Comic review: MLP Friends Forever #4: Twilight & Shining Armor

Clearly ascension to alicornhood also bestows the gift of dancing ability

All right, then: it's time for My Little Pony! What do you mean, it's always time for My Little Pony? You're right, though... here we (well, I) present a review of the fourth in the Friends Forever series. This comic gives us the sibling team-up of Twilight and Shining Armor. Rob Anderson's only previous outing was the reasonable but not brilliant Spike micro, but both Amy Mebberson and Heather Breckel have lots of past Pony. After the break, let's see whether this latest FF issue does the job.

Spamming my own fanfic again :P

Rainbow Dash contemplates... well, something

My copy of Friends Forever #4 is on order, and a review will be along when I get it. In the meantime, here's something else I wrote recently: the first chapter of "Where They Understand You". This is planned to be a medium-length story explaining just why Rainbow Dash moved to Ponyville on her birthday. It starts off a long time ago, back when she and Fluttershy were still at school. It's Teen-rated, but that's for stuff that may be included later; this first chapter is suitable for everyone. I hope you enjoy it!

Ponyfic Roundup no. 3

It's Wednesday, so it's time for Ponyfic Roundup! Actually, I'm not going to promise to post these things on a strict schedule, since life does have a habit of getting in the way. But since I'm able to do so this time, I thought I might as well. You've probably got the idea by now: these are potted reviews of stories I've read on FIMFiction. As with the previous two Roundups, I've selected five stories to write about.

Almost Beautiful by Donnys Boy
Twilight and Rarity
Romance/Slice of Life; 5,663 words; May 2013; Everyone
Someone recommended this nicely crafted shipfic to me, and I'm glad they did so. Twilight/Rarity isn't one of the most common pairings (yes, yes, I know I've just written for it myself!) but Donnys Boy makes a very good job of this. It's slightly wordy, but I think that's fine for a Twi-centric story. There's the very occasional word choice that feels slightly awkward, and a mildly fudged analogy near the end... but the story itself lives up to its title. 8/10
 
Fluttershy is Free by Jordan179
Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and [can't say; major spoiler!]
Slice of Life; 10,464 words; Jan 2014; Teen
Jordan179 (who, full disclosure, I know very slightly) has constructed a detailed chronology of FiM within which he's written several fics. This is the story of what happened when Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy went to see the butterfly migration referenced in "Dragon Quest". Dash is about to discover something deeply startling about her close friend. Excellently written and explores a truly fascinating theory I haven't seen suggested by anyone else. A story where "mature themes" is actually an accurate term. 9/10

For Those We Left Behind by Drakmire
Twilight
Sad/Slice of Life; 5,514 words; Jun 2012; Everyone 
A real tear-jerker for some readers: I didn't go quite that far, but I was certainly moved. Twilight receives word of the death of her mother and travels to Canterlot to try to piece together more about a mare she never really knew. There's a wonderfully written conversation at one point which perfectly captures the curiously strained, brittle feel of a post-bereavement conversation. Canon has rendered this Alternate Universe since it was written, but don't reject it on that score. 8/10

To Make a Spark by Chris
Cadance
Adventure; 4,298 words; Oct 2013; Everyone
This is the story of Cadance's ascension to alicornhood: it accepts the lore introduced in Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell that Cadance began life as a pegasus. From there, Chris weaves a lyrical, slightly mystical story (appropriate for the future ruler of the Crystal Empire, I suppose) that feels almost like a fairytale in places. I thought the ending was slightly less strong than the superb middle, but it's recommended, and not just to Cadance fans. 8/10

What Happened? by CrystalFeather
Mane Six and OC
Tragedy/Sad/Dark; 1,725 words; Oct 2013; Everyone
Fluttershy is rescued from a prison by her friends, but she has lost something terribly important to her. In this first-person narrative, we see how this loss affects her. This is one of those fics where a potentially very interesting idea suffers from an undeveloped and rather rushed story. (The grammar etc is decent, though.) None of the three chapters are over 1,000 words, which gives it a disjointed feel. There are also problems with the setup, especially concerning how Fluttershy was captured in the first place. 4/10

Equestrian Family Values

A little something I posted on my FIMFiction account and thought I'd reproduce here. Consider the Mane Six in terms of what we know about their families:

Applejack is ferociously loyal to her family: she still lives on the farm with her two siblings and grandmother. As "Simple Ways" underlined, she's certainly not a mare who'd be short of suitors if she wanted them. But family (and the farm, which for AJ is really part of her family) come first.

