MLP:FiM Season Four: Discussion, Speculation, Interpretation, find it all here. [SPOILERS]

I also really like "Smile, Smile, Smile" but I have to say that the two canon pony songs that I most often find myself (to my eternal shame) actually singing would have to be "Becoming Popular" and "Find a Pet".

Awesome APW, I think I can find common ground with that. Not evil, but definitely disconcerting.

My favourite song so far this season is Not Prepared For This. In general, however, I find of the canon music, I wind up listening to Winter Wrap-Up the most, because it has a nice beat to set an uphill walking speed to. Art of the Dress comes in second, then Super-Speedy-Cider-Squeezy.

Of all songs in MLP, I like The Moon Rises quite a lot. Easily my favourite song in the fandom, though depending on the situation I prefer other songs (like Discord if going on a jog, etc).

Probably "Art of the Dress" and "Smile, Smile, Smile"

If we're counting Fan Songs. "Art of the Mattress" and "Sweetiebot's Big Race" and Eurobeat's "Discord, Discord", and "Pinkie's Brew"

Oh, fanmade music! Love that stuff. I also enjoy The Moon Rises, but while we're at it I would certainly suggest checking out the "Sequel" song, Lullaby for a Princess, for those wh ohave not already.

Ponyphonic doesn't release stuff often, but man when he does...

Changeling is a good song too!

And then there are a bunch of Discord remixes I won't bother posting here because a quick youtube search can easily come up with all of them pretty darn quick.

All-time favorite canon song is Super Speedy Cider Squeezy, with Smile and Winter Wrap-Up as close seconds. Preferably only the tune for WWU, though. I've never been a huge fan of the words.

As for fanmade, there's a lot of stuff that I love, but my current favorite artist would have to be Interrobang Pie. It's amazing what he does with 8-bit!

A bit late to the clone discussion, but I believe these pictures sum up the implications this episode could have had, were it not a cartoon.

Whoops:

Depression:

Clone analysis:

Imagine if the episode was a two-parter...

Alt Text:

Best canon song: Smile Smile Smile.

Best non-canon songs: Discord, Discord Jazz Remix, Daddy Discord.

Don't blink:

Vinyl:

The second clone seemed capable of a little bit of independent thought. Ever clone afterwards, however, seemed less and less so. It seems like ever subsequent clone was only concerned about 'Fun!', like a copy of a copy of a copy, each version is less and less true to the original. You could possibly make a case for what happened to the copy that was made by Pink Pie Prime, but probably not the rest, and frankly we don't know what happens to the copies when they return to the pond.

Personally, I'd like to see a return of the Pinkie clones, perhaps as some sort of ability that Pinkie has gained as a result of exposure to the Mirror Pond.

I'm also wondering if there's a relationship between how many Pinkies were there and how much personality they had. The second one, as Cardbo pointed out, was capable of some depth, and as Zarhon showed in one of his pictures, the second to last displayed fear, which is more depth than they had had previously. Perhaps with a small number of clones, the pool tries to make them true to the original, but with that many, the pool gave up on trying to make anything other than caricatures.

Or maybe, the clones that ended up cloning themselves ended up cloning a "lesser" portion. Pinkie Pie cloned her original self only twice, the rest was clones cloning clones, which would kinda mean they cloned less from less.

Or maybe its something horrifying. Like this!

While the idea you came up with makes more sense than mine, I have no idea what was supposed to be happening in that video. (Very good animation, though.)

Oh, I'll add my favourite song: B.B.B.F.F. I really liked the intent behind it, even if it wasn't quite as high quality as some of the others.

As for Fan Music... Um I'd go with dBPony, Mathew Mosier, AllLevelsAtOnce, Replacer, Yourenigma, and of course Ponyphonic as my top favourites. Though heck, I listen to a lot more than just those.

SilentBelle wrote:I really liked the intent behind it, even if it wasn't quite as high quality as some of the others.

Huh. I just found a way to accurately describe why I like My Little Pony to other people so much.

Not the only reason I do, of course, but definitely a large enough part to enter into my explanations.

Yay, people agree with me. Ponyphonic! (And the Pinkies).

The real ending there is kind of random. Which is very Pinkie. And so works.

I also notice on the re-showing that her giving a hand up is basically what she did to herself in Smile Smile Smile, so she's done this before to decent effect...?

One Bad Apple- aka Da Bitch.

Eh. It was alright. Always a fan of CMC episodes (because Sweetie Belle). I like how we got to see where she actually lives finally- a new part of town we haven't seen before, too.

I feel like they overstepped the definition of "bullying", at least as far as the CMCs were concerned (payback =/= bullying), and at the same time understated how serious some people claim it to be. It's also concerning to see that despite the numerous times the CMCs have one-upped Tiara, they still react the way they do when she goes after them. You'd think by now they would be at the "lol whatever kid" stage of her teasing.

Emergency Edible Boots are the new Giant Hats. Fact. Also, Film and cinemas are canon, as are people shaped caricatures. People, not ponies. That drink seemed to be in agony as his insides were sucked out. So that's a thing.

I like how they covered three different shades of bullying.

The bullies who bully just because they feel like it: Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon
The bullies who bully because they don't want to be victims: Babs Seed
The bullies who bully the bullies: CMC

I also liked the song. Tottally gonna catch myself singing that sometime.

Bronymous wrote:Also, Film and cinemas are canon, as are people shaped caricatures. People, not ponies. That drink seemed to be in agony as his insides were sucked out. So that's a thing.

