HAHCon 2020 cancelled

This one came out of the blue, at least to me: the Horses at Home online convention, or HAHCon for short, will not be held this year. At the time of writing, no reason had been given. It's a bit of a surprise, given that panel applications were due to open on Saturday and HAHCon's Twitter account was still advertising the convention's previously announced date (29th February) at the time the announcement was made.

Whatever the reasons for the cancellation may be, it's very disappointing news. HAHCon was a brilliant idea for those unable to make it to physical conventions, and I'm sorry that it won't be around in 2020. The terse announcement doesn't say whether or not there are plans to return in future years – but I do hope that something like HAHCon will return, even if run by someone else. It's surely too good a concept to disappear entirely.

Ponyfic Roundup 281

Read it Later story count: 232 (+4)

You can blame Present Perfect for the slight bump in RiL count. I wonder whether I ever will get the number down to 100, my long term goal? Anyway, three more fics for your (and, I hope, my) delight and delectation this week. Here's what I have in store for you:

The Place I Feel Safest by Lucky Seven
Extras by Casketbase77
Semantics by Claw in Cursive

★: 1 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 1 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0

My Little Repeats 26: "The Best Night Ever"

Look, I don't need a reason to post a happy Fluttershy picture, all right?

S1E26: "The Best Night Ever"
Written by Amy Keating Rogers
7 May 2011

My original rating: N/A
IMDB score: 8.7

The one with Soarin's apple pie.

Thoughts: This is a hugely enjoyable way to end the first season of FiM. It's an ensemble piece that gives all the Mane Six something to do, and though Spike gets a bit left out at least that's acknowledged. Twilight does a bit of show-off magic early on – no travelling to Canterlot by rail for these ponies. (I hope Fluttershy's mice did come back, though!) Ponyville tech levels are still basic – the hairdryers are clearly shown to be clockwork. Once at the castle, there is a glorious song inspired by Sondheim's "Into the Woods", with Rainbow's rock section a particular highlight. Then we see both comedy and sadness in each pony's descent from excitement to unhappiness, with AKR's characterisation abilities coming through well. Prince Blueblood makes his full debut – and don't you wish he hadn't? At least it lets Rarity let rip at him in the end. Fluttershy gets to be a Disney Princess for a bit and gets one of her most famous "losing it" scenes. Celestia's mischievous streak returns. "Pony Joe" as he's called here makes his debut. I knew I liked this, and I was fully expecting to give it a four-star rating. But you know what? I loved it. Very different from any other season finale, of course, but that doesn't matter. I can't really fault it – so five it is!

Choice quote: Applejack: "Beg pardon, Rarity, but we don't normally wear clothes."

New rating: ★★★★★

Next up is... a short hiatus! In which I will reflect on S1 and look ahead to S2.

Rewatch hiatus plans, plus a music question for you all

In keeping with the show itself, "My Little Repeats" will be going on hiatus once I've rewatched the S1 finale, something I hope to do tomorrow. Don't worry, though, I'm not going to have several months off! It'll be a much briefer break than that – probably just a week or two. What I want to do in that gap, apart from simply taking a breather, is to reflect on how the S1 rewatch felt, and to give some thoughts on how I think S2 will feel. I wish I'd done the latter for S1 actually, but too late now.

As for the music question, it's one that someone asked in a YouTube comment of all places: what MLP fandom music produced in, say, the last four years do you really like? Clearly there aren't many cast-iron smash hits any more – PrinceWhateverer's "Solidarity" is the one really major exception I can think of – but what (if anything) from 2016 onwards do you think could have been such a hit if it had come out seven years ago? I almost asked this on a Fimfiction blog, but it's potentially memey and knighty doesn't like that. So it goes here!

My Little Repeats 25: "Party of One"

"Bubble baths? Now hear this, mister: I do the bubbles around here!"

S1E25: "Party of One"
Written by Meghan McCarthy
29 Apr 2011

My original rating: N/A
IMDB score: 9.1

The one with Gummy's hay fever.

Thoughts: This episode has the highest IMDb rating in S1, and for years it was considered one of Friendship is Magic's shining lights. Now? Well, it's still good, certainly. All the Mane Six get things to do, and there are some brilliant set pieces. The barn scene is probably my favourite: Applejack (of course) having real trouble lying convincingly, and in the fake "construction" noises, you can clearly hear Twilight (again, of course) saying, "Safety gear!" The episode is never boring, and it's nice to see Pinkie's sensitive side shown – though I do have slightly mixed feelings about the "Pinkamena" section, which has perhaps lost a little of its impact with repeated showings. I also find it a tad odd that Pinkie would have forgotten her own birthday entirely. Still, there's all the other good stuff, like the scariest "Okie dokie lokie" in history, Pinkie's turn in the school bell, a short but fun song, Spike's secret confessions, and nice background touches like Applejack's three-trailer cart. Gummy's support act is also great, with his yarn-pushing being my favourite scene. A tiny bit short these days of being an outright classic in my book, but the ep remains a very entertaining way of spending 22 minutes.

