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((When you're alone with your own thoughts))

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RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!

Magical Mare-story Tour

The Girls are at Sugarcube Corner with their new friends from another dimension. They’re trying to figure out how to get the Wild Siders back home, but they want to actually look around Ponyville. So the girls give them a tour of Ponyville. Problem is, by trying to give them the excitement they presumably have back home (even though it didn’t seem too exciting), the Wild Siders aren’t really given the chance to actually try Ponyville.

Spots include the Apple Farm, the Royal Jelly Juggernaut Set and the Potion Ocean. It's basically a speed run of a tour. They even skipped the Boss Encounter on the top of Volcanope. The tour ends in Canterlot Castle, where we see Pony Life Celestia in the windows and Nightmare Moon (non-Pony Life-ed) in the big one. Problem is they’re so frikkin tired they couldn’t stay awake for the finale.

The Wild Siders want to know what it is really like in Ponyville, their normal lives. So they decide to play a board game/ Pizza Party. Honestly, sometimes the simplest things are the best. Reminds me of a Warped Zone Sketch about Doomslayer relaxing by playing Animal Crossing. Because when your life is always exciting, a nice calm and simple thing is the best for you. And vice versa. 

Life of Pie

I have never seen Life of Pi, but I doubt this will have many references to that movie. It begins with Pinkie making a Triple Stuffed Glitter Puff to prepare herself because Lightning Chill is shadowing Pinkie so she can learn how to bake. When Lightning arrives, the place is a mess and the Cupcake is about to crash upon them. But her Tiger Horn Magic(?) saved the day and cleaned up the mess.

Ooh, I get it. It's because Pinkie is hanging out with a Tiger. Ignoring the brief bit of Pinkie wanting to learn that magic, Pinkie believes that since she’s the head chef of Salad Bowl Junction, their combined cooking power should come up with something great. But you can tell Pinkie doesn’t have many salads for lunch here because she should know Oil and Water tend to not mix.

And as predicted, it isn’t working well. Chill lives up to that second name by taking things slow while Pinkie is cooking like she's on a time limit. So Lightning isn’t learning anything as Pinkie is trying to do everything herself without letting the tiger do anything. And thanks to that, Sugarcube Corner is being filled with Chocolate Lava. So Pinkie finally lets Chill help and like before, cleans up the mess instantly.

Lightning did learn something: people have their own ways of doing things. And that’s something she learned from Pinkie. This allows the two to finally get in sync and make an actual cake. It's a nice simple story, but I get the feeling the next two episodes will focus on the other Wild Siders not in this one.

The Rarest of Occasions

Rarity is practicing for her stream but it seems she’s going to figure out things when it is live. So back to Sugarcube Corner, the old and new friends are trying Pinkie’s Cupcakes when Rarity shows up. It's her 100th Episode of her Solo Show when she asks for an assistant. The others don’t seem to want to help, but Sugar Snap volunteers. Rarity was hoping for someone she knows, but the others insist since she knows the play Rarity is going to perform.

So this Peacock is pretty much everything Rarity wanted to be: a comedian with a TV Show. Rarity forgets her lines, but Sugar Snap remembers it by heart. She offers to help Rarity rehearse it since she finds she performs better with friends. Rarity agrees to this. At the 100th Live Stream, instead of doing a Solo Stream Rarity decides to let Sugar Snap join in. She thinks she could do it on her own, but to be her best she needs her rehearsal partner.

Really short, but nice episode. One thing I am bothered about is for Sugar Snap, it's more tell not show. She’s a comedian. She had her own TV Show. But we don’t see that. What we do see is her suddenly appearing out of nowhere (which she does joke about pretending Rarity was wondering where she came from as in how she got here) and being nice. But nothing really gives off the vibes of a comedian. Compared to Lightning Chill above where we can immediately see the cool and collected personality on display 24/7.

Portal Combat

Rainbow Dash is breakdancing in the Park to practice her moves. Twilight suggested doing the Dash Masher but Rainbow Dash never performed it before or able to pull it off. That’s when a Portal suddenly showed up. It almost sucked Rainbow Dash in, but she escaped its pull. But then it got stronger. Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Applejack and the Bat named Echo try to help but the pull is too strong. And if the portal closes, the Wild Siders can’t return home, for some reason.

