): Recommendsday blogger, fic writer and all-around awesome chap TCC56 does too, and in his latestGhost Mike's Ponyfic Review Monday Musings #10 · 5:00pm May 9th, 2022
Octavia: "It took the show one hundred episodes to ‘Jump the Shark’, as it were. We’re not in danger of the same only ten blogs in, are we?"
Filthy Rich: "I may be a businesspony, not a fanfiction reviewer, but I think we’re fine. Unlike actual narrative fiction, reviews can survive far longer on formula, long as they’re not rigid."
Minuette: "Yep, we’re in the clear! Just as long as Ghost Mike doesn’t mess it up for himself by doing something stupid!" [laughs]
Everypony Else: "…"
Gee, thanks everypony, way to instil confidence.
Into the double-digits already, huh? I won’t say it feels like I started these yesterday, especially given review lead times, but they have flown by, haven't they? Hopefully, when we reach #25, or even the yearly mark next March, it’ll feel different.
Some friendly conference in the comments last week about personal interest influencing what we read got me to thinking. I may be a reviewer, but I make no qualms about being interested in all fics. And unlike some of the other big reviewers still around these days [waves], I, frankly, do generally let that dictate what I read, and consequently review. Bottom line, I felt I should disclose fic and genres types I don’t touch, those which I’m merely resistant to, and those which I’m most keen on. I’d like to think my analysis thus far shows I evaluate everything equally once in the trenches. Course, jury’s still out on that! I’ll keep purely to genre and series tags for now; for timeline and character preferences and the like, I think the reviews themselves inform plenty, though I will gladly still state them openly in a future Monday Musings should the desire arise.
NOTE: I rarely ignore a fic based purely on Warning tags, but they do make me very carefully consider my choice, and many of them are soft turn-offs. Fetish and Non-consensual are the hard turn-offs.
So, first things first: I’m not big at all on Equestria Girls. Not to say I don’t get some enjoyment out of it or fics based on it, but almost everything I come to both FiM and its fanfiction for just aren’t there with the setting change, or are heavily diluted. I respect the different stories it allows for, and how many like them, I do. The savvy will notice the EqG fics I’ve read so far are light Comedies, and select entries in either that or Slice of Life often work. More serious, longer, adult stuff, eh. It’s still a case-by-case basis, and exceptions can be made, and are. But I’d only expect the occasional EqG fic round these parts.
Ever rarer are Human fics – generally, only those that look really, really appealing (again, Comedies and Slice of Life work best), or from select authors (hello, Admiral Biscuit!) make the cut. Oh, and Anthro? Forget it, that’s pretty close to a hard No.
One last thing on other series; as disclosed in prior blogs, I find the G4 -> G5 connection an unsalvageable mess, and thus while I am quite game for G5 fics, those that lean on the connection are major turn offs. Of course, I keep an open mind and judge the fic individually, for the use of both tags only tells so much.
I’ve never liked even official Crossovers, they tend to pool the weaknesses of the chosen properties rather than the strengths, and since on fanfic that requires knowing the other property, that limits my interest and your likelihood of getting it. Sure, I love The Powerpuff Girls, but I don’t want to read a Ponyfic crossover with it (besides, a fan animation got there first…). Ones where the reader doesn’t have to know the other property, they’re a little more open, but still selective and rare.
After that, it’s somewhat simpler, just checking off genres. You’ll never see any Porn here, and the only Horror I tend to read is the rare Scribbler reading where my curiosity got the better of me. Dark is barely any more likely, though both it and Sad can get through with the right fic or endorsement. Such fics tend to just be exercises in mellowing for the sake of it, y’know? I’m not big on Anthologies, but don’t have anything against it bar the difficulty in reviewing such things. Still, you’re not likely to see it round here much. Second Person, similarly, usually needs the right fic and praise.
Alternate Universe is always dicey, but I take them on a case-by-case basis, and a good few have popped up here for review already, though I tend to lean more towards mildly diverging fics than major ones. Still, anything had the potential to capture my interest there. I actually like Science Fiction quite a lot (even if most of my favourites are more Science Fantasy), but of course, it tends to be a poor fit for Equestria and FiM, and usually means violating what I come to Ponyfic for, so it’s a rarity (
).
