Tell Your Tale Discussion Thread-Salute Our Shorts

ZakuConvoy

Well-known member
Citizen
It was kind of puzzling that the pollen problem was solved offscreen, but these episodes are only five minutes long so I'm not too picky about stuff like that.

I'm guessing the giant flowers and their pollen eventually wilted like all the other flowers Dahlia tried to create before. These just took longer.
 

CoffeeHorse

Exhausted, but still standing.
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
G5 loves its abrupt endings. But it also loves exploring the little consequences of those endings, so it balances out.

This show is punching above its weight.
 

CoffeeHorse

Exhausted, but still standing.
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
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This is a good show.
 

CoffeeHorse

Exhausted, but still standing.
Staff member
Council of Elders
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I'm not sure this one fits well. Everything we've seen says Zipp isn't looking forward to being queen, so I would expect her to already know how overwhelming the job is. I have a hard time seeing her volunteer for this. Maybe they're trying to make her look good by having her offer to do something she wouldn't normally want to do, but we're watching her learn something she should already know.

It should have been Pipp's idea.
 

Shadewing

Well-known member
Citizen
I'm not sure this one fits well. Everything we've seen says Zipp isn't looking forward to being queen, so I would expect her to already know how overwhelming the job is. I have a hard time seeing her volunteer for this. Maybe they're trying to make her look good by having her offer to do something she wouldn't normally want to do, but we're watching her learn something she should already know.

It should have been Pipp's idea.

Well to be completely fair to Zipp, one can have an idea of how hard something might be, but actually doing the job ends up going way past expectations. And this feels like they were trying to do something good for their mom. I can see the idea of "Sure it'll be hard, but surely with everyone here we'll manage." to me, thats a perfectly logical view, even if you don't want to do something.
 

ZakuConvoy

Well-known member
Citizen
Pipp's little hidey-squeak at the very start is pretty cute.

"You're missing the fireworks!" Well, at least someone got to enjoy the show. I mean, fireworks are usually pretty cheap, so it wouldn't be TOO hard to restock.

Note the foreshadowing: Fifi WILL be queen....

Somehow, I get the feeling that the Queen doesn't like Mother's Day. She doesn't even TRY to spend the day with her daughters.

Wait a second....do none of the others HAVE mothers to celebrate Mare's Day with? That's...really sad, actually. Oh no, they're all orphans! Okay, well, 3 out of the 5 are orphans! That's still pretty bad!

The Queen's got to learn to delegate. Mind, that's what's she doing NOW, but she has a entire army of guardsponies at her command. Since, I guess it doesn't matter WHO does these things, anyway.

*Baby Foals* *Awww*...Poor, ignorant fools. Also, we're getting another "baby ponies" moment so soon after turning the Mane 5 into foals?

Hmm...The Baby Foals portrait, the new children's playground....I sense a pattern. Me thinks the Queen doesn't like kids in general and has been putting this stuff off. The rest of the activities don't really line up with that, but it's weird the Queen has so many different photo-ops scheduled for the same day.

"Go on without us!" That's the problem with safety scissors. It is a children's playground after all. Can't have you poking out any foal's eyes with giant novelty scissors.

Unknowingly, Pipp and Zipp just signed into law several questionable things. Socks WILL be mandatory from now on...

What DID the Queen do on her free day? Go to the spa?

"I hope everything's going okay" ...You COULD check. You know where they are. All you have to do is follow the Pony-Paparazzi.

"I'll never use scissors again!" ...How DID you use scissor before magic came back?

Yeah, no, this was just a scheduling problem. All these events should have been spread out over the course of a week, not lumped all together on the same day. Especially not on a national holiday, like Mare's Day. The Queen's just a bad scheduler.

Awww, how sweet. A meal...the Queen had someone else make. Why is she being congratulated for remembering lunch?

Please note, behind the Queen in the dining hall is a GIANT painting of Pipp. Somebody's the favorite.
 

CoffeeHorse

Exhausted, but still standing.
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
Well to be completely fair to Zipp, one can have an idea of how hard something might be, but actually doing the job ends up going way past expectations. And this feels like they were trying to do something good for their mom. I can see the idea of "Sure it'll be hard, but surely with everyone here we'll manage." to me, thats a perfectly logical view, even if you don't want to do something.
I can see the idea too, and at some point she did need a story to show she'll step into these shoes even though she doesn't want to, but this story forgot the part about her not wanting to. She's too quick to suggest the idea, and too surprised by how long the to-do list is. Her prior feelings and experience are not in evidence at all.

I can't do this many quote and spoiler tags. These episodes are five minutes.

