It's been quite a while, but the reviews have returned. And let's get it started in here with the Pegasus Rescue Brigade's offering, Infallible.

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SYNOPSIS:

Celestia is perfect. Everything she does ends up going off without a hitch, her beauty is never tarnished, and as the title says, she is completely infallible. And she hates it with every breath that passes through her body. So one Harmony Day, she decides to try her hoof at failing something.

REVIEW:

The core concept of “Infallible” is the idea of infallibility itself. In modern practice, the word merely means that one knows the truth with absolute certainty; that is, the person's choices are always right and you would do good to follow them. This...does not extend to Celestia within the canon, so the story opts for another route to make the title work. Namely, Celestia does make mistakes, but something will always happen that'll turn that failure into a success, to the point where it seems like the universe restructures itself any time she says or does something in order to ensure she's always right. Admittedly, I did get hung up on the title a bit, but it was never a huge issue.

That's really all there is to the story. Celestia tries numerous times to fail at something, only to have things right themselves in an infuriatingly convenient way. It's a simple premise, but the story has quite a bit of fun with it, and manages to pull it off without much difficulty. The comedy is further expanded upon by Celestia and Luna themselves, who both take turns snarking over the issue at hand, as well as the older Alicorn's increasing psychotic desperation to botch something. They even take time to comment on one of the old chestnuts this kind of story likes to pull, and why it makes no sense when you actually think about it in this situation.

As the Comedy tag implies, this story is pure comedy from beginning to end, and it works very well. If there is an issue, it's that the story tends to get a bit tell-y, especially from the parade onwards, but it works in a story like this. There's not much in the way of characters, with Celestia being the focus and Luna only appearing at the beginning and end, but both are able to carry the story on their own. Plus, some of the ways Celestia fails at failing are rather inventive in their contrivance, while also leaving room for speculation that Celestia isn't infallible, but rather just happened to have a very nice string of luck all day.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Infallible isn't the story you turn to for deep thoughts or messages, but if you want a laugh, this is definitely a great one. It's also rather short, clocking in at just over three thousand words, and moves at the right speed so that it doesn't even feel that long. If you haven't taken the time to check this one out yet, then do yourself a favor and fire it up.

The first review (Infallible) will be up tomorrow, but I am officially reopening the queue to any requests you may have. If you have a story you want me to plug, or just something you liked or didn't like and want my asinine opinions on, feel free to post in the comments, PM me, or even fire up that giant spotlight you have in your backyard, right next to where you buried that dead body.

There are, however, a few ground rules:

- No Cupcakes spinoffs. I reviewed the original story only because I was building up to MMC, and I don't want to cross that bridge again. So no Rainbow Factory, Sweet Apple Massacre, Pattycakes, or sequels to the original tale.

- No Fallout Equestria. I have never read the original story, have no desire to read it, and lack the time to get properly acquainted to how it tries to cram two things that simply don't seem to fit together into one story. This includes spinoffs.

- Clop...I might do, but I will seriously have to consider it and look at just how explicit the content is before I put it up here. Any requests of that nature are going to be filed into the "Maybe" bin on sight.

- NOTHING FROM SHORTSKIRTSANDEXPLOSIONS. EVER. I am NEVER talking about any of his stories again.

- And above all else, be honest if you hate my guts for what I say. These are all subjective opinions.

...Also, Enterprise sucked. That is all.

Okay, let's get this out of the way.

The After-Birthday Surprise

After being pushed into infinity, I guess it's time to reveal what the surprise is: a review of the very first G1 special. But that's on the backburner for the time being due to technical issues, writing problems, and me not wanting to rip off CR too much. Still, it shall come when it's done, probably by another blog poster who can do in a year what took me twelve.

Schedule Change

Due to a little thing called "working so I can afford to eat," I'm cutting the schedule down to two posts a week, on Fridays and Sundays. Fridays are only half-days at work, and Sundays are off, so I'll have more time to create something of value. Like perhaps a chapter or two.

Fanfic Reviews

I've beaten myself up for over a month on these things, and have made a decision: they're coming back. I'm sorry, but after some stuff that happened today, I've decided to stop caring so much about what others think...mostly...and just get some done. The first new review, Infallible, will be up this Friday.

Comic Reviews

They'll still be here, coming along as the comics do. I've decided to just do arc reviews for the main series, while the Micro will still go issue-by-issue. It's just something I'm experimenting with.

Episode Reviews and Equestria Girls

Obviously, there are no episodes to review just yet. When Season Four comes along, though, and assuming I haven't died or been abducted by aliens or left the fandom, I will be releasing the reviews the day after the episode airs. A lot of my Season Three reviews are ones I now either disagree fully with or only hold a partial agreement towards, since they were released almost as soon as the episode aired.

As for Equestria Girls, I will still see and (possibly) review it. I can't catch the theatrical run since the nearest theater that's showing it is over four hours away, but it'll be leaked out not too long after, and there's always the DVDs and Hub premiere to fall back on. It all depends on how things line up.

And to close things off

I'm sorry for the rough last few weeks. This looks to be a promising new beginning here, and I resolve to make the most of it.

