Look Before You Sleep

Look Before You Sleep is the eighth episode of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, season one. In this episode, Twilight Sparkle invites Applejack and Rarity to her house for a slumber party during a thunderstorm, but Applejack and Rarity aren't thrilled, and oppose each other throughout the night.

Summary
Applejack and Rarity are working on taking down broken limbs from trees in Ponyville. Rarity turns one branch into some topiary, but Applejack just pulls it down, telling her that they need to concentrate on taking the branches down, not prettifying them. They get into an argument, but decide to stick together until they can find some shelter.

"Slumber 101: All you ever wanted know about slumber parties but were afraid to ask."

- Rarity reading Twilight's book

Twilight Sparkle invites them to stay at her place until the storm is over. She says she is on her own while Spike is back in Canterlot on "royal business". Twilight sees this as an opportunity to set up her first-ever slumber party, using a book about slumber parties she owns as a checklist. Rarity and Applejack are wary of the prospect of spending a night in each other's company, but the severity of the storm convinces them to give putting their differences aside a try. However, their different personalities make it difficult to get along. For instance, their ghost stories devolve into covert name-calling, they dare each other in "Truth or Dare" without including Twilight, and turn a pillow fight into a pillow war.

Their arguments continue even when the ponies try to go to bed, fighting over the blanket. At this point, Twilight Sparkle interrupts their bickering, upset that her friends are fighting too much to have any fun, hence ruining her slumber party. Just as Twilight asks if there is "anything else that can possibly go wrong", a nearby tree is hit by lightning and begins to topple towards a neighboring house. Applejack lassoes the falling tree, but instead of stabilizing, it crashes through Twilight's bedroom window instead. Rarity focuses on cleaning up the mess of books while Twilight desperately searches through her slumber party book for a section on dealing with fallen trees in the middle of the bedroom.



When Applejack fails to move the tree out on her own, she eventually convinces Rarity to instead focus on helping her with the bigger task, and not worry about getting her hooves dirty, while apologizing to her about criticizing her habit of attention to detail. Rarity uses her unicorn magic to turn the tree top into tiny bush sculptures, clearing the house at the price of getting dirt all over her; Applejack can then proceed to gently toss the broken trunk section out the window.

With the storm (and their differences) finally settled, Applejack, Rarity and Twilight are finally having fun and, in the end, Twilight Sparkle officially declares the slumber party a success. Twilight try to plan another slumber party tomorrow night but gets a pillow thrown at her.

Quotes

 * Rarity: You know, there's messy, and then there's just plain rude.
 * Applejack: You know, there's fussy, and there's just plain gettin' on my nerves.


 * Applejack: I'd like to tell ya'll the terrifying tale of the prissy ghost, who drove everypony crazy with her unnecessary neatness! OooooOOwwoOOO! I'm sure ya'll are familiar with that one?
 * Rarity: Never heard of it. But I have a much better one... It's the horrifying story of the messy inconsiderate ghost, who irritated everypony within a hundred miles! OoooooOOOwwwwOOOoo...
 * Applejack: That's not a real story. You made it up!
 * Rarity: It is a ghost story. They're all made up...


 * Rarity: You could at least say "excuse me".
 * Applejack: Oh, I was about to! But you interrupted me! ...Pardon.


 * Twilight Sparkle: Now the next item of fun we have to do is... "truth or dare"...
 * Rarity: I dare Applejack to do something carefully and neatly for a change.
 * Applejack: Oh yeah? Well, I dare Rarity to lighten up, and stop obssessin' over every... last... little... detail... For a change.
 * Rarity: I think the truth of the matter is that somepony could stand to pay a little more attention to detail.
 * Applejack: And I think the truth is somepony aught'a quit with her fussin', so the rest of us can get things done!


 * Applejack: I dare you to step outside and let your precious tidy mane get ruined again!
 * Twilight Sparkle: You have to. It's the rule...
 * Applejack: Hah!
 * Rarity: Fine!


 * Rarity: OK. I dare Applejack to play "dress-up" in a frou-frou, glittery, lacey outfit!
 * Applejack: Happy?
 * Rarity: Very...


 * Rarity: IT! IS! ON!


 * Applejack: I... ain't... budgin'!


 * Applejack: And that, my friends, is called "gettin' 'er done"...


 * Applejack: Is it... a six-legged pony with a purple polka-dotted mane and shootin' stars comin' out of his eyes?
 * Rarity: Who flies through the air all over the world to hide magic, sparkly eggs?
 * Twilight Sparkle: That's it!
 * Applejack and Rarity: It is?
 * Twilight Sparkle: No.


 * Twilight Sparkle: Dear Princess Celestia,
 * It's hard to believe that two ponies that seem to have so little in common could ever get along. But I found out that if you can embrace each other's differences, you just might be surprised to discover a way to be friends after all.
 * Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.

Gallery



 * Look Before You Sleep image gallery

Trivia

 * The title of the episode is a play on the saying look before you leap.
 * This episode has the smallest cast in season one. Four of the show's main characters–Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Spike–do not appear, and only a few background ponies appear in the opening scene.
 * The title of Twilight Sparkle's book "Slumber 101: All You've Ever Wanted to Know About Slumber Parties But Were Afraid to Ask" is a title parody of the 1972 Woody Allen film Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) and the book of the same name.
 * This episode's slumber party subplot is very similar to the SpongeBob SquarePants episode, House Party, in that both Twilight and SpongeBob try to throw parties "by the book". Twilight's party is more lenient as she only consults the book for fun ideas, whereas SpongeBob uses it to plan out every minute.
 * When Rarity and later, Applejack, read Twilight's Slumber Party book the first time, they read right to left instead of the other way around.
 * In the beginning of the episode, Daisy uses magic to pick up a tree branch, despite the fact that she is an Earth pony.
 * When they tell ghost stories to each other, Twilight Sparkle tells of the "Headless Horse", which is a play on the title of the ghost story The Headless Horseman.
 * At one point of the slumber party, they all put their hair up in curls, but once they take them out, their hair is exactly the same as before.

Die Pyjama-Party Titta innan du sover