Dance Magic
Rating: 3 4 3
We start with the girls running a car wash business and they're washing Big Mac's truck. Multiple of them are washing it too which just seems inefficient. It would make more sense to have one person per car but it's revealed the reason they aren't doing this is because there are no more cars in need of washing when they're done with his.
As they're wondering where Twi's gone, she shows up revealing she's their accountant for the business and Sunset states they're trying to earn money for repairs for Camp Everfree, telling us this takes place sometime after Legend of Everfree. Twi states they've only earned half of what they need, having gotten contributions from a bake sale by Pinkie, a doggy daycare by Twi and Flutters, and now Sunset and Rainbow Dash's car wash. Rarity states she has an idea to raise the rest of the funds. She has no idea what to do. Also, why the fuck is there a fundraiser in the first place? Shouldn't Camp Everfree be insured or did the insurance company refuse to give a payout? Yet another reason legally mandated insurance is a scam. Remember, it's the insurance company's job not to pay you. Let me also tell you legally mandated insurance is essentially privatised taxation as you will be penalised for not paying, akin to not paying taxes.
Rarity at the mall can't come up with any ideas after three hours of loitering around until she hears a mall TV ad for a dance competition with a cash prize. As she's signing up, four of the Rival 5 appear, Indigo Zap being the one missing. Sour Sweet appears to be the ring leader and Sugarcoat states it's only been a couple months since the Friendship Games, meaning Legend of Everfree takes place very soon after Friendship Games. The now Rival 4 explain they're raising money so they can have a spring dance on a yacht. Sour Sweet then pries Rarity for information and Rarity reveals she was inspired by a clothing piece she saw, explaining her outfit idea for the Rainbooms to wear in their dance video. This gave me the thought that maybe Crystal Prep can sell school-themed clothing to raise money for the yacht dance. I even have my own idea for a Crystal Prep shirt design. The shirt would be any of the Crystal Prep colors and would say "I ♥ CP" to show the wearer's school pride. The Rival 4 decide to steal Rarity's outfit idea.
Rarity tells the girls about the competition and how she needs to use the money they already raised to buy the outfits and props. After it's literally said the prize is double what's required to repair Camp Everfree, Twi states the winnings are quadruple what they have already raised. No fucking shit, Sherlock. You know what? Why don't they just work for the money? Surely even just four of them working will get them enough money seeing as miscellaneous fundraising techniques have already gotten them half.
After buying the costumes and crap, they utterly fucking fail at the routine because Rarity sucks at choreography. After Sunset tears Rainbow Dash's outfit, Rarity returns to the mall to get repairing materials where she finds the Rival 4 practicing their routine on camera with her stolen idea in the middle of the mall. Recording it in the mall is a stupid idea. Unless they're getting footage only, the audio's gonna have people's chattering and there's always the risk of an announcer saying something. There's also nothing stopping someone from photobombing the thing or just straight up fucking with them.
Later in Rarity's room as she's whining, Applejack tells her her choreography direction fucking sucks. Rarity then makes Twi bring her to Crystal Prep which is apparently open. I've noticed they kinda arbitrarily switch between school settings and elsewhere in this special. Anyways, they conduct a black op to sneak into the place where they find the Rival 4 again. Apparently no one cares a bunch of non-students are walking around which you can clearly tell is the case as they don't have Crystal Prep uniforms. Normally, American schools treat anyone, student or not as a potential school shooter so realistically, the school would go into lockdown and evacuation in a situation like this.
They find the Rival 4 practicing and they dare Rarity to do her original plan since they plan to submit their video soon and it will look like the Rainbooms are the ones copying them.
I just love the way Lemon Zest looks here.
The Rainbooms try coming up with a bunch of new ideas for their routine and they all fucking suck. Rarity tells them so and she storms off. Later she's at a desert shop or something where she overhears the Rival 4 who are also there arguing about how they haven't come up with an original song to use with their dancing. They explain they've been using a Sapphire Shores song as a fill-in to practice their choreography. But isn't choreography dependent on the music? Changing the song would mean changing the choreography so it matches the rhythm of the music. They did not think this through. They also state how Rarity is creative and had the advantage on them because of this. Rarity confronts them with an idea to combine their acts.
Why are there white people in the background?
At Canterlot High, they start practicing and whatever. They sort of frame the compromise as a moral. Let's not kid ourselves, it's a partnership based on shared economic goals, not some lesson to be learned about not copying people's work. Actual song's pretty good. Then they win. I made the prediction in my notes they would actually turn out to be the only contestants in the thing since the competition is just conducted at the mall. I'm not exactly disproven in my prediction since there's no mention of anyone else competing but I'm not proven right either.
It's fine enough to get 3 EV but it's not that entertaining. I gets 4 VB only because of the message of combining talents to achieve a common goal. It gets 3 DV because there's not much actual development. It sets up some stuff that will take effect later but we don't know about it at this point so it doesn't get an increased score.
Movie Magic
Rating: 2 3 3
The girls are on a set for a Daring Do movie and Rainbow Dash has a sperg-out over a lore inaccuracy, interrupting the filming. After this intro scene, the director reveals he's a Camp Everfree alumnus and is giving the girls a tour of the set because they saved the camp. The girls want to do different stuff so they split up.
Rarity and Fluttershy go to actor for Daring Do, Chestnut Magnifico's trailer where Rarity gets door-slammed by her while she's coming out screaming at her phone about her contract. Meanwhile Sunset and Applejack pick up a candy bar wrapper. Meanwhile Rainbow Dash and Twi are sperging out about the movie props and some girl named Juniper shows up. She reminds me of a girl also named Juniper I knew for a couple days. Or at least I think that was her name. I actually never asked her what her name was and instead asked some dude who said it was Juniper I think. I actually didn't know juniper was a word at the time so this name didn't exactly register with me. She's actually the same girl I mentioned I was shipped with in Brony Ramblings.
