#also yes this is a funny reference to a scene in danny phantom

[biscuit-munchies]

cheeky Jimmy doesn't come out too often, but when he does he comes in swinging.

[theplanetprince]

Fanfiction Review

I can already tell this is gonna be super confusing bc I've been writing fic since I was 12 but have since gone through so many identity changes. But let's play anyway!

Thanks for the tag @redead-red

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

My current library is 8. I don't actually write fanfic too often unless a specific idea intrigues me-- or something in the fanon just doesn't line up with me. I do have at least 4ish more stories planned and maybe a revised version of an ancient story from when I was young. 2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

166,451! Pretty neato!

3. How many fandoms have you written for, and what are they?

Uh, in no specific order,

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (lost to purging)

Doctor Who (you ain't gonna find these)

Sonic

NiGHTs into Dreams

Dead by Daylight (<3)

Danny Phantom (my beloathed) Supernatural (my other beloathed)

and uhhhh, I think a bunch of various other video games I can't remember. For the sake of brevity I'm gonna put the rest under the cut.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

This is actually pretty funny bc I have so few fics released. I only get emails for certain ones all the time, so I wrote this part out by guessing, but I ended up not needing to change it. (also, don't read most of these; they're old and bad)

1. Schrodinger's Adolescent, 337 Kudos (Danny Phantom)

2. Teen Years and How to Survive Them, 97 Kudos (Secret Trio)

3. Two Fake Feds Come up the Laneway the other dayyyyyy, 56 Kudos (Letterkenny/Supernatural)

4. Brother's Keeper, 40 Kudos (Halloween, DBD)

5. Beginner's Guide to Destroying the Moon, 37 Kudos (Sonic)

5. Which of your fic do you want more attention for?

I'll be real here, I still enjoy most of the work I did for both Beach House Bummer, and Beginner's Guide to Destroying the Moon. I just wish I got more love for the latter bc I might be inspired to finish it lmao.

6. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I really try to! I love the long rambly comments I get on Schrodinger's because I can feel those people are giving me the same passion I put into my work-- Though most of the time I get the generic "post more" or "update plz" which I dunno I'm grateful for the interaction. Still, I don't really want to repeat like "I'm trying my best, dude." about 12 times a day.

7. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I'll be real I only have two completed fics rn-- but I can tell you I had this one fic that I wrote when I was fourteen where the ninja turtles had to burn down a lab full of half-born mutant embryos, and like I remember writing that and then going to middle school the next day like "They don't know I'm a literary genius."

8. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Probably the Letterkenny/Supernatural crossover-- I feel very strongly about SPN and how people take it way too seriously, so when I found out it was filmed in Canada. It used famous Canadian actors from the show Letterkenny, it felt way too good to pass up. I do hope to write in that space again when I'm feeling less depresso-espresso.

9. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yeah. It's probably a big reason why you'll never see the tmnt fics for a while. I also used to write a lot of OC stories, and this was back in 2014 so like those were def hit the hardest. I'm glad to say it's like... subsided for the most part. I don't get hate as much as I just get really confusing and creepy comments, which don't hurt my rejection-sensitive-ass as much.

10. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Hahahaha, no.

I am kind of bad at writing it, and I don't really like writing it. Which yeah that makes sense. My friends sometimes when they find out I write fanfic as a joke they'll send me some of the worst examples smut they can find and to test my talent I'll try to rewrite it to make it some kind of titillating-- but alas it just isn't my forte. The cons of being an asexual I guess.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Uh, yes and no? I think I had one of my older fics stolen, retranslated, and then retranslated again to English? That was so long ago tho.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, but I'd love to give it a shot sometime.

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Honestly, it's sonadow. I know it's cringe but I'm free, dammit. Outside of that I guess my favorite dynamic is jock/nerd, which you've probably gleaned from my resume here fhsdkjf.

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I've been working on Teen Years and How to Survive them since I was 16, I only started making headway on it when I was 19-- so I feel like that speaks for itself hskjhg.

