Web Video / Friendship is Witchcraft

Friendship is Witchcraft is an Abridged Series using material from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. It is a joint project headed by Jenny Nicholson and Griffin Lewis under the collective pseudonym Sherclop Pones. Most of the voices are done by Jenny Nicholson while Griffin Lewis does the music, editing, and some of the voices (mostly secondary characters).

Rather than directly parodying the show, it presents a version of the MLP universe where each character is just a bit... different. Twilight Sparkle is an ADD-addled narcissistic sociopath with aspirations of royalty, Spike is a universally scorned target of abuse, Fluttershy is the insane leader of an apocalyptic cult, Rarity is a PTSD-affected war veteran devoted to the cult, Applejack a war criminal and a Southern stereotype (as written by a space alien), Rainbow Dash is self-absorbed to the point of sometimes speaking using her name alone, and Pinkie Pie is an orphan who just wants to be loved. Oh, and Sweetie Belle is a robot, but no one seems to have noticed. The resulting show almost feels like a pony version of Sealab 2021.

The series features original background music and even original musical numbers. Via use of clever editing and special effects, it even seems to be developing its own story arc, revolving around Pinkie's attempts to use gypsy magic to go back in time and save her dead parents. All the while, Fluttershy is attempting to prevent her from meddling with time magic as she leads a cult dedicated to the revival of Smooze and bring about the world's ending, and their goals apparently are in direct opposition to each other.

The team have an old Youtube channel, though now updates are done here. Like most MLP abridged series, Friendship Is Witchcraft has run into issues with copyright claims from Hasbro (the real one), resulting in their videos on YouTube being blocked to U.S. audiences for an indefinite period of time (remind you of anyone?). An attempt was made to move the series to Vimeo, but those videos ended up being blocked as well (for those wanting to see the series, mirror sites are available). Despite this, the creators insist that the series is not dead. Both creators have launched side projects, available for viewing on their Youtube channel: Jenny's "Kimi Sparkle" series, a parody of MLP Analysis videos, and Griffin's "Silver Spoon Escapes from Camp Energy", a Let's Play of Limbo done as a series of largely improvised stream-of-consciousness ramblings done in character as Silver Spoon. They have also started a multi-part series based My Little Pony: Equestria Girls, entitled Horse Women.

Citing reasons like "being genuinely tired of doing the same show for several years" and "we want to do other things too", the creators put the project on a hiatus. In early 2016, they released part 2 of Horse Women, but it's unlikely that the show will return again any time soon given that both creators began developing their own solo projects in the interim: Jenny with her YouTube channel, Griffin with his Fandroid persona and associated YouTube channels.

Ten episodes have been released to date:

• 1. "The Perfect Swarm" (based on "Swarm of the Century")
• 2. "Read It and Sleep" (based on "Look Before You Sleep")
• 3. "Dragone Baby Gone" (based on "Dragonshy")
• 4. "Cute from the Hip" (based on "Call of the Cutie")
• 5. "Neigh, Soul Sister" (based on "Sisterhooves Social")
• 6. "Lunar Slander" (based on "Luna Eclipsed")
• 7. "Cherry Bomb" (based on "The Last Roundup")
• 8. "Foaly Matripony" (based on "A Canterlot Wedding")
• 9. "Seed No Evil" (based on "One Bad Apple" and the fan animated video Snowdrop (2013))
• 10. "You Smooze, You Lose" (in script form only at the moment)
• 11. "Horse Women, Pt 1"
• 12. "Horse Women, Pt 2"
• 13. "Celestia's Standalone Adventure" (a distant sequel, and a finale..... of sorts)

Now has a character sheet and a Shout Outs page.

---

Friendship is Witchcraft provides examples of:

• Absurdly Dedicated Worker: "The Perfect Swarm" has a running gag with one particular pony watering a single flowerbed for hours on end. Even as a disaster is destroying Ponyville around her. Several episodes (and two in-universe months) later, "Foaly Matripony" reveals that this pony is still watering those same flowers.
• Abusive Parents:
  • Dragonshy, to hilarious extents.
  • Twilight towards Spike. She has raised him but shows no affection towards him and treats him like a slave.
  • Scootaloo claims that Rainbow Dash is her mom, but she doesn't even acknowledge Scootaloo's existence.
• Adaptational Angst Downgrade: Nightmare Moon never occurred. When Luna tried to overthrow Celestia, Celestia decided to banish Luna to space camp for one-thousand hours instead of one-thousand years in the moon. Luna still has a Friendless Background, however she's more dorky than troubled.
• Ad-Break Double-Take:
  • Parodies the one from "Look Before You Sleep", where lightning strikes a tree near Twilight's house.
  Spike: Augh!
  Spike: Not again!
  • Minor example in "Dragone Baby Gone":
    Twilight: All right girls, get into position!
    Twilight: Good job, girls!
• Added Alliterative Appeal: Done rather morbidly in "Dragone Baby Gone":
  Fluttershy: Bouncing baby bunnies burning brightly...!
• Affably Evil: Fluttershy.
  Fluttershy: This is your cult leader Fluttershy, speaking. Praise Smooze! And, um... remember to leave some money in the donation tray... um, if that's okay with you.
• After the End: "Snowblind" states that winter eliminates the weak from society - without it, humans would still be running around with their bicycles!
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Apparently, robots go on murderous rampages if they ever discover their true natures.
• All Just a Dream: "Seed No Evil" relegates the event of Equestria Girls to a nightmare of Apple Bloom's.
• All Love Is Unrequited:
  • Diamond Tiara is poorly hiding her Tsundere crush on Apple Bloom, while Silver Spoon has a crush on her.
  • Francis is oblivious to Twilight's love for him. Until the end of the episode, where they do get married, though it's implied he was brainwashed.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Diamond Tiara's mom, who gets drunk at her daughter's mark mitzvah and starts singing Smash Mouth. Badly.
• Ambiguously Jewish: Diamond Tiara, not because of surname nor mannerisms, but because of her "mark mitzvah" celebration upon getting a cutie mark. It's only really ambiguous because the finer points of pony religions are unaddressed. Human Diamond Tiara from Silver Spoon Escapes from Camp Energy is confirmed to be Jewish. There's also Applejack's remark on the subject.

  Applejack: For the last time, I ain't switchin' religions just so you can have a mark mitzvah like the popular kids!

• Anachronistic Orphanage: Being in a Retro Universe, Friendship Is Witchcraft has orphanages. Pinkie grew up in one after her family was killed in a fire.
• Androids Are People, Too: This is lampshaded when Twist answers Cheerilee's question about the difference between robots and cyborgs: "Robots don't have souls." Whether Sweetie Belle is a robot or an cyborg is never made clear in the series, but she is written as more sympathetic than the mane characters, and she does mention seeing sheep in her dreams.
• Apocalypse Cult: Fluttershy's cult worships the Smooze, and intends to summon him to destroy Equestria.
• Arc Symbol: The Twilight face shown above tends to show up a lot (i.e. in the visuals for "It'll Be OK" and as fireworks at the very end of "Foaly Matripony").
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • From "Lunar Slander":
  Twilight Sparkle: When Fluttershy isn't helping animals learn to read, she's tempting the devil with her dulcet tones! And she's yellow!
  • Babs Seed exorcised the spirit of Old Man McMilkshake, burned down the bakery he haunted, and purchased Ponyville's railroads.
• Art Evolution: The Episode Title Card, starting in "Cherry Bomb", turns from standard white text into an actual drawn title card.
• Art Shift: During the original animation for "It'll Be OK" in "Foaly Matripony," which mimics the paper doll art style from the canon song "Big Brother Best Friend Forever Reprise" in the original version of "A Canterlot Wedding."

