10 Years After My First Fanfic/My Thoughts on Recent MLP & Doctor Who Content · 7:02pm Jun 30th, 2022
Hello, everybody! It has certainly been a minute since my last blog post. Like I have said in the past, I am not on here as often as I used to be but I certainly try my best to check on my account whenever I can. In all honesty, I was planning on waiting to write out a blog like this until the tenth anniversary of my FIMFiction account. While I still plan on doing that, I was inspired to write something since it was ten years ago this month that I first delved into the realm of fanfiction over on fanfiction.net.
It almost feels like another lifetime when I look back at the height of my time writing fanfics. It was a time in my life that I will always cherish. Back when I was relatively more involved with the communities here on FIMFicition and the broader MLP fandom. And, of course, the fandom is still ever present to this day. But there can be no denying that there is a different feel to things. Friendship is Magic is done, a whole new generation has begun, and so many other changes have transpired in the interim. Heck, it's hard for me to fathom that it has already been about five years since I brought my fanfic writing days to a close. Typing that out, I realize just how relatively fleeting that time was. I often thought that those days went on for much longer than they did. I guess all the writing I did and all of the new content that was being fired out from the fanbase at the time just made those years feel longer. In both a good and bad way.
I do miss those days sometimes, like I said. I miss the familiar faces in the comment sections of my stories. The little community that had been garnered within this corner who would take the time out of their days to read my silly little stories and comment on them. It was a relatively short time in my life but I will always cherish it. There was less of a community presence over on Fanfiction.net but there were some recurring faces over there as well. Whenever I check back here, I do grow a little sad at seeing that some of these faces have moved on. I can only hope that everybody, both those still here and those long gone, are all doing well (in spite of the insanity of our world throughout these past few years, of course).
To round out this little blog, I feel the need to at least give a more up-to-date note on my current thoughts on the franchises I talked about the most while I was regularly active here: MLP and Doctor Who.
First, MLP. I have commented a bit more on MLP since I quit fanfics but usually only to comment on major landmarks like when the 2017 movie came out, the series ended, and when the 10th anniversary rolled around. Since then, we have seen some new additions to the genre. I skipped out on the online short series like Pony Life. And there was another based on the current gen that I missed out on as well. So I don't really have an opinion on either of those.
What I can comment on are "A New Generation" and "Make Your Mark". I really liked "A New Generation". I liked all of the main cast and I'm certainly interested in seeing where their stories go. Hitch is probably my favorite of the current leads and my favorite song from the movie was "Be My Day". On the other hand, I found "Make Your Mark" to be relatively meh. Nothing terrible. I like that Hitch ends up finding who will end up becoming the new Spike of the series and I like the detective route that Zipp is going down. I just found the overall pacing and story of the special to be relatively bland. Though, again, I am intrigued in seeing where the series goes and what the future has in store for these characters.
I would say my overall biggest negative for Gen 5 is the idea that (if it truly is a sequel to Gen 4) all of the efforts of Twilight and her friends were all for naught with everyone just going their separate ways again. Granted, this is taking place centuries upon centuries after the fact so who knows what happened in the interim. And the comics seem to be tying the two eras together even more with appearances from Discord from what I have seen. So I will definitely be looking into those.
Now, Doctor Who. I haven't made a direct comment on Doctor Who here (as far as I remember) since Jodie Whittaker was cast as the 13th Doctor all the way back in 2017. Unfortunately, my experience with Doctor Who has been less than stellar. I personally am not a fan of Jodie's era. At all. Jodie has her moments but she is often bogged down by terrible writing (usually thanks to Chibnall). The only companion I have liked is Graham. Ryan was bland, Yasmin was even blander (with a forced, last minute "I'm in love with the Doctor" storyline to boot), and Dan is somewhere between Ryan and Yasmin. The episode from this era that I probably liked the most was the Nicola Tesla episode. And seeing Jack Harkness come back was pretty awesome. Though I wish they could have brought him back during Smith's and Capaldi's eras and, thanks to recent drama, it looks like we may never see him again.
To top it off, I absolutely abhor the Timeless Child plot point. In my opinion, it pointlessly breaks the lore and ruins the continuity of past episodes. I could go off on an endless rant about all the issues this plot point has. My biggest one is, if the Doctor really had thousands upon thousands of forgotten lives, how come Clara never saw any of these past lives when she dived into the Doctor's timestream back in "The Name of the Doctor"? There are many more issues I could dive into but that is a notable contradiction for me since "The Name of the Doctor" is one of my personal favorite episodes. I want nothing more than to see the Timeless Child wiped from existence. But it seems that may never truly happen and future showrunners will simply only ignore it. Ignoring it is fine but it is such a horribly divisive idea that I feel it needs to be addressed and killed properly at some point in order to somewhat help the show recover from it.
I am interested in seeing how Jodie's era ends but, overall, my excitement for Doctor Who has dropped by a wide margin since the end of Capaldi's run. Though, granted, I am most definitely interested in seeing RTD return as showrunner and see what he has in store. And I am MOST definitely excited to see David Tennant and Catherine Tate return for the 60th Anniversary next year. It certainly says a lot when those tidbits held more excitement for me than the announcement of Ncuti Gatwa as the 14th Doctor. I will certainly give them a chance. And I have a little bit of higher hope for his era since RTD is involved instead of Chibnall (thank the stars). But that interest still comes with a bit of hesitance considering the shoddy quality of writing we have received over the past few years.
