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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 70: The Times They Are a Changeling + Dungeons & Discords

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Season 6, Episodes 16-17

This post took a little longer than the last few because spent a few days (March 15-18) on a trip to New York City where I met several Internet friends and a friend from school. During that trip, when waiting for things to happen in my hotel room, I wrote the first half of my review of Dungeons & Discords.

Season 6 Episode 16: The Times They Are a Changeling

In five words: First step resolving changeling discrimination.

Premise: The Crystal Empire is under threat by a changeling spy, and when searching for the culprit, Spike discovers a sensitive changeling named Thorax who merely wants to be his friend.

Detailed run-through:

For some reason, pretty much every episode taking place in the Crystal Empire starts with a train ride there.

To start this episode, Twilight Sparkle demonstrates a severe lack of fourth-wall awareness when she says Flurry Heart has grown a lot and she probably won’t even recognize the baby. If she was aware of the fourth wall, she would know that babies in a cartoon NEVER age until the time skip finale. Starlight and Twilight have a friendly discussion that shows good progression in friendship lessons, which makes it surprising that in the next episode focusing on Starlight, she royally screws things up.

Spike keeping a plush of his pony waifu wherever he goes was clearly inspired by bronies doing the same.

Pretty much every episode taking place in the Crystal Empire also has a reminder that the crystal ponies obsessively worship Spike. Spike has a variety of goofy disguises prepared, and I wonder… could this be a hint that he’s soon to befriend a member of the race whose specialty is impersonation?

One difference from pretty much every episode taking place in the Crystal Empire is that this time, it doesn’t feature all of the Mane 6—instead, it’s only Twilight Sparkle, Starlight Glimmer, and Spike who visit. The minimization of the cast helps give supporting characters some spotlight time that would have otherwise been taken by Pinkie Pie gags.

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 69: The Cart Before the Ponies + 28 Pranks Later

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Season 6, Episodes 14-15

Warning: this post contains the most negative review of any episode I have written thus far. The second review, not the first one.

Season 6 Episode 14: The Cart Before the Ponies

In five words: Crusaders’ sisters ruin the fun.

Premise: The Cutie Mark Crusaders participate in a derby competition where they have to build their own carts. They each get help from their big sisters, who all take over the project and make it theirs.

Detailed run-through:

After all the adult fan-oriented humor of the last episode, it’s quite the whiplash to hear a bunch of foals say “good morning, Miss Cheerilee!” Unlike in the Crusaders’ episodes of season 1, which featured tons of generic background fillies, all but one of the foals in the class is a named character, and the unnamed one is a colt with a clearly distinct design.

The class is very confused when Cheerilee tells them they’re going to learn advanced physics. Then when she says it’s going to be for this year’s Applewood Derby, they all cheer in excitement. I bet Cheerilee wrote a whole bunch of advanced math formulas on the chalkboard just as a prank to the class, so she could see their relieved and delighted faces when they learn about the derby.

I’m further convinced the math formulas were a joke when Cheerilee puts a much simpler blueprint over the chalkboard. Each of the foals in her class will be provided a block of apple wood that they have to make a cart out of in one day, and they can each choose an older pony to help them—the Crusaders all know who they’ll pick. There are three different awards for the race: fastest, most traditional, and most creative. It seems obvious which of the Crusaders would want to win each prize… right?

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 68: Stranger Than Fan Fiction

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Season 6, Episode 13

We’re halfway through season 6 now! My output has been a little slow lately, but I still want to release weekly posts whenever possible as I go through the rest of the season. After the season, I’ll probably take another break. I’ve reviewed each season more intensely on average than the last, and I’ll need to collect myself before I go through the densely packed episodes of season 7.

Season 6 Episode 13: Stranger Than Fan Fiction

… or as I like to call it, The Body Pillow Episode.

In five words: “This one’s for you, bronies.”

Premise: Read the title of the episode. What do you think it’s about? … okay, fine. At a Daring Do fan convention, Rainbow Dash meets a fellow fan named Quibble Pants who turns out to have very different opinions on the book series. Both of them get wrapped up in a real-life Daring Do adventure, Rainbow Dash excited and Quibble Pants skeptical.

