re-brainwashing ponies was so easily? Twilight just forces them back by her magical horn and that's it? I'm supposed to belive that spell of GOD OF CHAOS was undone by mere Unicorn just snapping her fingers?
- We really should see more of the corrupted Ponies. Once they go their ways only Rainbow Dash and Applejack gets any attention. It just feel like sucha a waste - why we couldn't see more of cruel Fluttershy or greedy Rarity or anything with angry Pinkie Pie? I mean, seriously, they cut out her re-brainwashing completely. Why you went through such lenghts to brainwash the poinies and then undo it so easily?
- And what's with the method of saving them anyway? It's so convinient it smells of lazy writing. It would make much more interesting story if each of the main cast would have to confront their inner demons, fight them and accept them to some extend. It would make their characters deeper and more flawed, which is a good thing. Instead they get away without having to confront what turned them into their opposites and end completely unchanged.
- By the way, why am I supposed to cheer for Twilight when she did exactly the same thing Discord did, namely mindraped four innocent girls so they can serve her goals? Only he mindraped four of his enemies, she did it to her closest friends.
- And what's supposed to be the message of this episode anyway? "If something make your friends change and drift away from you, you shoud force them to be your friends again"? "Never accept change and always climb to the past"? "Force your friends to be how you want them to be"?
- Not to mention that you cannot spell "mindrape" without "rape" and former is by many assumed to be metaphor for the latter. Because if we would mention it, then message of this episode becomes "Rape victims should be raped again and they'll be fine".
- Some say that this was Star Trek refference - mindmelting or something. If that's true, then f*** this show. You don't throw the plot out of the window to do reference to old tv series your target audience won't get anyway!
- Seriously, this should have been plot of entire second season, there was no reason to just smash it into two episodes. They tried to cram too much and ended cutting out the good parts. It's probably the biggest waste of the plot I ever seen in my life.
-And where was Celestia during all of this? She send the girls and then send back some letters - I would be expecting something else from ultra-powerful ruler whose country was attacked by setting's Satan equivalent.
- Same goes for Luna.
-And why they turned Rainbow Dash in a moron who cannot say the difference between her hometown and normal cloud? What was that supposed to be, foreshadowing of turning her into second Wheeler that came in following episodes?

I got the impression she wasn't mind raping them, more like curing them of the brain washing, she was simply reversing the effects of Discord's corruption.

[TheAmishPirate]

I got the impression she wasn't mind raping them, more like curing them of the brain washing, she was simply reversing the effects of Discord's corruption.

More than that, she said it was a memory spell. I saw it as she forced the memories of all their good times together to the forefront of their minds, rather than insert other ones. When they saw the difference between how they'd been acting and how they truly were, they snapped out of it.

And as for the cloud thing, it's the same reason Rarity thought a giant rock was a diamond.

[Anarion]

So recently a question has been growing more and more urgent in my mind. Is there a Metal Pony? If not will one of you help me create one?

DM

EDIT: also what is this ATORS thing, it sounds awesome!

Oh no. He got the AOTRS abbreviation wrong. Duck and cover everypony, this is not a drill!

And as others have said, do you mean a pony composed of metallic elements, or one into rock music?

Well, Celestia's plan in the first two episodes basically boiled down to "power up some Macguffins and defeat the final boss in the resulting cutscene" so pretty much.

Maybe the friendship reports are actually their form of save points?

Works for me, especially since they undid Twilight's game over in Return of Harmony.

Just in case anypony still has their pancreas! Scootakitten!

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Still can't fly, can she?

I got the impression she wasn't mind raping them, more like curing them of the brain washing, she was simply reversing the effects of Discord's corruption.

I was under the impression that it was a memory spell based on what we saw with Applejack. All Twilight was doing was causing them to think about their memories in the same way the letters had worked for her. That apparently undoes Discord's brainwashing.

@Man on Fire: You raise very valid points that I think boil down to the pacing of the episode. Most ponies here would agree with you. It would have been much better as 3 episodes or even a 2 hour movie that would give each character a fair bit more screen-time and better explain how they were restored and ultimately beat Discord.

Your other points, however, seem to me to be missing the structure of the show and simply replacing that with what you would like it to be. It's not a serial adventure, it's a slice of life show with adventures every once in a while. If that doesn't appeal to you (and it pretty clearly doesn't) then it's probably not the show for you, but I don't think it's realistic to expect the show to structure its episodes as you're asking.

Finally, I think you're purposely perverting the lesson of Return of Harmony. In particular, you introduce the term mind-rape and then make a comparison to real rape that is simply uncalled for. The moral of the episode from my viewing is that it's important to fight for the things you care about and not just give them up at the first sign of trouble. A secondary moral is that sometimes when other people are being jerks, it's not because they don't like you, but because there is some other problem in their lives (magic in this case, but in the real world it can be all sorts of stress).

