Ponyfic Roundup 514

Read it Later story count: 92 (-1)

Words read this week: 6,000

I hope it will just be two or three weeks now until I have a working PC again, but for now I hope you'll excuse me for needing to use my phone once more, with the slight awkwardness that involves. Today I'll conclude my look at the Thousand Words Contest III Bronze winners very short. Covering all twelve Bronze winners, covering the Horror, Comedy and Experimental categories. The last two of those can vary often land or not simply because of reader preference, so I have no idea how I'll react to this bunch. Let's see.

She Can't Be Here by Flashgen
Safety First! by gloamish
Foreign Object by RB_
Ballistics are Friendship by daOtterGuy
Paragraphobia by Silver Needle
paradise, fleeting [sic] by alafoel

★: 0 | ★★: 2 | ★★★: 3 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

UK PonyCon 2024 report, part four: Sunday, first half

AJ Ember proving an expert at stand up

I slept well on Saturday night – oh, the joys of not being in the city centre! – and decided to be slightly more leisurely in my preparations the next morning. I was going by Red Arrow again, so I was a little at the mercy of the relatively limited Sunday timetable, but there were no issues. The weather forecast had suggested it might rain at times this day, but for the moment it was dry, if rather cloudy and dull. This is always the risk when staying at my favoured Travelodge – short of a taxi, there's no covered way to get to the bus/rail stations.

Coming to Derby, I'd packed the small seapony rucksack I'd bought for not much in B&M years ago. It was an impulse decision to bring it, but it was so light it was easy to pack and so worth the flyer. I decided that I was going to use it as my main bag for Sunday, unlike on Saturday where I'd carried the old faithful Tesco MLP carrier that dated way back to the 2017 movie. The rucksack only had a few compartments, which was a point in its favour – bag checks take longer if you have 28 zipped pockets! It was just large enough for an A4 art folder and a bottle of water, which was really all I needed.¹

¹ Water is exempt from the "no outside food" rule, a good job as drinking water provision on-site is surprisingly limited for a uni building in 2024.

I thought I'd go to the Gooseberry Bush for breakfast this time, partly because it was basically on my route to the venue, partly because I've occasionally met other UK PonyCon-goers there, and partly because it's generally quiet on Sunday mornings. Unfortunately, things went slightly awry this time – I did spot a guy in a PrinceWhateverer hoodie, though someone I only barely knew by sight and didn't really feel able to chat to. I'd parked myself in a quiet corner, but within minutes a whole bunch of rather loud lads (as in laddishness) had appeared nearby. While they didn't actually bother me, it did slightly sour the atmosphere, so I moved out a little before I really wanted to.

A small part of the substantial stalls area

This did at least allow me to walk slowly to the venue rather than have a Rainbow need to Dash. No opening ceremony to make this time, after all! Having had no time to do so on Saturday, I was very much intending to do some shopping today. (Spoiler: I did.) I'd decided to skip karaoke, all the more so as I wasn't especially enthused by the addition of dance game Trotmania. I later heard from Stu that the singing was of the “sing as a small group” format too, which again isn't what I really prefer. I don't imagine I'll ignore karaoke for evermore, but I don't feel bad about doing so this time.

It was a choice between Year of the Dragon (a look at fantasy creatures in the MLP universe) and Britannia Master on the Mane Stage. Inertia took over and I stayed for the latter. This was based on the long-running British TV show Taskmaster, in which contestants – here Ashleigh Ball, AJ Bridel and two UKPC staffers – are set various weird and (sometimes) wonderful, well, tasks. A representative round was asking them to stand when they felt exactly 40 seconds had passed. AJ Staffer Ember got this almost perfect! There was laughter, there were feels, there were silly memes, you get the idea I'm sure.

And then it was time for a long-standing set piece of UKPC: the Charity Auction. If you've read Ghost Mike's report on this already, you'll know that the highlight was his Batannia plush reaching an astounding £1,350. Not having expected anything like this (who did?) Mike's face was quite a picture from a couple of seats away! Unsurprisingly, this proved to be the highest bid received for any single lot this time around – it's very rare for anything to reach four figures in a British Pony convention auction. It was certainly a big talking point this year.

This Scootachicken went for a mere £240

There were some eye-opening bids elsewhere, too. A set of the first nine IDW Friends Forever comics, in good condition but unsigned, went for something like £200 – I had to blink quite a lot at that, since I'm the proud owner of the entire 38-issue run. (And no, I'm not selling it!) However, for the first time in years I didn't stay to the end. The aircon was completely inadequate and I was melting, especially as the auction massively overran. This really is going to need to be looked at next year, despite how lucrative the auction is for the wonderful RDA. UKPC has perhaps outgrown the current auction format.

