) Disney saw fit to re-release The Phantom Menace in cinemas for one week for the film’s 25th anniversary (only two weeks off). It almost slipped my mind until today, hence Monday Musings being a few hours later (advantage of a Bank Holiday, peeps – a freeGhost Mike's Ponyfic Review Monday Musings #20 · 5:00pm Jul 18th, 2022
Now that I’m over 100 fics in, about high-time I provide easier access to the review backlog, me thinks. Got a public archive of the reviews available now! Currently, it’s just a single tab with the fics in review order and links to the blogs, though it also contains the fic title, author, rating, and whether it was a reread and if it was listened to via a reading, and by whom. In the future, I’ll probably add more tabs that compile ratings by author, as well as some overall compiled stats and averages. But as a baseline navigator, this is a good start. It’ll be linked both on my profile page and in every Ponyfic review blog going forward.
As for this week’s fics? Well, I’m still in the mode of one long one-shot compiled with other medium and short-length ones, averaging out at 20-30K reviewed each week. Not quite at the stage of having more novellas in there yet. But I’m making actual steps towards that, largely by setting a concrete goal, for now, of reading 10K more than I’m publishing each week. Once that’s got the backlog up to scratch, we’ll see more medium-length fics in here, and from there, hopefully the odd novel too.
As it happens, this week’s hauling out some stories I reviewed quite some time ago, and not one of the greater rating averages. It will happen when pulling some stories from when I more easily read suspect entries. Can’t let them loiter in the backlog forever. Happily, it’s counterbalanced by the longer fic this week being quite the unique one.
This Week’s Spectral Stories:
Reflections of a Pegasus by Child of Stars
This Pony's too Soft, This Pony's too Firm by Silver Butcher
Pop Quiz by Apple Bottoms
Well Grounded by Cloudy Skies
We Are Forever by PapierSam
Weekly Word Count: 25,222 Words
Reflections of a Pegasus by Child of Stars
Genre: Drama/Sad/Adventure
Pipp
6,458 Words
March 2022(Standalone) Sequel to Reflections of a Unicorn
The last we saw of Pipp was her hanging upside-down from suspended wires with every pegasus eye and camera on her. Next thing, she shows up in front of Zipp with the pegasus crystal. How did she escape? And more importantly, why is she so angry with Zipp beyond being left high and dry?
This story is really in two parts – one is fragments of Pipp’s escape itself, the other is her reflecting on why Zipp’s abandonment hurt so much, with occasional flashbacks. I’d like to say these two pieces meld well, but alas, they do not. The sequencing of intercutting between these two, especially in the back half, is all over the place, cutting both the story’s flow as well as its emotional impact off at the knees. And Pipp’s backstory/motivation itself is lacking in detail and oddly sketched in, like the author couldn’t even come up with much beyond a justification for why Zipp would make a promise of solidarity. It makes the characters within not really feel like either fully-realised individuals or them as seen in the film. And some developments are questionable – Pipp goes from not being popular at all despite being a Princess to… being the most popular from starting the social media thing? Uh huh, sure.
There’s some good stuff in here – the escape is decently thrilling despite being somewhat illogical, and shows Pipp with some savvy wits. But the whole piece is decidedly undercooked, well in need of some polish and an editing pass or two – Pipp’s thoughts of feeling abandoned are regurgitated so often with little variety that it honestly starts to drag. Lacking execution and nourishment leave this a flimsy effort, despite good intentions.
Rating: Weak
This Pony's too Soft, This Pony's too Firm by Silver Butcher
Genre: Comedy
Spike, Mane 6
1,576 Words
January 2021Reread
Listened to via StraightToThePointStudio's reading
As the Mane 6 settle in for a sleepover, a sleepwalking dragon enters their midst, grumbling about a none-too-comfy bed. Before they can comment on this, suggest he join them, or suggest he go back to bed, they are stunned when he curls up on their backs, one by one, looking for a suitable nesting spot. It doesn’t take long before guesses as to who he’ll best like are made, with surprises in both directions all around in store.