They figure they need a science pony to figure out this conundrum and guess who they turn to. Twilight created a device and it almost worked, but it fell apart. Twilight is Twilighting hard, so AJ and Pinkie try to help relieve that stress with an Apple Pie. Ignoring that it sounds like a fanfic, it didn’t work. Pinkie thinks there’s more to this than not building the machine and Twilight reveals its guilt. If she didn’t push Dash to do the Dash Masher, this wouldn’t have happened.

AJ does a little speech and that inspired Twilight to figure out how to solve it: you can’t fix the portal from one side, you need to combine both. So Twilight’s device stops the sucking and fuses with a door, creating a literal doorway between the two worlds. So the Wild Siders can show up more often in the Pony Life Universe and any spinoff series could have the Ponies show up normally. Simple and cool seeing Dash basically being affected by a Black Hole, but I feel bad for Echo.

Chill has the most personality shown. Snap had an episode with Best Pony. Meanwhile Echo was stuck holding Rainbow Dash as much as he could while the episode focused on Twilight. And looking ahead, he only has two speaking roles in two episodes remaining. He may be a scaredy cat based on the last episode, but that’s just an assumption.

[glapplebloom]

((Now the most boring part of a stakeout: the solo part))

[glapplebloom]

More evidence as to why Celestia and Luna didn’t call themselves Queens.

Queen for a Day

It’s Mares’ Day and the girls want to surprise Queen Haven. But despite scheduling to meet her at a specific time, the Queen didn’t show up. When they (specifically Zipp and Pipp) confront her, she apologizes because she’s swamped with work. So the two volunteer to take over Queen Haven’s position for the day so she can relax. Cue montage of them doing it and having a difficult time.

The Newborn Foals are out of control to stay still for a portrait. The Ribbon Cutting Ceremony is stuck with scissors that can’t cut. And other things like a Groundbreaking Celebration, visiting a very injured pony, a royal gardening, and of course tons and tons of paperwork. So after all of that is done, while late, arrive to meet up with Queen Haven for Dinner. She asked how it went and they were honest.

Even with five of them, they couldn't even complete the list. Said list that Queen Haven does every day. So they apologize to Queen Haven because they didn’t know how rough she was. Now that they were in her horseshoes for the day, they completely understand. And to show just how well Queen Haven handles things, she made sure dinner is nice and fresh despite them being late. And completes another one of her lists.

So how does Queen Haven handle all of this when the five of them couldn’t? It's what G4 showed: delegation. Queen Haven has people to help her complete the list. People who have been doing this as long as she has. As long as she gives the right orders and does her part, she can get her to do list done. After all, she’s a mother with a group of soldiers. She can definitely handle wild and out of control Newborns.

A joke I make is the reason Celestia and Luna don’t call themselves Queens is because they know they can’t match Queen Haven. A play on their supposed future sight. I still say Queen Haven is the best Queen of the MLP Franchise.

On Your Cutie Marks

We get the Return of the Equestria Games and like last time, it is a competition between cities. The big difference is we only have three cities and they are made up of the three species. So it is really Pegasi Vs Earth Ponies Vs Unicorns. And you know it is about to be a mess when the three groups' warmups turn into falling Lanterns and volleyballs. Luckily for Sunny both Queen Haven and Alphabittle (who were spending time together) offer help.

But this is Sunny who probably spent an hour trying to cut that ribbon last episode, so she continues on despite being over her head. We got three games: Beach Volleyball, a hundred meter dash, and a race with boats. Each species uses their powers to give themselves an edge: Pegasi fly, Unicorns float things and Earth Ponies use their newly discovered Plant Powers. And Sunny is so stressed about trying to keep things orderly, she gets upset when despite her best efforts they’re just arguing with each other.

And showing how scary this world is, because of their overcompetitiveness the Magic begins to glitch like in Make Your Mark. Queen Haven and Alphabittle come along (once again, together) to give Sunny not only advice and kind words, but also an idea: instead of splitting things up by cities, they’re going to be a mix of all pony kinds. So three groups made of Earth Ponies, Unicorns and Pegasi. This allows them to mix and match their powers and even change the 100 Meter Dash to a Baton Passing Race. 

