Fridays are Magic: Recasting FFVI, Part One

Pretty light posting this week, huh? (And by that I mean, zero posting whatsoever.) In my defense, I had midterms to deal with and didn't really have a chance to get out do anything worth writing a blog post on. But now it's Friday again, and it is my solemn duty to write something about ponies.

FiMFlamFilosophy is a name a lot of bronies might be familiar with. He's the mind and voice behind The Mentally Advanced Series and Rainbow Dash Presents, one of the two big Friendship is Magic abridges series' and a semi-animated, goofy retelling of some of the fandom's more messed-up fanfics, respectively. TMAS is a bit of an acquired taste--it takes a little getting used to the fact that one guy is voicing all of the female characters, and the humor is so dry it could be used as kindling--and RBDP relies on quite a bit of outside knowledge of the fandom, but as a member of both target audiences, I highly recommend checking them out.

Recently, he's been playing through Pony Fantasy VI, an overhaul of my favorite game of all time, Final Fantasy VI (or III, on the SNES in America), only with the main cast replaced by ponies. Combining colorful pastel equines with the greatest JRPG of all time should be right up my alley, and yet the more I see, the more frustrated I'm getting. Ponies and FF6 were never going to fit all that well together, but for all the effort the game's creator obviously put into making custom sprites and rewriting tons of dialogue, time and again he seems to have forsaken chances at doing something clever in favor of pushing some obnoxious bit of fanon or referencing a meme.

It's frustrating to watch, but Flam's done a damned good job already going through the game and pointing out its flaws. No, I'm not interested in critiquing Pony Fantasy VI; I'm just curious if a good story could have been made out of it at all.

Fridays are Magic: Adventure Edition!

I've been playing D&D for a little over a decade. I've been reading D&D books for far longer, but I didn't actually start playing until after high school, when I moved across the country and needed to build some sort of social structure to avoid turning into a crazed hermit (rather than the normal kind I became instead). I've played 3rd Edition, 3.5, 4E (and may I never have to play that again), and various spinoffs like d20 Modern or SpyCraft. I've also played a few other systems, like Vampire: The Masquerade and Legend of the Five Rings, though not nearly as many as I would actually like to.

Of late, though, my gaming group has finally settled on a single gaming system that we can all agree is pretty fun: Pathfinder, Paizo's revamp/overhaul of the D&D 3.5 ruleset into something bigger, better, and more fun than its predecessor. Pathfinder streamlines a lot of 3rd Edition's more complex oddities, introduces a few new ideas that add a lot of fun and value to the game, and comes complete with a setting vast and varied enough to contain any campaign idea you can think of, somehow without homogenizing everything into a bland soup like the Forgotten Realms. It's good stuff.

In seemingly unrelated news, a bit of boredom led to my discovery that some generous soul had taken the old program HeroMachine--a free, Flash-based costume designer/paper doll thingee my group had long used to create quick, cheap, and rather goofy-looking portraits for our characters--and updated it to a new version, with tons of new features and customization options. I immediately set about sinking far too many hours into it, hoping to learn its secrets and use this newfound power for my own nefarious purposes. To do this, I needed characters that I could design. Being a brony, well, it didn't take long to figure out who.

Fridays are Magic: Fan Fiction

"Would you like to read my Lyra/Bon-Bon adventure 'fic?"

Way back when I started this blog (a whole not-quite-two-months ago!), I mentioned offhand that I've written Friendship is Magic fan fiction. As with most aspects of my broniness, I was initially really embarrassed by this, and it took a lot of... I don't want to say "courage," but something sort of like it... to come clean about what I was doing. I wasn't writing weird stuff or anything like that--no clop, thank you--but it seemed very, very strange to me that, after years of lethargy, the muse that finally inspired me to start writing again was a cute cartoon show for little girls.

As I've mentioned, I find FiM's world to be really fascinating. The show rarely goes into the history of the setting, but a lot can be extrapolated from the things we know and occasional glimpses into the past. The story of "Hearth's Warming Eve" shows us that, long ago, the earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns lived in separate and culturally diverse realms. They eventually united to found Equestria, and some indeterminate time after that, Celestia and Luna came to rule it. During their reign, they came into conflict with a chaotic demigod named Discord and sealed him in stone. And, eventually, Luna was turned to the Dark Side by a shadowy force known as "Nightmare" and launched an ultimately failed coup against her sister.

Behold, the savage beastmaster.

A few other bits of setting detail hint at the past. The literal Gates of Tartarus exist--within a few days' gallop of Ponyville, no less--and are said to contain many of Equestria's greatest foes. The season three premiere featured King Sombra, the ruler of a once-powerful empire who used his sorcery to trap his subjects outside of time and space, becoming a creature of smoke and shadow in the process. Ancient pegasi certainly seemed to have a Spartan aesthetic, and we've seen at least three monsters straight out of Greek myth: griffons, hydras, and minotaurs. Are they related? Is there a common history between them? There are zebras, their culture apparently based on African shamanism; where do they come from?  There are mules and donkeys and cows that all seem to have human-level intelligence; what is their role within Equestrian society?