Choice quote: Rainbow Dash: "I'm just glad I haven't been replaced by a bucket of turnips!"

New rating: ★★★★

Next up is "The Best Night Ever", which I'm optimistic will bring Season 1 to a close in fine style.

Applejack's Logan's Day Off

Applejack iPad Portrait by Tsitra360
(CC by-nc-nd 3.0)

I've strained my arm – not sure how – so I want to keep typing to a minimum for a day or so. I hope to be back posting about "Party of One" tomorrow, or at least on Saturday. In the meantime, please enjoy this nice picture of Applejack by Tsitra360.

Ponyfic Roundup 280

Read it Later story count: 228 (+1)

A quick plug, for which I am (sadly) receiving no remuneration whatsoever: MoonReader+ Pro is a fantastic ebook reader for Android. I've used it for five years now and I have no real thoughts of going anywhere else. I very, very rarely shell out for the pro versions of apps, but I've never regretted doing so for this one. Anyway, there are three stories reviewed this time around, and there's not a dud amongst them! Here they are:

That Distant Shore by Alaborn
Sometimes Maps Are Dumb by HoofBitingActionOverload
A Winter Walk by Scribblestick

★: 0 | ★★: 0 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0

My Little Repeats 24: "Owl's Well That Ends Well"

One of the very few times FiM directly addressed the fact that some animals eat other animals

S1E24: "Owl's Well That Ends Well"
Written by Cindy Morrow
22 Apr 2011

My original rating: N/A
IMDB score: 6.4

The one with jewelled bow ties.

Thoughts: This episode has the lowest IMDb ranking of S1, and among the lowest of the whole show. I find it hard to disagree. It's not terrible, and it certainly has its moments. The meteor shower segment is lovely, even if Scootaloo randomly saying "once" (around 5:06) is a bit weird. I like Twilight's candlelit educational bit about comets. Quills and Sofas makes its debut. The big dragon has real menace. Twilight's anger with Spike for lying is convincing, and (although this one is YMMV territory) I find Spike's "silent movie villain" segment the funniest in the episode by far. But a big problem is Owlowiscious. He's just not very interesting, and the "Hoo?" joke being run so far into the ground it comes out in... well, wherever's opposite Equestria is infuriating by the end. Not only Spike, but even eventually Twilight, get Idiot Balled. Spike is especially bad, as he repeatedly interprets things quite absurdly, not least when "...not the Spike I know and love" becomes "Twilight doesn't love me" in his head. This episode was written by Cindy Morrow, a writer usually strong on characterisation – but I suppose everyone's allowed a bad day once in a while. This was hers.

Choice quote: Pinkie Pie: "And now the punch has been... Spiked!"

New rating: ★★

Next up is "Party of One", and this I'm particularly interested in rewatching. It's dated quite badly in a number of fans' opinions, but in mine? Well, let's see.

Lavender Alicorn Blues (WVMIP)

( Text link )

WMVIP stands for "Work Very Much in Progress"! Since a couple of people said they'd be interested in hearing "Lavender Unicorn Blues", here it is. As you will hear, I am not cut out for a career as a blues singer! On top of which, I have a slight sore throat and haven't done any singing since UK PonyCon in October. But I decided to record the vocals rather than just posting it as an instrumental.

As you'll also note, my recording and mixing equipment is primitive to say the least. I don't own anything resembling a high-end microphone, and the outlay to get one is simply not reasonable for the amount I'd use it. So the vocals were recorded on my phone. Then I used Audacity to mix the singing track with the instrumental track I'd made with MuseScore. The result is what you see above.

Other notes: the score is not finished, which accounts for things like the very basic drum track and the lack of any left hand on the piano. There are also a couple of actual mistakes (eg at the start of the bridge) and those I probably will be able to fix. The MuseScore soundfont, though, is as good as you're going to get. As with the mic, I really can't justify shelling out for a better one.

Lyrics are in the video description, but I'll copy them in here – come past the cut to see them! I think I want to change "lose" in the final line to "beat", and perhaps a few other bits and pieces, but the gist of it isn't going to change.

My Little Repeats 23: "The Cutie Mark Chronicles"

"And now you can deal with the seventeen manticores you also summoned..."

S1E23: "The Cutie Mark Chronicles"
Written by M. A. Larson
15 Apr 2011

My original rating: N/A
IMDB score: 9.0

The one with tree sap.

