Introduction

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Season 5, Episode 12

We have quite a spicy lineup of episodes for the next month and a half, most of which will get their own individual, lovingly crafted posts: Amending Fences, Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?, Canterlot Boutique, Rarity Investigates!, Made in Manehattan, Brotherhooves Social, and Crusaders of the Lost Mark. All seven of these episodes have something cool and special about them, whether it be the Cutie Mark Crusaders accomplishing something huge, Twilight Sparkle’s backstory getting fleshed way out, or Coco Pommel being heart-meltingly adorable. The rest of season 5 will be the usual paired episodes, and when I finish the season, I will decide if I want to make single-episode posts the rule instead of the exception.

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Season 5 Episode 12: Amending Fences

In five words: Series’ first few minutes revisited.

Premise: Twilight Sparkle reconnects with her old friends from Canterlot who we saw in the first few minutes of the first episode. Most of them are eager to hang out with her, but there’s one who bitterly swore off friendship after Twilight moved out: Moondancer.

Detailed run-through (aka the tangent about this episode from this Homestuck post but much longer and completely unrestrained):

Imagine you’re making a TV show that has become wildly popular among a far older audience than expected and need to come up with episode ideas for its fifth season. By now, you’ve gone through all the simple and obvious ideas for a show about friendship, so what can you do? One such thing is look back on the first episode with all its early installment weirdness, take something that was never elaborated upon, and flesh it WAY out. I find this sort of thing to be extremely delightful and cool and fun, especially in a show that I find extremely delightful and cool and fun.

This episode starts on an un-season-1-like note with Twilight Sparkle sitting on a fancy crystal couch, needing some time to relax after attending three events as a princess in one week. This makes an appropriate time for her and Spike to reflect on how much she’s been through since she moved to Ponyville. Spike remarks that back when she lived in Canterlot, Twilight wasn’t a very good friend to others. While Spike intended only to reflect on how far she’s come, Twilight panics when she realizes how much she’s been neglecting her friends from Canterlot. This leads her to leap into action and go on a journey to reunite with her friends whose names she doesn’t remember and expects Spike to remember for some reason.

Actually, I can sort of buy Twilight expecting Spike to remember names she can’t. She puts a lot of duties onto her dragon sidekick, like the dishes he complained about at the start of this episode, and she sometimes forgets which ones he can feasibly do. (Though Spike does later recite all her friends’ names.)

Spike: Come on, Twilight. You’re getting worked up about nothing.
Twilight Sparkle: The only logical place to start is at the beginning.

One thing this episode has in common with Slice of Life is that it leans on the fourth wall at times. An example is when Twilight Sparkle says to start at the beginning, referring to her old house in Canterlot. While this is obviously a reference to where the show began, I’d also like to think of it in in-universe terms. The day Twilight Sparkle moved to Ponyville is clearly an important day for her, because it started the current chapter of her life. Although her first onscreen moment in the show was right outside this castle, the day presumably started with her waking up inside it.

Twilight Sparkle and Spike find that everything in their old house is exactly as they left it, which is a huge nostalgia trip for them and the viewers. How has no one moved into this place when it’s been abandoned for at least a year? Is Canterlot going through an economic decline that is making abandoned houses commonplace? Or does no one feel it’s right to move into the former home of a princess? Maybe the place is still legally owned by either Twilight or Celestia.

Twilight Sparkle: (blows dust off) Look! It’s Predictions and Prophecies. And it’s still open to the Elements of Harmony!

The very phrase “Elements of Harmony” is a blast from the past for me. It’s been so long since the Mane 6 needed those silly little rocks for anything. Now they’re up and about solving friendship problems on their own, sometimes with a little guidance from a map.

The present box is only green in this shot due to an animation error.
It’s supposed to be red.

Another thing left untouched is Spike’s gift to Moondancer that Twilight had told him there’s no time to worry about. The day they moved to Ponyville sticks out sharply in Spike’s memory too, and it turns out that there’s something else inside that package. I find it extremely super delicious and cool when the events of an early episode are revisited with more than we originally saw.

The scene then gets somber when Twilight Sparkle realizes that just as she left a mess behind in this house, she left all her friendships behind in Canterlot. The guilty feeling of neglecting old friendships for years and believing they think you’re terrible for leaving them behind… it’s all too real and easy for me to relate to. Spike lists out five friends for Twilight to meet with: Minuette, Twinkleshine, Lemon Hearts, Lyra Heartstrings, and Moondancer.

