Back to ponies next time.

Happy kind of 10th birthday to FiM's extended theme!

Friendship is Magic extended theme

Fancy leaving the real world for a bit? Thought so; me too. Off we go to Equestria again, then. Now of course this full, two-minute version of the FiM theme song existed before February 2012. Perhaps a long time before, I don't know. But as far as I'm aware it was only then that it was heard by the public. It seems that the Friendship Express DVD (yes, the one that famously contains the "uncensored" version of "The Last Roundup") was accidentally distributed early by some branches of Kmart. This singalong extended theme is also present on my UK-spec Season 1 DVD. It's a nice extension, sung well as you'd expect from Rebecca Shoichet and allowing each of the Mane Six at least a short moment in the sun. There are some nice lines in here, such as "what a wonderful wonder friendship brings" – this fits more naturally into the rhythm of its music than some of the less successful Pony songs do. We'll make it special every time, indeed.

The other reason for the "kind of" in my title? The news about this version was actually posted to EqD on 25th February 2012 – but late at night, so here in good old Blighty it was already the 26th. And since this is a British blog, dammit, the 26th is when this is going up!

Happy 10th, "The Moon Rises"!

ponyphonic – The Moon Rises

 

It's probably fair to say that ponyphonic is one of the most consistently reliable MLP songsmiths. "The Moon Rises" is one of his best and most enduring classics, and it went up on YouTube ten years ago this very day! Sung from Luna's perspective as she approaches the fateful moment when she becomes Nightmare Moon, this is a dramatic and gripping portrait of a pony becoming increasingly bitter and angry at not receiving what she perceives as her due in terms of attention. It has a lovely piano underpinning, and though the intro using the show theme may shout, "Early-fandom song," in this case it doesn't matter. I don't find the use of male vocals for Luna too distracting either, though two extended cover versions by female singers – one sung by EileMonty and one by Kristen Calvin – have strong support as well, and unsurprisingly so. Myself, I slightly prefer ponyphonic's original, but I'll happily listen to all three versions!

My Little Repeats 107: "Made in Manehattan"

This Peanuts homage was one of the episode's few truly good jokes

S5E16: "Made in Manehattan"

12 Sep 2015

My original rating: ★★
IMDb score: 7.4

The one with the Method Mares

Thoughts: Well, that happened. Noelle Benvenuti had previously given us the entertaining "Maud Pie" – but this, her second and last FiM episode, is much less successful. It's frankly dull, really struggling to hold the attention for 22 minutes. You can see that from the length of the really rather uninteresting gardening montage. There are good things here, notably the chance to catch up with Coco again. At the time it was also quite a big deal that Applejack in fact didn't treat her hat as a desperately valuable family heirloom. Plus we could note that this happens at the same time as the next episode, "Brotherhooves Social". But when you have AJ and Rarity in the same episode and there's such a lack of sparky, funny team-up chemistry then you have a problem. This really feels like a five-minute short stretched out to fill a full-length ep. Lots of talking, not enough action. I really can't think of much else to say about this episode, and that tells its own story. A two, and not especially high in that band either.

Choice quote: Coco Pommel: "Oh... I don't wear boots. I find they chafe my calves when I walk."

New rating: ★★

Next up will be a departure into that strange world where the ponies walk on two legs. That's right: it will be Friendship Games rewatch time! The third EqG movie isn't the most popular, but it has its moments. Or at least it did last time I watched it...

econd after Sassy's "Everypony loves royalty!"

S5E14: "Canterlot Boutique"

12 Sep 2015

My original rating: ★★★
IMDb score: 7.9

The one with strawberry cinnamon cilantro cupcakes

Thoughts: After the first of FiM's irritating mid-season hiatuses, we did at least have the stalwart Amy Keating Rogers in the writing saddle for the show's return. It's a good episode, too, albeit perhaps the least of the run from "Amending Fences" to "Rarity Investigates!" We see Rarity in her fashion designing mode more centrally than since "Suited for Success", and personally I prefer Canterlot as the big target for her than Manehattan as happened later in the series. Sassy Saddles (voiced by Kelly Sheridan, incidentally) is a decent sidekick, albeit not one with enough sass to be truly memorable. A hint of a troubled past career ("another failed boutique"?) but she was neither unpleasant enough to be a "love to hate" pony or sympathetic enough for the redemption to really click. I still don't like the very last joke, which is a bit too close to "let's make fun of the weird-looking pony" for comfort, though it wasn't AKR's fault. A couple of the other shop customers were fun, though, especially the gothy Moonlight Raven. One small criticism of Rarity: the customer who complained her Princess Dress wasn't what she ordered was correct, yet she was portrayed almost as the bad guy for saying so. Still, overall the episode's core plot of "creative job made into a chore" was fine and appropriate. It was executed pretty well, there's a nice song by Jona Lewie and even though it's not an outstandingly memorable episode it is good. I think it's perfectly worthy of a very solid three. No change to this ep's star rating!

