Royal Canterlot Library

"Aren't you milking this a bit?"

So, this happened. Looking at the RCL's "Upcoming Features" box, I see that next week it's Aquaman, who won the EQD "Outside Insight" contest in the summer. On alphabetical order, I slot in next to Lucky Dreams, who wrote what may be my favourite fic in this or any other fandom. And then there's me, the "Spike at Your Service" of the RCL. (Hey, that episode had a funny sequence about fanfic! What more do you want?)

Anyway, something that happens when you get featured (he said, trying to sound blasé about the whole thing and failing spectacularly) is that they give you a little exam interview about your writing, some fandom stuff, where all the Biros go, etc. And you can read my interview here. As I said on Fimfiction, there's a virtual biscuit in it if you catch the reference at the end. (The whole quiz thing, not just the final question.) I expect you all will, on account of being clever.

Finally: my interview is almost twice as long as the story itself. There's bound to be a moral in there somewhere, but I'm writing this in the middle of the night, so you'll have to find it yourself. I'm probably busy dying of Better Than Life anyway.

Ponyfic Roundup 46: Allsorts

Not allsorts of the liquorice type, I'm afraid. No, this week I'm looking at another mixed bag of ponyfics. As usual, there are six stories under consideration here, which as it happens were all published in 2014. This was a pleasingly strong week, with several fics which had the credentials to be considered as my Pick. In the end, though, one of them did stand out from the rest, and that's the one I'll be talking about first.

New story by me: Ever Let the Fancy Roam

Adapted from Fancy Pants by The-Smiling-Pony; CC by-nc-sa 3.0

It's been a couple of months since I published a full-length story, so it's time to end the drought. This was written as a bit of an experiment: the "Characters That Need More Stories" group is running a contest called Making the Most of the Mundane, and I've also found myself writing quite a bit of Slice of Life ponyfic recently. So, I decided to put the two together and make this as slicey a Slice-of-Life story as I could manage. No-one gets murdered, or married, or in a sticky situation over a pound note. Here are the basics:

Ever Let the Fancy Roam by Loganberry
Fancy Pants and OC
Slice of Life; 3K words; Feb 2015; Everyone
Fancy Pants' place in Canterlot's social hierarchy gives him certain obligations. One of these is the hosting of a number of balls, dinner parties and so on. Tonight he will be putting on a small, intimate "At Home" affair for just a few guests. Sadly, Jet Set and Upper Crust will be among their number. Before all that, though, Fancy Pants and his faithful butler, Silver Cloud, need to make the final preparations.

Reaction to this fic has been muted but interesting. Slice of Life is never the easiest genre to write in if you want to attract attention; combine that with a side-character-plus-OC focus and I'm not startled by the fact that it's gaining views more slowly than anything else I've written. So far, I've had three commenters, two going into some detail. First there was a guy called Dzerzhinsky, about whom I know nothing; they were fairly brutal in their assessment, and hated the dialogue. Then there was the rather better known Themaskedferret, who made some pertinent criticisms but loved the dialogue! :P

Weirdly enough, neither Dzerzhinsky nor the two people who upvoted the aforementioned negative comment actually downvoted the fic itself. As I type, it has a +8/-0 thumbscore with a couple of people favouriting it, which I'm fairly satisfied with. It's not my best story, but I think it has some nice elements to it. Don't read this if you're looking for utter hilarity, wild explosions or spine-chilling terror. If you like fics of the "window on somepony's world" variety, though, you might enjoy it.

Writing contests

For a long time, I refused to go anywhere near fanfic-writing contests in the ponyfic world. (Or anywhere else, for that matter.) Part of it was that I was nervous of the competition, part of it was that a lot of them didn't seem very well thought out, part of it was that a lot more of them ended up with two or three entries if you were lucky. So I wrote my stories, put them up on Fimfiction and just generally cruised along. I didn't really give any thought to the idea that I might start entering any fic-writing competitions myself.

And then, last summer, there was the EQD "Outside Insight" contest, whose prompt ("Write a story about ponies from a non-pony's perspective") caught my interest. And so I wrote We Who with Songs Beguile, which ended up making the final. I was very pleased by that, especially considering the quality of the opposition I was up against. And, since then, I've entered several more, albeit on a much smaller scale. I've even managed to win one: It Doesn't Matter Now took the honours in a small contest organised by UK of Equestria.

I'm still not a full-on contest enterer. I completely missed the original "Most Dangerous Game" contest, which is a shame as I'd probably have tried that one. (Its sequel was of much less interest, unfortunately.) And before anyone mentions them: yes, I know about the Writeoff Association's write-offs (guys, what's with the non-agreeing hyphenation?), but they really seem to demand more time than I tend to have available. I need competitions which are pretty much write story, submit story, wait for results!

So, I suspect that I'll continue in much the same vein as I do now: entering the occasional contest simply because the setup catches my eye. Whether I'll ever win another one, who knows, but I think I would encourage other fanfic authors to give the thrill of competition a go from time to time. Just don't worry too much if it all goes horribly wrong: The Light that Ignites in the Dark was one of nine entries for a contest. It came, er, "lower than seventh" along with a fic by a guy named JMac. You may have heard of him. :P

Maybe one of these days I might even try to set up a small-scale contest myself. That sounds like it might be quite a train-wreck fun, actually. Especially as then I wouldn't have to think of anything to write for it! :P

That S5 premiere date rumour

Okay, so a couple of days ago, the IMDB page for S5 of FiM was edited to put its release date at 4th April. Now, we all know to take things on IMDB with the annual salt output of Middlewich, but this rumour does actually seem to have some legs. It's Easter Saturday, for a start, and a holiday weekend would be a decent place to start a season. Also, given that EG3 is now confirmed for the autumn, an early-April start date would give the S5 finale room to breathe before the film arrived. Rather like what happened with S4 and Rainbow Rocks, actually.

