I wasn't prepared for this

Sorry for stealing your line, Twilight! But I am genuinely startled that On the Wrong Track has been so much read. With 751 views at the time of going to press, it's my third most read fic in the last five years, with only The Book of Ended Lives and the inevitable Starlight Repeatedly Teleports into Custard beating it on that score. Yes, OtWT got featured, but I'm also surprised a Feature Box entry has that much influence in 2021.

Not that I'm complaining! It's nice that a reasonable number of people still want to read my stories, and what's particularly gratifying is that I've seen interest shown in some of my older and – frankly – better fics, too. No, 751 views isn't much in the great scheme of things, but every little helps in actually getting me to write something else before another two years have gone by. With enough practice the rusty patches may eventually start shining up a bit, too.

My Little Repeats 80: "Twilight Time"

And when you do smile, Scoots, you look faintly disturbing

S4E15: "Twilight Time"
Written by Dave Polsky
22 Feb 2014

My original rating: 7/10 (=★★★)
IMDb score: 7.6

The one with nachos

Thoughts: A somewhat unusual episode here, in that we have Twilight's Princess status being a factor but her not being the focal point of the episode. Instead, it's the CMC. It's a real shame the talents they display here were largely forgotten about after they got their marks in S5, but it's nice to see them at least once. Sweetie Belle is a bit of an overconfident pain for a bit while she's had her head turned by ideas of the high life. Apple Bloom is, as she quite often is, the voice of reason, while Scootaloo is somewhere in between. It doesn't make that much sense that Twilight was suddenly a huge celebrity, given she'd been a Princess for a while and everypony had known her for ages, but oh well. And Diamond and Silver didn't really get a comeuppance for their manipulative behaviour, either. However, we did get nice character stuff with the Crusaders, and we did get Twilight dealing with being put under pressure from an unexpected quarter. (Note to certain future ep writers: you can do that without her freaking out.) I have no clue where Twilight's terrible table manners came from, as they weren't a running theme in the show. But all in all, it was a pleasant watch. I think the three stars I gave this one in 2014 can stay.

Choice quote: Sweetie Belle: "Relax. I got this."

New rating: ★★★

Next up is "It Ain't Easy Being Breezies", which I originally thought was decent but much of the fandom thought was pretty bad. We'll see which side I'm on these days!

Ponyfic Roundup 344

Read it Later story count: 143 (-2) 

Fresh from the excitement (if that's the right word) of seeing other people commenting on one of my stories, I'm now returning to commenting on other people's stories. Three of them as usual this time, although one seems to have decided it needs the space for about four separate titles:

A Stallion for the Time Being by Sharp Spark
NO NO NO NO NO WE HATE HIM WE ALL HATE HIM GOSH DARNIT NO JUST DON'T by Aragon (because of course it is)
Fireproof by Raugos

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

New story by me: On the Wrong Track

The next Ponyfic Roundup has been bumped to tomorrow because, well, me actually publishing a story is more newsworthy. At least, it is on this blog. The last story I put out was Raising the Baa, which appeared in, er, July 2019. Of course I know that some authors always publish only at rare intervals, but in those cases a lengthy gap would be considerably less noteworthy. In my case, this is the longest I've ever gone between ponyfics. Anyway...

On the Wrong Track by Loganberry
Twilight and OC
Comedy/Slice of Life; 2k words; May 2021; Everyone
Following the retirement of Celestia and Luna, Princess Twilight Sparkle is now the unquestioned and undisputed ruler of all her land – including the transport networks. That means the major rail strike now looming will be all her fault.

This new story is very much in the "bit of silly fun" category. Don't go expecting anything like The Book of Ended Lives or even More than Alive. Unsurprisingly given the date of my last fic, On the Wrong Track is the first time I've written Ruler Twilight. She probably wishes I hadn't, though I haven't really changed her much from the Princess Twi I knew before. I'm just relieved to have got something out there after all this time. At the very least, I hope that a few people will get some gentle enjoyment from it.

Oh, and it seems that my new story got featured. This is not exactly of major importance, and it's even less so these days, but I mention it nevertheless as it's only the second fic of mine ever to reach the Feature Box. (The first was Where They Understand You.)

UK PonyConline report, part 4 (Sunday) – My Little Ponion

The customs at UKPC never fail to amaze me

After a quick welcome back from the con staff, Sunday began with the second round of StormBlaze's Art Storm. Some of the same artists were back, with one or two newcomers who hadn't appeared on Saturday. It was a nice way to ease back into the convention, and Stormy was as ever a very good host. There was even the odd picture of Fluttershy mixed in there, which is something that rarely goes amiss, I feel!

At midday, it was time to face the evil of the UKPC Quiz. Whether in person or online, whether hosted by Archer or Bexi, this has always been a terrifying affair, and so it proved once again. By the end of the G1–G3.5 rounds, my score stood at 6/26. Seven of my answers were "Custard" and two "Batman". I did retrieve things a bit with the final three rounds – on G4, Pony Life and UKPC itself – and finished with 24.5/46. That's good going for me!

After this, I tended to flip between "Rate My Fakie", "Pony Room Tours" and the continuing Pony Town server. Naturally this meant that I missed a lot, but it did give some of the frenetic feel of a con, as well as the classic "Am I missing something great in another room?" feel. A quieter later afternoon, as the Vectors panel didn't interest me much, though I did watch some of the cosplay showcase.

There were more conga lines and general silliness to be had in the UKPC Pony Town server, and I ended up staying in there rather than watching the Euro Conventions panel. It didn't help that I couldn't get the stage screen to work in Pony Town, though for some reason this problem was fixed when I switched from Firefox to Chrome later on. Admittedly I also took a meal break during this period as well!