Choice quote: Rarity to Twilight: "In every poll Sassy Saddles took, you were the most popular princess!"

New rating: ★★★

Next up is another Rarity-centric episode, "Rarity Investigates!" – it's widely seen as an excellent ep. Certainly in 2015 I agreed with that consensus. I hope I shall have at least as much fun with it this time around!

My first G5 merch review coming soon!

Long-time readers of Louder Yay may recall that I used to review merchandise from time to time. That's fallen away almost completely in the last few years, but I'm going to do something about that very soon! At some point next week, I will be reviewing a piece of merch – and what's more, it will be G5 merch. It's not actually mine! I was kindly lent it for the review by a friend, who will of course be credited. I'm not going to give any clues as to exactly which piece of merch it is, so it'll be a surprise when the post goes up. But it will definitely appear next week!

Ponyfic Roundup 381

Read it Later story count: 96 (+1) 

What with everything going on this week (two named storms and serious flooding in my town, though not where I actually live) I've had even less time than usual to myself. That being so, for the first time in several weeks I don't have any fics with a five-figure word count on this occasion. However, I have still managed to get four stories read and reviewed, so off we go!

Lovey Dovey and the Business Pony by Crystal Wishes
Dragonsat by Cold Spike
Chrysalis Still Works at Quills and Sofas by Majin Syeekoh
Let's Make a Story by Heroic412227

★: 1 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I find average scores two stars.

Happy 10th, "Friendship"!

Aviators – Friendship

Today marks exactly ten years since one of the fandom's most enduring songs was uploaded to YouTube. Aviators may have long since moved on from his days of making MLP tracks, but "Friendship" remains a classic and probably always will. The song tells the story of a future where there are stresses between friends like the members of the Mane Six, though as Aviators notes it's not about anypony specific. In essence, it's saying that friendship can be tough, but that it's also worth fighting for. The song itself has the classic Aviators synths, as well as his own perfectly poppy voice. I've embedded the YouTube version for convenience, but I do feel it sounds just slightly muddy, so you may prefer to listen to the remastered Bandcamp version.

One final note: four years later, Aviators referred back to this track in his song "Meet You at the End". See if you can spot the reference when it arrives. It's not hard!

Some initial G5 thoughts

There's another storm (Franklin) causing problems now, so once again I don't have very much time. But I'll add some relatively brief thoughts about the G5 announcements after the page break. Spoilers beyond this point.

Will write thoughts on some of the G5 news over the next few days

I would probably have put at least something up today, but frankly I'm more concerned right now about Storm Eunice. For those of you who don't live in these parts, as I write this (Thursday evening) the storm looks like being one of the worst for the southern UK – and also parts of Ireland and NW mainland Europe – in some years. Apologies for breaking the escapist immersion around here! Still, I have ponyfic to read, so it can't be all bad, right? :P

My Little Repeats 106: "Rarity Investigates!"

This episode has some of the best lighting effects in the whole series

S5E15: "Rarity Investigates!"

12 Sep 2015

My original rating: ★★★★
IMDb score: 8.5

The one with chocolate cherry cake with custard filling and buttercream frosting rosettes

Thoughts: This episode is such a lot of fun. The thing most people remember is the film noir-style black-and-white sections, which are wonderfully done with exactly the right musical accompaniment. (I like the closing credits music, too. They even refrained from adding the DHX and Hasbro jingles at the end!) Rarity makes a great Shadow Spade, even when she's commenting on décor. It's a really atmospheric ep all round, laced with humour but not so much that it overwhelms the mystery. Well, I say "mystery" but really there isn't much: it's obvious from the word go that Wind Rider is the culprit. A shame too that the Wonderbolts jump to conclusions so fast about Rainbow Dash's guilt, and that only some of the clues are spottable by the viewer first time around. Oh well, at least the way the story flows (and it does) allows Dash and Rarity to have some excellent, sparky scenes together. I wish the series had given them more interactions of this quality later in the series, but hay ho. Despite my little niggles, this is a polished and – fittingly for a Rarity-heavy story – immensely stylish episode which shows S5 at its best. Not quite a five-star episode, but still worthy of a pretty high four, and that's nothing to sneeze at.

