Ponyfic Roundup 220

Read it Later story count: 94 (+2)

Words read this week: 26,042

Welcome to the final Ponyfic Roundup before the Hearth's Warming break! As befits the period, I've chosen five stories that have a seasonal feel about them. Three are in the world of FiM, one is from EqG and the last is from G5. They cover the romance, slice of life, comedy and sad tags, so apart from perhaps adventure there's a good spread I think. Here we go:

The Forgiveness Festival by DegeTheMighty
Shouldering a Holiday Burden by Ghost Mike
Limestone Reluctantly Preserves the Pie Family Hearthswarming by Harmlesskitten13
Silent Night by Serina
The Family That Chooses You by SmokeTester

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

Sounds of 2015, nos. 90 to 86

Not a great deal to chat about in the intro today. I've been playing Forza Horizon 4 a lot and mostly loving it, though I can't say I'm thrilled with the apparent near-impossibility of getting hold of the Napier-Railton. Oh well, there are enough cars I can get to have fun with. Let's return to 2015 now and take the usual look at the criteria I use, at least one of which has to be satisfied for me to feature a track:

Rule 1: Still available in the same or (1b) similar form direct from the/an original artist.
Rule 2: Available from a third party, with reason to believe the artist is fine with this.
Rule 3: So famous that it would be plain silly to leave it out.
Rule 4: Being unlisted is not, on its own, grounds for exclusion. 

So, how have we done this time? Sadly, this is the worst week for a long while, with me having to skip not one but two songs. There's nothing I can do about it as I have my criteria for good reason, but I'm sad not to be able to bring you those tracks. I promise you, I searched diligently for any remaining official uploads but still drew a blank. Still, you do still get three songs today, and they're these:

90: Scraton – Work It Tavi
89: SharaX – In Our Town (remix)
88: skipped
87: skipped
86: Sayonara Maxwell – Rainbow Factory (Alternative Metal)

Jump break coming up if you're reading this on a computer, and then it'll be time to embed and talk about these songs! Ready? Thought so. Let's go!

UK PonyCon 2024 report, part seven: The merch haul

Click to expand to a larger version with numbers you don't have to squint at!

Over two months after UK PonyCon 2024 closed its doors, I am finally rounding off my con report! You already know that I thought the convention was a very good one, with a few little irritations vastly outweighed by all the good stuff. And here is some of that good stuff! I didn't have the funds to buy a lot this year, but here's what I did acquire. This photo was taken in my hotel room (on the bed, as there wasn't room anywhere else!) hence the poor lighting and foreshortened appearance. The orange numbers correspond to the explanations below:

1 – Sundance G1 brushable. Normal size, not as tiny as she looks in the photo!
2 – UK PonyCon 2024 T-shirt, size XL.
3 – Con book. Particularly nicely produced this year.
4 – Small original Celestia canvas by Carousel Wishes.
5 – Saturday night concert guide leaflet.
6a to 6d¹ – A4 prints by JowyB. (The Fluttershy one was a gift from a friend.)
7 – Bronze Sponsor lanyard and con badge.
8 – Bronze Sponsor button badge.
9 – Scootatrix "Got Meegan" badge and business card.
10 – "He/him" and "Want a hug? Please ask" free stickers.
11 – Cute sticker from the freebies table.
12 – Business card for KNAB.
13 –"Gen1us" ribbon, only available to attendees of the Scootertrix panel.
14 – Celestia marker pen drawing by Sparkler.
15 – Sponsor bonus sticker sheet.
16 – UKPC 20th anniversary mug.

¹ 6d was erroneously labelled 8d. Go me.

Next time... well, there won't be a next time! Not until and unless I attend next year, anyway...

