Awww. I'll talk ponies with you

My #1 Favorite Pony is Princess Luna. The others that follow are Fluttershy and Rarity. I also really love Discord  but I don't know if he is a pony..xD

I, um. Don't know what else to say..oh. Um, I really like the song Discord by Living Tombstone! Anddd. I've been to Bronycon this passed summer and REALLY enjoyed it. I won't be going anymore though since it moved to Baltimore. :/

It's actually a 3-parter!  We get the next two episodes as the season 4 premiere.  I thought that using musical numbers to pace the episode was brilliant -they could fit in humor, emotion, the passage of time/events and provide exposition in a tidy, entertaining package.

Also I would love to go to Bronycon, but I'm just not the type, economically or socially, to handle cross-country trips.  I love the creative side of the brony fandom, in particular the music.  PonyPhonic: Lullaby for a Princess is so far my favorite musical work.  Makes me tear up every time, and is a must if you are a Celestia or Luna fan.  Actually, watch this first, then watch Lullaby.  It's the same creator, but this version is covered by a different singer.  The Moon Rises.


Some of my favorite fan songs (And these are just the tip of the musical fancontent iceberg!):

AccousticBrony: Crepascularity.  A theme for Twilight Sparkle that captures the essence of the show while feeling like its own creation.  Daniel Ingram himself liked it, if that's any indicator of its awesomeness.

AgileDash Befriends PinkiePieSwear: Simple Joy Remix.  Catchy, sweet, and all around a wonderful remix.

Foozogz: Make it Special. I would love if there was a way I could have this play as the show intro instead of the actual intro. 

My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic Stage Music -Rarity.   Now this is fighting music for Rarity.  Brings to mind a dark stage, and bright lights all shining upon a gorgeous and fierce model, ready to bring it.  Dramatic, bold and mysterious.  (Makes me sad knowing the game got a C&D letter from Hasbro, though.  So much work and creativity went into it, and fans waited so long)

PinkiePieSwear: FlutterWonder.  WOW.  This is a remix that takes a song and turns it into something completely different, yet somehow more beautiful and more accurate in tone than the original song.

Replacer: Song for an Earth Pony.  I always love original brony music that isn't a remix or cover, and Replacer delivers.  His lyrics and style are quirky and catchy, and I love thinking up stories that go with his songs.

Then there are Pony AMVS, that combine footage with a variety of songs.  My favorite has to be omgilikeapple's Dear Princess Celestia.  The paper-cut-out texture, movement and song choice make it so sweet and heartfelt and fun.   Oh man, and I cannot forget mmmandarinorange's The Garden.  I don't want to spoil the awesome, so I'll just say watch it all the way through.  GORGEOUS.


And now, the fanfiction!  I have to say I'm pretty picky when it comes to fanfic, especially MLP fanfic.  There is just so many ways to fuck up and pass off crap.  Maybe it's because the fandom has a lot of younger members, or such a healthy meme culture.  Not sure, but the majority of fics are kinda crap (soldiers dying and waking up in Equestria, Spike self-insert harem fics, etc).  BUT.  I have found some that I truly love.  I tend to gravitate towards fics that incorporate and expand upon mythology and culture set up in the show.

The Contest:  Cold in Gardez is an amazing writer, and always adds layers of complexity to his one-shots and series alike.  Let's put it this way, some of his stories contain clop (with warnings) and even though I find clop laughable at best, I STILL read those stories from him because his writing is just that damn good.  This is not clop, though.  This is a humorous little one-shot from him about Fluttershy competing in a quiet contest.  I would have never thought someone could make the Quiet Game as exciting and funny as this.

The Combinatorics Project:  This one starts out simple, but it's a bit like Utena in that the repetition serves a purpose and by the final chapter has become something truly mind-blowing and beautiful.  Each of the six chapters gives us a story about love and relationships, and every single mane 6 pairing is represented.  It was refreshing how unique the author's take was on each of the pairings, and hey!  A fanfic Pinkie Pie that doesn't annoy the crap out of me!  Sweet!

