My Little Repeats 11: "Winter Wrap Up"

Rather serves you right for your attitude, Spike...

S1E11: "Winter Wrap Up"
Written by Cindy Morrow
24 Dec 2010

My original rating: N/A
IMDB score: 8.4

The one with Twilight's "Nopenopenope" backwards run

Thoughts: Christmas Eve 2010 was quite an occasion for the nascent MLP:FiM fandom. We got so much lore about how much work ponies actually do to clean up winter – by choice, given that Canterlot uses magic. (And so does Twilight later on, much to AJ's annoyance!) It is really interesting – and very S1! – to see the details of how everything's done. Mayor Mare even gets a decent-sized role, plus we get bouncy grinning Lyra in the crowd! To be honest, though, I find Twilight's succession of failures a tiny bit sad to watch, especially when Spike outright laughs at her. Thankfully her organisational skills eventually find her a place, though far in the future ("Slice of Life") Amethyst Star will hint that maybe she isn't entirely happy at having been deposed as Ponyville's best organiser! One tiny, lovely touch: Twilight makes the bird whistle by magically controlling it. Later on, Fluttershy merely needs to wink. Buuuut we all know that, to many, this episode is all about the song. It must have been amazing in those pre-leak days to have a fully-fledged musical number of this quality sprung on you after little more than silly Pinkie ditties in previous episodes. I really like the instrumental reprise, too. This would have been a three-star episode without it, but the song is so good as to add an extra one.

Choice quote: Rarity: "Oh, Spike! It's not so bad. Maybe the birds can use it as a..." Spike: "An outhouse?"

New rating: ★★★★

Next up is "Call of the Cutie", an episode that in hindsight is far more important than it may have appeared at the time. I remember being a bit meh about it the first time around.

S9 audio review coming soon...ish!

A friend asked me a little while ago whether I was going to do a Season 9 review in the same way I did one for Season 8. I thought about it briefly and decided that yes, I would. At the time I was asked, the online world was still swirling with rumours and counter-rumours about the future of YouTube creativity, but now that that's died down a bit I've decided to make the piece anyway.

I've done the basic recording, and the raw file comes to about 15 minutes, which I think is reasonable. It will take me a little while to edit, though I'm not going to do that to pro standards by any means, and then I'll upload it. Hopefully it'll be before Hearth's Warming, at least. I also intend to provide a text transcript for those who find audio a problem or would simply prefer to read.

Please note that this is a season review, not a show review. I may eventually do a piece that encompasses the entirety of Friendship is Magic, but you really shouldn't hold your breath for that. What you'll be getting here is the usual stuff: best and worst episodes, a quick look at the songs, how Fluttershy did, that kind of thing. I've also stuck in a brief section on Rainbow Roadtrip.

My Little Repeats 10: "Swarm of the Century"

About time I got back to these! For anyone joining me here: these are not meant to be full-featured reviews, and I assume that readers have seen not only the episode featured but the entire series. (Or, at least, that they don't care about spoilers any more.) I'm not really interested in a blow-by-blow account of every single scene, more in how the episode strikes me after all these years have passed. I'd love to know how you feel about the episode now, too!

Dash wouldn't be this affectionate towards a creature again until she adopted Tank

S1E10: "Swarm of the Century"
Written by M. A. Larson
17 Dec 2010

My original rating: N/A
IMDB score: 7.8

The one with "Princess Celest".

Thoughts: Mr Larson's debut! Not one of Fluttershy's greatest moments, given she's the one who stops the parasprite problem being resolved after Applejack's herding. Mind you, not Pinkie's either: whatever the girls say later, she could easily have explained herself properly at the time instead of rambling on about trombones! Still, her Parasprite Polka remains a memorable performance. Interesting what a big deal a visit from Celestia was at this point. Carrot Top's "We couldn't fit it all in!" has gone down in fandom folklore. I think this is the first time we see Rainbow Dash's cloud house; but I think wrongly! See comments. Even so, it'll never stop being, well, awesome. First mention of Fillydelphia too, yes? The parasprites eating the words somewhat anticipates Discord doing something similar a few seasons later. All in all, one of the silliest, most cartoony episodes of the early days, but one that's a good deal of fun almost throughout – as long as you can overlook the slightly rickety structure. Of the episode, that is. Not of Ponyville. Though now I think about it...

Choice quote: Pinkie Pie: "Me? I'm not the ruiner! I'm the ruinee! Or is it ruiness? ...ruinette?"

New rating: ★★★

Next up is "Winter Wrap Up", where of course the first big song appears. The interesting thing for me will be seeing how the episode beyond the song holds up.