I went to the coffee vending machine in the basement (which unlike most in such venues wasn't overpriced!) and then sat around in the general areas for a bit, simply because it was cooler and a blessed relief. Every so often, someone else exited the auction hall, usually also because of incipient heatstroke. I also took this opportunity to finally have a good look around the stalls. Financial constraints meant I had to pass on quite a few nice things, but I was very pleased to have a brief chat with JowyB, one of my favourite Pony artists¹ and a very nice, affable guy to boot. I bought three of his A4 prints, as you'll see when I eventually reach the Merch Haul post.

¹ He's long since branched out into much other stuff, but this wasn't UK OtherStuffCon! ;)

This kind of multi-gen love is part of UKPC's appeal

I wasn't entirely sure what to do next, but eventually I decided to go to Nelson's panel on the World's Biggest Tea Party. Yes, the G3 live show. Oilyvalves was already there when I entered the room, and I spotted Juniper and a couple of others I knew as well. It turned out to be really interesting, not to mention superbly researched – this guy had it more accurate than the actual G3 wiki! Nelson also took the line that the sneering and laughter some bronies had directed towards the Tea Party was unfair: the show was aimed squarely at little girls, and reaction at the time from them (and parents) had been very positive. This panel did change my mind about the WBTP at least somewhat.

There was one sour note right at the end. As the Q&A was winding up, Oily and I got the sense that one guy was about to set off on a harangue regarding some personal bonnet-bee. This kind of thing isn't that uncommon and is normally only mildly irritating, but we didn't really want to hear it so we left smartly. Before long, though, we heard on the con grapevine (which doesn't hang around) that things had got more serious, involving inappropriate and even racist comments from this person, and that both con and venue staff had had to make a strong intervention. I really hope Nelson isn't put off by this from presenting more panels in the future, since he was very good at it and I'd certainly consider attending.

I did think quite carefully about whether to mention this, especially as it's a slight downer to have it at the end of a post – but in the end this is a report, not an advert. By all accounts it was handled swiftly, anyway. While I don't think there was any reason for the staff to mention the unpleasantness at the convention itself (they didn't), I don't feel I need to ignore it entirely here. As it happens the subject of when and where to mention serious/problematic things in our fandom has been on my mind since just before the con, for reasons I won't go into, and I plan a more general post on that topic before too long. Not just yet, though, as there's still more fun UK PonyCon stuff to write about!

Next time: Sunday part two, featuring colourful storytelling, Rainbow Road... and bright yellow custard. Yes, at last!

(AI) Okay, that one's really quite striking

This is from Gemini, Google's AI – the one that was called Bard in earlier versions. I neglected to save the actual picture, so the best I can do is the above screenshot. Clicking the pic will give you a much better quality version. The prompt I provided cuts off just before the end, so for that reason and for clarity, here it is in full: 

Draw a recruiting poster for the Wonderbolts, featuring Rainbow Dash performing aerobatics. Use a very exciting and dramatic style, and use an unusual camera angle. Do not feature any machinery. 

That last bit was because an earlier attempt gave me Rainbow flying a plane. Off lighting and somewhat clichéd look notwithstanding, this one's much more suitable – and if only Gemini could spell "Wonderbolts" it could have been better still!

Ponyfic Roundup 513: Spooky Special

Read it Later story count: 93 (nc)

Words read this week: 33,007

It's Halloween today, which is a much bigger deal in the UK now than it was when I was a kid but seems to be here to stay, so a themed edition seemed like a nice idea. Published at (almost) midnight GMT, you'll note! All the five fics on the slate today have darkness or horror or both at their cores, though they achieve that in quite different ways. Here's the list:

Tick by billymorph
Zombie of One by Impossible Numbers
Meat and Bone, Sinew and Bile by RB_
A Crazed Gleam by FanOfMostEverything
Into Darkness by Donnys Boy

★: 0 | ★★: 0 | ★★★: 2 | ★★★★: 3 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

Ponyfic Roundup will be a day later this week...

...but for a change, it's not because I've been unwell or stupidly busy, or because my computer has lost my notes, or even because I've entirely forgotten what day it is until it's too late. 

No; this time it's an actual choice. As I'm having a Spooky Special edition, I've decided to post that on Halloween itself – which is of course Thursday. Simple as that! See you then.

UK PonyCon 2024 report, part three: Saturday, second half

Imagine converting "Art of the Dress" for the BBC Micro. Who'd be that silly?

