No Ponyfic Roundup today, so have a Scootapic

Pony Scootaloo Wing Shrug Dunno by xbi
( CC by 3.0 )

As I said in the footer of last week's Ponyfic Roundup, I'm taking a break from reviews this week. I hope and intend that the next edition will appear in a week's time, on a Wednesday as usual, though life has knocked me about a bit recently (it hasn't stopped yet, either) so I'd better not absolutely promise that. So for today, I'm reviving something I used to do occasionally but haven't done for four years (eep), which is to say posting a Creative Commons-licensed picture I like. Ta-da!

PR stats: the multi-fivers

By this I mean authors who I've awarded a five-star rating in Ponyfic Roundup more than once. There aren't many of them, so I'll provide the full list below. No attempt has been made to account for the fact that some of my standards have changed over time, or that I have simply read more fics by some authors than others. The list is here purely because I thought it was mildly interesting.

Five times 

Cold in Gardez (All the Mortal Remains; For Whom We Are Hungry; Lost Cities; Naked Singularity; The Destruction of the Self)

Four times 

horizon (Quiet Boy and Moon Horse; The Dragon's Riddle; The Last Dreams of Pony Island; Watch! Watch!)
Pascoite (Ambergris; If Memory Serves; Dinkin' Donuts; The Art and Science of Letter Writing)

Twice

Blueshift (Life is a Lemon; So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish)
Cynewulf (General Amnesty; When the Levee Breaks)
Lucky Dreams (In the Place the Wild Horses Sleep; The Starlit Promise)
mushroompone (The Head; Womb)
RBDash47 (Home; Old Friends)
Skywriter (Martial Bliss; Roaming)

A total of 35 authors have had a single five-star fic.

UK PonyCon 2024 theme announced

UK PonyCon announced yesterday that its theme this year will be "We're Making History". This celebrates the fact that UKPC turns 20 years old in 2024 and has now become the world's longest running My Little Pony convention! This theme will give attendees and online fans a chance to participate with nods to the previous PonyCons, and I expect there to be a decent amount of merch on sale that will nod to this. For what it's worth, I really like the choice of theme. :)

Ponyfic Roundup 476: Spotlight on Spark Visions of Twilight

First up, an extremely rare after-the-fact star upgrade. I discovered that Binky Pie (PR 472) made considerable use of Discworld-style SMALL CAPS for Death's speech. These did not render on the EPUB version I read on my phone. Having them there made a small but significant enhancement to my enjoyment, just enough to push it over the line from a three-star to a four-star rating. :)

Read it Later story count: 95 (nc)

Words read this week: 46,050

Yes, everyone, it's a second Spotlight review in the space of about a month! As I said in my end-notes last time around, this is a fic that I have thought about reviewing time and time again for years, but each time I've ended up looking at something else instead. Well, this week that run comes to an end, because at long last it's time for...

Spark Visions of Twilight by Tangerine Blast
Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Twilight and Mane Six
G4 AU; Adventure; 46k words; Dec 2015–Jul 2017; Teen

After a visit by an Alicorn she's seen before, Rainbow Dash has a chat with her friends.

Originally a quick one-shot written in the wake of the S5 finale, this was progressively expanded to the full adventure you see here. The Alicorn in question is of course Twilight. Why doesn't Rainbow see her all the time? Because this is the "Nightmare Moon won" AU, where Dash is a palace guard. Meanwhile, Pinkie works in (and is largely confined to) the kitchens, and we gradually meet other ponies (and others...) as time goes on. I like the world-building, but several plot threads meander off into nothingness. It's well into the second half before the core of the adventure is on, with the ponies trying to defeat Nightmare. Quite a harsh world, as you'd expect, with violence both open and lurking in the background, and some real heartbreak too. The writing seems rushed, with lots of minor technical errors, and the use of a canon song in-story is strange. A smoother version of this would have scored more highly, but the fact that it was written as Tangerine Blast went along (revealed in the A/Ns that end each chapter) is a little bit too obvious to justify more than a moderate three. ★★★

Given that this is a Spotlight review, inevitably, there be spoilers beyond!

