Humungous Blog Extravaganza! The Shy Knight and the Rainbow Princess Chapter 4 discussion, Simple Ways and Pinkie Pride episode reviews and an explanation of my future plans for fanfiction and stuff in general! · 12:22am Feb 10th, 2014
What does this opening picture (featuring Doomie the Changeling which is always good to have in a picture) have to do with anything? Nothing at all unless you want to get all philosophical about the rest of this introduction being a talk of my future and how that in turn is a grand adventure in of itself.
For those of you that have the 4th chapter of The Shy Knight and the Rainbow Princess (go read it now please), you’ll know that I shall be taking a short break from the story. This break is for several reasons. First of all, I have other fanfic ventures I wish to explore and need to pursue. For starters, I am a Super Smash Bros fanfic writer and I have a SSB fanfic desperately in need of updating. I also have other My Little Pony fanfic matters to attend to, some are a case of quick ideas bubbling in my head and others are a matter of correspondence with authors such as NintendoGal and Rated Pony Star that I need to sort out.
With these matters arising, I need to sort out a second matter; planning the course of things from here on out. This is in regards to how I need to better plan the events and writing of The Shy Knight and the Rainbow Princess to ensure faster writing and upload times but also how I get fanfiction done in general. I need to organise the timing of writing my pony fanfics as well as my more sporadically update schedule for my SSB fanfic (I never know when Sakurai reveals more newcomers). Along with this I need to plan ventures with other writers, primarily NintendoGal as I want to complete our original collab this year. That said, it doesn’t help when ideas for a FlutterBat-FlutterDash one-shot keeps popping into our heads. Finally, I also need to organise this all around my future plans to start making YouTube videos and hopefully one day earn most of my living expenses (when you’re short on skills to survive in the world you turn to the riskiest of means). I say future, but my entire 21st Birthday list consists of getting all the equipment and even having a room in the house dedicated to doing the videos (and my Mum’s wool, took up an entire wardrobe that did). Anyway, I look to be a busy bee this year and this looks to be a busy blog post so I shall stop here for the introduction and let you enjoy the rest of the blog post.
Fanfiction Progress
So then, I finally got around to uploading the 4th chapter of The Shy Knight and the Rainbow Princess, not a hard chapter to write by any means, just a long chapter that took longer than anticipated. My writing was slow but not troubled and very little has changed about this chapter, Woodland Wade than what was originally intended. The only key difference from the original plan is that I never specified what Fluttershy and the gang would encounter in the woods as their obstacle. I had many ideas, some of which I mention towards the end without going into detail with and others being rather different such as sentry lightning clouds. There is also a couple of foreshadowing lines I had intended to add into Celestia’s and Galchobhar’s conversation but never felt there was a decent place to put it in, particularly after the groundwork for the conversation had been set.
This chapter introduces many different OCs, something I usually try to avoid but in this case purposely added them in for either antagonistic purposes or for the sake of world building. In this chapter I introduce my take on the griffin king, Galchobhar, and his personal guard and head knight Galahad as well as the princess of cicada’s, Momohime. Of course, there is also Big’s partner in crime and brains of the evil plot, Zeb. All of these character’s will be playing a part within the story, though of course Zeb will be the more prominent of the characters, at least within this entry in the Truth series. I can’t go into in-depth detail about each of them now but I shall reveal more of them as time goes on and may present detailed exploration on each of the character’s and their creation later on.
That said, while you’re familiar with zebra’s and you’re familiar with griffins, you’re not familiar with cicada’s being a race in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. That is because they are not, at least in canon, but in my fanfiction cicada’s are one of the many races in the FiM world. Now the question I assume you want answered is why I introduced cicada’s as a race.
Well first off I should explain a problem I have with the fandom in regards to world building. Often or not I see fanfictions where the other races across the lands... are ponies. I dislike this; it lacks variety to it and I prefer the ponies being the majority race being exclusive to Equestria and the Crystal Empire. On that subject, another thing I dislike in this ‘ponies everywhere’ theme used within fanfiction is when the countries are parodies or references to other countries. One such place commonly depicted to have ponies with the majority race is Neigh-pon – Japan. At this world meeting, due to my interest with Japanese culture, I wanted to have a race representative of said culture but not to have it as a pony race. As for why I chose Cicada’s, well that inspiration I’ve mention in a previous blog and shall re-post below;
When I went to Japan, I was the only person within my group aware of the Cicada’s in the summer. It was quite amusing hearing the rest of the group wondering what the constant noise was, and then one of the members becoming ecstatic over finding a Cicada skin. What does this have to do with anything? Well as you’ll hopefully find out next Friday, it has something to do with the chapter I’m writing.
