New ponyfic reviewer: Chromentazol

As I've remarked from time to time, there aren't a whole lot of ponyfic reviewers around these days, so it's always a great thing when someone new decides to have a go. This time it's Chromentazol, who I've reviewed a couple of times myself. As the title of the blog (see link below) indicates, these reviews probably aren't going to be as frequent as most other current reviewers', but there's nothing wrong with that, especially if it helps prevent burnout.

Chromentazol's Monthly(?) Reviews #1

They've also ensured my eternal gratitude by reviewing one of my own stories in their very first edition! Click the link above to see what Chromentazol made of my short dialogue-only fic Take a Bow from earlier this year. I think it's a good and interesting review, and I very much hope Chromentazol enjoyed the experience and will want to keep doing these. If they do, I'll certainly be reading them!

Signal boost: The "New Blood" Contest

Here's a ponyfic writing contest for which I'm not eligible but which I'm still very pleased to see. Organised by Bean's Writing Group (of which I confess I know very little), the "New Blood" Contest is open only to accounts created in 2020 or later¹ (and not since the contest was announced) and that have never reached 100 followers. This all sounds intriguing!
¹ Which have to be authors' primary accounts, as alts are explicitly prohibited.

The rules section drags on a bit, so I won't try to summarise it here – the link above will let you read it for yourself. Two highlights, though, are that this is for short fics – the maximum word count is just 4,444 – and that the main prompt is "A Secret Life". There are monetary prizes on offer, plus a sprinkling of bonus challenges. I shall be keeping an eye on this one!

Mike's review of Make Your Mark is worthwhile, but the latest Tell Your Tale...

Over on Fimfiction, Mike Cartoon Pony has written this very detailed review of Make Your Mark. It's fair to say he's clearly more negative about it overall than I was, but it's no hatchet job: he does explain why he's unhappy with various aspects, and if I'm honest it's hard for me to disagree with most of them. I suspect I'm just a bit more inclined to be forgiving of significantly flawed material "because Pony" than Mike is; the same is true of the final seasons of Friendship is Magic.

One thing in particular from Mike's review that really does resonate: I'm not at all sure how much rewatch value Make Your Mark will have. As I'm finding right now, I can rewatch the great majority of FiM episodes with no trouble at all, even those which have clear flaws. They're still fun, for the most part. But will MYM prove to be a rather empty vessel? I fear it might. As things stand I'm still more positively inclined to it than Mike is, but his review has given me something to think about.

Still, however much Make Your Mark may irritate me in the future, I doubt it will be as off-putting as episode 13 of Tell Your Tale was. Fair to say "Dumpster Diving" has clunked to the bottom of my TYT ranking so far, and it's done so with some considerable ease. Probably the most off-putting characterisation of Izzy I've seen in any official media so far. I've actually enjoyed a fair bit of this series (for what it is), but not this episode. So, episode with fan-favourite character being obnoxious but a catchy song? Sounds familiar... though this is worse than that was.

Signal boost: Shu-jeantte

She's been featured on EqD quite a few times, but somehow Chinese artist Shu-jeantte has passed me by until now. (Well, until a few days ago.) Unfortunately she doesn't have anything on a Creative Commons licence, so I can't repost it here, but I assure you a browse of her gallery will be worth your time. This Twilight piece especially caught my eye.

Ponyfic Roundup 254

Before I get on with Ponyfic Roundup itself, I ought to give a quick signal boost to The Fimfiction Feghoot Festival, run by Super Trampoline. This is now open and runs until 14th July. You'll need a Fimfiction account to enter, but otherwise it's open to all-comers. There are actual real prizes for this one, too! (A feghoot is a short story ending in a terrible pun that's been set up by the story itself.)

Read it Later story count: 254 (nc)

Three stories this week, which is three more than I would have if I'd reviewed none at all but half as many as I'd have if I'd reviewed them all twice and pretended they were different fics. See you in St Ives.