These questions aren't likely to be addressed within the show itself.  Some of them might be, eventually; the answers to almost all of them are, apparently, contained in the show bible Lauren Faust created several years ago. But for every question you could think to ask, you can bet that a fan of the show has already come up with an answer, and some of those answers might be better than even Faust's.

Quite frankly, from a world-building perspective, fanfiction is magic.

Fridays are Magic, Except for This One!

Hey there, everybody. No Fridays are Magic post today, I'm afraid. I've got a topic I could write about, but I'm also planning to see Equestria Girls tomorrow, and my review of that should more than fill my pony quota for the week.

Instead, I'd like to share something semi-pony-related that was drawn for me by my sworn brother, Morgan King. Some time ago, a post on Facebook posited the idea that, if the universe is infinite and there are an infinite number of universes, then there are an infinite number of worlds where your favorite characters watch shows or play video games about you. I was kind of amused at this idea, and extrapolated it a bit further.

"Somewhere, there's a universe where Edgar Roni Figaro, Donatello, Twilight Sparkle, and Frog are collaborating on a fanfic about me."

Yesterday, Morgan sent me this, and it is completely freaking awesome.

See you tomorrow, folks!

Fridays are Magic: Equestria Girls (sigh)

Not really, but pretty much.

I haven't had much of a chance to blog this week; I started my summer classes, and I'm still getting into the rhythm and trying to figure out what my workload is going to be like.  Fortunately, I don't have class on Fridays, so I can still do my weekly post about ponies!  And let's see, what did I plan to write about today?

Oh.

Well, hell.

Okay, then.  I guess it's time to talk about Equestria Girls (sigh).

Fridays are Magic: Being a Fan

I sort of expected Equestria's Middle Easterners
would be camels.

If you're a brony, you're an ambassador for this fandom.

I know.  Maybe you don't want to be.  It's a responsibility you didn't ask for, and honestly, it's really not fair to expect anybody who devotes a reasonable (or unreasonable) amount of time to thinking, writing, or creating art about ponies to also have to shoulder the burden of playing diplomat to the masses.

Nevertheless, it's true.

While the general opinion of bronies seems to have gradually shifted from "those guys are weirdos" to "eh, whatever," one can still stumble into corners of the internet where the mere mention of ponies (cartoon or not) can start a war.  Some of the folks who react so violently are just judgmental idiots, absolutely.  But just as many--perhaps more, based on my anecdotal experience--are just sick and effing tired of bronies forcing their fannishness down everyone's throats.

Pictured: weird.

Yeah, I know the counter-arguments.  "Anime fans do it, too!"  So do Adventure Time fans, so do Whovians, so do Futuramians (my word), so do sports nerds and gun nuts and political junkies and yadda yadda yadda.  The sad fact is, though, that all that other stuff falls well within the realm of cultural acceptability.  Nobody feels threatened by Finn and Jake.  But add Twilight Sparkle into the mix, and suddenly things get weird.

Why?  All I've got are guesses and strawmen, and I might be completely off-base with some of them.  Nevertheless, here's what I think.

Fridays Are Magic: Musical Edition!

"Yes, fine, I suppose I could become a staggeringly
popular character among the brony fanbase
despite never having an actual line."

What? No, I'm not planning on singing. I mean, even if I was, how would you hear it? This is text. I mean, I guess I could write this post in prose, give it a rhyme scheme and a definite meter, but... nah.
No, this post is about another one of the aspects of Friendship is Magic that I dearly love: the musical numbers. Yeah, that's right; if the brightly colored magical ponies weren't threatening enough to one's masculinity, they went and made them sing. And, with a few exceptions, they're pretty great at it.
And so, without further ado, I present to you my ten favorite songs from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. And we're kicking it off with the Cutie Mark Crusaders, so have your insulin and toothpaste on standby.

Fridays Are Magic: The Best Pony

When I started watching the show, the last pony I thought would become my favorite character was Rarity.  Prim, proper, refined, vain, slightly neurotic, and obsessed with girly-girl foofarah, Rarity seemed like the sort of generic stock character one would find on any show targeted at young girls.  No, if I'd had to guess, I would have expected to favor Twilight Sparkle, my fellow nerd, or Fluttershy, the adorable introvert, or even Pinkie Pie, the comic relief.  Those were character archetypes I'd enjoyed in the past, and I didn't think things would be any different with a cartoon show about brightly colored, magical ponies.

Fast forward a year and a half later, and there is no doubt in my mind: Rarity is the funniest, most complex, and overall most interesting character in Friendship is Magic, and I am prepared to back this claim with a probably-too-thought-out essay.

It's about to get fabulous up in here.

Fridays are Magic: The Comic

The Friendship is Magic comic is so much cooler than it needs to be.

