S05E12: Amending Fences

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Re: S05E12: Amending Fences

Postby The Doctor (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 5:13 pm

SlateSlabrock wrote:I was honestly surprised after that first scene that Minuette and the others were just really, really chill and good-natured about the whole thing. It felt like they were setting up for a "sure they'll act chummy now that you're a princess" twist, but it wound up being more heartfelt than that.



Twilight was never a good friend to them, and the three of them were still friends with each other. Twilight leaving didn't leave a big void in their life the way it did Moondancer.
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Postby WandereringPony (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 5:15 pm

Bakertoons wrote:Agreed. I thought they were being chummy because she was a princess now, so I'm glad it went in another direction.


From the looks of it, they were trying to draw both Twilight and Moondancer out of their shells with the whole party idea, but Twilight running off caused that to collapse horribly.

Worse, Twilight got so wrapped up in things she had to have -Spike- remember all their names. That's how not-friendship she was before Ponyville. Ouch!
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Postby Minty (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 5:21 pm

I ended up really liking this episode, and I haven't liked this season so much so far. Not exactly sure why I haven't, hard to explain.
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Postby SlateSlabrock (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 5:29 pm

The Doctor wrote:
Twilight was never a good friend to them, and the three of them were still friends with each other. Twilight leaving didn't leave a big void in their life the way it did Moondancer.

Yeah, what I mean is: How would you react to someone you vaguely knew in high school, who shrugged off any friendly advances back then, showing up after becoming President and wanting to hang out?

WandereringPony wrote:From the looks of it, they were trying to draw both Twilight and Moondancer out of their shells with the whole party idea, but Twilight running off caused that to collapse horribly.

One thing I'm curious about: Is there a history behind Moondancer looking up to Twilight? There's that scene early on where Twilight corrects her, and then when Twilight didn't show up to the party, she was devastated. Seems like her haircut being a cut-and-paste of Twilight's might have been intentional.
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Postby Applepie (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 5:36 pm

One of the highlights are Starlight Glimmer hiding out. I think there are something in store for the season finale. That scene with Twilight in the book reminded me of a-ha's Take On Me. :smirk:

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Postby Octavia (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 6:51 pm

I loved this episode. Probably my favorite of the season so far. :awesomedash:
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Postby Ragnar (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 7:06 pm

Mordja wrote:I said it in the chat, but this was the most late-20s/early-30s the ponies have ever been.

So that's why it felt way too real to me :negative:
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Postby WandereringPony (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 7:18 pm

SlateSlabrock wrote:Yeah, what I mean is: How would you react to someone you vaguely knew in high school, who shrugged off any friendly advances back then, showing up after becoming President and wanting to hang out?


One thing I'm curious about: Is there a history behind Moondancer looking up to Twilight? There's that scene early on where Twilight corrects her, and then when Twilight didn't show up to the party, she was devastated. Seems like her haircut being a cut-and-paste of Twilight's might have been intentional.


Honestly, if Twilight hadn't had the whole Nightmare Moon thing going, Moondancer's party may very well have been a moment of life-changing proportions as she'd finally have discovered something more meaningful than books, books, books. It'd have been a different "Mane 6" to be sure, but Twilight, Moondancer, Lemon Hearts, Minuette, Twinkleshine and Lyra would have been an adorable little herd of friendship too.
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 7:18 pm

:lol: Any doubt in anyone's mind that Moondancer having a Sister she forgot about was a reference to Twilight forgetting about her brother for 2 seasons?
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Postby WandereringPony (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 7:21 pm

The Doctor wrote::lol: Any doubt in anyone's mind that Moondancer having a Sister she forgot about was a reference to Twilight forgetting about her brother for 2 seasons?


And another mirror-mirror reference to Twilight. Well played, Larson.
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Postby Wayoshi (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 7:24 pm

I didn't read it like that... just a gag. I'm sure she wasn't that distant from her sister
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 7:47 pm

The Doctor wrote::lol: Any doubt in anyone's mind that Moondancer having a Sister she forgot about was a reference to Twilight forgetting about her brother for 2 seasons?