At 6:15 pm, it was Elley Ray time again. And my sweet Celestia, what an evening that was! In the way only she can, she engaged brilliantly with the rest of us following along on Discord and pulled us into a madcap, absurd, wonderful evening of sheer entertainment. It's hard to put that into words in a report like this, but I'll try to offer at least a small flavour of the... "experience" is the only word I can think of...

Elley Ray, Elley Ray-ing. Plus Ponion Pony by StewArt

...though the word of the evening was "ponions". These are, possibly, maybe, who knows? ponies that are also onions and tell lots of puns. Apparently we all spent an hour or so creating more or less from nothing a new cartoon series (and associated convention theme!) starring the ponions. UK PonionConline was born! Things were flying by so fast that none of us could keep up, but fried ponion rings were certainly suggested as con food. Not containing ponies!

In amidst all the madness, there were other priceless nuggets too. I can't possibly remember them all, but one that stood out was UKPC chair Maz explaining to Elley Ray: a) why everyone in the UK finds it immensely amusing that Apple Bloom not only drinks but sells cider; and b) that (and here I quote verbatim) "for UKPC we specifically tell the bar to stock more cider than they usually would for an event of our size."

Elley Ray's panel was supposed to last an hour, but everyone was having such an incredible time that it went on for twice that, eventually running into the next event on that stage... which was the closing ceremony! Surprisingly perhaps, that did take place, albeit in a shortened form without much beyond the necessary thanks to everyone who'd made UKPCO 2021 such a wonderful experience.

That wasn't, in fact, the end of the story. A couple of musicians took to the stage after the close, one of those being DoTheDaringDew. It so happens that his Snails song "Carryin' My Water" is a staple of favourite of several Worcester meet people, and thanks to... a handily placed shared contact, shall we say... it was the very first track he played that night! After DTDD, though, it was nearly time for me to go. Just a little more Pony Town, then bed.

It had been an excellent couple of days, probably the nearest thing I've ever experienced online to a true convention atmosphere, ahead even of the likes of the PonyFests. Whether we'll ever quite see its like again I doubt, given that running a full online con and an in-person con would be burdensome indeed for the staff. If this was the last full online UK PonyCon, then what a way to go out. Thank you so much, everyone who helped make it what it was!

A quiet moment in the Pony Town Bunny Room

UK PonyCon rescheduled for October

UK PonyCon put out this press release yesterday. It says that, owing to a clash with university needs (the venue is owned by a uni), the convention has been moved to 9th/10th October. We must all hope that circumstances by then are good enough that these dates can actually happen! If UKPC can go ahead, it will be almost exactly two years since the last one, which was in October 2019.

That's the informative part of this post. But to the question "Will you be attending, Logan?" I still can't give a definite answer. In all honesty, I think the odds remain against it, perhaps fairly heavily. I'm not especially worried about my personal safety, since I'm now double-dosed with vaccine and so about as safe as I'm going to be. As such, I doubt that would be a particularly large consideration of mine.

No, for me a larger problem is uncertainty. For example, UKPC say they will "publish details of the measures [they're] taking nearer the time of the event." The snag there is that I'd want to know what those measures were before I committed one way or the other. As a simple example, if singing were significantly restricted that would be quite a big minus point for me. Not for everyone, but for me singing is a big part of conventions.

If the measures are not announced until after tickets have been on sale for a while, there's a chance they may have sold out before I feel I have enough information to commit. If that happens, so be it. That may be more likely if capacity has to be reduced and so fewer tickets are on sale – though who knows what demand will actually be? Old assumptions may no longer hold.

Another factor: over the past year we've seen massive advances in online MLP events. There is now far more knowledge and experience about what works and how to make it work than there was in the old days when Horses At Home was the only online con. Attending events online can mean huge financial savings, balanced against the loss of the personal touch and the physical experience.

Indeed, it will be interesting to see whether UK PonyCon itself runs any online stuff during the in-person con. Clearly there won't be a parallel online convention: the level of work required would be impossible. But perhaps there could be a bit of streaming, and something like a Pony Town server might allow people who couldn't attend the con to experience a bit of the community interaction.

Although I do expect significant demand for returning in-person cons like UKPC, I wouldn't be at all surprised if online events continued on at least some scale. After all, not everyone is lucky enough to live in a country which ever has in-person events. Others may not feel ready to return to large crowded events this year even if they're okay with small meets. And so on and so forth.

I'm not ruling out going to UKPC in October. As everyone who's read this blog for a while will know, I have a great deal of time for that convention, and certainly attending would have its attractions. However, as things stand, I think it's quite unlikely that I'll be attending another con before 2022. I suspect I'm going to need to wait for the day when I can plan with some certainty several months out – and we're not quite at that point yet.

Happy belated 10th birthday, "What A World"!

I haven't forgotten about my UK PonyConline reports! All being well, I'll get to Sunday on Monday, if you see what I mean. But for now...

Alex S – What A World

I'm never quite sure whether to include the full stop in Alex S(.)'s name, but for this particular video he did include it in the account name but not in the video name. So take your pick! Anyway, Alex S. was another one of the big names in the early Pony music fandom, with his best-remembered tracks generally dealing in glitch or dubstep or both. I believe this was the first of those big hitters.

The video now on YouTube was only uploaded in 2015, but that's because Alex S. took down his MLP stuff for a time while he was trying to break into the mainstream music business under the name "Andromulus". The track is actually far older than that, and after a bit of searching I found this Mediafire upload of an MP3 of it, which is dated 13 May 2011.

It's a fun track, too. We don't see much Steven Magnet in our Pony music, do we? In fact, this may be the most prominent Magnet Music of the lot. Good job it's so catchy, then! Happy late birthday!