Now, we’re mostly okay. I adore Adventure, though the fact that it tends to be a genre for novel-length fics (or at least novellas) will limit its appearance here. Still, I always try to grab a good rip-roaring tale when I can. Ditto the same issue for Thrillers, minus being head-over-heels for them, though I’m partial to a cracking one. Mystery and Random are perfectly neutral, depends on the fic. Drama is vague enough to mean anything, but I like plenty within that bandwidth. And, of course, Slice of Life and Comedy are the two big boys you should expect here the most. They best define the show and the characters and the world, after all, and tend to be the de facto genres for many fics.
One word on Romance; I’m one of those fanfiction abnormalities who doesn’t really have a leaning towards it, or much in the way of preferred pairings, though there are those I react negatively to on account of them not feeling right (let’s just say… TwilightxCelestia is a tough sell for me), or lazy overabundance (any LyraBon and OctaScratch has its work well cut out to rise above the pack). Others I like more on account of the characters’ having good plot, personality and comedic chemistry. Perhaps the relative lack of real-life experience here is to accredit for my relative disinterest? Regardless, one cannot escape romance in fanfiction, and I do read shipfics, short and long. Just know that my relative lack of personal stakes in ships and the genre means they are judged fully on the execution merits, and don’t get a free pass or boost on the chosen ship itself. I’ll try not to overuse the “fans of this ship will like it more” line in reviewing them, though it’s hard to fully avoid.
Hopefully that wasn’t too boring! What’s say we liven things up with some actual pony fiction rather than discussing types of pony fiction, no?
This Week’s Spectral Stories:
Shelter From the Downpour by Jack Daniels
Maud Slam by Jarvy Jared
Twilight Sparkle Vs. Exercise by JapaneseTeeth
Delusional by Homage
What Dreams May Come by Eakin
Weekly Word Count: 22,452 Words
Shelter From the Downpour by Jack Daniels
Genre: Romance/Slice of Life
Twilight, Pinkie
2,899 Words
April 2022
The somewhat saucy cover art is misleading, so you can ignore it; this is as gentle an Everyone-rated shipfic as they come. And set in Season 3, no less, though with no direct bearing on the story.
Twilight has been struggling with rising feelings for a certain pink mare lately. The kind of feelings that leave one’s stomach in knots. And her attempts at secluding herself to sort these feelings out have met with slow progress, to put it mildly. The only thing that could complicate this is if, on a rainy day, the object of her affections showed up, forcing Twilight to let her in.
About that last part…
This is this author’s first story on FimFiction and elsewhere, as admitted in the Author’s Note, written to start getting a feel for writing. Hey, can’t go wrong with a cute li’l shipping fluff piece. The basic understanding of the characters suffices, the dialog is reasonable at capturing their voices, and for a fic where the characters like each other just because, some chemistry radiates out.
Technically, it’s a rather rough one. Not in a disastrous way, but the way Twilight’s thoughts are expressed throughout can’t settle on a fixed tone or level of intimacy, and has a marked tendency to state or repeat info without any benefit to doing so, and skate over key moments of development or realisation. Lopsided pacing, in other words. This all combines to make the fic very lightweight, even for just 2.9K, and the repetition towards the end drags quite a bit. Unless one has a prebuilt disposition towards this ship, this serves to cut off the fic’s emotional involvement at the knees.
Still, for a first-time effort, it’s a credible start, and shipfic or TwiPie fans won’t regret their time here. Me, I’m curious to see how Jack Daniels can improve with more controlled and paced writing technique, something that’s not out of reach at all.
Rating: Passable
Maud Slam by Jarvy Jared
Genre: Drama/Slice of Life
Maud Pie, OC, Starlight, Trixie
8,221 Words
October 2020Reread
Maud has always had a thing for poetry, going all the way back to college. If not exactly the kind of poetry most others tend to jive with, and not just because it’s all about rocks. Truth is, she’s carried something of a chip on her shoulder from a poetry elitist some years back who dismissed her work all because it wasn’t from a literary sort. So when that very same pony is also a competitor at a poetry slam competition Maud’s entered… well, she can hardly be blamed for having doubts settle in.
The good news; if you’re not into poetry, that’s not an issue, as the story is really just about Maud’s confidence and the effect such things can have on us. As long as one is willing to roll with the audience’s reactions to the recited poetry, this is an engaging one. Prose and imagery is solid, painting a nice picture of everything from the food at the upstairs café to the raven perched just outside. Maud’s inner voice is an interesting one here, more emotive than the show but still feeling within that general wheelhouse such that her depiction here is acceptable. She wasn’t ever the protagonist there, after all, just a deuteragonist to Pinkie or one of an ensemble. It’s a fair change to make.