And...that's all I have to report at the moment. I hope you are all doing well. Feel free to let me know if you agree or disagree with any of my sentiments. And I wish you all the best. Will definitely be making another post in a few months to mark my FIMFiction milestone at the very least.
I just happened to come to the site and see this. Yeah I guess it did feel a lot longer than it really was. I still that your fanfics were some of the best I've ever read.
I did see A New Generation, but have yet to see Make Your Mark. It took me a while to realize what was wrong with it. Then it hit me. It lacks charm. It doesn't have the charm that FIM had. It's kind of soured my opinion on G5. Maybe I'll watch the other movie and show when it comes out because it's not Netflix so it's just there.
As for Doctor Who, I'll admit that I like Jodie Whitaker as The Doctor. I'm going to miss her. But yeah, I agree Chris Chibnall was not very good running the show, and I especially agree with that the Timeless Child thing was a fiasco. I am looking forward to Russell T. Davies coming back to see if he can clear up the mess.
I think we once had a conversation regarding how great Broadchurch is. Obviously Chibnall did a good job on that. I saw the movie Knives Out a good while ago and enjoyed it thoroughly. Knives Out was made by Rian Johnson, who also did The Last Jedi, which was roundly despised. It made me think the Chris Chibnall and Rian Johnson are the kinds of people who are really good coming up with their own stuff, but fail spectacularly at adapting existing franchises.
Well, I certainly look forward to celebrating you being on Fimfiction for ten years. Looking forward to that.
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Thank you very much! Your constant support was definitely one of the highlights from my time of writing those stories!
Yeah I don't put a lot of blame on Jodie. She said some things when she first got the role that I disagreed with but she overall has tried her best with what she has been given.
I can also agree on your assessment of G5. There is some sort of charm that is missing from it that was so abundant throughout all of Friendship is Magic. It's hard to put a finger on exactly why. Perhaps it was the surprise success of FiM? The talent they got to work on it? Maybe FiM was just another lightning in a bottle situation. Had a great start, found just the right audience, and found the right kind of momentum to keep it going for a solid decade.
I have heard good things about Knives Out. Perhaps your guess is correct that writers like Chibnall and Johnson are far better with their own original ideas than established ones. Though I'll concede that I did like Chibnall's two Doctor Who episodes that he wrote back in Series 7.
Doctor Perseus, I still consider your The Doctor Hooves Chronicles to be the definitive version of Doctor Hooves in the fandom. Chinball's era has been a disappointment in every sense of the word, to the point that I couldn't even finish the first season with him. I think I dropped the show about one or two episodes before The Timeless Child and never looked back.
In my eyes, he doesn't even hold a candle to your writing, so for that, thank you, Doctor.
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I think FiM was more than that: It also had the right creative mind behind it. Lauren Faust understood MLP from a perspective that no one has before or since.
She gave MLP a world that was simple but with enough detail and odd quirks and charm to make it feel unique. It had fairytale aspects that for me, made me think about what else could be in there. It was an escapement's paradise, and unfortunately that was slowly lost over time as the writers tried to fill in those blanks.
Even now I don't think G5 is going to be the same. It's failed to capture that magic and it's weighed down by the established lore and expectations of the previous incarnation. On top of that it's set itself up with a more grounded, harder reality, with some subject matter that feels almost... political.
Right in the beginning, for instance, G5 starting with the ponies divided and hostile to each other along racial lines sets the tone of the show as not being such a friendly place I'm immediately less interested in being a part of. There's no sense in escaping to another reality if that other reality is the same as our own. It's just not as enjoyable.
To contrast that, G4 literally starts with a fair tale book opening and Twilight reading out an ancient prophecy written in (adorable) squiggles. Then she writes a letter and has her magical dragon send it off the ruler of the land who responds, in essence, with "lmao, why so tense bruh?"
The original show was cute, colourful, light-hearted, with the right details to spark creativity, and I'm just not getting that from G5 at this point. Unfortunately.
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I'm glad that you enjoyed my stories so much. I've always been grateful to all of those who were entertained by my silly little crossover idea. The interactions I had with all of you after every new chapter defined some of the highlights of my time writing these stories. n.n
I think you definitely made a good point about G4 vs. G5. G5 definitely started out with some more blatant messaging in it. G4 did have some similar messages thrown in as it went along (especially towards the end) but it always managed to keep the charm of the world and characters that it had established for itself. G5 started with that out of the gate. And there is most definitely a lost charm to starting a world with not so subtle references to real world issues.
I think this is a fault of many sources of entertainment nowadays. Not to delve too much into that can of worms, but it feels like a lot of media today is more so about lecturing the audience about all the ills of the world instead of providing a fun escape from said world. There's nothing wrong with having some underlying messages and parallels to reality but when the focus shifts to that entirely instead of telling a good story with good characters in a new setting then a lot of charm and quality can be lost.
I personally don't think G5 has been hit as badly with these as other forms of media have. I'd say Doctor Who is a prime example of such poor creative focus, among other issues. But it currently does have an almost entirely different vibe from what we have grown used to over the past decade. G4 casts a long shadow with its beloved characters, world full of potential, and noteworthy fanbase (for all its pluses and minuses). As of now, G5 is going to have a tough road ahead of escaping that shadow.