Pipp's little hidey-squeak at the very start is pretty cute.
She's precious.

Somehow, I get the feeling that the Queen doesn't like Mother's Day. She doesn't even TRY to spend the day with her daughters.

[...]

Hmm...The Baby Foals portrait, the new children's playground....I sense a pattern. Me thinks the Queen doesn't like kids in general and has been putting this stuff off. The rest of the activities don't really line up with that, but it's weird the Queen has so many different photo-ops scheduled for the same day.
So that's how Pipp and Zipp turned out this way. Pipp craves the attention she didn't get as a foal and Zipp gave up trying to get ponies to hear her concerns.

Wait a second....do none of the others HAVE mothers to celebrate Mare's Day with? That's...really sad, actually. Oh no, they're all orphans! Okay, well, 3 out of the 5 are orphans! That's still pretty bad!
Unfortunately Canterlogic was the biggest employer in Maretime Bay and the workplace accident rate was 100%.

Or maybe this holiday is just completely regional. There may be no such thing as national holidays anymore. Unicorns might not even have calendars.

*Baby Foals* *Awww*...Poor, ignorant fools. Also, we're getting another "baby ponies" moment so soon after turning the Mane 5 into foals?
They came up with a design and they're proud of it.

Unknowingly, Pipp and Zipp just signed into law several questionable things. Socks WILL be mandatory from now on...
And there was much rejoicing.

Yeah, no, this was just a scheduling problem. All these events should have been spread out over the course of a week, not lumped all together on the same day. Especially not on a national holiday, like Mare's Day. The Queen's just a bad scheduler.
She may not have the help. Her main assistants seem to be the guards, and they are... not great. And whoever made the scissors obviously isn't great at that job. It's possible that there's no good help to be found in Zephyr Heights.

Awww, how sweet. A meal...the Queen had someone else make. Why is she being congratulated for remembering lunch?
Maybe it's because they were late but the food hadn't arrived yet. Like she guessed they would be late. Maybe she's better at scheduling than we think.

Or that was Zipp's favorite food on the plate. I don't know. It is not at all clear.

Please note, behind the Queen in the dining hall is a GIANT painting of Pipp. Somebody's the favorite.
It's intriguing how obvious they've made it that Pipp is the favorite. It isn't stated and it hasn't been a plot point, but it's just obviously true.
 

blueskyscribe

Member
Citizen
Zipp's offer made sense since it was a one-day "gift" to her mom on what we presume is the equivalent of Mother's Day. Different from "my full time career: being queen."

I'm interested to see how they resolve this issue (if they do) in the show eventually. Will Pipp somehow become heir or will Zipp find a way to be Queen while still being herself, or what? As obvious as "Pipp becomes heir" seems . . . I don't think she'd be as good of a queen as Zipp. She's a bit too carefree. Maybe the sisters will end up being co-queens or something, like the Narnia kids.

Anyway, I thought this was a very cute episode. Queen Haven was obviously the stand-in for the child-viewer's parent(s). Good lesson, since young kids can get upset / frustrated when adult responsibilities take center stage and their parents can't immediately play with them or take them to the park or whatever.

We finally got a name for the white pony with flame hair: Flare! And the male pony walking with Fifi the delivery pony was Berries.
 

Shadewing

Well-known member
Citizen
For me, I think this is the weakest one. Not really any good gags, not really a good story. Just barebones 'everything goes wrong, until it doesn't' with a 'oh hey, everyone wins' finale that just feels like a complete copout. This is an story that needs more then about 6 minutes to tell. A regular 22 minutes episode would have probably let this story flesh out and breathe, but as it is its just rushing everything.
 

ZakuConvoy

Well-known member
Citizen
Heroes fade, nations rise and fall...but Buckball is FOREVER!

Wow, full-on Tangled style paper lanterns flying through the sky. They're really going all out for this.

The unicorn's streamer dance is actually kind of pretty. I'm a sucker for light shows.

ALPHABITTLE!? We haven't seen him in forever. And with the queen no less...well, well...

Oh, it's the Equestria Games. Yeah, that makes sense. Very different than the old games, but this is probably literally the first one in a hundred years.

Izzy's destiny really is to collect one of every single type of ball right on her horn, isn't it?

I'm pretty sure tying up your opponent is ALSO against the rules, Hitch.

*Pipp tied up by Hitch's vines in the mud* Also...get out your ponchos, we're gonna get a flood of fan-art from this scene.

Gloomy Sonnet for the win! Literally skipping across the finish line!

Literally ANY fight disrupts the magic, I swear.