And when the games end, everyone's a winner. It's because they only had three games and each group won one and instead of making up a tiebreaker, after having six games today, they just decided on a tie. Makes sense since it is the first Equestria Games since Twilight’s time and all of Equestria has won. Overall, a nice story and shows how G4’s Equestria Games episode could have gone. 

But the important thing is the Havenbittle Ship got some more fuel for the fire as we see the two spend time together. We’ll see them together again in the future, with an episode of Tell Your Tale AND Make Your Mark confirming this ship is floating strong! Again, Queen Haven: best MLP Queen.

[glapplebloom]

Bon Bon: All you really need is S.M.I.L.E. S.M.I.L.E. S.M.I.L.E. ...

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Thank you QuantumHippologist for this idea.

In the Cutie Re-Mark two parter, we see multiple timelines with the final one being the Wasteland Timeline. In that timeline, pretty much the entire planet is dead. But that does leave one question: how did it end up this way? Off the bat, we could likely remove anyone with their own Timeline from it. So, from best to worst, we can remove Sombra, Chrysalis, Nightmare Moon, Tirek, Discord, and the Flim Flam Brothers. So who does that lead us to? Let’s start off with the ones QH has on their poll.

The Pony of Shadows

Stygian is the new villain after Starlight Glimmer. In the comics, the Alternate universe version was able to ravish the lands to the point that you could consider him the top tier. But assuming this is actual Time Travel and not Multiverse Theory as I suggested before and there is a big problem with this one. Credit for GamerNik3 for making the most popular post of it, but this doesn’t make sense.

The Pony of Shadows was stuck in Limbo. The only way to release him was to find a book in Ponyville that was in a blind bag in an Antique Shop. A shop only visited by Twilight Sparkle and the one time Sunburst. So for him to be the culprit, you have to go through a lot of hoops. Even if you presume the timeline of events happens the same way the episode Shadow Play starts, I don’t think it can happen. After all, Twilight was the most magically gifted student and took this mission on her own.

If Sunburst happens to find the book and deliver it to Celestia, it could be possible that she would have her own researchers on the job. But the events can’t really happen like that. The reason the Chrysaling Episode happened was because of Flurry Heart. Whoever was the Element Bearers would have no excuse to go there so Starlight could put that lesson to the side until it was too late. Sunburst would be stuck in his house frozen over and nobody would ever discover that book. So he’s out.

The Storm King

The guy was so pathetic, he was more of a threat to a bunch of people as a storm than an actual person. Regardless, in theory this could work. The sudden surprise of the Storm King’s army did take out the three princesses. But keep in mind, the events for that to happen was because Twilight Sparkle was the one in charge of the Friendship Festival. It was specifically stated to be her event. So in theory, even if whoever was the Element of Magic was turned into an Alicorn, there is a strong possibility they wouldn’t be as eager to do something like this as Twilight would.

So could the Storm King cause this without the Friendship Festival? Maybe but not as effectively. At most he could get his hands on two Alicorns in Celestia and Luna with this surprise attack, but as seen it is pretty easy to have a counter army come in to stop them. The Element of Surprise was their biggest advantage and without that, people can easily figure out their strengths and weaknesses. A more prepared Cadance or Magical Element Alicorn would handle Tempest better.

But let’s assume the Element of Magic Alicorn does the same thing as Twilight. Wouldn’t that mean we would still see the same events? Magic Alicorn escapes, Tempest chases, Tempest brings her back to complete the set, betrayed by Storm King, he’s distracted by incoming threat, giving Tempest the opportunity to attack from behind. So no, I don’t think he has a ghost of a chance to win.

Cozy Glow

Honestly, she’s in my book the best of the three to cause this. Her whole deal was draining all the Magic of Equestria so she would rule over them as Queen of Friendship. But unlike G5 where they had technology to compensate and gradually lost it if you take the Pitch Bible to heart, Equestria had a HEAVY reliance on Magic. In the episode alone, you saw ponies falling to their deaths, food decomposing much faster and nobody having access to the stuff they normally do. Like if anything could have caused that, it would be Cozy Glow...