15. What are your writing strengths?

It's been told to me that I'm very funny and I write convincing dialog that captures a character's voice. Which is extremely flattering despite the fact that I feel like I'm tricking you all.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

probably scenery and landscape, if I'm honest. I also accidentally keep creating scenes just for the dialog instead of action or environment.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I think as long as I can guess what they're saying from context clues, and the writer is courteous enough to include body language and the like, then it's mostly harmless. I love including a bunch of references in fic whether it's cultural, historical, or just like a quote from a movie or something so I have a bunch of tabs open regardless it wouldn't be too inconvenient for me to fire up google translate or something.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

19. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Probably Schrodinger's Adolescent, it really opened up a lot of doors for me in the DP fandom and I got to meet a lot of cool people because of it. It really cheered me up from a dark place. And despite me writing it initially out of anger and spite its grown into this soft thing that really means a lot to me.

20. What fic are you most proud of?

Honestly, I can't pick. I'm both embarrassed by them all and yet glad they bring people some form of comfort.

Uhhhh who to tag-- I don't really know

@ten0rreaper is the only one I can think of-- whoever else I guess can have at it. I'm not very good at these things lmao.

[incorrectmlpquotes]

My Thoughts on Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks

Or: Are we sure this didn’t come out in 2004 rather than 2014? Because the “battle of the bands”  story line feels super dated for some reason. I feel like almost every early 2000s cartoon had some sort of music contest episode, and I never liked them. I blame American Idol for making those popular.

Some History:

I’m under the impression that everything in this movie I dislike is a completely subjective thing that wouldn’t bother someone else. I know that, from a movie standpoint, this is much better than the first, but I just don’t like it as much. Everything that warrants complaint comes from a personal hangup that I have (such as: my lack of any musical ability causes me to not care at all whether their band is successful), so if you disagree, I completely understand. These are all my opinions, and I’m aware that this is probably the best of the four movies. (As stated on a previous post, I haven’t watched any of the shorts from 2017 or 2018 as of this entry)  

There were a series of promotional shorts released before the movie debuted that explains how the members of the Main 5 came to play their instruments in Rainbow Dash’s band, and some other random stuff. Here’s the link to the playlist on youtube. Here’s a quick rundown of what I think:

Music to My Ears : meh

Guitar Centered : funny, but kind of mean spirited

Hamstocalypse Now : Hilarious.

Pinkie on the One : exactly what you’d expect it to be

Player Piano: a masterpiece

A Case for the Bass: Applejack is one word, why would she have AJ embroidered on the strap? I know people call her that but those aren’t her initials

Life is a Runway: There’s a reason they didn’t let Rarity write the songs

Shake Your Tale: Bad.

This was a pretty clever way to establish some musical background within the group without taking up time in the movie. It also is some sneaky foreshadowing with Trixie, which I appreciate.

In the actual movie: My nitpicks are going to be less Why is no one in class? Why is doesn’t anyone have homework? Because I realize this is a movie and depicting high school as it actually is would be boring to watch. Besides, there are plenty of other things to complain about.

We open on a scene of this film’s villains. And yes I am going to refer to them as villains instead of antagonists because 1) they are actually a threat and we see them doing bad things, and 2) other people will serve as antagonists. A villain is different from an antagonist, even though the terms are often used interchangeably. 

The Dazzlings are so cool, they make a cameo four years later. Either this is some really deep foreshadowing, or by season seven the writers were so desperate for an ongoing arc, they looked to other properties. But we now know that the guardians banished them over 1,000 years ago. So they really are ancient magic. And now they have to go to high school. Talk about eternal torment… 

Way to take all the credit, Starswirl

We are shown how they are a sort of siren, who feed off of people’s negativity and discord and use their beautiful enchanted voices to cause mayhem. Kind of like a mix between Ursula the sea witch and Spectra from Danny Phantom. Oh my gosh, this is the second one of these reviews that I’ve brought up Danny Phantom. Maybe this is why Butch thinks he’s so popular.

The Dazzlings, we can infer, have been exiled to the EQG-verse from Equestria. So apparently this universe is like the pony version of colonial Australia, where they send all their criminals and miscreants. A solid plan that couldn’t have any negative repercussions. The sirens see a beam of light that must be the one from the last movie. This is good news for them, but bad news for me because now I have no idea how much time has passed the two films. Has it been a couple days? Weeks? Moons? This will make a difference in regards to why people still don’t trust Sunset. But why waste time setting up the story when we can get right into the remix title card?

