Ponyfic Roundup 472: Spotlight on Binky Pie

Read it Later story count: 96 (-1)

Words read this week: 53,100

It's not my usual practice to have a PR straight after Christmas, but I thought what the hay? Binky Pie is that rare thing, a crossover I can actually understand properly, and so I'd been wanting to read it off and on for ages. At last I had both the inclination and the time! As ever, spoiler-free potted review up top, spoilery details below the page break. Here be footnotes!

Binky Pie by Miyajama
Pinkie Pie
G4; Comedy/Crossover; 53k words; Aug 2011–Jan 2017; Everyone

[no short description]

First things first: you do need to have at least a passing acquaintance with Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, specifically the Death books, to get the best out of Binky Pie. I mean, reading Discworld is a good idea anyway, but even more so here. The setup could be described as "Pinkie agrees to replace Binky as Death's horse, but ends up being Death. Sort of." While inevitably the prose isn't quite up to Pterry himself, it's a pretty readable and entertaining piece, fitting nicely with the mid-period Discworld I like.¹ "Bill Door" is given an unexpected but surprisingly successful romantic subplot, while Ridcully and the Unseen University wizards are much their usual selves. Applejack does well in a smaller role. Twilight's part is perhaps slightly obvious and overwritten, and not enough use is made of there being Mrs Cakes in both worlds. Still, considering the challenge, I was pleasantly surprised. As such, a very high three. I could see some readers making it a four. ★★★ Edit: now including me! I had missed (because my phone didn't render it) that Death's SMALL CAPS speech formatting was included. This really added something, and that pushes it over the three/four line. Upgraded! ★★★★
¹ After the essentials were firmly established, before it all got a little too world-weary and cynical for my liking.

As you will doubtless already know, spoilers lurk below!

Ponyfic Roundup 471: Hearth's Warming Special

Read it Later story count: 97 (+1)

Words read this week: 42,294

The fire of friendship lives in our hearts, and so I'm sure does the warm glow of festive ponyfic. In honour of the rapid approach of Hearth's Warming, today I present a special six-fic edition of Ponyfic Roundup. Usually I mix authors I know well and those new to me, but this time I am being self-indulgent and concentrating on stories by writers whose works I've liked in the past. As you can see, I liked all of them this time.

A Holiday Errand by Pen Stroke
Yule in a Donut Shop by Rune Soldier Dan
The First Stitch by Carabas
How Lily Longsocks Spent Hearth’s Warming Eve on the Moon by Pascoite
In the Bleak Midwinter by Skywriter
Badvent Calendar by Estee

★: 0 | ★★: 0 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 4 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

My Little Repeats 152: "Honest Apple"

This was right up there with Vinyl revealing hers!

S7E09: "Honest Apple"

3 Jun 2017

My original rating: ★★★
IMDb score: 6.5

The one with Apple Bloom's attempt at a "signature hat"

Thoughts: By this time Treehouse TV was well ahead of Discovery Family, hence my 2017 review being in mid-May. Not the most popular episode perhaps, though I quite liked it six years ago. Now? Well, not that much to say, to be honest. I still don't dislike it, but I did find my attention wandering a bit more. Applejack feels a bit early-series sometimes, and she's just plain rude when mutilating contestants' designs at the contest. The Strawberry Sunrise bit is amusing, and Photo Finish is always fun. Inky Rose is probably the best of the show competitors, and she probably has the least annoying voice to boot! "Honest Apple" is really more a high-end two than a three-star episode for me now, but I still don't agree with those who think it's dire. Nothing with that Rarity guitar sequence could be dire.

Choice quote: Applejack: "My closet's nothin' but twenty versions of this hat!"

New rating: ★★

Next up, "A Royal Problem". While there have always been some dissenters, in 2017 this was among the most popular episodes of S7, and I was very much in the pro camp. The question is, will that still be the case today...?

Ponyfic Roundup 470

Read it Later story count: 97 (+1)

Words read this week: 32,813

After all the thousand-worders recently, this week we're in a little bit of a lull, after that and before the festive edition. (For details of what's coming next week, see the end of this post.) Today I'm going to follow my usual pattern when nothing else is happening: I'll be reviewing five stories which caught my eye for one reason or another. They are:

Barn room brawl by appletini
Cafeteria Control by Justice3442
Five Hundred Little Zombies by GroaningGreyAgony
Beyond a Boundary by The Cloptimist
Sunsplit by Masterweaver

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

Things you will* see in Ponyfic Roundup in 2024

Yes, there's an asterisk in that subject line. What do you mean, why am I being strange? Are you brand new to this blog or something? I suppose I should put the matching asterisk down here somewhere, so stay tuned for that. But in the meantime...

Author Spotlights – Unlike some reviewers, I've barely done these. Okay, there was the mushroompone edition in March, but before that you'd have to go back a year and a half to when I featured Lets Do This in October 2021, and before that the last author to get a PR to themselves was Chris in March 2018! My mind was nudged a little on this by seeing Ghost Mike's look at Aragon fics that came out yesterday. 

As to who I have in mind for a possible Spotlight? Well, that would be telling. Obviously it's going to be someone who isn't just a one-hit wonder, but beyond that you'll just have to wait and see...

Random(ish?) Fic Edition – Every so often in the past, I've picked a bunch of fics fed to me by a random number generator and reviewed them almost whatever they are. "Almost" because I do tend to set a few ground rules so that I don't end up having to read the 4.5 million words (you read that right) of My Little Pokémon or something. These editions don't tend to have huge hit rates, but they're fun as a very occasional thing.

Silly Theme Edition – Now this really is something that I'd like to do again. Way back in the mists of time (PR 137, December 2016) I did a Roundup where all the fics featured spoons. It was on Hard Mode, too, which meant no Silver Spoon stories could be included. This is the level of idiocy to which I aspire. I was there once, and perhaps those halcyon days can return in 2024.

No major changes in format – I'm very comfortable with the cosy little one-paragraph reviews I've been writing for the last nine and a half years. Mike can happily chat for 4,000 words in a blog post, but I'd just sound boring if I went on for that long. Hay, I don't even include the cover art in my reviews. Yes, they tend to be a bit longer than when I started doing this, but not that much longer.

Two big milestones – The very first Ponyfic Roundup appeared on 26 March 2014, and so I'm approaching its tenth anniversary. I'll see what I can think up for that auspicious occasion. And as if that wasn't enough, sometime in the summer (depending on whether I take the odd holiday break) I will reach Ponyfic Roundup 500. I'm unsure whether I should be pleased or scared that I've gone on this long!

* Maybe. There you are, you can stop fretting now. Wasn't really worth scrolling all the way down here, though, was it?

Looking back at Ever Let the Fancy Roam

Previously in this series: Sunset's Sales Snag.

