S04E23: Inspiration Manifestation

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Re: S04E23: Inspiration Manifestation

Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 12:53 am

That episode was really amazing, completely washed that horrid taste of Simple Ways out of my mouth. This is now my second favorite episode of the season, after Rarity Takes Manehattan. :vogue:
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Postby Tears (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 12:54 am

Ragnar wrote:Claude was awesome. Spike walking off with an evil magic book like it was no biggie was pretty cool too, as was Twilight at the end.

I have a problem with this whole "making Rarity crazy" thing, though. This worked far, far better with Twilight because Twilight is a sane and practical individual for the most part, while Rarity is mostly a basket case anyway. I'm also not clear on how the magic actually affected her abilities, if it did at all. Did it make her more creative? Maybe it did literally nothing except remove her inhibitions and then give her a little boost in transformative magic.

I like dark magic as an idea, though. It's easy, it's potent, and it's always a bad idea. I like it when Equestria is dangerous.


The way I took it wasn't so much that the spell changed Rarity. Okay, I'm mis-speaking slightly and this is the last time I'm gonna caveat myself in this post because I wanna talk about the ideas the episode set up for me, so inaccuracies abound below. Non-canon.

So yeah, the spell clearly changed Rarity slightly, it made her ideas run away with herself (was the book explicitly black magic? I'm gonna ignore that for convenience' sake for now), so much as the capacity to just create, with none of the painstaking time and effort the process of creation takes, was what made her crazy.

Take a hugely creative person, and remove all the roadblocks on that creativity, so that she can just make things. No sketching, no stitching, just make make make make. Just conceptualise a thing, and it exists. And it's great on one level because she can make a whole season's outfits in ten minutes. But it's also a form of imprisonment, because everything else falls away in the wake of the ability to create. She doesn't sleep, she doesn't eat, there's nothing else other than the mania of untrammelled creative potential.

And it's not just dresses anymore, she suddenly has the power to remake anything to fit her ideas. Suddenly architecture's in play, food, people. Wouldn't it be great if the town hall was made of marble and vermillion lace? Done.

I guess if Spike hadn't nipped the whole thing in the bud she could have made the whole of Equestria into a gleaming mass of lethal fabulousness. The ground is solid gold! The trees are crystal! The ponies are starving! A whole jewelled world of dazzling splendour as inhabitable as the surface of Mars.

Maybe the spell channels the subject's creative drive into that kind of crazed myopia, but I feel like part of that's inherent to Rarity, that with the limitless capacity to create she loses the agency or desire to do anything else. Shakespeare starved and shivering in an endless labyrinth of manuscripts. The spell might trigger all that, but I feel like Rarity's own character drove her to that point as much as anything else. Not so much that the spell makes Rarity crazy, as the sudden removal on any constraints on her own abilities makes Rarity crazy, or both. If it's a Very Special Episode, it's about cocaine: everything is possible, and everything is a great idea.

Niels Olof wrote:Ah, one of my favorite albums (sadly, I won't get to see her in concert). Though cloudbusting was supported to make it rain rather than disperse the clouds...


I'm actually in London and a few of my friends are spitting blood, because every date sold out in about 15 seconds apart from the Platinum-class tickets, or whatever it is you call paying £500 for a ticket because it comes with a nice view and a bottle of prosecco.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 1:09 am

WandereringPony wrote:Also, did anyone else notice:

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Is that one of Twist's parents with her, like Filthy Rich was with Diamond Tiara? Also, hi Tag-A-Long!

That pony with Twist is Candy Mane, so I guess they could either be parents or siblings.