Detailed run-through:

It’s no secret that the later you get into this show, the more the episodes are designed around its adult fans. While some episodes of season 6 at least try to act like they’re teaching simple friendship lessons to little kids, the title of this episode embraces that it’s designed for bronies. The name practically screams, “this one’s for you, bronies”—both in paying homage to them and teaching a lesson on how to respectfully interact with each other. You and I already know this review is going to be huge, so why not embrace that and pick apart this episode as thoroughly as I can?

This episode starts with what looks like another wild adventure from a Daring Do book, indicated by the movie-like coloring…

We never see the friendship summit in Griffonstone, but we do get to see more griffons six episodes from now.

… except it turns out to be Rainbow Dash’s fanfiction.

Rainbow Dash: Well, don’t stop there! You read, I pack. That’s the deal.

There’s so much to unpack in this exchange, I’ll start by analyzing it line by line. First off, I can relate to Rainbow Dash’s impatient excitement to show her friends her fanworks based on media they both like. The thing you have to understand about Rainbow Dash is that she’s a HUGE nerd, rivaling Twilight Sparkle as the biggest egghead of the Mane 6. They’re just different types of nerds—Twilight is the straight A student type, while Rainbow Dash is the smart but lazy C student type. Both are the resident bookworms of the main cast, giving them a special dynamic.

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 67: Spice Up Your Life

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Season 6, Episode 12

I decided to give this episode and the next one both their own posts because my review of Spice Up Your Life turned out longer than I expected, and my review of Stranger Than Fan Fiction will inevitably be super long. And also because I scrambled to finish this post today, publishing it a few hours later than the usual time. I haven’t started writing the next review yet.

Season 6 Episode 12: Spice Up Your Life

In five words: Family restaurant suffers blind judgement.

Premise: The Cutie Map sends Rarity and Pinkie Pie to a family restaurant in Canterlot that is struggling to stay afloat due to a family conflict, but there’s a greater problem that they aren’t yet aware of.

Detailed run-through:

To start the episode, Starlight Glimmer and Twilight Sparkle perform a magic spell to restore the Cutie Map, whose functionality apparently ceased when Starlight Glimmer used it to rampage through time. I’m not sure why the episode goes out of its way to show this restoration; it feels like this was meant to be a difficult challenge to take up the plot of an episode, but maybe an episode focused on this premise wouldn’t have been interesting enough, so they instead decided to do this at the start of this episode.

This makes for one of those weird cases where Starlight Glimmer is there, but only for one small role or plot point fulfillment. But frankly, complaints about Starlight Glimmer stealing all the spotlight in season 6 are silly. We’re twelve episodes in, and so far, she’s played a significant role only in the premiere, sixth, and eighth episodes of the season. She’s a wonderful character who I love dearly, but she’s still a supporting character.

I have to admire how well Pinkie Pie has memorized the map of Equestria.

The Cutie Map flashes between several random pairs of Mane 6 members in random locations, including Twilight and Twilight in Twilight’s castle. We’re supposed to assume those are glitches, but are they really? Maybe those are friendship missions that the ponies missed out on when the map was dormant, and the missions eventually solved themselves. And who’s to say Twilight never had another mishap with alternate selves offscreen? There are plenty of possibilities!

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 66: Applejack’s “Day” Off + Flutter Brutter

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Season 6, Episodes 10-11

Season 6 Episode 10: Applejack’s “Day” Off

In five words: Applejack suffers effects of inefficiency.

Premise: Rarity wants Applejack to spend time with her at the spa, but Applejack has a busy and, as we soon find out, incredibly inefficient work schedule that needs some rethinking.

Detailed run-through:

Before we begin, I’d like to say that this episode should have just been called Applejack’s Day Off. I get that the quotation marks show she’s not taking a whole day off, but they make the title clunky and annoying to type. Plus, what do you do when you put the title in quotation marks? Do you do “Applejack’s ‘Day’ Off” or “Applejack’s “Day” Off”? Both look awkward, honestly.

I love that cursive R on Rarity’s robe.

How did Rarity’s HORN get wrinkled???

This episode starts off with Rarity at the spa—it’s unusually steamy, take note of that later—waiting for Applejack to join her. And right after Applejack joins, the spa closes, and we see that Rarity was waiting here the whole time against the spa pony’s warning. Such are the lengths Rarity will take for her friends.

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 65: The Saddle Row Review

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Season 6, Episode 9

This episode was originally going to share a post with Applejack’s “Day” Off, but the review turned out long enough that I changed my mind. I’ll do more paired-up posts until I reach an even-numbered episode that’s worth giving its own post—my current candidate is The Times They Are a Changeling.