Assuming whoever is the Princess of Friendship in this timeline is created that school. Cozy Glow’s plans require specific artifacts by specific groups of creatures, including the Changelings (Talisman of Mirage is definitely a Changeling Artifact). And that couldn’t happen unless Starlight Glimmer reformed the Changelings. As mentioned above, most likely not to happen considering situations would not lead to reforming a friendship with Sunburst or making a new one with Trixie. But what if the events lead perfectly to Cozy winning?

That would mean the Student Six would be there, and they were able to figure out and stop Cozy Glow’s plans. So no, I don’t think even Cozy Glow was responsible for the Wasteland Timeline. The 4th Option is Other, so who is left to create this nightmare.

Starlight Glimmer

Starlight Glimmer was the last villain before the Time Travel, so logically this would mean she would be the cause of this. But how exactly? Her plan was to make everyone equal. And changing the past led to multiple different outcomes. Yet for the Wasteland to happen, Starlight would have to be responsible for it in that timeline, but how? Let’s presume history followed exactly the same story until the Elements confronted Starlight. She succeeds in indoctrinating them into her methods. Now what?

She would force people to be equal. Big freaking deal. Considering she is small, it would be a slow expansion. And assuming what happened after, nobody would be looking for the Pony of Shadows, they’ll be no School of Friendship, and Discord wouldn’t reunite villains past to teach Twilight that she’s ready to rule. The only threat remaining would be Queen Chrysalis who would still be out there with her changeling army... 

Queen Chrysalis

Sticking to this being Time Travel rules and events happened similarly until a certain point, Queen Chrysalis is one of the few villains who could say they got more than one episode dedicated to them. And I don’t mean two parters, I mean completely different stories focusing on them. And it is that second time around that makes me think she is our culprit. For starters, with Starlight likely not getting to know Sunburst in time or meeting Trixie, Starlight won’t have the keys to let her save the day.

Secondly, in the original Timeline, the Changelings successfully captured the Princesses and the Elements of Harmony. They even captured Spike just in case he could activate the Elements of Harmony being the new Rainbow Dash. It was only her hubris that ignored Starlight Glimmer or more likely just didn’t bother with her because she was gone. Starlight would likely have been dealt with because if they captured Spike, they would definitely capture anyone else living in the castle.

And with all of them captured, they can feast on their love until the last creature drops. And like in Twisted Metal 2, when you gorge yourself on your source of food, eventually it will run out. With nobody around to eat love, nobody will be there to maintain the Celestial bodies moving or the weather or anything really. The world will become a wasteland, just like in that timeline. And that is my answer to who is most likely to create the Wasteland Timeline...

As long as I ignore the easier option that these were different multiverses that the Tree of Harmony sent them to and nothing Starlight Glimmer did had any affect on the actual timeline. 

[glapplebloom]

((New Banana Pie Sprites))

@askbananapie

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The Smash Brothers Killer that got killed.

I wouldn’t consider myself a gamer. Most times, I look at Let’s Plays over playing the games myself. Of the few, Smash Brothers is one of those games I do tend to get. Even the consoles. It is a lot of fun to see who gets in and playing the game to unlock them. And you have so many options to play. Smash Ultimate alone has Classic Mode where each ladder is specifically made for the character. Mob Smash for you Survival Nuts. Home-Run Contests for those looking for High Scores. And of course the World of Light where you get a sort of story but a lot of stuff to do.

Melee, the game everyone wants to compare to, had Classic Mode, Adventure Mode, All-Star Mode, Event Match, and a Stadium section for Home-run Contest, Target Test and Multi-Man Melee. The problem I see with every attempt at being the next Smash Brothers is that they’re so focused on the Competitive Side, they fail to realize the money makers are from the Casuals: the people like me who prefer the single player side of things than to be online with other people fighting above your skill level. That’s what turned me off to MultiVersus the first time...

When the Open Beta was available, I wasn’t a part of it. I heard it was so focused on Co-Op I dropped off. So I had no experience with it. But when it got re-release on PC for free, I decided to give it a shot. What started off is a disappointing starting roster. While they had 23 on launch, you can only play three of them. But at least you know you’ll always keep these three characters right? Nope. After a while, they rotate to different characters. And until a later update, you couldn’t try any of the other characters.