I rather suspect that the first I'll know of a confirmed release date for S5 is when someone notices it in their TV listings guide, a happening which should only be a few weeks away. But if it is 4th April, then it'll be interesting to see how much busier things suddenly become. I'm willing to bet we'll hear rather fewer "The fandom is dying!" laments from then on. (Not that it is anyway. A fandom with 516 new fanfics posted on Fimfiction in the last week is not "dying" in any way I would understand the term.)

Ponyfic Roundup 45: The Land Before Time

A while back, I reviewed some stories published in the first month of Fimfiction's existence, July 2011. This time, we're going even further into the past and looking at the first six fics to receive Equestria Daily's long-abandoned "6-star" rating. Since most of the stories aren't on Fimfiction, my headings for each story will depart a little from the usual format. For example, I'll decide on the appropriate character tags for myself, and EQD has slightly different genre tags from Fimfiction. I'll also be reviewing the stories in chronological order, though I'll still nominate one as my "Pick of the fics". Finally, there won't be the usual Everyone/Teen/Mature age-rating field, since EQD doesn't use that.

(This is a one-off, by the way. I don't intend to review all the 6-star fics that still exist online; I have too much else I want to read, and besides, Chris has done it very well already, over here on One Man's Pony Ramblings.)

Junior Speedsters Forever! by Pacce
Rainbow Dash and Gilda
no genre tags; 13K words; Jan 2011
Well, here it is: the very first 6-star story, from more than four years ago. It gives the backstory of how Rainbow Dash came to know Gilda and, actually, it's quite a bit better than I was expecting. The relationship between the two principals is interesting, the writing is reasonable, there aren't too many typos, there are some rather nice old-gen references and we even get a brief Derpy backstory – not bad considering that when this went up on EQD, the newest episode was "Call of the Cutie"! It has its problems, notably the excessively long letter that provides the story's climax, but it's better than many a more recent fic. In its day this was both remarkably good and remarkably long. It's no longer either of those, but Gilda fans especially should give it a look. Very nice cover art, too. ★★★

Ponies Discover /co/ by Slywit
Mane Six
Normal/Comedy; 15K words; Feb 2011
I'll confess that I groaned when I saw the title of this one. Yes, it's metafic (of a sort) in which the ponies chance upon a "scroll" from the 4chan board where the fandom was born. To be fair to it, this isn't just a collection of memes past and present – there is some actual story in there too. Some of the references still work, such as the Applejack "silly pony" song; some don't, such as a thankfully-forgotten candy-related meme. This is written like an episode, to the extent of having the credits pasted in after a "cold open", which is jarring these days. Packed with typos in the last third or so, and it's just too much like watching someone else's private jokes for me to enjoy this. Probably fun for the really old guard; for the rest of us, it's a period piece and little more. ★★

Chasing Rainbows by Phoe
Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy
Shipping; 3K words; Mar 2011
Actually a sequel (to Fluttering Heart), but this stands alone well enough. Fluttershy confesses her feelings to Dash, but Rainbow doesn't react as she'd hoped. There's not a lot to this story, and the pacing is a bit too fast for comfort at times, but it's cute and inoffensive. The existence of its prequel reduces (though doesn't entirely solve) the eternal fanfic problem of Suddenly Shipping Syndrome, and there are some genuinely affecting sections. The writing isn't too bad, either, and FlutterDash fans might well find it an interesting, if quick, read. ★★★

Bubbles by anonymous
Derpy and OCs
Sad; 3K words; Mar 2011
Surely the most famous anonymously-written story in the fandom, this is a tear-jerker of a Derpy backstory fic. It's written from Derpy's POV (though in third-person) and does represent her as having learning difficulties, but I don't think it belittles her in that respect. Rather, it gives us her limited view of what the reader will come to find is a larger and sadder story than Derpy realises. I could easily see some people hating this story and finding it a bit on the emotionally manipulative side. I don't take that view: I find it moving and strangely beautiful. It takes the Pick of the fics award for this week. ★★★★

Memorial by Buxton
Derpy
Sad; 2K words; Mar 2011
Yes, two sad Derpy-POV stories in a row. In this fic, Bright Eyes (as she's called here; I don't think I've ever read another Derpyfic that's used that name) makes her annual pilgrimage to her mother's grave. A straight comparison with Bubbles has only one winner, and it's not this story – Derpy's voice isn't as well captured, for one thing – but I do quite like it, even so. It's a gentler story than its predecessor, and the ending isn't particularly memorable, but I do find Derpy's friendship with Apple Bloom rather touching. ★★★

Constellations by The RPGenius
Luna
Normal; 4K words; Mar 2011
The only one of this week's stories that is on Fimfiction (here), the premise of this fic has dated badly. It's about the returned Luna (S1 Luna, of course) coming to terms with ponies' feelings about her night. It's very, very tell-y, and indeed it seems to be written as though being recounted by a storyteller. It also has minimal dialogue. Luna is given an idea which is very interesting, especially in the light of... later Lunar developments, and this provides some interest. I don't like the ending, though, which just seems silly. ★★

Wait for it...!

As one or two of you noticed, I accidentally posted the opening section of Ponyfic Roundup 45 a little while ago. Just an error on my part: I'll be putting the complete set of reviews up at 8 am (UK time) on Wednesday as usual.