Thoughts: Perhaps the least surprising five-star rating I've ever given! This episode is glorious. Let me count the ways. For a start, it's a brilliant example of how to write a busy, info-filled story without it feeling rushed or clunky. The reason for the Mane Six's special bond is immensely satisfying. The ponies' filly forms are absurdly cute. Filly Fluttershy sings. (Fun fact: "So Many Wonders" was the first song I ever performed at a con karaoke.) 'Shy is also a bit lanky, as you'd expect from a pony a year older than Pinkie Pie. The ep is frequently very funny – to name just one example, the cut from Rarity's section to Twilight's is supremely well done. The dialogue often fizzes: "You're going down!" "In history, maybe!" The sonic rainboom is still special at this point, and its depiction is, well, awesome. Manehattan is good, more so than it became through overuse later on. Rarity's "Dumb rock" is a nice match for her sister's "Dumb fabric" five episodes ago. We get one of the all-time classic Mane Six hug scenes. Scootaloo and (at the end) Spike's touch of cynicism help stop the sugar-sweetness becoming overpowering. Problems? Well, Fluttershy's butterfly rescue is more than a bit ludicrous. Otherwise? Er... I'll get back to you on that one. An undisputed classic, and still one of the best episodes FiM has ever produced.

Choice quote: Pinkie Pie: "And that's how Equestria was made!"

New rating: ★★★★★

Next up is "Owl's Well That Ends Well", which has never been anywhere near my favourites list. I don't expect that to change – but there's always hope!

Playing around with MuseScore

Before I begin, though, you might want to read this Fimfiction blog by paperhearts. It contains several pieces of good news, one of which in particular is likely to please discerning ponyfic readers. (That's all of us, right?)

If you're asking, "What's MuseScore?" then it's this piece of software, used for music composition and notation. I've always liked dabbling in making music, although I have very little actual ability there. A lot of music-making software out there is of the FL Studio type, and I confess I don't really understand that – and can't really justify the substantial cost in any case. However, I can read music, and so a simpler, stave-based composer is much more my scene.

What does all this have to do with My Little Pony? Simply that the title "Lavender Unicorn Blues" popped into my head one day as I was reading a particularly LUS-heavy piece of ponyfic. And, as these things do, it refused to get out of my head unless I did something about it. Of course, Twilight has ascended these days – so the piece has now been rechristened "Lavender Alicorn Blues". And yes, I do intend to post it here eventually. Buy your earplugs now!

Naturally, given the title, my stupid little gimmick is to use a LUS-style intro for each verse. To give you a little flavour of the silliness of the concept, here's the verse one – this is a draft, so don't expect it to be identical when it's finished:

A butter-yellow pegasus flew up to my tree,
She said, "Hey now, Twilight, won't you listen to me?
The bunnies are stampeding and the skunk's on the run,
The bats won't go to sleep because you won't raise the sun."
I said, "Don't tell me 'bout your mice and your shrews,
'Cause I've got those lavender alicorn blues."

It's going to be a pretty short piece – three 12-bar verses and an eight-bar bridge, totalling a mere two minutes – but that's probably for the best. The amount of blues in brony music is tiny, barring a few Wasteland Wailers tracks. While I'm obviously not in the same continent as the Wailers, and indeed not even close to my average ponyfic writing standard, I'm enjoying myself rather a lot with this. :)

My Little Repeats 22: "A Bird in the Hoof"

Right, that's S1's two really controversial episodes out of the way – and I will admit to breathing a sigh of relief at this point. Though this next episode has the same IMDb rating as "Over a Barrel". I present that fact without comment.

"But Twilight, we don't know about Pinkie's eyepatch stash yet!"

S1E22: "A Bird in the Hoof"
Written by Charlotte Fullerton
8 Apr 2011

My original rating: N/A
IMDB score: 7.3

The one with dungeons and banishment.

Thoughts: This is an episode I've always thought underrated. So much about it is a delight, and not just that it's full of Fluttershy doing her thing. We start off with the Alice in Wonderland-referencing cold open; actually, Angel is pretty good in support of Fluttershy more than once. We also get the birth of Trollestia, both with the teacup and because she could easily have just told Flutters that Philomena was a phoenix. I love that 'Shy – S1 'Shy at that – does something impulsive, because her kindness and need to care for animals trump her caution. She's also shown as resourceful and patient when treating Philomena. Pretty much the entire scene with Twilight in Flutters' cottage is wonderful, from the "dry night air" to "tough love, baby" to the hilarious section with the Royal Guards; I think having Flutters being the grounded one and Twilight freaking out was a great choice. And of course there's the show's second (and easily the better) Benny Hill parody. There are a few downsides. A little too much mildly gross physical humour for my liking, for one, and Celestia's strange address of Fluttershy as "child". I suspect my rating will be higher than most people's, but for me, this one really does deserve four stars.

Choice quote: Rarity: "Nobody move and my dress won't get hurt!"

New rating: ★★★★

Next up is "The Cutie Mark Chronicles". Enough said.

Ponyfic Roundup 279

Read it Later story count: 227 (-4)

Back to a regular edition of Ponyfic Roundup today. I've been very busy with one thing and another over the past week, and at one point I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to get this post up today. Thankfully, I just about made it in the end! There are four stories under my somewhat rickety microscope this time, and they are:

Where Does Magic Come From? by Berry Delight
ReSpec(t) by Petrichord
If Memory Serves by Pascoite
Big Sister by DeeJay Pon3

★: 1 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 1 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 1

My Little Repeats 21: "Over a Barrel"

Remember when this scene was used to "prove" FlutterDash?

