If the Elements had been used on Sombra, he would have been imprisoned in an elevator. No stairs. For all of eternity.

I need backgroudless pictures from last episode.

Anypony have good source?

I'm downloading them and turn into TF 2 sprays.

Wouldn't it be more ironic for Sombra to become the stairs? Imprisoned in the endless crystal stairway for a thousand years... with no one to walk upon them!

Snips and Snails are so much cuter as foals.

was Magic Duel's use of the word "alicorn" the first use of that word in the My Little Pony animated canon? The first use in Fi M? the first use at all? (toys, comics etc ?)

also: If the blasted thing is so dangerous, how did a curio-shopkeeper get it? (a fair question about a lo of things of course)

Is there only one ? Can more be made ? (if the answer to either of these is "yes", then obviously it takes some of the conspiracy theory/hostile supernatural backing of curio shops sting out of the first question)

Finally:Age spells are more difficult than turning mice into horses? More difficult even than apple into oranges? I'm beginning to suspect that Twilight is like a lot of physics grad students who can do calculus in their heads but are a bit slow on the uptake for arithmetic. Hmm. Mass of horse>mass of mouse. Mass of apple~=mass of orange. Mass of young person <=mass of older person (typically). Maybe conjuring mass is easy, but banishing it is hard?

He's forced to play Lemmings with no builders.

@Prio

They made a point in TMPP of the orange conversion spell being at the very edge of Twilight's ability. She couldn't get it to work on an apple, and the accidental uses on the animals were decidedly incomplete. The mice->horse abominations were noted to be completely temporary, and even then they didn't turn out like she had planned. Age spells are a much more serious matter, since they didn't appear to have drawbacks or time limits, and can theoretically grant immortality as well as outright kill something.

Equestrian magic has some very funky and arbitrary rules.

Apparently it's impossible to change the sexual anatomy of an organism, but it's completely possible to turn said organism into a completely different one (that isn't even the same kind of organism no less).

edited 2nd Dec '12 11:24:56 AM by Mio

They probably did have time limits. Otherwise how did Snips and Snails get fixed? Dispell magic?

It was the first use of the word in FIM. It's official canon now. The term might have been used in the merchandise, but I'm not sure.

I asked the same thing yesterday.

@Story Even if they did have time limits, they can still be used for the same things.

As for shopkeepers with dangerous artifacts, it's kinda a fantasy genre convention. If you question this one, you question all of them.

edited 2nd Dec '12 11:27:49 AM by PerpetualLurker

   That is beautiful. I have tears in my eyes right now from reading that.   

   I... I need to go find my enchanted flask to hold them, lest they blight the floor where they fall and make me lose my security deposit.   

My guess about the amulet is simply that the shopkeeper knew it was kinda dangerous, but didn't realize the degree. I mean, he obviously never tried it himself. He just went "okay, that looks ominous" and made an educated guess about its nature.

As for the spells, I have a few theories:

1. Mice turning into horses is a common fairy-tale thing, so maybe there was a pre-designed spell that Twilight was using for that.

2. Casting spells on stuff like frogs and mice is easier than casting spells on ponies because ponies are naturally magical. Animals and fruit are mundane, but ponies have a magical aura that interferes with spells which change their biology. Ponies could have a sort of built-in magical spell resistance to magic that physically modifies them. I.e. age spells are difficult not due to modifying the target's biology, but because when you're casting a spell on a pony, they have their own magic that has to be accounted for to enable the spell to work, and making that compensation is the hard part. To de-age Snips and Snails, you not only have to get the biology right, but you'd have to accommodate their own magic on the fly as you're performing the spell.

edited 2nd Dec '12 11:32:53 AM by JapaneseTeeth

I have a feeling using the term "Alicorn" has nothing to do with the fandom but rather M.A. Larson was looking for another word that started with "A" for a magic amulet.

In other words, ponies have Spell Resistance.

Speaking of "alicorn", a ready-made rebuttal for anyone who blames bronies for corrupting the word.

Ah, Xanth. I loved the first few books of that series, but I haven't been able to get a hold of the later ones that easily. Definitely one of the best uses of Fantasy Kitchen Sink I've ever read.

Who let King Chuckles in here, anyway? Pinkie?

Right I'm off to enjoy myself. See you all soon. Tomorrow, I start work on comic again.

@Story: Pretty much. All of Twilight's easy transformations so far have been on mundane animals.

Well there was that one time she turned her parents into potted plants. Exceptional circumstances they may have been.

   Please. As if the mighty King Sombra needed to be let in. It was a simple matter of exploiting my neighbor's unsecured wi-fi, and now your entire ether communication network is at my mercy!   

   On a completely unrelated note, why can't I post more than once every ten minutes?   

Later, Apple.

@Mio I wouldn't call the full and uncontrolled force of all of Twilight's magical potential being unleashed at once an "easy transformation".

@Sombra Your neighbor's internet connection isn't protected because it doesn't go outside of the house now get off his couch.