It's Halloween today, which is a much bigger deal in the UK now than it was when I was a kid but seems to be here to stay, so a themed edition seemed like a nice idea. Published at (almost) midnight GMT, you'll note! All the five fics on the slate today have darkness or horror or both at their cores, though they achieve that in quite different ways. Here's the list:
...but for a change, it's not because I've been unwell or stupidly busy, or because my computer has lost my notes, or even because I've entirely forgotten what day it is until it's too late.
No; this time it's an actual choice. As I'm having a Spooky Special edition, I've decided to post that on Halloween itself – which is of course Thursday. Simple as that! See you then.
Imagine converting "Art of the Dress" for the BBC Micro. Who'd be that silly?
Halfway through Saturday and I still didn’t have the time to go shopping, because I had a date with destiny Hawthorn’s chiptunes panel. This was something I’d only discovered was happening at all shortly before the con, but I could hardly miss it! The panel was great, both amusing and informative, with Hawthorn’s preparation paying off and his enthusiasm for this slightly neglected aspect of music shining through. He hadn’t told me he was going to feature one of my own 8-bit pieces in the end montage, though! Oops. :P
Fortunately Hawthorn’s panel finished on time, since the special guest script reading and Q&A followed immediately over at the Mane Stage. As usual for UK PonyCon, the script reading was short, though as ever it was fun to hear the pro VAs doing live the voices we knew them so well for in the cartoons. There were big queues to ask the stars questions and after a little thought I chose not to join them. Still, nicely the guests were willing to allow the panel to run a little over time, so as to get in as many people as they could. :)
Next up was something I’d been disappointed to have to miss through not being able to stay for more than three-quarters of one day in 2023: The Great Britannia Bake-Off! This has its roots in the UKPonyConline events held during the pandemic, and as such it’s heavily video-based. Members of the con committee record themselves attempting to bake cakes or similar, and this is edited together into an hour-long highlights video with suitably snarky captions and in-jokes. At the end, we in the audience vote on the winners. A really nice way to relax for a bit.
Not a spare seat in the house for the VIP script reading
That brought Saturday’s daytime events to a close. At the same time in another room the kids’ disco was going on, advertised in the con book as a perfect way for children to end their day. While UKPC does not have an age limit on attending in the evening, requiring only that all under-16s are accompanied by adults,¹ very few young families do stay on after dusk falls. Unsurprisingly, the convention does shift into a slightly different atmosphere from this point onward. ¹ In the daytime 14- and 15-year-olds don't need adults with them all the time.
The major event of the evening at UK PonyCon since it moved to Nottingham in 2018 has always been the concert. While this is well handled and enjoyed by a lot of people, I only tend to pay serious attention in fits and starts. It’s excellent that old stagers like like PrinceWhateverer come back every year and support the con, but I prefer more variety.¹ As such, I took most notice of Coltastrophe, making their UKPC debut, and Pagan Pegasus, whose music I find interestingly varied. ¹ Also, the Mane Stage area wasn’t built for live music, and its rather poor acoustics bear that out.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to do anything musical, however! Bexi was putting on the convention’s very first #CHEESEFEST (yes, all caps with hashtag) – which sounded exactly my kind of thing. Actually some of the music was a little new for me: I’d have preferred something like “Rasputin” over the overrated “Cha Cha Slide”, sorry Bexi! But it was lots of fun and we still got Steps, the Macarena and so on, with glow sticks for all. Mind you, most of our group sat at the back, not entirely so we could hide when Roku managed to unplug one of the lights while moving tables about...
Cheesefest in full swing. Add your own music!
Saturday evening is the only time when alcohol is available on-site (although this was sometimes different at former UKPC venues) but the queues for the pop-up bar were enormous. Hawthorn extremely kindly offered to get me a Diet Coke despite the wait, and as I was parched I accepted. I’m not the first person to mention that Hawthorn is a really nice guy. The bar also sold pony-themed cocktails and mocktails, but for the most part these featured spirits I wasn’t too fond of and about a kilo of sugar. Not ideal for me as a diabetic!
And then? Archer’s Pub Quiz, of course. A legendary aspect of UK PonyCon Saturday evenings, and the Worcester group’s legendarily oversize team (12? 14? Something like that) was in evidence once again. In fact there seemed slightly fewer impossibly difficult questions than usual, and we only ended up answering “Batman” once. At one point we were worried we might actually do well and ruin our reputation, but equal third was about right. It was really odd not to have Derpy as the answer to any question in an Archer-run event, though.
