Pony Music Library 57: "The Moon Rises"

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It's been a while, hasn't it? Let's get back to the PML, and today I'll be inducting a tune which might easily have made the list a long time ago. One which has more than one excellent version, too.

What? "The Moon Rises"

Who? Ponyphonic

Which? Original song

When? February 2012

Why? This is one of the undoubted vocal classics of the Pony fandom. It puts us in the horseshoes of Princess Luna in the run-up to her refusal to lower the sun, over a thousand years before the events of FiM. The song starts quite gently, but gradually builds in power until by the end there's no doubt that Luna's transformation into Nightmare Moon is imminent. My choice of Ponyphonic's original male vocals may be a little controversial, but I've always preferred this to any of the others, despite the lack of one verse that was later added.

However, there are two main female singers who've given this song their own individual stamp. In April 2016, Kristen Calvin's cover introduced us to the extra verse near the end – six lines about Luna's determination to be recognised. Then, in November of the same year, Duo Cartoonist's hugely popular animation (14m views and counting!) featured EileMonty's vocals, including some pretty striking evil laughter right at the end. They're both fine interpretations, but it's Ponyphonic's original that hits the right note for me.

Ponyfic Roundup 228: Cadbury's Dairy Milk

Miraculous gets a bit more interesting as you near the end of S1, with hints of an overarching storyline appearing. You know how Steven Universe takes its time to pull back and show the wider picture? A bit like that, only not nearly as ambitious. Well, so far, at least: I've just started on S2, and it's not entirely the same show now as it was in the first season. Still, at heart, ridiculous though. Which is great!

Read it Later story count: 291 (+1)

Nothing interesting to say here (When does that ever stop you? —Ed) so I'll just mention that I have three fics for you this week. They are:

When Suddenly a Manticore... by DannyJ
MLP The Movie: The Significantly Shorter Version by PonyAmorous
Extra Sprinkles by Minds Eye

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

Merch review: Mini Art Case

Note the "MLP", just in case you don't know what My Little Pony means

Time for another of these quick reviews of bits and pieces of MLP merchandise I somehow still have! I picked this thing up in Poundland about five years ago. (This was back when Poundland stuff actually was £1, too, so it wasn't exactly extravagant!) It's fairly compact, as you can see in the first picture. 15cm ruler included merely for scale as usual – it's not included in the set. The outside is made of fairly flimsy plastic, with Twilight and Rainbow gazing out at you. As with much early Twilicorn-era merch, the princess's wings are not exactly convincing.

Clearly they got Dash to design the interior

Inside, you get three things. First, there's a set of six chunky felt-tip pens, with colours chosen in a vague approximation to the Mane Six's coats. They are blue, purple, pink, yellow, orange... and green. I suppose a white one wouldn't have been very useful! They write all right if you're slow, but excess pressure makes them dry out quickly. Opposite this is a watercolour set with eight colours: the six of the pens plus a lighter green and a darker pink. For a quid, these are not going to give pro painters any sleepless nights, and the brush is thin and the paint blocks are very small, but they do work.

On the back, Pinkie breaks the fourth wall. Nothing new there

The final goodie comes in the form of two small strips of stickers. These really do feel like an afterthought, and the average issue of the monthly magazine gives you many more (albeit not for £1). Both strips have the same three ponies – Twilight, Fluttershy (yay!) and Pinkie – plus one of the MLP logo and a couple of tiny stars and rainbows. These stickers are easy to lose, since unlike the other stuff they're not securely held into the inside of the case. Still, I think this is probably one of the nicer merch-for-a-quid buys I've made. With that price in mind, it gets three stars.

★★★

Sounds of 2011: Into the Sixties with Fluttershy!

I'll be doing a Pony Music Library post in the coming week, so look out for that if you enjoy the PML stuff! A different kind of musical post now, though, as we continue with Everfree Radio's fan-voted Top 100 tracks of 2011.

Nos. 72 and 71 get skipped as they don't meet my criteria for inclusion.