Into the Depths:  I am honestly not too big a fan of some of the more popular stories in the fandom, especially the dark ones.  They typically rely on gore and shock value, and not on literary merit or creativity.  This is not one of those stories!  The fear relies on genuine tension and a masterful presentation of the unknown, not gore or violence, and it's all wrapped up in a creative mythology that fits in well with the show.  Celestia descends with a team of her Royal Guard into the ancient caverns beneath the caste in the Everfree forest, searching for her sister and faithful student after they mysteriously disappeared within them.  Brilliant and totally unnerving. 

The Glass Blower: No, seriously.  Cold in Gardez.  Read his stuff.  He has a little of everything.  This is by far my favorite of his works, though.   An earth pony artist, desperate for the heart of Rarity after witnessing both her beauty and her talent, attempts to please her with amazing works of glassblown art.  (Don't be upset with his depiction of Rarity, she is actually his favorite pony!  He just has a unique headcanon for her that grows into the Rarity we know in the show, and this version of her fits in thematically with the fairy-tale like story he is telling.)

The Flight of the Alicorn:  There are no words for how much I love this fic.  It's a true epic, with political intrigue, plots of murder, an impending war between Pegasi and Griffons, an around-Equestria Airship race... and in the middle of it all Rarity, playing at turns the fish-out-water heroine and the capable but feminine lady we all know and love.  Humor, steampunk, hats, romance that doesn't make me barf, action, scale, motives, motives everywhere!.... this fucking fic has everything and WHEN IS THE NEXT BOOK COMING OUT.


P.S:  ALSO ALSO. 


MLP and Pheonix Wright Crossover.  Presented, scripted and acted out just like the games!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUDfoZGhLjE

Brony Documentary by Lauren Faust and John De Lancie, with original commissioned animation!  You have to pay, but I think it's worth it to support the people who made it. http://www.scrnland.com/shows/3/

Digibrony!  Makes insightful, entertaining and approachable videos that analyze episodes and themes in MLP!  ANALYSIS!!!  http://www.youtube.com/user/digibronymlp

http://www.youtube.com/user/SherclopPones Friendship is Witchcraft, the resident Abridged series for the show.  There are others, but this is by far and away the best.  Unique writing, its own in-universe canon, and originally produced and wonderful songs all its own!  It's so good, it introduced many to the show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3wp2VVhKQ  A beautiful, haunting and creative work in progress staring Luna, with original animation.  You can see another teaser video on their channel.

Last edited by OnlyInThisLight (02-21-2013 07:10:40 PM)

PONIES. So I'm just gonna leave this Anthology here. Also this.

Careful, everypony; there's some language in there; clean versions in the descriptions.

Last edited by KillerxXxQueen (02-19-2013 04:56:10 PM)

I'm Nova and that was my favorite post on IRG.

Wow, uhm. That trailer.

Honestly can't say I'm surprised though. :/

HonorableShadow wrote:

Here's a second trailer for it: http://family-room.ew.com/2013/06/07/my … s-trailer/ It seems like her crown is the prize for the fall formal, which is kind of a silly premise...at least she has a reason for wanting to enter though.

I dunno, all it does it give a reason for Twilight wanting to win, it doesn't really change (from what we see) what she is going to actually spend the majority of the film doing.  And honestly, does it have to be HER?  Why not Rarity or Pinkie Pie, who I could imagine would be more interested in that type of thing and have some established popularity.  Then one of them could give her the crown, even if they don't believe her story about Equestria and the Elements of Harmony, because they still recognize how much she needs it and fwendship.  Making the POV character, a character like Twilight, be the one who gets make-overs and popularity and a prom queen title is just a way to both rehash the hackneyed "Nerd transformation" highshool drama cliche and make sure that the character whose shoes we are putting ourselves in, so to speak, the POV character, is the one who will be princess prom queen sparklebutt.  Because watching a friend be supportive of another is only cool if we get to imagine that we are the ones who get to benefit from that support.  And because girl viewers want to be prom queens!  And in the process, by using Twilight to do this, it kinda shits on all the girls who identified and related to her as the bookworm who had difficulty making friends but still cherishes the one she has.  It's saying, that's cool and all, but wouldn't you also like to be pretty and popular and liked by boys?  Look how much happier you would be if you were all those things and not just, yanno, yourself.