Ponyfic Roundup 519

Read it Later story count: 92 (nc)

Words read this week: 24,995

The weather here is dreary and grey, and has been for several days now, so what better than to escape into the world of pastel-coloured ponies? After all, last week was one of the most successful slates in the history of Ponyfic Roundup. I'm not expecting quite that level of impressiveness this week, but who knows, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised! It's not as if these writers are unknowns, now, is it? Here's that slate:

Rarity the Anarchist by Blarghalt
All Things Being Equal by Obsidian Chitin
The Muse of Fire by Lets Do This
Pictures of Lily by cleverpun
Ponyville, Our Ponyville by Botched Lobotomy

★: 0 | ★★: 0 | ★★★: 4 | ★★★★: 1 | ★★★★★: 0
Note: I use a skewed rating system. A fic I enjoy an average amount scores two stars.

Not feeling well, so Ponyfic Roundup will be slightly delayed

Nothing too awful, just a minor winter bug I think. If it follows the pattern of other similar illnesses I've had, I'd expect to be able to post Ponyfic Roundup on Friday, so not too much of a delay. :)

Sounds of 2015, nos. 95 to 91

Some kind person who'd like to remain anonymous bought me Forza Horizon 4 Ultimate Edition as an early Hearth's Warming present (it's getting delisted on the 15th) and I've been having a ball. I'm a decent sim driver, but this is more arcadey than I'm used to. The British setting adds a great extra dimension, though. I've been to Broadway! Anyway, back to the music of nine years ago, and as usual here's the run-down of the criteria. At least one of these must be satisfied for a song to be included:

Rule 1: Still available in the same or (1b) similar form direct from the/an original artist.
Rule 2: Available from a third party, with reason to believe the artist is fine with this.
Rule 3: So famous that it would be plain silly to leave it out.
Rule 4: Being unlisted is not, on its own, grounds for exclusion. 

I managed to feature all five tracks in the relevant part of the chart last time, but no such luck this week I'm afraid. I don't want to give away the identities of the people behind no. 93, but I will say that it was a multi-person track with the singers' real-world faces in shot on the video, and perhaps those are understandably especially vulnerable. Still, I can still feature four songs, and that's not too bad! Here's the list:

95: Starlight ft. Mica – Forgotten
94: SophiiVA – Nightmares
93: skipped
92: Starlight – Glimmer
91: Synthis – The Mirror

Unless you're reading this on mobile, which a lot of you probably are, then there'll be a jump break any moment. After that, it'll be the usual mixture of embeds, info and ramblings. Off we go!

My Little Repeats 174: "Fake It 'Til You Make It"

"Call us that again and you'll be finding out just what carnivora means!"

S8E04: "Fake It 'Til You Make It"

31 Mar 2018

My original rating: ★★
IMDb score: 7.1

The one with thread counting

Thoughts: This was Josh Hamilton's fourth and last Friendship is Magic writing credit. Back then I was rather irritated by it, since it didn't give me the Fluttershy/Rarity friendshipping episode I really wanted. But on its own merits? Well, it has its pluses. There is some F/R stuff early on that's very nice, and Flutters' personas are quite amusing even if the joke is stretched out for too long and eventually makes her quite dislikeable. The episode looks really nice, as they usually do by this point in the show's run. The team had pretty much tamed Flash by S8, it seems. Most notably of all, Andrea Libman gives us an absolute masterclass in voice acting. Now, this is still a long way from being a really fantastic episode. Some of the setup is shaky – it's been canon since "Suited for Success" that 'Shy does know her fashion – and not even mentioning Coco felt bizarre in this setting. Also, the usual School of Friendship issue: how come the other Manes can just zip over to Manehattan at the drop of a hat? So, it's got some good things, quite a few in fact, but it doesn't quite hang together well. As such, while I'm nudging this up to the top of the two-star band, I don't think it quite has enough smoothness to get over the line to a three.

Choice quote: Customer: "This store is a desperate wasteland of nothingness. Do you have anything in black?"

New rating: ★★

Next up, "Grannies Gone Wild". Other than some slightly tedious sniggering about its title, I can't remember a lot about this one. I seemed to quite like it six years ago, though, so here's hoping I like it again!