S1E21: "Over a Barrel"
Written by Dave Polsky
25 Mar 2011

My original rating: N/A
IMDB score: 7.3

The one with horse-drawn horse-drawn carriages.

Thoughts: Main complaint first: the moral equivalence drawn here is just bad. This is clearly buffalo land that's been invaded by Appleoosan ponies, yet by the end of the episode we're fed the idea that both have equal rights to it. I get why this show does it this way, and I think it can be risky to equate Equestria to Earth. But the resonances here are too much to ignore. I understand the show engaged a Native American consultant, and as like most English people I've never so much as met a Native American in the flesh, I'd be well out of my depth commenting on that. Well, beyond perhaps to say that Rainbow Dash is interesting in her full-throated conversion to the buffalo cause. So, to other matters. The episode is really rather funny. I've always liked the stallion-hauled train (more so than the cutesy Friendship Express). Braeburn is good value. Little Strongheart is a nice character. I like that a non-pony (Spike) gets on better with the buffalo. Pinkie's song is nicely done, given it's in-universe terrible. The pie fight, absurd and somewhat unPony as it may be, is entertaining. Both Thunderhooves and Silver Star are shown as personally brave leaders. And of course there's that lovely-looking candlelit scene on the train, where Fluttertree was born. This could easily have been a strong(heart) three for me, but I just can't ignore the basic unfairness of it all. That knocks off a full star.

Choice quote: Twilight: "Well, that was kinda huffy." Fluttershy: "Huffy the magic dragon."

New rating: ★★

Next up is "A Bird in the Hoof", which I have long considered an underrated episode. Yes, Fluttershy has something to do with this, but it's not just because she's in it. Honest, guv!

From a discussion at the Worcester meet on S8/S9

I was at the Worcester Shires' first meet of 2020 on Saturday, and very enjoyable it was too. One of the many things we talked about was our enjoyment or otherwise of later FiM seasons and episodes. While I can't remember everything we discussed, and not all of it would make sense out of context anyway, one thing that was interesting was just how many S8 and S9 episodes were considered good-or-better by at least somebody. More than I would have expected if you'd asked me to guess, to be honest.

Although my rewatch series may eventually change this, right now my feeling is that S8 is my least favourite season of the show. Even there, though, there are the likes of "Surf and/or Turf", "The Break Up Breakdown", "The Hearth's Warming Club", "Road to Friendship", "What Lies Beneath" and "Sound of Silence", any one of which I would happily watch if I happened to switch on Tiny Pop while it was playing. There are several more (eg "Grannies Gone Wild" and "The Washouts") that got at least qualified support.

Much the same applied to S9 – though I was interested that there were more complaints about S9 episodes than about S8 ones. Whether that's just because they're fresher in our minds, I don't know, but it goes against the general feeling that S9 > S8. Bearing in mind that the epilogue's popularity with most (though not, until the last few minutes, me) may fade with time, I do wonder whether S8 may eventually end up being liked more than S9, or at least being about on its level. And whether I may end up feeling that way too.

That's one great thing about a show that ran for nine years and over 200 episodes – even though there won't be any more FiM instalments, there's still always something to talk about. Good news for those of us who maintain blogs about it!

My Little Repeats 20: "Green Isn't Your Color"

AJ seems a bit oblivious here, but I suppose business is business...

S1E20: "Green Isn't Your Color"
Written by Meghan McCarthy
18 Mar 2011

My original rating: N/A
IMDB score: 8.2

The one with Rarity's pruney hooves.

Thoughts: Another episode popular with IMDb users, but this time I agree with them. I like Fluttershy and Rarity together, and the way they're written here really does work. Rarity is jealous of Fluttershy's success, but in the end can't stand to see her friend ridiculed and so unintentionally ruins Twilight's attempt to help. Fluttershy is desperate to avoid making her friend unhappy that she ('Shy) isn't making the most of her unexpected opportunity. I find this very satisfying characterisation on both counts, and it leads to an equally satisfying moral. Running through the ep is comic relief involving Pinkie at her Pinkie-est: the first Pinkie Promise, "Foreverrr!", that ridiculous mime, a truly scary bit of apple-eating. Meanwhile, Sparity is more to the fore than usual (that pincushion scene!), with a nice payoff late on when Spike quite reasonably gripes at Twilight about the latter revealing his (admittedly absurdly obvious) secret. Add in Photo Finish, who's not a character I'd want as a regular but who plays her part really well here. I suppose if I really wanted to quibble, I'd feel Flutters and Rarity might pick up on each other's less than convincing insistence that all was well – but that would have cut off the episode almost before it started, so I think it's a price worth paying. Barring that and one or two other tiny things, this episode is a delight all through. As such, it's getting my first five-star rating of the series!

Choice quote: Photo Finish: "We have the thing at the place."

New rating: ★★★★★

Next up is "Over a Barrel", which is going to be... interesting. Fandom opinions on this one range very widely indeed, so I can't satisfy all of you! Boringly enough, I don't recall either adoring or despising it. Again, though, it's been a long, long time.