It's a month and a half since I last did this, so let's bring up another of my stories for me to yatter on about. Take it away, RNG, please! And... okay, it looks like today I'll be talking about Ever Let the Fancy Roam. This actually won the "Making the Most of the Mundane" contest, which admittedly only had three entries. With a +34/-0 thumbscore as I type, this story has had a rather better reception than Sunset's Sales Snag. Well, mostly it has, and that's where I'll start this ramble.

You see, this comment was the first feedback I got after publishing it way back in February 2015. It's fair to say it wasn't the most complimentary note I've ever received. The writer suggested that I didn't care about Fancy Pants, that the characters spoke in clichés and lacked meaningful voices, that it was "a pastiche of weak "British" stereotypes¹ [that] drools out of the writing like cottage cheese."
¹ Dash it all, I am a weak British stereotype!

The weird thing is that this comment wasn't accompanied by a downvote. Since the writer wasn't personally offensive I did respond in some detail. That seemed to end the interaction, and the comment writer hasn't done much on Fimfiction – though they did apparently log in as recently as April this year. I feel I handled it reasonably well, though it wasn't the nicest way to start!

Fortunately, subsequent comments were nicer – not devoid of criticism, but that's no problem. The thing is, this story was a bit of an "I just want to write a Fancy Pants fic" deal rather than anything more considered. He clearly needed someone to interact with who wasn't Fleur, and so I gave him the kind of long-serving butler in Silver Cloud who I felt wouldn't be entirely a pushover.

Some of you may have twigged why I named him Silver Cloud already, but in case not: first, it's a good pegasus name and flight is clearly useful when working around a rambling old stately home. Second, it's the name of a classic Rolls-Royce model from the 1950s and '60s. Old-fashioned now but still well thought of. Could do worse for such a stallion, don't you think?

As for the plot of the story... given the contest it was entered for, it couldn't be too exciting, so it features Fancy and Silver making preparations for a little "At Home" soirée to which (due to unfortunate Canterlot social obligations) they have to invite Jet Set and Upper Crust. This is very much the "Sweet and Elite" Fancy Pants, by the way: I dislike how he was characterised in some later episodes.

As Present Perfect noted, Fancy is deliberately written with a few contradictions. He'll happily subvert some of the protocol and traditions, but there is still a line that should not be crossed between master and servant, as he makes clear to Silver at one point. Fancy's liking for backgammon is also deliberate, though here there's not a lot more to it than that I rather like backgammon.

The ending to Ever Let the Fancy Roam is its weakest part. I don't think it's terrible, but it is a little bit lacking in impact – and here I can't just point to the contest theme since there are various ways it could have been made better. My problem really is that I like feeble jokes, and so too often I end stories on them. Note to self: not every kind of fic works like a feghoot!

One commenter asked me if I was considering writing any more Fancy and Silver stories. I never have, but I do confess that I rather like the way they play off each other and so I won't entirely rule it out. (I will rule out ever making them a romantic couple, by the way. I just don't want to go down that route.) Also, it was nice to use "foalish" in a story. Stupid horse puns are important.

Ponyfic Roundup 469: Thousand Words Contest II winners, part 4 of 4

Read it Later story count: 96 (-1)

Words read this week: 10,000

It rained for about 48 hours non-stop earlier this week. It wasn't much fun. Fortunately, it's not raining as I write this. Anyway... time now for the final part of my look at the fics that won recognition in the Thousand Words Contest II. There are ten of them: five Silver Medallists and five Gold Medallists. Here's the rundown:

Silver Medallists

Her Mothers' Daughter, Unfortunately by TheDriderPony
For a Love of the Arts by The Red Parade
Compound Fracture by Equimorto
What Are You Doing, Stepfish? by TheDriderPony
D E A T H w i s h / meso, strato, tropo by The Red Parade

Gold Medallists

Don't Go Through. You Can't Stop Me. by daOtterGuy
The Woodcutter and the King of the Forest by TheInfamousFly
Bury It by daOtterGuy
Ornithomancy by daOtterGuy
Please don't do this by Kodeake

★: 0 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 3 | ★★★★: 6 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

My Little Repeats 151: "Hard to Say Anything"

"You know, Scootaloo, I don't know if relying on the Grimm version is such a good idea."

S7E08: "Hard to Say Anything"

27 May 2017

My original rating: ★★
IMDb score: 7.2

The one with the Mayor's cast-off rainbow wig

Thoughts: To repeat the last section, this – Becky Wangberg's only FiM episode – is also the one with Feather Bieber Bangs. More significantly, though we didn't know that at the time, it's the start of the SugarMac relationship that would eventually lead to marriage. Big Mac trying to kiss the sleeping Sugar Belle didn't go down well with everyone, but otherwise this ep is more entertaining than I remembered. There are some fun one-liners from the CMC, and Feather Bangs himself eventually turns out to have a better side. Decent song, too. The, well, groupies joke is overused, though, and most importantly the central ship is just "these two are in love, okay?" which irritates me. It's like an "and then romance happened because shipping, 'kay?" fic, and I'm not desperately keen on those either. That's what keeps an otherwise potentially three-star episode down in the high twos.

Choice quote: Sweetie Belle: "Hey! That's our metaphorical sunset they're riding off into!"

New rating: ★★

Next on the list is "Honest Apple", an episode which isn't very popular but which a small slice of the fandom really likes. I was fairly positive about it first time around, but by no means ecstatic.

Ponyfic Roundup 468: Thousand Word Contest II winners, part 3 of 4

Read it Later story count: 97 (nc)

Words read this week: 12,000

This is being published just a tad later than I'd intended, so I hope you didn't suffer too much from being kept on tenterhooks! We're getting ever higher into the batch of successful stories from the Thousand Words Contest II, and in this penultimate part I'll complete my reviews of the Judge's Prize fics and also cover the Bronze Medallists. That means twelve – count 'em – stories on the slate, so let's waste no more time:

Judge's Prize fics

The Pact by Unimpressive Chaos Lord
The Trees of Harmony by Reviewfilly
Cherry Pits by The Red Parade
Hall of Mirrors by RB_
Magic is Most Imminent by heartlessons

Bronze Medallists

The Swing by metronome
I Can't Ask Fluttershy Out by SparklingTwilight
Hop-Frog Afternoon by Pascoite
Through Time, With Love by daOtterGuy
Medusa by NorrisThePony
An Unroyal Wedding by Shrink Laureate
Frag/ment/ed by Dashie04

★: 0 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 7 | ★★★★: 4 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

Meta time

For personal reasons, I haven't been able to get all this week's Ponyfic Roundup reviews written up in time, so this edition will appear on Friday. That's all!

My Little Repeats 150: "Parental Glideance"

"Logan's actually finished this?"