If that was intentional, it was brilliant on the show writers part.
:plonk: Image :)
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Postby SlateSlabrock (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 8:02 pm

On rewatch:
  • I'm a little surprised that Twilight has her old library home in Canterlot that's just stood empty for years in her absence.
  • Twilight gets a very season story arc-ish background theme when she's apologizing to the three others.
  • "So you're just... studying?" Moondancer has to hold down enough units to keep her student loans rolling forward perpetually.
  • Twilight seems to have developed History Vision to see how that party went.
  • After Pinkie flies away with her helicopter tail, you can hear her crash offscreen.
  • The accordion msuic they end on is an unusual choice for this show.

Friendship team, activate!
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...oh.
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Moondancer's house seems kinda like the last house on the block that didn't get bought for redevelopment and winds up sandwiched between skyscrapers.
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Pictures
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Also, mysteriously green present, everyone debate what this means :flail:
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Postby WandereringPony (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 8:08 pm

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Someone successfully slipped in a Big Hero 6 reference.
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Postby PonyHag714 (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 8:18 pm

I'm thinking Moondancer and Rarity are the only two ponies that glasses really work for. :vogue:
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 8:20 pm

The Doctor wrote::lol: Any doubt in anyone's mind that Moondancer having a Sister she forgot about was a reference to Twilight forgetting about her brother for 2 seasons?

That... could work, I guess. Hmm. I didn't even consider that.
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Postby The Ghost Of Ember (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 8:49 pm

So are we up to three or four 'for want of a nail go I' Twilight Sparkles at this point?
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Postby Wayoshi (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 9:25 pm

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Postby Master_Twig (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 9:41 pm

I thought this was the best episode of the season so far. I love how they tied things together and used Lyra as a connection to why the others were always in Ponyville. The callbacks to season 1 this year have all been really great. And of COURSE Pinkie knows Minuette.
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Postby Durandal (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 9:52 pm

Wow. Amazingly deep episode. I don't even really have a word to describe it yet. Definitely the top episode of the season, possibly my top 3 for the entire show now.

Also I really want to know the backstory behind this picture
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fake edit:
WandereringPony wrote:From the looks of it, they were trying to draw both Twilight and Moondancer out of their shells with the whole party idea, but Twilight running off caused that to collapse horribly.

Worse, Twilight got so wrapped up in things she had to have -Spike- remember all their names. That's how not-friendship she was before Ponyville. Ouch!

This episode becomes completely different when you think about it from the Minuette gang's perspective. Maybe Twilight was the reclusive friend that they wanted to bond with years ago. Minuette's excitement is mostly because she's glad to see that Twilight has grown up and isn't a shut-in anymore. I love how you can realistically imagine these characters' story from 3 different perspectives at once.
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Postby Minty (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 10:20 pm

Spike can wear frilly stuff all he wants.

Actually, I wonder if clothing is less gendered in the Horseworld since everyone's a nudist.
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Postby Mechanical Ape (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 10:22 pm

:sweetielarm: AAAAAAH THIS EPISODE WAS SO GOOD, THIS SEASON IS SO GOOD :ponydrugs:


Realtalk: It so happens that I've been a distant friend in the past few years, and a gathering of the old gang at a recent funeral drove the point home. It's been on my mind a lot lately. So this episode not only kicked me in the feels, it kicked me in the balls of the feels. It pokes at some very valid emotional truths, and does so with great precision.

Depressing, though, that part of the message is how easily one can, through emotional carelessness, ruin someone else's life inadvertently. Though I guess that's actually true? And anyway, to balance it, we get three counterexamples where there are no hard feelings and everything's peachy. I admit, I was worried at first that Minuette's friendliness was hiding something, and she and her friends were leading Twilight into some horrible Carrie revenge. Nope! They're just awesome! That's part of the message too, I guess: sometimes people are just awesome and it's okay. (Twilight and Lyra's relationship remains ambiguous, seemingly.)

It may take some time before I stop thinking of Minuette as Colgate. Wanna see her and Pinkie team up for future parties, though. Also, I need for Twilight and Moondancer to team up during the next calamity for a research tag team the likes of which Equestria has never known.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 10:28 pm

Mechanical Ape wrote:It may take some time before I stop thinking of Minuette as Colgate.

Honestly, I was expecting this episode to jokingly mention that she had become a dentist or something just as a reference to that, but if the show was going to make that joke then I suppose it would've happened in Slice of Life and not in a relatively serious episode like this one.
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Postby everyponytothelimit (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 10:34 pm

All of Twilight's friends were unicorns.