More thoughts from The Democratic Genre

The My Little Repeats series is proving to be an interesting experience. I don't think there have been any huge surprises so far, in that I haven't changed my opinion on any episode from "strongly like" to "strongly dislike" or vice versa. The most controversial episode has been, as I'd fully expected, "Feeling Pinkie Keen". That said, I'm now closing in on S1's second most contentious episode, "Over a Barrel". I have my own views about that one, but I'll save them until I've rewatched. That's the point of MLR, after all!

Anyway, to the subject of this post. My title refers to the 2005 book by Sheenagh Pugh exploring the literary aspects of fanfic – the one I posted about on New Year's Day. I'm reading it in bite-size chunks to let me digest some of the things Pugh says, and this passage stood out. Here, Pugh takes as her starting point Anne Rice's well-known strong opposition to fanfic and, in particular, Rice telling fans to write "your own original stories with your own characters". Pugh reacts thus:

...this advice misses the point. People write (and read) fan fiction [using canon characters] because they want more of these characters, and not any others. It does not follow that they do not want to write and read about anybody else ever. [...] If that [writing fanfic] makes them "less original" writers it is only in the sense that Robert Henryson was, when he chose to use the characters that Chaucer had already taken from Greek myth.

Of course, Henryson, Chaucer and the Greek mythologists are all long dead, and would have been long out of copyright by now had such a thing existed in their time. As it happens, I wouldn't write Rice fanfic if I read her books, but that's more because she says the idea "upsets [her] terribly" than anything to do with originality. I simply wouldn't feel comfortable doing something that so clearly made an author so unhappy.

Still, I enjoyed Pugh's robust defence of fanfic, something that runs all through the book, as I've never entirely subscribed to the "fanfic writing is what you do to prepare you for real writing" school of thought. I don't think and never have, even back when I had no part in writing the stuff, that original fiction is inherently superior to fanfic. (Unless of course you want to make a career out of it. Then it is.)

Another thing that came to mind as I was reading a bit more of Pugh's book, though this one wasn't brought on by any specific passage, was this: while it's not unprecedented for large fandoms' writing communities to be male-dominated (Doctor Who is a commonly cited example), I do wonder if MLP:FiM may be unique among large fandoms in having a male-dominated fanfic community for a show with a female-dominated main cast. I'm perfectly prepared to accept there may be others, but I certainly don't know of any.

The final thought that hit me leads on from something I did remark upon in my original post: that the 2005 publication date of The Democratic Genre does show at times. The phrase "on an unarchived mailing list", used frequently when quoting, feels like something from the Cretaceous nowadays. More significantly, though, I haven't found a single reference to reading on the move. The book pre-dates the smartphone revolution and even the Kindle. People reading on screen, unless they had a laptop (much rarer then), would be doing it on a desktop computer, probably at home or in a library.

As an aside, it's interesting that the coming of phone-based reading doesn't seem to have dimmed the appetite for long-form fics, as the MLP fandom demonstrates very nicely. Yes, a few prominent stories are available in printed form, but the emphasis is on a few. Plenty of people are reading plenty of stories that are far longer than even a thick paperback novel. I don't have any great conclusion to draw from this one – but as I say, it's interesting.

My Little Repeats 19: "A Dog and Pony Show"

Pinkie is just wonderful in this sequence

S1E19: "A Dog and Pony Show"
Written by Amy Keating Rogers
11 Mar 2011

My original rating: N/A
IMDB score: 8.2

The one with Spike riding Twilight into battle.

Thoughts: This isn't going to be the most popular rating, I suspect, but there it is. There's certainly quite a bit to enjoy here: Rarity's gem-finding spell, for a start; it's a shame magical horizons became so limited later in the show's run. Sapphire Shores' cameo and Rarity's starstruck reaction to her. This is one of Spike's best showings in any early-season episode. And of course, there's the legendary whining/complaining sequence and the scenes associated with that, even if showing Rarity being annoying does itself get annoying after a while. So why only an (admittedly top-end) two stars? Mainly because the Diamond Dogs just aren't very interesting antagonists; I don't much care about them and I'm not terribly surprised they never returned. Also, Rarity's phobia of dirt is a bit much even for S1, plus Twilight just happening to know Rarity's spell is not only much too convenient but is explained in a bit of exposition that is surprisingly clunky – especially considering who wrote this episode. This is not one I choose to go back to very often at all.

Choice quote: Applejack: "...but Rarity won't even touch mud unless it's imported."

New rating: ★★

Next up is "Green Isn't Your Color", another episode I haven't watched for a long time, but one I remember having a high regard for.

So, those Fimfiction rule changes, then...

...I think they're pretty reasonable.

These rule changes.

Yes, it's true to point out (as some have done) that taken entirely literally the rules are completely unworkable, since "no illegal content" without specifying a jurisdiction is pointless and since plenty of immoral things throughout history have been legal (the opposite also applies). Also since we're all posting – or at least downloading and reading – unauthorised fanfiction using someone else's IP.