Edit: And, upon review, this isn't the first time they've appeared together. From Filli Vanilli:
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Postby Highbrow Dash (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 1:10 am

It's so... Rarity :whyme:

Eh, it had its moments but the gimmick got old :-I And it was a bit too creepy.
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 1:20 am

You don't like Dark Magic Rarity? :evil:

We've had Sith Rarity, Nightmare Rarity, and Dark Magic Rarity now. She's the main antagonist of the show. :vogue:
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Postby Highbrow Dash (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 1:23 am

I did like Simple Ways Rarity, but this was a bit too much for me :pinkieshrug:
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 1:34 am

And this is why I hope for an episode featuring Rarity and Pinkie Pie in S5. Time and time again, we've seen that Rarity is almost as nutty as the pink one. She just keeps it hidden behind a sometimes-thin layer of class and grace.
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Postby SoundMonkey44 (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 1:35 am

I've watched the ep three times, and honestly it just...I dunno, I like it overall, but despite Dark Magic crazy Rarity, it feels, I dunno, a lot more generic then usual. :rariwhat:



I mean theres a couple really good moments where I can't help but laugh out Loud, but at the same time, I dunno... It's like, if this was an anime, this would totally be a filler episode. Given this arguably happens at least once every season when you get to the final hand full of eps, but still...

I mean objectively there's nothing horrible about it, but it just, ugg, it's like they kinda sorta tried to go back to that season 1 feel abit, but tried to keep the season 4 vibe too, so they have an ep that's laid back, but also hyper.

I dunno, it's hard to explain how this episode feels to me, it's interesting, but at the same time if it wasn't pony doing it and some other cartoon, I feel like I'd be complaining about it being a really stupid episode...but it's not...

I must meditate further on this issue. :ponder:
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Postby Kiith Soban (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 1:41 am

Watched it earlier today. I don't have any major complains, and seeing Rarity go crazy again was funny, but everything else felt boring. Overall, I found it pretty forgettable.
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The way I took it wasn't so much that the spell changed Rarity. Okay, I'm mis-speaking slightly and this is the last time I'm gonna caveat myself in this post because I wanna talk about the ideas the episode set up for me, so inaccuracies abound below. Non-canon.

So yeah, the spell clearly changed Rarity slightly, it made her ideas run away with herself (was the book explicitly black magic? I'm gonna ignore that for convenience' sake for now), so much as the capacity to just create, with none of the painstaking time and effort the process of creation takes, was what made her crazy.

Take a hugely creative person, and remove all the roadblocks on that creativity, so that she can just make things. No sketching, no stitching, just make make make make. Just conceptualise a thing, and it exists. And it's great on one level because she can make a whole season's outfits in ten minutes. But it's also a form of imprisonment, because everything else falls away in the wake of the ability to create. She doesn't sleep, she doesn't eat, there's nothing else other than the mania of untrammelled creative potential.

And it's not just dresses anymore, she suddenly has the power to remake anything to fit her ideas. Suddenly architecture's in play, food, people. Wouldn't it be great if the town hall was made of marble and vermillion lace? Done.

I guess if Spike hadn't nipped the whole thing in the bud she could have made the whole of Equestria into a gleaming mass of lethal fabulousness. The ground is solid gold! The trees are crystal! The ponies are starving! A whole jewelled world of dazzling splendour as inhabitable as the surface of Mars.

Maybe the spell channels the subject's creative drive into that kind of crazed myopia, but I feel like part of that's inherent to Rarity, that with the limitless capacity to create she loses the agency or desire to do anything else. Shakespeare starved and shivering in an endless labyrinth of manuscripts. The spell might trigger all that, but I feel like Rarity's own character drove her to that point as much as anything else. Not so much that the spell makes Rarity crazy, as the sudden removal on any constraints on her own abilities makes Rarity crazy, or both. If it's a Very Special Episode, it's about cocaine: everything is possible, and everything is a great idea.