The best thing moving to Ponyville did for her was getting her more multicultural.
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Postby Wayoshi (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 10:53 pm

Of course, we're not closer to linking Minuette's cutie mark to her profession. :gotcha:

Moondancer's isn't all that clear either, although you can say the same about Twi's so :pinkieshrug:
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Postby Wayoshi (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 11:20 pm

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Thanks to the TARDIS nature of the castle, we may be seeing new room designs for seasons to come.

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Spike photobombs the wedding resolution... Castle Sweet Castle with Fluts' pigs... maybe Suited for Success tryouts... Spike's b-day party from S2? Twi's wearing a cowboy hat down there too.

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Yes Spike, you said the wrong thing, again. But Twilight is grateful now!

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With no prodigy students after Twi, I guess this penthouse suite or whatever has gone neglected.

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I guess Twi got caught up in the magic of friendship so much, she never came back, literally. :plonk:

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It's OK Twi, they WERE background ponies until this episode. :plonk:

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Postby Headless Horse (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 11:33 pm

Daaaamn that came together nicely.



I was a tad worried that all the callbacky stuff would get gimmicky, especially coming so hard on the heels of Slice of Life. But Larson really kept it in check, and I'm frankly amazed at how well he made all these little coincidences and inconsistencies and shortcuts for the animators' convenience fit with each other. It's one of the smoothest pieces of retconning I've ever seen.

And holy hell—I was settling into a mode where I was ready to pigeonhole any latter-day Larson episode as a cavalcade of injokes and fan shoutouts at the expense of actual emotional weight, but this one simultaneously proved to me that the guy can in fact write a genuine heavyweight tear-jerker and can do self-referential storytelling without turning it into a farce. I loved how "real" the experience of coming home and reconnecting felt, right down to the fact that sometimes when you meet up with an old buddy they do remember the best of you and haven't turned sour and dismissive like I was totally expecting. And that ending photo (and the music over the flashback) was like some Pixar-level voodoo right there. One of the most powerful endings to any episode to date, and it really caught me off guard. I'm so very glad it did.

Thanks, M.A. Larson. :flutterunsmith:
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Postby Headless Horse (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 11:34 pm

SlateSlabrock wrote:Moondancer's house seems kinda like the last house on the block that didn't get bought for redevelopment and winds up sandwiched between skyscrapers.
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Postby SlateSlabrock (?) » Sat Jul 04, 2015 11:52 pm


Or Up, for that matter. :wink:
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Postby SpaceHowitzer (?) » Sun Jul 05, 2015 12:00 am

I found it amusing that when Twilight teleported out of the restaurant she scared all the other ponies outside that were walking by. Twilights casual teleport power is ridiculous and she thinks nothing of it.

I hope we get to see Moondancer set up as Twilight junior in the library/mini-castle, which from the view that it looks out on Canterlot Castle seems like it should be some distance across town. It's good exercise make her walk across town to visit Celestia.
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Postby SlateSlabrock (?) » Sun Jul 05, 2015 12:06 am

SpaceHowitzer wrote:I hope we get to see Moondancer set up as Twilight junior in the library/mini-castle, which from the view that it looks out on Canterlot Castle seems like it should be some distance across town. It's good exercise make her walk across town to visit Celestia.

:twismug: Dear Princess Celestia, I wanted to inform you of a wonderful friendship breakthrough I've had with one of your other former students, Moondancer.
:pcstare: Who?
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Postby Adelor Lyon (?) » Sun Jul 05, 2015 12:12 am

drunkill wrote:Pinkie Pie riding Twilight on the way back to Canterlot?
Totally Major Kong.

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Definintely!
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Postby PaulloDEC (?) » Sun Jul 05, 2015 12:15 am

Another fantastic episode. Funny, touching and handled very deftly overall. It's pretty rare to see an episode that leans this heavily on continuity turn out this well, in any show.

Headless Horse wrote:I was a tad worried that all the callbacky stuff would get gimmicky, especially coming so hard on the heels of Slice of Life. But Larson really kept it in check, and I'm frankly amazed at how well he made all these little coincidences and inconsistencies and shortcuts for the animators' convenience fit with each other. It's one of the smoothest pieces of retconning I've ever seen.