• Ascended Meme: Someone at Hasbro apparently watched "Cute From The Hip"◊.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
  • Despite the series' love of black humor, the characters really do care for each other. Except Twilight.
  • The entire episode of "Neigh, Soul Sister" is Sweetie Belle telling Rarity that she loves her, and Rarity finally returning her affection.
    Sweetie Belle: Initiate happy cry sequence!
    Rarity: Cry? That's not a war face.
    Sweetie Belle: I love you!
  • Twilight and Francis (Shining Armor), in the romantic way. Well, for Francis at least. Twilight has been his number one fan for his entire career, and she's even been in love with him from the very day she found him on their doorstep. After Twilight disrupts his and Cadence's wedding, chases Cadence to the crystal caves beneath Canterlot and either kills her or leaves her for dead, they get married. It's okay! They're not biologically related!
• Back from the Dead:
  • Mommity and Daddity, Dragonshy, Granny Smith, and a bird, all brought back by Pinkie's portal. When one comes back, a number appears that counts how many have been revived.
  • And at long last, Pinkie's parents... as babies.
  • Rainbow Dash marks the eighth pony to be revived by the portal, after accidentally drowning in a fountain at the Grand Galloping Gala.
• Bad "Bad Acting":
  • Applejack and Rarity playing "Applesack" and "Charity" in Twilight's fanfiction.
  • Rarity's discovery of Sweetie Belle's heart breaking drawing inspires her to write a monologue for her Hearth's Warming Eve pageant audition
  • Rarity (noticing a pattern?) pretending to have Disco Fever.
  • Rarity takes acting classes. Sweetie Belle accuses her of being a robot because she has difficulty expressing real emotions.
  • Spike's butchering of "Reflection" in his audition for the Hearth's Warming Eve pageant. Perhaps it's for the best that Twilight forbids him to dream.
• Backup Twin: Cadence is dead by Twilight's hoof, so Candace, Cadence's identical twin sister who is also a princess, takes over as the Crystal Empire's ruler in Horse Women.
• Bait-and-Switch Comparison:
  • In "Cute From The Hip":
  Apple Bloom: But... Applejack says that—
  Rainbow Dash: Hey, who are you going to listen to? [does goofy 'applebucking' pose] Someone who does this all day? Or your sister?
  • We also have this from Rarity: "But we have nothing in common, I come from a rich family, and you like to eat apples."
• Beat:
  • In "Cute From the Hip", one lasts long enough for Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle to blink in time with the music several times.
  • Another in "Neigh, Soul Sister".
    [Sweetie Belle has just activated Rarity's one-time use "self-hugging" sweater]
    Rarity: Now who shall hug me?
    [beat]
    Sweetie Belle: Sweetie Belle!
• Believing Their Own Lies: Twilight seems to slip into this in "Foaly Matripony". As in the original, she peeks in on her brother and his fiancee—but this time it's implied that SHE's the one casting a mind-control spell. Nonetheless, she seems genuinely horrified and runs off screaming that Cadence is pure evil.
• Big Bad: Twilight Sparkle herself. Pretty much everything that goes wrong in the series is a direct result of her manipulations and/or general idiocy.
• Big Brother Is Watching:
  • According to Rarity, the Robot Police are always listening.
  • As are the Fashion Police, the Candy Police, the Magic Police, and the Thought Police...
• Bilingual Bonus: The kanji cutie mark that Twilight Sparkle gives to Apple Bloom in "Cute from the Hip" is actually part of the Japanese word for "apple".
• Bizarro Universe: Word of God stated that they consider the show itself like "a bizarro universe version of Friendship is Magic" that airs on an alternate universe [adult swim]-like version of The Hub.
• Black Comedy:
  • A giant ball of parasprites crashing into a bowling alley knocking down all the pins is pretty funny, except when it kills eight ponies. Then it's hilarious.
  • Rarity's parents are brought back from the dead, and soon go off for a vacation in "Neigh, Soul Sister". Listen in the background for what happens.
  • Rarity has Post-Traumatic Dress Disorder. Cue jokes at her expense.
    Sweetie Belle: [arguing with Rarity] At least I don't spend every Veteran's Day sobbing on the floor!
  • Episode 8 ventures into much darker territories with its humor. Most episodes generally retain the same storyline with bizarre, humorous changes, but "Foaly Matripony" involves Twilight sabotaging her brother's wedding so that she can marry him, and leaving Cadence in a cave beneath Canterlot to die.
  • "Seed No Evil" suddenly segues from its roots in "One Bad Apple" to an extended, much darker, parody of Snowdrop (2013) that inspires the Snooty Snark Evaders to use dark magic to blind Babs for life. Nobody learns anything. Oh yeah, and then it ends on a cheerful musical number mocking the now-blind filly.
• Black Magic: There is a distinction between "legal magic" and "witchcraft". The difference has not been explicitly defined, but it would appear that unicorn magic falls in the former category, while the latter seems to encompass gypsy magic and magic invoked by summoning dark spirits, such as what the Snooty Snark Evaders use to blind Babs.
• Blah, Blah, Blah: In "Cute From The Hip", Twilight apparently hears everything Apple Bloom says as her just saying "Apples!" repeatedly. She thinks she's speaking "Applenese".
• Blind Without 'Em: Rainbow Dash admits that her astigmatism made her too nearsighted to join the army during the war or the Wonderballs now. Everything's blurry from her viewpoint. She mistakes Apple Bloom for Applejack at first, and then later both Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. She refuses to listen to her eye doctor about getting glasses, though.
• Big "NO!": Luna/Molestia's reaction to Molest-Fest going awry, complete with the menacing royal voice echo similar to the original.
• Bowdlerise:
  • The entire "buy some apples" Running Gag was a punch intentionally made on ridiculous censorship.
  • "Lunar Slander" begins with a notice explaining that DOLE has issued a cease-and-desist letter stopping the series from using the word "apple." Every mention of apples in the episode (including Applejack's name and the "buy some apples" gag above) is dubbed over with a different fruit, and every visual depiction of apples (including the apple-bobbing tub and AJ's cutie mark) is blurred out.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Fluttershy's profile in "Dragone Baby Gone":
  Skills: Clubs, Spikes, Clubbing Spike
  Item: Spiked Club
  Dislikes: Clubbing, Spike
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick:
  • [KIWI]jack advising Molestia on how to be sexier:
    [LEMON]jack: Take a shower! Use deodorant! Breathe through your nose! Throw some spiders!
    Molestia: What? I feel like that stopped making sense.
  • In "Neigh, Soul Sister", the Sentient Social activity list is as follows:
    Sisterly Double Dutch
    Sisterly Bobsleigh Derby
    Sisterly Turing Test
    Sisterly Soul Scan
    Sisterly Do-The-Apple-Family's-Chores-Extravaganza
  • Pinkie's song in "Dragone Baby Gone":
    "Step one, try not to be so self-conscious,
    Two, shift your weight into your haunches,
    Three, kick your legs into the air, and
    Four, just forget your parents are both dead."
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • In "Cute From the Hip," Apple Bloom says, "Uh, Pinkie, if you're going to start singing, could you put the lyrics at the bottom of the screen?" The extended version of the song has Pinkie singing about baking the fourth wall as part of her plan.
  • Twilight states that [MANGO]jack is "the most universally-adored character in the show" in "Lunar Slander".
  • All over the place in "Foaly Matripony". Celestia's letter states that all of Pinkie's dialogue was cut for time (and Pinkie's answer gets cut off mid-sentence). The mane six laugh at Spike for hoping that he'll get a larger role in the episode... and it happens again when he speculates that the marriage will shake up the status quo. The ponies brainstorm punny titles for that very episode.
  • In "Seed No Evil", Apple Bloom states that the portal can resurrect two more dead parents before that plot thread is complete.
  • In Horse Women, Twilight's actress explains that her rather pathetic screams are due to her not being alone in the house while she's recording.
• Brick Joke:
  • The "Elmer's bath" that Fluttershy took prior to "Dragone Baby Gone" appears to be a part of the usual treatment that she and Rarity have at her cult's "Conversion Spa" in "Neigh, Soul Sister".