The show gets away (so far) with the forced super-marketable Princess Alicorn Twilight business only because it's a position Twilight achieved over years of hard work and learning about the variety and intricacies of friendship and leadership, not how to be adorable or nonthreatening or just like everyone else, and not even beloved.  Her Princess title was not a popularity contest, and her new form and status grants her both executive power and is recognition of three seasons' worth of character development and accomplishments.  It opens a lot of new doors for character growth and new arcs and settings and drama.  I know you can't expect a movie to match three season's worth of time spent world building, framing and developing the story and characters in order to properly subvert and freshly explore each new facet of gender stereotyping that Hasbro mandates be injected into the show (fancy party!  Weddings and holy shit the gaudiest pink and purple alicorn monstrosity we could design!  princesses, princesses, princesses!) but STILL.  I won't blame the writer's for EG, but this is getting ridiculous.  No wonder Lauren left and no wonder she's disgusted by the EG's toy line.  Did I mention there is already a SUPER CREEPY matching humanized toy line to tie into the movie? 

Here's the thing, which is better?  Making an entire movie about a flippant prom, playing it light and silly, or making the movie about the same prom, but also placing incredible stakes on the outcome of who-gets-voted-princess?  Not on whether anyone has a good time or anything like that.   Is that just sending the message that prom is like, super important?  It's how girls achieve things.  Fitting in, looks, being better than other girls, that's how women SHOULD achieve things. 

But hey, I am still legitimately holding out hope that this movie will NOT be all these things, and will be just as progressive and diverse and subversive and clever and well done as the show is.  I want to be pleasantly surprised.  But hope and faith ain't the same thing.

Ten bucks says the orange royal guard pony is the male human protagonist.

Last edited by OnlyInThisLight (06-09-2013 03:11:53 PM)

She's being a bit sneaky here: https://twitter.com/Fyre_flye/status/33 … 599648257, and she's retweeted pics of the EG's toyline with less than glowing reviews.  If I was better at navigating twitter (I barely use it because it confuses me) I would track it down.  Lauren has always cared about the way girls were marketed to and written for.

The her leaving thing was awhile ago, but she and others have hinted that it was a result of her getting tired of having to constantly fight for creative control.

Last edited by OnlyInThisLight (06-10-2013 02:49:41 PM)

Can I just say here, that as an Australian I have absolutely no interest in the USA obsession with 'proms'? Like, OMG! That's, like, you know, soooo not anyone who's not from the USA allllll the way! I mean, like, OMG, MLP is all over, like, the entire world and it's not, like, as if, like, MLP is not an international property that's like, marketed the living fuck out of the entire, like, world. OMG.

I have been so tempted to start doing pony-analysis related videos on youtube, with a decidedly feminist slant*, as I feel the lessons concerning gender in the show are so incredibly prevalent and important and yet glossed over in most discourse, in which the assumption appears to be that guys simply liking the show is the only progressive thing about it.  Guys liking a feminine** show is the beginning of social change, not merely the end result of it.  Now that you realize you like and can identify with female characters, what are the things these characters and their stories can teach you about the female experience?  Societal expectations of women?  The way women are viewed, marketed to, raised and treated?  Do you like and relate to them despite their femininity, or in some part because of it, and why is that? 

But I am not at all interested in time-consuming video editing, so I was thinking about doing something stupid and light, where I read from a script while playing Skyrim or some shit.    If I had a tablet and any experience with digitial art, I would do analysis+artcast.  Eh, I'll just stick to writing things up and then never posting them. 

*Rarity Rarity Rarity Rarity Rarity Rarity omg i love dis horse
**Keeping in mind that feminine is a subjective and loaded word

Ragnarok wrote:

You could do a podcast maybe?

Seconded.  I would listen.  And a podcast encourages listeners to have a personal connection with you in a way that a Tumblr usually doesn't.

If you want to put your analysis over footage of a video game, maybe Skyrim would not be the best choice, on account of different messages?  The glib answer, of course, would be Robot Unicorn Attack, which literally has a rainbow dash.  But then no one could focus on your commentary because they'd have the song stuck in their heads, even if you edited out the song.