Bits and pieces

First: if there's anyone left who hasn't seen Oilyvalves' spectacular Lego Rainbow Dash – made from 3,700 bricks! – then gallop right over to this EqD post from a couple of weeks ago. I declare an interest here in that a) he's a friend, and b) I've seen Lego Dash in person (at a meet). And yes, she really does look tremendous. :D

Second: the July edition of Flashfic 150 is currently open for submissions. The closing date is the 21st of this month, so you have plenty of time. This month's prompt is Crossing Over, chosen by last month's winner, Chris.

Third: has anyone in the UK seen the Series 4 Enterplay Fun Pack cards (not the CCG packs) in actual, bricks-and-mortar shops? I was in a Forbidden Planet recently and they still had the ancient Series 3 on sale, but no S4 cards.

Fourth: I haven't forgotten about the Pony Music Library, but my dying PC is really not helping matters there. However, I will try to get a new post in that series up sometime in the next week or so.

Fifth: a quick survey of friends at the last Worcester meet revealed that most but not all had seen the movie trailer. As such, I've decided to continue to spoiler-cut posts that give away anything about that.

There's probably something I've forgotten, but you should be used to that by now!

Logan and NSFW Pony stuff

If you happen to follow me on Twitter, you'll have seen a potted version of this post last night. But I want to make something very clear. There are certain things in this fandom that I don't want anything to do with. One of them is most definitely "Look how drunk I am, hur hur hur". If that's your bag, well that's your business, as long as you do it well away from me. But if you want me anywhere near your social event, don't make it dependent on the putting-away of stupid quantities of alcohol. (Or any drug stronger than caffeine.) The whole concept bores the hell out of me.

Secondly, I have very limited tolerance for NSFW. Yes, I read the occasional Mature-rated ponyfic – but that's about it. I won't even go to 18+ fandom events, as a matter of principle. For me, the social aspect of this fandom is absolutely bound up with its all-ages, family-friendly nature, and I'm not prepared to compromise on that. So I'm going to have very little patience with you if you start trying to tell me that All Lewd Butts Chat, All The Time or whatever is something I'd love. No. I wouldn't. I really, really wouldn't.

This fandom matters to me. I don't care how silly that sounds. I don't care how silly it is. It matters for a whole host of reasons, some minor and some very important to me indeed. I don't have a problem if your personal fandom is very different from mine. That's great. Go for your life, as the Aussies would say. But don't you bloody dare try to force my fandom to be like that too. I'm not going to appreciate it, and I'm going to tell you that in language a great deal blunter than I use on here.

For the avoidance of doubt, nothing I've said here is as a result of anything that's happened on this blog, and I very much doubt anyone reading this will be among the people it's really aimed at. I just needed to get it out. End of rant.

"Anthropology" – new piano cover by Matías Peñaloza

( Text link )

AwkwardMarina's Lyra song, "Anthropology", has been one of my favourite fandom tracks since I heard it for the very first time at BUCK 2013. Now, the always excellent Matías Peñaloza has published a really nice piano cover of the song. It's pretty faithful to the original, but with just enough variety to give it a character of its own. I like it a good deal.

Episode review: S7E13: "The Perfect Pear"

Back in March, I reviewed EbonQuill's Slouching Towards Canterlot for Ponyfic Roundup 150. I enjoyed it a good deal and awarded it four stars. Unfortunately, Pascoite points out in a comment on that PR that it isn't as original as I'd imagined. Disappointing. Hopefully less disappointing is my getting up to date with episode reviews!

Finding a non-spoilery picture for this episode was not easy

It's taken a ridiculous amount of time, but here at last is my review of the halfway point of Season 7. It's another fairly short one, because otherwise you'll still be waiting when S8 begins. This was written by Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco, and the Lady Writers are usually good value with their episodes. This was a much-anticipated ep, and for anyone who hasn't yet seen it: what's beyond the break will be really, really spoilery. If that's not a problem to you, follow me!

Ponyfic Roundup 164: Dying PC Edition :P

Read it Later story count: 419 (-2)

If this post stops suddenly, it's because my PC died before I could finish editing. :P Anyway, assuming I make it all the way through, there'll be four stories under review this week, including a couple of real old-timers. The fics are are:

Easy As Pie by xjuggernaughtx
Sauna Talk by FlutterLights
Just an Assistant by RadicalDishonesty
Tonight I Shall Be Laughter by Cloud Wander

★: 1 | ★★: 2 | ★★★: 1 | ★★★★: 0 | ★★★★★: 0

Reduced activity for a little while

Just a heads-up: my PC is on its way to dying, and it's doing so at a particularly irritating time financially. As such, it may be a little while before I have a reliable computer at home again. It's sort of working still, but that's as far as it goes. I can write up scheduled posts on public PCs when I have the time – but that's not very often.