And now, a short break

I am not having a particularly nice time of things at the moment (I explained a little in this Fimfiction post) and I don't really feel up to concentrating on reviews and so on for a little while. Don't worry, they will be back, and I will be writing about "The Perfect Pear" before too long. I just can't say exactly when. I've already written and scheduled my Spotlight review of Spark Visions of Twilight, though, so that will appear on Wednesday in the usual manner.

Ponyfic Roundup 475: Gone But Not Forgotten

Read it Later story count: 95 (-2)

Words read this week: 33,137

As I mentioned at the end of last week's Ponyfic Roundup, this time I'm looking at stories by authors who have left Fimfiction far behind. Not a single one of them has logged in there since the end of 2019. I've deliberately chosen a mix of the (at least once) very horsewords-famous, such as AbsoluteAnonymous, and authors I'd never come across before, such as Mourning Zephyr. Off we go!

Tirek's Prison by Terrasora
The Little Mermare by AbsoluteAnonymous
A Sun Without A Moon by Mourning Zephyr
Divenire by The Wizard of Words
Abracadaver by Obselescence

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

My Little Repeats 155: "Discordant Harmony"

Now there's a con cosplay idea for someone brave!

S7E12: "Discordant Harmony"

5 Aug 2017

My original rating: ★★★
IMDb score: 8.4

The one with singing teabags

Thoughts: Season 7 picked up after its (fairly short) mid-season hiatus with this episode, one which was quite popular even among those strange people who don't think Fluttershy is Best Pony. This ep isn't one where I've really changed my opinion in six and a bit years: it's a good deal of fun, and it's probably my favourite extended look at Fluttershy and Discord's friendship.¹ There are plenty of amusing jokes, and I like how it's 'Shy who takes the initiative – by now she's comfortable with Discord in a way few ponies are, and she steals the show in the third act. The moral is solid and MLP-appropriate, too. Pinkie has a nice cameo, and this could have been a four-star episode. It's a notch lower because of its uneven pacing, spending significantly too much of the running time on the setup. Even so, a clear high three and still a good watch.
¹ I'm generally not a great fan of actual FlutterCord as heavily hinted in S9E26.

Choice quote: Discord: "And although we've never discussed it, I'm pretty sure Fluttershy likes gravity."

New rating: ★★★

Next up, we'll move on to one of the most beloved (by the fandom as a whole) episodes of the entire series, let alone of the last three seasons: "The Perfect Pear". I did not give it five stars in 2017, rating it a "mere" four, but will it make the leap this time around? We shall see.

UK PonyCon 2024 dates announced

So hot off the press that at the time of my typing this it wasn't even on the UKPC blog yet, but the official Twitter has the info and so here we go: UK PonyCon 2024 will be on:

5th and 6th October 2024, NTU Nottingham

So to absolutely nobody's surprise, the convention will be at the same venue as it has been every year (bar the enforced gap in 2020) since 2018. To be honest I doubt that will ever change now unless the venue becomes unavailable or unaffordable for the convention committee. UKPC is very much "the Nottingham convention" these days, and so it is again.

The date isn't a huge surprise either. I'm not entirely thrilled that it will once again (almost certainly) clash with the Goose Fair, since that period makes roads and transport very busy and hotels significantly more expensive than they might be at other times. Still, it's understandable: the venue is a university building that hosts many events, and I'd guess this is simply a case of the dates being available.

As is the case pretty much every year, I can't say whether I personally will be there. Until fairly recently I'd been determined to make it given it's the 20th anniversary of UKPC, but the last few months have not been good to me and so it's up in the air again. I still hope I can manage it in some form, though as prices (for everything) rise every year it's "wait and see" for now.

Still, whether I'm part of it in person or not, I hope that everyone who can will support UK PonyCon 2024. It's a very fine convention, run very well, that raises a very substantial amount of money for charity each year. (I'm not sure whether it's been confirmed that the RDA will again be the beneficiary, but I hope so.) And with today's announcement, it feels that much closer now!