Pinkie Pie had a rather dull, grey childhood, but still keeps in touch with her sisters in particular. "Maud Pie" made it clear that there's a lot of love in that family, even if it's not always shown in a particularly extroverted fashion.

Twilight Sparkle doesn't seem to see her parents very often, but the little evidence we have suggests that they get on well enough. Despite the number of ponies who fell out with Twi at Shining Armor's wedding, her parents weren't among them.

Rarity's closest relative is, of course, Sweetie Belle; the sisters have certainly become that little bit closer as Sweetie grows up. She's rather less keen on her parents, probably because they're so obviously not in the social class she aspires to, but she can at least tolerate them.

Rainbow Dash's family life is rather more of a mystery. Leaving aside her adoptive sister Scootaloo (though I'll come back to her in a moment) the only probable relative we've ever seen was the rainbow-maned stallion in that brief Equestria Games announcement flashback.

And Fluttershy has nopony. She is the only one of the Mane Six who is utterly devoid of known relatives, blood or adopted. Even in her flashbacks, we've never, ever seen her at a childhood home or with her parents.

Note the progression here: the earth ponies are the most family-inclined, followed by the unicorns, with the pegasi the most distant. I have a hard time believing that that's a complete accident on the part of the writers. It also just happens to fit Scootaloo's position as the other pony whose blood family we've never once heard mentioned.

Episode review: "Testing Testing 1, 2, 3" (S4E21)

Pinkie? Can we have an Epic Rap Battle of Equestria over here, please?

Including this one, there are now just six episodes remaining of Season 4 of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. After last week's relatively underwhelming offering, could veteran writer Amy Keating Rogers produce something special? Her record so far in this season – she brought us both "Pinkie Pride" (with Jason Thiessen) and "Filli Vanilli" – gave cause for optimism. This was a Rainbow Dash episode, though, and those have never been entirely predictable in terms of quality. Join me after the break!

February IDW comics sales figures: better late than never!

Which grin is scarier, Bookworm's or Pinkie's?

I know I said a while back that I probably wouldn't keep on doing these posts, but I did have a little bit of feedback saying that the stats were useful. With that in mind, here's a look at what happened in February, thanks to Comichron's numbers. And yes, I know it's already April; I'm just forgetful, all right? :P But I think we can rest assured that the future of IDW's My Little Pony comics is pretty safe in the near term at least. Main-series issue #16 came in at no. 73 (up 7) and sold:

26,942

copies, which is a fall of just 1.9% on last month. Given that February was a worse month for comics sales all round than January, I don't think there's the remotest need to worry about that one. It's still easily IDW's best-selling comic, after all. And as it happens, the second-placed IDW title was a My Little Pony one as well: it was the Hundred Penny Press reprinting of main-series #1. This came in at no. 95, selling:

21,957

copies. I'm particularly pleased by this figure, since presumably most long-standing fans will have at least one copy of issue #1 already. Of course some of us will have bought the Hundred Penny Press edition as part of a variant covers collection, but I would have thought that there'll also be a fair number of actual newcomers in there. And Pony also snagged third place in IDW's rankings, with Friends Forever #2 sneaking in at no. 99 (down 1) with:

20,676

sales. That's a fall of 11.5% over the series' first issue, but I don't think that's a bad result at all. Remember that FF #1 got pretty poor reviews on the whole (including right here) and that some people were rather put off by the start it made. So for the second installment to still break the 20K barrier is highly encouraging. (In case you're wondering, X-Files: Conspiracy #1 was IDW's best non-MLP comic, with 15,576 sales.)