To me the book looked like it was based on the Ring from LOTR, and it's pretty clear that Rarity was at least a bit altered by the spell. Not Nightmare Rarity-altered, but One Ring-style mind control, which means the book might've showed her what she could do with it and manipulated her into abusing that power. It's like how Boromir couldn't even be close to the Ring because it tricked him into thinking he could use it to protect Gondor. It's not outright mind control, it's just pressing the right buttons.
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Postby Wayoshi (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 1:42 am

SoundMonkey44 wrote:honestly it just...I dunno, I like it overall, but despite Dark Magic crazy Rarity, it feels, I dunno, a lot more generic then usual. :rariwhat:

Yep, pretty much this. There's not a lot of wow here, it's just "that's nice, I guess."

A disappointing season for Powell overall.
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Postby SoundMonkey44 (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 1:50 am

Wayoshi wrote:Yep, pretty much this. There's not a lot of wow here, it's just "that's nice, I guess."

A disappointing season for Powell overall.



I dunno, I mean How much of the ep was Powell & how much was Meghan? I don't think we can say who's responsible for what, I will say Powell, if mostly responsible, does a very good job of writing the Spike/Owloicious dynamic. She seems to be good at written dragons & pets.

Rarity wasn't really off, but she wasn't on her A game either, the crazy stuff was really fun, it's always fun to watch ponies go crazy, but a lot of the dialouge for regular Rarity felt abit...flat, but that may just be me.

I mean again, I think it's a decent episode, I'd give it a solid B. But, yeah, I will agree Powells S3 work was better, I like This & Rainbow Falls for what they are, but the pow that SIP & JFS had just isn't quite there.

It feels weird to see an episode as average, as most of this season has been :-D to me. But this one was just :-I .
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Postby Wayoshi (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 1:53 am

Regardless of who contributed to what here, SiP & JFS are arguably two of the top five of a semi-barren S3, and here with several stand-out eps Powell falls way short on both. Hopefully she can rebound next time in S5, if she writes here.

That said, I'm also disappointed that Meghan can't find the regular episode magic. What happened to top quality like Green Isn't Your Color and Lesson Zero, buddy? Hell, a similar low-key ep by her, Hearts & Hooves Day, was significantly better than this episode.
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Postby SoundMonkey44 (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 2:03 am

I always feel kinda bad saying stuff like this cause it feels like I'm boxing a writer in to a small corner... But I kinda think Powell should just stick to CMC & or Spike/Pet Spike/CMC eps, she seems to have a good feel for the supporting cast characters, and she can write Mane six ponies well when playing off the CMC. But it seems when it's a mane six ep, it's not quite up to snuff.

I do think in this ep Rarity & Spike bounced fairly well of of each other, not as well as Spike & Owlicious, by yeah.

Maybe Powell is one of those writers that's just really good with kids & pets, and average with everything else.

Or hopefully I'm wrong and she writes the best Mane Six a Ensemble ep anyone has ever seen in S5! :party:




As for Meghan. I dunno she writes characters well overall as a group, but outside of Twilight, she doesn't seem to be that strong on individuals anymore.

... But that's just my 2 cents, and I am 110% sure I'll quickly be proven wrong in either the very few remaining eps of S4 or in S5!!
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 2:03 am

Fizzbuzz wrote:And this is why I hope for an episode featuring Rarity and Pinkie Pie in S5. Time and time again, we've seen that Rarity is almost as nutty as the pink one. She just keeps it hidden behind a sometimes-thin layer of class and grace.


This is why I hope we can finally get over Rarity/Applejack screentime. There's just so much untapped potential in these other things, if we can just get over the "Opposites can get along!" thing that we've already seen time and time again. A Rarity/Pinkie episode could be the best of S5 if they were to make it, or a Rarity/Twilight episode as I'm rooting for.
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Postby ThunderBunny (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 2:16 am

Niels Olof wrote:
While I expect we'll never get the answer to these questions, the notion of spells that are activated as you read them is rather fraught. Do you have to read it aloud for it to be cast, or is just reading it enough?

