My Little Repeats 103: "Amending Fences"

Proper horse food, too. A rare sight by this point in the series!

S5E12: "Amending Fences"

4 Jul 2015

My original rating: ★★★★★
IMDb score: 9.3

The one with "Twilight Twinkle"

Thoughts: Here we are, then, The episode often picked as the best FiM ep of all time. Is it? Well, it's not quite my utter personal favourite (that's "Hurricane Fluttershy", as if you didn't know) but M. A. Larson does provide us with an absolutely tremendous 22 minutes of animated Pony. I loved it when it came out and I still love it now. I adore almost everything about it: the way it links in with the start of S1E01, Moondancer showing where Twilight could have ended up, Minuette's wonderful (and criminally unused hereafter) bubbly character, Pinkie and Spike playing fine supporting roles... oh, you get the idea. Although it's not a big deal now, there's even a tiny Starlight Glimmer cameo. Okay, the "trail of books" lure isn't the most original idea in the universe, but somehow it still works perfectly here. The reminiscences of Lemon Hearts and the others (that flask!) are lovely, and on the other hoof Moondancer not instantly forgiving Twilight the second she sees the party is very nicely handled. Twi wouldn't say, "I failed friendship" until the movie two years later, but the phrase would have been apt for her here too. I love "Amending Fences" for all of this, but perhaps most of all for the way it takes pre-FiM Twilight and S5 Twilight and contrasts them to such great effect. Would the old Twi have been so persevering and resourceful when trying to make it up to Moondancer? No, and indeed the fact that she wasn't is a big reason why Moondancer ended up a recluse – but it's also the reason Celestia sent Twilight to Ponyville in the first place, without which this episode would have been impossible in another way. Look, it's just so good, all right?

Choice quote: Twilight: "All my old friends! ...I can't remember any of their names right now."

New rating: ★★★★★

Next up is "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep" which not everyone thinks is great but which I very much enjoyed in 2015. Will I still?

Ponyfic Roundup 377

Read it Later story count: 96 (+1) 

I must admit, when I said I was going to nudge my weekly story total up from three to four, I rather suspected that something would go wrong almost at once to stop me establishing that new level as the norm. Amazingly, it hasn't, and I have another four fics to look at this week. Here they are:

Telling Tales by James Washburn
The Enemy Within by Jake the Army Guy
Unplanned by Alicorn
The Most Basic of Jokes by CartsBeforeHorses

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

Happy 10th birthday, "Loyalty"!

AcoustiMandoBrony – Loyalty

Feeling old yet? It's ten years today since the best known part of the "Elements" collection was first uploaded to YouTube. This has never actually been finished, and although in the last year or so we've had a couple of updates from Re:Make (as Acoustic Brony are now known) we still await any actual new music to complete the set with "Honesty"¹ and "Magic". Back in 2012 they were collaborating with MandoPony, but that perhaps unsurprisingly won't carry over to the new versions of the songs. Anyway, as you'd expect from a song with this title, "Loyalty" is a song about Rainbow Dash. As befits her character, it's very much a rock number, a paean to the pony for whom backing up her friends means everything. (Well, usually.) It contains what is probably Acoustic Brony's most famous solo, too, a great guitar-then-drums section that kicks in around 3:25 and lasts for just over a minute. I was privileged to see AB play "Loyalty" live at BUCK 2014's Summer Sun Celebration: the solo was changed a bit, but it was still a fantastic experience. They also played it at UK PonyCon 2019, but I had to dash off after the first verse to do the famous UKPC pub quiz! No regrets, but "Loyalty" is and will forever be a great fandom classic.
¹An early version of "Honesty" was played at UK PonyCon 2019, but no public studio version exists

Thoughts of a Ponyfic Reviewer 2: If You're Gonna Dish It Out...

I've always felt that if I'm going to engage in the – let's face it – rather strange game of reviewing and rating other people's stories, I should allow them to do the same to mine in return, should they so wish. Actually, I think that in general it's better if ponyfic reviewers take this approach. The easiest way to do this is, of course, to have your own stories out there for people to comment on. This is in fact the usual practice.

