I think it's safe to say...

Maud Pie is best pony.

Seabreeze & Family

Filli Vanilli

That rabbit has some sort of weird growth. How does it get in and out of its warren?


I really like Toe-Tapper's eighth note star cutie mark.


Leave it to a real chatterbox like Big Mac to lose his voice.

Pinkie Pie took a level in JERK this episode. To whom was she nice? Nopony.

Zipporwhill is new cutest pony. It doesn't matter if Scootaloo is a sad, disabled orphan, she has lost the title of cutest pony that she has defended so vigorously since season one.


Fluttershy looks really cute in her green sweater, though I'm not sure how easy it would be to squeeze her wings through the holes.

This episode had one of the best songs of the season. At the very least a real Ponytones EP should be released. I'd buy it.



This was a very simple episode with a lot of callbacks to earlier episodes, which I really like. Everything (except Pinkie) was really sweet. I didn't even mind the season four lighting when Flutters was singing to the animals, and I'm not sure, but I don't think Derpy was their either, or at least she didn't appear right in front of the main action that I was trying to pay attention to! For its one flaw this falls just short of best episode of the season.

94/100.

Affluence And Apathy, or Why I Love Rarity

I can say with the utmost confidence that, while other ponies and all their special episodes may disappoint, without any question, there has never been nor will there likely ever be a disappointing episode focusing on Rarity. Consistently she remains top notch, above and beyond others in excellence and grace. She stands as a beacon overlooking all the pageantry, bizarre little oddities (Over A Barrel), and endless parades of Dash getting away with absolutely everything like some grand scale karma Houdini. Unlike all the others, who may at times descend into madness (or "go cupcakes"), Rarity manages to hold onto her poise and grace while always finding it in herself to give to her fullest ability to anypony in need.

One need no other example than Sisterhooves Social where she put aside all comfort for the sake of her sister, going so far as to disguise herself as Applejack and get as dirty as possible. She did it all gladly for Sweetie Belle, who was an obnoxious, selfish jackass (like all, or certainly most, little kids). She was able to maintain her grace even among the diamond dogs worst attempts at breaking her. She never lost her head, she never sank to their level, she just bit her lip, bore the discomfort of their imprisonment, and used her wits to extricate herself from captivity.

Time and again Rarity reveals to us that she is no one trick pony like so many others. AJ is still the rough and tumble farmer's daughter, Twi is still the anal nerd, Dash is still the asshole Mary Sue, Pinkie Pie still teeters on the brink of cupcakes, and Fluttershy still warns us to beware the quiet ones. Contrasted against the others Rarity has a depth of personality that is unrivaled by the rest of the mane six put together. She has beauty, brains, and heart, sense and style, cleverness, compassion, and propriety all rolled into one fabulous package. I dare say Rarity is everything anypony could ever want in a girl. She'll go on a quest to slay the dragon and look stunning doing it. She'll work herself to exhaustion for her friends. She'll put others before herself and bear the slings required of the peace keeper. She may go overboard at times, but everypony does and Rarity is certainly not above apologising for her wrongs.

It is for all that that I hold Rarity up as an example for us all, especially in these troubled times.

The problem of the world today is the disease of Affluenza, which isn't really a disease, but neither is ADHD or depression, even though drug companies make billions off of both, so why not add one more, and one that is so troubling to so many millions?

First permit me to clarify. I'm not saying that there are not people who actually have ADHD or depression, just that they are not diseases and cannot be cured (or treated, since nothing in psychiatry is ever cured) like diseases with drugs. The psychiatry disease angle is a scam.

Depression is a mental condition in which anger is repressed and turned inward toward one's self. It is overcome by introspecting to uproot the anger (best when done under the auspices of a qualified therapist), not by blocking dopamine or seratonin. Taking drugs to fix depression is like taking drugs to fix an amputated arm. The best course of action for dealing with depression is a combination of cognitive behaviour therapy and lots of physical exercise (one British study showed that walking more than 30 minutes a day was several times more effective than any available drug at fixing depression, and walking alone was more effective than walking while taking drugs, indicating that the drugs actually worsen the symptoms of depression!).

ADHD and all its various permutations (the more types of disorder the psychiatric community can create the more money they can make selling people drugs) are just names for being a boy and not having parents who do their job. The first undeniable truth about the universe everyone learns is that boys and girls are different. It has always been for hundreds of thousands of years that boys and girls think and learn differently, and within the larger categories of boys and girls are a whole spectrum of sub-types. None are wrong or defective or diseased, just different.

Unfortunately, the pussification of America threw that undeniable fact out and replaced it with the idea that everyone is the same and has to be taught the same and if anyone doesn't fit into that narrow mold they must be diseased. Since America was pussified and only girls have pussies, that means that girls are normal. If girls are normal then, by definition, boys must be defective. No longer do boys and girls think differently, needing different modes of learning and discipline. Nope, everyone must be taught the same and they must be taught like girls. Since boys don't learn like girls, since they want to run around and rough house and compete and follow rules and have winners and losers*, then boys must be defective. If boys are no longer allowed to win and lose, if they can't run and shout and mes around then of course they'll look for outlets to their masculinity where it is deemed inappropriate. They don't need drugs, they just need proper masculine discipline and training so they can grow up into proper men. They need parents who get off their fat asses and tell them to sit down and shut up when in public (behavioural training). They need to be told to follow rules begrudgingly and most of all they need a chance to rough house with one another outside and express their natural masculine violent proclivities.

Getting back to the topic at hand, or society is afflicted by the dreaded disease of Affluenza and it is Rarity who can show us the way to overcome this plague.