IS Alphabittle the leader of the unicorns? He just runs a cafe. We also don't have a ruler of the Earth Ponies, unless Phyllis counts. I guess Sunny COULD count, but she's THE ALICORN, so...I don't think that's really fair. Hitch could work.

Also, I'm not sure if Alphabittle and Queen Haven REALLY have the right to give Sunny advice when...they literally just watched and did NOTHING.

*Everybody ties* BOO! This is so corny!


The Final teams were:

Music Notes: Izzy Moonbow, Dahlia, Zipp Storm,

Stars: Gloomy Sonnet, Zoom Zephyrwing, Jazz

Rainbows: Hitch Trailblazer, Pipp Petals, *Green Afro Unicorn/Broccoli?*, Thunder

Hearts: ...No one? We see stickers go flying, but no one who competes has the Hearts Sticker.

Winged Hooves: Same. The animators must have made too many sticker designs. *shrugs*


Seriously, though, HOW did they find out about the Equestria Games when they don't even remember where Canterlot is?

Yeah, they could have expanded this to a full-on Wacky Races homage. Everypony's already cheating, they could have gone farther with it.
 
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CoffeeHorse

Exhausted, but still standing.
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
Royal Guards sure get a lot of time off.

Ponies are so bad at organizing activities like this, no matter the generation.

Eye twitch.

Of course Posey was around for this. At some point she is going to stop leaving her house ever.

Equestria Games.

Wings are definitely unfair here.

We need to keep a running tally of how many items get impaled on Izzy's horn before this gen is over. I am looking forward to the day they run out of obvious ideas and start having to get really goofy with it. It's forced, but when it requires creativity to force it it will become funny.

I appreciate that they are coming up with these goofy uses for earth pony magic. It's long overdue.

The whistle broke.

I'm calling it. They should have a category of events where it's okay to do abuse magic like this. It becomes an interesting show of skill and creativity when everyone is doing it.

"We controlled them fine actually until we didn't."

Oh come on with the stupid crystals.

This is certainly a solution.

No one won. Okay maybe they should try my plan next.



This is what I was afraid the show was going to be. This is just too trivial. This event needed some buildup and some room to breathe when it happened.

But, there is some fun writing here squeezed into too short a time frame. These writers have talent. This was just the wrong format for this story.
 

blueskyscribe

Member
Citizen
I think Alphabittle was supposed to be there as the de facto leader of the unicorns, but I like to think he and Queen Haven are dating. I got a real shippy vibe from them in the mecha battle of the movie.
 

CoffeeHorse

Exhausted, but still standing.
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
On another note, I really appreciate how the episode number is always right in the thumbnail. It really helps when you want to look back on something.
 

CoffeeHorse

Exhausted, but still standing.
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
They are trying harder than the 3D team to avoid magic hoof holds.

I don't know how those logs light themselves, but I can definitely see Hitch buying self-lighting logs. We know he is not good at starting fires.

Scratch that. Magic hoof hold. *sigh*

Snail with wings? G5 fauna is bizarre.

I would prefer indecipherable animal chirping.

Rules and regulations are not going to fix everything.

They're not even going to try Hitch's idea.

Piranha plants take bribes now?

And then everything worked out... or not.

Who knew this goofy, trivial episode would end with our heroes completely failing?
 

ZakuConvoy

Well-known member
Citizen
Where did Hitch get the robot arm that's holding his map? Did Izzy build that?

Yeah, okay, Hitch is bored. He's prepared for a full-on QUEST. He craves ADVENTURE! Or at least a CAMPING TRIP! Someone make this pony a Scout Master or something.

"Never trust anything that starts with Smoogle"...So that leaves....what?

And the OTHER ingredient is just regular apples? At least Applejack's legacy lives on, I guess.

Oh, WE get to hear the animals talk too...that might be a mistake. That's just less cute. Also, Racoonicorns are from Brooklyn and Pegasnails are British, I guess.

Huh...the animals are capable of making catapults. Yeah...someone please explain what happened to the animals in the last 100 years?

Oh, Hitch is the one to inherit Twilight's love of charts and schedules. Makes sense, being a cop.

Wait, the plants want money?! Why?! What?! They need the green!?

Sunny's expression during the critter negotiations is priceless.

The wild animals...like to bake? Do they have little ovens in their tree homes? Again, someone please explain what mutated the animals in this world. These wild animals are now as advanced as the Yaks from G4. They don't even really deserve to be treated as "lesser" than ponies now. Frankly...this kind of intelligence kind of makes it creepy for them to be following Hitch around.

*Racoonicorns and Pegasnails unite* And then the balance of power in Equestria shifted forevermore. Ponykind lost it's dominance over the world and reverted back to savagery. It was the time...of the Beast Ponies!
 
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