Consider: the main individuals still in the "regularly reviews ponyfic" game are probably Present Perfect, PaulAsaran and me. Including these three and a non-exhaustive bunch of high-profile reviewers who've now moved on, the published story counts are, with active reviewers bolded:

Present Perfect: 96
PaulAsaran: 69
Foals Errand: 48
Titanium Dragon: 43
Loganberry/Louder Yay: 30
Chris/One Man's Pony Ramblings: 21
Soge: 8
Singularity Dream/City of Doors: 3

Of course, this isn't everyone, as lots of people have written at least the occasional ponyfic review in a Fimfiction blog or wherever. There are also the more substantial contributions from the members of the Royal Canterlot Library, Seattle's Angels and – now we're going back a bit! – The Royal Guard. All now moribund-to-dead in 2022-world: indeed, in the case of TRG, their Fimfiction group has long since been entirely removed.

Although I can't cover everyone, I do want to mention one more person, who is in a kind of class by himself. That is Pascoite, who remains very active. Although he keeps the amusing "occasional author" line in his Fimfiction bio, in fact he beats all the others mentioned here with 98 published stories – the last uploaded only a week ago. He doesn't review ponyfic much now,¹ but scroll through enough anime review posts and there's still the occasional Underappreciated Author Spotlight, so I'm going to bold his name here.
¹ I don't count pre-reader feedback for Equestria Daily, since as a rule that is not public

I do allow and indeed encourage mini-review feedback (within certain limits) for the monthly Flashfic 150 contests I run, but there is no requirement to have published ponyfic to give those. I do very occasionally submit a non-competitive flashfic myself, though. There's also the whole other area of YouTube and the like. I tend to find video reviews frustratingly slow to get to the point, so I very much prefer text-based thoughts, which is a major reason I'm not considering video reviewers in this blog post.

It's interesting that all the reviewers I've mentioned have at least a few published ponyfics, and most have a total well into double figures. I can't speak for any of the others, but I think I would feel rather uncomfortable if I was pronouncing on other people's Pony stories but not giving any kind of "comeback" – sure, they're able and very welcome to comment, but I rather like that people can look at my writing and see that I'm neither completely illiterate nor a Nobel Prize candidate.

Ponyfic isn't everything, of course. I don't think there's any way to get a total word count for Louder Yay, but I'd be willing to bet it greatly exceeds the amount I've written for all my fics combined. I always leave comments open on here, so that's also a way of allowing people to have their say on what I've written. The question of "why review anyway?" is a different one (and one I may return to) but for me, at least, if I'm going to dish out verdicts then I feel I should be able to take them as well.

A belated happy 10th birthday to that remix of "Discord"!

The Living Tombstone – Discord (remix)

Annoyingly, I missed this anniversary yesterday! Indeed, I was only reminded of it by a friend today. Although it's not Eurobeat Brony's original, say "Discord" to most people and they'll think of The Living Tombstone's stupendously popular remix. With well over 54 million views on YouTube since its initial upload on 21st January 2012, it is I think the most-viewed MLP fan song of all time. In March 2012 we saw this music video, made by Umby and filmed somewhere in England (Newcastle?) while much more recently "Discord" has become a hit on TikTok, with at least some of its users entirely unaware of its Pony origins. While quite a few people do prefer the original, and even more feel at least mildly irritated that TLT sometimes gets the credit for the whole song, there's no doubt that his "Discord" is a song that almost everybody with the slightest interest in brony music knows the second they hear those opening notes. Not many MLP fan songs can say that, and its place in fandom history is more than secure.