Now then; why is there a world meeting going on in this fanfic? Three reasons, an excuse to have Celestia (and by extension Luna) unable to be contacted or help the main group, the ability to change scenes where points of suspense or levity are required, and the ability to drop exposition for events that may or may not relate to the heroes current quest and activity.
Finally, there was little bit concerning Celestia and Rainbow Dash I figured I could explain but it is more a case of a question as to whether I presented them well and correctly and that sort of thing I can ask within the comment section of the chapter. So there you go, the development, ideas and explanation for chapter 4, Woodland Wade.
Other Episode Reviews for Three’s a Crowd
James Corck
Thejboy88
NintendoGal55
Zyr1987
Other Episode Reviews for Pinkie Pride
James Corck
Thejboy88
NintendoGal55
Zyr1987
To note, due to various circumstances I ended up watching Pinkie Pride and Simple Ways in the opposite order. As such I have chosen to place my reviews in the order I watch them. There is another reason for this as well but you’ll understand that once you have read both reviews. Enjoy!
Episode Review of Simple Ways
You know, in watching this episode I’m kind of glad that my breaking down laptop decided to lag like mad in the initial live-stream. It in turn allowed me to watch the episode on YouTube where I was free to pause at every awkward moment… I paused several hundreds of times during this episode.
Now then, the basic premise is that Rarity has been chosen to organise some Ponyville day festival. At the same time, traveling writer/journalist, Trenderhoof, is visiting to report on the event. It just so happens that Rarity has a crush on Trenderhoof, who in turn however falls in love with Applejack instead. Thus Rarity tries to act more like Applejack to get Trenderhoof to fall in love with her.
As for the positives within this episode, I can say that it is filled with quite a good amount of humour. Rarity’s shyness when meeting Trenderhoof is absolutely hilarious and on that note, what makes a lot of Rarity’s moments funny is the wonderful voice acting. Trenderhoof’s own love related moments offer decent humour as well, with his ‘falling in love with Applejack’ scene being both hilarious and nicely designed. Throughout the episode there are several other moments of great humour coming from these two characters, with Rarity’s attempts to use a plough being truly funny.
That said, the real stars of this episode are Applejack and Spike. Why are these two the real stars? Because of all they have to put with in this episode. There are negatives to this episode that I shall get onto in a bit, but suffice to say that some of these negatives lead to a bad time for Applejack and Spike. The two of them however deal and cope with these situations wonderfully, their character’s shine mostly through all the rubbish they have to put up with in this episode. They also offer some hilarious moments, Spike breaks the fourth wall in true and sufficiently subtle style while Applejack has brilliant facial reactions, lines and ideas throughout the episode. Applejack’s plan towards the end of the episode was ingenious and well played out, even if the outcome could have been better paced.
Let us move onto the negatives though which I felt coming the moment the opening of the episode made me uneasy. Knowing the plot to the episode, simply bringing in how Rarity is supposed to be planning a far more important event immediately made me worry about how all this world turn out. That said such a problem never came about. Despite the importance of the festival and Rarity spends little of the episode organising it, I’m amazed that no repercussions occur from it. Still, this unsettling feeling may have been unfounded in how bad I feared things would end up and yet things still managed to turn out badly, just not in the way I expected.
Now this episode is filled with awkward humour. It has a lot of misunderstandings, I get that, awkward humour is expected to occur and I’m familiar with it. Making the audience in turn feel awkward is proof you’re doing a good job conveying the awkwardness. Making the audience feel pain is proof you’re trying too hard to convey awkwardness. It literally hurt me to watch several moments within this episode, both in how awkward it is and how terribly, absolutely terribly Rarity comes across in this episode.
Before I get onto the Rarity matter I should cover a couple of other issues. It is disappointing to see, despite Sweetie Belle being in the episode, a lack of a reaction from Sweetie Belle given how her sister begins acting like a country hick. The other problem I noted earlier, Rarity realising her mistake and the moral of the episode happens just a little too quickly. It’s not heinous but it should have been explained at a more relaxed pace, given better timing for Rarity to take in her realisation and not have been so frantic.