When it comes to solo play, you got the Rifts. That’s all you get. The positive news, they had two when I started and have had more after I stopped playing. That bad news is plentiful. Some of the alternate game modes are boring to me. They force you to use a cannon you have to control or a tank to defend. And they are long so you have to wait a while before you can skip them (No ring outs on the tank). Other than that it is your typical arcade mode with branching paths.

Thing about those branching paths: you can’t do some of them unless you have a specific type of character. So if they require a Looney character and you don’t have one, you can’t play it. But still you can play it as often as you can to earn the stuff needed to unlock stuff right? Nope. You can only do it once in a specific difficulty. If you want more, you have to play the same Rift on a higher difficulty. But you can unlock the next difficulty by beating it, right? Nope. 

After a certain point, you need to have gems at a certain level to get higher difficulties. But they do allow you to get up to five stars for every single match. The problem is one of those stars is locked behind having to do this with someone else. So once again, people who are solely for Single Player are not supported. You got to socialize with someone and you’re gonna like it. I don’t care if your time zones are during the opposite days. 

They added arcade mode long after, but at that point I was long gone and from what I hear, it's not really impressive. Easy, you get three fights. That’s it. Medium, you get 5 with your supposed rival and specific characters. Hard gives you 8. None of the boss characters from the Rift modes are included. No character specific endings, or cutscenes, or anything that makes going through the Arcade even worth doing. You have to do other things to unlock everyone.

And to do so, you have to earn a lot of currency. They apparently changed that to the Fighter Road XP, but you can still use real money to buy it. But honestly, because of the long grind to get more than one character, I just couldn’t continue playing. With Smash Brothers, you can unlock characters by grinding a bit, but you also have other ways like doing a certain thing or playing a certain mode. You’re not forced to continually grind XP to play as a different character. Not even the Powerpuff Girls being in it couldn’t get me back in.

The ultimate problem with a lot of these Smash Likes is they’re trying to appease the Competitive Crowd when the real money makers are the casual audience. Warner Brothers is one of the few companies who could have matched Nintendo when it comes to characters. If they had a game similar to Smash, more single player options like a story mode with all of these characters. Or even something like Playstation All Stars Battle Royal with custom cutscenes where characters interact with each other. 

Instead, they tried to make it a game you would need to invest a lot of time in while alienating the people more likely to buy it: the casuals who wanted to see the spectacle. Instead of a one time payment of 60 bucks, they gave it for free, only a small sample, and expect those casuals to stay for the little they gave. And in the end, only those who were loyal to MultiVersus remained. And now it’ll be gone.

[glapplebloom]

DT: We will own them in the Court of Law!

[glapplebloom]

((Only one Babies Episode is about someone's past))

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((Some Grogar related questions))

@ask-gadzooks

[glapplebloom]

The girls will be needing Time Cycles this week. (It has Take On Me! I had to use this clip!)

Time After Time Capsule

No Balloons this time, but the girls are hanging out at Sugarcube Corner seemingly bored when Pinkie pulls out Galaxy glow-in-the-dark glaze dough-cup-pops she made a while ago. And by their reactions, they are good. Fluttershy is sad because everything is so amazing, she wishes she could save this moment forever. Selfie time. Pinkie wants to know what else they could do to remember this moment and Twilight suggests a time capsule. 

For those who don’t know, a Time Capsule is when you put certain things in a box, put it away somewhere that nobody can get access to (like buried underground) and open it up much later. I never participated in it, but I’ve seen plenty of TV Shows about it. My personal favorite being the Brave and the Bold. So they promise to put in a special one of a kind object so that they’ll see it again in the future. What I thought was them bringing the same thing turns out to be completely unique things among them: A hat, a 1st place ribbon from the Sportacular Spectacular, a calculator, a script, and a Time Capsule (and a mixing bowl). You can probably guess who donated which.

Fluttershy is the odd one out because she’s having a hard time figuring out what to put in there so future Fluttershy can remember what current Fluttershy is like at the time. Nothing she chose doesn’t seem to represent their friendship good enough. Luckily we have a Chekhov’s Selfie that is the exact thing Fluttershy could put in. Now with everyone covered, they bury the box. And it is glowing. So where did Pinkie get it?