My Little Repeats 102: "Party Pooped"

I'm still amused that "George" has a jelly babies cutie mark

S5E11: "Party Pooped"

27 Jun 2015

My original rating: ★★★
IMDb score: 7.5

The one with sheep on the line

Thoughts: For the second week running, a new writer, but this one was destined to have a rather more successful MLP career than Neal Dusedau: "Party Pooped" was Nick Confalone's Pony debut. And it's better than the previous episode, too, although still no classic. Part of this is that I find the first act pretty tiresome, with the "YAKS HATE IF NOT PERFECT" stuff really going on too long. Later, Pinkie's journey to Yakyakistan is quite fun, if all a bit thrown-together, and her Party Bunker is an amusing little touch even if I don't think we ever see it again. I'm still not sure why Yakyakistan wasn't called simply Yakistan, which is (to my mind, at least) a much better pun. Mind you, I still don't see any obvious inspiration for Rutherford's name, either. Meanwhile, Twilight is having the kind of freak-out more reminiscent of her earlier days. Again, it's fairly amusing to start with but does go on a bit too long. All these things considered, I'm going to nudge my rating down from a low three to a high two. While this is clearly more fun than "Princess Spike" was, it's still not that great an episode. Happily Confalone would go on to write several very good eps, but he didn't quite hit the ground running and "Party Pooped" was a bit of a mish-mash.

Choice quote: Rainbow Dash: "It's sort of panic themed."

New rating: ★★

Next up is "Amending Fences", and frankly I think we all know already how that one is going to go down. :D

Ponyfic Roundup 376

Read it Later story count: 95 (-1) 

Not a lot to say today, and for once I'm not going to ramble on pointlessly for a couple of hundred words just to fill up the space. I'll do that in the reviews instead... I should probably give the list of this week's fics and move on.

What Meets the Eye by Butterscotch Cream
Hyperportentia by MyHobby
Bon-Bon's Average Day by articunos bitch
Select Difficulty by naturalbornderpy

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

UK PonyCon 2022 theme announced

This actually happened a couple of days ago, but it's taken me until now to get round to posting about it! Good job I don't try to be a news site. ;) Anyway, the theme has been announced as Gothic. I do rather suspect (though I don't know) that the cancelled 2020 in-person UKPC, which was going to be "SpookyCon" (and still was, online) has a bearing. Although this isn't the same as that, there's clearly a fair amount of overlap. Anyway, it all sounds like a fun theme, so I'm happy enough.

My Little Repeats 101: "Princess Spike"

Featuring Andy Price and Katie Cook's OCs, both wearing glasses

S5E10: "Princess Spike"

20 Jun 2015

My original rating: ★★
IMDb score: 5.6

The one with Minnesota mare

Thoughts: Neal Dusedau's writing debut was not well received. In fact, it is the first FiM episode to score in the fives with IMDb, the previous low being the 6.0 for "Somepony to Watch Over Me" last season. Is it that bad? Well... yes and no. It's not actively disastrous, but it's just... there. I already feel it fading from my mind, and in any case after four and a half seasons "Spike is stupid" was getting really old. It was well past time he developed as a character a bit more – that was coming, but at this point we didn't know that. I actually like the world-building here, with the summit and the regional ponies (even if I don't recognise all the accents and stereotypes) and Twilight hugging books as she drops off can never not be adorable. I thought this was one of Cadance's better eps, too, as she was clearly unconvinced by Spike's explanations. However, I did not like the dragon-sneeze trees. They could perhaps have worked with even a hoof-wavy explanation of why they were in Canterlot, but no. Without that they were just stupid plot devices. The non-magical chainsaw was ridiculous, Fancy Pants wasn't very pleasant and all in all this was... mediocre. Not a total disaster, but it wasn't and still isn't an episode you'd want to show off to people as an example of what FiM can do. Two stars still, and not especially high in that band either.

Choice quote: Fancy Pants: "There's an angry mob here that demands satisfaction!"

New rating: ★★

Next up is "Party Pooped", which I found a bit of a mixed bag, a definite upgrade on "Princess Spike" but still a long way short of being a classic.

Thoughts of a Ponyfic Reviewer 1: Background Details

Thanks to Mike Cartoon Pony for indirectly inspiring this post.

