Episode review: S5E11: "Party Pooped"

"You're such dears for helping me with the Hearth's Warming decorations"

As it so happens, I'm pooped right now (a busy but enjoyable weekend of ponymeets and steam trains), but like the pro that I'm not I'm still publishing this review on time. So: with "Party Pooped", we had another multi-credit episode, plus a new writer in Nick Confalone, a combination which made me a little apprehensive. On top of that, said new writer was tackling Pinkie Pie, whose character hasn't always been treated very well by the show. Does the end product work? Well...

Bracing myself for Wednesday

I've just prepared a review for the next Ponyfic Roundup in which I absolutely lay into a fic with over 50,000 views and a 97% upvote score. I only give it even two stars because of the single good section of the story. This should be interesting! Okay, I've also given a story four stars, so it's not all bad. You'll have to wait until next week to see which these stories are, though a couple of you may be able to guess the first one.

On another note, hotel prices in Leicester city centre this October are really rather silly now. The Travelodge there is charging £209 (flexible rate) for the Fri/Sat/Sun, while the Travelodge I'm booked into in Loughborough, ten minutes away by train, will still do the same thing for £114. The Rugby World Cup, even when it's only Argentina v Namibia, really is skewing things significantly this year.

Ponyfic Roundup 62: She'll Save Every One of Us

Apparently Build-A-Bear are going to do a Derpy, though I assume she'll actually be referred to as Muffins. Any guesses on what proportion of their sales of this particular plushie will actually be to kids? I suspect it won't be very high. Anyway, I think it's about time we had another spotlight edition of PR, and I know that at least one reader has been eagerly awaiting this particular review. Here we go, then:

Flash Fog by Kwakerjak
Fluttershy, OCs, Mane Six and CMC
Comedy/Adventure; 128K words; Sep 2012–Nov 2014; Everyone
Fluttershy qualified as a fog specialist for tax reasons – but now there's a real fog-based emergency, and the Department of Weather wants her to overcome it. This is a very entertaining story, which scores points from me for writing Fluttershy particularly well. The main OC, Pencil Pusher, really grew on me as the story went along, and there's a fun background plot involving some classic CMC hijinkery. Plus humans with Lyra and Bon Bon, though not quite as you might imagine. It does drag a little bit, especially in the middle, but it's still an enjoyable read despite its length. ★★★★

If you don't mind spoilers, come past the break for more!

Episode review: S5E10: "Princess Spike"

Maybe that's Special Agent Not Actually Twist

After last week's general insanity, the 101st episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic returns to whatever passes for normality in Equestria. There's a new writer in Neal Dusedau, while the story itself is credited to Jayson Thiessen and Jim Miller. It has to be said that the hit rate of episodes with multiple writing credits is not particularly good, and that neither is that of Spike episodes in general, but maybe "Princess Spike" will be an exception. We'll find out past the break.

I have my UK PonyCon ticket!

I won't bother posting a picture here as it's just a confirmation email, but I have now bought my ticket for UK PonyCon this October. I've gone for the standard Weekend Pass at £30, which is £5 more than last year but still less than a third of the equivalent ticket for BUCK 2016. (The £70 VIP tickets have already sold out.) With luck I'll actually stay for the weekend this time -- as some of you may remember, I was unwell last year and had to come home on Saturday evening. I still had a good time, though!

I intend to stay in Loughborough, since Leicester city centre hotels are expensive this year as there's a Rugby World Cup match on the Sunday. It's only ten minutes on the train or 25 minutes by airport bus, and since said bus runs 24/7 I won't have to worry about clock-watching after any late-evening events. (I've no idea whether there'll be any, but at the very least I expect there'll be some informal meetups in local pubs and suchlike.)

I've said this before -- last year, for example -- but I really, really like the convenience of a city-centre location. (Specifically, this hotel.) It helps enormously if (like me) you don't have a car, and it's also nice to be able to step outside and into the real world for a few minutes. I remember last year, nipping out to the pub for lunch and Tesco for a snack was quite refreshing. BUCK 2016, if I go, will be the first pony convention I'll have been to that won't have had this advantage.

Spike episode today. It would be nice if it were the fantastic Spike episode many of us have been waiting for... but it would also be a surprise.

New story by me: To Be the Candle

Cover image adapted from Mirror Shards by Marina Shemesh at publicdomainpictures.net

Gosh, it's been a while since I published a new fic, hasn't it? About four months, in fact. I've had a very silly one in the works for a few weeks, and all being well that will still appear at some point, but in the event this one turned up instead. I'd started it a while back, then put it to one side when I couldn't think what to do with the central idea. This is the result:

To Be the Candle by Loganberry
OC
Dark; 2K words; Jun 2015; Teen
Some ponies are attracted to mirrors like moths to a flame, endlessly preening and posing before their own reflections. Silver Buck has come to hate mirrors with a passion – so why does he spend each new desperate day in their company?

This is the first time I've written a Dark-tagged story for this fandom, and possibly even for any fandom. I suspect that shows at times, but practice makes slightly less imperfect. It hasn't exactly got a lot of attention (OC-focused stories generally don't) and it's a monologue narrative which probably doesn't help either, but I've had a moderate amount of moderately positive feedback. At worst, it's got me out of the "not publishing anything new" rut I was in. :)

Ponyfic Roundup 61: Some Stories about Ponies

Apparently, there has been drama in some quarters about E100. I suppose that isn't exactly startling, but it was a disappointing surprise to me because I spend most of my time on UK of Equestria – where said drama has been non-existent. (And that wasn't the case during Twilicorn, so it's not just that we're lovely people.) Anyway, back to the fics now. I've managed to get through a full half-dozen for the first time in quite a while, so let's see what we've got. Under review today:

Story Time With Whiteout by Whiteout
Cousin Braeburn Writes a Crop-fic by Skywriter
Prison of Mine by 2006midnight
Gotta Put a Smile on Your Face by ZAquanimus
Creatures of the Night by Ebon Mane
Old Friends, Again by RBDash47