In the past century, more so the past 50 years, mores the past generation, and the past decade, Western society has become more affluent. We don't have to worry about working for our food, the government gives it to us and the grocery store is always fully stocked. We don't have to have twelve children because eight of them won't die from measles or whooping cough. We don't have to write letters or look for pay phones or wait to see our friends, they are always at hand. Our lives in the West have become so easy that we have become bored and must now look or excuses to complain about things. We have to work to find a reason to bitch and moan about how "unfair" our lives are. Our blessings are so many that we must focus on the few areas of our lives that contain lack for fear of being overwhelmed with gratitude. We are the 1% in all of human history, holding ore wealth and opulence than kings and emperors of years gone by could ever dream of. This is Affluenza.

The problem stems from two unhealthy byproducts of extreme affluence: narcissism and apathy. We literally throw away enough food to feed the entire world many times over. No one ever need go hungry, just kill the warlords and give the starving refugees the garbage we won't eat.

In Sweet and Elite we see Rarity, an affluent pony, stand in stark contrast with a rather uppity fellow from Canterlot, Jet Set, along with his wife Upper Crust. Jet Set and Upper Crust exemplify Affluenza. Against them is Rarity and her new friend (and mentor?) Fancy Pants, both of whom can keep their heads despite their success (though Fancy Pants plays coy to get Rarity to display her good nature, almost as a master would his apprentice). Fancy Pants urges Rarity on to defend her friends at the Canterlot Garden Party, however uncouth, or downright destructive, they may be. Jet Set and Upper Crust, stricken with Affluenza, are appalled at Rarity's display of her loyalty but they are quickly shot down by Fancy Pants coming to her aid.

Rarity exemplifies how to be good affluent. She shows us the way out of Affluenza, minus the occasional theatrics if we may be so inclined. I would advise all of you, myself included, and especially the occupy pussies, to look to Rarity as the inoculation against the dreaded disease of Affluenza. She just may be the one to save our world from self-destruction.





*My friends and I would play space marines and fight aliens with sticks and books, not like we were visiting neighbors, and we accepted the rules of the games as rules, sucking it up when we lost even if we didn't like it. We didn't demand do overs to boost our self esteem. We ran around and made lots of noise and fell down and got hurt. We may have cried but we knew we were supposed to be men so we got over it.

Season Four Retrospective (Take One)

Season 4 is "different". It has deviated from character interaction to random silly gags and pop culture references, Twilight has gained nothing from being a princess, and, I'm just going to come out and say it, this season sucks.

Even Moron "Daring Don't"

The whole episode makes no sense.

When Twilight had the ring why didn't she teleport far away, why did she only teleport five feet? And she didn't just teleport five feet, she teleported five feet to directly in front of the unguarded exit door. And she didn't just teleport five feet to directly in front of the unguarded exit door, she teleported five feet to directly in front of the unguarded exit door and then DID NOT GO THROUGH IT.

And there was no ceiling in the room with all the rings and FOUR ponies who could fly and none of them were bad guys. Why didn't Fluttershy or Twilight or Dash and her pallet swap fly the rings out of the temple?

And why is it that the one ring everypony keeps tossing around like it's weightless but all the others on the alter weigh a ton each?

And if Daring Do just destroyed the ring at the end once the temple fell apart, why the hell didn't she just destroy it in the very beginning instead of go through all that convoluted nonsense about hiding it in her cottage where everyone would go to look for it first? If she destroyed it at the end why didn't she let it stay in the fire to melt? Nopony else was going to get it, she got it out herself with her whip.

"I had to find a way to get into the fortress."

No, Daring Do, you didn't. You could have destroyed the ring you had and then what's his name could NEVER have completed his plan of unleashing 800 years of heat on that stupid valley nopony else cares about.

What the hell was the point of this whole episode? There were over 9,000(!) super easy solutions to end the story at any moment, making all that crap they went through unnecessary, but they did it anyway because "waiting until the last second to stop the end of the world is that much more exciting!" or something.

Powerless Ponies

Headcanon established: this is EXACTLY what happened in "Daring Don't". They were sucked into a book (with emphasis on the sucked part) and Daring Do is still fictional. Perfect.

Rarity and Pinkie Pie were nice, Spike learnes the same crap for the millionth time (really, how insecure can he be after all these episodes that focus on how important he is?), there were a few funny throwaway jokes, and the rest was just boring.

Flutter Hulk is a huge letdown after all the hype with that contrived bit at the end. It was like a bad parody of "Dragonshy" really, only there she got angry when her friends were beat up, now she didn't give a shit about her friends and a stupid bug was randomly thrown in for no reason other than to save her transformation for the end. All it really does is make her look like a bigger jerk than in "Putting Your Hoof Down".

There really is nothing memorable about this episode at all. It could vanish from reality and it would have no effect ("Daring Don't" vanishing from reality would cause real unicorns to be born and world peace to be established forever as it is still the worst episode ever, now and forever into the future, no matter how many seasons the show gets). The whole episode screams "laziness!"

This is the first time a season has disapointed me. I actually feel bad for disliking so many episodes, like I've become a jaded cynic or something. The first episode introduces what appears to be a major theme - that key box - just like the major theme of the first season was getting to the Grand Galoping Gala, and there were references to it in every other episode, but in this season the key box is just dropped totally for a string of bullshit episodes that are like bad fanfic. I can't help feeling like the writers will do an asspull at the end and solve everything in a super rushed manner like they tend to do, only worse because if they don't mention the keys soon NOTHING they could possibly do could fit into a good single or even double episode finale. It will be doomed to suck.

For the first time since I started watching almost three years ago I am not looking forward to next week's episode.

40/100 for "Power Ponies"