Obviously the titular pastiche of this Goldilocks element has a predictable outcome; the pleasure comes in the Mane 6’s reactions, which are no less predictable but have a comforting charm to them. That’s about all there is to this one, and it meets its very modest goal fine. The problem comes in the technical execution. While out-and-out grammatical errors are rare, though present, a mixture of sloppily-executed POV changes, improperly paced sentences and phrases, poor pairing of dialogue with actions that should be on separate lines and so on really do break the immersion. Straight’s reading smooths over this a bit (and he corrects some of the poor word choices), but it has frequent breaks in maintaining the Mane 6’s voices that also largely serve to break the immersion.
The baseline content is just simple and sweet enough to give this a pass, but technical sloppiness drags it down somewhat.
Rating: Passable
Pop Quiz by Apple Bottoms
Genre: Comedy/Slice of Life
Cheerilee, Applejack, Twilight, Rarity, Rainbow Dash (and Pinkie too)
1,373 Words
October 2021
As if Ponyville didn’t have enough annual traditions, now it’s time for Family Day at the Ponyville Schoolhouse, where parents, family or guardians of the schoolponies can chaperone their charges and experience a day in their lives. Sounds pretty neat! Of course, despite knowing them, Cheerilee didn’t count on the chaos of letting Twilight and her friends through the door…
Expectedly frivolous, given the premise, length and fact of its being a Quills and Sofas flashfic content entry. This story only asks you to find amusement at Cheerilee being frustrated beyond compare at the Mane 6’s personality tics charted in aggravating directions, and picking apart the logic of the Ponyville schooling system, as funny. Happily, it is funny, as well-worn a direction as “normal Ponyville citizen putting up with the Mane 6” is, with Cheerilee being among the most common focal subjects of such tales. While the speedwritten nature of this means the jokes are never less than easy, and delivered plainly and with no flourish, they are funny enough. Fittingly enough, Pinkie’s bit steals the show.
Story’s in and out quick, and while you’ll forget it in a flash, it does its job.
Rating: Decent
Well Grounded by Cloudy Skies
Genre: Slice of Life
CMCs, Applejack
5,842 Words
October 2012Reread
Following a clumsy mishap after school that could have been avoided if she’d had wings or a horn to hoof, Apple Bloom finds herself sadly reflecting on what it is she lacks. Thoughts made all the stronger when both Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle have to skip out on Crusading for flying with Rainbow Dash and watching Rarity use magic. Apple Bloom’s resulting down-in-the-dumps crusade of her own is only broken when Applejack, upon finding out, has a story in mind to tell her.
I have to imagine “Apple Bloom feels jealous of other pony types, Applejack sets things right with what earth ponies can really do” is a very well-worn story type, even if I’ve only read a few such examples (the one I remember best involved Diamond Tiara poking fun of farming on a school trip at Sweet Apple Acres, and Applejack set things right by showing earth magic at work – the fic’s title escapes me, alas). Even in late 2012, when this was published (though Cloudy Skies reportedly reworked this from an earlier, inferior version).
Given those parameters, this is reasonable. The first half, before Apple Bloom returns to the farm, doesn’t have anything wrong or objectionable, but it’s rather paint-by-numbers, setting up the story with just enough flavour to keep it from being boring, but not enough to make it feel better then fine. It’s perfectly readable and enjoyable – Cloudy Skies is a proficient author, though their Author’s Notes comment that the original version of this made them feel writing short stories is not their forte did linger in my mind – but little more.
Things do pick up back at the farmhouse, at least after the quiet patch of Apple Bloom being sullen as they do their chores. The folktale Applejack tells is reasonably inventive, and hits the tone and storytelling vibe of such moralistic tales quite accurately. I also liked the dialogue and characterisation of the other Apples, especially in being understandably stern on Apple Bloom to not have such downer thoughts. Even Big Mac speaks up more than usual (a telling sign of this being an earlier fic than even late 2012, I guess). A little comedic epilogue leaves it all feeling a little soft, even if Apple Bloom partially missing the point is a better choice then the ending played straight.
On the whole, I did enjoy it, but the elements that stand out didn’t quite do the same for the fic as a whole. But proficient writing’s still so even if it’s mostly on-rails and largely uninspired.
