A thread to discuss My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and the tie-in media.
All of the usual forum rules
apply. In addition, please remember that the thread is discussing a kids' show, and it's primarily focused on the work itself, not the fanfic — in particular, we don't want to see lewdness creeping in.
Edited by Mrph1 on Aug 26th 2024 at 10:24:26 AM
The Power Ponies need origin stories. Zap and Madam Marevelous basically share part of their origins. Madam Marevelous spun a lasso out of her mane and tail hair which was then enchanted with strength, obedience and the ability to grab intangible things by an alicron. She latter built herself some extra gadgets. Similarly, the alicorn forged Zap's amulet from a meteor and one of Zap's own feathers and charged it with souped up pegasus magic.
EDIT:
Yes. Dude doesn't get enough respect.
edited 21st Dec '13 2:36:31 PM by Sereg
Given that most of Spike's focus episodes focus on him being incompetent in various capacities, it actually makes sense to have an episode that shows him being unambiguously effective.
Reaction Image RepositoryI don't see how this one is that different from the others. He sure as heck wasn't unambiguously effective, as you say he was. He wasn't a bumbling klutz this time, but he wasn't really that helpful for the first two thirds of the episode.
edited 21st Dec '13 2:51:16 PM by IkeAndMike
http://h0useb0und.tumblr.com/![]()
What I mean is that the episode didn't revolve around him making things worse. Yeah he had klutz moments, but compared to "Just for Sidekicks" or "Spike at your Service" he did pretty well. Not to mention that compared to the rest of the cast using their powers for the first time, he did pretty well overall. Heck even in "Dragon Quest" and "Owl's Well that Ends Well", the plots are basically caused by him not thinking things through.
Also, I said "unambiguously" not "universally". I didn't mean that everything he did was effective, just that compared to other episodes he was the one who saved the day. I was just pointing out that Spike made a definite contribution as opposed to the other episodes where he tends to cause more trouble than help. This was the first episode the showed him in a primarily positive light.
edited 21st Dec '13 3:03:51 PM by JapaneseTeeth
Reaction Image RepositoryI liked him playing mr exposition this episode. Not sure what it is, but the idea of Spike telling Twi how to do things really shows that he's not some immature bumbling baby, as many episodes do. Personally I'm with JT, he could use all the episodes like this as he could get, he regularly gets put down more than not.
@Dark It really is a refreshing role for him because for the majority of the series he's just been in the background being Twilight's assistant or if an episode is focused on him he'll just make things even direr than it already is. So nice bit of development for Spike there for this episode in particular.
"Transform and Roll out!" Optimus PrimeI'm disappointed in the lack of Mane-iac art in today's drawfriend. There's only like two pictures. I know it's soon, but we've historically been better about flooding them with loads and loads of art right after an episode.
edited 21st Dec '13 3:14:00 PM by CDRW
Okay, time to watch this mother.
- So she's a cross between the Joker and Sedusa.
- Man, they're really fixated on the old castle in this season. I'm guessing Twilight's gonna be moving in eventually.
- Spike reading with his feet is cute.
- Pinkie, that's not how you clean carpets.
- Sucking your customers into a parallel dimension seems like a poor strategy for repeat business. This publisher must get a lot of angry letters from parents.
- I'm betting that the origin of that magic spell in the comic book is never explained, is it?
- I gotta say, I'm not crazy about these costumes.
- Heh, bucket.
- Egg timers! My one weakness! XD
- Heh, Rarity's stairs.
- Flutterhulk's splitting costume is going to be making some fan art appearances, I can already tell.
- Mane bondage. I'm actually a little surprised it's taken this long for that to come up.
- House of Enchanted Comics. /facehoof. Well, I just lost five bucks to myself.
- To be fair, that's not an entirely unreasonable assumption on Spike's part.
Well, that was alright, but nothing really blew me away. In fact, and I may catch some (or a crapton) flak for this, but I think I actually preferred MMDW to this episode as a superhero story.
I do kind of wish Rarity had gotten to keep that power bracelet, though.
I'm with JT and darkabomination; the main reason I detest Spike is because he's incompetent (or at the very least, his immaturity vastly overshadows what competence he has), so giving him a chance to show him overcoming his own flaws is a welcome change of pace.
The whiny wangst felt extremely contrived, though; he already learned the same lesson in Crystal Empire pt 2 (though admittedly it was ham-fisted enough he may not have felt too accomplished afterwards).
"The only way to truly waste an idea is to shove it where it doesn't belong."Thanks for the help with the derpibooru tags. The reason I asked was I needed a wallpaper to go with this rainmeter skin I found.
I wound up combining this... https://derpibooru.org/473159?scope=scpe109347d02bb82918c5d6d2bec6d57db7b8fb395c
With this: http://customize.org/rainmeter/skins/86734
specifically the slanted blue and gray version.
@Clever: Yeah, in Crystal Empire, Spike did save the day, but his participation was largely coincidental. He just happened to be lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.
Reaction Image Repository

Trixie is Sinestro's expy and is arch nemesis of Rarity.
It's my headcannon now and forever.