PiratPeter’s Cartoon Riff rounded off the night, and I’d have liked to have stayed for that as his engaging manner is appealing even when terrible cartoons are on screen. I had to make the commute back to Derby, though, and I wasn't willing to wait until after eleven even to start. So, off I went to the bus station. This time the Red Arrow was a coach – huzzah! – and everything again went smoothly. It had certainly been a busy day for me, probably even more so than in 2022, but I wasn’t exhausted. A quick cuppa in my new UKPC mug, and then bed beckoned.
Coltastrophe rocking out
Next time: Sunday part one, featuring timed standing, extreme bidding and vague shopping.
I definitely haven't forgotten about my UK PonyCon report! I've just been really busy lately. I hope that part three will be up in the next couple of days. :)
Still no properly working PC for me (don't worry, I'll get there) and so I'm keeping this next look at the Thousand Words Contest III medallists very short. Covering all twelve Bronze winners in I've go would have pretty much guaranteed I'd have made some stupid mistake. I know I do that already sometimes, but not all the time! So, here are the Drama and Slice of Life fics that won bronze:
The video embedded above is by YouTuber Cxcd and is called How G5 was ALMOST the Greatest Generation. It's about half an hour long and it's more than worth the time if you have really any interest at all either in G5 as such or in Hasbro's approach – or perhaps more accurately, approaches – to the My Little Pony franchise before and after the death of Brian Goldner in 2021.
I'm obviously simplifying a lot here, but in summary: the disappointing state of the G5 follow-ups when compared to the film isn't the case purely out of bad luck. It could and should have been done better. If you prefer to read rather than watch, then Equestria Daily has a very solid summary of the main points. Cxcd isn't just speculating here; he's done his homework properly.
So, for now at least, this is the most comprehensive and convincing explanation of what went wrong that we're likely to see in public. It's a real shame that Cxcd is going to cease making G5 content partly because of harassment for covering that generation at all. He can at least be sure that he's contributed more to our understanding of MLP history than those silly people have.
While I'm on the subject of the latest generation, you may also want to check out a little note about the "G5 Equestria Girls" that never was. A much shorter article, but also on EQD.
Near Derby bus station – three hours to UKPC time!
I slept fairly well on Friday night, probably just about getting in the requisite six hours. I still woke fairly early, but that did allow me time for a reasonably leisurely shower. I'd decided to get the Red Arrow express bus into Nottingham rather than the train, since it meant slightly less walking and slightly less expense. I had no problems getting to the bus station in enough time to get an inexpensive bottle of Highland Spring. I was a little disappointed to find that the bus was, well, a bus rather than the usual coach, but the journey itself was uneventful.
I was in Nottingham by a little after eight o'clock, which meant time for breakfast. I'd decided to use the one city centre Wetherspoons I'd never visited, the Lloyds No 1 Bar. Usually these (unlike other Spoons) have music playing, but that wasn't the case today. I'd expected to be eating alone but Cozy (no, not that Cozy) offered to join me for a bit, which was very nice of them. I had my usual fry-up, though with only water to drink rather than coffee. Then, off to the venue! On hoof, since the weather was good enough that taking the tram seemed unnecessary.
Despite pre-registration, I was still keen to be reasonably near the front of the queue, since attendance was going to be large enough that processing would still take a while if you were near the back. All tickets had sold out for the first time since 2018, and capacity had been increased see then. QueueCon¹ is generally quite an enjoyable experience if it's not wet, and on this occasion Luna (not that Luna either) produced a deck of MLP cards and we had a few rounds of Chase the Ace while waiting for ten. I saw a few other people I knew, but not many. ¹ Don't you give me that "LineCon" malarkey; I'm not American! :P
At last it was time! The priority folks, such as Silver/Gold Sponsors and those granted early entry for accessibility reasons, moved through fast and then it was our turn! We were a bit surprised that those who hadn't pre-regged went in first, but on reflection it made sense as they'd take longer to process. At any rate, things worked out, and once I was through the bag check (carried out with customary smoothness by the venue staff) I was inside... and home!
Plenty of people were already gathering in front of the Mane Stage for the opening ceremony. UKPC has a very informal singalong at this point, but not many attendees participate, which is a bit of a shame. I didn't care; I was belting out the My Little Pony Tales theme with some gusto! I did pop off briefly to reacquaint myself with the venue layout and to have a quick scout of the large stalls section. In the event, all I bought was the official UKPC T-shirt and mug; I wouldn't have time to shop again until Sunday!