At this point, I can only assume that principal Celestia threatened to expel students if they told the news or the FBI about the magical winged demon that attacked the school, because no one seems too concerned about that incident.

But they have plenty of time to hurt my baby’s feelings

I’m going to be honest, when I first watched EQG I thought that Sunset was faking her remorseful act after being defeated. As cool as that would have been, she makes a much better reformed bad guy than an antagonist, because she really wasn’t in the last movie that much.

List of “evil” things Sunset Shimmer has done: send fraudulent text messages and emails that honestly could have been pretty easily disproved, made fun of Fluttershy, made fun of the steamers in the gym, somehow divided the school into cliques, ran a mostly unsuccessful smear campaign against Twilight’s bid for dance princess, threatened to destroy the portal to Equestria, transformed into a demon to hypnotize the students, and she dissed the Apple cider. 

Ok, that last one is pretty evil. But what really makes this and all subsequent movies great is that we get to see her learn and grow and change from the experience into a real friend.

I am glad to see that the Main 5 have forgiven her, but no one is quite ready to absolve her of guilt. Like, I might not think she did all that much bad junk, but the students of Canterlot High seem to think she was one tier below Mussolini  in terms of maniacal dictators, so I don’t blame them for being cautious. It takes a lot to earn back trust.

Back in Equestria proper, the Mane six plus Spike are sitting around waiting for the plot to affect them. They kindly provide some exposition and once again setup the fact that only Twilight can go through the portal, because the others can’t interact with themselves. So we think. I will be bringing this up when we get to The Friendship Games.

Back through the portal, Twilight  gets looped into the fact that Sunset has changed her ways. It’s fair to be a little apprehensive to trust someone who, the last time you saw them, was an actual literal demon. (Don’t worry though, Twi, you’ve still got two more unicorns to reform. It’s kind of your thing.)

Don’t reject her love Twilight, it’s all I have to live for

And now it’s time to discuss the small blue elephant in the room. I feel like I really need to explain why I dislike the addition of Flash to any of the plots. He’s kind of a waste of a potential. You want to add a male character: fine. But make them an actual real fleshed-out character. The show has proven that they can do it and do it well. Sunburst and Thorax are great characters who feel like a good addition to the story. And we got a real sense of who they were in one or two twenty minute episodes. I have no clue what this guy’s purpose is except to be a love interest, and this is not the show to do that with. With very few exceptions, the main characters of MLP have not sought out romantic partners, Twilight included. Why would she choose to do so now? I mean, I get why he’s into Twilight: she’s taken the form of a cute teenage girl. But he’s a species that doesn’t even exist in Equestria. She just fell through a portal and instantly got the hots for some weird otherworldly creature…

Wait a minute. Wait just a minute. Perhaps this isn’t compulsory heterosexuality. Perhaps Twilight Sparkle is just a Monster Lover™. I can respect that.

Moving on.

It was so very smart of the writers to have the Dazzlings brainwash the principals in order to get away with this scheme. That makes so much more sense and covers any plot holes that could arise (such as, someone claiming to be a new student despite having no transcript, no grades, and no knowledge of how to hold a pen).

Does time work differently between these two universes? Has it been months in Equestria but only a week in this world? (It really threw me off that the first four season of MLP took place over one year, and these movies don’t help that). And the sad thing is, this could be easily hand-waved away by a single throw away line, but it isn’t.

The Dazzlings are already better villains than Sunset, even from a character standpoint. We know their powers, we know their motivation, and we know they are capable of bringing about an actually believable rift between friends.

Then the best song, best montage, and possibly best scene in any of these films happen: the Dazzling come into the lunchroom and hypnotize everyone. This song is beautiful and eerie and exactly what you would expect a magic spell to sound like. I also enjoy the visual representation of the bands competing (and not just because I didn’t want to hear any of them perform) that we’ll see later. To give credit where credit is due, this movies has some great visual sequences.

