I didn't find the solution of "stopping the feud so innocent bystanders don't get hurt" that believable. Both sides didn't really seem to care about neutral parties based on how they seem to initially react to outsiders like Twilight and Fluttershy, and then continually ignoring what they were saying and purposely misinterpreting things in order to continue the fighting. I found it pretty unconvincing they were moved by the plight of the cute animals, when they never seemed to care beforehand.

What I expected the solution would be (which I think would have fit much better) was that they both needed something from the other. One side needed food which the other side could provide, and in return for the food they would get help building shelters. They could either work together and prosper together, or continue the feud and both fail and suffer. This would have been a more believable solution, and a more mature lesson.....peace through small initial steps leading to co-dependence and then friendship. After all, IRL history, trade did stop people from warring with each other.

For the lazy:

"Pie siblings, oldest to youngest: Limestone, Maud, Pinkie, Marble"

I thought Maud was the oldest since she's the most mature.....but I guess Limestone could make sense too, oldest gets stuck running the farm which allows Maud to go off to school. With all the weight and pressure on her shoulders, Limestone is full of frustration and aggressiveness.

IDK, does anybody have or know of families where the eldest sibling is aggressive as such?

I thought it was pretty good. I really liked the characterization of the individual Pie family members....Maud's still my favorite though, she's so awesome.

I kind of thought it was weird that the Pie Parents slept in separate beds....I was wondering if it was a prudish thing like how I heard in the Flintstones they slept in separate beds because it was too risque for the audience during that time to be shown the same bed. However then I figured the Pie family might have all shuffled to different beds to accommodate the Apple Family, which is likely since the four Pie siblings were in the same bed, and given Pinkie & Maud (off to schooling) don't live there anymore. Anyways, just a stray thought I figure I'd share.

Great episode, only disappointment was it was shown now just before Halloween instead of during Christmas.

I got the feeling that Spike and Twilight were in the episode to show that even in the same cultural society of Ponyville/Canterlot, that there are those who practice their own traditions that aren't exact conforming to strict tradition (they open their presents on Hearthswarming Eve), and that it's okay. Without that scene, it might make it seem like everybody in Ponyville does it the exact same way and that the Pie family are the odd ones.....with that scene, it shows it's not really a dichotomy of one way or another, but rather a spectrum.

This question was stuck in my head for awhile, and while rewatching the episode today I thought of a theory....

I think it's foreshadowing, that Pegasus is going to be mentored by Fluttershy. In the picture every other Mane Six has somebody younger they're kind of mentoring beside them:

Twilight - Spike
Apple Jack - Applebloom
Rainbow Dash - Scootaloo
Rarity - Sweetiebell
Pinkie Pie - Button Mash? (Seems to be a logical pairing)

And the rest of the kids are next to Cheerilee. I think it's going to be like the pets, how all the Mane 6 had to have pets.....now all the Mane 6 has to have somebody they're mentoring. It makes sense to me, as it's a natural progression of the Mane 6 getting older and wiser, and now mentoring/parenting (I doubt they'd ever show the Mane 6 having kids of their own to raise, this is a good way around it).

Was that a UPS delivery uniform Derpy was wearing? I think it was.

It's awesome how they added little things as this, like AJ referencing their parents are not there anymore. It makes me wonder if the two Bon Bons was not a mistake either (when they passed a fancy dressed Bon Bon during the DT chase and then a regular Bon Bon almost immediately afterwards)....perhaps something to do with Bon Bon's secret identity thing? As in she stole the identity of another Pony or something?

I think the issue is Rarity's OCD for having to HAVE TO PERSONALLY make every dress herself.....it works out fine if every dress is different because that's what she enjoys, but having to make so many exactly the same is miserable for her. But that's her own fault because she wouldn't ask the other Mane Six to help as the manager pony questioned at the beginning, and even near the end the manager pony had a solution for mass production which would get Rarity out of the drudgery of sewing all the same dresses....but Rarity freaked out.

I think most of the problems was caused by Rarity herself but it wasn't highlighted very well in the episode, instead they seem to pin most of the blame on the manager pony and tried to make her seem like a bad guy. While the manager pony did make some questionable mistakes (?) while trying to make the business successful, it seems like Rarity was more responsible for the issues.

I thought the episode was alright, but it had the potential to be awesome. It had really good concepts, elements, and jokes, but it seemed to be lacking in execution.

What didn't work for me was the "Luna exposition" where she knew what was going on and telling everypony not to help her, and then actually revealing that she purposely made the Tantabus to punish herself. I felt it would have worked much better if Luna didn't know what was going on, and the ponies figuring out it's odd that she wouldn't let anypony help her deal with the problem which originated from her dream. It could have been revealed like in the Bloom & Gloom episode that the Tantabus was actually Luna's growing guilt at the end trying to torment and consume her. They could have even had the Cutie Mark Crusaders convince Luna to let everypony else try to help her since Luna has help the three of them before with their dreams, and that everypony trying to help her shows they've moved on from the Nightmare Moon incident which allows Luna to forgive herself....instead of the "just trust us" plea.

The other thing that bothered me is they kept saying how the Tantabus would escape into the real world and cause destruction. I'm sure that's there to try to give some weight to the threat, but it seemed unnecessary and a trope overused. I felt it would have sufficed if the threat of the Tantabus was only that it was going to give everypony horrible dreams every night that they would suffer from. Luna's increasing guilt would have been how everypony was suffering because of her and how she feared they would come to hate/blame her again. That and how she could not stand the thought that her dreams are now happy while everybody else suffered, and felt that only she should burden the punishment.

The last thing is that the dreams for each pony wasn't really tailored to each pony to be horrible other than for Rainbow Dash with the annoyingly cute flowers. Dresses attacking Rarity, Cakes attacking Pinkie, Books attacking Twilight, Apple Trees shriving up, monster Angel bunny....not THAT scary to each pony. Now if the Tantabus made the hot fashion some atrociously looking dresses, a sugar shortage, irreplaceable books being destroyed, apple trees going extinct, cute animals growing up to be evil monsters.....that would have been more believable to be terrifying to the mane six than just stuff attack them.

Anyways, that's just my thoughts. If the episode was awesome enough for you, that's great.....I just felt it could have been better than just alright for me. I'm not complaining too much, this season has had some pretty awesome episodes.

Wouldn't it have been neat if the Tantibus revealed or changed into a horribly mutated form of Celestia when it turned out to be feeding off of Luna's guilt.....then the real Celestia shows up in the dream (since she IS probably sleeping and dreaming during all this), and gets Luna to forgive herself.

I understood Moon Dancer's whole nervous breakdown rant about "value", that she felt she didn't hold any value to others. It goes along with a lack of confidence issue, that those who are unconfident usually undervalues themselves and feel worthless. This would explain why she gave up with throwing a parties and making friends so easily, since unconfident people tend to give up too quickly with something they're not familiar with, out of frustration and being too self-critical. It also explains why she kept turning down invites from Colgate and the others afterwards; she was too embarrassed and sacred of possible judgement/humiliation from them if she hung out with them.....so it was easier to avoid potential awkwardness and/or pain by just turning them down and avoiding the others. Moon Dancer could very well be introverted by nature and circumstance.