70: ColaEuphoria – Fluttershy's Rhapsody

Fluttershy's first real song, "So Many Wonders" from "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", was the inspiration for a number of choptunes. One in particular (have patience!) has stood the test of time and remains hugely famous, but ColaEuphoria's approach was slightly different. This is a fairly upbeat, poppy song with lots of synths and snare drums. According to the video description, this was the artist's first time "playing with vocals" – and they made the PMV too! That same description provides a Mediafire link for a 320k MP3. ColaEuphoria has released nothing since 2013, but at least we have this.

69: Omnipony – Clouds

By an eerie coincidence, this track uses samples from the same Fluttersong as the one above. It's electronica, although of the floaty rather than super-heavy type, and as such it fits its subject rather well. Apparently this was a quickie, made in just three hours! The artist is now known as OMNI and took his Pony music private when he moved on from the fandom in 2013, apparently due to the requirements of the commercial music industry. Happily, at least some of it has since returned, including this song. For HQ, the link in the video description is dead, but you can still purchase the track for a mere 50 cents on OMNI's Bandcamp.

68: PiercingSight – Stairway to Madness (Diane)

That last song was calming. This one is anything but. Featuring disconcerting piano and strings, together with the sounds of nature and snippets of a certain Led Zeppelin classic you may be able to guess from the track title, this is very much a song for Pinkamena. PiercingSight hasn't released anything on their channel since spring 2012, but some readers of this blog may well be familiar with their Fimfiction output, and that account remains at least intermittently active. There's a direct download link to the EP this song is part of in the video description, though quality is only 191 kpbs.

Next time: I'll be introducing another big name from the early days of the brony music scene!

Griffish Isles 2019 tickets on sale now

The Griffish Isles MLP convention, which debuted this spring, will be returning for its second iteration on Saturday 11 May 2019. Details are still a little sketchy, not helped by the fact that the con's website has yet to be fully updated from last year. However, this is what we know so far:

Venue 
The website is frankly rather unhelpful here, saying nothing beyond "Manchester". However, the related Eventbrite page is more forthcoming: as in 2018, the con will be held at the St Thomas Centre in Ardwick Green. This is about a 15-minute walk from Manchester Piccadilly station (Google map). Plus points there for accessibility.

In 2018, the con also had an evening component at another venue, but there's no information as yet as to whether that will be the same in 2019, or whether everything will now happen in one place. That other venue's licence meant no kids allowed (even accompanied) after 8pm, so it may be relevant depending on what evening events are planned.

Tickets
There are several classes of ticket, including two adult tiers. Here they are:

Standard: £31.50 + £2.66 booking fee = £34.16
VIP: £89.50 + £6.49 booking fee = £95.99
Foal: FREE (under 12s accompanied by adults; not valid for evening events)
Spirit: £20.00

Standard/Foal tickets can be bought up until the day of the event (though like all UK cons, you can't buy them on the door). VIP/Spirit ticket sales close on 7 April – I don't know whether VIPs are limited in number.

Comparing with last year's tickets, the cost of the Standard tier has gone up by 26%, although there's a reasonable case for saying that the low price of the 2018 iteration could be considered an introductory offer. There's no doubt that the '18 con was well received overall, and the ticket price remains broadly similar to the cost at other UK conventions.

There was no VIP tier in 2018; instead there was a Sponsor tier which was £50.18. (Again, including fee – you can't avoid it, so I treat it as the base cost.) The 2019 upper-tier ticket is thus 91% more expensive, a very sizeable hike by any standards. According to the website, over and above Standard access, VIP will bring you:

• VIP T-shirt
• Front row mane stage seating
• Special perks and access

That last bit is key, but unfortunately there's currently no info about what it actually means. If you're paying almost £100 for a ticket, it matters what your special perks and access are, so I'm a bit disappointed with this.

Obviously, things like special guests won't be announced just yet, so any guest-related perks won't be finalised either – but buying blind still isn't the most attractive offer. When I bought my UK PonyCon VIP ticket, a few minutes after it went on sale, I already knew the exact package of perks it would bring me.

It's very good to see that last year's "Foals go free" offer has been continued. This is a really nice feature that some other conventions (eg UKPC) do not offer, and it does make it a lot more attractive for, say, a parent with a couple of kids to attend. An unqualified yay to Griffish Isles for this initiative.

The Spirit ticket is new. For £20 you get "a mention in the con book", while if you add on a T-shirt you'll get it posted to you along with the con book. Considering my BronyScot equivalent was £8.50 including the con book (and some unexpected badges!), this seems a tad steep.