Back onto the main issue, Rarity comes across terribly in this episode, with several of these issues making the already awkward moments go overboard. I’ve heard people have problems with Rarity’s character in episodes before such as Sweet and Elite and/or Secret of my Excess to which I scoff at disliking her in these episodes but HERE… HERE I CANNOT REASON HER FLAWS! Now Rarity is in love, that tends to make you stupid, but stupidity cannot defend her here. The first problem is how little attention she gives to the festival, sure she plans it well enough but her attention is barely there. Second is how she treats Spike. In previous episodes where she goes without thanking Spike’s contributions, it is not so bad, but here she disregards any idea of Spike’s feelings for her (which given previous episodes she is at least aware of it to a degree). Furthermore, while she does thank Spike in one moment, it is not done at the right moment where it would count the most, the end. Now it is possible to disregard my previous problems with how Rarity treats Spike, she at least thanks him at one point even though such a thing passes by with little focus, but there is no excuse to how she treats Applejack. Jealous of Applejack; sure, however she can clearly see that Applejack is bothered by Trenderhoof and is in no way trying to grab his attention and yet Rarity accuses her of just that. The scene of this had my blood boiling and my mind melting; I could not stand Rarity in that moment.
Perhaps I’m over-reacting to a lot of things. The awkward moments weren’t as nearly as bad once they passed and perhaps I’m putting too much thought into Rarity’s treatment of Spike. She does eventually acknowledge his contributions but it was simply not much of an acknowledgement and not done at the right time. That said, these reviews are based on my initial first impressions, my feelings as I watched the episode and my feelings towards this episode are mostly awkwardness, pain and hatred. Oh, and a good laugh, it offered that amidst the awkwardness, pain and hatred. All in all, I really did not like Simple Ways. Perhaps I’ll look back on it more favourably, but for now I feel the most apt comparison to this episode is my feelings towards Putting Your Hoof Down and thus shall give it the same rating. I give Simple Ways a score of 1.5 and consider it a Poor episode.
Episode Review of Pinkie Pride
I was busy at the time and unable to watch this episode on a live-stream as I usually would. I couldn’t find this episode on YouTube either so I had to watch it via some Daily Motion site. Having experienced lag, an inability to run in 720 or 1080 and many loading time delays… I despise Daily Motion now.
The premise for this episode is that it is Rainbow Dash’s birthday and the anniversary of the day she moved to Ponyville (fanfic writers, take notes). Thus Pinkie Pie is planning a party for Rainbow Dash, but then the travelling party pony Cheese Sandwich comes to town. He volunteers to throw the party and ends up taking the spotlight and attention away from Pinkie, leading her to doubt her abilities as a party pony.
Let me tell you the best quality of this episode. It is not the wonderfully sung songs. It is not the many delightful and surprising cameo’s. It is not the sheer amount of joy and humour this episode presents. The best quality to this episode is how it almost brought me to tears, how it literally twisted my heart. Within the first ten minutes there were at least 3 moments from Pinkie that had me feeling down. Then Pinkie sung Pinkie's Lament… you wouldn’t believe how much I understand that first minute of the song, the feeling of inadequacy at finding someone outmatches and the skill or talent you hold the most pride in. This song had me trembling, and if it wasn’t the middle of the night when I was watching this, I’d have whooped with sheer joy at the end of it.
So, about those other positives this episode has. The opening does a great job of introducing us to Cheese Sandwich, giving us a grasp on his personality but with effectively presented sense of mystery. We also get our first cameos, of Appleloosa and the buffalo’s (I spotted Chief Thunderhooves and Little Strong Heart in seconds). Later on we get a cameo from Matilda and various cameos of background ponies as fillies including-OH MY GOSH, FILLY FLITTER! I had to pause the video to daw at the adorableness for a while.
Simply giving cameos of the great case of MLP isn’t the only thing this episode does though; it also offers some of them singing opportunities. Mr Cake, Mrs Cake and even Diamond Tiara sing in this episode… I didn’t think the songs could get any better at the point. The fact that Pinkie’s Lament almost reduced me to tears as I felt a dagger of sadness stab through my heart proves otherwise but that is credit to how good the songs are. There is one slight problem with them but otherwise, they’re all terrific.