Choice quote: Rarity: "That's the polite but disingenuous laugh you make when you want to seem happy but really you're not."

New rating: ★★★★

Next up is "Made in Manehattan", an episode about which I can remember almost nothing. This is not a good sign for an Applejack'n'Rarity ep, but maybe it will improve in the rewatching. Maybe.

econd after Sassy's "Everypony loves royalty!"

S5E14: "Canterlot Boutique"

12 Sep 2015

My original rating: ★★★
IMDb score: 7.9

The one with strawberry cinnamon cilantro cupcakes

Thoughts: After the first of FiM's irritating mid-season hiatuses, we did at least have the stalwart Amy Keating Rogers in the writing saddle for the show's return. It's a good episode, too, albeit perhaps the least of the run from "Amending Fences" to "Rarity Investigates!" We see Rarity in her fashion designing mode more centrally than since "Suited for Success", and personally I prefer Canterlot as the big target for her than Manehattan as happened later in the series. Sassy Saddles (voiced by Kelly Sheridan, incidentally) is a decent sidekick, albeit not one with enough sass to be truly memorable. A hint of a troubled past career ("another failed boutique"?) but she was neither unpleasant enough to be a "love to hate" pony or sympathetic enough for the redemption to really click. I still don't like the very last joke, which is a bit too close to "let's make fun of the weird-looking pony" for comfort, though it wasn't AKR's fault. A couple of the other shop customers were fun, though, especially the gothy Moonlight Raven. One small criticism of Rarity: the customer who complained her Princess Dress wasn't what she ordered was correct, yet she was portrayed almost as the bad guy for saying so. Still, overall the episode's core plot of "creative job made into a chore" was fine and appropriate. It was executed pretty well, there's a nice song by Jona Lewie and even though it's not an outstandingly memorable episode it is good. I think it's perfectly worthy of a very solid three. No change to this ep's star rating!

Choice quote: Rarity to Twilight: "In every poll Sassy Saddles took, you were the most popular princess!"

New rating: ★★★

Next up is another Rarity-centric episode, "Rarity Investigates!" – it's widely seen as an excellent ep. Certainly in 2015 I agreed with that consensus. I hope I shall have at least as much fun with it this time around!

Ponyfic Roundup 380: FOME Recommends edition

Read it Later story count: 95 (-1) 

Well, sort of. On 4th February, in the wake of the announcement that the Royal Canterlot Library was formally shutting up shop, FanOfMostEverything made this blog post. This listed five fics which FOME didn't get around to bringing up with his fellow RCL curators. One of them is 33k words long, so that will have to wait for a future PR. (I do intend to get to it eventually.) The other four, however, are reviewed here today, and they add up to a pretty decent week.

Heartless by Silent Whisper
The Mare in White by RockstarRaccoon
A Tale That Wasn't Right by Equimorto
Cutie Marks Under the Knife: A Special Report by Mica

★: 0 | ★★: 0 | ★★★: 3 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I find average scores two stars.

In which Logan finally remembers to promote FF150

"FF150? You what?" I hear you cry. That's probably because I've been pathetic at actually remembering to mention it here. FF150 is short for Flashfic 150, a low-key monthly no-prize contest for 150-word stories. Each month there's a new prompt, then everyone has three weeks to submit one qualifying entry in that month's contest thread. The most important rules are that the fic must be no more than 150 words long, G4-only (no Crossovers or other gens) and not Mature-rated.

After the three weeks are up, the resident judge (that would be me) takes a few days to consider the flashfics submitted. During this time, everyone else is welcome to submit feedback about the other entries. Then I announce a winner (and perhaps an honourable mention as well if the entry count is high enough). That person can pick the prompt for the following month's contest – but they can't win, as you can't win if you are the reigning holder and so picked the prompt.

Since each contest starts on the 1st of the month, there is one week remaining to enter the current event. The prompt is "Bureaucracy". The only entry criteria are that you will need to have a Fimfiction account and be a member of the Flashfic group. Despite a few wobbles when it looked as though things might be winding down, FF150 is still going after almost five years. I'm really pleased about that, and I'd also be really pleased to welcome any new flashficcers!

The Cloptimist calls it a day

Edit: As The Cloptimist clarifies in the comments here, he is calling it a day with Fimfiction specifically, not the fandom as a whole.