Yes, this is a series now. Woo. It's not going to be especially structured or appear at regular intervals, but then this is me we're talking about here; what do you expect? :D

Something that's always pleased me in ponyfic is when an author takes the trouble to get background details right, or simply to add a fun little Easter egg. Sometimes these are little bonuses that the reader probably wouldn't even notice if they weren't familiar with the subject, but which give those readers an extra smile or two. For example, a story I read a while back¹ had a glancing reference to the Theresa May/field of wheat story, which I doubt anyone much in the US has ever heard of. It amused me so much that I had to stop reading for a moment because I was laughing so hard.
¹ The Cloptimist's very good Red/Yellow, PR 249.

It's also very satisfying as an author when you've done this and someone compliments you on it. It happened to me recently, in the "background research" sense rather than the "Easter egg" one with The Unbearable Lightness of Bucking, for which I did a reasonably significant amount of preparatory reading on existentialist philosophy. (If you haven't read the fic, trust me, it is relevant.) Although it's perfectly possible to enjoy the story without that knowledge, I was delighted when someone who clearly did know the subject complimented me on my use of it. It was a lovely feeling.

Ponyfic Roundup 375

Read it Later story count: 96 (-3) 

The thoughts of a fanfic reviewer (hey, there's a series title! :P ) tend to include how many stories they can reasonably review each week. As I mentioned recently, I've decided that I can manage four most of the time, so from here on in that is the number I'll be trying to discuss each (normal) week. Happily, I haven't failed this on the first try! Four fics this time, which are:

Insecurities by Shachza
It Takes a Village by Baal Bunny
I AM Flawless by Silver Shadows
Not Alone in the Crowd by Doccular42

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

My Little Repeats 100: "Slice of Life"

The moment FiM quite literally jumped the shark...

S5E09: "Slice of Life"

13 Jun 2015

My original rating: ★★★★★
IMDb score: 9.1

The one with squeaky toy Bulk Biceps

Thoughts: There was a three-week gap between the last episode and this, time for lots of speculation and build-up. In the event, "Slice of Life" was even more remarkable than anyone expected. In the event and as an event. I can't help thinking it does lose a little bit from being seen as a standalone now, years later – for a start, "Derpy speaks again!" will never have quite the impact it did in 2015.¹ This is the ep that would confuse you most if you sat down to watch having never seen FiM, but it was explicitly a "for the fans" episode. Lots of great stuff in here, and the LyraBon stuff seems more knowing given what happened to them in canon by S9! (Though I wonder how well the apparent "Ponies With Hats" reference is known now.) Steven Magnet being named on-screen was quite something, too,² though it's the Vinyl/Octavia sequence that still stands out. As for the actual plot of the episode, involving the Mane Six fighting the Bugbear in the background while the other characters share the limelight for once, with Cranky's marriage to Matilda being the running link? It does its job efficiently enough, as a contrast to all the craziness going on elsewhere. I'm afraid, though it's heretical, I'm not going to give this episode five stars any more. (I only just did so when it was new.) I still find it enormous fun, but I'm not sure it can ever quite be what it was in 2015. Four stars, though, I feel more than happy about. "Slice of Life" hasn't turned into a "so what?" ep since its release, thankfully; it's still very entertaining indeed.
¹Although she isn't named in-episode, Hasbro nevertheless made Larson change her name to "Muffins" on the script
²Though in fact the name was seen on official merch as early as 2013.

Choice quote: Cranky: "I told you we should have eloped."

New rating: ★★★★

Next up is "Princess Spike", which was definitely seen as a major downgrade on this at the time. Shall we see whether things have improved any? Let's do that.

Griffish Isles tickets released

The Griffish Isles website is, in keeping with one of the convention's less welcome traditions, out of date. However, since they've shared a link directly to the ticket-buying portal on the official GI Twitter, I can now say with confidence that you can buy Griffish Isles tickets here. As a reminder, the con will be held at the Pyramid Hotel in central Manchester on the weekend of 7th & 8th May.

