September Doesn't Exist...

... and I'm alive and well.

Top 15 Moral Lessons from Friendship is Magic (Seasons 1-3)

Welcome to my countdown of the best morals around, I hope you’re patient with me because this is the first time I’ve done this. The children’s series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic features a freaking menagerie of moral lessons for kids, some of which we can all learn from. In the hardships of life, a sudden gush of optimism can bring perspective and the episodes illustrating these lessons radiate that. From friendly reminders, to conventional wisdom-defying feats, each on this list says something important that I agree with. I will rate the lessons, top down, based on their friendship letters, episodic denouements, how well I feel the story conveyed them and the impression they left on me. With that said:

CW Passive-Aggressively Rambles About Something He Found In The "New Stories"-Feed (Something I Found): Catching Butterflies

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/278614/catching-butterflies

Maybe I’m just not sufficiently jaded, you know. Maybe I can’t see the trees for the oh so winsome forest. This story has four tags: Romance, Slice of Life, Alternate Universe and Human. It’s not out of boundary or anything, but it certainly is stating the contents in an aggrandized fashion. Romance is a minor part of it, and rather spoilery, I might add. I’d hate to be categorical, because then I’ll be just like those across-the-board taggings, which I hate, but I see red every time there’s a story with four of them, or even more.

I need to take a breath. This day has been nary a relaxing moment congested. I only chose this story because of it’s manageable length, and because it looked kind of charming, which it was, with a stipulation or two. Why do I always pick the offish/winsome ones? Is it my destiny to wallow in ambiguity, never a day free from the shackles that binds me in my unquenchable quest for knowledge? Know what? … Forget it! You could try “silence says more than a thousand words” but I know that’s just an excuse for people who aren’t good with words, so let’s go, yolks!

Nostalgia Month: Rainbow Factory

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/5381/rainbow-factory

Rainbow Factory is the story about Scootaloo and her two OC friendos and how they fail their flight tests and get to go on a magical journey to the mystical Rainbow Factory. Being so that this fanfic is shrouded in mystery by the beginning, I am going to incorporate one or two more spoilers than what is normally customary when writing these kinds of reviews in order to keep it more thorough. With that said, if you aren’t a fan of spoilers, run. Run like you’ve never ran before! Oh, and I recommend it for a read. Byes!

Disclaimer: The views and grammatical prowess expressed within does not necessarily reflect CW's of today.

Nostalgia Month: Cupcakes

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14lgUY7yfbooT5IT6miNNbPqSY_qLA9aiVMjsEpszePk/edit?hl=en# (not on Fimfiction, GDocs link provided instead)


Easy operations, here, you guys. I have read the piece of fiction known as Cupcakes by one-time MLP author, Sgt. Sparkles and I have to say, it rocked. That being, of inanition, chortles, chortles, chortles and chortles. It is the story about Rainbow Dash being invited over to Sugar Cube Corner for fun, but instead of that. We have Pinkie drugging her down, dragging her down into her basement and doing things to poor ol’ Rainbow. You know, dismembering her, slowly driving her toward a stupendously racking death.

Disclaimer: The views and grammatical prowess expressed within does not necessarily represent CW's of today.

Nostalgia Month: Sunny Skies All Day Long

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/20685/sunny-skies-all-day-long


This is going to feel just like an actual episode, they told me. You are in for a treat, they told me. You are moving up toward the brink of greatness, they told. Well, I have something to tell you; you depraved, tasteless bastards. Oh, I have something to tell you alright. I… did not particularly care for it… 

Am I to be blamed? Be the judge of that yourself. Just as I am here to be the judge of this story. Oh, aren’t we having the bestest of times. So, the premise goes as such, Princess Celestia has growned tired of all the sissy, prissy, frivolous suck-upping she is forced to deal with day out and day in. Thusly, she forms a brilliant scheme through which she is to promenade right into Ponyville, undercover, so that our lil’ princess can be made able to enjoy a little spare time away from all the hard work and overblown formality.

Disclaimer: The views and grammatical prowess expressed within does not necessarily reflect CW's of today. 

Nostalgia Month: Introduction/My Little Dashie

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/1888/my-little-dashie

Coup d'etat by Colonel Waffle (I don't even know why I'm trying anymore)


Sometime in August, two years ago, I wrote my first review. It was a year or so after I found the MLP-fanfic community, and I'd read the reviews other people wrote and thought: I can do better than that. I was mistaken of course, and what followed was a train wreck, or a series of them. Yes, I've learned a lot but I don't quite know not to be ashamed of myself––and by extension, what made me the person I am today––yet so this month will be my therapy month.