Honestly, the elitist poet might well be the best element here. She just oozes the smarmy “too real” vibe of the show’s one-off manipulative antagonists, from her passive-aggressive manipulation to someone who clearly just doesn’t get friendship and for whom the protagonist feels pity in the end more than anything. Thus making her comeuppance all the more satisfying. She’s just as effective a counterpoint to Maud as Suri was to Rarity, and that alone would be enough to make me quite disposed towards the fic.
There’s some odd issues, like changing a disqualification penalty for using a different poem to just docking some marks instead at the end. One point of note is that this was written for the A Change of Pace contest, where users had to submit episodes-like stories in a 6,500-8,500 word range with three scene or chapter breaks mirroring the structure and placement of an episode. It says a lot that I didn’t notice this until after the fact, and while there isn’t no strain for it, nor is this exactly an episode one could see onscreen (among other things, almost half the story is given to the last act), it’s a smooth read that goes down nigh-on effortlessly. Easy to see why it won the contest! A bit plain and simple, not likely to linger, but the execution is enough to carry it to a satisfying result.
Rating: Pretty Good
Twilight Sparkle Vs. Exercise by JapaneseTeeth
Genre: Slice of Life
Twilight, Rainbow Dash
1,678 Words
June 2015Listened to via Scribbler's reading
In the wake of ascending to Princesshood, Twilight has become more aware of how she has let herself go a little. This just won’t do for Equestria’s newest Princess, so she decides to commit herself to an exercise regime. Something she has no experience with and tackles from the wrong angles. When Rainbow Dash is called in to help, exasperation is not the word.
This story is something of a victim of its own success, a killer title and hilarious cover art. Those really promise something gut-bustingly funny, enough so that I wondered where the Comedy tag was. Turns out its exclusion is only true to the story’s content. Rather than a farce of Dash showing Twilight the work-out ropes, this is far more sedate. After an opening of Twilight freaking out over getting potentially crushed by a ten-pound barbell, the rest of the story is just Twilight getting advice on how to approach this matter correctly, how to grapple with fear of failure and with one’s perceived expectations of others. And also a little about self-image. All important things, little surprise many responded personally to the story. JapaneseTeeth wrote this as a birthday present for a friend and never even considered it would get more than 100 votes, admitting had that possibility struck, he would have fleshed this out substantially more. Just goes to show the power of effective packaging in a fic’s success!
Still, while the packaging makes judging this story’s actual content independent of expectations impossible, it’s not a bad one at all, or even a mediocre one. Dash’s advice is genuine and sincere, even if it’s trite and goes in circles. The characterisation for the two is on-point and brings out the same comedic chemistry present in episodes that pair the duo up. Especially in Twilight’s case, capturing her earlier neurotic behaviour better than the show honestly did by Season 4. I can’t fully separate disappointment from the reality of the content with this, but it’s still a fun read.
Rating: Decent
Delusional by Homage
Genre: Sad (Alternate Universe)
Rainbow Dash, Doctor Whooves
1,722 Words
November 2012Reread
Listened to via Scribbler's reading
Hasn’t it ever seemed odd that Rainbow Dash is both really assertive and very popular, with no conflict between the two? Almost too good to be true. Perhaps that’s why she has such an enthusiastic fan club. After all, anypony would love to be a pony like her. To the extent of… imagining it.
Given the premise of Rainbow Dash imagining her great life about herself as a coping mechanism, there are many routes to take that. Homage opts for everything about her life being a fabrication, down to her healthy body, cutie mark, her name, and everypony she knows. It’s quite harrowing, if rather plainly written in a manner that doesn’t fully tap into the unnerving horror she experiences as the truth of her situation is laid out for her (Scribbler’s reading improves on this aspect, naturally). Given the short length, and that the story bookends itself with scenes of Rainbow Dash in her prime, most of the middle is just an exposition dump, and not a graceful one either. On the other hand, the story is unnerving enough in a manner that feels earned, and ending it ambiguously as to which vision is reality is a great stroke.
It still feels more like a concept than a story, and a concept we’ve all seen before, but an effective ending, and a compelling reasoning for making up Rainbow Dash in the first place, help to pave over a rather autopilot, rudimentary execution. Nothing to write home about, but unlike most Sad or Dark fics, I don’t regret having read it (or listened to it, as it were, heh).