I slogged through the entire comments section as it stood at time of writing (238 comments) and much of it was what you'd expect an active site post comments section to be – including certain people doing their level best to bait knighty and the other site staff by being as jerkish as they could manage. I thought the moderators handled it well and gave confidence in their qualifications to be moderators.

However, I did get a small reward after reading through that lot: this comment by Emtu. I would absolutely love for Fimfiction to have a foalcon tag so I can block it. As long-time readers know, I detest foalcon. It's one of the extremely few types of ponyfic I will never knowingly read, and it's something that would provoke an instant DNF if it appeared unannounced in a story I was reading.

I've made no secret of the fact that if I were the owner of Fimfiction and not knighty, I would not have allowed foalcon at all. (Though I grant that defining it precisely is non-trivial.) But knighty clearly doesn't feel that way, so I either have to find ways to live with it or leave Fimfiction – which is too high a price given all the good it's done me. A blockable tag would seem a good way forward.

Going back to a more general point, I'm not the only one who uses MLP in general as an escape. For Celestia's sake, I see more than enough political flamewarring elsewhere in my daily life. So I take care to stay away from the groups that are strongly political in nature, and from participating in comments threads (whether on stories or on blogs) that have gone the same way.

But as for those rule changes? As someone said in the comments, there's the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. And if Fimfiction operates in the spirit of these new rules, I think that will be a good thing all round.

Ponyfic Roundup 278: Stories, stories everywhere

It's been a while since PR has had a themed edition, so here's one! Today, I'm looking at a hoof-ful of stories by Fimfiction's really prolific authors. There are some excellent writers on the site who have over 100 published fics to their name. The Three Figure Club counts as members the likes of Admiral Biscuit, Estee, shortskirtsandexplosions, Impossible Numbers, FanOfMostEverything... the list goes on. But what about the those prolific writers who aren't so prominent, at least to me? That's what today's Ponyfic Roundup is all about!

Read it Later story count: 231 (+1)

I'll be looking at stories by all four of the writers with over 200 published fics to their name, as well as another with a mere 125. I also chose these five because I know very little about any of them; as I said above, there are some prominent people with this many, but those are more likely to get reviewed here anyway. I avoided M-rated fics, as many prolific authors write a whole bunch of clopfics and I didn't feel in the mood. (I do have one or two M-rated fics fairly near the top of my RiL list, though, so don't worry if you do enjoy finding out about those!)

Care by TwistedCupcake
Boring Equestria by Bendy
The Ballerina and the Figurine by Ponyess
One Minute with a Ghost by Michael Hudson
Applejack Robs a Bank by Some Leech

★: 2 | ★★: 2 | ★★★: 1 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0

My Little Repeats 18: "The Show Stoppers"

"Scootaloo, Best Comedy doesn't mean Best Dad Joke, so can it with that 'biggest fan' line."

S1E18: "The Show Stoppers"
Written by Cindy Morrow
4 Mar 2011

My original rating: N/A
IMDB score: 6.6

The one with the giant squid.

Thoughts: One of only three S1 episodes that have IMDb ratings in the sixes, but I wouldn't rank this anywhere near the bottom of S1. It's a fun episode pretty much throughout, especially while the Crusaders are trying to prepare – "dumb fabric" indeed, Sweetie. The CMC treehouse makes its debut; I'd forgotten it wasn't actually made for them. Scootaloo's scootering sequence includes what turns out to be the start of a tiny side-story over the next few seasons involving Granny Smith. The CMC also get that fine instrumental for their montage. Kung fu is now canon as well as karate (see "Call of the Cutie"). The actual performance is enormous fun, and it's nice to see proper ponyish stomping applause from the watching ponies. At the end, the mares who turn up for the fillies are AJ for Apple Bloom, Rarity for Sweetie Belle... and Rainbow for Scootaloo. We'll be seeing that partnership again! Downsides? Not many. Twilight starting a sentence with "My Little Ponies" is intrusive, and a few of Spike's lines seem a little phoned in. On the whole, though, this is enjoyable stuff. Not a great classic, but for this storyline it didn't need to be. A fairly strong three. I do indeed disagree with the IMDb consensus, then!

Choice quote: Sweetie Belle, reading Scootaloo's attempt at song lyrics: "With our cutie marks we'll rock Equestria. We use our stomachs to digest-ia?"

New rating: ★★★

Next up is "A Dog and Pony Show", an episode which provokes quite mixed reactions. It's ages since I've seen it, so I'm really not sure what I'm going to think this time.

New committee for UK PonyCon 2020

This isn't the kind of news I'd always trouble to post about, since there aren't many changes in the line-up compared with the 2019 event's committee. But the 2020 committee lacks the name of Guiding Breeze, someone who I know moderately well and for whom I have a pretty high regard. She's been Treasurer for the past three years, as well as doing several other jobs more unofficially, and I can vouch for her commitment and workrate during convention weekends – and at other times of course, but we don't see her working then!