  • In "Dragone, Baby Gone", Twilight offhandedly mentions that she may have to frame Molestia again to secure her place on the throne, and then tells the dragon that her Gaia name is Celestia 2. Later, in "Lunar Slander", we're shown that Celestia was tipped off to her sister's alleged attempt to usurp the throne by a Gaia user named Celestia 2—confirming that Twilight was indeed responsible for Molestia's banishment.
  • "Pinkie's Brew" contains the lyrics "Eye of a newt and cinnamon". In "Lunar Slander", Pip reveals that he lost an eye, and that his given name is Newt. At the end of "Foaly Matripony", it's revealed that he lost his other one as well. Along with his legs. He doesn't mind.
  • In "Cute From the Hip", Twist tells Apple Bloom, "Make sure you knock on my door seven times, or we'll assume it's the police!" rather offhandedly. Several scenes later:
    Apple Bloom: *knock* *knock* *knock* *knock* *knock* *knock*
    [Beat]
    Apple Bloom: *knock*
    Twist: Oh! Were you followed?
    • In the same episode, Diamond Tiara remarks that "As long as my mom doesn't get drunk and starting singing Smash Mouth again, this is going to be my best Mark Mitzvah ever." Sure enough, when the party begins, we can hear an adult female pony drunkenly performing "All Star" in the background.
  • In "Read It and Sleep", Applejack nervously mentions Twilight's old friends in Canterlot. We get an explanation for this in "Foaly Matripony" (she vaporized them).
  • When discussing puns in "Foaly Matripony", Rainbow Dash suggests that they just split the episode off into sections and use all of them.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Twilight and her brother Francis, who get married in the finale of "Foaly Matripony". However, it seems like Twilight is a little bit more affectionate. It's okay! They're not biologically related!
• Buffy Speak: Regarding the mountain in "Dragone Baby Gone":
  Fluttershy: It's so... tall/steep...
  Rainbow Dash: Well it is a tall/steep thing!
• Bus Crash:
  • Implied with Rarity and Sweetie Belle's parents; after leaving, the sounds of an offscreen crash are heard.
  • Also what happened originally. Apparently Pinkie's brew is wreaking havoc with reality.
• Butt-Monkey: Everypony hates Spike. They always think of mean things to say about/to him and give him the hardest tasks such as holding a lightning rod on top of Twilight's library during a thunderstorm. In the montage in Episode 3, the Element, Skills, Item and Dislikes of every pony in Team D.E.S.U. are displayed. Every pony has "Spike" in their dislikes, and Fluttershy has "clubbing Spike" listed in her skills. In "Foaly Matripony", the forcefield around Canterlot seems to exist for the sole purpose of keeping Spike out of the city during the wedding (and it does).
• Call-Back:
  • "Seed No Evil" has Sweetie Belle declaring "Look how far I can electric slide!"
  • In "Neigh, Soul Sister" Sweetie Belle claims that the water makes her feel funny after Rarity tells her to take a bath. In "Seed No Evil" Sweetie Belle literally goes haywire while in the bathtub.
• Calling Your Attacks: "Rainbow Dodge!" "Rainbow Kick!" "Rainbow Smash!"
• Calling the Old Man Out: Fluttershy to her father in Episode 3 before killing him.
• Came Back Wrong: Possibly, depending on how much of Granny Smith's skin was falling off. Definitely the case with Pinkie's parents, not that she minds.
• The Cameo:
  • Defied. Doctor Whooves in this series is instead named Doctor American.
  Doctor American: I'm American.
  • Rarity makes a cameo appearance in "Lunar Slander" wearing the invisibility scarf that she wore at one point in "Dragone, Baby Gone".
• Card-Carrying Villain: Twilight runs right up to Princess Cadence Notevil Goodpony and immediately tells her why she's at the wedding.
  Twilight: [starts "Sunshine, Sunshine" dance] I will destroy you and steal your fiancé, booty booty booty booty rockin' everywhere!
  • Subverted, as she sees nothing wrong with this.
• Cassandra Truth: Unlike in the original show, Pinkie and Applejack are very clear about their respective problems (Pinkie clearly spells out the threat the parasprites pose and what they need to do about it, while Applejack tells them in her letter that she's been enslaved). Their friends ignore them. Applejack doesn't exactly flat-out state that she has a bomb strapped to her until it came out, but that may be because Whiplash would activate the bomb if she did.
• Catchphrase: Some of the characters have their own, but this one gets around: "Talk about eye candy!" It was lampshaded via Spinning Newspaper in episode 8.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Each episode is progressively darker than the last as the plot develops.
• Character Blog: The non-canon Ask a Pony blogs Ask Friendship is Witchcraft and Sweetie Bot Replies.
• Characterization Marches On: In the first episode, Princess Celestia seems to actually like Twilight Sparkle — albeit in more of a "celebrity and fangirl" way than their close relationship in the actual show — and actually asks her for a friendship report. Later episodes show Princess Celestia to consider Twilight obnoxious at best and creepy at worst, and establishes the letters as something Twilight took it upon herself to send and Celestia wishes would just stop.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The line "They say a kitch-en time save nine" from "Pinkie's Brew" seems like a throwaway rhyme. However, when various parents start coming Back from the Dead in subsequent episodes, a counter appears on screen, ticking up toward nine.
  • In the same episode as Pinkie's Brew, Cheerilee gives a seemingly irrelevant and paranoid lesson about robots that seems to have no bearing on anything. Then, at the end of the episode, Sweetie Belle is introduced.
• Children Are Innocent: Snowblind. Subverted near the end.
  "That's because I'm blind, you ja[BLEEP]."
• Circling Monologue: Diamond Tiara gets what may be one of the longest ones on record.
  Silver Spoon: We're like sharks right now.
• Cloudcuckooland: You'd be hard pressed to pick which character in Ponyville is the farthest off the deep end. Tellingly, Pinkie Pie seems to be the closest one to sanity.
• Colony Drop: Played for Laughs in "Star Waving Mad", when Twilight gets bored of playing with the moon and unceremoniously drops it on Ponyville.
• Comedic Sociopathy:
  • Most of the Mane Six seem to suffer from it to some extent.
  • Mocked by Sweetie Belle:
    Sweetie Belle: Why is it funny to laugh at someone else's misery?! "Oh look, our characters are so malevolent and heartless!" Maybe next we'll hear a new cheap catchphrase!
    [Beat]
    Applejack: Moonshine gravy!
• Comically Missing the Point: Nopony seems to grasp that the "free iPod" Applejack won was a trap, or that AJ is enslaved, or that she has a bomb attached to her that detonates if she tries to leave. Even when she spells it out in plain English and the bomb is sitting there in plain view.
• Comically Small Bribe: From "Cherry Bomb":
  Applejack: I'll give you a nickel to outrun them!
  [the coach pulls ahead]
  Twilight: I'll give you a piece of string!
  [the coach falls behind]
  Applejack: I'll give you two sticks of gum and a rubber band!
  [the coach leaves the other five in the dust]
  Rarity: She's richer than us!
• Companion Cube:
  • Diamond Tiara gets a gift box, and declares it her new best friend. While Silver Spoon is right next to her.
  • In the same episode...
    [Snails takes a massive bite out of a cake with a smiley face drawn on it; the cake frowns]
    Diamond Tiara: Hey! Cakey is my best friend! I get to decide when she dies!
• Consulting Mister Puppet: Mister Sandwich in this case, on to which Twilight has projected the personality of an admirer she rejects.
• Continuity Cavalcade: The Spinning Paper near the end of "Foaly Matripony" features callbacks to nearly every prior episode.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Rarity uses an invisibility scarf in "Dragone, Baby Gone" and can be seen walking around wearing it in "Lunar Slander".
  • Applejack accidentally pulls the top half of a neighboring tree into Twilight's home in "Read it and Sleep", then tries to jump and kick it while yelling "Destroy!" three times. Later, in "Neigh, Soul Sister", we get this exchange:
    Applejack: Apple Bloom, the grapes are different than our kind. You know what that means!
    Apple Bloom: [while crushing the grapes with her hooves] Destroy! Destroy! Destroy!