Now, I'm not going to say that it's the best comic ever, or that it belongs in the same conversation as Watchmen or... well, okay, nothing belongs in the same conversation as Watchmen, but you get what I mean. It's not going to go down as one of the Legendary and Important to the Industry as a Whole comics.

But it's still really frickin' fun.

The comic is, in essence, "by bronies, for bronies." Though never going off into truly "adult" humor, it's definitely written with the show's older fanbase in mind. The first story arc, spanning the first four issues, was basically a Lord of the Rings parody with references to David Bowie, Indiana Jones, and Miami Vice thrown in. It was funny and entertaining, though I have to admit that if the series had kept going permanently in that direction, I probably wouldn't have kept reading for long.

The second arc, however, has me absolutely hooked. Everything about the comic seems to have stepped up a notch or two, from the writing to the art. What's more, the team is actually telling a real story this time. A serious story, in fact, one that makes sense within the setting and adds a lot to it, but which isn't something you'd ever see on the show. And considering that, like I said last week, one of my favorite things about the show is the setting and the way it hints at darker things lurking just outside of this peaceful realm, this comic is hitting me right in the Geek Spot.

(Yeah, take a second to process that pun's mental image. I'll be over here.)

The story involves the return of the Nightmare, the strange force that corrupted Princess Luna a millenium ago and turned her into the evil Nightmare Moon. Unfortunately, while Luna was freed from its power way back in the show's first episode, the Nightmare itself survived, and now it needs a new host. Being an intelligent and rational eldritch monstrosity with an appreciation for complex characterization and subtle humor, it decides that the only appropriate vessel for its power is the Best Pony herself, Rarity.

Behold, the savage beastmaster.

I mean, come on, who else is it going to pick? Twilight Sparkle, the most powerful and potentially destructive mage in Equestria? Rainbow Dash, a flier so fast she can shatter the sound barrier and to create massive explosions? Fluttershy, who commands the loyalty of an army of woodland creatures and who can bend cockatrices to her will? Screw that, what the Nightmare wants is fabulousness.

And so, Rarity is abducted, the the rest of the Mane Six, plus Spike and Princess Luna, travel to the moon to save her. (By having Applejack lasso the moon so everypony can tightrope walk across to it. It makes sense in context.) There, they encounter an army of shapeless, shadowy horrors twisted eons ago into the Nightmare's service. Mostly, they look sort of like bunnies. After the vampiric jackalopes in the first arc, I'm starting to suspect this series is co-written by Anya from Buffy.

As you might have guessed from all the panels I keep posting, I think the art is gorgeous. The moon and its inhabitants all have this cool, dark color scheme that nonetheless pops right off the page. The characters look great--definitely better than they did in the first few issues--and everything has a vaguely ephemeral, dreamlike quality to it. It's really friggin' purdy.

The writing's been strong, too, with a good mix of serious storytelling--particularly, Luna's murky relationship with the Nightmare--and humor. Pinkie's the primary source of laughs, as should be expected, but the interplay between the Nightmare's minions is fun as well, and Spike's quest to save Lady Rarity with the Power of Interspecies Statutory Infatuation has actually been pretty touching. Poor li'l Spikey-Wikey.

The latest issue (#7) came out this week, at least on Comixology. Assuming the writers are sticking with four-issue arcs, next month should mark the finale of the Nightmare Rarity storyline. After that, who knows what mysterious part of Equestria we'll get to see next? Maybe we'll learn more about the griffons. Or journey to the gates of Tartarus. Or learn a bit more about the legendary archmage, Star Swirl the Bearded. Or maybe something else entirely.

Whatever the case, I'm on board. This comic rocks.

Here, have some more random panels below the break!

Fridays Are Magic

The keen-eyed and observant among you may have guessed that I am a fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

It's nice that I can say that without feeling the need to qualify the statement.  A year ago, coming out with my broniness was a slow process of shame and self-abasement.  I'd admit to my friends that I liked it, sure, but I also liked boobs and Gears of War and fixing monster trucks or whatever.  Today, though, I wear my love of the show on my sleeve.  (And, occasionally, on my chest.)  I say "eeyup" and "nope" when people ask me questions.  I've analyzed the show's themes and mythology, and have constructed an intelligent thesis as to why Rarity is best pony.  I've even made a ponified portrait of myself my default avatar across the interwebs.

I don't know if public perception of bronies has changed, really.  I think it has.  I mean, anyone who's cared to see the show has done so by now.  Even those that didn't fall in love with it generally seem to consider it harmless.  While even mentioning ponies on certain sites still lets slip the dogs of flamewar, the number of folks who hate it with a mouth-foaming passion seems to have decreased over time.  I think the show and its fandom are gradually settling into the groove they belong in: a geeky thing that some people are really passionate about, and others don't get at all.

Keeping that in mind, I've decided to try and limit my pony-related output to just once a week.  Thus, here on Another Geeky Blog, Fridays Are Magic.

Now, then, let's enthuse about some ephemeral equines.