S7E07: "Parental Glideance"

20 May 2017

My original rating: ★★★★
IMDb score: 7.7

The one with Rainbow Dash's linen closet

Thoughts: I am a huge fan of Scootaloo,¹ so I'm delighted to have a Scootasode to mark the 150th MLR. I really liked it in 2017, and I still really like it now. Her utter hero-worship of anything Dash is both cute and funny, and Rainbow's parents are entertaining too – I'm glad they weren't recurring characters, mind, as they'd have been a bit much. We get a gut-punch moment (even more so now) about how Scoot's parents weren't that supportive, and a heartbreaking little sideshow moment for Derpy. The Wonderbolts are very solid, too, with a great sense of camaraderie. Josh Hamilton's MLP writing debut was easily the best of his four episodes; it's a shame he couldn't match this. I still feel Dash's parents get off a tad lightly for what really was excessive behaviour, but I still love this ep and the large amounts of ecstatic Scootaloo we get, and it still gets a four.
¹ Less of a fan of huge Scootaloo, but we'll get to that in two seasons' time...

Choice quote: Bow Hot Hoof: "Great timing." Scootaloo: "Great door!"

New rating: ★★★★

Next on the list is "Hard to Say Anything", the slightly strange episode that introduced SugarMac to the fandom. I didn't like it all that much first time round, and I can't say I'm hugely optimistic of a massive about-turn. Though who can say?

Ponyfic Roundup 467

Read it Later story count: 97 (nc)

Words read this week: 27,532

Hello again, everyone. I am well aware – painfully well aware – that I have posted nothing on this blog since last week's Roundup. Believe me, this state of affairs will not continue. For one thing, I really want to rewatch "Parental Glideance"! However, for now it's ponyfic once more. As I trailed last week, I'm having a week off Thousand Words Contest II fics to fit in a standard edition. That means five stories:

The Return of Sunset by Ninjadeadbeard
What it Means to Rule by Boltstrike58
Chances of Fire by yodajax10 (review requested by author)
The Empress and the Goose-Girl by Shaslan
Twilight Seeks Help by TheOtakuX

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

Ponyfic Roundup 466: Thousand Words Contest II winners, part 2 of 4

Read it Later story count: 97 (-2)

Words read this week: 10,000

Something I've noticed: my EPUB reader program does not seem to respect Fimfiction spoiler cuts, so I see everything that is in the long descriptions whether the author wants me to or not. I try not to spoil myself, but...! Anyway, more Thousand Words Contest II prize-winners this time. This week I'll be considering ten of the fifteen that garnered a Judge's Prize. Here's the list:

Cart Before the Horse by The Red Parade
Long Way Forward by Not That Anon
A Foal's Errand by ScarredVirtue
One on One by Muramasa
Trixie Bombs by danatron1
Hyperesthesia by gapty
Outsmarted! by 6-D Pegasus
Breakfast for Dinner by The Red Parade
Daybreak Will Set Us Free by Pascoite
The Enlightenment of Sonata Dusk by Mockingbirb

★: 0 | ★★: 3 | ★★★: 6 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

My Little Repeats 149: "Forever Filly"

"Aww, I remember when CheeriMac was a thing, too."

S7E06: "Forever Filly"

13 May 2017

My original rating: ★★
IMDb score: 7.5

The one with extremely small ice creams

Thoughts: I did not have a great experience with this episode in 2017, finding it tedious viewing at times. Now? Now I feel I was rather harsh on it. Sweetie Belle clearly does have a point that she's still being treated like a little filly when she's (more or less) a teenager, and Rarity is being somewhat dense about this. The ep isn't perfectly paced, with the parallel Zipporwhill plot having that pony being at least as slow to grasp the point as Rarity is. I'm also a bit iffy about the CMC: I get that they're best as a threesome, but surely AB and Scoot could have had more ideas even as a two. Still, Sweetie's attempt to be polite while not quite being able to cover up her boredom is actually fairly well portrayed. Maybe I was just in a  grumpy mood six years ago. This episode is getting bumped up a star.

Choice quote: Chip Cutter: "When I look at my sandwich, it's like it's just asking me to turn it into a dragon."

New rating: ★★★

Next up will be the 150th My Little Repeats, which will look at "Parental Glideance". An episode I really did enjoy a lot first time around and have watched again for fun since. I fully expect to have a good time with it again now.

Bing Chat writes ponyfic

It would be interesting if someone produced a writing-centric AI whose learning material was entirely out-of-copyright work. In the UK at least, that would still allow the likes of Orwell and Wells. I wonder if anyone's done it? Anyway, some months ago, I posted about what happened when I asked GPT-4 and Claude+ to write ponyfic based on a prompt I'd thought up. Yesterday, I thought I'd give the same task to Bing Chat. I told it to be creative in its writing style and then offered the same prompt I'd given before, to wit:

Please write a My Little Pony story in which Fluttershy and Rarity discuss a sensitive issue over a cup of tea. The two ponies are very long-standing friends and trust each other completely. Both of them are quiet conversationalists, so the conversation should have a restrained emotional tone. However, the much brasher Rainbow Dash barges into the cottage halfway through.

Beyond the page break you can see what Bing Chat came up with. As usual in my experience of AI writing, it's useless at titles, but oh well. I recommend you read right to the end, though, as there's a fun twist waiting!

Ponyfic Roundup 465: Thousand Words Contest II winners, part 1 of 4

Read it Later story count: 99 (nc)

Words read this week: 9,000

A very low word count, but that's by design rather than because of illness this time, as I'm starting on my reviews of fics from the Thousand Words Contest II. Not all of them, as there were 168 – a staggering tally for a ponyfic contest in any year, let alone one in 2023. As it happens, there were nine stories that received an honourable mention, so that's where I'm beginning this survey.

Allegiance by Moproblems Moharmoney
Peanut Gallery by TheDriderPony
Lake Day by GrangeDisplay
Twilight Makes Coffee by Kodeake
Mortissimo by Incandesca
The Good Art by TCC56
Thus Testifies Twilight by Accurate Balance
Canon Perpetuus, Canon Perpetuus, Canon Perpetuus by JimmySlimmy
Dis/0rd3R by TheInfamousFly

★: 0 | ★★: 2 | ★★★: 6 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

Well enough to start catching up

Covid takes a while to properly loosen its grip, but I think I've reached the point at which I can start to move back towards running this blog in the way I did before. Ponyfic Roundup is pretty much back now, so the next big deal will be going back to episode rewatches. "Forever Filly" is the next one of those, and I'm tentatively planning to watch that on Sunday and have a post up a week today. Also, back on the ponyfic front, I'll be catching up with notifying authors whose fics I've reviewed, since I fell behind on that as well during my illness. Hooves crossed!