  • In the first episode, Twilight runs past a pony watering flowers several times, with Twilight commenting just how long she's been doing it. In "Foaly Matripony", one of the newspaper articles mentions a pony who's been watering flowers for two months, saying that she no longer feels anything.
• Crapsaccharine World: Let's see... all dragons are slaves when they aren't second class citizens, an unknown but no doubt sizable proportion of the population are actually robots who apparently go on murderous rampages if they learn their true natures, there was a massive World War One-esque conflict not long ago, a cult is openly seeking to destroy the world... Lampshaded by a paragraph from one of Episode 8's ending spinning newspapers: Citizens hope to set a trap that will lure the panther into the smoking crater left by last week's moon crash, where it will be eaten by the spiders. The Ponyville Rescue Squad assures citizens that they have a Plan B, which involves herding the panther close enough to come within reach of the downtown Tentacle Monster.
• Credits Gag: Rarity's parents are named "Mommity" and "Daddity", and Dole CEO David H. Murdock is listed among the "donors" in "Cherry Bomb".
• Crippling the Competition: Twilight mentions vaporizing her competition during her song in "Foaly Matripony".
• Curse Cut Short: Just barely audible in "Read it and Sleep".
  Rarity: You! Little! B-
• Curtain Clothing: Francis Sparkle's outfit is made of corn dogs, of all things.
• Cute and Psycho:
  • Sweetie Belle starts treading close to this in "Neigh, Soul Sister" when she attempts attaching herself to Applejack.
  If the world isn't going to love me, then I'll teach it to fear me instead!
  • Twilight is an exaggerated example:
    Rarity: What was that, "Applesack"? You wouldn't want us to end up like Twilight's old friends in Canterlot, would you?
  • Fluttershy is adorable. She is also leader of a death cult.
• Cute Is Evil: Fluttershy, the soft spoken, aggressively moe, half dragon leader of a doomsday cult.
• Cute Machine: Sweetie Belle, even with her overtly robotic voice. Especially with her overtly robotic voice.
• Deal with the Devil:
  • Inverted with Molestia offering her title to Twilight for assistance making friends.
  • Played straight with the pacts made with Twinkle. Unusually, however, Twinkle asks those who call upon him (or at least in Snowblind's case) to reconsider their wishes before he grants them ("Are you sure you don't want something more whimsical?").
• Deface of the Moon: Twilight, being the princess of the night and a total narcissist, carved her own face on the moon (specifically, the face from the above title card).
• Delivery Stork: Raincloud, having delivered Twilight's adopted brother Francis to her doorsteps.
• Department of Redundancy Department: "She didn't notice all the carnage and dead ponies!"
• Descent into Darkness Song: Pinkie Pie's orphanage song does this. It begins as a happy song, but then Pinkie starts singing about how unworthy she is.
• Designated Hero: Lampshaded in "Seed No Evil", after the Evaders wish for Twinkle to blind Babs:
  Sweetie Belle: Now she is protected from harmful cynical media that could influence bad behavior, so we're still the good guys. Correct?
  Applejack: ... Yeeeeah.invoked
• Devil in Plain Sight:
  • It's pretty ridiculous how the other ponies regard Fluttershy when she called the parasprite swarm her "Army of Darkness", killed at least 13 dragons and many other demons, enjoys clubbing Spike with her spiked club, throws rabbits into bonfires, and leads a Religion of Evil (see below).
  • None of the Mane 6 pay attention to Whiplash's frequent, unsubtle bomb puns, nor her treatment of Applejack.
  • Twilight as of "Foaly Matripony". No one notices that she left Cadence for dead and stole her groom, who is her adopted brother. Plus, she actually sang about how she vaporized her competition during "It'll Be OK".
• Disney Owns This Trope/Clumsy Copyright Censorship:
  • Parodied in "Lunar Slander", right from the beginning:
    Dear viewers,
    We have officially received our first cease and desist letter regarding the use of copyrighted material in our videos.
    The word "apple" and the image of an apple are legal copyrights of the Dole corporation. This episode has been modified from its original version to keep within good legal standing. We thought that DOLE would be a BRO about this, but clearly there is no BRO in DOLE. We hope you enjoy the episode regardless.
  • Through the rest of the episode, any apple-related imagery is blurred out, and any mentions of apples is subtly changed to other fruits.
  • In "Cherry Bomb", on-screen text claims that "Buy some apples" is a Dole trademark, and the Sound-Effect Bleep comes complete with a classified ad for the Dole Chairman.
• Do Androids Dream?:
  • Even though everypony accepts that robots have no souls, the robot Sweetie Belle is one of the few characters to demonstrate love or empathy, or to call the others out on their Comedic Sociopathy.
  • The trope namer is directly referenced as well - when Sweetie Belle sees sheep, she mentions seeing them in her dreams.
• Dominant Species Genes: It plays this for laughs:
  • Fluttershy has a dragon for a father. When asked how she looks exactly like a pony in spite of her ancestry, her only explanation is "Dragon-ness is recessive."
  • Another pony, Francis Sparkle, was a Doorstop Baby. A Freeze-Frame Bonus in a flashback reveals that his biological mother was Raincloud—who was literally a rain cloud.
• Dramatic Irony: Sweetie Belle accuses Rarity of being a "soulless automaton" when she protests attending the Sentient Social with her. Of course, she's also (quite obviously) a robot herself, but nobody (including herself) notices.
  • You Are What You Hate
• Dumb Is Good: Parodied: Ponyville's citizens are proud of their ignorance, to the point that when they receive a letter from Applejack in "Cherry Bomb", they think she's been 'corrupted by knowledge' and believes she's too good for their friendship now that she knows how to write. By the end, Applejack agrees, reporting that it's better to not know anything at all.
• Dysfunction Junction: Applejack and Rarity are tormented by their memories of the war, Pinkie Pie is an orphan accused of witchcraft, Fluttershy is an affably evil cultist, and Twilight Sparkle is prone to obsession and completely lacking in empathy. Rainbow Dash is the only one of the Mane Six who isn't horribly emotionally scarred—she's just stupid.
• Eagleland: Doctor American.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Some of the running gags established in later episodes are so pervasive that their absence early on can be striking, particularly with regard to the first episode, "The Perfect Swarm":
  • The first episode's establishing shots feature silent background characters.
  • "The Perfect Swarm" uses traditional censor bars and bleep sounds.
  • "The Perfect Swarm" also sticks pretty faithfully to the plot of the original episode, something that would not be true of later episodes.
  • The original music gets progressively more elaborate throughout the series, making the early episodes seem somewhat sparse in comparison.
  • The Episode Title Card starts out as white text on black background. By "Cherry Bomb" onwards, it becomes an actual drawn card.
• Establishing Series Moment: Fluttershy singing "Hellfire". In the first ten seconds.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Fluttershy seems to be honestly trying to talk Rarity out of donating Sweetie Belle's college fund to her cult.
  • In "Foaly Matripony", we have her uttering this gem when Twilight's obsession with her own brother gets a little too unsettling (the fact that Twilight was talking to a sandwich probably didn't help):
    Fluttershy: Twilight, you're even scaring me.
• Everypony Hates Mathematics: According to Cheerilee, numbers are strictly forbidden in Ponyville.
• Everything's Better with Sparkles: Inverted.
  "Oh, I wish Spike hadn't spilled glitter everywhere. Sometimes he can be such a disappointment."
• Exact Words:
  • Applejack is okay with Pinkie singing, as long as it's not a sad song with a deceptively happy tune. It's a bittersweet song.
  • The rest of the Mane 6 will understand "when it's five after one".
• Extreme Omnivore:
  • Applejack has eaten mud (pretending it's chocolate) and an old sandwich on the floor ("It's still good!").
  • It seems to run in the family; Apple Bloom eats paper.
• Eye Scream: Half the time a character says "Talk about eye candy" it's because something is in or on their eyes. Conjugated in "Lunar Slander".