Did Spike always sleep on a stack of books when he and Twilight lived here?

The next morning, Twilight Sparkle excitedly says she did some research to find out where Minuette lives, which is such a hilariously Twilight thing to do. She didn’t go around asking the citizens of Canterlot if they know someone named Minuette, or check out any places where they used to hang out. Instead, she seems to have put together clues from books and papers, treating it the same way she would a school assignment.

Minuette’s house has a fun design that’s themed upon her cutie mark. While Twilight Sparkle had an hourglass inside her house, Minuette proudly places hers outside along with hourglass-shaped windows. I don’t know why ponies would design houses based on their cutie marks, but it looks cute so I’ll let it pass.

I’m choosing not to transcribe the laughter interspersed between Minuette’s lines.
I think you get the idea that she’s super upbeat already.

Speaking of cute, Minuette herself is insanely cute in this episode. Here are the first things she says to Twilight:

Minuette: Twilight Sparkle, you old so-and-so! What are you doing here? Hey, Spike!
Minuette: Look at these wings, huh? Hey, grab a picture of me and the princess, will ya? I tried to tell my coworkers we used to be friends back when, but they never believed me.

Minuette is such a sweetheart, please appreciate how much of a sweetheart she is. I think there’s a message to be taken from her enthusiasm to see Twilight Sparkle again: if you reconnect with a friend you haven’t spoken to in years, they’ll usually be joyed to see you and eager to resume being friends. It feels like encouraging viewers to resume old friendships, and I find Minuette’s overwhelming excitement believable.

Minuette doesn’t feel like she’s exploiting Twilight’s princess status here, just psyched to see an old friend accomplish something cool.

Minuette: Hey! I just the greatest idea! You want to go see Lemon Hearts and Twinkleshine?
Twilight Sparkle: Of course! My old friends!
Minuette: It’ll be great! Come on, let’s fly! Get it?
Twilight Sparkle: This is perfect. I can apologize to all three of them at once!
Spike: Let’s hope they’re not as traumatized as Minuette.

I love this little sarcastic line from Spike. It shows that he feels Twilight Sparkle is overthinking things here, and I find it so believable and relatable that she feels a need to apologize to the friends she lost touch with. But it’s also foreshadowing of the one old friend who overthinks things even more than Twilight does: Moondancer.

You could call the group of ponies sitting at the table—our favorite blue toothpaste pony and three others—“Minuette and Trio”.
(That is the best pun I will ever make in my entire life.)

Minuette: Twinkleshine literally spit out her oats when she heard you were the Princess of Friendship.
Twinkleshine: We saw you at the coronation. That was some shindig.
Twilight Sparkle: You did?
Twinkleshine: Sure! Oh, we see you all the time.
Minuette: You remember our old friend Lyra, right? She lives in Ponyville, too. We’re always over there visiting her. Or, she’s coming over here!

The tricky part about revisiting Twilight Sparkle’s old friends is that they’re all among the show’s mainstay background ponies. I love that this episode doesn’t ignore that they show up in Ponyville a lot, and it cleverly uses their common appearances as background citizens to add some depth to their characters. Minuette for one is the clear leader of this friend group. She’s super upbeat and talkative, whereas Twinkleshine and Lemon Hearts don’t say nearly as much. Minuette’s outgoing nature makes her a natural fit to bring friends together, and she’s even eager to be pals with more introverted types like Twilight. Lyra Heartstrings’ residence in Ponyville can’t be overlooked, so it’s used as an example of a long-distance friendship. Or maybe more of a medium-distance friendship, since Lyra and the others live close enough to see each other regularly.

I like how amidst all this lady talk, Spike is taking the opportunity to catch up with his old buddy Joe.

Twilight Sparkle gives a melodramatic, clearly rehearsed apology speech about neglecting her friendship with the three ponies she’s sitting with, but they all laugh and easily forgive her. I can tell that for them, the joy of hanging out with their nerdy purple buddy again outweighs any sadness from her scampering off to Ponyville. I’d probably react the same if I was in their situation—or at least, I’d like to think so.

Next up: worldbuilding time! Minuette and company take Twilight over to their old school to reminisce on funny memories, leading to an intriguing flashback where we finally see what Moondancer looks like.

Burying your face in a book at school while all the other kids are around laughing and socializing? Yep, that was me every day through most of elementary school. Though little Twilight Sparkle’s situation was a little different, because she knew another filly who was the same way, leading them to have a unique bond.

