Episode review: S6E07: "Newbie Dash"

BronyScot ticket sales will open on 11 May. I'll write more about that in a dedicated post later this week, but for now suffice it to say that I wish them every success. It's very unlikely that I'll make it to Glasgow myself, but I hope many others do. Okay, episode time!

I honestly cannot imagine why anybody would write fanfics about this episode

Rainbow Dash has finally made it into the Wonderbolts as a full member of the squad. That much we knew from the synopsis and preview clip, but how would she get on? The fulfilment of Rainbow's dream – one first mentioned the S1 premiere – was quite a responsibility for the episode's writer, and a little surprisingly they gave it to a newcomer: Dave Rapp. (Dave Polsky was also jointly credited for the story, but only writers get tags here!) How did Mr Rapp do as a newbie himself? Follow me past the break to find out!

Pony Music Library 4: "Great to be Different"

If all goes well, I'll be at the first meeting of a new brony meetup group today. Which does mean I'll miss seeing the episode live, but I think I can cope without 167 hours of US TV adverts. :P

Welcome to PMR 4, and this time I have something that probably everyone in the fandom will have heard many, many times. Maybe you're fed up to the back teeth with it. Bad luck: I love it, so here it is.

( Text link )

What? "Great to be Different"

Who? Forest Rain

Which? Original song

When? August 2012

Why? Partly because I like Forest Rain's voice, partly because I like Derpy – but mostly because this is such a wonderfully life-affirming song. It's easy to be cynical about our fandom – and sometimes with reason – but "Great to be Different" overcomes its less than original message and makes the whole thing work. It was inspired by a once-famous incident at Bronycon 2012, when someone left letters, signed as from Derpy, around the con bearing encouraging messages – and "it's great to be different" was the one Forest Rain discovered. Although I've linked to her own account, the most popular video is Brony Dance Party's animation from a year later.

Note: Derpy's voice is provided by Decibelle.

Friendship Games blooper reel

At last, some really pleasant spring weather. I walked over to the polling station to vote (strangely enough) yesterday after tea, and it was a beautiful early evening walk. Anyway, enough of that and on to ponies! Well, humanised ponies...

( Text link )

This was originally posted on EQD a couple of days ago, but it's silly enough to repost here. Done in the style of those Pixar credits blooper reels, it makes a fun couple of minutes' viewing. It doesn't seem to have been posted on Hasbro Studio Shorts, which is a little strange, but I imagine the release was deliberate. It would make a nice extra for the DVD/Blu-ray in due course. (Not that we even get the Blu-ray in Europe, grumble grumble.) The video is notable for a direct pony/human size comparison (near the end), though there's nothing to say that EqG humans are the same size as Earth humans!

Text Review Roundup: "No Second Prances"

It's Thursday, so it's time once again for TRR. This episode was very well received by the fandom at large, so it's no surprise that the text-based reviewers are also positive overall. The consensus isn't as strong as it was for "Gauntlet of Fire", though, with one notable exception to the praise-fest. It's nice to welcome back Unleash the Fanboy, whose reviews seemed to have disappeared for a while. Half a dozen prime text reviews are served up here:

Batbrony Reviews – very positive

Derpy News – very positive (rated A-)

Ponyland News – extremely positive (rated 9.6/10)

Super Recaps – strongly positive (favourite episode of S6 so far)

TheDragonWarlock – very positive (rated A-)

Unleash the Fanboy – equivocal (rated 6/10)

Ponyfic Roundup 105: Living in Another World

I'm not really a football fan at all, but I was nevertheless pleased to see Leicester City win the Premier League. Even though they're not exactly poor (their squad cost £22 million), they're certainly not as mega-rich as the usual suspects. Also, and much more importantly, I went to the monthly Leicester ponymeet on Saturday and had a good time as usual. It was actually the rugby side who were playing that day (beating Worcester, regrettably). Nevertheless, the whole city centre, including the station, was decked out in blue and white in support of the football team, and it all looked rather impressive.

Back to ponyfic, and this week we have another half-dozen stories to chew over. The quality is as variable as usual, but there's some solid stuff in here, as a glance at the the star summary will show.

The Hoodie by Octavia Harmony
The Never-Was and Wouldn't-Be by Obselescence
Bronies Vs. Haters by TheOnly
Hurricane's Champron by billymorph
Horsefeathers by Fervidor
Give A Like - Feed A Changeling by Lise Eclaire

★: 1 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 3 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0

Pony Music Library 3: "Babs Seed"

Things are fairly quiet today, so here's the first non-remixed show song for the PML:

( Text link )

What? "Babs Seed"

Who? Daniel Ingram, Cindy Morrow and David Corman

Which? Show song

When? November 2012

Why? It's fair to say that "One Bad Apple" hasn't gone down as a classic episode, although it did introduce us to Babs herself – but the song that ep contains has been a favourite from the very start. It's simple, catchy and perfect for its audience, and it's no surprised that it's been remixed by any number of people. Performed live, too: I was there when Acoustic Brony did it (non-acoustically!) at BUCK 2014 and The Rainbooms at UK PonyCon in the same year. The version I've chosen, though, is the original. That's partly because of the accompanying video, which is much cleverer than it at first appears. In particular, watch how the ponies' eye-blinks relate to the beat. Oh, and there's that CMC milkshake scene, surely the hnnnggest hnnngg that ever hnnngged hnnngg!

Episode review: S6E06: "No Second Prances"

"...but I say proper cucumber placement is more important!"

After a one-week mini-hiatus, we returned to new episodes of Friendship is Magic's Season Six with a new story from the pen of Nick Confalone, who previously brought us the reasonable "Party Pooped" and "Hearthbreakers". There had been a fair amount of hype about this episode beforehand, although a good deal of this was down to a certain person on EQD hijacking Fluttershy Day to obsess about the character in question. Poor show, sir. Poor show! Anyway, let's get on with the actual review.