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Also, Waning Moon Chapter Two is now 60% done.

I saw it last night (I'm not linking to it for the sake of you innocent souls who haven't), and...

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Do I even need to go beyond this point? Nothing it gave me even the slightest bit of hope, both for it and the show in general. Literally the only potentially decent thing was Twilight struggling to act bipedal, but even that stinks of a gag that'll get ran into the ground very quickly. And then you have the love interest, and what looks like a prom, and Spike is a dog, and...

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I'm sorry. I don't like being this negative. But this looks legitimately awful. Bad enough to wreck what little progress I was making in getting over the other crap, anyway. I'll still give this a watch (probably on YouTube since it won't be out on DVD or the Hub until Fall, apparently), but now it'll only be to see how gruesome the crash and burn truly is.

Why is it that, when I'm trying to offer fair criticism, balancing out the good with the bad and presenting what works and what doesn't, I'm a troll and a hater? Is it something I'm doing? Am I just a complete jackass?

Just what the hell is wrong with me?

If you're still here after yesterday, there's something I did a while ago that I forgot to post. I was interviewed on BronyCast by Data Stream and Sneak Attack, and the interview went up last week...but I forgot to link to it. Sorry. Well, if you want to listen to me make an even bigger ass of myself, go to yonder site and check it out. Do it for them, at least.

I'm sorry I exploded like that. I'm sorry if I upset anybody. I just felt such anger that I had to get it out, and choose a horrible way of doing it.

Sorry.

You suck.

- Signed, the pissed-off guy writing this

So hey, I bet you're wondering what I've written in the last, oh, two or so weeks? Well here goes:

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A

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Breathtaking, isn't it? Now if you'll excuse me, I have to continue being absolutely useless and not getting a damn thing accomplished.

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Also, ropes today are awful. They also burn my skin a lot easier than they used to. I guess being out of Boy Scouts and spending years in front of a computer has softened my flesh to the point that it's more of a jelly than anything else.

I probably already did this one, but whatevs.

As I'm pretty sure all of us knows by this point, FiM is the fourth generation of the MLP franchise. That's a very long run for what amounts to pretty plastic horse figurines with brushable hair. And like every long-lasting franchise, there have been more than a few cartoons, books, comics, and specials centered around the various ponies and their corporate-mandated adventures. But for the longest time, G4 fans...didn't look back fondly on what had come before. Most of it was labelled as trite, girly or otherwise anathema to the superior version we have today, and references to those dark times were kept at a minimum. Nowadays, people have softened their views a bit on the G1 specials and first series, but G3 and 3.5 remain hated and shunned by many.

But really, is it really that bad to reference those early days?

G1 references are, admittedly, pretty much non-existent, at least in a direct way. Hasbro infamously lost the rights to nearly all of the old ponies, villains, and other assorted materials, mostly because they weren't too good on keeping up their trademarks for toys they weren't making anymore. That's why, when Faust wanted to just reuse several old ponies for FiM, she had to either create new characters or merge them with the existing G3/3.5 cast. Thus, Rarity changed from a brat of a princess to a generous-but-greedy fashionista, G4 Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash are just Surprise and Firefly occupying their bodies, and Twilight was aged a bit and had a daughter named Twilight Sparkle. The only characters who didn't follow this trend were Spike and Applejack, since they were still used in the toylines and a handful of G3 specials, and even then G4 Applejack is the polar opposite of G1's ditzy and clumsy version.

Still, quite a few fans remember the villains and want them back. And...I have to say most G1 villains weren't all that impressive. A few looked threatening, like Tirek and that...goat...guy who's name escapes me, but most of them were just jokes. Except the Smooze, which is the worst villain in the entire franchise for all time. Sorry, but it's...lame. It's just a big blob that destroys everything and turns you into a jerk. Granted, G4's villains could be better, but they at least pop visually, have a real threatening demeanor to them, and oh yeah, are actually defeated by the ponies outwitting them rather than deus ex machinas or the Rainbow of Light.

G2 never happened.

G3 references are the most common these days, mostly because those materials are still around and easy for Hasbro and the show staff to access. Again, character names are shared between the generations, but there are a few others peppered throughout. Probably the most triumphant example, though, was the episode "Hearth's Warming Eve." There were obvious name drops and references, from Rarity once again being a spoiled brat of a princess to her naming the new land Unicornia, but when you look at the episode as a whole, it matches up with G3 surprisingly well. Back then, the ponies were more or less segregated, with Unicornia bieng a unicorn-only city. Now look at how the three races treated each other in HWE. It's basically a deconstruction of G3's idea of separating the pony species out, ending with them finally realizing that all three races can live in harmony together and founding Equestria.

So what's the point of this? Well...none, really. It's just an amusing thing to see mythology gags peppered in a series that many think blows the ones that came before away. MLP has never really had a mythology to keep up, since the characters change from show to show. (Compare that to Transformers, which pretty much has the same cast every generation, with the only changes being the background conflict and some personalities.) And really, would you like there to be more references or carry-forwards in FiM?

Just a question.