I have now seen My Little Pony: Equestria Girls twice, which is probably two more times than any self-respecting adult should see it. For those unfamiliar with the premise of Equestria Girls: it is a film about Twilight Sparkle, the main character of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (who is, as you may have suspected, a pony), travelling through a portal to another world. In which she is a human. In high school. And meets human versions of all her pony friends. And there's a shoehorned-in light romance plotline, involving an alternate-world teenage boy and Twilight Sparkle. Who, I might remind you, is a pony.

It is astonishingly stupid.

Perhaps inevitably, I love it.

No, you don't understand how severe this is. I even find the romantic subplot genuinely cute. Developing a crush on a human when you are secretly a pony seems (a) a bit weird and (b) ill-advised, but apparently I don't care.

I've had this song from the film stuck in my head all day. I find cheerful, catchy songs about friendship impossible to resist, which is probably part of the reason Friendship is Magic has me so thoroughly in its clutches. Oh, dear.


I've had a rocky relationship with Doctor Who for... more or less the last seven years, but the fiftieth-anniversary special was a lot of fun! More than just being a fun hour or so, it reminded me of two things: firstly, that Doctor Who was once something I really enjoyed, and secondly, that I really miss Nine (I was pretty heartbroken that Ten and Eleven were hanging out and Nine was nowhere to be seen).

Therefore, in the ongoing bizarre nostalgia explosion that my adulthood is turning out to be, I've rewatched the first two episodes of the Ninth Doctor's series! And oh, I still love the Ninth Doctor. He's just fantastic. And also quite a bit scarier than I remember. That thing he did to Cassandra in 'The End of the World': wow. (That thing he did to Rose, too; it never really hit me before, but he comes back from the Time War and finds a companion and the first thing he does is show her the destruction of her planet.)

I also seem to be falling in love with Nine/Rose all over again, which I wasn't expecting! There had been pairings I'd enjoyed before I saw the 2005 Doctor Who series (Squall/Zell, Satoshi/Daisuke), but the Doctor/Rose was the first pairing I fell in love with in a MASSIVE EMOTIONAL INVESTMENT, READ ALL THE FANFICTION, WRITE ALL THE FANFICTION sort of way. No, hang on, I've just remembered all the slightly worrying James Sunderland/Mary Shepherd-Sunderland fanfiction I wrote. But I do think I 'shipped the Doctor/Rose quite a lot harder than anything preceding it.

(Sudden revelation: all the het I 'ship is really messed up. If they're the same species (see Doctor/Rose, Mitsuki/Takuto, TWILIGHT SPARKLE/FLASH SENTRY I HATE MYSELF) and there's no massive age gap (er, Doctor/Rose and Mitsuki/Takuto again, plus Jeff/Annie, Rogue/Logan and Katniss/Haymitch), I'm not interested, unless it's something like James/Mary or Naegi/Ikusaba, which have a whole host of alarming issues surrounding them. I'm surprised I love Nate/Elena so much; it's so much healthier than most of my 'ships!)

Anyway! Let's push my worrying taste aside for a moment. My interest in Doctor/Rose absolutely plummeted after the Ninth Doctor regenerated; I felt that the Tenth Doctor's dynamic with Rose was very different, and the new dynamic didn't really appeal to me. And I'd assumed that I wouldn't really care about Doctor/Rose on this rewatch, whether because I'd moved on or because my dislike of Ten/Rose would have somehow tainted Nine/Rose for me. I'm delighted to discover that I'm wrong!

When I think about it, maybe it's for the best that Eccleston didn't come back for the fiftieth anniversary. We may only have had thirteen episodes with the Ninth Doctor, but they were, for the most part, a pretty great thirteen episodes. I don't know if he'd ever be able to make a return that would match my expectations.