I’ve a new fanfic for you to read and a new review to read as well. Also… watch ‘Somepony To Watch Over Me’ immediately! · 9:42am Mar 12th, 2014
It was quite difficult to try and find an Apple Bloom focused picture/comic, not because I lacked them, but because of how many pictures/comics I have within my favourite’s folders of the various sites I obtain these pictures/covers from. An yes, they do comprise mostly of FlutterDash. Anyway, I chose this here comic because it was drawn by the artist, Capnpea, who draws and writes the marvellous comic series; Three Apples.. He’s done a ton of comic pages already and I recommend you read it for its great comedy, subtle character development arc and exploration, as well as for its distinctive art-style.
Fanfiction Progress
So yeah, that new thing for you that I’ve mentioning the past few weeks, it’s finally out. It goes by the name of Winter Snuggles and is a short one-shot that delves into a subject I’ve wondered about while presenting cute little FlutterDash interactions (though I fear that some of those cute scenes may have edged into saucy moments… which I don’t think many of you would mind actually). I urge you go read it now by clicking the following link, Winter Snuggles, as this Fanfiction Progress shall dive into the creation of the story.
Anyways, I decided to write this one-shot back in December last year. I was struggling with The Shy and the Rainbow Princess’s 4th chapter for reasons that still aren’t clear to me this day and kept on having two cute dreams. So I decided to write one of them as a fanfic to alleviate my mind off of The Shy Knight and the Rainbow Princess for a while. It only took me a couple of days to write initially.
As just noted, I was having two dreams at the time. The first dream involved Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash snuggling up in bed together whilst the second dream involved Spike trying to get Rarity under the mistletoe with him but ends up with him and Sweetie Belle under it together instead. It was when I was thinking of how to expand these dreams into a proper short story; I know stories can work out being just cute scenes, I recommend FlutterDash fans read Hearth's Warming Weather by Ragnarokia for just that. Still, I wanted to flesh them out more and when I thought of doing so for the SweetieSpike idea, incorporating the set-up and such, I felt it would take a little too long to write up in comparison to the FlutterDash idea. Still, I loved the idea and dream of the SweetieSpike idea so I may write up that one-shot one day, and preferably upload it in the actual winter time.
Now readers will know that the majority of my writing is proof-read by Ugugg. As the first friend I made on Fimfiction.net, he is my go to proof-reader, but at this point I was not wanting him to have any of my writing to concentrate on other than The Shy Knight and the Rainbow Princess chapter 4… when I’d eventually send it to him. Furthermore, a lot of Winter Snuggles was based on writing a cute FlutterDash scene and frankly, there is no one better when it comes to that than my friend NintendoGal. So I asked if she wanted to proof-read a one-shot containing adorable, romantic FlutterDash cuddling. Funny enough, she did not take much convincing.
Originally the idea was much like my dream, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash snuggling and nothing more. I felt it needed more than that though, something else to it to give it more meaning, when I then thought about the winter time in of itself. Now previously I had an idea for a fanfic where Rainbow Dash attempts to snuggle up with Fluttershy during a thunderstorm but all of Fluttershy’s animals keep preventing her. In this case though, I thought of what the absent of the animals would mean for Fluttershy and wondered how she felt during the winter time when many of her animals would hibernate. It was something I had previously wanted to explore about Fluttershy but in all my previous stories there was no decent time to add it into the narrative, particularly in any of my longer stories. This fanfic thankfully gave me the opportunity to do so.
The last thing I’d like to bring up is how the story was going to be much shorter. The original fanfic was only 2289 words long, and how it ended up being lengthened was more due to NintendoGal’s hand than my own. The fanfic originally ended with Fluttershy leaving to feed Angel but NintendoGal ended up adding a whole scene where Fluttershy feeds Angel and the two have that little interaction. I loved the idea, though felt the style it was done did not suit my presentation of Fluttershy, and so using NintendoGal’s idea as the basis re-wrote the scene. Doing so though and I realised the flaw with my fanfic idea, the ending, I didn’t have a good ending to it. So instead on leaving the story on Fluttershy going to feed Angel or Fluttershy going back to bed with Rainbow Dash, I had her go upstairs and be snuggling with Rainbow Dash as the fanfic draws to a close. I felt this worked best as an ending for the story.
Strebiskunk reviews… so you know it’s going to be a few episodes back
Rainbow Falls
Three's A Crowd
Other Episode Reviews of It Ain’t Easy Being Breezie
James Corck
Thejboy88
NintendoGal55 Which also contains her review of Twilight Time… yeah, it’s the same link I gave you all in the last blog post.
Episode Review of Somepony To Watch Over Me
During the course of this episode I was always feeling three feelings; understanding, joy, and excitement. During this episode I nodded my head in thought, laughed my head off, and cheered as ponies leaped through the fire and flames. It is probably wrong to state your overall opinion on an episode at the start of the review but I feel the need to here; this episode was stupendous.
