Ponypic: Sweetie Belle, stop camping! by Dori-to

Sweetie Belle, stop camping! by Dori-to. CC by-nc-nd 3.0

Just so that no-one can say I never give Rarity any attention, here's an amusing picture by Dori-to — the artist responsible for the brilliant Run CMC shirt. Come on, Gameloft, this is what we want to see in a pony game!

Oi, EqD, get orf my land!

I see that the mighty Equestria Daily is currently running a masthead with the tagline "All the pony that's fit to print". Now, they might have six hundred billion readers every day, as opposed to this 'ere blog's three and a half, but I would remind them that my own tagline has been "Some of the pony that might possibly be fit to print" for quite some while. I was here first, mateys. :P

The New York Times? What's The New York Times?

You know those finale rumours? Well...

I'd better not say very much here, as the news constitutes a a huge spoiler for the season 3 finale – but as it's something I was already fairly sure would happen in some way, shape or form, I read it anyway. Entertainment Weekly has this quite long article about something that will without doubt cause a great deal of discussion within the fandom. Don't even hover on the link if you want to stay spoiler-free, as the URL gives a bit away. And yes, it's official: none other than Meghan McCarthy is quoted at some length talking about it. Right; that's all I'm saying for now!

Review: "Just for Sidekicks" (S3E11)

Spike — airborne without Rarity being present!

This weekend's Friendship is Magic episode was written by Corey Powell, who surprised a lot of people with her ability to turn a seemingly unpromising setup into a great story with her debut episode, "Sleepless in Ponyville". The setup for "Just for Sidekicks" also looked rather filler-ish, but could Powell make it a double and repeat her earlier triumph? As ever, join me after the jump to find out the answer!

Blind bags, blind bags, what we gonna do?

After several lengthy, waffly reviews of this and that, it's time I made a shorter, more personal post. And yes, it's about blind bags. I'd never have expected you to get that. :P Anyway, my local branch of The Range has a small pony section, and I was surprised today to discover blind bags in it for (I think) the first time. Unfortunately they're still Wave 4. So are they in the nearby Sainsbury's. At this rate they'll be going straight from Wave 4 to Wave 7! A shame, as I personally slightly prefer the non-translucent waves.

Review: Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony

No, you haven't bought Peppa Pig by mistake

It's been a long wait — extended at the last minute by a week due to delays in obtaining clearance to use some of the music and artwork — but Bronies finally went public at the weekend. The "Core Edition" of Laurent Malaquais' film (without the Blu-Ray discs and other goodies that certain backers receive) is sold from the official website at US$12.99, which works out at £8.30 or so. For that, you get a DRM-free file in 400p, 720p or 1080p quality; you're allowed four downloads of each, which should cover any potential power-cut disasters.

If you have a reasonably fast connection and are watching on a screen big enough to take it, then you'll probably want to get hold of the 1080p version. Be warned: this takes up 3.5 GB! That does at least mean that it can be burned to a single DVD easily enough without any messing around. It's a standard H.264 file which I had no problems playing using any of the players I tried. For the sake of completeness, I mostly watched the film with the excellent, cross-platform VLC media player. You need have no fear here.

Enough technical geekiness; we have pony geekiness to consider! I shall, of course, be rambling on at some length in a minute, so out of the kindness (of course!) of my heart, I'll put the rest of this review after a jump. Follow me there for lots more waffling!

Midtown Madness

Look what arrived in the post for me today! :D Well, I tell a lie: I've had the Derpy cover for a little while now, but the Time Turner one did indeed turn up this very morning. It was that rarest of things, a genuine eBay bargain: £6.95 including postage and packing. The seller wouldn't have got any money from me if they'd been charging the usual £20 or so, though, so in fact it was canny business. I just love that TARDIS-shaped street lamp.

I really love Amy Mebberson's style; in fact, she's the one artist I've seen who I like as much as Andy Price for drawing ponies — and she's the one signed by IDW to draw the second MLP:FiM story arc! That's pretty much guaranteed that I'll remain a regular buyer, even if the world does seem to be conspiring against getting the darn things out on time...