Ponyfic Roundup 474

Read it Later story count: 97 (+3)

Words read this week: 34,033

I don't have a great deal to say up here today. [As if that was anything new —Ed.] I could ramble on about the stories I've picked, but that's what the reviews themselves are for. I could mention the theme that unites them all, but there isn't one. I could start singing a comic opera of my own devising, but I do not in fact hate you all enough to make you sit through that. Plus I haven't actually devised one. So here we go:

Observations by Tolerance
The Rose of Florentina by Sledge115
A Posey Day by Quoterific
On moving and standing still by Avellana
Far From The Tree by Aquaman

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

My Little Repeats 154: "Not Asking for Trouble"

"It was one of Sugar Belle's rejected suggestions..."

S7E11: "Not Asking for Trouble"

17 Jun 2017

My original rating: ★★
IMDb score: 6.7

The one with Gummy eating snow

Thoughts: I didn't dole out two-star reviews all that often back in 2017, but "NAfT" managed it, and I can't say I'm more appreciative of the first of May Chan's two FiM episodes today. I'm hardly the first to say this, but it's just not very interesting. Because, at least until Yona gets here next season, the yaks aren't very interesting, even when we see some of their own culture. Prince Rutherford's attitude is more tedious than amusing, frankly. True, Pinkie has quite a decent episode – certainly compared with one or two of her own future efforts – and she definitely tries hard; but while that does help a bit, I don't think it helps enough. Also, the latter part of the ep is another example of "We are ponies, we'd better go and civilise these poor non-pony barbarians". (Okay, not quite, but there's a little hint of it.) Still a two-star episode, I'm afraid. It's just not interesting enough to get more.

Choice quote: Prince Rutherford: "Pink pony ask too many questions."

New rating: ★★

We've reached the S7 mid-season hiatus. If we ignore Australian TV's decision to push ahead with the season, it would be two months before the next episode went out. This was the generally quite well received (including by me) "Discordant Harmony". A Fluttershy story, you say? Don't mind if I do!

Ponyfic Roundup 473

Read it Later story count: 94 (-2)

Words read this week: 27,378

Happy New Year, everyone! I am personally very glad to see the back of at least the second half of 2023, since it's not been my favourite six months despite some bright spots. I won't ramble on about that sort of thing here (maybe in a Fimfiction blog post at some point soonish) and so instead I'll get to the main point. The stories! Not a huge word count this week, but it's the usual selection of five fics, and they are:

The 200 Words Contest by DeathToPonies
Ghost in the Strings by Koregazz
The Past Saw The Future by CoffeeBean
Three Nights by Bradel
Family Reunion by AnonymousPegasus

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

My Little Repeats 153: "A Royal Problem"

"Doesn't Starlight get her own evil mirror?"

S7E10: "A Royal Problem"

10 Jun 2017

My original rating: ★★★★★
IMDb score: 9.1

The one with Luna biting the pineapple

Thoughts: A hugely popular episode, not with everyone but certainly with the majority of fans. The S6 finale notwithstanding, this may have been the point at which most finally made their peace with reformed Starlight being a major cast member. She was sympathetically written and did a good job of helping Celestia and Luna settle their differences, all the more so with Twilight in (perhaps slightly excessive) neurotic mode. I am definitely a fan of Daybreaker as a villain, too: a great design and worth waiting for. That mirror scene with Luna was legitimately creepy. Some funny moments, such as Luna's frown – though having it cost a field trip stretched belief slightly. Celestia sounding surprised at how easy it was to raise the Moon was also odd, considering she did it for a thousand years! Not quite a perfect episode, and in truth on the four/five boundary. But I still loved rewatching it, so I'm going to be perhaps slightly kind and let it keep its five. Undoubtedly one of my very favourites from the later part of the series.

Choice quote: Starlight: "Gee, thanks for believing in me, Twilight."

New rating: ★★★★★

Next up is "Not Asking for Trouble", which felt like a bit of a comedown at the time! It was the final episode before S7's two-month mid-season hiatus, and it didn't really impress the fandom, or indeed me. I'm not that optimistic it will suddenly leap up in my affections, but we'll see.