Basic premise is this, Granny Smith is off to visit relatives and Applejack and Big Mac have pie deliveries through places of uncertain death. This leaves them with the problem of what to do about Apple Bloom, to which they decide that Apple Bloom is old enough to be left on her own at the farm now, much to her delight. Applejack has second thoughts on this and returns home, her return startling Apple Bloom which leads to her messing up the kitchen and looking like she can’t handle herself. Applejack, becoming incredibly over-protective of her sister, stays home and starts adding safety to everything; leading to Apple Bloom becoming frustrated and trying to prove to Applejack that she can handle herself.
With that out of the way I can talk about all the good feelings to the episode. First off, while not quite as deep as other episodes, the moral and feelings expressed between Apple Bloom and Applejack are very relatable. Their realistic, something I imagine most people have experienced before, perhaps even from both Apple Bloom’s and Applejack’s perspectives. The relationship between the two siblings is relatable, realistic and within the realms of both of their characters; Applejack’s love for her family actually becoming a problem as she loves and frets over her sister too much. Apple Bloom expresses frustration at the lack of trust from her sister, and I meet this frustration with empathy, it is wonderfully presented. The exploration of these two sisters might not be as in-depth as say… Sisterhooves Social but is nevertheless an exploration of the bond between Apple Bloom and Applejack in ways we have not seen before and fleshes out more of the ups and downs to their sisterhood.
Moving on from that there is the humour. As noted, Applejack’s worries are understandable and within character for her because she does love her family very much. Her love for her family here thus allows the straight and practical Applejack to go completely crazy and still feel within character. Her motive is based around family and this allows her to do crazy things like tying a pillow to a rake, putting training wheels on the wheelbarrow, bubble wrapping everything and putting helmet after helmet on top of Apple Bloom. I kid you not, when Applejack placed a helmet atop of Apple Bloom’s helmet; I lost it. I just roared with laughter. So many jokes come from this and each one is absolutely brilliant. Even discounting Applejack’s crazy safety measures we get hilarious jokes like the house having a wardrobe filled with nothing but spare bows and hats for Apple Bloom and Applejack, as well as one attempt to sing a song only for Scootaloo to stop it from happening.
On another note that I just thought of, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle are also within the episode. They have great interactions and along with Apple Bloom, are absurdly adorable. Sweetie Belle regains her usual dopey cuteness and Scootaloo wearing one of Apple Bloom’s bows has taken years off my life. As for Apple Bloom, her cheering about being left on her own, oh gosh that was adorable.
Finally we move onto the feelings of excitement as this episode contains within it a new setting and a new villain. The setting is a swamp with bursting spots of fire. The villain is a female chimera with a love for pies and outright states they plan to devour Apple Bloom (the episode went surprisingly dark). I won’t spoil all that happens but you must understand that I was hollering my lungs out as Applejack jumps through the fire and flames and fights a chimera. Applejack, and even Apple Bloom, were completely bad-ass in these scenes. Applejack’s own bad-ass levels are to the point where she does the impossible, sees the invisible, row, row, fight the powah! Yes, it is fitting to compare her to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann levels of bad-assery here. This episode’s settings were beautiful, it’s villain menacing and yet capable of humorous moments, and the action had me as excited as the changeling fight of A Canterlot Wedding.
Now as for the negatives to this episode, I draw a blank. The best I can say for negatives is that Applejack’s overprotectiveness doesn’t have a quite so justified catalyst. If Apple Bloom had gotten into a particularly serious accident before the episode or was close to one, that may have made Applejack’s crazy over-protectiveness more believable contained within the episode itself. We get a rather minor incident which fuels Applejack’s overprotectiveness, which I feel works, but could have been better and helped add more understanding to Applejack’s point of view. Otherwise there is very little to complain about; maybe for an improvement of seeing Granny Smith and Big Mac’s thoughts on the matter when they returned, but there wasn’t enough time for that and I wouldn’t tamper with what is a perfectly paced episode.
After watching the episode, my negative section was blank and my positive section was massive. There were many positives I wanted to say but restrained myself on, in case you haven’t watched the episode yet. Watch it I say, drop what you’re doing and go watch this episode. Somepony To Watch Over Me is one of the best episodes of MLP ever created, a 10 out of 10, Fantastic episode, and if people are to ask what my favourite episodes of the entire show are, then starting from my favourite episode of all, this would be the 3rd episode I say. That’s right, Somepony To Watch Over Me is now not only my favourite episode of Season 4, but my 3rd favourite episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
Yay, a snuggling one-shot FlutterDash from both my favorites FlutterDash writers
I'm definitly going to love it
Time to bust out my climbing gear for this mountain ;_:
You would post this around 3am Pacific, right when I plan to go to bed. Ah well, something to wake up for at least (and distract from my own struggles with writing. Why must writing a date between Flutters and Fleur be so tricky all of the sudden?).