Sounds of 2012: Nos. 27 to 22

Today, "Sounds of 2012" is moving into the top quarter of Everfree Radio's Top 100 fan-voted songs from seven years ago. Below you can see what's covered this time and read a bit more about each track, but as usual I'll begin by giving you my criteria for inclusion:

Rule 1: Still available in the same or (1b) similar form direct from the artist
Rule 2: Available from a third party, with reason to believe the artist is fine with this
Rule 3: So famous that it would be plain silly to leave it out
Rule 4: Being unlisted is not, on its own, grounds for exclusion

27: The L-Train – A Symphonic Metal Tribute to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
26: Twitch – Flutterborn
25: The Living Tombstone – Octavia's Overture
24: The Living Tombstone feat. Lauren G. – Magic
23: Dasha and The Living Tombstone – Good Girl
22: All Levels at Once – Pony Should Pony Pony

I expect most of you know the form by now, but for those who don't – or who need reminding – I'll have videos and a bit of writing about each song after the page break.

Ponyfic Roundup 274

Read it Later story count: 233 (-1)

And we're back! I read one story last week when I wasn't feeling very well, and I added another four this week. That means there are five fics under the microscope this time around – the first time for a little while that I've managed that. I'll also quickly remind folks that my star ratings are largely a measure of how much I enjoyed reading a story, not an attempt to measure the story's objective literary worth. With that in mind, let's get going!

Keeping Your Hooves on the Ground by InsertAuthorHere
Save the Records by TheBandBrony
The Derpy Files by Soge
The Gift of Winter by Banana Prince
RadioActivity by Zh3sh1re

★: 0 | ★★: 4 | ★★★: 1 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0

My Little Repeats 9: "Bridle Gossip"

This is a noticeably detailed and colourful episode for so early on

S1E09: "Bridle Gossip"
Written by Amy Keating Rogers
10 Dec 2010

My original rating: N/A
IMDB score: 7.7

The one with "Appletini" riding Rainbow Dash.

Thoughts: Hasbro's veto on exploring more of zebra culture means Zecora, who debuts here, is the only one in show canon, and indeed nearly the only one in all official stories.* One oddity near the start: AJ tells her sister not to mention the name Zecora, then almost immediately does so herself! Anyway, Twilight is pretty solid in this (and amusingly S1-snarky), though her Super Naturals stubbornness feels a little forced. It's also a notably good pre-CMC ep for Apple Bloom – but the other Manes are pretty thick: not even knowing what a zebra is? One of my favourite bits of lore, though: the Everfree forest "ain't natural" because its plants, animals and clouds move without pony intervention. A real shame that stuff got left behind later in the series. It's the Poison Joke stuff that everyone remembers, of course. Probably fair to say the show team wouldn't have risked Twilight's floppy horn problem if they'd known about the fandom at the time! Flutterguy is funny to this day, especially her song. First mention of "Rainbow Crash", too. And Applejack gives us a "Thank Celestia" at one point – one for the "Is Tia a goddess?" debate, I guess. Still, overall I think this episode has dated slightly. It's still amusing, and "Don't judge a book by its cover" is a fair, if hackneyed, moral – but it doesn't fit together quite well enough to feel like a classic. Three stars, then.
* Braze, the male zebra in the Rainbow Dash and the Daring Do Double Dare chapter book, is the only other one I can think of who gets a speaking part.

Choice quote: Spike: "I got nothin'. Twilight Sparkle. I mean seriously, I can't even work with that."

New rating: ★★★

Next up is "Swarm of the Century", the debut of one M. A. Larson. Another I haven't rewatched for years and only vaguely remember as "a bit silly".

Flashfic 150 is go for December!

For once I'm remembering to promote this thing, so Flashfic 150's December contest is now live. The prompt this month is "Things Unwritten".

Very briefly, FF150 works like this. You write a story of no more than 150 words in response to that month's prompt. After three weeks, the contest closes. Anyone who wishes is welcome to provide feedback on the entries. I read them all and pick a winner. That winner gets to choose the following month's prompt. (You can't win two months running, which also means you can't win if you pick the prompt.) There is very deliberately no prize beyond that.

Stories must be E- or T-rated, must be related to MLP and cannot be crossovers (because judging those is near-impossible). Anyone with a Fimfiction account is welcome to join the Flashfic group, and anyone in the group is welcome to participate. There is no compulsion to enter regularly – if you just want to write occasionally, that's entirely fine. In theory the Flashfic group can also be used to discuss flashfic in general, but in practice it's almost entirely about these little contests.

At the last count, we had 152 members in the group. Only a minority are regular participants, but if the concept appeals then you'd be more than welcome to join their number!