My Little Repeats 144: "Celestial Advice"

I wonder whether any fan made use of that globe's design

S7E01: "Celestial Advice"

15 Apr 2017

My original rating: ★★★
IMDb score: 7.8

The one with the Pink Hearts of Courage

Thoughts: It's been way too long, hasn't it? Friendship is Magic returns! Well, sort of. Season Seven, uniquely, did not begin with a two-parter, so this first episode stands alone. This first part of S7 had the "Lady Writers" team of Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco overseeing things, and this opener was also written by them. It's quite good fun, though not without its irritations. It's one of the first episodes to give Celestia plenty of screen time, Spike gets a bit of attention – and a fun touch of snark – and the bookending Pinkie moments are fun. Discord is a tad irritating, but then he's very much trying to be in-story, and in any case Twilight is (still) just too easy to tip into (fairly mild, here) freakout mode. Pacing isn't particularly great, though: the episode starts a bit too slowly and ends a bit too quickly, while the bit where Twilight ponders futures for Starlight goes on rather too long. A shame, as Glimmy's undecided future could have packed quite an emotional punch. I mean, the ep is quite pleasant and quite fun. Doesn't really feel like a season-opener, though. It can keep its three, I guess.

Choice quote: Celestia: "There is no wrong way to fantasise."

New rating: ★★★

Next up, broadcast on the same day even though a separate episode, was "All Bottled Up". I don't remember much about that one beyond Trixie being in it.

Ponyfic Roundup 451

Read it Later story count: 93 (-2)

Words read this week: 21,991

It was really irritating that the cricket petered out thanks to it raining for most of two solid days in Manchester. We could have been set up for an Ashes decider at the Oval to rank among the greats. And to keep Test cricket popular, what's more. Oh well, what can you do? Anyway, back to ponyfic and here are today's five stories:

The Longest Night by Tundara
Walking you home by Nova Star Sparkle
Flip a Coin and She Smiles by Aragon
The Sunset Room by Foxy E
The Way It Goes Down by heartlessons

★: 0 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 3 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

An awful lot of Thousand Wordses...

With a few days still to go before the submissions deadline, the Thousand Words Contest II has sailed past the hundred-story count. Moreover, it's passed the 105 (I think) that were submitted for last year's event. Impressive stuff! So here's my question: when was the last time, if ever, that a Pony writing contest got this many entries? The Outside Insight Contest in 2014 received 109, so "Thousand Two" is already past that. Anyone?

Ponyfic Roundup 450

Read it Later story count: 95 (+1)

Words read this week: 25,066

I expect all of us who read fanfic have our own pet minor annoyances. One of mine is the irritatingly widespread error of using "peak" when it should be "peek". You could of course get around this by using the traditional British version "peep", but this seems to have gone the way of the dodo in the face of the American English juggernaut. Ah well, enough of that and on to this week's fics...

The Lessons Left Unlearned by Donnys Boy
Stop Number Twelve by Casketbase77
Twilight Sort-Of Kills Her Friends by Mad Hattie
Perdition by Odd_Sarge
Solitude for the Modern Businessmare by Fahrenheit

★: 0 | ★★: 0 | ★★★: 3 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 1
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

It's about time I started on FiM Season 7...

...so I shall be doing that. I can't say exactly when, but unless something truly impossible to ignore comes up, it will be before the end of this month. Three more seasons to go until the end, plus the FiM movie, "Best Gift Ever", Rainbow Roadtrip,  and a few EqG shorts. I shall make no apology for continuing my usual tendency to enjoy FiM in particular, though a couple of episodes may give me a bit of a struggle there... ;)

Ponyfic Roundup 449

Read it Later story count: 94 (-3)

Words read this week: 14,294

The current Thousand Words Contest II's entry count has broken into three figures, just as it did last year – and with two and a half weeks still to go! I hope to add one of my own if I can only get it into some kind of shape before the deadline. Meanwhile, here's the first normal Wednesday Ponyfic Roundup for quite some while. Five stories to look at, which are:

I wander by Silent Whisper
Kaleidoscope by TheDriderPony
Cursed Be He That Moves My Bones by Lucky Dreams
Apples in the Mirror by Rune Soldier Dan
ALREADY?? by Level Dasher

★: 0 | ★★: 2 | ★★★: 0 | ★★★★: 3 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

Ponyfic Roundup 448: Treefics 3

Read it Later story count: 97 (nc)

Words read this week: 8,922

Here we go with the final part of my look at the Arboreal Yearnings Contest stories. Seven fics to deal with today, yet an even lower overall word count than the last two weeks. Something interesting about this contest, actually: of all the 17 fics I've reviewed, none were over 6,500 words and no fewer than 13 (plus mine) were under 2,000. There was no formal maximum length for entries, but really short fics were in the large majority. Here's today's list:

Does It Make a Sound? by EileenSaysHi
"To be a tree" (from A Poetry Anthology) by Shaslan
Post-Con by Bicyclette
I Don't Want to Be a Tree Anymore by Kris Overstreet
Heartwood by EroPony1000
Pining by pubbyrot
Harmon-Tree by TCC56

★: 0 | ★★: 2 | ★★★: 3 | ★★★★: 2 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

UK PonyCon: Tabitha St. Germain out, Kelly Sheridan in

As reported by the official UKPC blog recently, there has been a significant development in terms of this year's convention guests. Bad news first: because of work commitments, Tabitha St. Germain has had to pull out of attending. Good news second: the con has been able to welcome Kelly Sheridan instead. She was originally announced for the cancelled 2020 UKPC and then had to pull out in 2022, so this will certainly be good news for those who really wanted to meet her!

This kind of thing does happen with conventions, since quite understandably when there's a clash, professional VAs have to prioritise their actual day jobs over travelling to see fans. Daniel Ingram, for example, was originally announced for BUCK 2016 but had to pull out for similar reasons to Tabitha St. Germain. He never did make it to any UK MLP convention (he did get to GalaCon, but that really isn't the same!) so let's hope that Tabitha can make it over to UKPC in the future.

I won't lie, among people I know Tabitha St. Germain's original announcement was a huge deal and there is a lot of disappointment at this turn of events. It's not really fair on Kelly Sheridan and a shame, really: had she been announced as a guest of honour in the first place, I think everyone would have been delighted. But even now in 2023, there is something extra special about a Mane Six guest, as we saw last year when Andrea Libman graced UKPC with her presence.

Still, up until very recently UK PonyCon didn't have show guests at all, and it was still a great convention. I hope the 2023 edition will be that too. I'm increasingly unlikely to be able to attend myself this year for a variety of reasons (some involve other people, so I have to remain vague) but if you are going then with Kelly Sheridan (and of course the irrepressible Elley-Ray!) and everything else that comes with UKPC, I'm sure you'll have a truly brilliant time.