Tag Archives: starlight glimmer

Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 82: A Royal Problem

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< Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 >

Season 7, Episode 10

It’s been a while since my last MLP review, hasn’t it? While I’m unemployed I need something to do when bored, and working on my blog is one such thing. I wonder how much of this post series I can get done in 2025. Also, today is my 26th birthday!

And just to recap, I will no longer be releasing my MLP reviews only on Fridays, but instead on the day I finish them. I’ll continue having all of my posts cover either one or two episodes.

Season 7 Episode 10: A Royal Problem

In five words: Starlight swaps princesses’ cutie marks.

Premise: The Cutie Map sends Starlight Glimmer on a mission to Celestia and Luna’s castle because they haven’t been getting along as of late. To help them see eye to eye, she swaps the sisters’ cutie marks.

Detailed run-through:

It’s been over a year since I last reviewed a MLP episode, so forgive me if I struggle to get back into my groove. But I will try! The good thing, this is one of the fan favorite episodes of season 7.

To start the episode, the map sends Starlight Glimmer alone on a mission to Celestia and Luna’s castle. Twilight Sparkle responds with some good old Twilighting, doubled by her motherly treatment of Starlight.

Twilight Sparkle: Don’t worry. For all we know, it’s something small. Like, maybe the cooks are fighting over who has the best butternut squash soup. Or the royal hairdressers are fighting over a comb.
Spike: Or you know, maybe the royal sisters aren’t seeing eye-to-eye on something
Twilight Sparkle: NO! That’s just crazy. Luna and Celestia would never fight. … Again.

Thinking about it, it makes sense the map would send Starlight to solve this conflict for multiple reasons. It’s not just because of Starlight’s brash impulsiveness as the episode later discusses. The Mane 6 and Spike wouldn’t see the sisters’ conflict from an unbiased perspective, because Celestia knows them (especially Twilight) much better than Luna does. And the Cutie Mark Crusaders would be just as biased towards Luna. The map needs a neutral party to solve their rivalry. Moreover, I’m sure the map knows that last time Celestia and Luna got into a conflict, Luna got banished to the moon, and that had better not reoccur.

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 78: A Flurry of Emotions + Rock Solid Friendship

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Season 7, Episodes 3-4

Sorry this post took so long! Admittedly, I procrastinated on it in favor of writing Eurovision reviews. My latest review is 1990, so I have 33 posts left to write. I wonder which blog post series I’ll finish first: Eurovision or MLP?

Season 7 Episode 3: A Flurry of Emotions

In five words: Twilight’s turn to attempt babysitting.

Premise: To prove herself as the Best Aunt Ever, Twilight Sparkle tries to squeeze time into her busy schedule to babysit Flurry Heart, whose parents are attending an art show.

Detailed run-through:

Obligatory mention that the nurse pony’s cutie mark was redesigned because her old one violated the Geneva Conventions.

This episode begins with the nurse pony telling Twilight she will have to spend the day with a group of sick foals, which she eagerly agrees to do.

This scene was probably meant to redeem the criticism that last season, Cadance didn’t look exhausted from taking care of Flurry Heart.

I still don’t get why Cadance and Shining Armor decided it was a good idea to drop in unannounced and tell Twilight Sparkle she has to watch over their baby. Wouldn’t it make more sense to leave her with a Crystal Empire resident, like Sunburst? And why did they just assume Twilight had nothing better to do? The best explanation I can think of is that it was a hasty decision because they were sleep deprived.

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 77: All Bottled Up

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< Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 >

Season 7, Episode 2

Remember when I said I might write a blog post about GalaCon 2023 (my first pony con)? Well, I ended up making a video about it instead, and released it on the tenth anniversary of when I first watched MLP:FiM. You should watch it if you haven’t! If you like reading my MLP reviews, I promise you’ll enjoy this video too.

I promise I’ll speed up with my MLP reviews for at least the first half of season 7. And yes, it’ll come at the cost of slowing down another post series.

Season 7 Episode 2: All Bottled Up

In five words: Trixie drives Starlight to insanity.

Premise: While Twilight Sparkle and friends are off for a friendship retreat, Starlight Glimmer practices magic with Trixie and gets annoyed with her friend’s careless mishaps. Luckily, she can store all her anger in bottles and ignore it forever… or so she thinks.

Detailed run-through:

This episode begins with a slice of life scene featuring a fan favorite pair of characters, where Starlight Glimmer makes cupcakes for her friends’ trip and Trixie practices magic. When Starlight explains how to do a transfiguration spell and Trixie does it successfully, it first seems like happy fluffy friendship moments…

This scene does shows us that Trixie isn’t quite as reformed as Starlight is, which I admire.
It’s nice that different villains (or villain-ish characters) are reformed at different rates.

