ME's Blogospherical Device: Part the First · 11:06pm Mar 11th, 2012
Here's the first edition of my idea for a random blog, hope you all enjoy!
Recent News (Spoiler!)
I've decided to write about the recent revelation that has shocked, appalled and excited the fandom. Of course, since some people want to leave the 'surprise' for when the episode comes, I went and put a small spoiler tag, as you can see. I'll use the effective method of burying the spoilerific information in chunks of text, rather than drawing attention to it by leaving massive paragraph breaks and lots of exclamation marks and the word 'spoiler' in giant letters. The revelation is, as most of you have probably heard already, that Twilight Sparkle has a brother, and her brother is Shining Armour, featured in the two-part finale that has the very-controversial Princess Cadence being an alicorn. For those of you cave-dwellers who don't know what Shining Armour and Princess Cadence look like, here's something to refresh your memories:
Somehow, I don't think they're going to be quite as kick-arse in the show as Equestria-Prevails portrays them in that image. Just look at the awesomeness that is Shining Armour and the flirty nonchalant expression Cadence is wearing. Of course, being a wedding episode, they might not display much in the way of epicness I'm hoping they will. Who knows. Okay, back to the fact that Shining Armour is Twilight's brother. I quite like this move. It gives us a springboard to look at Twilight's past and her relationship with her family. Hell, we might even see her parents at the wedding. I'm thinking Shining will be an adventurous dashing swordsman or heroic knight-errant, having seduced a foreign princess (Cadence) on one of his adventures. Of course, he probably left the family a while back, when Twilight was still young. He might have a protective big brother relationship with Twilight; however distant, they still love each other (perhaps writing to each other from afar). I'm theorising he got his cutie mark (a shield with Twilight's big purple star over it and three small white stars above it) from being good at protecting others or defensive/offensive magic.
As for why he isn't mentioned in the show, let's think about it. Did Pinkie mention her family off the bat? Didn't Rarity's parents only just make an appearance sometime in Season 2? Do we have to know everything about the Mane Six as soon as possible? No. It's not going to be a surprise revelation to the gang, they're going to act like Twilight's mentioned her family before, off-screen. That way they can ease the audience into the idea of him being her brother. It's not like that information was at all relevant to any of Twilight's previous appearances. It's only really been relevant now. I'm still looking forward to their relationship and this character. As well as the possibility of seeing her parents (and them being named and having speaking roles. However, I'll leave talking about Princess Cadence to a future blog post.
The revelation did make me wonder about Night's Favoured Child and whether/how much this would impact it. Still haven't come to a conclusion about how to integrate Shining Armour into the NFC universe, or if I really should, but it's not really on the forefront of my mind. Not even all that relevant to the story anyhow.
Fanfic Review: The Age of Wings and Steel (sort of spoilers)
It's pretty clear to me that I love adventure. Settings where ponies travel all over the place, questing or trekking and finding new places, meeting new people and experiencing new cultures. I really love and enjoy world-building laced with exciting, epic stories and compelling characters. 'The Age of Wings and Steel' is exactly that, and more. Also, it comes with an awesome map (although this needs to be more zoomed in and at a larger resolution):
Set in Equestria 300 years after Luna's imprisonment on the moon, the story follows Rye Strudel. Rye is a pegacorn, but don't let this fool you. The story makes it perfectly clear that pegacorns are nothing like alicorns. They're very unlucky buggers. Having both the horn of a unicorn and the wings of a pegasus might seem like a blessing, but in actual fact, a pegacorn is stunted and crippled. His wings are too weak to give him proper flight and he's pathetically bad at magic. Rye is considered a freak and a cripple by Equestrian society, and he tries to overcome this.
The plot is driven by the war with Griffons invading from the southern desert. Equestria is not only woefully unprepared to defend against this, but a civil war erupts when the power-grubbing, idiotic ancestor attempts to secede in the face of an equally ambitious Duchess's (who I think is the ancestor of Rarity; so the conflict is a nice foreshadowing to the show) attempts to bolster her province's military might to defend against the coming Griffons. Young Rye is sent north to a nation of Viking ponies, accompanied by a grumpy pegasus guard and a childhood friend, in order to enact a Gondor Calls For Aid and return to Equestria with an alliance and military help (probably at the last minute or something like that).
I won't say much more, but I highly recommend it. The story doesn't, for some reason, get many views or readers. I think that may be something to do with the misconceptions about pegacorns and alicorns in the story. But still, all the characters have excellent characterisation and their motives are understandable and relatable. Their personalities are distinct and, overall, the story is very well-written. It has tonnes of exciting things, from Rye's adventuring and travelling to battle scenes featuring Griffons and ponies. I also quite liked the politicking that shows up every now and then. This story is, safe to say, one of my very favourites, and you should all at least give it a go.