[Siosilvar]

Oh no. He got the AOTRS abbreviation wrong. Duck and cover everypony, this is not a drill!

Well, shoot. I don't have a big enough power source for the rainbow laser or time to convert it into a shield.

See y'all 90 degrees from tomorrow!

EDIT: No, the rainbow laser is not the same as the orbital friendship cannon. It's pony-portable, for one.

[Hawkfrost000]

Oh no. He got the AOTRS abbreviation wrong. Duck and cover everypony, this is not a drill!

And as others have said, do you mean a pony composed of metallic elements, or one into rock music?

I did?, oops

I prefer my ponies (and people) into metal than made of metal.

DM

[Gamerlord]

Here is a two minute preview of Saturday's episode. *SPOILERS*

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Pinkie is the culprit, isn't she? Also, if you pause at the right moment, you can see the outline of the mysterious pony Pinkie was chasing was that of Rainbow Dash.

[kpenguin]

I did?, oops

I prefer my ponies (and people) into metal than made of metal.

DM

I wish there was a picture of a Kitty Pryde pony half-phased through a metal wall I could link here, but there isn't. So I'll just leave the mental image.

[Roninhirox]

Ponythread.

I have an important announcement.

Today is the happiest day in my life since graduating from A-Levels.

Today, I graduate from medical school.

I'll let Twilight express my happiness.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jpgy21r_dRE

Congrats that is awesome.

[Eakin]

Dear Princess Celestia,

When aggroing monsters, let the party druid attempt to distract it first. Otherwise, pull it into the area furthest away from the rest of the casters and let the melee fighters take care of it.

Dear Princess Celestia,

WTF, y did u team me up with this grp of n00bs? Teh tank pulled a manticore b4 the healer had any mana, teh druid forgot she could CC until halfway through teh fight, teh other caster ran into melee, and teh barbarian got cleaved cuz she's 2 dumb 2 stand behind the mob instead she was just strafing in a circle and auto-attacking. I dropped group b4 we could TPK, those casuals can suck it.

Ur faithful student,
xXxTwilight_SparklexXx

PS: y is it so dark in Canterlot? Is this a new patch or something or iz my monitor skrewed up?

Many different points

Gonna try to take these in order even though I'll probably be Pinkie'd before I can post it.

-Discord was wasted: Discord was indeed awesome, and I hope the revelation that de Lancie has been voice acting for the show again means we're getting him back sometime in season 3. We did see him spread chaos through Ponyville and screw with Twilight in that episode, but I'll agree that he did a lot more in E1.

-Issues with the deprogramming/unbrainwashing: I assumed that Twilight was actually reminding them of their friendships, not mentally reprogramming them. Once they remembered why they were friends in the first place they stopped being such jerks to one another. "Mindrape" doesn't enter into it.

-We should have seen more X: At some point you have to realize they had 22 minutes of screen time to work with. Frankly, stretching out the story to half a season may have left them time to do some cool things (ponies facing their inner demons to be redeemed, or however else you'd have settled it) but would take away from the slice of life style of the rest of the show. I also don't think it would hold up as well on subsequent or out-of-order views if it were a strongly connected story arc.

-Celestia and Luna: They needed the elements to beat him the first time, what were they supposed to do? Also, these episodes were made as part of the first season's production run, so I'm not sure the creators realized at that point that Luna would be such a dark horse (*shameless rimshot*) among the fandom.

-Dash was a moron: No more than Rarity thinking Tom was a diamond

I have to ask, have you seen any of the other slice of life eps and what did you think of those?

[Beacon of Chaos]

Man, I missed a lot.

Hello to all new people/ponies!

Grats to Dr. Grif!


So, I decided to Hell with avoiding spoilers, I'm going to check out that teaser video for the finale. Thoughts below:

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FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU-

You see that bit with the clones? The ones they are fighting? That's excatly the kind of spoiler that I hate. I would have been much happy seeing that appear in the episode. I want that to be a surprise when it pops up.

But perhaps I'm being hasty in complaining and I'm sure I'll get over it by the time the episode airs. I can't deny that I'm intrigued to find out what's going on.

I just would prefer to be like: "Holy cow! Clones!" rather than: "Oh, here's the bit with the clones." y'know?

And on those pictures:

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Yeah, those don't look like screens. Still, I'm hoping that it shows some of that stuff happening. Dash on a date with Soarin' and Rarity with Fancy Pants. I want to see where that goes!

And now there's a preview for next week's episode. To watch, or not to watch...?

[Anarion]

And as for the cloud thing, it's the same reason Rarity thought a giant rock was a diamond.

-Dash was a moron: No more than Rarity thinking Tom was a diamond

I thought we agreed never to speak of that again.