… but the moment Trixie hugs Starlight overly tight and makes her spill frosting, the episode’s conflict becomes clear. It’s a similar style of cold opening to Make New Friends but Keep Discord: we see a friendship established a season or two ago, and since we already know they’re friends, it doesn’t take long to introduce their conflict.

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 76: Celestial Advice

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< Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 >

Season 7, Episode 1

During my trip to Germany (which is where I am as of this post’s publication!), writing a Eurovision review on my downtime somehow didn’t seem fun at all anymore. Those blog posts are fun to write, but the difference between them and my MLP posts is that while I enjoy almost every MLP episode, the Eurovision songs that truly interest me are few and far between. Therefore, it requires a higher degree of boredom for me to write a Eurovision post.

By the way, this trip has been an absolute blast so far, and it will include my very first pony con soon: GalaCon. I might write a bit about it on my blog.

Season 7 Episode 1: Celestial Advice

In five words: Celestia’s side of season 1.

Premise: The only season premiere not to be a two-part episode. During a celebration of Starlight Glimmer and friends’ overthrowing of Queen Chrysalis, Twilight Sparkle doesn’t know what to do next with her pupil and consults her mentor for advice.

Detailed run-through:

I’ve already said it before, but I love Starlight Glimmer so much.
Well OK, most fans who hate Starlight hate the late seasons in general.

Unlike the last three seasons, I’m not going to take my sweet time analyzing the first minute of the premiere, because not much happens in it. Season 7 of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic begins with a typical casual Starlight Glimmer/Spike conversation about the upcoming celebration, where Spike desperately hides the gift that Twilight Sparkle is working on. It’s a mirror where Starlight will see herself surrounded by her friends each morning.

However, I am going to analyze in detail the pictures on Twilight’s mirror a minute and a half in, because it has some interesting details.

First off, on the top left, we see a picture of Celestia and Discord. This implies that even though Discord is so… Discord, Twilight Sparkle by now considers him a good friend. Something even more subtly sweet is the picture with Moondancer on the bottom right. It suggests that Twilight has a special attachment to her childhood friends, even the ones she doesn’t see often, which I can easily relate to. Does this mirror have anyone else Twilight considers important to her? We have Cadance, Spike, the rest of the Mane 6, Owlowiscious, and everyone in the group photo. Aside from her relatives and maybe Luna, the list seems complete.

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 75: To Where and Back Again, Part 1 + 2

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< Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 >

Season 6, Episodes 25-26

I wanted to start my Eurovision blog post series so badly, but I had promised myself I would finish this little order of business first. It turned out to take, well… longer than expected. Because I wanted to start my Eurovision blog post series so badly! Still, I promise this review will be a fun one.

(As of this post’s publication, my first Eurovision review is out, but I wrote it after finishing this post.)

Season 6 Episode 25: To Where and Back Again, Part 1

In five words: Starlight faces changelings’ great revenge.

Premise: Starlight Glimmer has returned from a trip to her old village to find out changelings have kidnapped her friends, so she gathers an entourage of supporting characters to save the day.

Detailed run-through:

Typical of Starlight Glimmer episodes, we begin with a calm slice-of-life scene where she and Twilight Sparkle reflect on how far their relationship has come, plus some goofy Spike gags. Their calm reflections are broken when Spike notices something strange incoming:

Twilight, Spike, and Starlight are bowing down to our true lord and savior.

This is the entire purpose of the season 6 finale: for the queen of all things good in this world, Derpy Hooves, to crash into Twilight’s castle and deliver a letter to Starlight. Everything else is an irrelevant afterthought, including all the boxes of books she crashes into. Clearly, Derpy used this method of delivery to make sure the letter would end up in Starlight’s hooves, not Twilight’s. She knows Twilight can be self-absorbed and assume all letters are meant for her, and she knows a letter to Starlight might contain something extremely private. If all characters were as thoughtful and forward-thinking as Derpy Hooves… I would say that would be great, but it would make the show completely boring. There can only be one best pony, and her name is Derpy.

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 72: Viva Las Pegasus + Every Little Thing She Does

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< Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 >

Season 6, Episodes 20-21

We’re almost done with season 6! My plan is to split the last five episodes into three posts: episodes 22-23, 24, and 25-26 (the finale). If I release the next three posts every week, I’ll be finished with season 6 on May 5.

Season 6 Episode 20: Viva Las Pegasus

In five words: Selfish hotel owner gets overthrown.

Premise: The Cutie Map sends another odd pair (Applejack and Fluttershy) to another odd place (Las Pegasus) to deal with another pesky two-faced celebrity (Gladmane).

Detailed run-through:

Before I begin, I’d like to say that this episode has me at an awkward position. I’m so close to an episode that I am extremely excited to analyze, in no small part because it’s a Starlight Glimmer episode, but I first have to pick apart an episode that I feel neutral about analyzing. That’s why I procrastinated on starting this post for about a week.

