And ponies quickly

I'm not going to do as extensive a recap for this week. I will note that:

a. the episode was, once again, one that works well for kids, in terms of the moral
b. It was actually pretty uncomfortable to me. Despite my claimed kinship with Fluttershy, I really am more like Twilight than I like to admit.

Essentially, it's this: Twilight decides to completely reorganize her library, staying in for a whole long weekend. (Long weekends apparently exist in Equestria). When she comes out, things have changed, subtly....Discord is there. And all her friends have allied with him! And they share in-jokes - jokes that are not even remotely funny to Twilight (or, for that matter, this viewer. Peanut butter hooves? Ick. Waste of good peanut butter)

First, Twilight tries to re-create the setting so that she can see what was so funny. But it fails totally (Heh: Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principles for seven year olds: observing a joke re-done makes it no longer funny)

And Twilight gets jealous. And freaks out slightly, as Twilight does, and comes up with a convenient conspiracy theory: why, they must be under some kind of a spell! So Zecora gets a tiny bit of screen-time (really, she deserves more), helping Twilight to find a potion (not the one in her cauldron, that is just to "tie the whole room together," heh - which was funnier to me than ANY of Discord's alleged jokes). The potion will disenchant her friends so they won't see Discord's jokes as funny any more.

And I admit, as I said, this was uncomfortable for me, because I spent what felt like most of my childhood being on the outside of cliques/friend groups/jokes looking in. In fact, if I was involved in a joke at all, it was often as the butt of it....but I digress.

One thing I tried, and I admit I find myself still doing even though I wind up slapping my forehead and going "Stupid, stupid, stupid" later is to try to shoulder my way in to the joke and join in. And that never works; that gets you stared at in an uncomfortable way.

And while Twilight's friends proved themselves her true friends in the end - realizing they had been unkind to her - I also had a situation once as a kid where, for several weeks (It may not have been as long as that but it felt like forever) a couple of my friends ganged up and consciously excluded me because....why? I don't know. Kids are stupid and do stupid unkind things. (I forgave them after it was all over but I admit a little bit of my ability to trust others died in that experiment).

Actually, I think part of the appeal of this whole series - and some other cartoon series I kind of sort of watch - is that the main character (I think Twilight really is, despite episodes centered on other characters) has a group of friends who are almost entirely kind and loving towards her. I never had more than a few friends - sometimes as few as one or two people I actually considered friends - and the idea of being part of a crew appeals to me. Even as I realize with humans, that doesn't work, and people do wind up excluded or ganged up on or as "secondary friends" or whatever. (I often fear I am the 'second-tier' friend - the one who only gets invited after one of the a-listers declines).

People wonder why I'm kind of anti-social. I wonder that I am not MORE anti-social.

Also, I'll note that, despite his supposed reformation, Discord can still be a terribly selfish jerk - he persuaded the others to exclude Twilight because....well, again, it's not clear why. For the lulz, I suppose, which I suspect is going to be the reason for why civilization eventually goes down in flames.

I will say there was one chuckle-producing Discord bit: when he channeled Bob Ross (apparently an allusion to the Bob Ross online stream that ran this past couple weeks) and painted a picture. Also, near the end, he showed up with Smooze in a bottle, worn like a pendant around his neck. (So is Smooze going to come back again? Ah, I would love to see Smooze be the thing that ultimately defeats Starlight Glimmer somehow....)

But, yeah....not my favorite episode of the season, mainly because I'm not in love with the ones where one character is as unhappy and uncomfortable as Twilight is in it.

The moral was "Don't exclude your friends because it hurts them" though I admit it could equally well have been "Accept that sometimes your friends will do stuff without you, and they may have in-jokes that exclude you." I HATE being excluded but I also accept that it happens a lot of the time.