Ticket prices

Adult Weekend: £53.32 (£49.00 + £4.42 fee)
Adult Saturday: £35.08 (£32.00 + £3.08 fee)
Adult Sunday: £24.20 (£22.00 + £2.20 fee)

Foal (12 and under) free with a paying adult
Carer free with relevant documentation (see above link)

VIP Weekend: £107.32 (£99.00 + £8.32 fee)

Golden Ticket: £539.59 (£500.00 + £39.59 fee)

Thoughts

In terms of the ticket most people will be interested in, the Adult Weekend, I'd been expecting a price around the £50 mark so this isn't a surprise. It's a bit more expensive than UK PonyCon, but not enormously so. I really wish they quoted all-in prices without the booking fee, but that's Eventbrite for you, I suppose. I went to GI in 2019 and had a good time, so I expect it will be a decent experience for those who do attend.

The VIP tier gives you "first two rows seating, and T Shirt, plus conbook mention in helping set up the convention" (plus possible extra unspecified perks such as autographs), while the staggeringly expensive Golden Ticket's blurb says: "The ticket to sponsor us, front row dedicated seat in theatre, personal named thanks from con chair. First access to the event, plus all VIP perks". 

And as for me...

Last year, on top of all the uncertainties brought by the wider situation (and who knows where we'll be with those by May?) GI rather suffered by being only a month apart from UK PonyCon. This year there's a five-month gap, which will make it more practical for people with normal budgets to do both cons. I am tempted by at least a one-day trip, though annoyingly Manchester is just too far away to do that without some annoying compromises. It will be quite some while yet before I'm sure either way, though.

My Little Repeats 99: "The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone"

"When I said I wanted a scone, I meant right now!"

S5E08: "The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone"

23 May 2015

My original rating: ★★★
IMDb score: 8.3

The one with griffon scones

Thoughts: Gilda's redemption episode isn't AKR's greatest, but it's certainly serviceable. I enjoyed the world-building in this, as well as the nicely drawn storybook art showing the history of Griffonstone. Maybe Arimaspi (who tangled with griffons in real-world mythology!) was a little bit of a waste, in that we never saw him again, but he at least helped to set things up. A lot of the things I liked here were the smaller details, such as Pinkie's bizarre infatuation with King Grover's statue, Rainbow Dash's Twilight impression (shades of "Newbie Dash" next season) or indeed Pinkie's (again) comments on hugs. The team-up of the two worked quite well. The griffon abandoning Rainbow, quite possibly to die, due to lack of bits was very dark indeed for this show when you think about it. Back in 2015 I speculated that maybe the Abysmal Abyss had a future significance (no) or that the Cutie Map being able to summon only certain ponies was directly related to Starlight's dastardly deeds (also no). Twilight's little cameo at the start was nice, though I did feel for her not being able to accompany Dash and Pinkie! Grandpa Gruff was irritating, and at the time I had no inkling he'd return to the show much later with a completely different griffon. Oh, and William Anderson gave us some fine background music. All in all, a relatively standard but solidly made adventure story. Three stars last time, three stars this time – albeit a high one. Not much more to say about it.

Choice quote: Gilda: "Here we go. Typical pony hero complex."

New rating: ★★★

Next up is "Slice of Life". Enough said!

Ponyfic Roundup 374: Spotlight on Refrain

Read it Later story count: 99 (+2)

Although I'm unable to review Nine Days Down (see here for why), I've chosen to stick with the Spotlight format today for another story. This fic is a bit shorter than most I give this treatment to, but on the other hoof it's a bit longer than most I discuss in my regular PRs. This story was runner-up in a Write-Off back when they were on /fic/, so we're going back quite some way in fandom history.

Refrain by NTSTS
Octavia, OCs and Other
Sad/Slice of Life; 25k words; Jul 2013; Teen

My name is Octavia. I play the piano. I'm not sure that's the best introduction, but it's the one I've used for most of my life, so maybe it will do for now.