Remember how worried she was last week about a Bubble Wand? Forget it because she got it from the Balloons. And a portal opens up to suck them to who knows where. Or when in this case.

The Great Cowgirl Hat Robbery

This is a Rarity and Applejack episode as they are seemingly sent back to the past. Specifically the Wild West days of Equestria. They are also missing a hat of AJ. So AJ believes recovering the hat will bring them back to the future. AJ thinks she’ll strive here, but apparently she’s too modern for these ponies. Luckily Rarity is an actress in this continuity and fakes it to make it. So when they find her hat, they have to win it.

AJ wants to prove she’s Cowpony Material, but no matter what she tries, she just can’t match them. But if she can’t win them with her modern Cowpony way, and since Rarity’s acting works, they put on a show and it wins him over. So the Old Cowpony gives them the hat and they go back to the future. And despite witnessing it first hand, his lady still doesn’t believe him. Not much meat in the episode, but it is pretty fine. Honestly I think the idea could work similarly to Best Gift Ever where we can see these stories play out around the same time.

Planet of the Apps

It's Twidash Time as they’re in the future. They see Fluttershy seemingly kidnapped and discuss if they need a plan or just rush in. Two Android Ponies find them and despite Dash’s best efforts can’t escape them. Luckily this is not a Terminator Timeline, the Mecha Ponies want to help and they take the two to Fluttershy. Dash doesn’t trust them and especially so when she hears Fluttershy wanting help.

When inside the supposed prison, it turns out to be Sugarcube Corner, just in the future run by Mecha Pony Pinkie Pie (so Pinkie most likely created all these robots). Fluttershy was playing a VR game and just got excited. So Dash learns you shouldn’t judge a pony by their cover. So when they find the calculator and Twilight immediately thinks of what AJ did, Dash just asks for it and they give it to her. They say goodbye and leave, with the Mecha Ponies saying that they’ll be back.

Back to the Present

You would think this one would be a Pinkie Solo mission, but nope. Everyone comes back to the Time Stream enjoying the ride. They return to seemingly their own time but it turns out it is completely different. Sugarcube Corner is plants, phones are bananas, there are Discord statues everywhere and they see themselves in the colors of others: Twilight Dash, Rainbow Sparkle, Fluttery, Rarishy, Pinkiejack and Apple Pie. 

They were so freaked out with that, they barged into Sugarcube Corner to find animals there. Magical talking animals. Like the Carebear Cousins to the Ponies. They are cool and want to help, but first suggest trying a salad. The others like it but Pinkie doesn’t. But that’s when they notice a glow. It's her mixing bowl. For them to return home, Pinkie must try a salad. Despite earlier admitting she likes brussel sprouts, she doesn’t want to try the salad. She tries a bite so they can go home. She likes it.

They are sent back home and coming along for the ride are the three Wildside Creatures. So they’ll be hanging out for a while and with that this mini-story ends. It is a nice treat, but really simple. But with more meat it could be a good episode or special. With a few more weeks left to go, can Pony Life land their finale?

[glapplebloom]

((I do hope @deathgamemaster is safe))

@puzzlingfrost

[glapplebloom]

BABIES!!! THEY’RE BABIES!!! 

Making a Foal of Me

Pipp is trying to make her friends relax when she sees that Hitch, Sunny and Izzy have been transformed into Babies. Wild, uncontrollable babies. Pipp is exactly like me when I had to take care of my nephews: over their heads and begging for help from someone capable. Luckily for Pipp, Zipp just showed up and is still an adult. Zipp asks Pipp what happened and Pipp tells her story:

She invited the crew to a spa day at Mane Melody and everything was perfect. But when she left and came back, they were babies. Zipp thinks it's something during the weird goopy stuff they use for the faces. After seeing Puppy Cloudpuff (who was a puppy before they noticed how cute he is as a puppy) Zipp noticed the Face Masks were glowing.

Pipp realizes what happened. To counteract the stank of the Face Masks, she put glitter on it. Specifically Magic Glitter. She didn’t know it was Magic, but this gives Pipp an idea. If the Face Mask helps them look younger, making something that would make them look older will reverse the effects. They make it, but the Foals refuse to put it on. Zipp gets an idea: tell a story to keep them entertained long enough to put it on.