Ponyfic Roundup 464

Read it Later story count: 99 (+4)

Words read this week: 25,555

You can blame certain people at the last Worcester meet for my RiL list heading perilously close to three figures again! Admittedly, it would help if I'd been able to review the normal number of stories over the last few weeks, but there we are. Anyway, I hope this will be the last three-fic edition of Ponyfic Roundup for quite some time. Today's trio are as follows:

In Creeping Twilight by Shilic
The Iridescent Iron Rat by horizon
The Third Alicorn Conspiracy by starfox64x

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

Shameless self-promotion department, belated

I meant to post this a few days ago, but because I'm me I forgot. Anyway, my minific "The Villain Contest", which was originally published in the UK PonyCon 2016 con book, got a Highly Recommended from Present Perfect the other day! A nice surprise, and one that pleased me both because it was nice to have something in actual print, and because I still rather like the piece all these years on. :)

Ponyfic Roundup 463

Read it Later story count: 95 (+1)

Words read this week: 8,616

This week, in "Logan is not American, you know", a reminder that what I mean by "brackets" are these things: ( ). These – [ ] – are specifically "square brackets" to me. While we do use the term "parentheses", doing that in colloquial British English sounds overly formal and a little bit affected. And now on to more interesting matters. Three fics today, all of them pretty short as I'm not yet up to longer reads:

Heartstrings by evelili (review requested by author)
Amber Hearts by Blondlionezel
Sweetie Ban by Casketbase77

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

Looking back at Sunset's Sales Snag

This is an idea I nabbed from hawthornbunny. Well, I don't exactly expect Hawthorn is the only person to do this, but still. Pick a fic I wrote and write a little bit about it. I couldn't decide which story to choose, so I let the RNG take the strain. And the first on the block is... drumroll, maestro, please... Sunset's Sales Snag. Whew, an interesting one to start with!

SSS is one of my most poorly received fics, with a thumbscore of +18/-7 as I type this and a total of 446 views – not a high total for a story published more than seven years ago. Do I think it's that bad? Well, no. I wouldn't call it one of my finest achievements, but that's another matter. I'm fairly sure I know the biggest reason for all those downvotes, and I'll get back to that.

The fic was written, as it says in the longdesc, as a "bit of silly fluff for Sunset Shimmer Day". On those terms, I think it does all right. Sunset (the normal EqG version) is now 21 and in a dead-end sales job for a cake firm. This is just a convenient setup for some silly – and, by my standards, slightly innuendo-laden – dialogue between her and the slightly creepy man who answers the door.

It's a comedy of misunderstanding. The man believes that a young woman with a name like Sunset Shimmer must surely be involved in a rather... particular branch of the entertainment industry. When she reluctantly reveals she works for the Lyra Heartstrings Company the man feels vindicated. Sunset, meanwhile, is constantly having to bite back sarcastic responses.

What is bad about this fic is that it has a very, very weak ending. It's a one-line gag, and not even a particularly funny one-line gag. I've written feghoots with much better finishes. (As an early Fimfiction comment suggests, it wasn't even my first published version of said last line.) If that had been the reason for those downvotes, I could have had few complaints.

Sadly, the reason is duller: the [Sex] tag. These warning tags were new at the time, and I wasn't sure whether a fic with no actual sex but with significant innuendo needed one. I played it cautious and put one on the fic. Then, of course, a bunch of readers who'd loaded up SSS expecting hot Sunset clop action got annoyed when there wasn't any. I removed the tag, but too late. Oh well.

The humour in this story reminds me a bit of my earlier Kicking Back, which is probably a slightly better fic and is also probably the one to pick if you just want to read one of my stories in this mould. Still, reading the story again now, I still get a few smiles out of it. Even from the utterly shameless "Cakes. Why did it have to be cakes?" line I gave to Sunset

Meta post regarding Ponyfic Roundup

I'm finally recovering from Covid now, but I don't want to rush things. As such, I'll be splitting the next Roundup in two. I had planned to review five stories this week, as you can see at the end of the last PR, but that won't now happen. Instead I'll cover three, with another three next week. How does that work? Well, I have a story whose author requested a review,¹ and I'll cover that one this time with a couple of the original list. Then the rest of the list the week after.
¹ Heartstrings by evelili

This does mean I'm not going to manage the Nightmare Night themed Roundup I'd been vaguely thinking about, but such is life I'm afraid. I do still plan to get to the Thousand Words winners, though. Eventually...

Sethisto's EQD editorial on AI art

This turned out to be a very interesting read, which is why I'm writing about it here, albeit saddled with a ridiculously long headline, to wit: The Huge Struggle of Pony Posting in an Era of AI Art, Policing Fake "Artists", and Dealing With the POWER of DALL-E 3. Aaaand breathe. What's particularly interesting about the article is that it recognises just how much AI art has changed in the last year, showing some really quite startling examples. If you remember the Twilight Pokéball stuff from 2022, that's totally old hat now.

As Seth says, it's no longer possible just to assume that AI-created pieces will all have an instantly recognisable style or sheen to them. That was true in 2022: it isn't (at least, isn't necessarily) true any more. Many of the kinds of silly little mistakes it still produces are a) often skimmed over by viewers, and b) also quite often produced by human artists. Plus, as he also says, dishonesty exists in this fandom too: he says there's an AI-created piece posing as a human-created one in his inbox as he types.

The comments section on the EQD post is better than I'd expected too, with many posters coming to the conclusion that the time when you could realistically say, "AI must be kept out of art, full stop" might well already be over. As one person points out, Adobe is powering ahead with AI-enabling Photoshop, and it's not going to be the only graphics software package to do that. I assume, then, that soon just about everyone making computer art will be using AI somewhere along the way unless they put considerable effort into not doing so.

I'm too unwell still to add much of my own, but I did want to flag up the EQD piece as being something worth your time to read.

Thank you, Covid, thank you so very much

Apologies for this, but I'm afraid there's likely to be another delay in updates here for a while. I've acquired Covid, and while I don't feel impossibly ill I really am not currently in a fit state to do updates much longer than this one. I think the most likely thing is for me to delay everything by a week – so no Ponyfic Roundup this coming Wednesday, then the week after that I'll do the one I was hoping to do this time. It all depends on my state of health, of course. Really rather annoying that I get to stay at home but can't cope with using all that time to read!

Record charity total from UK PonyCon!

Per the UK PonyCon Discord, last-minute donations have increased the total raised for the RDA to...

£12,124

This is slightly more than last year, and in fact the highest one-year total ever raised by UKPC. Huzzah! :D

Ponyfic Roundup 462: Spotlight on A Mighty Demon Slayer Grooms Some Ponies

Read it Later story count: 94 (-1)

Words read this week: 86,362*

As I trailed last week, this time I'm breaking my nearly absolute "no incomplete fics" rule to look at a story that's technically On Hiatus but which I'm not sure I really believe will ever be finished after a full decade without an update. Its writer is not new to Ponyfic Roundup, the highlight being Love on the Reef, which I gave four stars back in PR 196. This story, however, is something unlike anything else I have read on Fimfiction. Good thing? Bad thing? Read on...
* Word count excludes the 5,000+ words of "The Ending" blog post, although I have read that.

A Mighty Demon Slayer Grooms Some Ponies by D G D Davidson
Other, Twilight and Mane Six
G1/G4; Dark/Adventure/Crossover/Human; 86k words; Dec 2012–Sep 2013; Teen

When the ponies decide to introduce themselves to Earth by entering a horse show, they call upon a legendary warrior from their distant past to get them ready. Featured on Equestria Daily!

