Hold your ground but do not be unkind. (Ponyphonic, "Shy Heart") He/him. Ponyfic Roundup reviews every Wednesday.
That's poor in both senses, I'm afraid! Though before I say any more, I need to stress that I have a warm, safe home, enough to eat, internet access... the essentials, really. I am not in danger of losing those. However, I won't be doing much beyond those essentials for a while. Without going into boring details, I will very shortly be going in for dental work to be done. Which, as
I keep my online activity to an absolute minimum on Christmas Day, so I'll take this opportunity to wish all of you reading this a Merry Christmas!¹ However life has treated you over the past year, I hope it treats you better over the next. I shall be back to reading Fimfiction on Boxing Day!
Loved it! A few little quibbles, not all the acting from the newcomers was stellar and sadly parts of the gender-related stuff felt awkward and forced, eg "something a male-presenting Time Lord wouldn't understand", but I liked much more than I didn't. Plus one of my worries about the new Disney-cash-infused Who has been dispelled: this definitely did
Fortunately not in the literal sense! But yeah, I'm currently stuck at home, yet not feeling well enough to concentrate on ponyfic. It's a seriously annoying combination. 
This is inelegantly copy/pasted over from the (slightly) nicer looking report over on Louder Yay. Of course, I'm sure you all read Louder Yay anyway because you're such great people, but just in case here's the report here as well...
This is an unusual fandom in that its fanfic segment is male-dominated, so something I've been asking in a few places lately is: who are your favourite female writers in this fandom? Only people who have publicly mentioned being female, please.
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Hmm... alarajrogers, Scoots2 (who sadly has been too busy with teaching to write much in recent years,) Bookish Delight, Trick Question, PatchworkPoltergeist...
Not sure if one other entry on the list has publicly mentioned gender. She's... kind of done it through a few removes but she hasn't come out explicitly, so I won't mention her here.
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Thanks! Most of those were on my list anyway, but I'd somehow overlooked alarajrogers.
Well, I'm not really aware, in most cases, of an author's gender. For the most part, they're just names to me. Trick Question is an exception, as I've known her a good 20 years or so, and she lives nearby. Because of that, I know where some of the stuff in her stories comes from, so that I'm using different standards to judge her than I do for others. That's really kind of a non-answer, I know. I suppose my actual response is that I just don't think about it.
I read this journal title and immediately went "bookplayer".
So, bookplayer. :B
PatchworkPoltergeist
Chatoyance before all the haters chased her off.
I know of Allykitty and Heartshine.
(Though, tbh, I’m not sure if they’ve said on Fimfic that they are, but they have publicly)
Myself ;) but in all seriousness flashingdash (@dreamingofdash from twitter) is planning to start writing and her non fetish ones sound like they are going to be good
I’m pretty sure Estee is a woman but not 100% sure. They tend to be pretty reserved about personal details.
SPark hasn't been mentioned yet so... SPark.
AlaraJRogers, Bookplayer, Scoots2 and Sketchaholic.
Ponydora Prancypants - for Racist Barn if for no better reason (I suspect there are better reasons).
Hm. I can't say I really have favorite authors in that sense, but the female authors I think deserve more attention than they get... Off the top of my head, PatchworkPoltergeist and Harmony Pie. Maybe Cynewulf. Not "maybe" in terms of quality, mind you. I just haven't checked her follower count, so I don't know if I'd classify her as one who's underappreciated.
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned AbsoluteAnonymous just because popular, but maybe that goes too far back.
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Lots of comments on this -- in truth, considerably more than I'd expected. Thank you! I won't reply to everything, but a few thoughts:
Astrarian's writing I have a soft spot for, partly because I've enjoyed her stories and partly because I've actually met her. (Very briefly, at UK PonyCon 2016. She was kind enough to thank me for reviewing one of her fics.)
Re Chatoyance, my knowledge of her extends to "she did The Conversion Bureau and there was drama surrounding her". I've no interest in her TCB fics, but I see she wrote quite a few others.
Allykitty I've read a couple of stories by, but they didn't do much for me. Heartshine has four fics up, three of which are unfinished Fallout: Equestria side stories. Not my thing.
SPark was actually the first writer I thought of when I was considering this point. I really enjoyed Honey Pie and its sequel, but I need to read more stuff by her.
Sketcha-Holic I know nothing whatever about, but her story descriptions look fun. I'll bear her in mind.
I loved Racist Barn. From a review I wrote: "This is how you do a Random story."
Never read anything by Harmony Pie, but I know the name. Looking at her story descriptions, I can see several that I might enjoy, so I hope I'll break my duck there fairly soon.
AbsoluteAnonymous -- yeah, I think you're right. She hasn't published anything since mid-2012 and all that remains of her here is her writing and her comments pages. Beyond The Games We Play, I think she's probably faded from consciousness by now.
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If you read Friendship is Optimal stories, Chatoyance wrote a really good one: Friendship Is Optimal: Caelum Est Conterrens.
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In theory I'm open to reading side stories, but in practice I almost never have the time. I haven't even read FiO: Always Say No yet, and Soge recommended that to me in 2015!
The one you recommend has a hay of a lot of downvotes. Is that simply "because Chatoyance" or is it an inherently divisive story? Neither is a deal-breaker; I'm just curious.
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It's "because Chatoyance." Back when she was still writing she'd get around 100 downvotes on anything new within minutes of posting it. Her CB stuff definitely has a distinct and limited audience, but this one stands on its own merits. It has even been used by Eliezer Yudkowsky as an example of excellent and thoughtful writing in the Scary-as-hell AI genre.
Hmn... I thought I'd read Always Say No, but it's not on my shelf. Time to correct that, I think.
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Right, that's what I'd thought -- especially as the short story she posted last October also got similar treatment. So the one you recommended will go on the list.
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I've got Astrarian on my favourites list for "Brighter than Gold".
Ironically, I don't think I knew PatchworkPoltergeist was a woman until RBDash47 posted something about her a few hours before your post.
Certainly I'll mention AbsoluteAnonymous. I'll add LadyMoondancer, and I think maybe Chessie is female? Of course most of you know bookplayer & Trick Question.
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LadyMoondancer's Gobbling and Other Traditional Pursuits anthology looks my kind of thing. Thanks.
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Oh, my! I wasn't even aware of Chatoyance until yesterday. "Her Last Possession" is now a firm favourite. I've read just the first chapter of "Caelum est Conterrens", and I'm deeply impressed. She had me by the third paragraph or so, when she discussed why shopping for a special item is emotionally rewarding. This feels as though it could have been written just for me, like one of my daydreams.