Unlike the rest of Twilight’s old friends, Moondancer was only mentioned by name in the first episode. This is another thing that’s cleverly taken advantage of: it turns out that she is not a mainstay background pony, which matches with how much of an extreme recluse she became when Twilight moved to Ponyville. While Twilight Sparkle and Moondancer only briefly exchanged notes on how to correctly do the science experiment before they resumed absorption in the books, there was still some clear chemistry (no pun intended) between them.

As for Moondancer’s design, there’s some blatant symbolism in her being a palette swap of Twilight Sparkle: she’s an example of what Twilight’s life could have been like had it gone the slightest bit differently. As for why her mane style is the same as Twilight Sparkle’s, I buy into the idea that Moondancer looked up to her as a role model and thus wanted to imitate her.

Twilight Sparkle: Whatever happened to Moondancer?
Lemon Hearts: Moondancer?
Twilight Sparkle: Yeah, you know. Our other friend.
Twinkleshine: Oh right, Moondancer! I remember her.
Lemon Hearts: I wonder what she’s up to?
Minuette: Yeah, I always liked her. We just sort of lost touch after you left.
Twinkleshine: I think she went to live out by the stadium, didn’t she?
Lemon Hearts: Well, let’s go see!

I love this new level of characterization added to Twilight’s friends from the first episode. Everything feels very logical and fluid, working with what we knew about these characters and adding a lot of depth to Twilight’s childhood. Minuette’s statement that she always liked Moondancer shows how incredibly easygoing Minuette is. She actively seeks out friendships in just about anyone, and especially likes to get antisocial types out of their shells. I think everyone’s lives would be better if they had a friend like Minuette.

This scene is a lot like someone seeing their parallel universe self and freaking out.
And often, parallel universe versions of characters have their colors swapped anyway, like in that episode of Futurama with the alternate coin flips.

Our first impression of Moondancer is quite a somber one. She lives in a murky house filled with books and doesn’t welcome her old friends because she supposedly needs to study. While Minuette laughs it off as Moondancer’s typical bookish ways, Twilight Sparkle gets disconcerted seeing someone so similar to her go off the deep end. She’s the one fence that it won’t be so easy to amend.

Spike: (sigh) Come on, Twilight. We’ve been watching her for three days! Library, house. Library, house. That’s it.
Twilight Sparkle: Nopony looks at her or says hello or even gives her a smile. It’s like she doesn’t even exist. Was she always like this?

The comparison of Moondancer’s lack of friends to nonexistence is a heavy one, but also a very true one. Friendship is such a fundamental part of most people’s lives that it’s disconcerting to see someone’s life without it; it may as well not be a life at all. And while Twilight Sparkle wasn’t very social as a filly, at least she had Spike as a constant and loyal friend. Moondancer doesn’t have a dragon sidekick, and that may be a factor in why her and Twilight’s lives became so different.

Minuette says that for a while Moondancer was starting to come out of her shell and even threw a party once. This leads to a flashback to the show’s first episode, showing us that this episode works with what we already knew about Twilight Sparkle’s childhood and expands on it to glorious results. It turns out that this random party that Twilight Sparkle declined in favor of studying left a huge impact on its host: Moondancer was hurt that Twilight didn’t attend and lost all interest in hanging out with Minuette and the others, so they soon fell out of contact. This is a perfect example of revisiting an old scene in a more serious light, done in exactly the right way. Twilight Sparkle says she needs to find a way to make it up to Moondancer.

I did this way more than I’d like to admit during my first two years of college.
(And about as much as I’d like to admit in my last two.)

Note the contrast between Moondancer and the rest of the ponies at the library. While most ponies are having a good time picking out books and studying with friends, Moondancer is all alone and refuses to talk to anyone. I imagine that she usually goes to the library when she’s nauseous from sitting at home too long, and then goes back home when she’s nauseous from the library.

The haunting part about Twilight Sparkle’s attempts to get Moondancer to talk to her is their similarities are still very much there. A good example is when Twilight Sparkle makes a bubble of silence to talk to Moondancer without disturbing others, and Moondancer uses a magic spell to break it. It shows that both are well-versed in magic and could easily have gone through the other’s path had things gone differently.