For now, I'll be prioritising Ponyfic Roundup and any UK PonyCon news I notice, as well as doing my best to keep up with Flashfic 150 over on Fimfiction. (July prompt, chosen by Chris: "Crossing Over".) Anything else will have to be fitted in where I can manage it. I'm just relieved I'm a writer rather than a video or game maker, since the necessary PC specs are a fair bit lower – and so, therefore, is the price of a useable second-hand machine!

Ponyfic Roundup 164 will appear tomorrow, unless the PC totally Norwegian Blues before then. Regrettably it'll be another brief edition, since I spent yesterday evening messing around inside the PC case rather than reading, but it will contain at least three reviews. So yay and woo-hoo and suchlike.

Edit: Oh, and the E13 review will also, at last, appear in the next few days. I hope.

Reviewer Reviews Reviewed

Chris has an occasional series called "Reviewer Reviews" in which he looks at how some of the more prolific ponyfic reviewers go about their business. A couple of weeks ago, it was my turn.

I was a little nervous about this, especially given that the period chosen (Ponyfic Roundups 157 to 160) was not one I think of as my best, but it worked out okay. Chris rightly says that my reviews give a lot of weight to my personal enjoyment or otherwise of the fics I look at – and that's how PR is intended to work. It's always been a slightly expanded "Here are some fics I read and what I thought of them" rather than anything more formal, and I don't expect that to change much.

One of the parts of Chris's piece that stood out was a paragraph in which he compared my reviewing style to Present Perfect's:

Both of them are agreeable and on the laconic side, and both briefly focus on a few key elements rather than trying to discuss every element of every story.  But whereas PP uses a lot of humor and self-depreciation to make his point while still coming off as friendly, Logan's writing has more of a good-natured, self-aware earnestness to it.

I'm not entirely sure what "self-aware earnestness" is, but I'll take "good-natured" any day. Personally, I think I do sprinkle in a reasonable amount of humour, but possibly it's too dry and British for most people to notice. Or just not very funny. Still, I don't intend to make any major changes to my style, as I feel pretty comfortable with it as it stands.

Chris points up the fact that five-star ratings are much rarer than they used to be, to the extent that he says "they don't see much (any) use anymore". It's true that fives are rare now, and I intend to keep it that way. My scale is skewed in that a solid, decent but not particularly memorable fic will generally get a two, not a three. That means that a five-star story has to be not merely excellent but exceptional. As it happens, CiG's The Destruction of the Self did get a five last time out (PR 163), so I haven't abandoned the top rating entirely!

Among the most interesting aspects of this series is that Chris gives an example of what he feels is a strong review, and conversely one he thought was weaker. He chose my review of My Little Introvert: Being Home is Magic(al) (PR 158) for the former – that surprised me a bit, as I feel it was a slightly rushed review. What They Don't Know (PR 160) was the one he felt had weaknesses; in this case, I agree, but as the review itself makes clear it was one I found difficult to write about without major spoilers. Here's how Chris summed up what he saw:

Logan's reviews are an excellent source if you're looking for a large quantity, a pretty decent variety, and brevity that doesn't sacrifice big-picture reviewer opinion.  You're not going to get a lot of detail here, nor much in the way of analysis, but he's worth following if you're more interested in a bunch of quick hits than a few deep dives.

I think that's a fair assessment, and I'm pleased to see variety mentioned; I've always made a considerable effort not only to review the stuff everyone else has been reading. Chris didn't look at any of my occasional Spotlight reviews, but that was probably sensible as they are only occasional – and in any case, they're not what I do best. Chris himself does long-form reviews notably well, if you ask me.

Oh, and since this came up in passing: "Loganberry" is my username because it's what I've used in various fandoms for a decade and a half. However, because it shortens to something that sounds like an ordinary name, people in the MLP fandom tend to call me "Logan" in real life. I like it, and I've increasingly adopted it online – as on this blog. However, I don't intend to change my Fimfiction username, as I'm comfortable with that as well.