Hopefully Guiding Breeze will now be able to take a well-earned rest from the intensity of committee responsibilities and be able to enjoy things at her own pace a bit more. The new Treasurer is named simply Jez, and is someone I know nothing about – but the "Meet the Committee" page mentions that they're "relatively new to the fandom". I find that encouraging, actually – even now, when the show is over, people are still stepping up to take on the big roles. Clearly UK PonyCon is going nowhere just yet – and a good thing too!

My Little Repeats 17: "Stare Master"

All these years on, this remains one of the show's creepiest scenes

S1E17: "Stare Master"
Written by Chris Savino
25 Feb 2011

My original rating: N/A
IMDB score: 7.5

The one with Opal and her claws.

Thoughts: Savino's second and last FiM episode, probably to Hasbro's relief these days. The CMC get their first starring role together here, and what an adventure they make of it! It's good to see how well they already mesh, though they're noticeably immature here – which is fine for this stage in the series. Fluttershy is absurdly cute if overconfident (yes, Fluttershy) as their babysitter, plus we get to hear her singing, albeit briefly before Sweetie takes over. We also discover The Stare – though at this point, 'Shy can't do it on demand. A nice touch: all the jobs the Crusaders mention start with C: creature catchers, carpenters, coal miners, carpet cleaners... anyway, the cockatrice is a really dangerous animal, and adds back a bit of the Everfree danger removed earlier by Twilight prattling on about going in there to pick up some tea. (I don't like their eventual return so much, but it'll be ages before we get to that.) Flutters is great at protecting the fillies and staring down the cockatrice; even by this stage, you should realise you do not mess with her! Downsides? Well, the "Scootachicken" thing started here, and that's long outstayed its welcome. The ep also wanders about a bit at times; this isn't exactly a laser-focused story. Overall, though, an entertaining episode and one that I still had a good time with.

Choice quote: Apple Bloom: "Maybe that's our special talent... arguing!"

New rating: ★★★

Next up is "The Show Stoppers", another CMC episode but one which the fandom has not really warmed to. I remember rather liking it, but let's see how things go.

Bits and pieces

On Fimfiction, I've been looking through the list of users with the most stories in preparation for the next Ponyfic Roundup. There are people in the top 100 I've never even heard of, but there are also some really prominent writers in there. It's certainly possible to be both very good and very prolific. As it happens, there's a run in the 50s of six authors whose works I've read at least a few of: RainbowBob, Pascoite, naturalbornderpy, PresentPerfect, Georg and BronyWriter. You could have a pretty reasonable time with an anthology of fics by that half-dozen.

On a more general fanfic note, remember that book I posted about a couple of days ago? Well, Cecilia Aragon of the University of Washington has published this article in Technology Review about her research into fanfic with Katie Davis and four students. The three fandoms they looked at were Harry Potter, Doctor Who... and MLP:FiM. The book they produced was actually published in July 2019 (Writers in the Secret Garden: Fanfiction, Youth and New Forms of Mentoring) but I don't recall hearing of it until now. The Technology Review article itself is thin on actual MLP coverage, unfortunately.

Finally, let me be parochial for a moment and say that the first Worcester Shires ponymeet of 2020 will take place in a week's time, on Saturday 11 January. I'm pleased to report that our little group is still going strong as we approach our seventh birthday in early May! Which seems like a nice place to end this miscellany. :)

State of the Unicorn, January 2020

I published this on Fimfiction on New Year's Day, and I thought I might as well copy it here, only very slightly edited. Given the platform, it's almost entirely about fanfic rather than any other aspect of my MLP fanship, but here we go anyway.

Into the unknown we go! Well, okay, that's true every day of our lives, to a greater or lesser extent. But this year is the first in Fimfiction's existence with no new Friendship is Magic. Curiously enough -- or perhaps not -- I feel more motivated to create Pony stuff now than I have done in a long time.

And since my art looks like the meanderings of a half-dead, half-drunk centipede and my singing is only permitted to be revealed in public at convention karaoke sessions, that means writing.

So what's happening with ponyfic as far as I'm concerned? Let's have a look...

• I'm writing a very silly fic about a strike on Equestrian Railways, which should be the next one I publish. That's in a fairly advanced draft state.
• I have about a third of a little fic centring on Twilight's life just after the S9 epilogue. It's about 50/50 to make it to publication.
• There's still that more serious fic I've been wanting to write since late S7. I would love to say it'll be out this year, but...
• Feghoots are fun, as I discovered in 2019 with I discovered in 2019 with Raising the Baa and The Shoreline Shape Up. You can probably expect at least one or two more of them.
• The Danger Within is still not something I want to officially cancel, but I'd be lying if I said it was likely to go anywhere any time soon.
• The Flashfic 150 contests seem to have overcome a very lean period and are now rolling along again quite nicely. I'll happily continue with those.
• I will be posting Ponyfic Roundup 278 on Wednesday 8th January. It still seems amazing to me that I've been doing these reviews for nearly six years now!