Twilight Sparkle eventually gets Moondancer to talk to her by entering the pages of her book with magic. What’s the most interesting part of this scene? Why, it’s obviously that Moondancer accidentally calls her “Twilight Twinkle”! Now, you might think I’m going to talk at length about how Twilight Sparkle was going to be called Twilight Twinkle, but that’s just obvious trivia. While this misnaming was probably just intended as a nod to the show’s development, Moondancer’s usage of the word “twinkle” suggests that she also remembers Twinkleshine and the others deep down—it’s just been so long since she saw them that her memories are scrambled.

I feel like I should mention Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis briefly appear before this scene.

Moondancer’s curiosity is piqued by Twilight Sparkle entering the book, and this leads them to have some proper conversation. It even leads Moondancer to break from her grumpy expression and smile!

Twilight Sparkle: I’ve been studying a new studying technique. I can only do it for a few minutes, but you’d be amazed how much you can pick up when you’re actually in a book.
Moondancer: That’s one of Hay Cart’s methods.
Twilight Sparkle: You know Hay Cart?
Moondancer: Of course! He’s a genius.
Twilight Sparkle: I have a copy of his Treatise on Ponies, you know.
Moondancer: (gasp)

I think Twilight Sparkle and Moondancer are quite possibly the only two ponies in Equestria who are big enough nerds to study better ways to study. Their friendship is built upon extreme similarity, and it’s a type of friendship we don’t see much of between the Mane 6 (except maybe Applejack and Rainbow Dash). I know what it’s like to be completely antisocial and silent until someone brings up something that interests me, in which case I’m lured out of my shell. It shows that Moondancer is still perfectly capable of friendship; she just let herself forget that after Twilight didn’t attend her party.

Moondancer sees inside Twilight Sparkle’s old house for the first time, and I find it all too believable that she had never been in there before. Twilight and Moondancer had sparks of a vibrant friendship, but it was truncated before they could get to the point of going inside each other’s homes. Moondancer finds a book she gave Twilight that even had a note from her inside—a book that Twilight didn’t seem to like enough to take with her to Ponyville, much to Moondancer’s chagrin. Twilight Sparkle gives Moondancer a key to visit her house any time she likes, which is smart because the house isn’t used by anyone right now… but there’s a catch.

Twilight Sparkle: Look, I didn’t bring you over here for even more poignant reminders of what a bad friend I was. I brought you here to give you this.
Twilight Sparkle: You can come here whenever you want, and study to your heart’s content.
Moondancer: Really?
Twilight Sparkle: But first, you’ve gotta do something for me.
Moondancer: What?
Twilight Sparkle: Have dinner with our old friends tonight.
Moondancer: I can’t. I’m reorganizing my biology scrolls.

Notice the way Moondancer only comes up with an excuse for studying after she’s given a friendship task. It doesn’t feel exaggerated, like Moondancer stutters and then screams that she has to go study and comically runs out the door. It feels like the way a real-life person would make an excuse not to hang out with friends they haven’t seen in ages. This episode could have so easily made Moondancer ultra-resistant to friendship in a cartoony way, but instead it gives a lot of realism to her portrayal. When told how much her old friends miss her, Moondancer claims that she tried friendship and it simply isn’t for her, but she’s roped into the dinner anyway when Twilight offers to show her Hay Cart’s spell.

As much as I want to analyze Moondancer’s curt demeanor during the dinner with Twilight and her old friends, I can’t overlook Starlight Glimmer’s easy-to-miss appearance on the top left. A common criticism with Starlight Glimmer’s role as a season villain is that her only appearances between the season 5 premiere and finale are two sneaky cameos, and while having a little more of her would certainly tie the season’s plot together better, the premiere and finale of the season are both big enough bombshells that I don’t mind it myself. These cameos suggest that Starlight has been stalking the Mane 6 like crazy, trying to figure out what makes them so powerful and unbeatable, and absorbing information about their backstory along the way. For Starlight, seeing the leader of the Mane 6 chat with her childhood friends must be a goldmine of information for her to eavesdrop on. Maybe Starlight is thinking that if she goes back and adjusts history in the right way, Twilight Sparkle can become as friendless as Moondancer.

While Moondancer was eager to talk to Twilight Sparkle about their shared passion for magic spells, at the dinner with the others, she’s back to being grumpy and curt. The other ponies have varying reactions to this: while Minuette tries to keep good spirits, Twinkleshine and Lemon Hearts are openly awkward and struggle to make conversation.