This year, UK PonyCon was celebrating its 20th birthday. It had become the longest running My Little Pony convention in the world, and this year's theme was appropriately "We're Making History". Committee member Moomin had worked wonders by procuring a big screen for the stage; although Bexi found it a bit unnerving to see herself in multiple, it was definitely a fine addition. We settled down for the usual welcome waffling before things began in earnest.
Except that this year, there was something extra... unbeknownst to all but one of the con committee, a group had been working for months on a very special animation, which I've embedded here. Long-standing friend and Worcester Shires stalwart Patrick Rowberry, who directed the piece, told me it had been a nightmare keeping quiet for so many months! It was lovely that something like 20 conventions agreed to their mascots being included, and Bexi was overcome and in tears.
It was going to be hard to follow such an opening act, but there was a whole con weekend ahead of us! With the busiest UKPC schedule I can remember, I had to make a few tough choices. After briefly looking in on Dr Pony's history of G1 panel, I plumped for "MLP Fan Animation: Behind the Scenes". It turned out that this nondescript title had also been chosen to throw people off the scent, since it was a look the making of the opening ceremony animation! Very interesting, and nicely judged to be understandable to non-animation people like me without being overly simplistic.
I'd enjoyed myself a lot, but another hard decision awaited. I had to take only the briefest glimpse of the Cosplay Contest as Hawthorn had persuaded me that "G1 is Genius Actually" was the place to be. This was presented by Jack Getschman, the brains behind Scootertrix, both the G4 abridged series and the more recent G1 shorts. Jack clearly truly likes G1, and that affection made his lampooning of it all the more entertaining.¹ We even got a sneak preview of the latest G1 piece, containing "Meegan" getting seriously fed up with the ponies always running to her for help. :D ¹ There was even an exclusive "Gen1us" ribbon, available only to those of us who attended the panel.
Sage advice from the Scootertrix panel.
Things really didn't let up for the daytime portion of Saturday, and a few minutes later it was time for "A Zen Guide to Rail". This was a bit different from previous years, with the aviation aspect removed for a completely railway focus, and plane and cake pone Ace now largely in a technical support role to Zen. A nice and relaxed panel with a genial host, though in the Q&A I did sneak in a question that started out seriously but ended with "...would anyone like any toast?" I absolutely, totally and utterly blame Dodj for putting me up to this, but I regret nothing!
Next time: Saturday part two, featuring chips, cakes and cheese.
My second train, arriving at Smethwick Galton Bridge station.
Welcome at last to the first part of my report on UK PonyCon 2024. Even though I have to do this in a slightly kludgey way while I don't have a proper computer available, I hope these blogs won't look too terrible! Before I go any further, though, I'll say that I had a great time at the convention and that even though I will mention a few grumbles along the way, I thought it was a roaring success overall.
Unlike last year, this time around I was fortunate enough to be able to attend for the full long weekend, ie travelling up on Friday and returning on Monday. Better yet, for the first time in three years there were no public transport strikes to contend with!¹ TrainCon was happening again. As I usually do, I wore last year's UKPC T-shirt on the trip, but I noticed nobody who was certainly going my way. ¹ At one point the Nottingham trams were on strike, but the dispute was resolved before UKPC weekend.
Given the sometimes ridiculous prices of Nottingham hotels during the weekend of both UK PonyCon and the Goose Fair (listed in order of importance, yes) I'd again chosen to base myself in Derby. I'd done this twice before, so I knew exactly what I was doing. [That'd be a first, then! —Ed] Normally Travelodge has a 3pm check-in, but I found it well worth paying the extra tenner to check in at midday.
My luxurious room in the Travelodge. Isn't it fancy?
Having done the minimum of unpacking and had a quick splash under the shower, I walked back to the station I'd just left. Derby's road system includes an enormous roundabout in an awkward place for pedestrians, but oh well. Many of the Worcester Shires people who attend UKPC, plus a few guests, gather on the Friday evening in the Roebuck Inn pub in central Nottingham, and I wasn't going to miss that.
But first, something new: pre-registration! Last year there were enormous queues for registration on Saturday morning, and with an even bigger attendance expected this time it was clear something had to be done. So, anyone with a ticket valid for Saturday could grab their badges in advance at the Hilton. Me being me, I walked straight past it, but fortunately Frost was passing and told me where to go.¹ ¹ In a manner of speaking.