Misadventures in Manehattan by The Princess Rarity
Now Hiring by miss-cyan
The Brief, Torrid Love-Affair of Fernando the Straw and Madame Le Flour by CoffeeMinion

★: 0 | ★★: 1 | ★★★: 1 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0

Signal boost: Matías Peñaloza

( Text link )

Those who follow me on Twitter (that's @louderyay for anyone interested) will probably already know that I'm a big fan of Matías Peñaloza's piano covers of MLP songs. He does plenty of other stuff too, but it's the Pony we're concerned with here. He has about 2.5k subscribers on YouTube, which is respectable but really a little down on where he maybe deserves to be, perhaps because he doesn't seem to do a great deal of self-promotion.

Here's his playlist of MLP covers, containing no fewer than 42 tracks at the time of writing. These aren't entirely the songs you might expect: "Winter Wrap Up" is not there, but there are a few lower-profile inclusions, the likes of "Out on My Own" and a four-handed "Blank Flanks Forever" for example. The great majority are official songs, but there's also a cover of "Anthropology". There's a little change in style between the oldest and newest covers, but they all sound good to me!

At least with the newer recordings, Matías Peñaloza is also kind enough to include links to sheet music and MIDI of his versions. He's still active, with "A Kirin Tale" being his most recent release. The song I've chosen to embed at the head of this post is "So Much More to Me", Fluttershy's song from the Equestria Girls short that came out earlier this year. Come on, this is me talking – what exactly did you expect? :D

Signal Boost: Mike Cartoon Pony

This post is a very slightly edited version of one that's already appeared on my Fimfiction account.

( Text link )

Do you like reading blog posts in which people talk about MLP? Well, you're reading mine, so there must be a chance that you do. That being so, give Mike Cartoon Pony's Fimfiction blogs a look. He's still quite new to this Pony game, being that fairly unusual creature: someone who was brought into the fandom because of the 2017 movie. His two main posts on Fimf so far are a review of "Best Gift Ever" (pretty positive) and some detailed thoughts on the movie score album (ditto). That latter post is almost 3,000 words long, and has a 2,000-word followup, so I really meant it when I said "detailed"!

( Text link )

Mike – that rare thing, an Irish Pony fan – came to MLP through his long-standing interest in animation, and he has a YouTube channel called "Cartoon Karma" where you can find a fun two-part analysis of the film (embedded in this post). There's a fair amount of nit-picking, but it's done with good humour which always helps a lot. And as he points out himself, this movie is what got him into the series itself (and watching the whole lot in 51 days!) so it can't be all bad. If you want to keep up with his blog posts, though, make sure you follow him on Fimfiction as well. And who knows, maybe one day he'll write a ponyfic of his own!

The BronyCon Bookstore and selling fanfic

An interesting initiative here: Aquaman is proposing a bookshop at the final BronyCon next year. This means an actual, physical place selling actual, physical books. I have no idea whether it will work out, but the comments contain an impressive number of high-powered ponyfic people, so it seems to have a fair chance. If you want to know all the ins and outs and whys and wherefores, read the Aquaman blog I linked to. It's long, but it's readable enough for that not to be a big problem.

This really underlines how much of a gulf there is between drawing and writing in terms of artists/authors selling their stuff. There are probably thousands of visual artists who at least make the occasional few quid through PayPal. The number of writers who do the same is tiny, restricted to a few good enough to charge for commissions or editing work and an overlapping few good enough for it to be worth their making Lulu (or whatever) editions.

Now, if this BronyCon Bookstore idea ends up bringing a gigantic C&D down on Fimfiction, it will go down as one of the fandom's legendary self-inflicted disasters. Some people might now be jaded or cynical enough not to care, but many, many more still do. But it won't. As pointed out in the blog, if that was going to happen it would have done so long since, and I'd add especially given some of the things that Fimfiction allows in stories hosted there. So I wish it all the best.

For what it's worth, I have no problem at all with ponyfic authors selling books of their work. Given that I have a folder full of fan art purchased at conventions, plus several non-licensed plushies, I'd be a hypocrite if I said anything else. It's never been relevant to me: even if I were good enough, I wouldn't do it myself, as I don't want to make any money from my ponyfic – I decided way back in 2012 that I would opt out of any AdSense-type programmes Fimfiction might introduce in the future. But if others do, then in a world of paid-for fan art and plushies I don't see why not.

