This has been coming, I think, but it's now official: UK PonyCon 2020 is no more. The October convention has a new date: 8th/9th May 2021. Yes, May! It's going to be an interesting experience. Read the official press release here. Of course we can't be sure what the situation will be in a year's time either, but naturally we all hope the 2021 event will be able to go ahead. And if it does, I

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I'll be going through my off-site review blogs over the next few days and weeks, and leaving comments on the appropriate fics here. I used to do this as a matter of course, then for various reasons (many my own fault) I let it slip. So please don't be too startled if you get a notification for a review I wrote many months ago! I will try to keep up much better in future.

Sorry. Just wanted something cheerier as my top blog post! So let me just say that Fluttershy is great.

I'm definitely not intending to turn this into a coronablog. But this National Geographic article brings home why "Oh, we can't continue restrictions for more than three weeks" is basically telling vulnerable people like me it's okay for us to die. It gives graphs for a number of major US cities during the 1918 flu pandemic. And what is very clearly shown is

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I'm still around. We all know what's going on in the real world, and as a diabetic person I am more affected than many. But I'm still interested in ponyfic, and if you're really lucky (or unlucky, depending on your POV) I may actually write some if I end up confined to quarters for the next 37 years.

Well, Brexit may have happened* but not a lot else has around here. I'm still not ready to publish my next story, which has been sitting there three-quarters done for several weeks now. Things will insist on turning up and getting in the way. I mean, you're not actually missing very much, as it's only a silly little thing. But I definitely do not want to return to one of those "write virtually no ponyfic for 18 months" ruts. Maybe I should have a go at some flashfic prompts or something and

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Something I've seen a startling amount of recently has been people making blog posts here as if they were tweets. By that I mean ignoring capital letters, punctuation and all those other fun things. Not just making the odd typo -- we all do that -- but, in some cases, writing entire posts without a single cap or full stop. Now, how you form your social media posts or Discord messages is entirely your concern. But if you're going to ask for help on improving your writing, on a site

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Well, okay, that's true every day of our lives, to a greater or lesser extent. But this year is the first in Fimfiction's existence with no new Friendship is Magic. Curiously enough -- or perhaps not -- I feel more motivated to create Pony stuff now than I have done in a long time. And since my art looks like the meanderings of a half-dead, half-drunk centipede and my singing is only permitted to be revealed in public at convention karaoke sessions, that means

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Remember the phrase "If you would consider a Santa hat"? This was started by The Descendant , beginning way back in 2012. Why? To quote the man himself, "I just want something of the fun that was present in this fandom to show up again." (Yes, people were saying that seven years ago!) Although TD hasn't been active in the fandom since 2016 or so, for those

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And here's the answer. I am delighted with how this has turned out. Huge thanks to Scribbler, Illya Leonov and Quirky Craft!