As hinted previously, I’ve run out of energy with doing Commentary Corner for Tell Your Tale shorts every week. And while most shorts do have something unique to say, it’s still largely just frustration of the “what are you doing, writers?!?” variety. So, as of this week, I’ve decided to scale them back; rather than a play-by-play commentary, Friendship Is Card Games style, it’s more of a standard recap and impression.

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Mixed February for this spirit so far; been perpetually under-the-weather for two weeks now, just enough to take regular painkillers. I’ve had it worse, but it’s always gone quicker than this. On the other hand, good experiences with friends lately, what it’s all about, and while I haven’t made much of any progress on the writing front lately, the torch is still burning on the development cycle. So, not much, but not nothing.

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Two weeks ago it dawned on me that, with July 10^th having landed on a Monday this year, I’d missed a prime opportunity for a themed throwback feature on that day. As July 10^th is the day Fimfiction was launched in Beta, I could have had a week themed around the site’s 12^th anniversary. The bad news is I missed my chance. The good news is, with today being July 31^st, it’s prime for an even better celebration of the site’s twelve years.

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Anything to say this week? Bits and bobs; still a bit off finishing judging and announcing results for the Ancestral Tribute contest, while my blog miniseries on Make Your Mark Chapter 2, and the two-parter of my experience at UK PonyCon 2022, each have one post to go, coming later this week and again next week (but in reverse order). Between that and other obligations, kind of in a headspace of having several tasks ongoing, and all making progress (well, except my own fic writing,

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Hey, remember when I once tried themed character weeks? Yeah, me neither: it had four attempts early on*, but they were more just fics matching the chosen theme then forming a statement. About time for a better revival, I say. How’s about a quintet of Cadance fics, all adding up to something to properly say about her?

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In the early hours of this morning, the total number of public stories on Fimfiction passed 150,000. There have been plenty more than that, of course, excess from delisted and removed stories – though not nearly the 540K you’d guess from the URL IDs, many of which are generated by a user but never have a chapter actually uploaded or published – but it’s an impressive total no matter what way you spin it.

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It completely slipped my mind that last week I crossed the coveted mark of having reviewed 100 fics. I can’t say for certain how long I thought I’d be doing this when I started, though I was pretty certain I’d keep it going for the rest of 2022 anyway. The surprise is that I gained decent traction and a not-half-bad following, given I didn’t even have 40 followers before I started this, and now I have double that. Truly, this is a great community, and I love that you folks enjoy my review

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I’m by no means well-versed how bank holidays work for the Americans in the crowd, but they’ve always been an anomaly for me: when you’re in school or college, it never feels like a day off, due to pressure, from parents, society or oneself, to keep up with the study, especially in exam-adjacent periods. Only since I became a “normal” employee of society have they felt like an actual day off.

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While I do consider myself an animation connoisseur, I can sometimes be limited in what I watch. I certainly don’t check out as much indie web animation as I should, for a start, and that’s a pity, because a lot of it’s great. I bring this up because just last week, a new show pilot has gone absolutely viral, to the tune of 47+ million views in seventeen days. If you keep even a vague eye on such things, you’ve no doubt already heard of it: it’s The Amazing Digital Circus.

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Do… Do I have something genuinely interesting to talk about two weeks in a row? I… I think I do. Yes, shocking, I know. You all know how this year is Disney100, celebrating their centennial as a company? Which, being the 2020s, means they are doing the most shameless nostalgia capitalisation possible. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day, as with them re-releasing these films over the next two months:

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Well, my opening blurb topic got postponed last minute, leaving me high and dry. Bugger. Eh… I guess Ponyville Ciderfest's Charity Auction (which broke the prior Bronycon record and raised over $100K) including anonymously donated scripts (with notes) for nearly the whole series counts? This stuff's been in the wild for four years, but if the pony archive storing it gets more eyeballs on it, now it's

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Good Thanksgiving, I hope, my American comrades? All full from the turkey and familial reminiscing? Nothing like that here, but I did have the first organised Christmas dinners/parties that tend to start up around now. This one being at work, to facilitate easier flights home for those coming in for it. First time on a boat on a canal, of all things. Fun to see the locks opening and the water level changing when you’re on the thing!

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It was bound to happen again before long. After a month and change of blogs where I always had something interesting to wax about in the opening blurb, once again I am stumped for topics. Well, unless I just repeat recent things (latest Disney100 was 101 Dalmatians, great as ever, didn’t expect it’s graphic look to feel boosted much by the big screen, but it was, and the small audience seemed to dig it really well), and even I don’t want to do that. Let alone what you guys would want.

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14 shorts in, and I am unsure whether it’s wise to continue much further with Commentary Corner for Tell Your Tale. Already the repeated facepalm “really?” moments of the characterisation are grating to watch, write about, and probably to read. And as I suspected for this series, the largely rigid-formula limits how much new can be said each week. Not unless one has mastered the art of this brand of snarky-and-sincere commentary, or has a larger audience. Certainly, to go all the way to

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Today’s blurb is prepped in advance, as I’m taking advantage of a bank holiday weekend here to catch Spider Man: Across the Spider-Verse (film will be over by the time this goes up, ssh ). Really hoping its masterful precursor and all the hype/word-of-mouth prove true, and that my mild worry on the more standard superhero plot and dialogue in the trailers is unwarranted.

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Nice advantage of a Bank Holiday Monday is I don’t have to have Monday Musings^TM ready to go on Sunday night, owing to not working up to nearly posting time of 6PM UTC (distinct from GMT, which doesn’t account for time zones). Meaning I can, and am, throwing this together shortly before pressing submit instead. Not a bad side bonus to national holidays always giving the following Monday off.

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And, here’s December. Christmas is approaching again fast. So much to do, not enough time. Got gifts to decide on and buy, a Jinglemas entry to write, other fics to at least not fully pause work on, plus video games to play and Ponyfics to write and review. A ghost’s work never dies, you might say. But, you know, I’m okay with it. I like being busy enough to not be lazy, without being so busy it gets to be too much. If that makes sense. I’ve at least already read and prepped

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Just before Christmas, something interesting came up. Completely breaking major company convention, Netflix has released viewing hours for the period of January-June 2023 for every title that had at least 50,000 watch hours. Which is over 18,000 titles. Several of which are a property to do with colourful pastel magical equines.

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Technically it hasn’t been that long since my last Author Spotlight, just over two months. But the rough three-month gap is just a guideline meant to make them only happen when natural and justified. If I’m liking an author’s work enough to want to read more and do a spotlight, that’s proof enough it’s organic. Today’s author certainly qualifies, off charming work that always brightened me up. The author being, Kris Overstreet.

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