The episode is absolutely hilarious, usually as parts of the songs but then most of the episode is made out of songs. For instance, Twilight’s book of rules for a goof-up, you’ve just got to love adorkable Twilight Sparkle. Cheese Sandwich makes an amazing character, a great moment of depth (though not the most original, was well done and establishes a great point about one of the characters) is revealed towards the end and he comes across as a well-rounded character. Rainbow Dash is also well presented here, despite concerns she might brush off Pinkie in a jerk-like manner, these fears are brushed aside as Dash’s choice of words are carefully chosen and nether is there any intent of hurt or lack of care from Rainbow Dash. Finally there is Pinkie Pie… who I will cover in my conclusion.
We move onto negatives and I might as well start this off as controversial as possible; the songs. Not the whole songs but something I seemed to notice with each of the songs. Now I’m no music expert, but while a lot of the songs began or ended differently, whenever ‘Party Pony’ was mentioned it would usually be sung in a line in the exact same manner as it is sung in just about every song in this episode. Usually it is because the tone has changed to fit that line during the course of the song but still, it pops up so often and tries to distort the individuality of each song. It ends up being the most prominent line in almost every one of the songs.
There is also a bit of a problem concerning pacing. Not a major one, but a little pacing problem with how much character development they give Pinkie within the first ten minutes. Aside from these problems, there is not much else to say that is negative about this episode. Oh, if you don’t like the songs in MLP then this one is a problem, whereas other episodes only have one song and it’s over so you can enjoy the rest of the episode, this one is songs throughout. So if that is something you’re not fond of, watching this episode will be hard, which may be annoying as this one introduces more of the over-arching plot of the season.
I said I’d talk about Pinkie Pie once I got to the conclusion of my review of Pinkie Pride and here we are; what do I think of Pinkie Pie in this episode? This is the best exploration of her character since Party of One. Pinkie Pie is presented as funny and talented yet never over the top without good reason or random for the sake of being random. She is presented with a problem and suffers from it, she comes across as relatable and responds in ways you’d expect of someone in that situation. Pinkie Pie is brimming with depth, personality, character growth, character exploration and this episode must be some huge love letter to her fans. It is the best Pinkie Pie episode since Party of One. Thanks to this episode, my top ten list is now filled with 10/10 episodes. That’s right, I rate Pinkie Pride a 10/10, a new entry into my Top Ten Favourite episodes of this entire series.
I can wholeheartedly agree with these ratings. The portrayal of Rarity in Simple Ways was easily the least flattering of any of her portrayals in any episodes she starred in throughout the entire show. I don't think it was the weakest episode in the season, but other than the comedy I couldn't really enjoy it. Had tons of fun with Pinkie Pride though.
Simple Ways, from all I've seen, is apparently yet another Love It or Hate It episode. I liked it, personally, because I was more focused on the humor than the characterization.
As to Pinkie Pride, despite disliking musical episodes, generally, and Pinkie being my least favorite of the mane six, I managed to enjoy this episode. Still, I just want next Saturday to come now. Fluttershy episodes are my favorites
Eh, I have to disagree about Rarity clearly being able to see anything while she's being overwhelmed by her emotions. She's in a state of both jealousy and irrationality, so there's no reason to me that she should notice (or believe) that Trend could be a bother to anyone. I also think it's important and proper that Spike isn't thanked at the end because Rarity doesn't reciprocate any feelings towards him nor is he really important to the plot other than some good humor and generating some parallels. A key parallel, for Trend bothering AJ: How can Trend not like Rarity? How can AJ not like Trend?
At any rate, I love both of the last two episodes. I'm certain our differing take on Simple Ways was because I thought the characters were written just fine and they all behaved as I'd expect them to (even Pinkie, although she's becoming a real disappointment most of the time she does background gags).
I agree with your analysis of Simple Ways, but I still enjoyed it because I already thought Rarity was a horrible pony. Okay horrible is an exaggeration but her behavior didn't really surprise me.
Simple Ways
I'm not afraid to admit I skipped through half of Simple Ways, it's really just that awkward and really doesn't do Rarity's character justice.
