This Saturday, the next episode debuts, and Luna returns.

At 10 am this time, right?

^Yup.
10:00am Eastern, 7:00am Pacific.

Thank goodness, I thought the time change was for last week's. I'll make sure not to make the same mistake this time, lol.

(Just click on the pic to go there)

Less than 10 minutes before Luna time!

We got the chat running, folks, come on in, the water's fine.

Apparently, they were right. Her canon personality destroyed fanon. I almost can't wait for the end of the episode when she's more adjusted.

I can see why she hasn't made an appearance before now.

I'm very pleased with this episode, and really hope we see more of Luna in the future.

Fun episode!
Way to go Nayuki!

I like how they kept Luna's speech with the traditional way like it would of been a thousand years ago giving the impression she has a lot of catching up to do.

What I don't get is if they have a holiday dedicated to NNM, how come nopony recognized her in the first episode?

I think I'll actually wait to watch this one 'til later tonight. It seems a bit wrong to watch a Halloween episode in the harsh light of morning.

Valid point, but I'm to impatient to wait that long.

Princess Luna sure was different to how the fandom has depicted her. I predict a lot of fans not liking it.

Personally, I think I'm OK with how she was potrayed. She's been banished to the moon for a thousand years so her social skills are going to be lacking. Add to the fact that most ponies will be asleep when she's awake then that leaves little room for social interaction. She's a princess and thinks that she has to behave in the traditional regal way, which unfortunately is quite scary to most ponies. It makes sense, if she has always been that way, why she got so angry in the first place and became NMM.

All in all I'd say it was a great episode and I found myself laughing a lot throughout, mostly at Chickie Pie and her antics. The Derpy cameo was great (though anyone who saw the spoiler saw it coming). Pipsqueak was cute and needs to make an appearance again. I'm disappointed that Rarity didn't make an appearance at all. Her dress making skills would've been perfect for making an awesome costume. Though I suppose there wasn't really any need for her in the story.

Poor Fluttershy. Nightmare Night is probably the worst night of the year for her

She's hard to understand with her Traditional Royal Voice.

She has aspects of fanon. Prankster, maladjusted, she became a bit timid...


I missed a lot of Twilight's dialog walking into town during the streaming which was much easier to pick-out in the youtube.


And Derpy appearing one place then appearing inside something else is now canon.

The CMC had background roles, overshadowed by Pip, but it's nice they at least had one scene together.

I'm left with more questions than answers. Is Luna's lack of tact just a consequence of continuing younger sibling syndrome? I can't imagine Celestia didn't warn her; did she just ignore the advice? Where did this holiday even come from, considering nopony even recognized her in the pilot? Why does everypony--except Pinkie Pie, whose own lack of tact is just because she thinks she's being played--react with such fear to the Luna that they already saw transformed as if she was still NMM? And what were Celestia and Luna doing all those many years ago that ponydom had apparently failed to discover "fun" in her time?

And for all that, Luna is "fixed" in one night?

I'll need to rewatch it after taking some time to think about it. There was some nice animation, and I really enjoyed the variety of the costumes. The story didn't seem entirely consistent with the world we are aware of, and even Luna's character seems flawed in a way her older sister isn't. And the Derpy cameo seemed a bit forced.

How many specialties has Twilight gone through?

-Librarian
-Psychologist
-Organizer
-Planner
-Whatever a person from another land is called...
-Lecturer
-Speaker

Yesssss what a great episode.

I hope at the end Celestia got the letter and was all "OH GOD I HAVE A SISTER!"

• Zecora wins. As usual
• Socially Awkward Luna with thousand year old attitudes was awesome. Absolutely perfect, and exactly what one should expect when one thinks about it. The public - and Fluttershy's - reaction to her as well
• Being rather fond of spiders, the spider scene probably lost something to me. I thought they were cute :<
• Pipsqueak already dividing the fandom. Calling it now: He'll join the CMCs in episode six. And there'll be many tears and much rage
• The ending was a little bit rushed - essentially what Pao said in this regard
• Rainbow Dash, Y U breaking it :<
• Luna has Rarity's VA (I think? At least that's what everyone says <_<) and Rarity's sarcasm. No Rarity in this episode. The conclusions are inevitable :x
• More seriously, apparently Rarity was cut out of the episode (Compare episode with previously-released screenshot of the Apple-diving, pre-season). I guess it's to avoid clashing with Luna due to the shared VA. Still a pity :<

Celestia has always seemed to be a "throw 'em in the deep end" sort of teacher.

Fan art we need: Luna with Dr. Whooves and Derpy, saying "We are not amused."

---Dave

I'm not sure in the pilot that no one knew who she was, but rather Twilight was the only one with enough courage and hootspa to speak up.

Zecora and Chickenpie were the best parts for me. I loved Pinkie laying that egg. I LOL'd. And Pinkie's 'I'm almost as big as her' speech made the episode for me. Pips was great as well. We need to make him an honorary CMC.

And man, I was so freaking happy to see Nightmare Moon again. I missed her. New footage for PMVs!

Over all, great episode, one of the better ones, and almost makes up for not having Luna even mentioned for 26 episodes. Almost, but not quite.