You don't get many G1/G4 crossovers, but this fic really goes for that. The Mane Six have come to Earth as "ambassadors" and will publicly appear at a horse show (the how and why are vague). They need to be groomed, so who better than a young woman who has met talking ponies before? Megan Williams, or as Twilight Sparkle calls her, "Magog the Mighty" and her siblings "Danel" and "Moloch". What follows intersperses sections with them dealing with the G4 ponies and long sections showing what happened to the "Ponyland" of G1. It's not a story of sugar and spice, though those familiar with that gen won't be surprised. The author has clearly done a lot of research, bringing in not only screen characters like the Moochick but the G1 comics (remember the Jewel Wizard? You will...) and even stories from the toys' backcards. Whether you can stomach the harshness and (since there's no AU tag) reconcile it with canon... well, good question, but it's certainly a fascinating – if occasionally disturbing – attempt. Three stars because I'm glad I read it but I can't say I enjoyed it all. (Edit for clarity: Some I absolutely did, otherwise it wouldn't be a three!) ★★★

There will be, as ever with a Spotlight review, many spoilers beyond this point!

Happy 13th, Friendship is Magic!

"Make a Wish" (extended version)

 

That's right, today FiM enters its teenage years! It's been a long road to get to this point, but here we are with everyone's (okay, most people's) favourite My Little Pony cartoon turning thirteen. Have a good one, FiM!

Griffish Isles to remain at the Pendulum for 2024

I missed posting this earlier, but the Griffish Isles committee have put out an announcement saying that they "have decided the Pendulum remains the best location for next year" (11/12 May). This is the hotel in Manchester where GI has been held ever since the con resumed after the Covid break. The announcement also mentions that the vendor hall will be in a different, larger room for 2024. I expect that will go down well with vendors and attendees alike.

I've heard entirely unofficially in a "someone told me they'd been told" way that the GI folks did look at some venues in Liverpool (which would be a great city to have as a base) and also Birmingham (maybe slightly weird when there's already a Midlands con in UK PonyCon), and perhaps some alternatives in Manchester, but that none of them were better. Finding a convention venue is incredibly difficult, so I can see why change might not be workable.

That said, it's only fair to say that the Pendulum is not a venue that is universally loved. Some of the issues with it in its few years have been more significant than others, but certainly it's not a place that really appeals to me. If things are looking better financially by then I don't entirely rule out attending GI, perhaps just for the day, but the location announcement makes it unlikely. I nevertheless wish the con well and hope its 2024 iteration is a big success.

My Little Repeats 148: "Fluttershy Leans In"

Okay, guys, where are the Hard Hat/Wrangler shipfics, hmm?

S7E05: "Fluttershy Leans In"

6 May 2017

My original rating: ★★★
IMDb score: 6.8

The one with rabbit parkour

Thoughts: This was where Treehouse TV in Canada started airing episodes before Discovery Family did, something which caused various problems in the fandom. The episode itself is not the most popular (see that IMDb rating) but it does have its moments. The problem was that it didn't really do anything. The whole animal sanctuary thing is only just now revealed as a long-held dream for Fluttershy and it didn't become a big deal in the later series, so what really was the point? Okay, there's a whole lot of Fluttershy, and it's nice to see her confident and assertive – but beyond that? We don't even find out how she gets the predators not to, well, predate. Even Big Daddy McColt only seems to have been thrown in there because cameo. My original three-star rating was too generous; it's getting one of those stars knocked off. Not a poor episode, but in the end it's a tiny bit forgettable.

Choice quote: Fluttershy: "I don't love it."

New rating: ★★

Next up will be "Forever Filly", an episode of which I have only vague memories as things stand. It'll be interesting to see whether it catches my attention more on rewatch.

Ponyfic Roundup 461: New Blood Contest winners, part 2

Read it Later story count: 95 (+1)

Words read this week: 21,083

Fresh from my little excursion to UK PonyCon (it's a great convention; do attend next year if you can!) it's back to the everyday "job" as far as MLP is concerned, which is to say reading and writing about fanfic! Today I have the remaining New Blood Contest winners: two more Bonus Prize recipients and the four outright medallists (there was a tie for third place). Off we go...

A Modest Proposal by Jymbroni
A Lovestruck Folly by A whisky man
Pitfalls by heartlessons
One day I am gonna grow wings by TheInfamousFly
A Study in Chartreuse by Serketry
Sabot Élégant's Not So Savory Adventure by Chromentazol

★: 0 | ★★: 2 | ★★★: 3 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

UK PonyCon 2023 report

I know I'm really, really, really behind with My Little Repeats! All I can say there is: watch this space. ;) Anyway, to the main business of the post now, with rather more footnotes than I'd originally envisaged...

Not a Vodka McFlurry Heart. Probably.

It was a flying visit to UK PonyCon this year, so the report is just one (long) post, but off we go! Although there was a train strike on the Saturday, trains were running on Friday so I got to Birmingham by rail. Thence by pre-booked National Express coach to Derby -- I'm not that experienced with coaches, but this one was fine for an hour and a quarter. Stayed in the Derby Cricket Ground Travelodge, as last year. After check-in, I got the train to Nottingham – First Class, a very rare experience for me, as CrossCountry have cheap First tickets.¹ Well, when the trains run at all they do...
¹ And I really do mean cheap. It cost less to book specific First trains in both directions than to get a Standard Class flexible return.

Friday night is Roebuck night – the pub where the Worcester Shires and various friends traditionally have our pre-meet. It was pretty noisy this year (even more so than usual) but still a lot of fun. People came and went at different times, which I think helped stop conversation from getting repetitive. For me it was cider (Black Dragon, very nice), cod and chips, then ice cream. For some reason my two scoops came in two separate bowls! I left the pub a little before nine and got the tram back to Nottingham station – First Class again. Nice and quiet.

No trains on Saturday morning, so I was up before seven to check out and walk to Derby Bus Station to catch the 07:20 Red Arrow express bus to Nottingham. Thence to the Gooseberry Bush for a cheap breakfast.¹ I'd expected to be on my own, but Jowy wandered over and invited me to sit with his little group for a bit, so that was a really nice way to properly start convention day. It was only five minutes' walk to the venue, so I didn't leave until a bit after nine. The queue was already growing by then, so I'm glad I didn't wait any longer!
¹ I can't be expected to start a convention without bacon inside me.

The Elley-Ray Experience

QueueCon is usually good fun, and so it proved this time. Waving (and possibly jeering) at friends who had posh tickets and were in the priority queue happens every year, though weirdly the one passer-by who I noticed staring at us weird pony folks this time was wearing a Sonic the Hedgehog T-shirt. Mate, you have no business thinking people who like colourful talking animals are odd. :P Besides, I was standing next to Cheese Sandwich, which kind of made it impossible for it not to be fun. At ten (more or less) the doors opened and we were on our way through registration.