This trope has been passed down from real beliefs about magic in Europe since the Middle Ages, and probably inherited from even older Roman and Arabic traditions. The idea that words spoken out loud have inherent power and weight is an important concept going back a long way and is pervasive in a lot of cultures. Not that that's necessarily what writers intend when they follow the trope, but I do think that's the reason that said trope exists without much questioning.

Regarding this episode, I totally loved it. I thought the pacing was fantastic, the jokes were accessible and funny, and as a kid who definitely used to watch a lot of Saved by the Bell, I loved the Jessie Spano reference. I really liked Spike in this episode, I virtually ALWAYS love Rarity, I thought Rainbow Dash was cute and sympathetic in her brief appearance (again, a major triumph for me), etc. etc.

Bottom line: I don't think there was anything about this episode that I DIDN'T like.
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Postby Wayoshi (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 2:26 am

Yeah, it's way too early to say on Powell. The only writers honestly we can have definite conclusions on are AKR, Meghan and Larson, IMO.
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Postby Mr. Big (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 2:31 am

Wayoshi wrote:Yeah, it's way too early to say on Powell. The only writers honestly we can have definite conclusions on are AKR, Meghan and Larson, IMO.

Assuming that you base that on writers having 10 or more episodes, you should probably add Dave Polsky (11 episodes) and Cindy Morrow (10 episodes) to the list.
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Postby SoundMonkey44 (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 2:32 am

@ Thunder Asking in advance please don't hate me! :flutterunsmith:


Anywho on to the main part of this post..


Another thing about this episode, perhaps the thing that bothers me the most...it just, it feels hollow! I mean every other episode in this series, weather I loved, hated or was in between, I watch and I feel there's something special about what I'm watching, like there was a lot of genuine heart and effort put into this product which my eyes are viewing!

But this episode, well, for me it's like out of table of food, you have 87 steaks with some degree of meat on em and a really nice juicy bone, but this is the 1 plate with the dry & hollow bone.

I feel horrible typing such things, because I feel I'm being a lot more negative then I want to be. I think it's a decent episode, there's nothing I hate, there's moments that make me laugh, but...it just feels soo,...empty. :fluttersmith:


On the bright side lots of fun Green Eyed Rarity pics to turn into Avatars! :vogue:
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Postby ThunderBunny (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 2:39 am

SoundMonkey44 wrote:@ Thunder Asking in advance please don't hate me! :flutterunsmith:



Hahaha, no worries. We all have different tastes, and hey, I feel like a MONSTER every time the CMC show up and then I come on here whining about how stupid and annoying I usually find them (though I have actually been finding them MUCH more tolerable overall this season, for what it's worth).

The fact that some people would not like this episode in no way detracts from my thorough enjoyment of it, so hate on, haters. :vogue:
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Postby Big Boss (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 2:41 am

You're not going to like every episode. :pinkieshrug:

I, on the other hand, impose my will of fabulosity upon all. :vogue:
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 2:44 am

It didn't really feel hollow to me, but there are a couple of things to consider: One, I'm pretty sure I like Spike more than most people. Coming into this, I was particularly excited since this was the first time he and Rarity have done anything major since SoME and I wanted to see what they thought of each other nowadays, and this episode didn't disappoint. Two, even though I can't relate to Rarity quite as well as the others, I still felt a lot of sympathy for her here, despite knowing full well how overexaggerated her behavior was. I suppose she really does have a way of communicating her feelings, as it were. :-I
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Postby SoundMonkey44 (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 2:47 am

Fizzbuzz wrote:It didn't really feel hollow to me, but there are a couple of things to consider: One, I'm pretty sure I like Spike more than most people. Coming into this, I was particularly excited since this was the first time he and Rarity have done anything major since SoME and I wanted to see what they thought of each other nowadays, and this episode didn't disappoint. Two, even though I can't relate to Rarity quite as well as the others, I still felt a lot of sympathy for her here, despite knowing full well how overexaggerated her behavior was. I suppose she really does have a way of communicating her feelings, as it were. :-I



Oh I agree it's nice to see the Spike/Rarity Friendship Dynamic expanded upon. Spike getting so much love from his Fav Unicorn was nice.