So Juniper is the director's niece and also spergs a little about Daring Do with them. She also reveals she wanted to be casted as Daring Do despite having no acting experience and has an angry tone while saying this. She then tours them around.
Pinkie and Spike are doing something and witness the director pleading with Magnifico to keep her in the movie. Later, they're filming again and the set just falls apart and then props disappear. The girls suspect sabotage and suspect Magnifico since she was extremely upset. Eventually, they find a conspicuous ominously cloaked figure so Rainbow Dash uses her super speed to catch her but fails.
Skipping a boring chase sequence, the mysterious figure traps everyone except Rainbow Dash who chases the figure down only to get trapped in a closet. The other girls free themselves and Sunset mentions how she wishes she had brought her geode so she can use her memory reading. Notes say to mention something about Sunset and warrants relating to her power. I don't know what about exactly so wonder it yourself.
Flutters then finds Rainbow Dash is in the closet and calls her "Dashie". I wish Dashie would come out of the closet to Fluttershy. So Twi's telekinesis allows her to pick locks and so she frees Rainbow Dash. They then conduct an op to catch the saboteur who turns out to be Juniper and she states she did all of this because she's butthurt about not being Daring Do in the movie. Episode ends with Magnifico being able to finish the movie and the girls get roles as extras.
Boring and predictable so it gets 2 EV. No vibe so 3 VB. Still no development other than setup we don't know is relevant yet so 3 DV.
Mirror Magic
4 3 4
We start at the mall with Juniper walking and seeing a bunch of screens with the girls' dance video from Dance Magic playing which annoys her. She's now a movie theater worker too and after seeing the girls are in the Daring Do movie, she throws a tantrum in the middle of the mall until some magical mirror just appears out of fucking nowhere. The mirror shows herself as a supermodel, completely ruining her cuteness but she likes what she sees so she keeps it. Fuck hotness, cuteness is better.
Sunset's also at the mall trying to talk to Twilight in Equestria through the journal. The color seems desaturated throughout this special and it's not the upload since we do see correct saturation on some characters and on blurred models. She then runs out of room in the journal and Twilight responds saying she wants Sunset to come to Equestria for something. How did Twilight respond if there's no room?
Meanwhile, Juniper's ogling her bastardized self in the mirror but is told to clean up some popcorn. To make herself feel better, she starts staring at herself in the mirror again until the mirror just magically cleans up the popcorn for her.
Sunset travels through the portal to Equestria and comes across Starlight. Starlight gives her a new journal and explains Twilight and the others were called away to solve a friendship problem. However, so far, the only time the map has called all six ponies somewhere has been to Starlight's village and in the season 7 finale which hadn't aired yet when these specials came out and Starlight was with the Mane 6 regardless. So either this is a writing error or the Mane 6 just fucked off somewhere and Starlight just assumes it's a friendship problem. Only episodes where the Mane 6 are gone without Starlight are The Saddle Row Review and Not Asking For Trouble which also hadn't aired yet. Furthermore, there are problems with the Equestria Girls world and MLP world having synced time if we assume Friendship Games takes place the spring after Rainbow Rocks, and shortly afterwards, Legend of Everfree happens and then these specials since Starlight wouldn't been reformed yet. If we add a school year between Rainbow Rocks and Friendship Games, Glimmy's been reformed but only very recently and the girls would be seniors if they were sophomores in the first Equestria Girls and they can't be seniors now considering later Equestria Girls stuff. So I don't fucking know. Equestria Girls fucked up its time relation to MLP and I don't know how to explain it in a way to make it work.
Glimmy then tells Sunset she wants to see the other world so she brings her with. On the other side, Glimmy has possibly the best Equestria Girls design.
Meanwhile, Juniper is schizing out at the mirror and the girls sans Sunset notice her while in line to go to the Daring Do movie premiere. In a fit of rage, she uses the mirror to transport the girls to a pocket dimension and loots Fluttershy's brooch as a trophy.
Meanwhile, Sunset and Glimmy are hanging out at the mall and Glimmy's gorging herself on some ice cream. Sunset probably has an anxiety disorder as she states she's constantly thinking about bad shit that could happen. Glimmy tells her to just trust things will just work out in the end. Glimmy, we've already been over the whole 'hope' thing. Sunset then just steals her ice cream.
The girls are stuck in a looping pocket dimension with gravity. Sunset and Starlight find Juniper and Sunset notices she has Fluttershy's brooch so she goes to confront her and uses her memory reading on her. Sunset tries to womansplain to Juniper but it fails and Juniper sends her to the pocket dimension too.
Herobrine sighting #45
With all seven in the pocket dimension, a bunch of magic shit happens and Juniper is transformed into her supermodel femcel form and she fucks off to the mall to rant and rave about being pretty or something. For once, people actually bother to record the giant demon-woman thing too. She perceives the cowering shoppers as adoring fans. You know, this really says a lot about society.
Glimmy's trying to get the mirror from her and when she flip-kicks it out of Juniper's grasp, it cracks which also cracks the reality within the pocket dimension. This continues as Starlight and Juniper try to womansplain to each other. Glimmy out-womansplains her and convinces Juniper to free the others and she loses her supermodel femcel form. Juniper is confronted by Starlight, Twi, and Sunset who tell their sins of femceldom and manipulation and they all become femcel friends or something. Then the episode ends with Glimmy staying in the world for a few more days.
Entertaining enough for 4 EV. No vibe so 3 VB. 4 DV because it has the payoff of the setups of the previous two episodes.
Why are these called Tales Of Canterlot High when the high school barely appears in them?
MLP Commentaries IndexWritten 2025-3-18 Published 2025-4-1