This came completely out of the blue to me, though maybe others who actually notice things realised it was coming. Or not; who knows? But anyway, The Cloptimist has posted that he's "done with Fimfiction" – although he is leaving his stories up. I'm very grateful for that latter decision, as TC has given us all some very good stuff in the brief time (three years) he's been on Fimfiction. It's been good to have someone joining the ponyfic game so late who can write so well.

TC's goodbye post itself is terse, but there's a small addition in this comment. It's not for me to comment on the reasons as they're not my business. All I will say to the guy is that if you happen to be reading this post at any point, I hope most sincerely that you find more happiness in wherever you go next. If your path ever leads you back this way, then the door here will always be open. If not, then you have my good wishes and it's a case of so long, and thanks for all the fics.

My Little Repeats 105: "Canterlot Boutique"

Twilight lets her regal smile slip for one second after Sassy's "Everypony loves royalty!"

S5E14: "Canterlot Boutique"

12 Sep 2015

My original rating: ★★★
IMDb score: 7.9

The one with strawberry cinnamon cilantro cupcakes

Thoughts: After the first of FiM's irritating mid-season hiatuses, we did at least have the stalwart Amy Keating Rogers in the writing saddle for the show's return. It's a good episode, too, albeit perhaps the least of the run from "Amending Fences" to "Rarity Investigates!" We see Rarity in her fashion designing mode more centrally than since "Suited for Success", and personally I prefer Canterlot as the big target for her than Manehattan as happened later in the series. Sassy Saddles (voiced by Kelly Sheridan, incidentally) is a decent sidekick, albeit not one with enough sass to be truly memorable. A hint of a troubled past career ("another failed boutique"?) but she was neither unpleasant enough to be a "love to hate" pony or sympathetic enough for the redemption to really click. I still don't like the very last joke, which is a bit too close to "let's make fun of the weird-looking pony" for comfort, though it wasn't AKR's fault. A couple of the other shop customers were fun, though, especially the gothy Moonlight Raven. One small criticism of Rarity: the customer who complained her Princess Dress wasn't what she ordered was correct, yet she was portrayed almost as the bad guy for saying so. Still, overall the episode's core plot of "creative job made into a chore" was fine and appropriate. It was executed pretty well, there's a nice song by Jona Lewie and even though it's not an outstandingly memorable episode it is good. I think it's perfectly worthy of a very solid three. No change to this ep's star rating!

Choice quote: Rarity to Twilight: "In every poll Sassy Saddles took, you were the most popular princess!"

New rating: ★★★

Next up is another Rarity-centric episode, "Rarity Investigates!" – it's widely seen as an excellent ep. Certainly in 2015 I agreed with that consensus. I hope I shall have at least as much fun with it this time around!

Ponyfic Roundup 379

Read it Later story count: 96 (+2) 

I think I've pretty much settled into the four-review groove now, though of course it's tempting fate to say that! Don't be surprised if next week something horrible happens and I have to change the number, can the reviews entirely, replace PR with a long treatise on the cultural impact of G2 toys on the Spanish market, you name it. Still, four today at any rate, to wit:

Roll for Initiative by Prak
Orange Shade of Hay by Mochas Dungeon
Swirl of Chaos by Bunker Buster
The Ocean by Bad_Seed_72

★: 1 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I find average scores two stars.

Where will Friendship Games fit in?

I'm here talking about its position in the My Little Repeats series. With the first two Equestria Girls films there was no such problem, as they appeared during the gaps between Friendship is Magic seasons. However, Friendship Games did not. That means I have to decide where to slot it in between FiW rewatches. That in turn means I have to decide what I'm going to use as its release date, and that is quite an interesting question!

For convenience I'll use the movie's IMDb releases page. Friendship Games was first shown at the Angelika Film Center on 17th September 2015. Its wider premiere was 26th September, with the US DVD appearing on 13th October. On this side of the Atlantic, Friendship Games was the last EqG film to have a cinema release, and its first day was 23rd October. I saw it myself the following day, and the British DVD appeared on 2nd November.

I think I'm going to disregard the Angelika premiere and use 26th September as my date. My problems don't stop there, however. The 26th was also the release date for a show episode, "Made in Manehattan", and I'm not keen on putting up two rewatches at the same time. I'm going to give the show episode first dibs, since after all Friendship is Magic is the senior series and the one more people tend to be interested in.

