Goin' on holiday for two weeks, not gonna be able to write very much unfortunately. Visitin' Florida, fuck yeah! Still, I managed to get two new chapters of TLB posted this week, and six chapters on another story. Also, Skype:

[02:43:00] Siewwa: Heh. Your money is weiiiiiiird...

[02:43:06] Siewwa: All same-shaped, and green...

[02:43:18] twow443: Okay, that's really funny.

[02:43:44] Siewwa: And it's not the Queen's face that smiles at me when I open my wallet D:

[02:44:28] twow443: twow443 is laughing harder then he should.

[02:44:48] Siewwa: IT'S A SERIOUS BRITISH PROBLEM

[02:44:54] Siewwa: Siewwa sobs

[02:45:21] twow443: twow443 laughs harder.

Ok, put simply, I've realised exactly how many good stories I've read in this fandom. Not enough! To be honest, I wanna read some of the more widely-known stories that everyone refers back to at some point or another. End of Ponies, Fallout: Equestria (and derivatives thereof), not Past Sins, uh... yeah, that's the extent of my literary knowledge within the fandom.

Please, tell me stories to read! I must read more! I must read about zombie ponies, and ponies that bake confectionary! I must read about ponies that fly spaceships, or ponies that pelt each other with snowballs in the winter! I must read! And now, obligatory ponies reading:

Well, I just wanna get started by apologising for my complete absense from FiMFic for the past few weeks. It was unavoidable, really; lots of work, moving house, some sickness... but still, I'm ready to get writing again. *glances at favourites list* Oh, and reading... yup. Got a few chapters already written for The Lost Battalion, a few almost finished for Brushy, an almost-finished SoL story that I hope to have up by the end of next week, before I go on holiday.

Uhh... what else. Oh, I also intend to revamp my user page (how interesting!) and do a little bit of editing work on the side. I've finished the bulk of my studies, and now it's just focusing on revision, which I can do at the same time as writing about ponies! Speaking of which, I hear my pack of unwritten revision flashcards calling...

So, a quick rundown on stories:

A-Level exams. So, story-writing is nigh-on impossibru. Well, I could, but I wouldn't have enough time to write anything decent. Therefore, I'm going to leave writing until I'm in a better position to do so.

Secondly, I have a 20-slot minecraft server, for all you who wish to use it. I'll be making it open to the public once everything's hunky-dory, but it's certainly playable now. If you fancy giving the server a go, just use the IP! It's runnin' a buncha plugins, from McMMO to Factions to BOSEcon and other stuff.

Manecraft: 193.35.58.44:25582

There be details. Also, obligatory happy horses.

Hmm, time to actually do something useful with my blog. Well, I'm going to give some examples of both 'buttoned' and hidden bbcode commands, and how they can be used to make a kick-ass chapter header for a story. I think typography makes stories look that little bit more professional, which can mean the difference between an upvote and a downvote. Perhaps that's me being full of myself. Oh well, if I'm going to make myself look like a self-righteous jackass, I'd better do it with pretty colours.

Now, there are many different ways of doing this. The most important thing is a good artistic eye. The coding is simple, but getting it just right? Slightly harder. I tend to find it hard to vary my different titles, so it can sometimes take two or three attempts before I'm properly happy with it. I'm always finding new commands though, so it can be fun to create unique 'art' to go at the top of each chapter. I feel most successful when the colours, style and layout give off a sense of what the story is about. So, onto those codes you know and love. I'll put the code itself into parenthesis rather than brackets, seeing as the bbcode itself is bracketed.

(b)Bold(/b)                             Bold

(i)Italic(/i)                               Italic

(u)Underscored(/u)               Underscored

(s)Struck(/s)                         Struck

(size=20)Size(/size)             Size

(center)Center(/center)        Moves text to centre of page.

(color=red)Basic(/color)       Basic

So, you probably know all of these in some form or another. Perhaps you use them in comments, or in stories. Well, you can combine different codes *gasp* to achieve a pretty cool work of art.

(center)(b)(size=36)(color=purple)The (/color)(color=pink)Crystal (/color)(color=purple) City(/size)(/color)(/b)(/center)

Pretty cool, huh? That's the simple code that can be used to good effect, with very little effort. All that took was some colour, centred text and a bold typeface to finish it off. So, what else can you do with this wonderful, soon-to-be-changed-by-Knighty bbcode? Well, there are still a few other codes that I would like to show you. These are less well-known, but can make an average title into a pretty darn spectacular one.