  Newt: Ever since I lost my eye, I've been craving nothing but candy!
  Twilight: Talk about holiday spirit.

• Fantastic Racism:
  • In addition to the cast's utter contempt for Spike, adult dragons are apparently kept in cages in Equestria, for children to throw things at. Twilight all but directly states that the only reason baby dragons don't suffer this fate is because they're not a large enough target.
  • Applejack is apparently a huge xenophobe:
    Applejack: Apple Bloom, the grapes are different than our kind! You know what that means!
    Apple Bloom: [cheerfully stomping grapes] Destroy! Destroy! Destroy!
  • Despite being a helpful worker and delivering mail, Raincloud will never be seen as one of the ponies.
• Finishing Each Other's Sentences: In "Neigh, Soul Sister".
  Apple Bloom: Applejack and I dec-
  Applejack: -ided that I could do the race with you, and we're only-
  Apple Bloom: -going to charge you twenty-
  Applejack: -hundred dollars!
• Flat Character:
  • Rainbow Dash, proudly so.
  Applejack: Hey, all of us have some depth to our characters...
  Rainbow Dash: I don't!
  Applejack: Almost all of us have some depth to our characters...
  • Deconstructed in "Foaly Matripony". Cadence finds the one-dimensional nature of the Mane Six unnerving, and worries when it starts to rub off on Francis. Rightly so, as it's implied that Twilight's the reason for this.
• Foreshadowing:
  • "Gypsy? I'm not a gypsy! I'm a pastry chef! Those aren't even similar! ...Or are they?"
  • In "Cherry Bomb" Pinkie Pie makes the exclamation that her magic candy told her that Applejack's trip was going to be "the bomb". This turns out to be much more literal than Pinkie anticipated.
  • Twilight apparently learns the value of loving her brother (offscreen) in "Neigh Soul Sister"...in "Foaly Matripony," she definitely does love him... to disturbing degrees.
• Forced Meme: Rainbow Dash tries to make one in "Foaly Matripony".
  Rainbow Dash: While Twilight was singing that song, I thought of a new word! It's called blarf! I don't know what it means yet, but I know it's gonna be big!
• Fourth-Wall Observer: Pinkie retains this status, as in canon. (In fact, she uses it in her magic!)
  "When you're rife with devastation, there's a simple explanation:
  You're a toymaker's creation trapped inside a crystal ball!"
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Many that double as call backs and shout outs:
  • In "Dragone Baby Gone", you can see that Twilight's map is indeed not a map.
  • You can spot Rarity wearing her Invisibility Scarf in "Lunar Slander".
  • Raincloud can be spotted in the background of several scenes in Con-Junction in "Cherry Bomb".
  • A blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment in "Foaly Matripony" when Twilight finds Francis on her doorstep: Raincloud dropped him off!
  • Several of the Littlest Pet Shop pets can be seen in the background of "Foaly Matripony".
  • In Kimi Sparkle's review of "Transyl-Mania" a translucent horn appears on Kimi's forehead.
  • In "Lunar Slander" when Twilight is giving the trick-or-treaters books, if you pause at just the right time, they're her own fan-fictions. "Diamond In The Rough" can be seen, as well as something that looks like her once-mentioned Discord fanfic.
• Freudian Excuse: Fluttershy's evil seems to be the product of her hellish childhood.
  Fluttershy: Do you know what a bunny fire is?
  Dragonshy: Is it like a fire? For... bunnies? Are you still angry because I threw your velveteen rabbit in a fire?
• Funny Background Event:
  • In "Cute from the Hip", while Diamond Tiara passes the note to Apple Bloom, Cheerilee talks about how a loveless relationship is a sign that you've married a robot.
  • In "Neigh, Soul Sister", Mommity and Daddity's cab crashes off-screen while Rarity speaks with Sweetie Belle.
  • At one point in "Seed No Evil", the original show's standard in-credits appear... only this time, the episode in question is named "Apple Bloom Goes Grave Robbing".
• Fun with Acronyms:
  • Team D.E.S.U.: "Dragon Euthanization Specialty Unit" (later, "Dragon Evacuation Something Unit").
  • F.A.T. ("Find Applejack Together") Squad.
• Gag Dub
• Gilligan Cut:
  • Applejack in "Dragone Baby Gone". Apparently rattle snakes just aren't that fast in July.
  • Also in "Cute From The Hip".
    Rainbow Dash: Well, we've tried rainbows and dashing, so I'm basically out of ideas.
• Glad I Thought of It: Twilight when Spike suggests raising the moon instead of putting on another puppet show.
  Spike: When you're holding a puppet show, you can only force your friends and neighbors to watch. But everypony can see the moon!
  Twilight: Great idea! I'm so smart! Keep up the good work, Twilight.
• The Glomp: In "Lunar Slander".
  Princess Molestia: [magically pulls Fluttershy to her and hugs her] Prepare yourself for a glomp! For this kind act, you have earned yourself one thousand hugs starting now!
• Gratuitous Japanese: Twilight is a big fan of anime and sprinkles of (incorrect) Japanese show up now and again.
• Great Off Screen War:
  • "Read It and Sleep" and "Neigh, Soul Sister" contain numerous references to "the war" and what happened in it. Despite this, all we know is that Applejack considers Rarity a deserter, and has done things she wouldn't otherwise do, including at least one war crime. Meanwhile, Rarity was traumatized by her time in the trenches.
  "I did what I had to to protect the Apple family!"
  "I'm sure that's what you said while you were driving that stampede into a school house!"
  • An original song entitled "How Applejack Won the War" implies that Applejack put the entire farm on a war footing and was involved in the accidental killing of civilians, as well as massacres of surrendering enemies.
• Hair Trigger ABBAlanche: Deliberately triggered by Fluttershy. For that moment, the falling rocks (and mountainside) play a music video of the song "SOS".
• Half-Human Hybrid: Fluttershy, whose normal appearance is justified.
  Fluttershy: Dragon-ness is recessive.
• Hard Truth Aesop: The ''Snowblind'' film in "Seed No Evil" delivers a sorely-needed aesop. Under all the layers of Black Comedy and abuse Snowblind gets, there's a surprisingly poignant message about disabled people. That whether through condescension or cruelty, special treatment can be equally disrespectful, exemplified in her speech to the class.
  Snowblind: All my life, I've been picked on by bullies. And I used to think that bullies were only abusive because they had been abused themselves. But now I realize that some ponies are just cruel, and deserve to be punished. I don't want to just accept the bad life I've been handed. From now on if I want something, I'm going to take it! I don't want to go to clown school, or end up as some lonely, middle-aged elementary school teacher; unfulfilled and wondering how I let my life get this way. I'm not some Christmas-special martyr, here to make you feel better about yourselves!
• Heroic Sacrifice: In "Cherry Bomb", Applejack tries to take the bomb outside of town and spare her friends from fiery death, but they just catch up with her anyway. Raincloud then saves them all by taking the bomb and flying away with it, just before it explodes. In keeping with the tone of the show, however, nopony notices or even cares. Not even Applejack. Until "Star Waving Mad", when Twilight drops the moon, setting most of Ponyville on fire.
  "Red alert! Red alert! Raincloud! Come in Raincloud! We need your help! Where are you?"
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Fluttershy. There are no words:
  "My father left me to fend for myself in the frozen tundra with nothing but a hatchet and a length of rope. I would have died if a pack of wolves hadn't taken me in as one of their own. But I wasn't safe, the wolves were robots built by my father to lull me into a false sense of security. I awoke one morning to find that he had slaughtered them all and left a message in the snow reading "I dare you to love again." But the message was actually written in ant pheromone. I was suddenly engulfed by thousands of rabid african ants, each trying to borrow its way inside me to get to the queen larva my father had put in my Cheerios."
• Hollywood Tourette's: Averted. Spike's Tourette's doesn't cause obligatory swearing, but it does cause him to involuntarily teleport his epic fantasy trilogy to Celestia... who destroys his years of work, thinking it's another one of Twilight's creepy fics.
• Hurricane of Puns:
  • Can be seen as faithfulness to the source material dialed upToEleven.
  • The Mane 6 spend a portion of "Foaly Matripony" trying to think of puns for the episode title.
  • The titles to the OST (which mean nothing) found on the Sherclop Pones YouTube channel.