Rating: Passable
What Dreams May Come by Eakin
[No cover image]
Genre: Sad (Alternate Universe)
Lyra, Bon Bon
7,932 Words
April 2012
A bad head collision not only puts Lyra in the hospital, it induces hallucinations that seem no less real than the waking world. Hallucinations in a world of humans, in a mental hospital, similar and yet different to her predicament back in Equestria. With each alteration between the two, she gets more distressed as details of the situation reveal themselves. Especially when… she has to make a choice.
Ghost Mike reviewing a Lyra Human fic? What madness is this? Yeah, I’m surprised too. But Eakin’s one heck of an author, and to my delight, despite this being his debut fic, he delivered quite well on this one. While it does play into Lyra’s fascination with humans for the setup and content, it feels earned and justified here, not just a gimmick the fandom latched onto “because”. All the more surprising given the fic’s age (we’ve got Dentist Colgate, for one thing). And as this isn’t a LyraBon ship, but truly just has them as very close friends, the other barrier for entry is dispelled too.
Otherwise, the fic does what it needs to do; flash between the two worlds, build details of Lyra’s life in this human world, drop little hints throughout at what’s to come, and keep it all intentionally ambiguous as to the end result, such that neither the reader nor the characters are sure. Thus meaning the takeaway, and even the very genre, will depend solely on how the reader interprets the fic. Takes a lot to get to that level!
It does feel a bit sparse in places, most notably with the transition from the fic’s middle content to the final decision that needs to be made coming way too suddenly. This is a fic that could have been twice the length and still felt economical and concise enough. Unlike most such situations, though, it doesn’t suffer more than incrementally from this compression. And given this was Eakin’s first fic, that’s more than forgivable, and still quite a strong start out of the gate.
So, not a mandatory read by any stretch, and it’s got a few kinks common in early fanfic writing. But it delivers solidly enough, and gets suitable probing effect from the dilemma and Lyra’s turmoil at it all. Even those not much into Lyra or Bon Bon, apart or together, friends or more, should enjoy this.
Rating: Pretty Good
Spooky Summary of Scores:
Excellent: 0
Really Good: 0
Pretty Good: 2
Decent: 1
Passable: 2
Weak: 0
Bad: 0
Tell Your Tale: Commentary Corner
Episode’s open about being a Hitch vehicle. Hey, packaging honesty isn’t a given here, it’s worth taking. And for what it’s worth, his starting behaviour – running down the street, shocking everypony, leaping over the delivery pegasus from Zipp’s Flight School, finally getting pointed to an upturned public bin by Dahlia (another cameo, she’s as frequent as Posey) – is within the parameters of his character. There’s no nuance to it (James Marsden really did make the character), but it’s the least objectionable opening yet.
After some bunnycorns – eeyup – get their offer of sharing a sandwich with Hitch turned down, we’ve got phone overload back at the station, with Sunny and others trying to report that things are gone. Cue Hitch getting tangled up, Zipp popping in, and having the nerve to crack a “looks like you’re tied up” joke and chuckle about it. Hitch rebuffs the suggestion of hiring another deputy, heading out to solve this. Not a surprise there, given a poster outside back in Nightmare Roomate (and again here). Have I said I strongly feel this webseries was meant to air after Make Your Mark, and has inadvertently spoiled parts of it? Well, now you’ve heard it.
Outside the office are… winged snails alongside horned squirrels and the bunnycorns. Okay, if they were going for a “Maretime Bay critters are normal, Zephyr Heights ones have wings, Bridlewood ones have horns” motif, this laziness might be acceptable. Except, y’know, Alphabittle’s armadillos. In any case, Hitch ignores them as he speeds off. They’re not gonna go for making them his deputies, are they?
Meanwhile, at the Legion of Doom Pony Louvre, we start a rhyming number from Hitch as he investigates, detective-style. Well, Zipp did say he became one. Town’s lost the Mona Pony (at least Posey isn’t speaking this time, though is she an artist now? That beret isn’t reassuring), smoothie fruit ingredients, sunglasses, and more besides. Soon Hitch has a cross-reference diagram to work from (there’s a name for those things, right?). As he’s monologuing, then coughing and wanting a smoothie, one appears on the desk. Don’t do it, buddy…
Okay, did not expect this – we cut to the next day, Hitch waking up from a seagull alarm bell (he lives at the station, or at least over it – don’t know if that counts as a “paid-off mortgage”). He goes to his closet, and out fall all the stolen items. Meaning either a setup, or he’s sleep-stealing. At least he locks himself up out of shame. Zipp arrives, hears a few coy words from him, and quickly pieces together from the board that the stolen items are all his favourite things. So he’s an art connoisseur. Fair enough, me too! And he is Sunny’s best friend, stands to reason he’d grow to love smoothies by proxy.