(smcaps)Smcaps(/smcaps)                     Smcaps

(spoiler)Spoiler(/spoiler)                            Sierraisbestpony!

(color=#FF5721)Hex colour(/color)          Hex colour

Smcaps is shorthand for 'Small Capitals', which is pretty obvious. It might not look like much in th example above, but I'll show you how it can be used to good effect in a moment. Spoiler... Well, I felt like putting the spoiler code in for some reason. Finally, hex colours are practically invaluable when making this kind of art. You can have almost every colour imaginable to use, which is a lot. I like to use this website right here for picking colours, as they offer nigh-on 1,100 different colours. If you're feelin' adventurous, you can also make your own colour *gasp* So, let's see what all these can do together!

(center)(size=64)(color=#7D26CD)The(/color) (color=#BF5FFF)(smcaps)Crystal(/smcaps)(/color) (color=#7D26CD)City(/color)(/size)(/center)

Pretty cool, huh? Like I said, it's just a blend of all these different codes. The hard part is making them look nice. So, why not fiddle around with it a bit? Maybe you'll find something you like, and maybe it'll earn you some praise on a story. In any case, I strongly hope this was helpful to at least one person. Oh, and if you know any code I don't, I will happily pay you in souls for the knowledge. I love finding new code that works on the site. And now to sit back and watch the notification flood in.

Oh, and my internet is going to be patchy over the next few days. Put simply, everything's been cut off. Wifi, TV, home phones, everything. Hell, half the time we don't even have hot water or electricity.

> First World Problems

Anyway, this'll be the last time I'll be on this workstation until I move, more than likely. I can't see my mum renewing the wifi if we're moving in a week or two. Oh yeah, I'm moving as well. Where to? No idea. But I should be able to access fimfic from my mobile or college network. Unfortunately, no Skype or anything I can't access on a browser. This pisses me off because I took out a rental on a Minecraft server a few nights previous, but I'll get around it. So yeah, I'll be releasing the next chapter of TLB when I get my precious internets back.

Alrighty, where to begin? I'll be brief and straight to the point, I guess. I've got a few projects going at the moment, mostly personal. I'm writing Brushy and TLB in equal amounts, and enjoying both. I'm also helping twow443 with his story, Repairing Harmony. I'm enjoying it, he's enjoying it, enjoyment all around! As you'll see in a minute, I'm also diverting a fair share of my attention towards the Luna's Vanguard group. The goal is to create a nice, close, friendly community. If you're interested, feel free to PM me. Alrighty, onto the progress reports.

Brushy: About 1k words left to go for the next chapter.

The Lost Brigade: In progress, maybe 3.5k words in. Story about the fall of the Crystal Empire, and the ponies that were outside when the shield was permanently raised and Sombra took control.

                       By sierra_seven_

"As many of you are already aware, I am Captain Sapphire Shard, 107th 'Crystal Rain' Reconnaissance Brigade. From here on in, I will be assuming complete command of all forces on this expedition, as laid down in the mission's standing orders. "Lieutenant..." Sapphire desperately tried to remember his name. It was all in her briefing documents, but she just couldn't remember it. 'Something to do with rubies!' she thought, taking a small breath of relief. "Lieutenant Culet here will be reporting directly to me, and executing orders as I assign them. Are there any questions?"

Luna's Vanguard: A little project I've been working on, basically a group to try and recreate the nicer aspects of the TWE community. It's a pretty relaxed reading group, where stories get put up for everyone to talk about. I'm still deciding the direction of this group, so it may change from a dedicated reading group to something else. Not likely to happen though. Not likely at all. Here it is, if you're interested.

Possibly a one-shot SoL about Celestia as well. I want to write about what she experiences day-to-day as the Princess of Equestrian, and how she deals with the responsibility.

Well, it'd appear the long-awaited site updates have done as much bad to the site as good. Call me miserable, old-fashioned or cynical, but the new front page is surprisingly reminiscent of ff.net's. Story cover images are now smaller than America's 'healthy eating initiative' budget, the front page is a massive block of grey and the featured box is now massively unfair to new writers. With the removal of the 'Popular Stories' sidebar, you're fucked unless you get featured within the first hour.