I guess Rarity was too exhausted from making everypony's costume

And while I Liked Pipsqueak, I hope he doesn't become a regular character with the CMC's. An occasional appearance yes, but not as a regular character. More like Zecora, who only appears every so often.

Oh, indeed. I forgot that. Shame on me.

We saw NMM's design reused. I approve so much ^^

The thing with pipsqueak is... They could've used Applebloom instead, for exactly the same result, so he's kinda... Superfluous. And his introduction seems remarkably forced.

Is there a Hasbro toy for him? That'd explain (And excuse) it. If not... Quite pointless. Not annoying as such (Though as said, the fandom is devided on this) but quite superfluous.

If Luna keeps the plural moniker, it'll be alluding to Night Mare actually returning. But that's only likely if she's a separate entity now or Luna gets possessed.
Much like Spawn's way of talking plural.

I'm fond of spiders to the extent I let them crawl all over me sometimes. Mostly, I do it to get them out of places they'll be killed. The scene didn't really off-put me, though. I just laughed as ponies, and Zecora, had spiders all over them.
Fluttershy's small scene and Dash's few lines could support that.

She was mentioned four episodes ago, and that makes it twenty-five episodes.

I think my favorite part was Luna's hair being tugged by Pips. That was so freaking cute!



Also...



SWEET CELESTIA, THAT FACE!

Good grief what is wrong with people?

Yes, traditionally royalty speaks in the third person! I thought everyone knew that!!

I really liked this socially awkward but well-intentioned version of Luna over the depressed crybaby from all the fanart I've seen in the past year. Her "voice of god" thing was hilarious, especially during the scene with Fluttershy (my favorite part of the episode).

Another really cute and fun episode.

Pretty much. I know Queen Victoria was famous for speaking in such a manner, with her famous "We are not amused" line.

It's known as the Majestic Plural, or the Royal We.

Me too. That's why I didn't say anything.

It's still odd to hear when the God-Princess stopped doing so several generations ago.

This episode must have been hell for the animators. All the background ponies, even the palette swap ones, had their own unique costumes. I didn't see Lyra anywhere though. Did anyone else happen to notice her?

Also, the ponies pulling Luna's chariot have bat wings and matching seahorse-like fins for manes. Presumably she magic'd them into this form just for effect. That's hardcore, right there.


I haven't noticed any. But then, I haven't ventured outside the episode general thread yet, so I guess they're keeping it to their own threads. (Figures the biggest whiners would be the ones who need to be attention whores by making their own threads. Fine by me!)

No-one sends memos to the moon

It was a lot of work, but all the late nights were worth it. Lyra actually shows up in 2 different costumes, the pony in the mummy costume is Lyra. There is also one scene with the town running in terror where she's not in the mummy costume and is wearing a bonnet (I think one of the other artists just took her running from one of the other episodes and added the bonnet in afterwards).

My Little Valinor!

---Dave

Wasn't she dressed as Cleopatra?

That could be Lyra. Would need to confirm it when the HD version is uploaded.
EDIT: Looks as though it's probably not.

And I did like the fact that there were no duplicate background ponies. We didn't have any last episode either so I hope it's a running trend.

Wasn't Lyra running around with a bonnet in a shot from Over a Barrel? I'd need to see today's episode to compare, though; and I'm waiting for tonight.

The question came up in another forum, too - yeah. same conclusion.

I mean, Twilight mentions a transmorphing or something spell, and Luna transmorphes herself... Tranformed batponies totally make sense in this context.

I kinda thought that the ponies pulling the chariot were magical constructs rather than transformed ponies.

Oh. Also, I can't take credit for catching this, but is Pipsqueak the other character in the balloon in the Comic-Con poster?

The shorthand here is that they are magic'd, one way or another.

I like Luna. Clearly they need to get rid of all the other characters and just have it about her.

They could just be magiced from rats or something, though. Even Twilight could do that, though the "horses" she created from mice seemed to be in rather poor taste, judging by her friend's reactions.

It'd take a pretty badass pony to volunteer for that duty; or maybe it's just part of the job for those Pegasi who usually cart Celestia around.

I'd be all for 'The Luna and Scootaloo Show'

On the subject of costumes:

1) The tennis player pony wasn't wearing one. I guess he wasn't concerned about being eaten by an angry demon goddess (or was just a poor sport).

2) Derpy's costume I didn't even notice until now (all I saw was "Derpy" the first time around). Just a bunch of paper bags. That's perfect.

I expect Nightmare Night is celebrated every year, but the NMM's actual appearance was forgotten/corrupted over time (the statue in this ep could well have been overgrown and lost in the Everfree) and the true meaning lost. They may even had something akin to Santa Claus as an icon for Nightmare Night by the time of the series start (i.e. how Santa is not even remotely like baby Jesus in appearance). And if anyone thought to make the connection in S1E1, they were too freaked out by the reality to mention it.

---Dave

Ah. I thought the Mummy looked too blue to be Lyra so figured it was Romana Colgate, showing up for the party twice.


I might need to adjust my TV's color settings.

Has anyone mentioned the return of the tennis player pony from Call Of The Cutie?

Edit: apparently so. I need to be quicker...