Pre-reg itself was very efficient – I was in and out in less than ten minutes – and I hope it's retained in future. With my Bronze Sponsor badge around my neck, something of a strange experience on a Friday, I headed across the city centre to the Roebuck. Last year we'd had to squash into rather cramped and very noisy booths upstairs, so I'd had the bright idea of getting to the pub early to grab a better space.
The first hour of the Roebuck pre-meet. Not shown: cider.
This was a good plan in theory. In practice, I got there way too early and ended up sitting alone for well over an hour, with only a pint of cider to console me. It was probably the least enjoyable period of my entire con weekend, and I certainly won't be doing it this way again if I come to UKPC next year! I'll probably revert to what I did in 2022 and have a coffee somewhere first.
Still, eventually a few people did start trickling in, and from then on things improved significantly, apart from a bizarre interlude when a guy started loudly preaching by the bar and had to be escorted out. The space I'd chosen was not in fact ideal, as it had two tables with a large gap between them, meaning it was very hard to speak to anyone at the other one. My fish and chips (with baked beans, since the Roebuck had contrived to run out of mushy peas...) was perfectly okay, at least.
Despite the pre-meet's slightly iffy beginnings, I did get a few hours of nice conviviality. I didn't know everyone there particularly well, but the majority were long-standing friends. I think I probably left about nine in order to board the tram back to the station. As regular readers know, Nottingham at night isn't always my favourite place, but I had no issues and I was back at the hotel in Derby by a bit after ten.
Next time: Saturday part one, featuring (happy) tears, Meegan and toast.
It's Ponyfic Roundup time again, and I've mostly got a handle now on being able to write up these posts with my temporarily limited computer resources. Still, I hope you'll bear with me if some things are a little bit clunkier or more basic than usual. Not that PR is very complex in its design anyway, of course! Five stories this week, of which all but one are very short:
While I still do not have a properly working PC setup and do not expect to do so for a while yet, things have improved somewhat from where they were a few days ago. I've unearthed a very old but largely useable computer.¹ I had to find a VGA cable as its graphics setup is ancient and doesn't support HDMI etc, but that's now done and it boots to desktop.
¹ It's a Core 2 Duo E6750 with a mighty two gigs of memory and an 8600GT card...
It's running an old version of Linux Mint (17) and given both that and the ludicrous resource hoggery of modern browsers it's going to have to be an offline machine. However, this means I have access to a proper keyboard, mouse and word processor. Yay! This in turn means I can start typing up my UK PonyCon report.
The plan is to write on this PC, then transfer the finished document to the phone via USB and upload from there to here. The reports will necessarily be a tad basic in appearance this year, and I'm not sure how well I'll be able to integrate photos, but it's something. I hope to have the first post up in a few days.
Ponyfic Roundup posts and other text-centric stuff should also be reasonably straightforward. More multimedia-y things like My Little Repeats may have to wait slightly longer, especially as the old PC's DVD drive doesn't seem to be functioning properly. But still, it's something!
It's a very light week this week, since UK PonyCon intervened. I had a superb time there, about which you will be able to read at probably rather tedious length in due course.¹ Today, though, it's the next edition of the Thousand Words Contest III winners review pile, featuring the Comedy and Experimental stories that won Pewter Medals. There are six of these, listed below.
¹ My PC has suddenly died on me, so it may be a slightly longer wait this year, but I'll get there!
As you read this, I'll be just about to set out to UK PonyCon. It's the convention's 20th birthday, and I'm hoping it'll be great this year! Naturally, I will report back afterwards. But let's get to the fics. It's back to non-contest fics for this week, and there are the usual five stories. Four of them had been on my RiL list for a while, whereas one (The Additional Alicorn Affair) was picked at random – within the bounds of a couple of parameters, such as being complete and not too long – from Fimfiction's search results. Here are the five:
A day or two ago I noted that Adult Weekend tickets for UK PonyCon had sold out. Well, now the single-day Saturday and Sunday tickets are gone as well! That means the convention is a complete sell-out. What a fantastic achievement. The biggest UKPC in history and demand has been so high that there are literally no tickets left. The longest running MLP con in the world is marking its 20th birthday in style!
Nothing too terrible going on, just a case of my convention preparations taking up a little more time than I'd guessed they would. Since I don't want to rush getting the reviews finished, I think it's fairer to all concerned (and to me :P ) if I move PR back a couple of days. PR 509 will appear on Friday 4th October. Since the following week is a very light one anyway, I'll keep that scheduled for Wednesday 9th.