If the Cutie Map sent her to Appleoosa, I could already hear Applejack’s delighted “hoo-wee!”

The cold opening of this episode is short and effective, only 48 seconds long, since we know the map episode formula. Applejack and Fluttershy both aren’t very thrilled to enter the noisy party town of Las Pegasus. I find it amusing that Applejack has the worst luck when it comes to cutie map missions: seasons 5 and 6 both sent her to a big city that she’d rather not be in. It’s the exact opposite of Rarity’s level of luck—she got sent to both the cities she adores the most.

The efficient storytelling is continued through what TV Tropes calls a Gilligan cut. Applejack says that Las Pegasus probably isn’t as bad as they think; take a wild guess what happens next.

You guessed it! It’s even worse!

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

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< Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 >

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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< Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 >

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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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 59: The Crystalling, Part 1 + 2

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Season 6, Episodes 1-2

How did this blog post come to be, you may ask? Oh, you know… the classic tale of me getting bored out of my mind one evening and thus deciding to bring a personal project out of hiatus.

Until mid-January, my MLP posting schedule may be a little sporadic because I’m preparing to move into a new house. After that, things will ramp up! As with season 5, this season will be a mix of one-episode posts and two-episode posts, probably with an increased portion of one-episode posts.

Season 6 Episode 1: The Crystalling, Part 1

In five words: Baby brings everyone’s lives chaos.

Premise: The Crystal Empire is hosting its the ever crystalling of a baby alicorn princess named Flurry Heart, and Twilight Sparkle uses this visit as an opportunity to teach Starlight Glimmer her first friendship lesson: reconciling with Sunburst.

Detailed run-through:

Every season since the fourth, I’ve REALLY taken my sweet time analyzing the first few minutes of the first episode.

Since I so strongly associate this season with Starlight Glimmer, it’s no surprise that season 6 of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic begins with her exploring Twilight’s castle. Starlight tries to find the library in this enormous building and snarks that the castle looked a lot smaller from the outside. Right away, this remark makes it clear what Starlight’s new role in the show will be. She’s going to fill the niche that Twilight Sparkle had in the first few seasons—a snarky student well-versed in magic but inexperienced with friendship who reports to a princess. This role matches very nicely with the middle and late seasons’ theme of passing the torch.

Wait… you expected me to go off about how surprised I am that I’ve already made it to season 6, right? While it’s certainly a nice milestone, I knew from the moment I conceived of this post series* that I’d easily have it in me to make it this far, so it doesn’t feel that huge to me. Perhaps this sounds like I’m bragging about myself, but I am really just putting into perspective how hopelessly obsessed I am with this show instead of normal people things that normal people like. I tried suppressing the fact that I love My Little Pony for six years, and you can see how well that turned out. Eventually, the lid burst, and now I have no choice but to own up to this painfully dorky obsession.

Honestly, the real exciting milestone of season 6 is not the premiere, but rather its sixth episode: No Second Prances. Imagine me popping off Pinkie Pie style about how excited I am to analyze that episode; that’s how much I am looking forward to it.

* I conceived of a video series reviewing every episode back in 2014, but when the idea came back to me in 2021, I decided a blog post series would be more fun.

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 58: The Cutie Re-Mark, Part 1 + 2

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< Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 >

Season 5, Episodes 25-26

We’ve finally made it to the season 5 finale! As excited as I am to analyze it, I am going to need a sizable break afterwards to focus both on other projects and real life stuff. My journey through the second half of season 5 has already been rather slow for both these reasons, which is why I want to begin analyzing season 6 with a refreshed mindset. I just figured I’d let you know.

Season 5 Episode 25: The Cutie Re-Mark, Part 1

In five words: Starlight Glimmer rampages across time.

Premise: Thirsty for revenge, Starlight Glimmer sends Twilight Sparkle and Spike on a chase through alternate timelines where villains took over Equestria—all by interfering with the day the Mane 6 got their cutie marks.

Detailed run-through:

This dramatic two-part episode starts off as innocuous as any season finale would: with Twilight Sparkle rehearsing a speech to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, while Spike jabs at her for perfectionism. As you should already know, this is all part of the setup.

The speech itself starts off as a recap of cutie mark lore, attended by a bunch of familiar faces, and… wait just a minute, Twilight Sparkle. That is not how Venn diagrams work! The intersections between two circles show common traits between whichever entities the circles represent. If you are to read this diagram logically, it tells us that Sweetie Belle has both her own cutie mark and Scootaloo’s, Scootaloo has hers and Apple Bloom’s, and Apple Bloom has hers and Sweetie Belle’s. The only correct part of this diagram is the tricolored shield in the center, which is something that all three Cutie Mark Crusaders’ marks share.

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