I've become a lot less productive lately and for no good reason too because penning reviews is one of my favorite pastimes. This is actually the reason I started this blog, as a showcase and a motivator. I don't want to be suffocated by absent-mindedness, just because I can only keep one damn thought in my head at a time, which is why I'm posting some old stuff while rattling my brain against the computer screen. I'm not sure what will happen next, but at least I'll have something ready and posted this week. Future me, get to work!

Disclaimer: The views and grammatical prowess expressed within does not necessarily reflect CW's of today.  

Feature Box Frenzy: Who Will Save Me From This Body of Death?

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/274682/who-will-save-me-from-this-body-of-death

Review authored by Wiplash, Chaos Minion Official and undisputed claimant of this domain

Hiyas, friends of chaos! This is my blog now, any and all who question my reign will be disposed of violently and incoherently. Unlike Waffle-head, I write with my heart, using real words to express myself as clearly as I can. Questions with regard to how I got here, who I am or why I’d be interested in being a pony fiction opinionator-person will be directed to the excution barracks where you will be exescused for asking such a stupid question to my face. Then, without further ado, review-time!

Something is wrong with Twilight, full stop! Is that good; does that make for a passable summary? Yes? No? Um, Twilight goes out of her way to get some coffee, and she seems kind of groggy while she’s doing it. A looming suspense commences, something is ahoof with Twilight and we’re left to figure out what. The background telling alludes to it with greater and greater emphisasis, she can’t think of anything other than the Book and the Project, capitalized in-story so you know something’s wrong! Check below the break for my hopefully words of wisdom:

1000 likes-plus: Rest in Chaos

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/260239/rest-in-chaos

Review written by Colonel Waffle Chaos Minion Wiplash

For everything that is holy and chaotic in this world, and in the name of our holy Discord: Here is the will written by our Lord of Chaos on request to alleviate him of his most noble possessions. Forsooth, his requests shall be granted most urgently, and the many caveats therein adhered to. 

In this will you will find many promises and stipulations, until a final goodbye is issued by the one who gave us life. Written is this document by the Lord of Chaos, dealing out wonderfully bizarre commands such as the condition he wants his body to be left in, how to conduct his funeral and most importantly, what to do with his saintly remains. All this and much more on this holy piece of parchment dubbed Rest in Chaos, truly.

Something I Found: Good Girl

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/135086/good-girl

The hallway is white; the story starts like a poem. Something is different; you can’t quite put your finger (or hoof) on it but it’s there. You just listen, trying to take the words in, to turn them into something tangible. Ethereal moments like this are the bread and butter of this fanfic, which is more fascinating when the reader gets to call the shots. Context is regrettably the least interesting thing about a story with too little scope to bear its weight.

Screw Loose wakes up with a concussion, everything before which is irrelevant. Something, something, something leading to mental instability and a slow but sure transition from pony to dog. You heard me right, pony to dog! The author really tries to get into the character’s head, detailing the transition, yet it’s never about the character. Screw’s obliviousness with regard to her condition precludes any meaningful self-reflection. It’s the “transition” that’s important. An unexpected route to take and it turns out, one completely lacking in ambivalence, which is bad because the subject matter is one of the only things about this story that is unambiguous; Screw Loose is becoming a dog and there’s nothing she can do about it. 

Feature Box Frenzy: Blink

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/269332/blink


You can usually tell what kind of story it’s going to be just by reading the first two or three paragraphs. I should know, I was there when the Justice League of Authors decided on it. This one, about Twilight laboratory activities, is saliently quaint. It’s been some time now since the Golden Oaks library exploded, and Twilight is reminiscing about the good ol’ days. The lil’ rickety laboratory she used to run in her cellar had a certain charm to it and now, it’s gone. You can taste the nostalgia; this is the pitch the story is set to initially.

Meanwhile, Twi feels like doing a little experiment. A teleportation experiment that’ll “change everything.” Warm-heartedness galore ensues, involving long back-and-forths with Spike, sciency-talk and expositions about magic from a narrator who seems to know everything but will only ever tell us so much, much to my dismay and the story’s advantage. All is done in such good fun that yep, something bad happens. Or something unexpected at least, the cheerfulness is a guise for something fascinating enough, which I won’t spoil here.

Feature Box Frenzy: Luna's Turn

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/270527/lunas-turn

This is a comedy story; about Luna and her want to see the sister she loves banished. Wipe the track record clean, as she would put it. It’s only fair, after all those years, her reasoning is hilarious and absurd, all those things. Sad that, because the focus instead, turns the story into a vehicle for gruelingly set up capsule-jokes that come and go without notice.

Luna’s aim involves challenging the reader’s expectations, for absurdity’s sake. I think this kind of comedy works best when there is someone down-to-earth with whom we can connect and relate the story to. But Celestia doesn’t mind being sent to the moon, Twilight doesn’t care, whom we’d expect to. The only ones that do are the royal guards and we have no idea who they are, really.