The opening ceremony was a little delayed but also pretty short, not consisting of much more than the usual welcome, theme reminder ("Generations", to mark the 40th anniversary of MLP¹), rules reminder and welcome for the Guests of Honour. Elley-Ray happened. Oh yes she did. In all honesty I think one or two people had hyped up her personality a little too much – she was indeed really nice and fun and warm and unpredictable, but not quite the utterly wild force of nature I'd been led to believe. (Though maybe that side of her came through more on the Sunday; I don't know.²)
¹ Kinda sorta ish.
² From things someone said after reading this, that was the case. But I wasn't there, so it doesn't count for this report. :P

Stalls shopping is usually a big thing at UK PonyCon and has been since the convention began as more of a collectors' fair back in 2004. (Yes, 2004. Not a typo.) I was so tight for cash this time round that I couldn't buy much at all, a real shame when there were over 70 stalls – certainly a UKPC record and I believe a record for any European MLP con, evarrrrr. Dying fandom, are we? Still, I was able to pick up this year's T-shirt, which has a nicely distinctive design¹ that I'm very pleased with. I shall be wearing it the next time I go to a Worcester meetup!
¹ The only pic I can find is on Facebook and doesn't seem to show up on mobile. Apologies for the awkwardness.

Yes, there was a G3 Alphabittle

Time for the first panel! I chose to go to the cinema room lecture theatre thing for Catchphrase, a ponified version of the hugely popular British TV game show.¹ The traditional computer glitches were overcome and the game worked very well on the room's big screens with teams using squeaky donuts and chickens to buzz. There were some inventive phrases,² and the use of multi-generational symbols/cutie marks to cover the image was inspired. This is definitely an event I'd be happy to attend again at a future UK PonyCon.
¹ Actually a US game show first, but the British one has been vastly more successful: 469 episodes and counting.
² Con mascot Britannia holding a bee with Rarity reflected in her eye? "Beauty is in the eye of the bee holder." :D

Next up was Jez's Spectacular G3.5 Panel, which was pretty much what it said on the tin. The actual panel ran rather short, possibly because of Jez's slightly grumpy-sounding and perhaps ill-considered "If I want audience participation I will ask for it" note on an early slide. You know better now! Still, there was some fun stuff and I'll even mostly forgive Jez for saying that he preferred the G3.5 movie¹ to the G4 one because "No Fluttershy". Mostly. We were left to watch said movie, but though it was quite fun it was abruptly stopped early to let the next people set up...
¹ Twinkle Wish Adventure, including Kelly Sheridan as Cheerilee. I have it on DVD! :D

...and hay, this was a convention so inevitably there was then a loooong gap when nothing happened at all! The next panel was in fact Transport Ponies, hosted by my friends Ace and Zenfox.¹ This is more of a general panel about how to travel effectively (including to conventions!) by rail, air, coach, ferry and teleportation. A nice relaxing hour, presented nicely as usual. For silly reasons there has been a running theme of cake in this panel over the last couple of years, and Culdee won a cake voucher for answering a question correctly near the end.
¹ Kind of an A to Z of Transport, then...

G3.5 Scootaloo is a bit of a brat :D

You know the 2 bit of the 6-2-1 rule? We-ell... I kind of skipped lunch this year, so I actually had time to wander around the stalls. (I did have a pasty on my way home. That counts as a meal, right?) Not to buy, but at least to admire the impressive range of stuff. One or two stallholders seemed to be pushing the limits of having mostly Pony items, but very few. Sewpoke's plushies stood out as usual – way beyond my budget, but lovely to see anyway. I'm irritated that I forgot to try the RDA charity tombola (cash only – see, you do still need it!) but hopefully next year.

And now it was time for my last event, which was the custom script reading with Kelly Sheridan and Elley-Ray doing so in character.¹ All good fun, with some particularly amusing lines from Starlight, followed by a very good and well managed Q&A session. No inappropriate questions, very few that rambled on and on in the way that a few did for Andrea Libman and Anneli Heed last year, and answers that were both entertaining and insightful. (Apparently you're well set up for VA jobs if you can belch on command...)
¹ Okay, characters.

And that was all. Because the con was still happening I wasn't able to say goodbye in person to as many people as I'd have liked, and I had to head out into the rain at six o'clock. The walk to the bus station was dreary and damp, the coach back to Birmingham was packed and not as nice as the outward one, and the train strike meant an almost interminable double-decker bus to Stourbridge for my taxi home. Not a good ending, but it had been a good con. A very pleasing £11,710 raised for the RDA as well. Thank you, UK PonyCon. Hopefully I'll be back properly in 2024!

The Mane Four. Apparently

Ponyfic Roundup 460: New Blood Contest winners, part 1

Read it Later story count: 94 (nc)

Words read this week: 26,255

Welcome to the first half of a two-part special edition of Ponyfic Roundup, in which I'll cover some of the stories entered for the New Blood Contest. This was open only to accounts created in 2020 or later, and 12 of the 29 entered fics ended up getting some kind of recognition. I shall be having a look at all of those over the next fortnight. Let's get going with the first half dozen!

The Champion by GrangeDisplay
Starry Nights Over Knossos by sirenc0re
Secret Garden by Discombobulated Soul
The Ponyville Files by LastToTheParty
Sisters' Moon by WaywardSon
Blood and Glamour by Mindscape

★: 0 | ★★: 2 | ★★★: 4 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

Ponyfic Roundup 459

Read it Later story count: 94 (+4)

Words read this week: 35,752

Absolutely not to my surprise, my RiL list has grown this week. Even though I haven't added all the prizewinners in the New Blood and (second) Thousand Words Contests, I've found several more fics while wandering around links connected to those. I'm actually quite startled that I've kept the total as low as I have; it could have ended up going past 100!

Discord Message by False Door
Secret Admirer by Hotel_Chicken
Naval Gazing by Pascoite
The Sweet Spot by Piccolo Sky
Pegasus of Raphinae by Mica

★: 0 | ★★: 0 | ★★★: 5 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

Thousand Words Contest II results are out!

Before I begin, though: for the first time in quite some while, there will be a short delay to Ponyfic Roundup this week. I've just been snowed under with stuff, some of it fun stuff to be sure, but stuff nevertheless. As such I don't think I can read all this week's fics by Wednesday without rushing, something which would be unfair to the authors. That being so, Ponyfic Roundup will appear on Friday this week.

All right, meta stuff out of the way. The "A Thousand Words Contest II" has been a tremendous success, with no fewer than 168 entries. Even allowing for the shortness of the fics, that is a quite staggering number for a ponyfic contest held four years after Friendship is Magic left the stage. (2022's inaugural edition saw 106 entries, itself a remarkable number.)

The winners and honourable mentionees are detailed in the official results post. I've only had time to skim down the list, but I'm already excited by some of the things I've seen. And to answer the obvious question: yes, I most certainly do intend to review all the stories name-checked!¹ You'll have to wait a bit, though, as New Blood Contest stories will be reviewed first.
¹ And a few more that didn't make the winners' circle, probably in standard Roundups.