This for sure. When Pinkie points out to Twilight that her old friends were the bridesmaids at Cadance's wedding, I kinda boggled for a second. This show is now answering my continuity questions in the fifth season about characters from the first season who re-appeared briefly in the second season before I've even thought to ask them. Larson is totally on top of this shit.
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Postby Yolostar (?) » Sun Jul 05, 2015 12:18 am

Holy shit that episode was great! I would go as far to say that that was the best episode since the first season. It's kinda hard for me to describe it but this episode just kinda felt like an episode from the early days. I loved the little explanations and nods to inconsequential things that have appeared in the show over the past 5 seasons. Really solid episode. Thanks M.A. Larson.
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Postby Mechanical Ape (?) » Sun Jul 05, 2015 12:23 am

Now I wonder how Lyra, Minuette and Twinkleshine ended up as Cadance's bridesmaids. :ponder:
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Sun Jul 05, 2015 12:27 am

Mechanical Ape wrote:Now I wonder how Lyra, Minuette and Twinkleshine ended up as Cadance's bridesmaids. :ponder:


Maybe Cadance Foalsat them as well, and unlike Twilight, Stayed in touch with them.
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Postby WandereringPony (?) » Sun Jul 05, 2015 12:28 am

Headless Horse wrote:Daaaamn that came together nicely.



I was a tad worried that all the callbacky stuff would get gimmicky, especially coming so hard on the heels of Slice of Life. But Larson really kept it in check, and I'm frankly amazed at how well he made all these little coincidences and inconsistencies and shortcuts for the animators' convenience fit with each other. It's one of the smoothest pieces of retconning I've ever seen.

Thanks, M.A. Larson. :flutterunsmith:


It gets even more impact when you -do- compare it to Slice of Life. He's managed to paint well with both with short strokes of the brush and long ones as far as character/worldbuilding goes within a few episodes of each other, from the beginning of the show to the newest of the new. Heck, he managed to slip a Starlight Shimmer bit in while we're all going "Ooh, S1 revisited!"

If someone's trying to be Faust's heir here to the show, Larson's earning it in spades. It's a rare thing to have not one, but two people who can be said to have held to the "spirit" of the show, and pretty much nobody since Faust has managed to do it consistently until now.
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Postby WandereringPony (?) » Sun Jul 05, 2015 12:32 am

SlateSlabrock wrote: :twismug: Dear Princess Celestia, I wanted to inform you of a wonderful friendship breakthrough I've had with one of your other former students, Moondancer.
:pcstare: Who?


After Slice of Life, I've been craving less focus on the Mane 6, because dammit, the other characters we've been seeing since the beginning of S5 beg for more time. And more time spent with fresh characters means a longer lifespan for the entire show, because you can only tell so many stories with a small number of characters. Equestria has a lot more stories in it than six of it's ponies do, after all.
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Postby Headless Horse (?) » Sun Jul 05, 2015 12:32 am

Things that will probably get glossed over in the long-term picture we have of this episode, but don't deserve to be because they're extremely creative and add a lot to the texture of the world:

- Twilight's ability to appear in books (and the allusion to a whole new kind of magic we hadn't really heard about before)
- The breadcrumb-trail of rare books
- Twilight giving Moondancer the piñata stick, which then becomes a prop for her to use in her rant, gesticulating at the three others and at Twilight
- The ball game at the end (polo? Was it the same thing they were playing in Princess Spike?)

These all kind of come out of left field, without much precedent or suggestion (except, as noted earlier, the "eating the words" gag—also Larson's—which seems to prefigure the book power thing). It's the kind of thing that always made the show feel so fresh and alive in S1, like the pegasi with the weather and so on, and it's not too often that kind of feeling comes back again these days now that we're all so familiar with the show as it is. I kind of get the feeling that embedding that one flashback from S1E01 (which, by the way, seems both more primitive and a lot more vibrantly animated in terms of the ponies' expressiveness than the rest of the episode) caused Larson to really put himself back into an "S1" kind of frame of mind and to tap into the kind of inventiveness that characterized the early days. Though at the same time it also feels a lot more "grown-up", what with the level of maturity in the dialogue and in Twilight's motivations and how she and Spike go about trying to solve the problem. Really fascinating balance.
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Postby Lorce (?) » Sun Jul 05, 2015 12:50 am

WandereringPony wrote:Heck, he managed to slip a Starlight Shimmer bit in while we're all going "Ooh, S1 revisited!"

Just to nitpick on this, i think it's a lot more likely that came from DHX. Then again he is co-story editor this season so i guess there's a chance he did actually add that too. :-I
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