Another point in this short’s favour: when Zipp cottons on that Hitch is being framed, she lightly teases him about “working alone” before hoffing over the keys to let him out. Hitch acknowledges it, and the moral passes. Given they’re spoofing a less sentimental genre, mystery stuff, and we’ve got the two most driven, serious characters here, it fits. When the writing isn’t taking cheap “perfect Zipp is much better than Hitch, who’s a stick-in-the-mud” jabs, instead having mutual respect between the two, they work reasonably together.
As we’ve only sixty-four seconds to go, we cut straight to an interrogation scene with Hitch and the critters. Though his “you had me running all over town” line is pretty good. Chief Bunnycorn quickly makes it clear they stole for him. The critters get all adorably sad at him pointing out the broken laws and health code violations (they still look better than any ponies in this webseries), and return everything on his command, all while wearing adorable burglar getup. Seems Sunny’s skates got nicked too. No desire on Hitch’s part is ever given for them. Closing gag is a “you did the crime, you gotta do the time” quip coupled with the critters' mugshots. With the winged snails’ number cards hovering and all. I do like the looks of most of them, halfway between sadness, guilt, and “really?”.
I definitely don’t want to overvalue this one. The writing and aesthetic liabilities common to every short are still in abundance, the voice acting isn’t really “acting”, and it’s still reliant on a stock plot with whiplash from the compression. Yet this was easily the best short yet, or more accurately, the least offensive. Hitch’s characterisation at least feels like a reasonable approximation from his film depiction in this shallower series; most story points, though cheap writing choices, at least fit within his character or prior lore/world aspects. Making him a butt monkey sticks out less when everyone is in this series. The detective riffing makes it far less obliged to drum in a moral, and thus the formula is less aggravating. There's some not-bad chemistry between Hitch and Zipp, and some jokes that got the odd smile out of me.
It is, in essence, comparable to an Equestria Girls short – mildly diverting and quickly forgotten. But if all, or even most – heck, just some – of Tell Your Tale was at this level, I’d have far less to complain about. Hence a Commentary Corner under 1,000 words. Maybe consistent improvement isn’t ruled out yet? Probably not, this one succeeded mostly from having the more obnoxious elements (Izzy’s characterisation, social media, jamming in the moral, etc.) removed or diluted, and that can’t last. But you never know.
And what the hay, I'll rank these after all. Ranking’s fun, they’re featherweight things one isn’t really gonna care about, and it’ll remind me what I think of them once the memories have largely faded. Don’t read into specific placement much, all the middle ones could shift around if I bothered to rewatch and reappraise them. Which they’re not worth.
- Foal Me Once (Ep. 8)
- Mane Melody (Ep. 5)
- The Unboxing of Izzy (Ep. 6)
- Zipp's Flight School (Ep. 2)
- Sisters Take Flight (Ep. 3)
- Nightmare Roomate [sic] (Ep. 4)
- A Home to Share (Ep. 1)
- Clip Trot (Ep. 7)
First of all, no horror? Thou hast disappointed me. I get that people have problems with Equestria Girls, I don't let that bother me, but my beloved genre? I scoff and tilt my nose up most melodramatically!
Haven't read any of these, and while some of them look interesting, none are so much so that I feel an instant need to throw them into my lists. That may change before too long; my non-long lists are perpetually low these days, so I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't loosen my hold on the reins at last.
As to the short, I agree that it's the best one so far. I love that slight hint of vanity/ego Hitch displays, it's a character trait that always amuses me wherever I see it, and Zipp got a decent showing. It's also good to see them limiting the characters involved two just two, allowing for a generally smoother ride.
It's interesting to me that Sunny achieved a sort of pseudo-alicornhood in the movie but in the shorts she's still just running her shake stand. I wonder if the main series when it kicks in will bring up the topic of those wings she briefly had and whether or not she can bring them back. I'm also curious as to whether her role in the town has changed at all.
Plus, we now have confirmation that Sprout is no longer with the police department. I'd like to know what he's doing now. Working for Mommy?
Also loved the cameos in the art gallery. I'm pretty sure those paintings of Tree Hugger are the same ones we saw getting painted in the G4 episode On Your Marks (I wonder if they know those are genuine relics of a forgotten age?), and that Rainbow Dash rendition of The Scream was nice. But the one that really threw me: Am I imagining things or is that picture on the top-right of Adagio Dazzle? It's not all that clear, but I swear I see her epic floof and the colors scheme matches perfectly. I don't even know why, but I really want it to be her.