So where does that leave me? As far as My Little Reviews is concerned, the series will proceed normally up to and including "Made in Manehattan" (S5E16) and I'll write about Friendship Games after that. Once that's done, I'll go back to FiM and review S517, "Brotherhooves Social". I think that's sorted now. Phew!

My Little Repeats 104: "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?"

Competition to succeed Daniel Ingram was fierce

S5E13: "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?"

11 Jul 2015

My original rating: ★★★★
IMDb score: 8.7

The one with Princess Big Mac

Thoughts: "Amending Fences" was a hard act to follow, but this episode – the last before a two-month hiatus – managed to hold up well in the eyes of the fandom, and it's still remembered fondly by many. It's certainly got a lot of interest, centred of course on Luna's guilt and the monster that has resulted: the Tantabus. This provides both some quite serious threat and the main emotional pull of the episode, and it generally does it rather well. On the other hoof, the animators also get to run wild in the dream sequences, with everything from literal LyraBon to Buff Spike riding Giant Derpy into battle to the singing flowers that quite understandably creep Rainbow Dash out. And, of course, that Sailor Mac sequence, which at the time led to so much fanart. Strangely enough, the brief return of Rainbow Power didn't. Funny, that. ;) There does remain one other nagging problem, that Luna could have explained to the Manes much earlier where the Tantabus came from – but I can process that as it being Luna's guilt itself that doesn't let her do so until she's convinced of how much the ponies believe in her now. The big deal here is that Luna gets more depth, and this show is often at its strongest when the focus is on character. This one can keep its four-star rating from 2015.

Choice quote: Twilight: "You can leave out the yawns."

New rating: ★★★★

Next up is "Canterlot Boutique", an episode which I originally felt was generally enjoyable but had a few too many rough edges. We'll see if the passage of time has smoothed them.

Two fond farewells

There's something of an "end of an era" feeling about Fimfiction at the moment. Very recently we've seen Seattle's Angels announce their retirement and now the Royal Canterlot Library has done the same. Both groups have done sterling work over the years in promoting ponyfic, but in truth neither had been fully active for some considerable time. Nevertheless, to see two major reviewing groups officially call it a day in such a short space of time deserves some formal acknowledgement here – hence this post.

Of course, they're not the first big name reviewers to draw stumps. To pick out just one, Chris's wonderful One Man's Pony Ramblings ceased to operate all of four years ago. However, back in 2018 Friendship is Magic was still an active show, and that did make a difference, whatever you thought of its last seasons. Now, the end of both SA and the RCL might be seen by some to prefigure the end of ponyfic as we know it. I'm not that gloomy, but I think it's extremely unlikely we'll ever see stories getting tens of thousands of views again.

I have affection for both groups and am sorry to see both of them depart into the sunset for good – and, being a vain writer (is there any other kind?) I'm flattered that both chose to feature It Doesn't Matter Now. Still, it's the RCL that has the tighter hold on my heart, and not only because I feel more accomplished to have made it in there. As those who read Ponyfic Roundup may well have noticed, RCL-inducted stories have a very good hit rate when it comes to my own feelings.

The remaining large-scale reviewers of ponyfic are, I think, all individuals. Apart from yours truly, there is the inimitable Present Perfect and the remarkable PaulAsaran. I'd also like to mention TCC56, who is perhaps better classed as a recommender rather than a reviewer but who goes into a good deal of interesting detail in their blog posts. If anyone else is out there who reviews more than the occasional fic, please do let me know in the comments!

So, what happens now? Barring some miracle, we'll never see Fimfiction back to what it was in the glory days. There's still a reasonably respectable number of stories coming out, though, and not all of them are clop. The G5 film has provided a modest boost, and hopefully its series will do something similar. But there are still a lot of ponyfics out there that I haven't read. I can't say when I'll choose to end Ponyfic Roundup – but I can say that I don't currently expect that to be soon.

Thanks for the ride, SA and RCL. It's been a lot of fun. As I said in a blog comment elsewhere: the horse will be with you, always.

Ponyfic Roundup 378

Read it Later story count: 94 (-2) 

Today is Candlemas, which gives some hope that this nothing of a winter (almost no snow, mostly just grey murk) will give way to spring quite soon. I suppose it's also Groundhog Day for some, but since we don't have groundhogs here but we do have candles, Candlemas it is! Anyway, four stories as is now the norm. They are:

The Day You Were Born by MintyJoy
The Heart of the Matter by Aorts Commander
Once in a Rainbow Moon by Pineta
Protective by SomeGenericPonyNameHere

★: 1 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I find average scores two stars.