Now, before I begin my rant on this I just want to point this out: Trenderhoof has got to be the third to fifth least aesthetically pleasing pony I've ever seen in the show. He looks nothing like Shining Armor (who I use as my benchmark since Cadence is a princess and chances are she'd marry a nice looking guy right? (even though I think Cadence doesn't look nearly as good as Fluttershy, but more on that later)) and has a square (not happening) besides having a terrible color scheme.
Now, the episode had an alright premise, but Rarity having a crush seems odd and more of Twilight's thing (don't quote me on this, I have no idea what stalkers act like). It had way to many awkward scenes for my taste, especially the full blown flat hair, hat, and suspenders (this was down right painful).
The only redeeming aspect for me had to be Applejack being a good character, and Pinkie's physics defying blowfish thing that they brought back, though I would have liked to see Fluttershy go out on stage as a favor to Rarity (she was ok with competing in the pony Olympics right? (hopefully they don't have any suicide bombers in Equestria)) and running back to fill 3 seconds of screen time.
There is one thing i'm not sure many people bothered to notice. When Trend is describing himself to Applejack at 9:30, he points out two specific ponies (I know this has a 90% chance of being nothing but still).
Pinkie Pride
Pinkie Pride was good but was resolved way too quickly, but the worst part was how everyone ditches Pinkie to run off with Cheese. This singular part makes everyone (background ponies included) there look shallow, and last I checked this wasn't like other girl's shows.
Though the rest of the episode does make up for that problem.
People
1818172
Rarity is not a horrible pony.
You are a poop. A big, stinky, smelly, pile of poop.
1819234
Who is this directed to?
Firstly insults are very rude and not worth your time, try valid points and debate next time.
If this is directed to Souldin then you take that back now or I will end you. Magnetism remains in my top ten list and will likely always be.
1825838 I'm the dude that edited "Magnetism" and is currently editing it's sequel, "Shy Knight and the Rainbow Princess." Considering such, I feel I am allowed to let him know how much of a poopie face loser this guy is.
Or as I really wanted to reply...
Alas, it would sound like I'm a jerk if I merely posted that video without anything else
1817064 I'd say I'm glad that you agree with my ratings but in agreeing with my rating that also means you had an unpleasant time watching Simple Ways. Sorry about that but it is nice to know that I'm not alone in thinking Rarity was poorly presented in that episode.
I am glad to see that you enjoyed Pinkie Pride like I did. Thanks the comment, Sypher.
1817532 To me, character interactions is the most important quality of any story and has key affects on all matters, including the humour. Poor presentation of character led to some ineffective humour moments as it in turn led to some poor character interactions which cut off possible effective humour moments being drawn from said character interactions. Though overall I do agree that this episode has it's fair share of funny moments, which was something I agreed with regarding Putting Your Hoof Down (it had Rarity and Pinkie interacting, which is always funny), but for me doesn't manage to save the episode in either case.
I'm glad you were able to enjoy Pinkie Pride despite your lack of fondness for musicals. Thanks for commenting, Zyr.
1818172 I disagree with your point of view regarding Rarity but I'm glad you were able to enjoy the episode whereas I could not. Thanks for the comment, Forum Explorer.
1818505 It seems I wasn't the only who found Simple Ways uncomfortably awkward. Now I have little problem with Trenderhoof, sure his design wasn't all too appealing but I never found that to be too big of an issue. Rarity having a crush also doesn't seem too unusual, she had one on Prince Blueblood, though I figured she'd have learnt her lesson on crushing on a celebrity she has never met in person.
That said, I do agree that there were way too many awkward scenes that were just a little too much. Also that Applejack was one of the saving graces of this episode.
As for Pinkie Pride, given the nature of the episode as a musical, I expected certain matters to be addressed in a faster paced manner. Given that these issues are mostly explored through song though I end up feeling that they flow well together, particularly more so than if they tried to explore all that without song while still having the restraints of a 20 minute episode.
As for everypony ditching Pinkie, well in regards to Ponyville this is nothing new; they've been depicted as quite shallow and flawed numerous times before (Putting Your Hoof Down and Ponyville Confidential for instance). As for Pinkie's friends, they had been going forth with the idea that Pinkie was going to be planning the party alongside Cheese Sandwich, at least it was mentioned that way at first.
Thanks for the longer and detailed comment and thanks for defending Rarity.
Also; kiheerSEDMAN, meet my proof-reader, Ugugg. Ugugg, meet kiheerSEDMAN.