I would have been quite staggered had Out of Light Cometh Darkness got anywhere, and indeed it didn't. It's actually had a pleasing reception from readers, but there is more than one clear weakness in the fic. I really wanted to do a horror story but I struggled somewhat with making it work. I don't regret the attempt, though, and it's a genre I may have another go at sometime.

If as we all hope the Thousand Words Contest returns for a third edition next year, I will definitely want to enter. It does depend a little on how it's set up, since there are certain types of ponyfic that interest me more than others. But it was satisfying to be part of so big an event in 2023, and I'd love to think they could get an even larger entry count next time around!

Many thanks are due to Bicyclette for running the contest and to the judges who ended up with a substantially larger workload than they probably anticipated! Also, of course, to everyone who took the time to write something to enter. It's benefited me, too: Out of Light... was my third published fic this year – the first time I've managed more than two in a year since my four in 2016.

Ponyfic Roundup 458

Read it Later story count: 90 (nc)

Words read this week: 34,034

A weather record set in the last week: for the first time since records began, a September in the UK saw 30 °C or more recorded somewhere each day for seven days straight. Things have since gone back to normal, though, with temperatures down to the upper teens and some rain around as well. Heh, it strikes me that I'm committing a cardinal sin of ponyfic by starting with a weather report! So let's get on to the actual stories:

Room by AstralMouse
Shadow Unto Crystal by enne
Coco Powder by PaulAsaran
A Strange Tea Party Indeed by Aray
Waffles by Ninjadeadbeard

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

My Little Repeats 147: "Rock Solid Friendship"

"And I know that my harp will go on..."

S7E04: "Rock Solid Friendship"

29 Apr 2017

My original rating: ★★★
IMDb score: 8.2

The one with "Land of Hope and Glory" (well, ish)

Thoughts: In 2017 I enjoyed this episode, especially the Maud/Starlight scenes, and as you'd expect from a Nick Confalone episode there was some funny dialogue too. However, Pinkie's portrayal really grated. Not much has changed this time around. I still like the chemistry between Maud and Starlight, and I'm a bit sad that didn't really go anywhere; I suppose Trixie took up all Glimmy's time. The backstory about Our Town is still a "whoa" moment. Pinkie is, yes, still really irritating and my least favourite part of the episode. That massive cavern is still pretty stupid. You know, some of these thoughts have been getting long recently, but this one? Not so much. Little has changed. Still a top-end three.

Choice quote: Maud: "It's a rock-based decision."

New rating: ★★★

Next on the list is "Fluttershy Leans In". I don't always get on with late-series Fluttershy episodes, and this was decidedly not a favourite the first time around. I'll be surprised if it makes a big jump upwards.

New Blood Contest results announced

I've been keeping half an eye on the New Blood Contest, a Fimfiction-based event reserved for accounts set up since 2020. And now the results are in. There were 33 submissions, of which 29 were valid entries – not at all bad for a contest with such a restrictive entry policy. Counting Honourable Mentions and Bonus Prizes, there were 12 stories which gained some kind of recognition. Given that all the fics were short, I think that should easily translate into a two-post special edition of Ponyfic Roundup in the near future!

Ponyfic Roundup 457

Read it Later story count: 90 (-1)

Words read this week: 34,865

I talked about weather last week, and I'm going to talk about weather this week. I said it was infuriating, and this time it's reacted by offering up some of the warmest, sunniest weather of what's been a rather mediocre extended summer apart from June. 27 °C (81 °F) as I type this at 5pm. Good weather for reading ponyfic in the garden, though! This time I'm reviewing:

Succession by archonix
Flower Wars by Shaslan
Princess Celestia's Private Library by Shrink Laureate
Fun & Games by False Door
Scootaloo, Formula One Driver by SockPuppet

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

Non-Pony: More His Dark Materials reread coming up on my Dreamwidth

Yes, I've finally got to the point where I have enough time to start on The Subtle Knife, book two of Philip Pullman's trilogy. I'm not going to go on about it here, but as with book one I'll be doing a chapter-by-chapter blog on my Dreamwidth. I hope to match the two-chapters-per-week pace of Northern Lights. Anyone interested can follow along by using the "hdm reread" tag I'm using for all such posts. Indeed, if you want to read back to my Northern Lights posts, you can use the tag for that too. As before, comments will be enabled even for non-Dreamwidth members.

Ponyfic Roundup 456

Read it Later story count: 91 (-2)

Words read this week: 34,327

As summer gets close to its end, the weather is the usual infuriating British mixture of warm sunshine and drizzle. Sometimes at the same time; I blame the weather pegasi. Not that we have weather pegasi on Earth, or indeed any ponies of the Equestrian persuasion... although that isn't the case in one of today's fics. Here's the list:

Forsaken Shores by garatheauthor
The Great And Powerful Trixie Falls In Love With A Pine Cone by angelofrombelow
Nosflutteratu by Charcoal Quill
In the Sun's Shadow by Rare80
Parsnip by Admiral Biscuit

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

My Little Repeats 146: "A Flurry of Emotions"

That middle filly who's realised this means time off school...

S7E03: "A Flurry of Emotions"

22 Apr 2017

My original rating: ★★★
IMDb score: 7.2

The one with the all-black painting

Thoughts: It's been a while, hasn't it? Fortunately, a gentle reminder from a certain ghostly presence has led me to sort that out – and so here we go! Let's be honest, Flurry Heart isn't exactly universally loved, and I remember being concerned (as were several) that this would be a reheated "Baby Cakes". In the event I enjoyed it more, both then and now, than I did that episode. It's not bad. Nice visually, some genuinely cute stuff with Flurry, Spike having one of his better "voice of reason" Twi-nudging roles, a solidly written Pinkie cameo, Spearhead's amusingly overblown art show... and even that first-for-G4 callback to Grogar. Little did we know...! On the negative side, Twilight herself was rather irritatingly full of herself about her "Best Aunt Ever" status, Flurry still isn't interesting enough to be an ep-long central figure, plus the episode's moral was a bit clunky. I think it still manages a three, but it's a fairly low one now. The ep doesn't have enough staying power for more than that.

Choice quote: Cheerilee: "Great! Now I'll just write it up again... with my mouth."

New rating: ★★★

Next up, we have "Rock Solid Friendship". This episode has a pretty good reputation in the fandom, so I was mildly surprised looking back to find I'd "only" given it an upper three-star rating in 2017. It'll be interesting to see whether I stick with that this time.

Ponyfic Roundup 455

Read it Later story count: 93 (-1)

Words read this week: 30,857

Plenty of things going on at the moment, but almost none of them remotely interesting. My life in a nutshell! So, let's move on to ponyfic, eh? And huzzah, I've kept my word count above 30,000! Admittedly almost half of that is taken up with one story, but I'll take it! As usual, there are five stories on the desk this time around. Here they are:

Muffins' Angel by Short-tale
Midnight Bloo by Impossible Numbers
Pipp of Theseus by Casketbase77
Let the Weather In by gloamish
A Love So Strong by MissytheAngle

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

Hasbro, if you like how G5 is going for you, then where are the toys?