But at the same time though, I dunno, just didn't quite have that usual :ponydrugs: Spark for me.

@Kefka. But I'm a rabbid fanboy, it's my job to have a pathological love of all things pony! :hiiiii:
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Postby ThunderBunny (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 2:50 am

Tabitha St. Germain manages to take a character that could be reeeaaally grating to me and uses her fantastic acting skills to transform that character into someone I truly feel for, even when I realize how ridiculous she is being. When Spike returned and Rarity had amassed a whole heap of empty ice cream cartons, I just thought it was so adorable and pathetically sad, despite being way over the top. Not that that specific gag is testament to Tabitha's voice acting skills, but rather that her interpretations of Rarity's dialogue sets me up to like everything about the character way more than I think I would if she was voiced by someone with less attention to nuance and sense of humor.
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Postby Wayoshi (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 2:52 am

Fizzbuzz wrote:I wanted to see what they thought of each other nowadays, and this episode didn't disappoint.

I'm not sure what was so new here. :pinkieshrug:

In fact, I would say a shortcoming was that there was not much depth to this dynamic at all, instead it all came from Rarity vs. Ponyville and Spike vs. Owl-whatever.
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Postby Just Scuds (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 2:53 am

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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 3:04 am

What happened to all that gold, anyway... :smirk:
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Postby Durandal (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 3:05 am

ThunderBunny wrote:Tabitha St. Germain manages to take a character that could be reeeaaally grating to me and uses her fantastic acting skills to transform that character into someone I truly feel for, even when I realize how ridiculous she is being. When Spike returned and Rarity had amassed a whole heap of empty ice cream cartons, I just thought it was so adorable and pathetically sad, despite being way over the top. Not that that specific gag is testament to Tabitha's voice acting skills, but rather that her interpretations of Rarity's dialogue sets me up to like everything about the character way more than I think I would if she was voiced by someone with less attention to nuance and sense of humor.


A part of me was wondering if she actually had some ice cream in the recording room. You know, for total authenticity. :vogue:
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 3:10 am

Wayoshi wrote:I'm not sure what was so new here. :pinkieshrug:

In fact, I would say a shortcoming was that there was not much depth to this dynamic at all, instead it all came from Rarity vs. Ponyville and Spike vs. Owl-whatever.

It really isn't much new; in fact, it mostly confirmed what I had thought of them, that Spike had gotten over his crush on her but still looked up to her as a friend. It's just that we've hardly seen any of that side of him since S2, which is somewhat unbalanced compared to how often it came up in S1. And I think this episode used their relationship for plenty of conflict, though it was presented mainly as Spike vs. himself, since he thought Rarity would hate him if he told her off.
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Postby PictishBeast (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 3:12 am

Fizzbuzz wrote:Oh yeah, one other thing. I was disappointed that, once the spell was broken and Rarity was back to normal, it turned out she was possessed and she didn't remember anything of what she had done. I don't think she should've been totally absolved of responsibility for her acts today, as she apparently was.


I viewed it as kind of like getting blackout drunk. You might not remember what you did the night before, but it was still "you."
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Postby Angel Beat (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 3:12 am

Rarity om nom noming all of that ice cream was the icing on the cake. :vogue:
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 3:15 am

While that was a nice joke, I wish they stuck with one bucket of ice cream rather than that pile. I felt the pile really kind of ruined that joke. I know it's just "cartoon logic", but I don't think that really excuses anything.
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Postby Kitsune (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 3:19 am

Even if Rarity had remembered her actions, the blame would be on Spike anyway for giving her the book in the first place :-I

Of course, I would've thought she'd retain her memory, too, given that she seemed firmly in control, just misguided, and I was kind of disappointed they didn't go that route, but the focus of the episode was mostly on Spike anyway.
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Postby Corpy (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 3:35 am

The mariachi she turned into Octavia was a stallion :-I
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Postby VoidChicken (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 3:39 am

People were hoping for a resolution for Spike's crush on Rarity this episode, and I say we got it.