Secondly, a fair amount of people have lost chunks of their stories. That's from anywhere between 1,000 to 6,000, going off what I've seen. I'm fairly sure he could have waited a while longer, given people warning before conducting the site changes. Y'know, possibly a goddamn week and maybe a little warning that their chapters could potentially be deleted during his site changes. First I noticed of these changes was when I logged in to check a close friend's story. Suddenly: boom. Site changes. And another childish Knighty blog. Hang on, let me just grab a quote.

KNIGHTY WHAT DID YOU DO TO THE SITE?!? UR JUST AS BAD AS YOUTUBE

Ok, ok, chill. You've probably noticed the site is looking a bit different.

Really? Oh, I thought my monitor had become sentient and was trying to fix FiMFic itself. Damn. I guess I didn't need to go to my Skynet bunker after all. But yeah, I personally would have preferred a list of site changes as opposed to Knighty's YouTube 'joke'. Oh, you'll get around to them later? I was under the impression you'd been working on this for a few months. Would it have killed you to prepare a well thought-out blog before changing the site massively?

That said, there are a few positive changes I've noticed. The new group coding that allows for banners, perma-blocking, private groups, lockable and sticky-able threads is going to be welcome. I've also noticed the 'NSFW?' option at the bottom of this blog. That's certainly a step in the right direction. Lastly, even though the front page is a massive wall of depressing grey, I've found a rather nifty phoenix background for the site header. I like this. A lot.

I wasn't expecting the site changes to be applied this quickly; I was hoping for January-February. Still, I guess that the site has been changed now, so work could possibly begin on planning a 'new' reviewing group. I don't know. Maybe I'll give it a few weeks before I start getting involved with that. Then again, I don't want to be left behind when it does get formed. I've also published the first chapter of Brushy because I need something to cheer me up. Hopefully it'll get a positive response. Maybe it won't. Oh well, it'll be interesting to see what people think of it anyway.

Brushy

             Brushy!

Well, chapters one and two are now entirely finished, and I'm just breaking ground on the third. Hmm, let me just grab the word counts quickly for you. I've entirely revamped the plot while keeping the basic elements of the story the same. More words, more hilarity, more Derpy being Derpy. I'm not going into an details of the plot because I don't want to ruin it, but it should be better. It will be better. If one or two people fancy reading through the new chapters to offer their opinion, I'd be glad to hear it.

So yeah, here's that status update:

Brushy Brushy: Prologue

Count: 2,811

Almost entirely rewritten.

Brushy Brushy: Sugarcube Cornered (WT)

Count: 3,362

Almost entirely rewritten.

Brushy Brushy: A Brush With Destiny (WT)

Count: 1,566

440 rewritten.

And now, a tribute to the amazing artiste who is designing mine cover art. It's not currently finished, but I'm so impressed by it that I just want to share it with y'all. Also, this guy has some pretty amazing stories of his own. Seriously, check him out!

Well, it would appear we got K-bombed. Oh well. I thought we were doing a fairly decent job, although there were certainly some flaws to our work. Still, it frustrates me to no extent that there are still some group out there that thrive off of making other people feel uncomfortable. Even after all the good we did, we're still called bullies, thugs and undesirables in general. Still, sometimes people need the harsh, direct criticism. I know we did some bad, and some members got overzealous, but I would have preferred an actual reason as opposed to Knighty's opinion. If he wants to baby authors on the website, that's fine by me.

We had a good run in the TWE. I made new mates, helped people out and generally built a reputation on the site. However, all good things must come to an end. I'll just remember how Knighty deleted the TWE on a whim while paedophilia, mindless clop and trollfics all receive positive reception. I'll continue writing my stories and offering general advice to people that ask for it, but I doubt I'll head back into the reviewing profession any time soon. If a blunt criticism is frowned upon, it's probably best if I stay away.

The other TWE members, moderators and administrators can hopefully make a new group to comment and help with stories, but my time's been served. I helped build the TWE's reputation for good or bad. I saw the purge and the floods of members. I saw intelligent debates and mindless insults. Hell, I even saw a debate about the existence of Twinkies.

Whatever the TWE Remnants decide to do, I support them all the way. But I'm dropping out of this business now. Time to focus on reading some of the Greats fimfiction has, rather than offering advice to those who couldn't care less.

So, due to my complete inability to write anything of length, followed by being able to write 1,500 words in seemingly half an hour, I present you with a story.

By sierra_seven_

So yeah, make of it what you will. Some people have told me it's good, but I'll let you make your own opinions!