• Innocent Innuendo: The pony who moves the sun is named Celestia (pronounced Suh-lestia). Therefore, the pony who moves the moon is named Molestia. Ponies celebrate Molestia with the holiday Molest Fest, while remarking about how touching such a celebration is.
• Inspirationally Disadvantaged: Snowblind ends up subverting this.
  Snowblind: I'm not some Christmas-special martyr here to make you feel better about yourselves.
• Insurance Fraud: Applejack's excuse to leave when she sees Twilight's fanfiction.
  Applejack: Oh, hay. I gotta go on home and wreck something so I can file an insurance claim saying the storm did it. See ya!
• Interspecies Romance: Spike's crush on Rarity in the original series suddenly makes sense here as we learn that dragon-pony relationships have happened before, there have been offspring, and we've already met at least one. Evidently dragon genes are entirely recessive.
• Ironic Echo: Sweetie Belle practices a song early in "Neigh, Soul Sister" about how much she loves her sister Rarity. Compare to the song she sings during the race, after rejecting her.
• Irony:
  • Despite being an ostensibly soulless robot, Sweetie Belle is one of the few characters to have any emotional depth.
    Sweetie Belle: Life is a journey. She has plenty of time to grow up, fall in love, and start a family, like you or I. For love is the fluid that beats through our collective hearts.
  • In "Neigh, Soul Sister", Rarity's disguise contact lenses altered her appearance to look like Applejack... every part except for her eyes.
• It's All About Me: Twilight seems genuinely incapable of understanding that she's not the entirety of her friends' lives, to murderous levels judging from Rarity's reaction to Applejack's plans to leave in 'Read It and Sleep'.
• Just a Machine: According to Cheerilee, robots don't have souls. This is supposedly the main difference between them and cyborgs.
• Karma Houdini: Twilight. She gets Luna sent to space camp out of jealousy, kills a few of Celestia's students (and just gets scolded), and kidnaps Cadence and hides her in a cave after stealing her fiance.
• Kick the Dog: "Spike's Big Day".
• Kids Are Cruel: "Snowblind" has the titular filly being informed by her teacher that the others are waiting to attack her with snowballs. "Better get it over with now, or they'll just attack you again tomorrow."
• Least Rhymable Word: Even Zecora has trouble with the word "circle". That said, she also had trouble with "sad"...
• Laughing Mad: Twilight giggles in a rather unsettling fashion just before showing Rarity her Applesack/Charity fanfiction.
• Laugh Track: One is played after a particularly horrible joke in "Seed No Evil".
• Law of Disproportionate Response: Fluttershy seems more upset with Dragonshy over his refusal to come to her softball games or not putting pictures on the fridge as opposed to burning her velveteen rabbit, or pretty much everything else about her childhood.
• Leave No Survivors: Applejack's philosophy during The War, according to "How Applejack Won the War".
  White flag?
  We're not done
  Got those cowards on the run
  Round 'em up, no need to stall
  Take no prisoners, KILL 'EM ALL!
• Leeroy Jenkins: Twilight.
  Applejack: With just a little teamwork we can all-
  Twilight: I'm going in alone!
• Lighter and Softer: Possibly due to the standard inversion of the source material, Molestia's backstory is considerably less tragic than Luna's.
  Celestia: [narrating] Taking drastic measures, Celestia banished her wicked sister to Space Camp for one thousand hours.
• Literal Metaphor: From "Seed No Evil": "Looks like the tables have turned... literally!" Cue Laugh Track.
• Literal-Minded: Twilight thinks Princess Celestia wants her to build a "book fort". At the end of the episode we find out the princess had told her that "books are your forte".
  Twilight: Fort... e?
• Lock-and-Load Montage: "Dragone Baby Gone" uses the one from "Dragonshy" for the most part, substituting a stat list after each freeze-frame (and adding one for Twilight, who wasn't part of the original).
• Loser Protagonist: Apparently shaping up to be Pinkie Pie. In fact, every appearance of hers after "The Perfect Swarm" more or less involves her attempts at witchcraft.
• Losing Horns: Frequently.
• Lost Aesop: The original episode lesson always gets shoved aside by things that distract Twilight:
  • Episode 1 "The Perfect Swarm":
    Princess Celestia: Didn't you learn something about one of your dear friends?
    Twilight Sparkle: Oh, right! Dear Princess Celestia, today I learned that it doesn't matter if you can slide two feet, or even five or six feet. What's important is that you look cool no matter what.
  • At the end of Episode 2 "Read It and Sleep" Twilight's friendship report is actually her 70 chapter ship-fic, which she sends to the Princess.
  • In Episode 3 "Dragone Baby Gone", she ends up writing to the Princess about the ball Rainbow Dash was playing with.
    • Also in Episode 3, Twilight cuts Applejack off just as she was about to finish her teamwork speech.
  • Episode 4 "Cute from the Hip": Twilight starts out with what sounds like a normal letter about remembering her childhood only to go on about how much she likes writing and sending letters to Princess Celestia.
  • Averted in Episode 5 "Neigh, Soul Sister". Even though Twilight doesn't appear in the episode, she gives a lesson (via a micro tape Sweetie Belle swallowed) on always loving one's brother, mirroring Rarity's and Sweetie Belle's lesson in the original episode.
  • In Episode 6, "Lunar Slander" has her write about the difference between a ghoul and a phantom, and how she will one day be able to be a princess to deliver her letters as soon as they're done.
  • Applejack writes to Celestia in Episode 7, "Cherry Bomb", claiming that knowledge always comes with a price and Ignorance Is Bliss.
• Lyrical Dissonance:
  • "Pinkie's Brew" starts off as a zany attempt by Pinkie Pie to go back in time but quickly becomes depressing as it's clear she wants nothing more than to see her parents. There's a reason the song cuts out partway through in the episode.
  • "The Gypsy Bard" from "Cherry Bomb" also counts. Applejack lampshades this:
    Pinkie: Wanna hear the song I sing to my parents? Oh, sorry, the one they sang to me?
    Applejack: Doesn't matter which one, Pinkie. Long as it's not one of those sad ones with the deceptively happy tune.
  • Pretty much any one of Pinkie Pie's songs counts.
  • The episode-independent song "How Applejack Won the War" is a bouncy, jaunty tune about battle, jingoism... and Applejack's war crimes.
• Magic Countdown: Averted with the bomb.
• Manipulative Bastard: Twilight Sparkle plays Molestia like a harp from Hell in "Lunar Slander", and is all but confirmed to have been the one who convinced Celestia to banish her to Space Camp in the first place. Her apparent success in convincing Molestia to abdicate might push her into full fledged Magnificent Bastard territory.
• Meaningful Name: Cadence Notevil Goodpony.
• Medium Awareness: One of Snowblind's classmates is aware that not only are they fictional, but they're in a fanfic.
  Spear Carrier: Do you ever wonder who's OC you are?
• Merchandise-Driven:
  • Parodied in "Cherry Bomb":
  Conductor: The Friendship Express is headed straight for your bedroom! Tell your parents to buy one!
  Applejack: Only thirty bucks!
  • And again in "Seed No Evil":
    Silver Spoon: That's not really a face that's going to sell many toys.
• Missing Trailer Scene: Human!Flash Sentry doesn't give Pony!Twilight a corndog in the first part of "Horse Women."
• Motor Mouth: Done briefly by Apple Bloom in Episode 4, first while talking to Rainbow Dash about cutie marks, then again while talking to Twilight about Pinkie's gypsy magic.
• The Movie: Parodied in one video, a FiW version of the Equestria Girls Trailer.
• Ms. Exposition: Diamond Tiara's talent.
• Musical Nod: As Apple Bloom mentions that two more parents can be resurrected before the clock is up, the background music changes into a brief snippet of "Pinkie's Brew".
• Must Make Amends: Fluttershy make amends to her father for all the softball plays he didn't went to watch and all the drawings that were not good enough for his fridge.
  Fluttershy: And when I say "make amends", I. Mean. DIE!
• Mythology Gag: The Smooze was a villain the 1986 movie.
• Name McAdjective: "Seed No Evil" has the ghosts Old Man McMilkshake and McMovie.
• Narcissist:
  • Along with a touch of Cloudcuckoolander, Twilight's reaction to seeing her own face (as Apple Bloom's cutie mark)?
    Twilight Spakle: Oh, who was that pretty lady?
  • Then this guy appears on Apple Bloom's flank, and she asks the same question with the same tone.
  • She also immediately decides that since Celestia put her in charge of taking care of the dragon problem, she can declare herself Princess Twilight (with this picture in the group shot).
• Never My Fault: Twilight manages to blame every mistake she makes on Spike.
• Never Say "Die": Twilight threatens to destroy Cadence in "Foaly Matripony".
• Newspeak: Princess Molestia commends Twilight's costume with "is plusgood cosplay".
• The Nicknamer:
  • Cheerilee doesn't know any of her students' names, and so calls them things like "you" and "girl with the bow".
  • Applejack tends to call people non sequiturs like "lawnmower" and "wagon wheel".
• No Fourth Wall: In "Foaly Matripony", the characters try to think of titles for the episode. They also laugh off Spike's claims of the status quo being changed. And his hopes of playing a major role in an episode.
• Noisy Robots: Sweetie Belle is almost always heard whirring whenever she moves.
• Non-Ironic Clown: Snowblind's Imaginary Friend Bonko is one of these.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Twilight maintains that her attempt to make waffles in a bounce house would've worked if not for Spike's weak grip, but Celestia forbidding Twilight to enter a bounce house ever again says otherwise.
  • Also, Twilight did something to her friends in Canterlot, if Rarity is to be believed when convincing Applejack in cooperating at Twilight's slumber party.
• Not Blood Siblings: One-sided. Twilight is very affectionate towards her adopted brother Francis Sparkle, who only sees her as a sister. The others think it's creepy. They get married. Doubles as a Running Gag. "We're not biologically related, so it's technically okay."
  • The excuse is also made fun of in that when the mane six react with discomfort to Twilight announcing that she's attracted to her brother, she drops this excuse, and initially they go "ohhhh", but then go right back to being disturbed almost immediately.
• Not His Sled: Think you know how Foaly Matripony's gonna turn out, just because you've watched the wedding episodes? Yeah, think again.
• Not in My Backyard!: Applejack's solution to the parasprite problem is to "push our ball of troubles away to the next town over; then they'll be their problem, not ours."
• No Waterproofing in the Future: Water makes Sweetie Belle "feel funny."