Because it's magic, we don’t need to explain sh..., the plan works. The trio are back to normal, thinking the Face Masks did the job well and that Pipp and Zipp should relax and try them out. Overall, a fun story and shows how well the two work together. Also babies are always cute even when they are pains in the butt to take care of.

Neighfever

Dahlia is in a rough spot. She sells flowers in Maretime Bay, around the same time Earth Ponies discovered the ability to grow plants anytime they want. Even her one of a kind, can’t be found anywhere else, can be replicated and grown right on the spot and on demand. Sunny and Hitch feel sorry for her and Sunny’s desire to take on any challenge leads her to help Dahlia figure out a way to help her. And that means helping her figure out how to use her new found Earth Pony Magic.

So last week Sunny had difficulty using her Alicorn magic, and this week she’s teaching someone else. To be fair, she is still shown struggling with the Alicorn magic and she is an Earth Pony. After a small montage, and a small speech, Dahlia finally managed to use her magic to create a frikkin huge flower. She makes more and basically has all of Maretime Bay covered by about 20 giant flowers. Good news, it does look pretty and they themselves don’t want to be too disturbing.

The bad news, the wind is picking up and giant flowers mean a LARGE amount of pollen. So all of Maretime Bay has Neighfever. It’s basically Hay fever, which is triggered by an overreaction of the immune system to allergens. So having pollen covering an entire town is definitely going to trigger it to everyone. Sunny is sad because this is technically her fault and she goes to Dahlia to try to figure out a way to fix this. Dahlia doesn’t want it.

But it turns out the Neighfever has a nice side effect. When sneezed on flowers, they cause them to change colors and glow. So after sneezing on more flowers and cleaning up the Pollen, Pipp convinces everyone to try out Dahlia’s new color changing flowers. And it seems everyone is happy, until they find out the flowers are wet. Overall, a nice episode which shows a bigger advantage of G5 to G4: their side characters can be included in the plot.

It would have been nice to see in the original like Lyra and Bonbon or Octavia being more involved in an episode like Dahlia is here. And unlike other characters who show up for one episode and don’t, she does continue to show up in Tell Your Tale and Make Your Mark. You’ll be seeing more of her in Chapter 2. And of course Posey having more relevance to the series than Muffins or Vinyl. And there'll be more examples in the future.

[glapplebloom]

It’s Morphin Time!

The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World is an isekai (person traveling to a new world) of a Red Ranger (who luckily is nicknamed Red) traveling to a new world. But there is a twist: he’s not the one who has to adjust. Honestly, it sounds so much fun so I had to give it a try.

It begins in the final battle. The Bond Rangers (Adhesive Squadron Kizuna Five) summon their Megazord to fight their big bad. Sadly, the Mecha was damaged and Red had to go it alone. He manages to deliver a massive punch to the Big Bad and destroys it. It seemed like he sacrificed himself so that the others and his world could have hope for the Bonds to stay strong. But it turns out he fell to another world like Sonic falls to Planet Earth. Six months later, he’s already an adventurer.

Idola Avom is a mage wanting to restore her family’s honor. So she’s hiring adventurers to help her on this quest. While others failed her challenge, Red makes an immediate impression as she’s wondering about all the Tropes associated with Power Rangers and Super Sentai. So it's less Red adjusting to this world and more the world adjusting to red. And honestly, I find the concept very amazing. It reminds me of those mods who put the gameplay of a character in another game.

Like Sonic, X and Pepino in Super Mario 64, what was difficult for Mario is super easy for these guys. Super speed, wall climbing, projectiles, their mechanics makes the journey much easier and the game probably can’t handle it. So the fun is to see how broken they are when the rules of their games interact with the layout of Mario’s. Or in this anime’s case, how a Sentai Fighter would be in a Fantasy World. Or Ryuga in Yugioh.

So his first job is to get some magical metal (Mana Metal) that was recently discovered. If it could be useful for magic, the Royal Family would like to know. Thus, get her samples so she can study it. When he makes the connection her job is to maintain the Bonds between People and Magic, he immediately starts the job even before she’s ready to send him out. Considering he can summon a magical spinning thing that allows him to travel, he was already ready before she was.