Season 6 Episode 9: The Saddle Row Review

In five words: Mockumentary tells boutique’s clumsy beginnings.

Premise: Rarity has finally opened her boutique in Manehattan, called Rarity for You, and it gets off to an incredibly bumpy start because her friends all are too concerned with the question: “What would Rarity want?”

Detailed run-through (aka The Saddle Row Review Review):

“The Saddle Row Review Review” is a joke I came up with before I even started this post series.

This episode starts with five of the Mane 6 running in panic, hoping they can stop Rarity from reading the review of her new boutique. Given the highly anachronic order this episode is told in, this is quite amusing. Even after successfully setting up Rarity’s boutique and admitting they screwed things up along the way, they still feel a desire to maintain a perfect image to her friend. Normally, Rarity is the one obsessed with keeping a perfect image, but this time, the rest of her friends take this role while Rarity happily embraces her friends’ quirks.

Rarity looks angered when her friends arrive, but it turns out she was merely exhausted from waiting. Then she squeals in adorable excitement because she wanted them to read the review together.

Rainbow Dash: Um… I have an idea. How about we don’t read it?
Twilight Sparkle: What she means is, before you read it, we should probably tell you about—
Rarity: No, no, darling. Please, no spoilers.

I’ve previously talked about a pattern in Rarity episodes where the rest of her friends are clumsy but well-meaning, always trying a little too hard to make Rarity satisfied. Though I consider it a Rarity episode, this episode plays with the pattern by focusing on the rest of the Mane 6 and what they think of Rarity, rather than on Rarity herself. This episode is all about playing with patterns and unusual storytelling styles, and I enjoy it very much.

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 64: Newbie Dash + A Hearth’s Warming Tail

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Season 6, Episodes 7-8

Season 6 Episode 7: Newbie Dash

In five words: Nickname ruins Rainbow Dash’s dreams.

Premise: Rainbow Dash has finally gotten into the Wonderbolts, but at the cost of regaining her old embarrassing nickname: Rainbow Crash. She is not happy about it.

Detailed run-through:

This episode starts with Rainbow Dash flying over Ponyville, with everyone’s favorite middle-finger-shaped castle in the background. The shape of the castle is clearly meant to indicate how Rainbow Dash will feel when she gets her new nickname, making this one of the cleverest pieces of obviously completely intentional foreshadowing the show has yet done.

Rainbow Dash has a little chat with Scootaloo about her supposedly small role in the Wonderbolts’ next performance, but then three of the Wonderbolts come in so that Spitfire can drop the news: Rainbow Dash isn’t just a reserve, but now will be flying with the Wonderbolts full-time. Scootaloo’s reaction is how Rainbow Dash would have reacted to this news back in season 1, while Rainbow Dash has the face of someone who was just told that something they have waited years for has finally happened.

Then Rainbow Dash’s face turns into that of someone who has processed that something they have waited years for has finally happened. Surely nothing will go drastically wrong on her first day, right?

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 63: No Second Prances

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Season 6, Episode 6

My first MLP post written inside my new house that I own is a MASSIVE doozy. Are you prepared for lots of words about a love/hate triangle between three magically oriented mares? You better be.

Season 6 Episode 6: No Second Prances

In five words: Twilight Sparkle demonstrates double standards.

Premise: Twilight Sparkle wants Starlight Glimmer to make a new friend, and she’s shocked and infuriated when that new friend turns out to be Trixie, even though she’s forgiven Starlight Glimmer for much worse actions than anything Trixie ever did.

Detailed run-through:

This episode starts with a low-stakes slice of life scene between Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer, which is possibly my favorite way to begin Starlight’s episodes. I should clarify here that I’m not just OK with Starlight Glimmer being reformed, or tolerant of how much screen time she gets in this season. I massively enjoy her as a character, both before and after reformation, and she’s one of my favorite characters in the entire show. She’s a character whose name I’d eagerly put between the phrases “I love” and “so much”. Or put more concisely: I love Starlight Glimmer so much.

Twilight Sparkle: First lesson of the day: we very carefully set the table without using magic. So that—YIKES!
Twilight Sparkle: Did you— how— when— WHAT?!
Starlight Glimmer: What?
Twilight Sparkle: I said, no magic. You were supposed to do it by hoof so I could work in a friendship lesson.
Starlight Glimmer: Oh. I heard “set the table” and just kind of went for it.