• Offscreen Inertia: As of "Foaly Matripony", that pony with the watering can from the first episode is still watering those flowers. According to the newspapers at the end, she's been at it for two months.
• One of the Kids: Played for tragedy.
  Pinkie Pie: I'm just a kid! I fit in!
  Twilight Sparkle: Pinkie Pie, didn't you already have a childhood?
  [beat]
  Pinkie Pie: No.
• Only Sane Mare:
  • Oddly enough, Pinkie, despite her canon personality. Her friends still insist on treating her as an evil gypsy witch. By "Cute from the Hip", she's actually learned gypsy magic from Zecora.
  • Sweetie Belle is the only one to call out other characters on their callousness, when she's not busy "contemplating the fragility of life" and declaring her love for her sister. Despite being a robot.
  • Applejack seems to be the Only Sane Mare in "Cherry Bomb", until she tells Pinkie how she planned to 'break the news gently' by letting them witness her horrible demise.
  • Cadence in "Foaly Matripony". She even lampshades this.
  • Celestia earns sanity points for being the only one besides Cadence who not only notices Twilight's darker side, but actually does something about it (for example, exiling her from Canterlot and more or less ordering her to do nothing when she's allowed back in).
• Original Character: In-Universe. The bat-winged pegasi are Molestia's OCs.
• Orphanage of Emotional Abuse: Judging from Pinkie's Orphanage songs, she was taught that she probably wouldn't ever be adopted because she was an 'ugly pink earth pony' and wasn't special enough to be loved. Her song in "Cherry Bomb" also reveals that they taught her to hide what did make her special.
  • Spoofed in "Cherry Bomb", where she switches back to the old voice during an otherwise perfectly repeated scene.
• Overly Long Gag:
  • Fluttershy recounting her Hilariously Abusive Childhood.
  • Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle's stunned blinking, to the point where they eventually start blinking with the background music. Followed immediately after by the three thinking of names for their group, to which Sweetie Belle can only think of "Cutie Mark Acquisition Program".
  • Repeated in "Neigh, Soul Sister". While listening to Spike's audition tape, Sweetie Belle's reflection in the mirror occasionally blinks out of sync with her.
  • Cherry Bomb has an extremely long train sequence of the train cars moving across the screen, with the cast noting that it was the longest train in the world.
• Painting the Medium: When Rainbow Dash holds her hooves over Pinkie's mouth as she's singing "The Gypsy Bard", the captions are faded out to match her muffled voice.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Sweetie Belle is best sentient organic life form. Hooray! Although in this case, Sweetie Belle doesn't realize she's a robot (because robots genuinely believe themselves to be real ponies), so the flimsy disguise is also fooling herself. What makes it even funnier is that despite Sweetie Belle's status a robot being ludicrously obvious (from her Machine Monotone to her computer-based vocabulary to water making her "feel funny"), there's not a single pony in all of Equestria who catches on.
• Parental Abandonment:
  • Most of Pinkie Pie's character revolves around being orphaned following her parents' untimely deaths.
  • Rarity's parents also died six years ago while on vacation. They come back via one of Pinkie's portals, and then decide to take another vacation without their daughters. And die again, if the offscreen crash sounds are any indication.
  • If Scootaloo is to be believed, Rainbow Dash is her mother, but doesn't so much as acknowledge her existence.
• Perverse Sexual Lust: "Seed No Evil" implies Applejack has one for trains.
• Pet the Dog: Rarity missed the eclipse and the attempted return of the Smooze in order to attend the Sentient Social with Sweetie Belle. Even her reasoning for doing so is a little heartwarming. "I wanted to save your soul". She cared enough for Sweetie Belle that she wanted to make sure she got through the apocalypse, when it did arrive.
• The Philosopher: Sweetie Belle.
  Sweetie Belle: One lives one's death, one dies one's life.
• Poe's Law: Jenny's "Kimi Sparkle" videos have been subjected to this, especially her Season 4 wishlist. So much so that Digibrony ended up posting a 35 minute follow-up video explaining the joke and poking fun at the Youtube commenters who didn't get it.
• Pokémon Speak: Rainbow Dash's Smurfing devolves into this in her story of how she got her cutie mark:
  Rainbow Dash: I always liked rainbows and all, but I was dashing nowhere in a dash. It wasn't until my very first dash that I rainbowed a rainbow need to dash. And rainbow! Dash rainbow dash rain dash rainbow rain dash dash!
• Police State: Presumably, all the agencies mentioned under Big Brother Is Watching are just the tip of the iceberg.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • Parodied in "The Perfect Swarm"; Pinkie Pie repeatedly tells the others exactly what she's doing and asks for help, only to get completely ignored.
  • Happens again in "Cherry Bomb". Applejack outright tells the others that she's been kidnapped, but they all think Applejack has abandoned them and found new friends.
    Applejack: Wait, are you even listening to what I'm saying?
    [Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy all shake their heads]
• Product Placement:
  • Parodied. The credits ask viewers to "Please buy lots of toys" out of gratitude to Hasbro, Dole's goodwill is won back with flattering comments about its CEO, and the conductor of the Friendship Express openly advertises it Cheat Commandos-style.
  • "Foaly Matripony" has an advertisement for Socker Boppers in it (most likely as a reference to the Gak incidents).
• Prophetic Name: From "Cute From The Hip":
  Applejack: We didn't name ya Apple Bloom so you could grow up to be the president.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Rarity starts doing this several times in "Read It And Sleep", only to keep getting interrupted before she can finish.
• Putting on the Reich: "Princess Celestia put me in charge, so from now on you must refer to me as Princess Sparkle. And you all have to salute me like this."
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: Subverted. Twilight thinks she's a good guy because of her Karma Houdini status, but it clearly Crosses the Line Twice.
• Pun: Twilight Sparkle tries numerous puns for the name of her book fort for Princess Celestia.
• Pungeon Master:
  • Mayor Mare drops some incredibly lame puns in "Lunar Slander" and "Cherry Bomb".
  • Whiplash makes a good number of bomb-related puns in the little screentime she had.
• Rail Enthusiast: "Seed No Evil" shows Applejack really, really likes trains.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: When Sweetie Belle declares Applejack is her new sister, she displays these.
• Religion of Evil: Rarity is in a cult led by Fluttershy. They worship "Lord Smooze", a monster from the G1 movie. Oh, and they attempted to summon him during a solar eclipse with the intention of ending the world.
• Ridiculously Equine Robots: Cheerilee starts Episode 4 by giving a lecture about the dangers of robots, who are indistinguishable from, and believe they are, actual ponies. Then Sweetie Belle appears and starts talking in Robo Speak and nopony bats an eye.
• Rhymes on a Dime:
  • Subverted with Zecora, who is introduced as "the whimsical rhyming zebra" and proceeds to screw up her first chance:
  Zecora: Gather, kids, and form a circle
  And listen as I...um...uh...'circle'...um...
  ...Hey, kids, who wants to follow me to the creepy statue?
  • She later botches what should be an easy rhyme while trying to console the children over the cancellation of Molest Fest as well:
    Cheer up, kiddo, don't be sad.
    This night didn't turn out so...s-sad.
    Just listen to what I've sa-ai-ad
    And then you won't feel so sad!
• Robo Speak: Sweetie Belle at times drops into stilted speech. Even when she's talking about heartfelt emotions or life and death, it still sounds heavily synthesized.
• Robot Filly:
  • Unknowingly, Sweetie Belle. It's a hilariously Paper-Thin Disguise.
  • Sweetie Belle would occasionally accuse Rarity of being a robot.
    Rarity: If I were a robot, could I do this◊?
• Running Gag:
  • "Talk about eye candy..."
    • Subverted when Newt tells Twilight about losing his eye, and craving candy ever since. "Talk about holiday spirit!"
    • Newt's lost eye comes back in Cherry Bomb, when AJ must "Pippington Promise" by covering her eye (Newt's full name is Newt Pippington Britishhooves).
  • Twilight constantly checks up on Bon Bon, who casually waters the flowers... even when the parasprites start eating the town.
    • In "Foaly Matripony", one of the newspaper articles reads "Pony waters flowers for two months straight".
  • Each time lightning flashes in "Read It and Sleep", Spike reminds us where he is.
    • Spike's off-screen cries of pain and humiliation are a series-wide running gag.
  • "Buy some apples!"
  • "Look how [adjective] I can [verb]!"
  • "Get out of my way, [noun]!"
  • Spike's weak grip.
  • "Destroy! Destroy! Destroy!"
  • The constant mentioning of "giant hats".
  • Rarity's disguise contact lenses.
  • Everyone is skinnier than Spike.
  • Someone commenting on Dash or Applejack demonstrating why they're the Element of Honesty/Loyalty gets poorly dubbed over with their Canon Element.
  • The noises Twilight makes.
    • Not just twilight, though she does it the most. Scootaloo has a particularly funny one at her introduction.
  • Applejack's constant use of rattlesnakes in her metaphors, despite the fact that they never make sense.
  • Ponies yelling randomly about either what they're doing or feeling (ie. The beginning of "Read It and Sleep").
  • "They're not biologically related, so technically it's okay."
  • On the website, there's the variations of "Twilight Sparkle learns a valuable lesson about Friendship and Magic" in the video description of every video.
  • "Seed No Evil" has Old Man McX, who helps fillies in need. Each mention of him is accompanied by a pun on "Bad Seed" (i.e. Old Man McMovie provides free movies to children - "which is good, since the torrent had a bad seed").
  • (Blank Stare). For example, the page image.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Sweetie Belle's "Gasp!" in "Neigh, Soul Sister".
• Secret Test: Dragonshy attempts to justify his actions by claiming this was the point of everything he did. Doesn't take.
• Self-Deprecation:
  • During the ending of Foaly Matripony, one of the newspapers says "Spinning Newspaper Narrative Copout: FiW writers confirm".
  • "Celestia's Standalone Adventure" has a lot of this, right down to lampshading the overuse of Losing Horns and Celestia insisting that she killed whoever was doing them.
• Self-Made Orphan: Dragonshy had it coming.
