Ponyfic Roundup 225: Many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse

Shrink Laureate is running a fun-looking writing contest: the Season 9 Bingo Writing Contest. Don't worry, you don't need to write about S9! The way it works is that when the contest opens in a few days (for some reason the exact date hasn't been specified), you'll get dealt five cards from the S9 bingo set, and you then have to write a fic of 1k-20k words featuring at least two of those things. The more you include the better.

There's a sample set on the post I linked to above, to give you the idea. Stories have to be submitted before S9 begins on Discovery Family in the US (I know that date isn't yet known), and you'll then get a week to tidy them up before judging begins. I've put my name down, since it's about time I wrote a story that wasn't just about custard. There are plenty of places left, so feel free to join in!

Read it Later story count: 294 (+2)

Just to remind folks, my rating system is skewed to allow me to distinguish between good, excellent and fantastic stories. A two-star rating is average, not bad. Anyway, I have four fics under the microscope today. I'm not entirely certain where I got a microscope from, but oh well. I've been reading:

Blue Steel Railway by B_25
Peachy Pie and Misty Moon Keep the Realm Safe Until Dinnertime by Pascoite
Quills and Sofas by Just Horsing Around
Better by Unbridled

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

Flying east for fun and profit

Austraeoh has received an Equestria Daily feature. For his own reasons, Imploding Colon (yeah, I know he's shortskirtsandexplosions, but I like to stick to the names people use) apparently didn't submit it until six years after it had been finished. For what it's worth, my own opinion on the story was distinctly mixed. I reviewed it in Ponyfic Roundup 31 back in 2014 and scored it 6.5/10 – that's a moderate three-star rating in my current system. I haven't re-read it, so I can't say whether my opinion would be different if I reviewed the fic now. I'm sure the obsession with "ruby eyes" (used 57 times!) would still drive me up the wall, though.

Also in ponyfic news, EqD has a short interview with Pen Stroke, author of "Past Sins" (which I reviewed in PR 48) and various other stories. At a time when the site is adding more and more visual art coverage (eg the anthro and weekly open art posts) writing has been feeling increasingly marginalised. Perhaps inevitable at a time when falling viewership means Seth and co have to go for maximum eyeballs, but beyond the usual round of stories being featured, we don't get thrown many bones these days. Fimfiction is generally a better place for discussion anyway. It's nice to see some extra fanfic coverage on EqD for a change. :)

Sounds of 2011, nos. 90 and 89

Update: I have changed my mind and am now skipping these two songs. They don't meet my new criteria of being one or more of the following:

1) Available from the artist's own account(s)
2) Archived, but with evidence the artist is okay with this
3) So famous that they're everywhere anyway

Next time: a parody, plus something familiar-but-not.

The three ages of Pony

Note: A revised and updated version of this piece appeared in Equestria Daily's "Soapbox" feature on 21 January 2020.

Tagging this as an "essay" is really pushing it, but it's more than just "musing"... I've thought for quite a while that you can divide Friendship is Magic into three broad eras. The divisions aren't hard and fast, and it wouldn't be all that difficult to argue for a two-era classification instead. For what it's worth, though, here's how I see it:

Original Pony
This consists of the first three seasons – which in another reality might easily have ended up being all we got of FiM. I remember that we were all on tenterhooks until we actually saw the first ads for S4. In the Original Pony era, the show is strongly Mane Six-focused, with only occasional diversions to the CMC etc. The wider story is centred on Ponyville and the episodes are generally domestic and relatively low-stakes, apart from season premieres and finales. The roster of writers remains pretty stable, with only a few comings and goings.

Although Lauren Faust has said that the story she had originally planned could not have survived beyond "A Canterlot Wedding" – not least the introduction of a third alicorn princess – most S3 episodes could actually have been slotted into late S1 without too much difficulty. Other than the finale, the major exception is "Keep Calm and Flutter On" and it's arguable that Discord's reformation, rather than Twilight's ascension, is actually the beginning of the end for Original Pony.

Transition Pony
This covers seasons 4 and 5, a relatively short period but one in which we see some very large changes. The CMC get their cutie marks and Diamond Tiara is reformed. Starlight Glimmer makes her debut, even if she doesn't become a regular until S6. Twilight loses her home in the comfortable, homely library and has to start again in the new hard-edged castle, and in a two-era version of this post, that would be the dividing line. Many of the original writers depart: Amy Keating Rogers, Cindy Morrow, Merriwether Williams and (one S7 oddity apart) M. A. Larson, whose sublime "Amending Fences" provides the high water mark of FiM as we'd known it.

Meanwhile, a number of new writers come on board, including the likes of Natasha Levinger, Corey Powell, Nick Confalone – and most notably, Josh Haber. His debut episode, "Castle Mane-ia", is in retrospect very significant, and not only because it introduced the Journal of Friendship. It is also the first episode that could not have been made in the Original Pony era, being something more akin to Scooby-Doo with ponies. Haber would go on to be a major influence on the show's direction as both writer and showrunner.

New Pony
From here onwards, we're in the modern era. Apart from Dave Polsky who hangs on into S6, all the original writers are gone, and there's a fair case for saying that the show plays a little more fast and loose with lore and continuity from this point. You rarely now get a reminder that the ponies are directly responsible for much of Equestrian Nature, not like you did in the "Winter Wrap Up" days. FiM has become something just a little closer to a "wacky cartoon antics" show, albeit with the significant difference of characters with depth who are shown to grow on-screen.