From the start of the series, we saw Spike having romantic feelings for her. As time passed, Rarity discovers them and, ahem, utilizes them from time to time. But eventually she makes it clear that she has no intention of reciprocating.

And in this episode we see that Spike has finally accepted that it's not to be, but they're still close friends who still care about each other.

That's a damn good lesson, four seasons in the making.
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Postby SoundMonkey44 (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 3:40 am

Corpy wrote:The mariachi she turned into Octavia was a stallion :-I


I think it's more Octavia & co got transported there & the Mariachi found themselves at a fancy Canterlot Garden Party.

And the clown found himself in a French restaurant. :gotcha:
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 5:15 am

VoidChicken wrote:People were hoping for a resolution for Spike's crush on Rarity this episode, and I say we got it.

From the start of the series, we saw Spike having romantic feelings for her. As time passed, Rarity discovers them and, ahem, utilizes them from time to time. But eventually she makes it clear that she has no intention of reciprocating.

And in this episode we see that Spike has finally accepted that it's not to be, but they're still close friends who still care about each other.

That's a damn good lesson, four seasons in the making.


That's what I feel happened in the episode, too. Although it wasn't blatantly stated, I feel it's evident subtly at the very least. And that's why I enjoyed this episode, it has a very good lesson behind it. Something I hope we get more of.
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Postby Sailor Yue (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 5:27 am

it was an alright episode... Not that great, but not dirt poor quality. :-I
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Postby SlateSlabrock (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 5:49 am

I thought the episode was fine, if not amazingly impressive, but if I had to complain about one thing, it'd be the background work. The animators typically throw a lot of unscripted detail into episodes, and some scenes in this one are very detailed, but there are also a lot of shots where the foreground was clearly the only part of the scene that got attention:

Image
Image

It makes me wonder if really busy episodes like last week's sucked up too much of their time, and this one had to be pared down to just the important visual elements to finish in time.
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Postby Homeswirl (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 6:01 am

I really didn't like the intro, with Spike being all googly-eyed and emitting hearts at Rarity again, but the episode was awesome from then out.

Spike waging his own battle with how to deal with her was great.

It rarely ever gets mentioned, but William Anderson's and/or Kelly Davidson's score in the climax was great.

I could have sworn one of the pronunciations was "Allowicious" (or however you spell it) as opposed to "Owlicious", but I can't find it in the episode now.

The ending with Twilight was amazing, subverting the episode's own moral a bit. :gotcha:


Star Platinum wrote: :whyme: "I let you become Something Awful!"


And then Rarity's cutie mark turned into a grenade, and then the internet exploded.

Niels Olof wrote:Huh, that show never made it to my part of the world, but this must be the referenced scene:
<snip>
Seems a good deal funnier when Spike does it.

Yeah, that was part of A Very Special Episode about Drugs in a very popular show, where the dramatic intent tried too hard and flopped, hence its quasi-meme status.
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Sun Apr 27, 2014 6:05 am

SlateSlabrock wrote:I thought the episode was fine, if not amazingly impressive, but if I had to complain about one thing, it'd be the background work. The animators typically throw a lot of unscripted detail into episodes, and some scenes in this one are very detailed, but there are also a lot of shots where the foreground was clearly the only part of the scene that got attention:

Image
Image

It makes me wonder if really busy episodes like last week's sucked up too much of their time, and this one had to be pared down to just the important visual elements to finish in time.


I just saw it today, and last weeks episode must have taken such a chunk more of time than it usually would. I mean, they had to create a ton of new pony designs, object designs, a whole new set layout, etc. Then again, this episode had a bit of extra work too, like designs for what Rarity was changing things into and what not.
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