Give ‘em the o’l razzle dazzle

At first I thought it was unrealistic that this many kids had bands, but I realized it was probably an effect of the spell. But I might not be the best judge: I think I know maybe three people, plus myself, who don’t play an instrument. I’ll just assume that the Disney channel exists in this universe, and all these children just really want to be famous.

It’s worth sitting through this movie just to see everyone’s pajamas. That’s not weird, right? No really, the scene of them all having a big slumber party is everything I ever wanted from this series. They managed to capture everyone’s personality from an article of clothing. Now THAT’s good character design.

I get the distinct impression that the writers of this don’t like Rainbow Dash.

Oh good, references to technology that couldn’t possibly date this movie in the slightest. Wait… this is Pinkie’s house. Aren’t the Pies supposed to be like Amish or resembling Amish-type folk? What is the human equivalent of rock farmers? Not actual farmers because those exist in the pony-verse. This really confuses me, but Maude’s cameo is fantastic.

The scene with Twilight and Sunset is one of those really well-done moments that reminds me why I love the show so much. It feels really genuine, and supports my argument that it was worth having Sunset as a crappy villain just to reform her.

Ah yes, the sweet, lingering glances that totally platonic female friends share with each other late at night. I know them well.

Our girl Twily seems to be having trouble writing a spell that can double as a catchy pop song (She’s no Lana Del Rey), so they go with an old set list. How long has this band been operational? Weren’t they in a huge feud for several years?

Mac is a close second for best cameo

So we get to watch the band audition, and it goes about as well an actual high school talent show. The CMC are in the outfits from Showstoppers (which is hilarious) and Snips and Snails rap (which is disturbing). In order to keep my goblin brain from exploding while trying to figure out the ages of everyone, I’m just going to assume that this is a combination Middle School and High School. So, if Sunset won fall dance princess four years in a row, she would be in the tenth grade now, so they would be about 15-16. The Equestria Girls Holiday Comic shows Rarity driving a car, so that could be a possibility.

A. Daft. Punk. Reference. Wow. Just wow. (Note: this was more shocking before season five, when there was a character that was basically Lady Gaga. And by basically, I mean very obviously Lady Gaga. Remember when the pop culture references in this show were subtle?)

Dash’s song is quite possibly the most cringeworthy thing I have ever heard. The only defense is it does sound like something a high schooler would write.

On that note, why is Rainbow Dash the lead singer of the group? I mean, I know why, but WHY? (and yes, I am aware that her voice actress is a singer. But Ashleigh Ball uses her normal voice when she performs. Think back to all the songs RD has sung in the previous four seasons before this aired. There are not a lot of solos or high notes. When she sings as Applejack, it is beautiful, but Dash’s voice is grating sometimes)

Really? A battle of the bands is the greatest thing you’ve done at the school? That whole “stopping an actual demon with magic” was just a regular Friday for you? I’ll chalk that up to the brainwashing, otherwise I might go full on rage and throw my laptop out a window.

I guess our merry band of protagonists weren’t paying attention to big cafeteria scene, because they just now figured something suspicious is going on.

Still haven’t fixed the lights in that dim corner of lockers. Fortunately, there are many dramatic confrontations to be had.

I think we’re supposed to see Rarity’s obsession with the outfits as a ridiculous thing, but I think it’s important to distinguish this universe from the one with the professional seamstress who has unicorn magic at her disposal. This is a teenager who has school, extracurriculars, and parents to contend with. If I went through the trouble to hand-make seven costumes for my friends, then found out no one would wear them, I’d be pretty ticked off as well.

Now this is how you montage. We get to play a fun game of “guess which characters are in which band,” and seeing their “humanized” designs. Lotta bootcut pants in this show.

I’m just going to leave this here...

This is some actually effective villainy. The whole school has turned against each other. Maybe they need to learn about the magic of friendship. Unfortunately, the gang is too busy squabbling over band stuff, and Twilight is too distracted to give an overly emotional speech.

No one in the rule book does it say magically turning into a pony is grounds for disqualification...I would assume.

If we’re being honest here, the Dazzlings are better performers than the Rainbooms.

