#so there's the fluttershy brushable. the rainbow power fluttershy brushable

[smile-files]

a fluttershy photoshoot!! a fluttershoot, if you will

[taiblogcomics]

To Catch a Falling Star

Hey there, soft resets. Writing this one from BronyCon! In fact, I’m posting this one up way early, just so it’s not hanging over me all day. So, appropriately, let’s finish that one pony comic arc we were working on a while back~

Here’s the cover:

Once more with Cosmos! If it was an actual TV episode, you just know that plane Rarity’s flying would be the hot new playset. But since comics (especially the covers) are more shills for themselves than for toys, that plane doesn’t even appear in the story proper~

So we last left our heroes in the most dire of perils, with Cosmos having obtained all her magical star crystals and possessed a fused body of all four princesses, Big Macintosh, and Zecora. With such power on her side, who can possibly stop her??

We open with a brief flashback showing Cosmos back when she was still trapped in a constellation. A passing meteor strikes it and rains the individual stars down on Equestria. Each star is shown landing in the locations covered earlier in the arc, thus bringing us back to the present where all that dire stuff is happening. Discord says “nope” to this whole situation and warps the remaining group away.

Given a moment’s respite while Cosmos does a little rampaging, the group discusses strategy. So, in essence, it comes down to the star crystals. Due to the nature of how Cosmos was locked away, it seems reasonable that she can’t hold her magic if they’re not united. Step one is to separate her from them physically. Step two, however, is a bit more tricky. They don’t have any princess-level magic capable of destroying the stars, but you know what they do have? A dragon capable of eating gemstones~

All right, that’s a start, but they need more than that, right? They need a leader to coordinate the assault, and who should volunteer but Pinkie Pie~? Yep, Pinkie has a plan. First, she assigns a series of groups to each star crystal to take it out and drop it down to Spike. As for the rest of her plan... Well, with her status as a chaos entity, you can’t really plan for what Cosmos might do. So Pinkie’s plan is to fight chaos with chaos and just be spontaneous~

And so, with a one page spread of speeches you have to turn on its side to read, Pinkie charges into battle by throwing her llama toy at Cosmos’ head. And so the assault begins. Surprisingly, the settings on Cosmos’ armour are rather loose, and the groups have little difficulty knocking each star out for Spike to consume one by one. However, as each group completes their task, they then find themselves vulnerable to Cosmos’s magic. Pinkie is the first to go down, turned into a brushable pony toy with limited articulation. Applejack and the Crusaders save her, only to be collectively turned into a carousel.

Not everyone suffers an inanimate fate. With the arms and legs clear, Rarity goes for the chest, with a little aid from Rainbow Dash. The pair are turned into fish for their trouble. Fluttershy requests a fishbowl from Discord, and gives him a pep talk as she goes to catch her piscine friends. See, there’s only one star left, and Discord’s going to have to get it. It’s on her head, and the only one who knows their way around Cosmos’ head is her ex.

Cosmos knows Discord used to watch her in the sky when she was a constellation, but it’s not because he missed her. It’s because he’s terrified of her and didn’t want her to escape. He even confesses he’s the one who ratted her out to Celestia—not quietly, but a proud, angry confession. He cared about Cosmos, but she never cared back. She was never his friend, unlike these ponies she’s tormenting here. He’s changed.

She hasn’t.

With that, she turns Fluttershy into a decorative stone statue to hold that fishbowl. She then turns Spike into a dog (a feeling not wholly unfamiliar to him), to demonstrate Discord’s place—if he doesn’t want to rule at her side, he can sit at her feet. And Discord faces down her very nightmarish art and plucks the last star from her head. Fortunately, being turned into a dog doesn’t hinder Spike’s appetite for gems, and Cosmos’ magic evaporates. It’s over.

Without any magic to hold it together, Cosmos’ fused form loses cohesion and splits back into the six ponies she was made of, leaving only her physical form. Her other transformations also undo themselves, and both pony and landscape alike return to their proper configurations. Discord considers what to do with Cosmos now, and decides to take a leaf from Celestia’s book. Enjoy your new home on the moon, Cosmos dear~!

The comic concludes with each of the members of the star-hunting teams being given awards for valor. Even Capper gets one for his help. Celestia herself mentions to Discord that she’s proud of his actions. Luna, however, is pretty annoyed, since the moon is her responsibility and thus so is Cosmos’ continued imprisonment by extension. Spike has indigestion, and Twilight is suffering from some closure OCD, since she was possessed for the whole adventure and remembers none of it. All in all, another successful event in the lives of those in Equestria~

Cosmos is a pretty scary villain. In fact, in the climax of this issue, she outright declares herself to be the embodiment of Malice, and I can believe it. As usual, Andy Price’s illustrations absolutely sell how horrifying someone with Discord-type powers but no sense of whimsy can be. Meanwhile, Discord has some excellent character moments here, and while his redemption arc in the actual show can be somewhat iffy, it really shines true here. All in all, a great arc, and I look forward to collecting it in trade paperback someday~