Note how easily Moondancer is lifting Twilight Sparkle with magic.
Another good demonstration of their shared magic skills.

Soon enough, Moondancer out the restaurant and drives Twilight Sparkle to tears when she says she tried friendship and claims it will never work for her. I can tell that Twilight sees herself in Moondancer; while her making friends with the rest of the Mane 6 seemed as easy and formulaic as a fairy tale, getting Moondancer back into the world of friendship will be a lot harder. It’s a problem that Twilight must solve by herself.

I really like this episode’s style of flashbacks.
Instead of full scene switches, they’re done through Twilight Sparkle looking at a location and putting a new light on it.

It’s weird to think this took place around the time of the show’s first episode.

The next flashback reveals that Moondancer was excited about hosting this party and disappointed when Twilight Sparkle didn’t show up. I get the impression that among her little group of Canterlot friends, she loved Twilight Sparkle by far the most. She probably felt the two of them were two peas in a pod, destined to become best friends who understood each other like no one else. This is so heartbreaking to think about, because even though Moondancer and Twilight Sparkle reconcile at the end of this episode, Twilight’s main entourage of best friends still consists of five others from Ponyville and Spike, not Moondancer.

As shown by her using her tail like helicopter blades, Pinkie Pie’s cartoon physics put her on par with alicorns.

Twilight Sparkle has an idea for how to make it up to Moondancer, and she brings in a friend of hers who knows how to throw a good party. Pinkie Pie’s inclusion into this episode is fun and logical, and it adds a tinge of lighthearted humor to one of the show’s heaviest episodes.

Minuette: There you are! I thought you threw in the old towel and headed home!
Twilight Sparkle: I did head home. But not to throw in the towel. I went to get my secret weapon.
Twilight Sparkle: Minuette, meet—
Minuette: Hey, Pinkie Pie!
Pinkie Pie: Hi, Minuette!

As much as Twilight Sparkle has learned about friendship since she moved to Ponyville, she still easily gets blindsided by two ponies turning out to already be friends. Minuette did say she visits Ponyville regularly, and we know Pinkie Pie has an extensive knowledge of everyone in the town. Plus, their personalities are really similar. But I find that Twilight’s presumption that the two didn’t already know each other shows how endearingly imperfect she is. Pinkie Pie even says that Minuette was a bridesmaid at Cadance’s wedding, and jabs at Twilight Sparkle for not knowing they were friends. I can kind of see it though: once Twilight Sparkle fell out of touch with her Canterlot friends, she started thinking they were out doing their own things far away from her, when they were regular visitors of Ponyville all along.

Though this episode admirably isn’t heavy on cartoon tropes, there still are some here and there, like the classic “trail of objects that someone will blindly follow and then get surprised”—in this case, a trail of books that Twilight Sparkle set up for Moondancer. Maybe it makes sense that Moondancer would fall for it, because she’s so much of a shut-in that she hasn’t ever heard of this trick to lead others, and she’s firmly convinced herself that books are more important than friends.

The books lead Moondancer to Twilight Sparkle’s party, which is where she finally lets out all the bitterness she’s been holding in for years.

Twilight Sparkle: Please. You’ve got to let me make this up to you.
Moondancer: And you think this is gonna do it, huh?
Twilight Sparkle: Uh… yes?
Moondancer: Well sure, why wouldn’t it?
Moondancer: That was only the first time I ever put myself out there, and then you didn’t even bother to show up. Then you left town without saying goodbye, even though we were supposed to be friends. I was humiliated. I felt like I wasn’t important! I never wanted to let myself be hurt like that again. Those three finally convinced me that I had value, that other ponies might like me and want to be my friend! And you! Didn’t! Show! Up!!! Aah!
(Moondancer breaks down crying)

Think about this from Moondancer’s perspective. She thought that she and Twilight Sparkle had a special and tight friendship based on their shared interests and bookwormish nature. She knows how difficult it is for her to make friends, and she viewed Twilight Sparkle as the one friend who would always stick with her. But this whole time, it turned out Twilight didn’t return those feelings, and imagine how much of a slap in the face this must be. Moondancer loved Twilight Sparkle, but Twilight didn’t think the same of her. And yet, I can see it: Twilight Sparkle often has problems with seeing others’ feelings. Especially if those feelings belong to somepony great and powerful.

Sorry, Trixie. I’ll write walls of text about you another time.
Next season, I promise.