• Self-Serving Memory: In "The Perfect Swarm", Twilight Sparkle's recollection of the scene with Spike from the beginning of the episode.
  Spike: I'm too dumb and fat! And your blueprint's just a great sketch and a clever pun!
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Rarity and Applejack did some dubious things during a previous war.
  Applejack: Sometimes I just stare into the flames and think about how small we all are...
• Shipper on Deck: Quite literally: Twilight Sparkle has written a 70 chapter ship-fic involving "Applesack" and "Charity".
• Show Within a Show: In "Seed No Evil", "Snowblind".
• The Silent Bob: Raincloud is somehow able to carry on a conversation with Rainbow Dash, in spite of being completely silent and expressionless.
• Smurfing: Rainbow Dash does this with "rainbow" and "dash".
• Sound-Effect Bleep:
  • Played straight in Episode 1. Starting in Episode 4, it's replaced with a sound clip of Apple Bloom saying 'Buy some apples!' with an apple and a "censored" bar covering the offending muzzle.
  • Parodied in "Lunar Slander", where due to a cease and desist letter prohibiting any depiction or mention of apples, the apple image over the muzzle and Applejack's Cutie Mark is blurred and the sound clip of "Buy some apples!" is censored accordingly. "Cherry Bomb" returns to using a standard bleep, claiming that Dole owns a trademark on "Buy some apples."
    • Not only that, but the censor bar contains a personal for David H. Murdock.
  • Continues in "Seed No Evil", showing up in a movie called "Snowblind", when the titular character swears near the end.
    Colt: Stars? You can't make stars! It doesn't even look like one.
    Snowblind: That's because I'm blind, you jack-BLEEP-!
• Source Music: Molestia's entrance is accompanied with "Gotta Go Fast" playing on her iPod.
• Speak of the Devil: Wishing for Twinkle's aid causes him to contact you.
• Spinning Paper: Provides exposition at the end of "Foaly Matripony". Includes a lot of callbacks in the side articles, and even a lampshade hanging:
  Spinning Newspaper Narrative Copout, FiW Writers Confirm.
• Spoof Aesop:
  • Twilight concludes that it doesn't matter how far you slide, as long as you look cool doing it, but Sweetie Belle states that the only thing that matters is how far you can slide. YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS, PEOPLE!!!
  • The aesop of "Foaly Matripony". Throwing a fit will get you exactly what you want (especially if you kidnap, incarcerate or vaporise the competition).
• Spy Speak: "Tell Big Macintosh the eagle has landed in the pond, and there's a bomb strapped to the eagle."
• Status Quo Is God: Not particularly. Most episodes have massive amounts of continuity. But along comes "Foaly Matripony", where Spike wonders how this will affect the status quo. Everypony else just laughs.
• Stealth Insult: Done incredibly subtly with Applejack and Rarity in Episode 2.
  Applejack: Dance on that table. Should come natural to ya.
• Stealth Pun:
  • Rarity's sleep song — based on "Art of the Dress", itself a parody of the song "Putting It Together" — prompts Applejack to remark that she doesn't "care much for covers".
  • "Your talent is wiggling—" [Silver Spoon wiggles her butt] "—my talent is exposition; both of our talents have to do with plot!"
    • "What an interesting plot, Twist!"
  • In "The Perfect Swarm", Celestia exclaims "I'm sorry to have to put you through so much tribble."
  • "The eldest came to be known as Celestia^note  pronounced Suh-lestia, because she raised the sun each day. Her younger sister, who used her powers to raise the moon, was called Molestia."
  • "...I'd have to say that this was the most touching Molest Fest yet!"
  • In the song "Pinkie's Brew", she sings "I'll cook up a solution with the knowledge I've accrued," which could be talking about her attempt to fix things or the brew itself (the word "solution" can refer to a type of mixture).
  • In "Foaly Matripony", at the end of the scene where Applejack presents Cadence with the bag of apple snacks, Cadence still tosses the bag into a trash can, but it's now labeled "Charity Food Drive". She gives an "apple sack" to "charity".
• Stepford Smiler:
  • Pinkie. Oh, dear God, Pinkie. She learned to pretend to be happy while growing up in an orphanage, and her skills are listed as baking, smiling, and facades.
  • And Rarity. Poor, shell-shocked Rarity.
    Sweetie Belle: Well at least I don't spend every Veterans Day sobbing on the floor!
• Straw Fan: Twilight Sparkle and Princess Molestia/Luna are caricatures of anime and related media fans. Twilight Sparkle is a scatterbrained Japanophile with a viciously manipulative streak, while Molestia/Luna is a naive socially awkward weirdo. Both are into cosplay, writing fanfiction, Gaia Online, and DeviantArt.
• Subverted Punchline: The first episode has the phrase "Talk about eye candy!" as an unexplained running gag, usually in response to some mild Eye Scream scenes. A few episodes later, a character shows up in an eye-patch:
  Newt Pippington Britishhooves: Ever since I lost my eye, I've been craving nothing but candy!
  Twilight: Talk about holiday spirit!
• Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion:
  • There isn't a lot of actual rhyming in "Sweetie's Big Race", but two parts have clearly subverted rhymes:
  The race has begun
  We must run fast
  Jump over the mud
  Having a good time
  • Also this part.
    Making tacky jelly
    Put it on your head
    We're gonna win the race
    Because I am a good racer!
  • The first line of her earlier song might also qualify, depending on where she was going with it:
    Just because you feel upset
    Does not mean you have to yell...
• Suspiciously Similar Song: In-universe. Pinkie's Parasprite Polka song is replaced by a polka version of Rebecca Black's "Friday".
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The Derpy scene is set up as normal, but is revealed to be Raincloud. Her "lines" are supposedly the same as Derpy's would be judging by Rainbow Dash's reaction.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial:
  • While teasing Apple Bloom, Silver Spoon abruptly insists "Diamond Tiara would never fall in love with someone as clumsy as you!"
  • Subverted in "Foaly Matrimony". Princess Cadence Notevil Goodpony's name is a little suspect. She's actually a world peace activist, gives to charity, and, most importantly, the Only Sane Man. Shame about that...
• Take That!:
  • The other students Twilight murdered are from the reviled fan project Dusk's Dawn.
  • "It's important to demonstrate to kids that both blacks and whites can be subservient to our white demi-god." Take that, Kathleen Richter!
  • "Seed No Evil" has one towards My Little Pony: Equestria Girls, as it was All Just a Dream in this universe:
    Apple Bloom: Thank goodness I woke up from that horrible nightmare!
  • And then they took on the film anyway, devoting one song entirely to Twilight insisting that ordinary high school life is far more interesting and worthy of a feature film than what typically goes on in Equestria.
  • "Seed No Evil" satirized Snowdrop (2013)'s glurginess to high heavens and beyond.
  Random colt: I wish this was endearing, but it's not.
• Ten Little Murder Victims: Played with in episode 10, where Twilight sets up a murder mystery at the Grand Galloping Gala, taking Phlebotinum Pills afterward to wipe her memories of the event and give herself the chance to solve her own handiwork.
• Theme Tune: Nearly every episode has background music specifically based around the song performed that episode.
• This Loser Is You: Twilight appears to be a fairly lighthearted jab at the fandom, with her obssessive shipping and manipulation of characters, general nerdiness and otakudom, and ambiguous disorder. Her totally-not-creepy incest song is even made using popular fan art forms, including "pointy ponies" and kinetic typography.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: As of Episode 6, Pinkie's parents have come back.
• Too Dumb to Live: The characters are never particularly bright, but "Cherry Bomb" takes it to new levels. The entire town utterly fails to understand Applejack's clearly-worded letter, and the rest of the Mane Six completely miss Applejack's blatant hints to help her escape from Whiplash's ranch.
• Total Eclipse of the Plot: The intent was for Rarity and Fluttershy to awaken Smooze during the eclipse and end the world, but Rarity misses it to attend the Sentient Social instead.
• Trust-Building Blunder: In "Cherry Bomb", Pinkie says that she'll have to "do lots of trust exercises" to get over Applejack leaving. She then throws herself onto Rarity, shouting "Catch me!" Rarity fails to catch her.
• 2-for-1 Show: "Seed No Evil" interrupts the main story to present a parody of Snowdrop (2013).
• Unresolved Sexual Tension:
  • One-sided, from Silver Spoon to Diamond Tiara to Apple Bloom.
  • And again, one-sided from Twilight to Francis.
• Unsound Effect: Used repeatedly along with Saying Sound Effects Out Loud in the Cold Open of "Read It And Sleep".
• Vampires Are Sex Gods: Invoked.
  Princess Molestia: [spits out false fangs] I do not see how these scary teeth will make me MORE sexy.
  Twilight Sparkle: Because... vampire!
• Victory Is Boring: Twilight, after achieving her dreams of becoming a princess and an alicorn by Horse Women, undergoes a crisis of faith. She wonders "now that I've fulfilled every teenage pony fantasy, what more can I possibly take by force?"
• Villainous Incest: Well, if it follows that Twilight's the Big Bad, then this counts.
• Villain Protagonist: Twilight Sparkle as of "Foaly Matripony".
• Villain Song:
  • Played with - "Princess of the Night" was written to sound like a Disney villain song, but the role of the manipulative "villain" in this situation is filled by Twilight.
  • And then there is "It'll Be OK."
• Voice of the Legion: Twinkle from "Snowblind" has this.
• What Measure Is a Non-Super?: Pinkie Pie was never adopted due to not being a pegasus or unicorn.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: Molestia. She sounds not entirely unlike Tommy Wiseau.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Fluttershy. Based on what little information is given about her childhood, if you peeled away the layers of Antichrist, you'd find a profoundly damaged young woman. Assuming she's telling the truth, that is.
• Would Hurt a Child: If Rarity's account of the war is honest, Applejack.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Diamond Tiara believes that since her talent is exposition, she and Silver Spoon must be the main characters.
• You Are Number Eight: Whiplash calls Applejack this.
• You Can't Fight Fate: Everyone fully expects Apple Bloom's cutie mark to be apple-related, even after Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle rant how they could have any cutie mark they wanted.
• Your Answer to Everything: "C'mon, DT, let's wrestle!"
• Yuri Fangirl: Twilight Sparkle has an unhealthy interest in shipping Rarity and Applejack.

---