That depends on how canonly you take the music video to be.

I mean, obviously it was somewhat canon, being representative of all the incidents that occurred for 'bout a week and a half, but I seriously doubt that at any time Babs actually grew into a giant and hijacked the Ponyville cinema before stepping through the boundaries between fiction and slightly-less-fictional fiction in order to terrorize the filmgoers. Typical music-video over-the-topness.

Also I loved the heck out of this episode and nothing anyone can say will convince me otherwise.

AProcrastinatingWriter wrote:I mean, obviously it was somewhat canon, being representative of all the incidents that occurred for 'bout a week and a half, but I seriously doubt that at any time Babs actually grew into a giant and hijacked the Ponyville cinema before stepping through the boundaries between fiction and slightly-less-fictional fiction in order to terrorize the filmgoers.

Why not? Pinkie could, and she doesn't have a monopoly on reality-shattering powers.

Pinkie Pie herself once put out a music video called "Smile, Smile Smile", and in part of that music video Pinkie turned the whole world into felt and pulled a copy of herself out from a literal pit of depression. I realize one wants to argue that that was all real, but it's significantly more likely, less ludicrous, and makes more sense, even in Pinkie-Pie-Logic-Land, that that was a metaphor for what Pinkie Pie was singing about and/or a representation of actual events, not what literally happened. Same with singing about Babs Seed, the Bad Seed.

Besides, and a bit less "I believe this while you believe that but surely you must see my beliefs are more sensible", wouldn't a foal suddenly emerging from the movie screen all big like that have suddenly caused a teensy bit of a stir? A newspaper article, widespread panic, cries of terror reaching the ears of the Apple family? For that matter, wouldn't Pinkie turning the whole world into felt have done similar things if that had actually happened?

Bronymous wrote:

I feel like they overstepped the definition of "bullying", at least as far as the CMCs were concerned (payback =/= bullying), and at the same time understated how serious some people claim it to be. It's also concerning to see that despite the numerous times the CMCs have one-upped Tiara, they still react the way they do when she goes after them. You'd think by now they would be at the "lol whatever kid" stage of her teasing.

Payback =/= Bullying, but that prank was seriously dangerous. Had they made it fall apart or something, that would have only caused scrapes, splinters, some bleeding. This could have killed Babs. Bullying or not, the CMCs don't get to get away with that sort of behavior.

They may not be totally past it yet, but they're getting there.

AProcrastinatingWriter wrote:Besides, and a bit less "I believe this while you believe that but surely you must see my beliefs are more sensible", wouldn't a foal suddenly emerging from the movie screen all big like that have suddenly caused a teensy bit of a stir? A newspaper article, widespread panic, cries of terror reaching the ears of the Apple family? For that matter, wouldn't Pinkie turning the whole world into felt have done similar things if that had actually happened?

I'm inclined to agree with this. However, since I believe this started when people started discussing the humanity of the food caricatures, I'd assume that they made the foods less pony-like to lessen the disturbing factor. They are ponies, after all; as horrifying as even implied cannibalism is to us, it'd be far far worse for herbivorous ponies. So they picked on extinct, fictional, or otherwise absent humanoids for the caricatures.

Also, anypony else notice that the new float was a golden apple? Apple of Eris, anypony?

Also also, the "drumming in the recruit" scene was hilarious. Especially since it reminded me of this.

It surprised me that they decided to cover the topic of bullying, and I think they did a pretty good job of it too. Of course, I might be biased towards almost every CMC episode... but I really liked it, probably in the top 10 for me A pretty solid song too. Though, I am hoping, that in this season, I'll come across an episode to replace my all time favourite: "Sister Hooves Social".

The Warrior of Many Faces wrote: However, since I believe this started when people started discussing the humanity of the food caricatures, I'd assume that they made the foods less pony-like to lessen the disturbing factor.

That could be true. I personally figured it was just because the snacks were decidedly non-pony shaped, though - if a person from our world bucked the trend and drew a living candy bar walking on caterpillar legs instead of human, I don't think I'd find it odd. But you could be right, of course. Just thought I'd throw my theory out too.

I swear "Babs Seed/Bad Seed" has been stuck in my head all day.

So, SilentBelle, am I safe in assuming Sweetie is your favorite Cutie Mark Crusader, or have I been led astray by your username and choice in favorite episode?

Applebloom's better.

AProcrastinatingWriter wrote:
So, SilentBelle, am I safe in assuming Sweetie is your favorite Cutie Mark Crusader, or have I been led astray by your username and choice in favorite episode?

Applebloom's better.

Oh, and don't forget the fanfiction Yes, Sweetie Belle is my favourite pony.
(Now to get back to work on that chapter for tomorrow...)

The episode took a while to show up in ITunes, so I haven't watched it until now. Anyone notice how similar the music when they were building the golden apple was similar to the A-Team tune.

Yes, immediately, and it made me grin from ear to ear.

Magic Duel is fantastic.

Chock full of continuity and a few fandom nods!

The merchant at the start seems like he fell out of everyone's D&D campaigns. Magic item shops/shopkeepers/charms are now canon! Especially interesting of note his words "of the known magical charms"...

Fluttershy got some great moments out of this episode.

Pinkie Pie confirmed for anaerobic organism.

Also, that ending explains sooo much. Good thing we don't have racial restrictions anymore!

And then there's the rampant use of magic...

Spells: