Ponyfic Roundup 305

Read it Later story count: 195 (-3)

Summer has made an appearance here in darkest central England. As is often the case with our summers, this means one really nice, warm, sunny day (yesterday) followed by one unpleasantly hot, humid day (today) followed by a return to cool, cloudy, showery conditions (tomorrow). Our climate can be a pain sometimes, though at least it's not usually lethal. Anyway, today's three fics:

Sunset Shimmer is not an Alicorn by jqnexx
An Unspoken Agreement by Jarvy Jared
Roots by LittleSallyDigby

★: 0 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I find average scores two stars.

It'll be another Friday Ponyfic Roundup this week

Nothing terrible has happened. It's just that a few things came up that I had to deal with at short notice, and so I didn't have the time I'd expected to write up Ponyfic Roundup. Wednesday will remain the usual day for PR to go up.

My Little Repeats 48: "Hurricane Fluttershy"

This may just be my favourite single moment in the entire damn show

S2E22: "Hurricane Fluttershy"
Written by Cindy Morrow
24 Mar 2012

My original rating: N/A
IMDb score: 9.0

The one with Spike's alpenhorn

Thoughts: Best episode. Thanks for reading; see you next time! Oh, all right... this is a Fluttershy episode, which gets us off to a fine start. It's by Cindy Morrow, usually a good sign for character writing, and so it proves in spades this time. This is the very best depiction of Fluttershy's friendship with Rainbow Dash found anywhere in Friendship is Magic. It's pretty much perfect, summed up by a single moment: when Rainbow catches herself in the middle of her "Suck it up, Fluttershy!" speech. You really can tell these two have known each other for longer than most of the Mane Six, and Rainbow gets some welcome character depth out of it, too. The scene after Flutters runs away is excellent also: Dash's frustrated buck says it all. And when 'Shy comes back after that wonderful training montage – Angel demonstrating that he does care deeply about her – does our heroine triumph with 10.0 wing power? Oh no. That's much too obvious for Morrow; what happens here is so much more fitting: Fluttershy does better than ever before, but realistically so. (She breaks her PB again in the tornado, of course.) Add in some fun comedy with the film strip and Fluttertree, a decent amount of Derpyness, some very interesting – if hereafter barely used – world-building about water supplies, the feather flu and Spitfire in her gentler, pre-drill sergeant mode. And the eyes, of course. On top of everything else, this is a perceptive portrait of a pony with anxiety. At its heart, it's all about the character moments. See the screenshot above for yet another. I'm not a big fan of Bulk Biceps, but that doesn't matter. For its hugely satisfying depictions of both Rainbow Dash and especially Fluttershy, this episode was, and remains, a triumph.

Choice quote: Twilight: "Do I look like I speak squirrel?" [No. But Timmy Turner does!]

New rating: ★★★★★

Next up is "Ponyville Confidential", a CMC episode that I really rather enjoy. At least, I have done so in the past, with the odd reservation.

Sounds of 2013: Nos. 49 to 45

Time to get back to Everfree Radio's poll from 2013 of what its listeners thought were the best 100 fandom songs of the year. Actually, long past time to get back to it, but here we are at last. A quick refresher of my inclusion criteria first:

Rule 1: Still available in the same or (1b) similar form direct from the artist
Rule 2: Available from a third party, with reason to believe the artist is fine with this
Rule 3: So famous that it would be plain silly to leave it out
Rule 4: Being unlisted is not, on its own, grounds for exclusion

Now for this edition's list. Unfortunately there's a song I've had to skip this time, so here are the ones that I can include:

49: Sim Gretina and Feather – Allons-y
48: Alex S. feat. Odyssey – Life As We Know It
47: Yoka the Changeling – Anthropology (remix)
46: Phileo – The Way She Flies
45: skipped

You'll find YouTube embeds of the songs featured here, as well as some thrilling (perhaps) detail about them, after the page break.

Ponyfic Roundup 304

Read it Later story count: 198 (+1)

I was on a train last earlier this week (for the first time since March!) and yet I didn't read a word of ponyfic. I should be ashamed of myself, even if it was only a 13-minute journey and my glasses kept steaming up thanks to my mask. I have read a little ponyfic at home, though, so at least there's a small PR to go on with! Here are today's stories:

First Contact is Magic by Eakin
Trade Negotiations by Admiral Biscuit
Just Tell Me The Nasty Bits by Cackling Moron

★: 0 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I find average scores two stars.

My Little Repeats 47: "Dragon Quest"

Clearly dragon hands have the same sticky quality as pony hooves

S2E21: "Dragon Quest"
Written by Merriwether Williams
17 Mar 2012

My original rating: N/A
IMDb score: 6.3

The one with Spike's beard

Thoughts: See that IMDb rating? It's very nearly the lowest of S2, just a tenth of a point ahead of the infamous "The Mysterious Mare Do Well". Am I in agreement? Broadly, yes. The main problem is Garble and his pals. I don't like them, but that in itself wouldn't be a problem if I found them interestingly dislikeable. I don't. They're just tedious. The episode does have its share of better things, not least the mighty Crackle and even more so his pony-made "cousin". Also, the "butterfly migration" stuff at the beginning. (Fluttershy's "I said no!" is a nice callback to a couple of eps ago.) And actually the setup of Spike becoming frustrated about not knowing his origins is a very good one. Actually, most of the first act is good stuff. The end isn't bad either, especially Rarity's sudden anger. Garble here seems like something worse than just a teenage bully, too, given his clearly implied intention to kill the phoenix hatchlings. But the middle section of the episode, set in this pre-Ember land of dragons, was really not that effective at holding my attention. That fed into a rather underwhelming episode when all was said and done. All told, this was another example of the way Spike episodes really didn't click with most of us during the first half of the series – despite that being when FiM was, in broad terms, at its best. I'm not inclined to revise my opinion sufficiently to bring its rating any higher than two stars.

Choice quote: Rarity: "Isn't he adorable when he waddles off in anger?"

New rating: ★★

Next up is "Hurricane Fluttershy", which is about best pony and is also best episode about best pony and so is just all-round best. I remain, as ever, your impartial judge of these things.

Friendly Pony Corner

That title is Impossible Numbers' fault, but it was just too good to resist using. I'm grateful if anyone finds that description fits this blog, at least. Friendly corners, pony or otherwise, are very valuable things, all the more so in troubled times. Anyway, this is going to be (yet) another week when I mess up my usual schedule by virtue of being varying amounts of tired, busy, lazy and disorganised. Especially the last one.

So: tomorrow, you will get my rewatch of "Dragon Quest", which is going to be interesting as my regular and semi-regular commenters have seemed to cover a huge range of opinions on that episode. On Friday this week's Ponyfic Roundup will appear. At the weekend, I'll be getting back to "Sounds of 2013". Those three are pretty much my core series, so I think they all deserve some attention.

Well, that about wraps it up for Pony Life reviews

I watched episodes 7 and 8, and they were just... there. Sorry folks, but I just have little motivation to write reviews of them any more, and perhaps not even to watch them for a while. I'll keep an eye in case something does a "How Applejack Got Her Hat Back", but when I watch two Fluttershy episodes and give a giggle once (the cloud joke), something is wrong. Maybe with me, but the fact is Pony Life is not clicking.

Now, I want to make it clear that I don't hate this series. You'll have seen in my mini-reviews up to this point that I found some good things about it. But I'm increasingly solidly of the opinion that it's about on a par with the Equestria Girls shorts in terms of actual "I must watch this!" grabbing power, and that's really not enough. In fact, I haven't even watched all of those yet. So Pony Life is going on my back burner.

However, it's not all bad! Something I have a great deal of affection for is Friendship is Magic, and I will be making an effort to step up my rewatches so that there isn't a fortnight between each review! I mean, I'd quite like to get to the end of S9 this decade... "Sounds of 2013" could also do with a bit of a frequency boost, so I'll see what I can do there. And hey, maybe Pony Life will grab me in future.

Ponyfic Roundup 303

Read it Later story count: 197 (-4)

Hey, would you look at that! My RiL list is down below 200, for the first time since... ooh, I don't know, but it must be 2014 at least since it was this small. Maybe I will eventually reach my long-term goal of having the number reasonably stable around the 100 mark. Anyway, here are this week's three fics:

Beyond the Herd by Impossible Numbers
never forever by The Red Parade
Somepony Tries to Sell Twilight Insurance by The Minister of Scones

★: 0 | ★★: 0 | ★★★: 1 | ★★★★: 2 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I find average scores two stars.

My Little Repeats 46: "It's About Time"

The elite Canterlot Royal Guard, on the ball as ever

S2E20: "It's About Time"
Written by M. A. Larson
10 Mar 2012

My original rating: N/A
IMDB score: 8.4

The one with Madame Pinkie.

Thoughts: I really need to speed these things up a bit! Anyway, this is another incident-packed episode by M. A. Larson. As close to science fiction as Friendship is Magic gets – at least for now – this features time travel, Metal Gear ponies, telescopes, Twilight freakouts and, um, Tartarus. It gets its first mention here (albeit pronounced oddly) and Cerberus appears for the first time. Twilight is relieved to return him to Tartarus before any evil creatures could escape. Poor naive mare... As with many time travel stories, you don't want to look too hard at the logic – "not scientifically possible", to quote Twi herself. Mind you, if Twilight had thought a bit, she could just have brushed her mane after the explosion! Comedy is provided largely by Pinkie Pie, and it's generally lots of fun. Eyepatch emergencies indeed. Spike has a decent supporting role too, though ice cream should probably have got a credit too! Celestia's "Happy Tuesday" was briefly a bit of a fandom catchphrase, but it was the line about an "epic pony war in the distant future" that got the attention. You'll have to wait until the S5 finale for that (sort of), Twilight. Quite a busy episode, but one that (perhaps barring the repeated "two Twis" scene) is very well paced, a combination Larson tended to be accomplished at. Not perfect, but very good, and I think I really like this one now. Hence the four!

Choice quote: Pinkie Pie: "Anypony else wanna panic with me?"

New rating: ★★★★

Next up is "Dragon Quest", which I've never liked all that much and neither has the fandom as a whole. Some say that judgement needs re-evaluating, so I'll see whether I agree.

Mini-reviews: Pony Life episodes 5 and 6

Okay, I'll admit it: I did giggle at Applejack's line here

I discovered something yesterday about Pony Life that did not really appeal to me, but since that may count as spoilery I'll keep it beyond the break. Two more episodes this week (well, last week now) and as usual I ramble on about them at not very much length below.

Ponyfic Roundup 302

Read it Later story count: 201 (-5)

A couple of days late this week, owing to lack of time and – if I'm truly honest – lack of good mood. I don't generally like reading ponyfic when I'm in a rotten mood, although there are some kinds that can cheer me up. I tend to drift towards general undemanding reading (Asterix, for example) to fulfil that role, though. Hmm, I wonder whether anyone's written an Asterix/MLP crossover? I should probably have a look sometime. Anyway, here are today's three fics:

Errors by The Cloptimist
For want of a book by Hoopy McGee
Wrong Side of the Glass by Rosencranz

★: 0 | ★★: 0 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I find average scores two stars.

State of the Unicorn, July 2020

It's been a while since I've posted a "State of the Unicorn" update. Since the last one, whenever it was, the world has rather turned upside down. This is affecting me in all kinds of ways. Thankfully not in the sense of actually getting ill, but it has had a bearing on my writing. Or, rather, lack of writing. It's now about a year since I published Raising the Baa, and while I don't feel any great sense of pressure to publish again, I would rather like to get something out before too much longer.

The snag is that I am finding myself in an unhappy frame of mind rather too often for comfort. One reason is that, as things over here start to open up, for several reasons I remain excluded from an awful lot of them, and that's making me feel left behind the rest of society. I won't bore you all to tears by going into details now, but my Dreamwidth blog is where you'll find my general whinging about that stuff. You won't find many ponies over there, though, so I'd recommend steering clear unless you're a glutton for punishment.

So, enough of that. As you'll doubtless know, I've been watching Pony Life. I think I'll probably continue to do so for the moment, as it has just enough about it to keep me sufficiently interested. What it doesn't have, at least so far, is enough about it to make me want to expand its world myself in fanfic form. Fimfiction does now have a [Pony Life] tag, but I haven't yet read any stories that have used it. I expect I will eventually, although I'm rather iffy about including such fics in Ponyfic Roundup.

I am definitely, definitely not leaving the MLP fandom any time soon. Probably not ever. Part of that is because I have some damn good friends here. A big part. But even aside from that, I'm not leaving Fimfiction and I'm not leaving this blog. I'm sticking around like an extremely sticky thing. In fact, as far as fandom membership is concerned, I'm in the stickiest situation since Sticky the stick insect got stuck on a sticky bun. So I'm afraid you're going to have to put up with me. Well, unless you stop reading. But that would be cheating.

The whole online convention thing has lost a little of its lustre for me recently. I barely bothered with Whinny City's online offering, even though there was nothing wrong with it. I might drop into the online TrotCon at the end of next week, but I think I'm a bit conned out now. UK PonycOnline may end up being the last online Pony convention for quite some while that I actually spend serious amounts of time at. I expect there'll be more, not least because even 2021's in-person cons are far from guaranteed at this point. We'll see.

One thing I've been doing a lot of recently is listening to fandom music. Partly because of the "Sounds of 2013" feature, partly through a regular music meet some friends participate in on Discord, and partly because it's nice to listen to when I'm plodding around drizzly local streets to get my daily 10,000 steps. I really wish I'd paid more attention to the music scene back when it was enormous, but ah well – if I had done, I wouldn't be discovering cherishable gems like "Giggle at the Ghostbusters".

What lies ahead for this unicorn? Well, partly it will depend on my frame of mind, as mentioned in the second paragraph. If I can be a bit happier a bit more consistently, it'll make it more likely I'll actually write something. I keep on saying too that I want to get "My Little Repeats" back to a somewhat higher frequency. We'll see how that goes. And of course there's Flashfic 150. That at least is something writing-related that's on the definites list. And I think I'll stop there, on an actually positive note!

Sounds of 2013: Nos. 54 to 50

NB: Ponyfic Roundup 302 will appear on Friday this week. I just haven't had enough time to read, but I should do so over the next couple of days.

Off we go again with my look at Everfree Radio's fan-voted chart. To clarify for those who don't already know: this is what people thought in 2013, not their views now on what was best from that year. The usual reminder of my inclusion criteria first:

Rule 1: Still available in the same or (1b) similar form direct from the artist
Rule 2: Available from a third party, with reason to believe the artist is fine with this
Rule 3: So famous that it would be plain silly to leave it out
Rule 4: Being unlisted is not, on its own, grounds for exclusion

Now for this edition's list. I'm happy to say that there's no skipping required this time around, so all five tracks are present and correct.

54: EileMonty, Sim Gretina and Copper – Moving On (cover)
53: PrinceWhateverer ft. Scrambles, ShadyVox and AAR – Bullies and Best Friends
52: ponyphonic – Twilight's Journey
51: PsychGoth ft. Nowacking and MysteriousBronie – Spirit of Fire
50: 4everfreebrony – Three's a Team

Beyond the page break shalt thou find YouTube videos of the featured songs and mine own waffling. Verily.

In which Fimfiction loses a little bit of goodness

Many of you will already have seen paperhearts' blog post, but if not I'd urge you to read it in full yourself, especially this comment. In short: he's no longer enjoying Fimfiction and is moving to Archive Of Our Own (AO3) instead. I think all of us will wish him well in that endeavour, and hopefully some of us will stop by his AO3 account from time to time. (Pointer to that in his Fimfic post.) I will. I don't intend to ramble on lots here, but I would like to echo my comments on paperhearts' own blog and say thank you. Fimfiction was a better place for his presence and just a little more of its shine has rubbed off with his departure. All the best, paperhearts. I hope you find more happiness creating at your new home. :)

Mini-reviews: Pony Life episodes 3 and 4

"In my plastic aeroplane"

Yes, it's Pony Life review time again. I was asked last week whether I was going to do Text Review Roundups for these episodes. I thought probably not, but in fairness I did have a look around to see whether there were enough text-based reviews for it to be justifiable. The answer, I'm afraid, is not really. However, if you're after more in-depth reviews, try True Blue's MLEEP Productions. My more compact mini-reviews come after the break.

Ponyfic Roundup 301

Read it Later story count: 206 (+3)

As you will see, Ponyfic Roundup is back to normal this week. That means firstly that there's no particular theme to this edition's selection, and secondly that I've gone back to being lazy and have only read three stories. Let's have a look at what they are:

Fugue State by horizon
It's hard to write by BeautifulHorse
The Price of Salt by RoMS

★: 0 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 1 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I find average scores two stars.