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Minimal horror, not no horror. As said earlier, some of it gets in via my penchant for Scribbler's readings, and while they are obviously short as a result (when it takes 7-8 minutes to get through just 1,000 words, hard to imagine more than the odd fic over 5,000 words, and little in the way of multi-chapters), they usually work. Won't say no more here, but it might not be long before one sneaks in…
Do what feels right, you've got a good gut instinct. That said, you don't need to repeat this "little/nothing of interest" every time, or even comment every week! Me, even when your blogs are filled mostly with fics beyond my interest, I still like reading what you say, even if I don't say I've done so every time. That's often enough for moi.
How did it take eight shorts to restrict themselves to a duo (plus a Sunny cameo)? That said, FiM itself was slow to limit episodes to only some of the Mane 6 (Season 1 really just had "Look Before Your Sleep", though several others often had two of them not present, not speaking or just in a single scene). But with only 300 seconds to work with, yep, more intimate, contained stories with a narrow focus wouldn't go amiss.
Probably something on the latter for sure, though as for the former, I'm sure they're just gonna for the same "characters don't acknowledge weirdness of the toy-plugging gifts from above" tone so common in Seasons 3-5 of FiM. To what extent remains open right now.
I mean, given what that poster outside says, I don't think so…
They were pretty cool! I restrict my commentary to what I notice first time around, which probably speaks poorly on me for not twigging all the callbacks there.
Camera angle does make it hard to pick out. To me, it looks like a pink pony going full ham on a cone of ice cream more than anything.
It is very nice to see new authors trying their hand, I will give Shelter a go.~
It's weird seeing my old stuff being read... let alone old contest stuff, lol. I appreciate the review!
"Maud Slam" has already been talked to death, I feel, by a few reviewers who have taken up reading and providing critique on it, and I don't want to necessarily rehash everything that's been said. Though I will say that your point about how Maud's narration is a bit different is a fair critique. It was something I had to reckon with while writing, and a thing that I eventually decided was an "Eh, if it works, it works" kind of matter. The juxtaposition, though, between the inherently blunt and near simplistic manner by which Maud normally discourses (if you discount her epithets and epigraphs about rocks), and the nature of some poems, felt too compelling not to pair up, which led to the story as it is.
But I do find it interesting that between this review and several others, the story's strongest point is, apparently, the villain:
When I was writing this fic, I was very sensitive to that villain, and it seemed that no matter how much I drafted and edited, I couldn't avoid this nagging sense that she was, for lack of a better term, "too basic." I eventually decided to roll with it, in order to 1) meet the deadline and 2) avoid working over the word count.
It's surprising how much she managed to ingrain herself in readers' minds, though. It's sad for me to say, but I don't remember her name - not until I read the story back over, of course. I was actually more concerned with making sure that Maud's internal struggle of inadequacy had some semblance of believability to it, though in the end, I'm not so sure I fully succeeded.
Don't get me wrong, I like the story, and I'm proud that it won, but it's in that gray area of "all right" and "could have been better" for me.
Thank you again for reading! If you want me to elaborate on anything, or if you had any further questions or thoughts, feel free to let me know.
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You'll notice the "Reread" label. I balance my fic reading/reviewing between altogether new stuff for me, and older fics from before I started rated them. Which usually means it was long ago enough that it might as well be a first read! Regardless, there's the explanation for reading it now. Though it's not even from two years ago, it's not that old! Not unless you're comparing it to me reviewing The Parable of the Toymaker 2 months after publication, anyway.
Well, it was a winning contest entry.
I think the antagonist sticks out so much is because this is a subtle piece, and the elitist poet was the main element still being played unsubtly. And also perhaps the focus on poetry and us only partially getting a bearing at what's going on in Maud's head directs readers towards something that needs less effort to comprehend? Not trying to say the story's over our heads or anything, far from it, but I think her obvious smarminess was just a nice side-dish to the more nuanced main course, as it were, and that's probably why she ingrains in our head the most. Because most of us readers aren't that into poetry, and thus we're admiring the main content intellectually, if not necessarily emotionally. And hating a character like her's an easy thing to do. Besides, just because she sticks out the most doesn't mean she's the "best" part – I won't commit to that on an objective level, despite what I said in the review!
Fair enough, I can see that. I wager it did well at least in part due to avoiding the "write an episode" limitations that sunk much of that contest's entries.