I wanted -- really, really wanted -- to see Rainbow Rocks for the first time in a cinema. Sadly, though, we in the UK don't look like getting the film for another month, and it's just going to be impossible to avoid spoilers round here for that long. So I watched the bad-quality version that's been floating around. Quick first impression: I thought it was generally better than the first film, though there were still a couple of annoying things. (And only one of them had blue hair!) I

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Real life has been getting in the way of my writing a bit lately, as have my moderating duties over on UK of Equestria. However, I do still have a couple of things in the works! The first is pretty much certain to appear -- the only question is when. The second is a little more ambitious, so I can't yet be sure what its future holds. There are a couple more things that may or may not happen. So:

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I'll link to the post over on EqD, so that I can make this one short. The 1-2-3 was I am Demon by Aquaman (76 pts), The Last Trumpet's Call by Cold in Gardez (73 pts) and

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First up: I was at the Dave Polsky panel. I thought he was superb. Interesting, funny, insightful and at times notably erudite. I really hope that it won't only be remembered for the questioner who went off on one about "Twilight Time" (and was brilliantly squashed by Polsky), but I have my doubts. My own favourite moment? The Newtonian v Einsteinian physics analogy when talking about "Feeling Pinkie Keen". Also pleased that he's proud of "Rarity Takes Manehattan", which is my

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It would seem that We Who with Songs Beguile has made the final of the Equestria Daily Outside Insight contest. Look, don't ask me how it got there. I swear, the muffins had nothing to do with it. But as I said... blimey.

What the subject line says, really. I'll be back on Monday, but I may see one or two of you in the flesh before then. That's always assuming that you actually exist and aren't products of someone's (possibly my) deranged imagination. Yes, I know, Shoe Event Horizon and all that. Anyway, BUCK it is, then. If it's as much fun as last year's con, it'll be great.

No, not from me. That may take a while yet. But that's the number submitted to (deep breath) The Equestria Daily Outside Insight Summer Fanfic Contest Group. The prompt was simply "Write a story about ponies... from a non-pony's point of view." I haven't yet had time to read more than a few entries, but there's a great deal of variety in the species chosen, which is brilliant to

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This is a story that Lucky Dreams wrote for the Most Dangerous Game competition, a contest in which entrants had to pick from a list of horribly overused tropes (alicorn OCs, seventh Elements, etc) and still tell a good story. This one is about Mia, a young (human) girl who dreams of running with wild horses. It's also written as a children's story, something startlingly rare considering what our fandom is

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There've been some interesting blog posts around the site recently about what attitude to take when giving and receiving comments. I won't ramble on for ages, but my views on this are fairly simple: if a comment is more about the author than the story, then it's probably worthless to the general reader. (That applies to both criticism and praise.)

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I'm absolutely delighted that both "For an Angel to Pass" and "This Fragment of Life" have been accepted by Twilight's Library.

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