You can find it on Equestriadaily.com here: http://www.equestriadaily.com/2012/01/story-age-of-wings-and-steel.html. I'd recommend that link over the FIMFiction.net one: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/13034/The-Age-of-Wings-and-Steel, because it is grouped better and all the sections are sorted into bigger chunks (there's a 900-word chapter in the FIMFiction version, for instance).
Parting Words
That's all at the moment! Give me some suggestions for fanfics to review and MLP/fandom topics to write about and I'll give 'em a whirl. Also, suggestions for possible competitions and prizes for them might be appreciated, because I'm stumped for ideas for that, beyond fanart/fanfics for people to write about. Ciao for now.
Remember to Comment!
Its going to be very interesting to see how the finale works out. I dont know why but lately I feel that they have been adding a hell of a lot of things to the MLP world and I'm not sure if it is a good thing... but we can only wait and see.
I don't really have a problem with Twilight having a brother, Cadence on the other hand I don't like... the two alicorns we currently have are enough if you ask me, and putting in another one just takes away from the epic feel.
oh well, we'll see how it all unfolds eventually
About the season 2 finale effecting Night's Favored Child, I've always preferred fanfics that started being published before canon changes story-relevant fanon to ignore the new canon. I don't particularly mind when fanfics do change to account for new canon, so long as it's done well enough, but it always leaves me a bit disappointed, as if I'm no longer capable of reading the fanfic as it was originally intended. It's a silly concern, I know, but I have it anyways, lol. And that's my 2¢.
About Twi's brother, I'm also excited about that for pretty much the exact reasons you listed, lol. I want to know his story, especially in relation to Twilight Bestpony's. I'm going to both laugh like a maniac and be deeply disappointed if it turns out the entry in that TV Guide was a misprint and he ISN'T related to Twilight. As for Cadence, I'm trying to keep an open mind regarding that ̶s̶k̶a̶n̶k̶ new alicorn, but it's difficult. I'm honestly hoping Studio B gives her a backstory that doesn't affect my view of Celestia and Luna, because let's be honest, that's the only reason fans (like me) are apprehensive about her. We like to see the equestrian princesses as goddess-like, and the sudden appearance of some new alicorn that has never been so much as mentioned, who's sole purpose as a character is to get married (as far as we can tell), somewhat undermines that notion. You now have 4¢.
About The Age of Wings and Steel, I'm happy to see it being reccomended! It's one of my favorites too, and I'm disappointed (word of the day) in how little love it gets. I know I was wary of giving it a chance because of the Pegacorn vs. Alicorn confusion myself, so I'm positive that's why it gets so few views. In fact, the only reason I even started reading it was to see for myself whether or not Rye was a Mary Sue Alicorn OC. It was IMMEDIATELY apparent that he wasn't, and I kept reading, and I loved it, and I wish more people would give it a chance and that it updated faster.
6¢! You should invest in stocks. I suggest HAS.
[SPOILERS IN THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU HAVEN'T READ 'My Little Alicorn'.]
Suggestions for future posts? I can't think of any other under-appreciated fanfics... so how about My Little Alicorn, maybe? It's well-written and uses some pretty unique ideas that I don't recall seeing anywhere else, such as Pinkie Pie's ancestor having been one of Celestia's past students that Celestia had accidentally driven to evil by her tunnel-visioning on her goal of finding a way to rescue her sister. And of course, the main plot point, Celestia being regressed back to a foal by Luna as a prank, Luna only discovering after the act that it's non-reversable when cast on alicorns, due to their divine natures (or something like that). I've only seen that idea in one other place, on ask-fillytwilight.tumblr.com, but that tumblr doesn't actually explore the idea so much as inject adorableness directly into your blood stream. And it regresses Twilight, which would be an interesting idea to explore (if it was explored), but regressing an ambiguously-over-1000 year old immortal has so much more room for exploration. For example, in My Little Alicorn, Celestia's childhood apparently consisted of wandering a barren primordial Equestria before biolgical life took off, all alone, fleeing from aggressive elemental beings, licking moss off rocks for sustenance, etc. In other words, her childhood was complete shit and that's causing some psychological issues with her sudden and unexpected return to being a foal. I'm beginning to feel as if I'm typing too much, so I'm gonna' call it quits, lol. But yeah, that's my suggestion.