Am I going?
I'm certainly thinking about it. Friends who went last year have recommended it, and I'm happy with the organising team, who have the right combination of con experience, level-headedness and enthusiasm. This is not a convention I fear falling apart. Manchester is right on the edge of where I can get to for a day trip, and obviously it becomes a much more expensive outing if hotels need to be taken into account, but we'll see. It would definitely have to be a simple Standard ticket, though.

Summing up
With last year's successful debut behind it, the Griffish Isles convention looks stable and well run, and the Standard ticket price remains fairly reasonable. Manchester is a decent choice of host city and one well-established for fandom events (though my West Midlander heart can't help being jealous!) and the venue is easily accessible from the city centre even on foot. That's a big plus.

Where Griffish Isles falls down, for now at least, is in the paucity of actual hard information on its website. It shouldn't be necessary to sift through social media to find exact venue details, while there simply aren't sufficient details about whether there'll be a separate evening venue or what splashing out on a VIP ticket may get you. Once those problems are addressed, things could look very bright for GI2019.

Sounds of 2011, nos. 77 to 73

77: Chain Algorithm – Escape from the Moon (Nightmare Moon Theme)

Chain Algorithm is a musician who I've never been very familiar with, and given that they've only uploaded one track (a non-Pony one at that) in the last four years, they've rather fallen out of general fandom consciousness too. This June 2011 track has over 150,000 views, though, so it must have been a fair-sized hit once. As you'd expect, it's built around the story of Nightmare Moon's return in early S1. It's full of slightly hard-edged futuristic synthy sounds. I have to agree with a few commenters that it's a smidge too long, but it makes good background music to type to! Chain Algorithm's Bandcamp survives, but this song is not there.

Nos. 76 and 75 do not meet my criteria to be featured, so I'm skipping them.

74: AleatoireMixes – Medley of Ytpmv + MLP

It's oddity time again! For one thing, I'm really not sure who to credit this one to. The video is on the account of AleatoireMixes, but its description credits a piece by FinnOtaku, itself a remake of a track by Reouromけ. Given that the whole thing is a medley of extracts from famous YouTube Poop music and other memes, I pretty much give up there! AleatoireMixes provides a timestamped list in the video description of the songs used, which is a good thing as some are now enormously obscure, though I did recognise a few. The MP3 also linked to is only in 128k quality, and of course lacks the visuals, so you might as well stick to the YouTube version.

 73: Acoustic Brony – The Loyalest and Most Dependable (Applejack's Theme)

That's right: what we have here is an earlyish effort by the British band now known as Re:Make, but who found global fame in the MLP fandom under the Acoustic Brony name. Early in their life, they made a number of themes for the Mane Six, and this was number five. It's a country-themed, twangy instrumental as you'd imagine, vaguely similar to AJ's later Fighting is Magic theme. There's even a bit of "Winter Wrap Up" added in for extra Pony credentials. You wouldn't claim this was one of Acoustic Brony's greatest works, but it's a nice foretaste of their later "Elements" songs. As far as I can tell, though, there's no HQ version available anywhere.

Next time: Fluttershy! I can already tell it's going to be a great edition. :D

Ponyfic Roundup 227: Miraculous Ladybug

I asked my Twitter readers to recommend me a cartoon series I could watch during the MLP break, with the condition that it should be PG-rated or lower. I got an absolute flood of replies, but two stood out: Gravity Falls (which I'll get to) and Miraculous Ladybug. The latter is a bit more anime-magical-girl than I was really looking for, and I'm not a huge fan of the high school romance aspect, but it's fun and colourful and has ridiculous storylines involving Wi-Fi and evil butterflies and pigeons, so I'm on board.

Read it Later story count: 290 (-4)

Four fics for you this week, which is reasonable going. I seem to have collected several stories this time which at least some others are likely to rate higher than me. Still, I've always scored on my enjoyment in PR, so please bear that in mind as you read my ramblings. Today's quartet:

A FLEet|ng LIght |n thE DArknEsS by Flashgen
Lost and Never Found by Oroboro
Thou Goddess by horizon
A Sleeping Rose by Admiral Biscuit

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