Pony Stories 66

Probably could have had one of these with it’s own post, but I decided I kind of like the batch posts just to keep people guessing about which stories are in each one. So I think in the future I’ll be trying to stick to two or three stories in each batch. And it turns out that I’ve run out of new pony stories to read. Will have to go looking between my non-pony reading. Of course it would be easy if some of the 90+ books on my to read list on fimfiction would finish up. But that’s an old complaint.

 

Pony Stories 65

Just watched The Last Unicorn, a movie I adored when I was much younger but haven’t seen in a long time. It is still a wonderful work of art. Beautiful visuals, gorgeous music, interesting characters. Watching it now I’m struck by just a few things. Pretty sure this might have been the source of a few of what I find enjoyable in stories, many things that have been consistant in the pony fanfics I have enjoyed. The whole cosmic forces versus mortal concerns thing. Not direct conflict exactly, but just the idea that the world is different from an immortal’s perspective. That morality and choice are different between mortal beings and eternal forces.Neither better or worse than the other, just different and sometimes contradictory.

Stories that involve conflict that comes out of those two levels of existence running into each other are some of my favorites, and seeing this movie where that is one of the core events at the end, pretty sure this movie was one of the major factors in shaping that part of my personality. It is also has a fairly strong melancholy flavor to it. There is no real happy moments in the story. Only a few really sad moments as well. Just the whole tone of the movie is sort of a lonely longing for something else, both visuals and the music. The big finale at the end is a success for the main characters, but the cost of it makes it a mixed victory at best.

And in pony fanfic news, I’ve gotten one story off my FimFiction read later list, and added several more. Putting the total of stories I’m waiting to finish at 91. Really wish at least the few huge ones would wrap up already.

 

Pony Stories 64

More ponies. Actually ended up having a bit to say about the last two of these. Both by the same author, funny enough.

 

Pony Stories 63

Just a few short ones here. Since like 80% of my readers are here because of pony fanfiction, figured I’d keep on commenting on the fanfics I read. Even if I don’t have much to say about each one. Even just a ‘I read this and it was good/bad’ is pretty helpful when getting through the piles of fanfics after all. Might have to start doing them in smaller chunks. Or just start posting the MLP worldbook I’ve been working on. It’s almost finished enough that I need some outside eyes on it after all.

 

Book: Flow

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was a extremely disappointing book. From the blurb I was interested because how the human brain works is a interest of mine, both psychology and neurology sides of the coin, with a even bigger interest in how to make my own brain function better. So this seemed to be right up my alley. I was expecting/hoping for a book along the lines of other casual-science books such as Mind Wide Open by Steven Johnson, or  Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. Both books I enjoyed and learned things from. This book was not added to the books I enjoyed list.