On a slightly wider topic, here's a paraphrased comment I saw very recently, making a suggestion as to an additional reason why fanfic doesn't generally sell: "Fan art prints are generally cheaper than non-fandom art prints. Fan books are generally more expensive than non-fandom books." There are exceptions to all of those, but I thought it was quite perceptive: here in the UK, you wouldn't expect a good-quality paperback novel to cost more than £10. A ponyfic self-print will, so it's more of a luxury investment, whereas a fan art print at a fiver is not.

Ponyfic Roundup 191: We've got spooks and ghouls and freaks and fools

Actually, that's a lie. We haven't. But we – or rather I – have got some more ponyfic to review for you. I need it to take the bad taste away that I got when I discovered quite by chance that someone had written a Sweet Apple Massacre side-story – in mid-2017. I had hoped that... thing had been forgotten forever by now. No such luck. Anyway:

Read it Later story count: 353 (-6)

And now we're back in the magical land of Equestria. A reminder that my star rating system is deliberately skewed: a two-star fic can be one I found perfectly okay reading, and a three-star fic is one I felt was above average. This is to allow me to give the stories I find truly excellent or even exceptional more of an edge in the rankings. Here's today's collection:

Toot your own horn by Hoopy McGee
Stronghearted in the Desert by The Legend of Derpy
Maidens Day by bookplayer
The Thief and the Princess by Muramasa
Harmony by Allykitty

★: 0 | ★★: 3 | ★★★: 1 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0

Can you help support the Big Master Review List?

I'm hoping to get episode 12's review posted before the next Ponyfic Roundup on Wednesday. It's taken me a little longer than I'd hoped, for which apologies, but it is in the works! Now, back to the main subject of this post...

What's the Big Master Review List? Only the most useful ponyfic reviews database (well, spreadsheet) in existence. It's maintained by Singularity Dream, aka the City of Doors guy – who wonders whether anyone would be prepared to make a little financial donation to support his work. If only I weren't stupidly tight for cash right now, I'd be doing so. (More hefty bills coming up, sadly.) However, I can at least give SD and the BMRL a signal boost here. So, if you're willing and able to help, here's the blog post where you'll find more information.

RCL "Correct the Record"

The Royal Canterlot Library is running an event from now until 23 April, and it asks the following question:

Which RCL-featured authors do you think should be refeatured, to showcase a story better representative of their strengths?

All you need to do is to choose an eligible author and pick another story of theirs you think would fit best. Note that any fic that's either been featured by the Pony Fiction Vault or gained the old 6-Star rating on Equestria Daily is barred from consideration. (And any that are already in the RCL. Duh. :P )

I'm not altogether keen on the voting method – upvotes on story posts in the nomination thread. That seems a little too open to abuse for comfort, and I'd also guess that stories nominated in the middle of the period will be at a disadvantage. It does have the merit of simplicity, but I still think I'd have preferred a method which did not allow people to see running vote totals. There's also the question – already acknowledged by the curators – of how the RCL should approach the issue of refeaturing in the future. Personally, I hope it's kept to a minimum; I may expand on that at a later date.

Despite those reservations, I may nominate something. I don't intend to name a story here, or indeed anywhere other than in the nomination thread: urging people to vote for a specific story while signal-boosting this event is expressly prohibited. Also, note that you're supposed to say why you think the story you're nominating is a better fit for that author than their existing entry. "X is a great writer and deserves another feature" isn't the idea at all.

End of waffle. The RCL "Correct the Record" thread is here.

Signal boost: Horse Music Herald

You often hear people these days complain that there's not much new pony music about. While it's true that there isn't the same huge scene that there was a few years ago, there is still plenty of new music being made. One place where you can find out about some of this is Horse Music Herald, a newish website which aims to let its readers know about the fine new tracks that are still coming out of our fandom.

There's the occasional post about classic works from the past, but the focus of Horse Music Herald is very much on new music. They also have a Twitter account, and I wish them every success in helping to publicise new and interesting pony music. I'll certainly be listening to plenty of the stuff they post about, and with any luck I may even write about some of the tracks they discover right here on Louder Yay.