Halfway through Saturday and I still didn’t have the time to go shopping, because I had a date with destiny Hawthorn’s chiptunes panel. This was something I’d only discovered was happening at all shortly before the con, but I could hardly miss it! The panel was great, both amusing and informative, with Hawthorn’s preparation paying off and his enthusiasm for this slightly neglected aspect of music shining through. He hadn’t told me he was going to feature one of my own 8-bit pieces in the end montage, though! Oops. :P

Fortunately Hawthorn’s panel finished on time, since the special guest script reading and Q&A followed immediately over at the Mane Stage. As usual for UK PonyCon, the script reading was short, though as ever it was fun to hear the pro VAs doing live the voices we knew them so well for in the cartoons. There were big queues to ask the stars questions and after a little thought I chose not to join them. Still, nicely the guests were willing to allow the panel to run a little over time, so as to get in as many people as they could. :)

Next up was something I’d been disappointed to have to miss through not being able to stay for more than three-quarters of one day in 2023: The Great Britannia Bake-Off! This has its roots in the UKPonyConline events held during the pandemic, and as such it’s heavily video-based. Members of the con committee record themselves attempting to bake cakes or similar, and this is edited together into an hour-long highlights video with suitably snarky captions and in-jokes. At the end, we in the audience vote on the winners. A really nice way to relax for a bit.

Not a spare seat in the house for the VIP script reading

That brought Saturday’s daytime events to a close. At the same time in another room the kids’ disco was going on, advertised in the con book as a perfect way for children to end their day. While UKPC does not have an age limit on attending in the evening, requiring only that all under-16s are accompanied by adults,¹ very few young families do stay on after dusk falls. Unsurprisingly, the convention does shift into a slightly different atmosphere from this point onward.
¹ In the daytime 14- and 15-year-olds don't need adults with them all the time.

The major event of the evening at UK PonyCon since it moved to Nottingham in 2018 has always been the concert. While this is well handled and enjoyed by a lot of people, I only tend to pay serious attention in fits and starts. It’s excellent that old stagers like like PrinceWhateverer come back every year and support the con, but I prefer more variety.¹ As such, I took most notice of Coltastrophe, making their UKPC debut, and Pagan Pegasus, whose music I find interestingly varied.
¹ Also, the Mane Stage area wasn’t built for live music, and its rather poor acoustics bear that out.

That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to do anything musical, however! Bexi was putting on the convention’s very first #CHEESEFEST (yes, all caps with hashtag) – which sounded exactly my kind of thing. Actually some of the music was a little new for me: I’d have preferred something like “Rasputin” over the overrated “Cha Cha Slide”, sorry Bexi! But it was lots of fun and we still got Steps, the Macarena and so on, with glow sticks for all. Mind you, most of our group sat at the back, not entirely so we could hide when Roku managed to unplug one of the lights while moving tables about...

Cheesefest in full swing. Add your own music!

Saturday evening is the only time when alcohol is available on-site (although this was sometimes different at former UKPC venues) but the queues for the pop-up bar were enormous. Hawthorn extremely kindly offered to get me a Diet Coke despite the wait, and as I was parched I accepted. I’m not the first person to mention that Hawthorn is a really nice guy. The bar also sold pony-themed cocktails and mocktails, but for the most part these featured spirits I wasn’t too fond of and about a kilo of sugar. Not ideal for me as a diabetic!

And then? Archer’s Pub Quiz, of course. A legendary aspect of UK PonyCon Saturday evenings, and the Worcester group’s legendarily oversize team (12? 14? Something like that) was in evidence once again. In fact there seemed slightly fewer impossibly difficult questions than usual, and we only ended up answering “Batman” once. At one point we were worried we might actually do well and ruin our reputation, but equal third was about right. It was really odd not to have Derpy as the answer to any question in an Archer-run event, though.

PiratPeter’s Cartoon Riff rounded off the night, and I’d have liked to have stayed for that as his engaging manner is appealing even when terrible cartoons are on screen. I had to make the commute back to Derby, though, and I wasn't willing to wait until after eleven even to start. So, off I went to the bus station. This time the Red Arrow was a coach – huzzah! – and everything again went smoothly. It had certainly been a busy day for me, probably even more so than in 2022, but I wasn’t exhausted. A quick cuppa in my new UKPC mug, and then bed beckoned.

Coltastrophe rocking out

Next time: Sunday part one, featuring timed standing, extreme bidding and vague shopping.

Little meta note

I definitely haven't forgotten about my UK PonyCon report! I've just been really busy lately. I hope that part three will be up in the next couple of days. :)