Taking a quick look at the graphic novels section, we can see that My Little Pony Tales Vol. 2 debuted at no. 8 with 2,874 copies sold; that's the book which includes the Luna micro, so I'm not surprised it's been popular. Lower down the list, the second main-series anthology sold a further 904 copies. All in all, it's been another solid month for the comics, and with luck the March figures will keep things going along nicely. I'll try not to be so late with those!

Ponyfic Roundup no. 2

Since I published my first Ponyfic Roundup a week ago, I've kept up my reading fairly well, and so here's another batch of five stories with their potted reviews. The format is the same as last time's, since it seemed to work reasonably well. Please don't read these posts in the expectation of getting long, in-depth reviews, because that's not my aim; such things aren't hard to find if you want them. What I'm hoping to do here is to give you just enough detail to give you an idea whether you might enjoy a fic.

There are no long stories this time round; that doesn't mean there won't be in a future roundup. I do prefer shorter fics on the whole, but I'll read a longer one from time to time. Off we go, then!

Daring DONE! by Aragon
Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Celestia, Luna and Twilight Velvet
Comedy; 5,538 words; Dec 2013; Everyone
The "exchange of letters" format for fiction needs to be handled very carefully to avoid it becoming clichéd and predictable. Thankfully, Aragon gets it right. Technically, this story has become an Alternate Universe fic since it was written (most of it was done by Oct 2013), as "Daring Don't" makes it impossible to reconcile with canon. But don't worry too much about that; just enjoy the hilarious tale of what happened when Rainbow Dash found out just who really wrote the Daring Do books... 8.5/10

My Beloved Sister by Deil Grist
Celestia
Sad; 1,516 words; Jun 2013; Everyone 
The 1,000-word minimum on FIMFiction discriminates against poetry like no other type of writing, so I'm always pleased to see some. It's quite nicely constructed, with a suitably epic feel most of the time – although just occasionally a line does get distractingly pedestrian. Unfortunately (for me) it's one of those stories in which Celestia apologises to Luna – the poem is set while the younger sister is still banished to the Moon – and implies that it was all her (Tia's) fault. I'm afraid I find that quite annoying, and it knocks this down to 6/10.

Naked Singularity by Cold in Gardez
Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Celestia
Comedy/Random; 10,524 words; Mar 2012; Teen (Sex)
Twilight is embarrassed when her attempt to write a romance novel goes wrong. However, when she's advised to write what she knows, she has a wonderful idea. The result is that Twi comes up with a new book that's... well, that would be telling. But it's screamingly funny, especially the extracts from Twi's novel, brilliantly imagined, well written and nicely paced. NSFW in places, but certainly not tacky. There's an irritating 550-word advert for CiG's other (unrelated) fics at the end, but the story itself is so entertaining that it's worth 9/10.

The Old Stories by Thanqol
Mane Six, Celestia and Luna
Slice of Life; 9,277 words; Aug 2012; Everyone
Here we have something intriguingly different from the norm. Each of the Mane Six tells a story – in her own style – about the long-ago age when Celestia was still making the Sun. The mythology is convincing and the stories are well linked but nicely distinct. A final, Luna-based chapter is the weakest part, and there are one or two real-world place names ("Reichenbach Falls", for pony's sake?) which do jar a little. Fascinating and recommended all the same. 8/10

Somewhere Only We Know by PatchworkPoltergeist
Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Applejack
Sad/Alternate Universe; 4,721 words; Aug 2012; Everyone
The basic concept of "What if Equestria is just a dream?" is well-worn, but I've rarely seen it explored as beautifully as here. Dash is an old, tired carriage pony, whose friends have been sold away from the stable. She only sees them now on her rare trips into town – and fate has not been kind. In her dreams, though, Dash is free, soaring into a clear blue sky. The occasional stylistic quirk, and it should probably have had a Human tag added, but a deeply moving tale with strong echoes of Black Beauty. Please, please don't simply watch the Rainbow Dash Presents of this story; that would do it a grave disservice. 8.5/10