And we’ve come to the crux of things. The scene where they’re locked under the stage is the perfect example of my biggest issue with this movie. I do not like to see Mane 6 fight. I don’t like Trade Ya, I don’t like Putting Your Hoof Down, and I despise Look Before You Sleep. Seeing this otherwise close group of friends constantly have petty arguments, even if it’s for completely valid plot reasons, make me want to turn the movie off. This isn’t a criticism of the screenwriting, it is just a reason why I personally dislike Rainbow Rocks more than the other films.

Of course, they make up because this is about the magic of friendship and what not, but notice how no one actually apologizes for their behavior. No, “I’m sorry that I minimized your contribution to the group or made fun of something you were passionate about.” I realize they were under the influence of magic, but they also knew that! They knew the Dazzlings had the power to turn people against each other! An apology is just a preamble to fundamental behavior change, and if they don’t realize why they were being bad friends, how can they learn from anything?

And the real kicker is, they knew what the Dazzlings were capable of. Twilight read a book about them immediately before going through the portal. It’s not they they just learned that they spread chaos. Why are we fighting? Gee, I don’t know.

DJ-ex-machina. I’m ok with this.

To the movie’s credit, the finale really has one of the best song of the movie. And by that, I of course mean Trixie’s song. Trixie is the most fun addition to the cast. She makes for a fun antagonist, on her own and as a Pawn to the Dazzlings.

Fight scene! Fight scene! We’re gonna have a fight scene!

Now that they’ve put their petty squabbles behind them, it’s time for a big music battle. The Dazzlings pony up harness the energy of the audience to project their Equestrian selves to...I don’t know. Take over the world or something.

This isn’t even their final form

Oh. This design looked better in book form

Sunset is Magic. That’s the show.

So the stones auto-tuned them, and that made everyone mindlessly antagonistic. I’m sure there’s some clever commentary there.

T’was the magic of friendship that killed the beast.

No, you don’t get to just rejoin the plot

Thank you, Trixie.

The real story here is how Principal Celestia will pay off the press.

Thus Twilight goes back to the land of horses, Starlight has been truly forgiven, and my Netflix suggestions will never been the same again.

I want to give a big shout out to the person who put all the captions on the image gallery for this movie’s wikia page. They are funnier than I could ever hope to be.

Some general thoughts:

The scene of Twilight awkwardly yelling “Friendship is magic!” to a room of confused teenagers is the cringiest thing I’ve ever seen, but it got a good laugh out of me. Look at the Dazzlings faces in this scene. “Ok, we legitimately didn’t see that coming.”

One of the reasons that I am so drawn to the show is that they are able to create conflict and drama without being mean-spirited. I have to deal with that kind of nonsense so much in my daily life, I just don’t want to subject myself to eighty minutes of it. But i get it: from a narrative standpoint, this is the most cohesive. There’s some good set up and pay off, and an actually intimidating villain who is actually present in the plot.

I love Trixie so much, I should be dead. She really is the star of the show. I forgot how little we saw of her before season six.

The stinger, oh the stinger. Forget what I said about the pajama party; it was worth sitting through this for the promise of an interesting sequel.

We’ll get to you soon, you marvelous lesbian disaster.

Starlight’s redemption is the best part of this franchise, and it’s worth all the nonsense to hear Rebecca Shoichet’s angelic voice.

From a purely film standpoint, this is probably the best one of the bunch. It has a clear structure, everyone’s motivations check out, there’s an actual climax that feels earned. I just don’t enjoy it. There are worse ways to spend eighty minutes 3.7/5

The worst thing to come from this, however, is the terrifying merchandise:

What Fresh Hell is This?

[fountainpenguin]

As a fan of Milo Murphy's Law, every mention of the Mikey/Amanda ship from Bunsen is a Beast is weirdly hilarious to me. Because Milo Murphy's Law's initial name was MIKEY Murphy's Law (meaning Milo's original name was Mikey), and the show has a character in it called Amanda Lopez, AND Milo and Amanda are getting Ship Teased a bit in the show. Imagine Milo still being called Mikey and still being ship teased with Amanda, and how much collision there'll be between the MML and BiaB fandoms.

