"Castle Sweet Castle"

Twilight and friends decorate the new castle to make her feel at home there, complete with a musical number. I don't have much to say about this one.

"Bloom & Gloom"

Apple Bloom feels nervous about her cutie mark and future. I remember the "trapped in a nightmare" plot of this episode leaving an impression on me, and I felt like this episode was sort of an interesting parallel to "For Whom The Sweetie Belle Toils" (S4E19), in which Sweetie Belle had a nightmare of her own. I guess these episodes are a sign of Princess Luna being used more proactively.

It's also interesting that they chose to do an episode about Apple Bloom worrying about not liking her cutie mark at this point in the show specifically. One might even say that they're trying to set something up.

"Tanks for the Memories"

This winter episode is based around the five stages of grief, even though no creature actually dies. It's also got some Very Subtle references to How The Grinch Stole Christmas and Game of Thrones, a musical number, and a brief appearance of the Running of the Leaves — last seen in season 1, right‽

I remember this episode leaving an impression on me because of how it talks about loss of a loved one without talking about it. In hindsight, though, kids' shows have advanced so much when it comes to openly talking about death, that I'm sure this episode will feel like a disservice to the topic.

"Appleoosa's Most Wanted":

An episode about the Ojamajo CMCs helping an outlaw with his cutie mark, this episode could actually be called cutie mark lore. This is also the second ever episode of the show to primarily take place in the "frontier" settler town of Appleloosa, whose name is misspelled in the episode title for some reason.

Yeah, believe it or not, although Appleloosa was briefly featured or mentioned in a handful of episodes between season 1's notorious "Over a Barrel" and now, it's had a grand total of like... three minutes of screen time in the like 76 or so episodes between "Over a Barrel" and "Appleoosa's Most Wanted". Ya think the showrunners just felt kind of awkward about showing the town built on land that was just plainly stolen from the buffaloes? Probably not!

"Make New Friends but Keep Discord"

Tonight's standout episode! It's got John de Lancie Dragonhorse jealous of Fluttershy's obviously-stoner friend at the Grand Galloping Gala, it's got a revival of a G1 creature called the Smooze, it's got a reference to The Shining (1980), it's got a spoken cameo from Pinkie Pie's obviously-autistic sister Maud, and it's one of only like two episodes to feature mixed media.

"The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone"

The second ever Friendship Map episode, in which Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie go to Griffonstone and find that the country has seen better days. Griffonstone's exact relationship to Equestria is uncertain, but I find it very curious that the legal tender in Griffonstone is apparently Equestrian Bits. Kinda makes me think it's Equestria's financial policies that have pushed Griffonstone to widespread poverty, but OK, sure, let's say it's the griffons losing their magic MacGuffin from their storybook, that makes enough sense, too.

• Animal abuse ("Castle Sweet Castle", "Tanks for the Memories")
• Eating cake sloppily ("Castle Sweet Castle")
• A child gets a dubiously consensual massage ("Castle Sweet Castle")
• A character gets covered in filth ("Castle Sweet Castle", "Make New Friends but Keep Discord")
• Depiction of a home destroyed by fire or similar ("Castle Sweet Castle", "Bloom & Gloom")
• A child has nightmares and anxiety about disownment ("Bloom & Gloom")
• A child receives a painful electric shock ("Bloom & Gloom")
• A character reads others' dreams without their knowledge ("Bloom & Gloom")
• Physically disabled character's lucid dream might tug at your heartstrings ("Bloom & Gloom")
• Pests and pest control ("Bloom & Gloom")
• Five stages of grief ("Tanks for the Memories")
• Deliberately messing with the climate...? ("Tanks for the Memories")
• Medical equipment...? ("Tanks for the Memories")
• Causing pain to a physically injured character ("Appleoosa's Most Wanted")
• A child is publicly shamed or humiliated ("Appleoosa's Most Wanted")
• Children in peril, incl. getting lost in the woods and entering a stranger's home ("Appleoosa's Most Wanted")
• Colonial aesthetics ("Appleoosa's Most Wanted")
• A child is intimidated by an adult ("Make New Friends but Keep Discord")
• Jealousy / obsessive, toxic behavior...? ("Make New Friends but Keep Discord")
• A fictional race of money-grubbers ("The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone")
• White man's burden plot, but the white men are pastel horses ("The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone")
• A big-ass skeleton, implied decapitation ("The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone")

1: Avoiding scheduling conflicts

As it becomes more popular for users to schedule watch parties before 8 PM EDT, the chances of two users accidentally organizing a watch party for the same time on the same day without realizing it increases. For this reason, I think we should keep a public running list (possibly pinned to this comm) of users who host or plan to host watch parties before 8 PM EDT, with information about the "time slots" these users have reserved, and maybe what they've reserved the time slots for. Then if anybody wishes to organize a watch party not on that list, that person should tag everybody on the list at least 1 day before, announcing what time they intend to reserve. Does anybody have any feedback on this idea?

2: Tips for new watch party organizers

My tips for new watch party organizers are this:

1. Don't send more than three pings. I generally ping once when I make the announcement post, once an hour before listed time, and then one last time 10~15 minutes before listed time.
2. Reserve a span of time one-third longer than the thing you're showing. If you're showing something 40 minutes long, reserve one hour. If you're showing something two hours long, reserve three hours. This will account for pee breaks and starting delays and will usually be enough to avoid cutting into somebody else's time.
3. Don't worry too much about cutting into others' time. It is customary for watch parties to start 10~15 minutes after their listed time.
4. Use opensubtitles.com to find subs; IMDb and DoesTheDogDie can be a good starting point for content warnings, you might also want to skim through the content yourself; and if you can't easily torrent what you want to show, or find it on YouTube, try the Internet Archive.

Is there anything you'd change about these tips? Anything you'd add or even remove as advice?

3: Audio description and dubbing

I recently spoke with a regular to my watch parties in private, and xe mentioned how it was very mentally taxing for xem to split xyr attention between the show/movie and the chat. I have also oftentimes found it difficult to do this, so I mentioned the possibility of using audio description to make Blorptube watch parties more accessible for xem (and myself). Many AD tracks are freely available on audiovault.net. The idea of using AD whenever possible goes hand in hand with the idea of using English-language dubs whenever possible as well, although when I brought this up in the chat last night, it seemed like it was met with some hostility, with one user even saying that not being able to follow along on subs and chat at the same time was a "skill issue". Evidently, Hextube did historically show dubs of anime, but switching to subs was a deliberate choice, because at least some people found the dub voices to be grating.

Of course, even if we decide to use AD whenever possible, it is still only possible to easily download English-language AD for a small minority of the shows and movies currently shown on Blorptube. It is hypothetically possible to make that minority at least slightly bigger by making our own "in-house" AD as well; hypothetically we can make our own dubs, too, at the very least Russian-style VO dubs. This could be a boon for accessibility, but the issue is that TankieTube/PeerTube doesn't support multiple audio tracks, as far as I'm aware, and I don't necessarily think it would be a good thing to force everybody to have to listen to these things, given how dubs have apparently gone over on Hextube/Blorptube in the past.

In any case, I think it would be good to try to watch at least one movie or show with AD a week, and hopefully if PeerTube eventually does support multiple audio tracks, then we can think about letting users choose on their own between subs and dubs, or AD and no AD. There are several feature requests on PeerTube's Github page related to support for multiple audio tracks, and even auto-generated dubs and AD based on subtitles, so I think it's only a matter of time.