Part of making a good reformed villain is to make them frequently miss the point when someone tries to teach them a friendship lesson, and no character does this better than Starlight Glimmer. She might be even more impulsive after reformation, because she wants to impress her mentor at all costs. Sounds like another purple unicorn well-versed in magic, doesn’t it?

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Why is trans Trixie so popular?

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If you’re familiar with transgender headcanons from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic—wait, did I seriously just TYPE that?! There seriously is no hope for me.

Anyway…

Let’s try this again.

If you’ve heard of only one transgender headcanon from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, it’s probably the headcanon that Trixie is a trans girl. As you know if you’re aware I wrote a trans fic about Rarity, I have had a change of heart about transgender headcanons over the past few months and now find them more fascinating than ever before. A friend of mine suggested I talk about trans Trixie in my review of No Second Prances (which I haven’t started writing yet), but I decided to make a separate blog post about it instead. And it’ll be my own earnest explanation of why I think this headcanon is so popular, without any of that patronizing attitude a lot of trans headcanoners have (cough cough Vylet Pony). I mean seriously, you won’t get people to respect your headcanon if you’re going to be a jerk about it.

I think I know why Trixie is so commonly thought of as transgender. She hits the perfect storm of qualities to make this headcanon appealing:

  • She first appears in season 1, meaning just about every fan knows who she is, and she’s considered one of the MLP characters even though she only appeared twice until season 6. The sad truth is a lot of fans have only seen the early seasons anyway.
  • She has a distinct mix of being self-absorbed and insecure about herself, which I think a lot of trans people can relate to.
  • She seems to have a difficult upbringing and rocky history, flitting between unfun jobs and a shoddy reputation after Twilight Sparkle initially outmatched her. A lot of transgender people live difficult lives too, because it unfortunately isn’t easy for everyone to accept that they’re real.
  • She has a human-sounding name, which means that a good amount of trans people will name themselves after her.
  • And finally, she’s a fun and unique character with a lot of depth! This means there are a lot of aspects of her character to explore if you interpret her as trans, and fans clearly love doing so.

I think as far as MLP transgender headcanons go, trans Trixie is a pretty basic choice. But I promise I don’t mean this in a bad way! There’s nothing wrong with liking something so popular—typically, such things are popular for good reason.

Now with that said… Rarity being a trans girl is the best MLP trans headcanon by far, because it requires you to rethink her upbringing, her ladylike mannerisms, her complex dynamic with Spike, and so much more. It may be weird to say, but I think it suits Rarity really well to be transgender. Her character has always been meant to subvert gender roles, and if you assume the most ladylike of the Mane 6 was born as a boy but passes as a girl REALLY well, that truly changes everything about her. Well, not quite everything—it doesn’t change that she’s incredibly cute and lovable.

I should stress that you don’t have to agree with the above paragraph. If you think trans Rarity makes no sense, that is perfectly fine.

Wait, this post was supposed to be about Trixie. So I’ll end it by saying this: if you headcanon Trixie as a trans girl, that is totally understandable and you have no need to feel embarrassed about it.

Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 62: Gauntlet of Fire

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Season 6, Episode 5

Fun fact: this will be the last MLP post I write before moving out of my parents’ house. I get the keys today, and I’ll spend the weekend moving all my stuff. Exciting, right?

Season 6 Episode 5: Gauntlet of Fire

In five words: Spike’s second chance befriending dragons.

Premise: Spike goes to the dragon kingdom for the second time in his life, this time by force. He’s sent to participate in a competition to inherit the throne from Dragon Lord Torch. He’s reluctant at first, but eventually he gains a supportive ally.

Detailed run-through:

Knowing this episode’s premise, it’s interesting and fitting that it starts with Spike in his comfort zone: exploring a cave with a girl he likes to help her find gems.

Rarity: The last time I was here, I woke them and ended up with a mane full of bats. (sigh) Thanks for being my basket holder, Spike.
Spike: Basket holder? I thought I was your bodyguard.
Rarity: What? Oh, haha. Yes, yes, that of course, too.

I should say right off the bat that I see nothing creepy about Spike’s crush on Rarity. It’s a totally believable thing for a pre-teenage boy to do, and passages like this show that while Rarity has some special affection for Spike, she clearly views him as a kid. There are some episodes where one of them goes far enough to raise an eyebrow, but this isn’t one of them, and the crush in itself isn’t weird to me.

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