Watching that show is definitely on my to-do list! I was a huge “Phineas and Ferb” fan growing up, and my brothers and sister and I used to RUSH to watch it all the time. I know the lyrics to all the Season 1 and 2 songs by heart, and maybe a few of the 3s, and my parents liked to watch with us too. It was a great show. Very pleasant memories.

I started losing interest when weeks to months would pass and only one ten-minute episode would air at a time (instead of pairs). Then there was the “Star Wars” parody (which rang to me as “We’re running out of ideas”). My sibs and I hadn’t seen any “Star Wars” back then, so we weren’t too interested. I think we hit a snag when we lost the channel too? Something like that?

It’s just… 100% not a show I would ever draw fanart or write ‘fics for. It was great fun to watch and I still quote some lines on a regular basis. The step-family dynamic was an interesting one that I didn’t appreciate enough at the time, but is really cool looking back on it! And of course Doofenshmirtz was always great fun.

But I never… connected with any of the characters. I think it had to do partly with Isabella’s introductory scene literally being heart eyes and romance. Even as a kid, I was too aro/ace for that, pfffffft. It SHOULDN’T, because there are other aspects to her character, but it REALLY bothered me that romance was her introduction, and it always has. 

Phineas and Ferb’s building talents were so outrageous that I guess I didn’t relate to them either (even though I’m known to be a workaholic who churns things out at a decent pace). And Candace was a [boy-crazy] teen and I just a kid, Vanessa was a goth, and I never connected to either of them either.

Between all of these things, I wasn’t encouraged to seek the show out on Kiss and finish the last two seasons (although it’s marked in my bookmarks). So that’s why it’s not a fandom on this blog even though it was a good, cute, funny show and it does hold a dear, dear place in my heart. It’s just not…….. content-creating worthy to me the way, say, “Bunsen” is with its already-ridiculously well-fleshed characters (Sensitive psychology boy <3) or FOP with its worldbuilding, magic, and TONS of episodes I can draw from and reference.

Anyway, I know very little about “Milo”, but I know the two shows are made by the same creator(s?). I vaguely understand it references “Phineas and Ferb”, and possibly even takes place in Danville? Amanda was the name Candace desperately wanted to give her future daughter, but the screenshots I’ve seen of Amanda Lopez in “Milo” don’t match the Amanda I remember from the time-travel PnF episode.

I can only ease myself into one show at a time (Back in fall it was “Star vs. The Forces of Evil”, followed by “Danny Phantom” over Christmas break, and now it’s “Bunsen” because of the FOP crossover ep). 

Kiss is down right now, but after I finish up “Phineas and Ferb” Seasons 3 and 4 (and more?), it’s the first show I wanna watch! Might even draw a little Milo because eyyy, cursed child! I guess we’ll see where inspiration takes me! And then I need to do “BeetleJuice” after that so I can read Bookworm’s DP/BJ crossover ‘fic, and I have “Randy Cunningham” marked here too because I never heard of that show growing up, and my friends recommended “Mighty Magiswords” and “Voltron”, hhhh……

Back to your original Ask, that would indeed cause quite a bit of confusion, yes. Especially because I think Butch Hartman would have desperately wanted to keep Mikey. His brother Mike said one time that Timmy was supposed to be named after him, but the two weren’t on the best of terms back then so it didn’t happen, and their younger brother won the right. I THINK I also read there that it was a running joke that everyone named Mike in FOP/DP/Tuff got horribly attacked by something, but I never noticed this myself, so I’d have to rewatch. 

So my guess is that Butch would have been really sad if he had to change Mikey’s name (and he’d probably opt for changing Amanda’s instead/first).

Okay, I went back and found the article from Detroit News:

“While anybody named Mike used to get beat up in his brother’s shows, Mike says he has a good relationship with his brother and is honored to be a main character”.

Conclusion: That does sound indeed like it would cause a collision among fans of the shows, especially to fans of both! It’s funny to imagine, heh. Thanks for sharing that bit of trivia with me! “Milo” is definitely a cartoon I want to watch!

……… I need to draw the short-sleeved sweater vest children.

I need to draw them with Gary and Betty.

I need to draw this badly.