This is Octavia's story, told in first person, from her early fillyhood to early adulthood. It turns out that her childhood was not especially happy, possessed as she was of a controlling mother who was ever more obsessed that her daughter become a great pianist. Octavia herself doesn't really want to play the piano, but her mother knows what's good for her. In the background lurks the question of where her father might have gone. It's a solid enough tale, with Octavia's voice usually keeping in check the excessive purple-proseyness that can infect writers trying to write a posh character. The focus is quite tight, which is good in some ways but also makes things a little bit relentless. It's a pretty decent character study, especially by 2013 standards, but it's lacking a bit in life at times. ★★★

You can find a few more of my thoughts, together with major spoilers, beyond the page break.

UK PonyCon 2022 will return to Nottingham

In what I called elsewhere earlier the least surprising announcement in UK PonyCon history, the convention has announced that it will be returning to Nottingham for the fourth successive time (2018-19-21-22) on 8th/9th October. The venue itself will also remain the same, the Nottingham Trent University building just north of the city centre.

I confess to mixed feelings here. While there's no doubt that the venue works, that the con's relationship with venue staff is very good, that the city is fairly central in the UK, that it has excellent transport links... I can't say I have all that much enthusiasm for Nottingham, and however many extra events are put on as the blog post (linked above) hints, that won't change. My problems relate more to the fact that I just don't much like the city itself. It is, for example, the only place I've ever had an entirely sleepless night due to constant noise outside my hotel until four in the morning.

There's another aspect, too. For its entire existence from 2004 until moving to Nottingham in 2018, UKPC moved around the country. It never stayed more than two years in one city, and usually not even that. It made the con a great opportunity to explore somewhere new, it stopped it feeling samey, and perhaps most importantly it meant that people who lived too far away one year could hope that it might be closer in the future. Maybe I'm being unreasonable there, since people in places like the US will even travel thousands of miles sometimes to get to cons.

I actually feel quite uncomfortable posting all this, since after all it's a great privilege to have a Pony convention within reach at all – millions of people don't – and an even greater privilege that it's a con that is consistently popular, enjoyable and very well run. Barring my issues with the city it's in, I loved it last year and indeed have greatly enjoyed all four Nottingham PonyCons. I also don't want to downplay the importance of not overworking the staff, and it undeniably is a lot more work to establish a new host. And if I'm truly honest with myself, if I were the one making the decision then I'd probably have stuck with Nottingham too. I'm just a little sad that something unique and (to me at least) special and highly appealing has gone, maybe forever.

Right now it is far, far too distant for me to say whether I'll be able to go to UK PonyCon 2022. Even aside from the wider situation, and after the last two years who knows what that will be by October, I simply don't know yet what my personal circumstances might be by the autumn. There's Griffish Isles in May first, and it's just possible I may choose to go to that instead simply for the change of scene. But without a doubt it is UK PonyCon that has the greatest hold on my affections.

Regardless of any of my less enthusiastic comments here about the location, I absolutely wish UKPC 2022 to be the enormous success that UKPC 2021 was. It's a wonderful convention run by wonderful people about a wonderful franchise. It supports a wonderful charity, too. That's worth a lot.

Spotlight review of Nine Days Down is cancelled

Apologies to those of you looking forward to this, but the reason is simple: JoeShogun has removed the story. Judging by the most recent entries on this comments page, it happened in December, after I'd decided to read and review it here. I can't see any explanation from the author. However, I have a rule here that I will not feature stories that are not publicly available at the time of review. Sad as it is, I need to honour that rule.

So what I will do is this: I will find a mid-length fic on my RiL list, one that I can read in a few days, and I will Spotlight that story on Wednesday. So you'll still be getting a focus on a specific ponyfic. However, it will not be the one I was expecting. All I can say about Nine Days Down, unless of course it returns one day, is that it has been a good read despite a few flaws. It won RCL induction, so it's a big loss. But what can you do?

PS: I note in passing that President Dead has also deleted their stories. I had one on my RiL list (I, Fluttershy (Or Autumn Without End)), but again that can't be reviewed now. Don't worry, I'll still find something.