Here's a negative for you: the message. Applejack spells out twice that the stunt Apple Bloom just pulled is how she proved herself to Applejack. So the message to the kids is that in order to be considered grown up and responsible they should put themselves in great danger, where coming out unscathed is an achievement. This moral is just plain wrong.
My theory about AJ's irrationality in "Somepony to Watch Over Me" is that she is remembering when she lost her parents, and is utterly-terrified that she might lose Apple Bloom. Maybe it's close to the anniversary of her parents' deaths? The one thing that I could see causing the calm, courageous Applejack to completely funk out is the fear of the death of a loved one -- she's a very loving Pony under all that toughness.
The snuggling story was extremely cute. But then, IMO even in canon Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy have a very special relationship: Rainbow Dash is the one pony with whom Fluttershy feels safe expressing her more rowdy side, and Fluttershy the one pony with whom Rainbow Dash can display her softer side. I think this is because they have known each other for the majority of their lives, and each knows that the other truly accepts her despite their differences.
Oh, more comments this time!
So, about the episode. I loved it, it was simple and fun not to mention building on the Apple family as a whole.Sure, it has a few rough edges but we'll get to those later.
The story premise was believable, and the interactions were well done. Then Applejack's nervous breakdown scene was very nice and followed by a great humor piece. Overall I'd agree with most everything you said was good about the episode.
Now for cons since you listed next to none. The shadows in the beginning sort of faded into existence which kind of bugged me. Then Scootaloo's outburst went on for the entire statement. Sure she's a kid but just a little bit at the beginning say 3 words at most would have been more than enough and still carry proper characterization. Applejack completely ignoring the delivery was also kind of odd since she expresses no qualms about ditching the delivery. Perhaps adding a bit of indecision on Applejack's part would have helped tone down the humor's exaggeration. Then Applejack's boots had a most peculiar design choice, actually spawning a song about them....
So, as you can see these flaws are basically nitpicking and all in all I loved this episode, one of the best to be sure.
1919575 Well, it's not really from both of us as NintendoGal was only proof-reading. We are working on a collaboration together... still... progress has been very slow but with upcoming weeks off work and a break from updating The Shy Knight and the Rainbow Princess along with NintendoGal settling whatevers been keeping her busy, we should be able to get back to working on it soon.
But yeah, I hope you enjoyed Winter Snuggles as well as this blog's review of Somepony To Watch Over Me. Thank you for the comment, Fernesh.
1919579 This comment confuses me. I assume you are referring to how I have posted a very long blog post here. Well then, if you get time please tell me what you think of it all. Thanks for the comment, Brony2893.
1919586 I have no idea why a date between Fluttershy and Fleur might be so tricky mostly because I would never conceive of such a thing given my own interpretation of Fleur differing from yours. When you do get around to reading things I hope you enjoy this review as well as my new story. Thanks for the comment, Zyr.
1919590 When taken at face value, judging the message by only the direct scene, I could see your point but I believe the scene in relating to our non-fantastical lives is a more a matter of doing a certain significant responsibility rather than one wrought with danger.
Taking it on the most basic premise of delivering something to someone, reasoning that a child can only travel so far, while it is true dangers do exist in our mundane walks though town those dangers are frankly existent everywhere and there are so many possibilities of danger that there is no point in worrying about them to such a troubling extent. As such I believe the moral is correct, even given how you have decided to interpret. Everything in life is dangerous, but that is no reason to be restricted from a simple take, just because of the possibilities of danger. Think of it as like climbing a tree. There is a chance you can fall and hurt yourself but that is part of life. It's true that such thing could even be fatal but there is a possibility of that in every single mundane situation ever imaginable.
So yeah, I oppose your reasoning but I thank you for commenting all the same, Schpeelah.
1919786 I have no problem with AJ's over-reaction, I simply put it down to her love for her family. That said, that is a good point and is a nice theory as to why Applejack could be reacting to quite the extreme that she is within this episode.
As for the Winter Snuggles comments, I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the story. It's true, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash really do have a special bond and the show does a good job of presenting it. Thanks for commenting, Jordan.
1926754 Yes, this blog was graced by quite a few more comments this time. I've seen your few rough edges on the episode, though they're more like miniscule cracks hardly worth worrying over, though I do question that shadow thing?
I never noticed any shadows, at least any of particular noteworthiness. All in all, I'm glad to hear that you also liked the episode. It was a wonderful episode, relatable but still packed with humour and filled with some intense moments. Thanks for commenting, Kiheersedman.