Technically, the show is better than ever, with the sumptuous "A Hearth's Warming Tail" being a delight for both eyes and ears. On the downside (for some) there's less attention paid to keeping the universe consistent: the composition of the teaching staff at the School of Friendship is clearly a logical nonsense. And the Mane Six themselves become less central, with the likes of Starlight, Trixie, the reformed changelings and latterly the Student Six taking some of the limelight.

So, where are we?
It's understandable that this rather changed show is not to every fan's taste, and it probably is true to say that the quality of the writing has suffered a bit with no-one left in that department who was around for the Original Pony days when much of the world's lore was established. However, that doesn't make today's FiM a bad cartoon, just a different one. My guess is that S9 will be part of the New Pony era rather than taking off in a totally different direction, and you know what? I'm okay with that.

Sounds of 2011, nos. 92 and 91: Applejack fights, MandoPony celebrates

I shall be doing a number of multiple-track posts during this series, since otherwise it's going to take years to complete. A double bill for you today...

92: RainbowCrash88 – MLP Fighting is Magic – Applejack Stage Theme

Remember Fighting is Magic? If you've been in the fandom a few years, then of course you do. You may even have played it. One of the most infamous C&Ds in the fandom's history came when Hasbro ordered the end of the Pony-themed fighting game at a point when it was already in playable alpha. Lauren Faust herself took an interest and offered to design some lawyer-compliant original characters. The eventual result was Them's Fightin' Herds, released on Steam Early Access in February. (Mind you, it's still Early Access...)

Although the original game didn't get finished, we did get to hear a lot of its music. One such track was this AJ-themed instrumental by erstwhile chiptune specialist RainbowCrash88, now known simply as RC88. It's unsurprisingly a country-style piece, full of activity and attitude and twangy banjo licks, and it works just as well as background music to type to as it does in the game. Should you wish to hear it in high quality, you can purchase the track for $1 from RC88's Bandcamp. Oh, and I mentioned Them's Fightin' Herds? He provided music for that, too!

91: MandoPony – The Equestria Daily Song

The last track remains pretty well played to this day. This one? Unless you were around Equestria Daily way back in December 2011, maybe not so much. MandoPony wrote this to celebrate EqD reaching 80 million hits. I'm not sure how many it has now (the banner seems to have been quietly removed) but it's hundreds and hundreds of millions. For some years, EqD was the place to hang out in a way it isn't quite so much today – though, in line with my policy of being as odd as possible, I spend far more time there now than I did when I was a newbie in 2012.

The song was a victim of MandoPony's slimming-down of his Pony back catalogue on YouTube a while back, and the above video is the only one I know of now. Bizarrely, you can buy a karaoke version for 50 cents from MandoPony's Bandcamp, but as far as I can tell he doesn't offer the original at all. Maybe he doesn't like the way he sings, but I think it's fine for a song like this: a catchy, light-hearted, poppy celebration of the then-still-novel idea of a My Little Pony fan blog getting tens of millions of hits. It's worth a listen, especially if you remember the fandom of 2011 yourself.

Next time on Sounds of 2011: another double feature, with two more songs that are now pretty darn obscure but which were obviously fairly well known seven years back.

Text Review Roundup: "Best Gift Ever"

Kicking off the last TRR for a while – well, unless S9 unexpectedly starts next month or something – and you'll note a very different slate of reviewers from usual. Many of the regulars don't have anything that I could find (not even Derpy News!) yet one or two non-regulars have written pieces. Dark Qiviut is back, and we have a brand new reviewer in Mike Cartoon Pony. Huzzah!

So, out of nine reviewers this time, two outright disliked the special, two thought it was okay and five either really liked or even loved it. I'd say that was a pretty good return. As with "A Hearth's Warming Tail", predictability didn't get in the way of enjoyment for those reviewers who liked most of the other stuff. My 4/5 rating puts me in with the pack this time round.

Dark Qiviut – negative (graded D+; "There were a lot of sweet moments here, including the ending, but overall, this was a colossal disappointment.")

DrakeyC – fairly positive ("Was fine. Cute, had some fun moments, decent song, good cameos. It was fine. But, shouldn't it have aired like, a month and a half later?")

geeky things – mildly positive (rated 6/10; "the plot is that of your typical christmas special and it goes exactly how you think it would go but [...] has the right amount of humor either way the story is well told")

JDPrime22 – very positive (rated 10/10; "Loved the music, the writing, the comedy, pretty much everything about this special.")

Louder Yay – positive (rated 4/5; "The adjective that most comes to mind is "warm-hearted", and that will do me very nicely.")

Mike Cartoon Pony – very positive ("predictable [...] But, this is easily one of the best new Pony things I've seen since the Movie got me on board a year ago")

MLEEP Reviews – positive (rated 8.5/10; "predictable story [but] everything else [...] truly helped capture the feeling of the magic of the holiday season")

The Railfan Brony – negative (rated Bad; "a mish-mash of older episodes thrown into the pudding [that] comes out as stale, years-old gingerbread")

ShutterflyEQD – positive ("One of the best things about this special is that everypony got a lot of screen time! [Though] why couldn't they have added Starlight into the fun?")

Ponyfic Roundup 224: Light up, light up, as if you have a choice

Read it Later story count: 292 (-5)

A day late this week, but here's PR once again. As has been the case most weeks in recent months, I'm short of the five fics I'd really like to be reviewing. I don't know why I keep apologising for this, since it doesn't seem to be changing anything. Oh well, I guess some reviews is better than no reviews. One of the fics is longer than sometimes, too. Here's the little selection I have for you today:

So That's What a Wingboner Is... by Fire Gazer the Alchemist
Sundowner Season by Cherax
Basement Ducks by ocalhoun

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