He thought it went smoothly because they didn’t pass by any flying monsters, except he totally did. He just one shotted them. She’s not useless. She does know magic spells. But he’s plowing through all the monsters in a quick pace compared to all the work it took for her to beat one. Pretty much, to him these are the same as the cannon fodder he fought. They’re basically Putties to him. He does miss his friends, so why doesn’t he try to find a way back?

He did. His adventure started originally to find a way back home. But as he kept traveling he saw this world needed his help. So like he was chosen to be the Red Ranger, he must have had some reason to be here. So he’ll help people and hopefully find out why he was brought here, and maybe find a way back around the same time. While this is Japanese, I get a feeling they are playing more with the Power Ranger side of the fandom. How he’s super peppy and wanting to make friends. Not to mention the weird name for his team.

They found the Mana Metal, but it was gathered there. That’s because a big monster was doing it. And he ain’t no fodder. So he summons all five zords to form his Megazord. Thing is, he needs the Bonds of Friendship to do so, yet he only knew the girl for a day and she basically gave up because she doesn’t understand how it works but it was needed to defeat the monster. Even with supposedly two bonds not being enough for a few seconds, he managed to turn it around and defeat the monster.

Several days later, Avom decided to become an adventurer so she can study his powers better. If she can find a way to combine his abilities with magic, she may find a way to bring him back home. She’s definitely crushing, but he’s frikkin clueless. Overall, I am enjoying this series. I just wish I could find a better way to follow it. Between this and Speedrunner cannot Return from the Game World, I kind of want to see more Isekais about the world adapting to the visitor. 

Imagine a Dragon Ball Fighter in a Fantasy World. Or a Stand User in a Horror Movie Setting. It’s the fun of a Vs fight, but in a full series.

[glapplebloom]

((Yep, they think Dune came out second))

[glapplebloom]

Not all of Sonic Boom, just Sticks.

Sticks the Badger is one of the new characters created for the Sonic Boom spinoff Series. From what I can tell, it is a creation of the American Side of Sega, so should be in a similar boat to Sally, Bunnie and the other SatAM Characters, but she has one thing that no other spinoff character has: an actual reference in a mainline game. So by the virtue of being mentioned, she should be canon. Yet despite that name drop, has not yet made an appearance in a recent game or even in IDW. Heck, official winter artwork had her drawn out. So is she canon?

Honestly, I think she is. And long before this name drop. For starters, she has an Official Sega Channel Artwork. That is usually reserved for any Modern Sonic character, including rarely used ones like Gamma and Tikal. Speaking of appearing in official artwork, she was featured in the 25th Anniversary Sonic Channel Comic Strips. She first appears in Act 12 alongside Modern Amy, got her own strip in Act 18, and appeared alongside everyone else in the Special Stage Strip.

In terms of game appearances, outside the Sonic Boom ones, she surprisingly got plenty. Sonic Runners was created by Sonic Team for Mobile Devices. Sticks was one of the playable characters, the only representative of Sonic Boom, and they had a crossover with Puyo Puyo. The other game appearance: Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. She appeared in a major crossover game alongside other Sonic characters as a playable character (sadly only in Archery). 

Now the problem is despite believing so, you could argue she isn’t. As mentioned before, she was taken off official art made by Min Ho Kim in 2023. To be fair, she was replaced by Blaze who was absent in the original. She has yet to appear in the IDW comics, even stated as rejected by Sega during the first story arc. And despite the other mobile games including IDW, Movie and Sonic Prime Characters into their games, Sticks the Badger has yet to appear in a game after 2016. It seems for Sticks to have an actual presence in the Sonic Franchise again, she’ll be needing a new entry point...

That’s where Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds could come in. Rumor has it that it will be a multiverse affair, similar to how the Sonic X Shadow Generations DLC handled the Shadow Movie Version being a playable character. So there is a possibility that we will see a multiverse of characters in this game. Could be the Movie Characters, could be Sonic Prime, and maybe Sonic Boom will be included and give them an excuse to keep Sticks in the main Sonic Universe.