I'm not going anywhere. I'll die with the herd. I may not be the best or the most prolific or the most prominent of ponyfic people on Fimfiction, but not only the fandom but that site and its own community mean a lot to me, and I have absolutely no intention of letting that part of my life gurgle away down the plughole of despair. So there's my New Year's Resolution for this fandom for 2020: I will bloody well write more!

I hope all of you have a good year, especially those who are not having a good time right now. Happy 2020!

My Little Repeats 16: "Sonic Rainboom"

Seriously, did you think I'd use any other picture here? On this blog?

S1E16: "Sonic Rainboom"
Written by M. A. Larson
18 Feb 2011

My original rating: N/A
IMDB score: 8.8

The one with the rainbow factory

Thoughts: The highest IMDb rating so far – though we'll go even higher before we reach the end of S1. This is a generally great episode, with only one real downside: Rarity. After being great two episodes ago, she's a major pain in the rump for large stretch of this one (plus not very grateful for sort-of beating Twilight to alicorn status!) and she's lucky to escape with her life as a result. I do like her recognising stage fright, but she goes downhill thereafter with her vanity and stupidity. Thankfully Rarity's Icarus act allows Rainbow Dash to be entirely awesome with her sonic rainboom to rescue her silly friend (and the Wonderbolts). We earlier learn that Rainbow has done a sonic rainboom – long ago. Soon we'll discover just how important that moment really was! Fluttershy's supporting role is great fun, and I like that she's able to be moderately assertive at times, especially in Cloudsdale. Talking of which, I really enjoyed seeing around that city. Pinkie's "You really need to get out more" to Twilight is great and – at this point – still fairly true. Rarity being so annoying hurts this episode a little, and the irritating stallions are just that, but it's still a very good watch, especially the thrilling rescue sequence. And yes, that cold open does have a bit of a bearing on my feelings about it too! :D

Choice quote: Fluttershy: "Rainbow Dash, you rock. Woo-hoo." (At least at one time, this was Andrea Libman's favourite Fluttershy line.)

New rating: ★★★★

Next up is "Stare Master", the first full CMC episode. I watched this fairly recently, as it happens, and quite enjoyed it. Let's see whether I do so this time, too.

Fanfic book I picked up cheap

Welcome to 2020! This will be first year for more than a decade with no new Friendship is Magic episodes. Talking of which, I plan on resuming the "My Little Repeats" S1 episode rewatches in the next day or two; the next ep is of course "Sonic Rainboom". For now, though, here's a slightly off-centre post, though as there's a reasonable amount of My Little Pony later in my post I haven't used the "non-pony" tag.

A little present I picked up for myself just before Christmas was the book you see above, Sheenagh Pugh's The Democratic Genre: Fan Fiction in a literary context, which I noticed on sale for a quid in a WH Smith clearance section. At that price, it didn't seem much of a risk. I didn't know anything about Pugh, but she seems to have written quite a bit, mainly poetry. I've only just had the time to start reading the book, so this isn't a proper review, but I'm a few chapters in and enjoying the read rather a lot.

As its subtitle suggests, this is a book that doesn't look at fanfic from the perspective of sociology or women's studies or whatever, though those aspects do inevitably creep in around the edges. Instead, it looks as the actual writing in terms of narrative voices, character choices, genre selection and so on. It's aimed at a general audience, so there's little of the brain-melting erudition you might get from some of Bad Horse's really in-depth studies on Fimfiction, but it's not merely superficial.

The reason it was being remaindered was that it was published in 2005, an age ago where the internet is concerned. The book is full of references and footnotes, but the majority are now dead links, with only fanfiction.net really still prominent from the fanfic hosts of long ago. (Archive of Our Own didn't even exist when The Democratic Genre hit the shelves.) There's not a single mention in the index of Harry Potter, either, though that series was well established by then so I'd imagine that was a deliberate omission.

The book's choice of fandoms is interesting: Pugh consciously chose not to write yet another look into Star Trek fic, but instead to concentrate on British fandoms, some better known than others outside the UK. The fandoms she chooses are Jane Austen, The Bill, Blakes 7, Discworld and Hornblower – a reasonable mixture of book-based, TV-based and both-based worlds. Since Discworld is the only one of those I know well, I'm not sure how vigorous or otherwise the other fandoms may still be.

Of course, since this is Louder Yay I'll have to make the obvious point that My Little Pony doesn't get a mention either, though there was doubtless some ponyfic around back then. True, it's a non-British fandom and so wouldn't have been a primary focus even were Pugh's book more recent, but I suspect it might have got at least passing attention. Perhaps for the strikingly good design of Fimfiction, more likely for its being a fandom with a cast of strong female characters – Buffy does get noted by Pugh for just this reason.

I wonder if anyone has ever attempted any sort of history/assessment of the MLP (G4) fanfic world as a whole? Pugh isn't herself a fanfic author in any of the fandoms she covers, so inevitably a piece on ponyfic written by a fan would have a somewhat different texture. It would also ideally need that rare beast, a writer who has been both an active and an enthusiastic part of the ponyfic world from its early days to the present time. If anyone does know of anything like this, please do say so!