I've seen a few people now saying that Hasbro is very happy with G5 in how well it reaches the target audience. (Which is to say, not us.) Even to the extent that it's done better than G4 in that regard. If that's so, then I do wonder why the selection of G5 toys – here in the UK, at least – is so underwhelming. Okay, G4 didn't dash out of the blocks either; in spring 2012 when I joined the MLP fandom it was still hard to get much on this side of the Atlantic. Even so, when even toy shops in the UK have a couple of small shelves of G5 if you're lucky, you do have to wonder...

Ponyfic Roundup 454 Spotlight on Sorry We Missed You

Read it Later story count: 94 (nc)

Words read this week: 40,516

Not much to say about my day-to-day life up here, other than that the blackberry crop on the local hedgerows doesn't seem especially good this year. I blame the miserably wet July. So on to ponyfic we go. Back to Spotlight territory this week, with a story that doesn't have an especially unusual thumbscore (+226/-14) but which has provoked a good deal of discussion since its appearance around a year ago.

Sorry We Missed You by Starswirl the Beardless
Rainbow Dash
G4; Drama/Mystery/Sad; 41k words; Jul–Sep 2022; Everyone

Rainbow Dash slept in on the day the world ended.

That shortdesc caught my attention – more, to be frank, than the longdesc did. Rainbow wakes up one day and gradually realises that she is alone in the world. She travels from place to place, ever more desperately seeking her friends, Princess Celestia, anypony really. What I was hoping for was a look at the emotional effects on Dash, and of course an eventual explanation of what was going on. While there is some of that later on, it's a slow exploration of Rainbow's plight. There's also a bizarre and confusing refusal on the author's part to use her name at all outside direct speech – she's almost always "the mare", which really grates after a while. The later part that has some interesting psychology and reminds me of an old show episode, but for me Sorry We Missed You just takes way too long to get to the point. I might well have enjoyed this more than the highish two-star rating it gets at two-thirds or even half the length, so please bear that in mind when setting against your personal preferences. ★★

It is only fair to point out that the author wrote a very long (around 8,700 words) commentary on the story after reading some of the reactions to it. I have read that in full, but for the most part this review is based simply on my experiences reading the fic itself – largely because I doubt many other readers will go through such a long commentary, and in the end I am here first and foremost to serve readers.

If you read past this line, please be prepared for lots of spoilers...

My Little Repeats 145: "All Bottled Up"

"Trixie, did you even read the 'No food or drink' sign?"

S7E02: "All Bottled Up"

15 Apr 2017

My original rating: ★★★
IMDb score: 7.7

The one with teacup poodle

Thoughts: Broadcast on the same day as "Celestial Advice", both episodes had mixed receptions from the fandom. "All Bottled Up" managed the rare feat of being seriously criticised by the usually sunny reviewer MLEEP, but I was (and remain) a little more positive. Starlight and Trixie are usually fun together, and so it proves this time. Okay, parts of their story are a bit contrived (especially Starlight's "storm cloud" thing) but at least we got – for a while, at least – canon support for teleportation being hard. The secondary plot with the Mane Six doing the escape room was filler, but it was quite entertaining filler. I like the song more than I initially did, too. Bulk "I wear many hats" Biceps appealed more than sometimes. Nice dialogue, though Trixie is maybe a tad too obnoxious even for her at times. It's a few niggles away from being a really good episode, but it's entertaining and I'm happy for it to keep the solid three-star rating I originally gave it.

Choice quote: Trixie: "Teach away, mini-Twilight."

New rating: ★★★

Next up, a Flurry Heart episode. Be still my beating heart. Okay, I'll be fair: "A Flurry of Emotions" doesn't really stick in my mind for bad reasons, though nor does it for great ones. I remember having rather mixed views on it.

Ponyfic Roundup 453

Read it Later story count: 94 (+1)

Words read this week: 35,971

A bit of a jump in the weekly word count this time around, although more than two thirds of that total is accounted for by a single story. I'd be lying if I said my time pressures had completely settled down, and in all honesty I don't think they're likely to do that until perhaps mid-autumn. But at least now I'm no longer worrying about whether I can get a PR out at all! Here are today's fics:

Twilight Sparkle Kills Equestria by Codex Ex Equus
Rainbow Dash's Super-Awesome Self-Insert Figures Out If It Would Matter by  ponichaeism
Aletheia by Foehn
There Goes the Neighborhood by Georg
Tea Time by SweetStrokesStudios

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

Little meta update

Thanks to Blogger being a pain this afternoon, Ponyfic Roundup will now appear at 8pm BST tomorrow rather than 8am. Twelve hours later than planned, but still on the same day! I doubt I'll get the S7E02 rewatch up before Sunday or Monday, though. Busy week, you know how it is.

Happy to see Ghost Mike get a little appreciation

I'm very pleased to see that Pascoite chose Ghost Mike (previously Mike Cartoon Pony) for his latest Underappreciated Author Spotlight. Those who read this blog should already be familiar with Mike's detailed and interesting observations on episodes, and his often fascinating sidenotes on what went on behind the scenes as they were being made. He's also a great asset to our small community of still-active ponyfic reviewers, of course.

But there's also Mike's own fiction: I reviewed his enjoyable The Endeavor Within in PR 440, and like Pascoite I found the characterisation satisfying. He's published a few other short fics, and I intend to get to at least some of those in due course. I would have done so already had I not until recently been iffy about reviewing fics by personal friends. I can certainly vouch for the fact that Mike cares about his stories and puts a lot of work into them.

Well done, Mike. Deserved recognition!

How many big-name ponyfic authors are still really active?

I'm not asking for specifics here, hence this having the "musing" tag and not the "questions" one, but I've been vaguely wondering lately how many of ponyfic's big-name authors are still active. With only a couple of significant exceptions, that will mean on Fimfiction. I'm loath to define "active" too exactly, though I think I mean still active writing fics as opposed to posting blogs.

 So, for example, I think I'd consider Cold in Gardez to be in the "inactive" box, since he hasn't published a fic since Refraction's Edge a year and a half ago, and his blog post a few weeks back doesn't change my view of that. On the other hoof, Admiral Biscuit goes in "active", given a latest fic (Candy Apples' Cooking Channel) coming out just a few weeks ago. You get the idea.

Of course, this isn't especially scientific, as writers can sometimes go long periods without a new fic but never consider themselves inactive. I'm not a big-name author of course, but when I published On the Wrong Track in 2021, it was my first non-flashfic story for almost two years – yet I never thought of myself as being completely away from Fimfiction itself.

So there's what I'm musing on: which of the major authors in our fandom are either still putting out stories or are actively still intending to do so? I really don't know how one would go about measuring this, to be honest. I just wonder.