Moondancer has the very same thick eyebrows as her sister.

Sometimes in life, you need to let out all your frustration and tears in one dramatic tirade, or else you’ll never move on from what you’re mad about, and the person you’re mad at won’t realize their mistakes. Twilight Sparkle owns up to her wrongdoings here and tells Moondancer that this shouldn’t prevent her from being friends with anyone else. But since she knows Moondancer would have trouble finding new friends, she saves Moondancer some trouble and brings over some ponies to the party: Moondancer’s librarian, her book seller, and her sister. Just like how Celestia paved the way for Twilight to befriend the rest of the Mane 6, Twilight is doing something similar with Moondancer.

Twilight Sparkle: I’m sorry, Moondancer. I’ve faced magical creatures, the end of Equestria… all sorts of things. But seeing how my actions affected you… that was one of the worst feelings I’ve ever had.
Moondancer: (tears well up) Thank you, Twilight. I never realized how much I needed to hear that.

I can easily see it. While it requires a lot of prowess and energy, fighting tough monsters is way simpler than making amends with those you hurt, and successfully doing the latter is where strength really shines. Moondancer is finally happy and ready to party for real, just as she wished she did on the day Twilight moved to Ponyville.

After a montage of the ponies and Spike partying through the evening, Twilight Sparkle needs to go home and promises to visit Moondancer again, which she eagerly agrees to. And then comes one last heartwarming moment, where Spike reveals what was in his package for Moondancer: a picture of her with all her friends from Canterlot. Here’s the picture in full:

I love that attention to detail, showing Twilight Sparkle’s magic colored like it was in season 1.

People say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but this one can be summarized in four: “better late than never”. This saying is often used in snarky, self-deprecating contexts, but I earnestly mean it here. It’s better to reunite with a friend years late than never at all, and the same goes for a show that you loved dearly years ago but let yourself forget that in favor of a weird stuck-up denial. You can sum up this episode’s message as “it’s never too late to make amends”.

That group picture does a hilariously good job capturing Twilight Sparkle’s personality before she moved to Ponyville.

After a zoom-out to Moondancer’s room, where the picture proudly hangs, the episode ends with her and her other three friends playing ball together. This is a nice way to finish off one of my favorite episodes of the show.

Overall thoughts:

I love this episode so much. Back when I reviewed Read It and Weep, I said it was probably the most relatable episode of the show for me, but I think this one hits home WAY harder. I know what it’s like to be an antisocial shut-in while everyone around me is laughing and having fun, and I know what it’s like to fall out of touch with friends from years ago and worry they resent how I treated them. I also know what it’s like to have difficulty putting myself out there, and what it’s like to put great value into the occasional friends I see who are VERY similar to myself. I think I might find Moondancer more relatable in this episode than Twilight Sparkle, which is a major achievement for a character who was for four whole seasons only mentioned once by name. This episode has sent me into so many trains of thought about my own life and past regrets, and how I could improve things moving forward. Not every episode does that to me.

Aside from being relatable, this episode is filled with all the most delicious callbacks to prior episodes that show how much detail and thought was put into making it consistent with what came before. It’s very much like Slice of Life in that regard, which makes sense because both episodes have the same writer. While I don’t know that much about the writers of this show, I always felt M.A. Larson was one of the most passionate ones, and one of the most appreciative of the show’s fanbase.

Grade: A

This is my favorite episode of my favorite season, but not my favorite episode of the show. It’s probably my second or third though.

Miscellaneous notes:

• I promise you, the “Minuette and Trio” pun was NOT something I stole from someone else. I came up with it completely on the spot, and even though Minuette, Twinkleshine, and Lemon Hearts are far more of a trio today than Twilight Sparkle, Twinkleshine, and Lemon Hearts, back when they were foals I bet Minuette was the leader of the group.
• About Twilight Sparkle’s original name, I think renaming her from Twinkle to Sparkle was a smart move. “Twilight Twinkle” was the name of a pony in G3, and the alliteration makes the name sound a lot more childish and frilly than Twilight Sparkle.
• There are multiple scenes where Moondancer adjusts her glasses, and I find that so insanely cute. The episode didn’t need to have Moondancer adjust her glasses, but it did so anyway.

Though its premise is much farther removed from realism, the next episode has just as huge a storm of callbacks as this one.

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See you next week for another dream-oriented episode and season 5’s first Rarity episode.

>> Part 50: Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep? + Canterlot Boutique