Rating: Decent
We Are Forever by PapierSam
Genre: Comedy/Slice of Life
Mane 7 (EqG)
9,973 Words
October 2018Reread
The Rainbooms break up. In the pilot episode of their reality tv show. Things proceed to then get worse before they get better. And even ‘better’ is a relative term.
This is definitely quite the oddball story, but in a good way. To begin with, the central gimmick of mimicking reality tv and music documentaries, alternating between after-the-fact interview snippets and events-as-they-happen, complete with a perspective that stresses we are watching tv, really does work, far better than it probably sounds or really should.
And that’s just how the story’s told: the events therein provide for a satisfying mashup of bad reality tv and the modern music industry, as filtered through the personalities of the EqG Mane 7, slightly amplified to fit the story. Whether it be Pinkie’s unhealthy sugar addiction, Twilight being a peripheral player who negotiates with the label, Dash being cocky six ways to Sunday, or Fluttershy getting mocked even by the story’s narrative voice before she shines towards the end, it’s a good showcase of both how conflicting personalities working in a creative outlet can cause friction, and that this melodrama, fictionalised or not, is captivating to folks for a reason. The story’s sort of parodying the Mane 7 while also being true to them.
This coming from someghost for whom reality tv and pop music are of almost no interest, and yet found it captivating anyway, says a lot. There is hardly any medium displacement, with even the visual gags managing to land in prose format. The dialogue just sings and overflows with wit. The fast-paced nature of this means it does get a little draggy at spots, even if just about everything feels needed – guess that’s what happens when you take out the commercial breaks, eh? A little more concerning for me is the gluttony of real-world musical references. I am so unknowledgeable about this area that I was constantly aware references were being made – they are often called out in-universe – so those aspects tended to skate past me.
Still, there are so many unique things that this story does really well – I really cannot overstate how well the pacing and scene cuts, especially to the Interview Area, are handled – that even if my personal enjoyment of it was a high Pretty Good, it gets up a rating. It’s the kind of fic that I think folks should read even if their interest in EqG, reality tv, music documentaries and pop music is low. It was for this ghost, and it was still a blast.
Rating: Really Good
Spooky Summary of Scores:
Excellent: 0
Really Good: 1
Pretty Good: 0
Decent: 2
Passable: 1
Weak: 1
Bad: 0
Tell Your Tale: Commentary Corner
The title made me assume this would be a go-kart story, though I guess The Cart Before the Ponies is an episode in need of a redo, even if G5 wouldn’t fare any better. But nope, this is about the first Equestria Games (and they do stress ‘first’, more proof that G4 only exists in this generation’s past when it wants it to – and no, ‘history of past equestria games being lost to time’ is not a valid reasoning). Which is a reasonable idea, the first unified sporting event, though as this short is so stuffed with incident and characters (just about every pony who’s spoken beforehand is the focal point of at least one shot, and some make their post-film debut, mostly Bridlewood unicorns), I kind of wish it had been used in the actual show. Not that the execution would have been better, but the tonal and speed whiplash with this one is too real.
Anyway! Sunny’s initial attempts to guide celebratory setups go awry due to telecommunications problems (with a weird riff on Tangled’s floating lanterns, of all things). Haven and Alphabittle (yes, he’s back!) are on hoof to give her encouragement, though as Sunny’s in possession of self-pressured alicorn obligation to always be in calm command (of all the personality traits to rob from Twilight, that one? Seriously?), she’s deaf in the early going. Cue a minute and change of three events – volleyball, hoofrace, rowing – where ponies, desperate to win, use their magic to give them a boost and cause mishaps, despite Sunny’s attempts at monitoring things. All while Haven and Alphabittle look on worryingly. Despite the frantic pace, it’s hard to stop the mind wandering to how completely and utterly these events lack logic, on top of the blatant rule-breaking (Hitch even calls Pipp out on flying in the hoofrace, before summoning vines to trip her up; the Beatnik Poetry unicorn wins). I get that FiM’s method of different events geared to different races can’t apply here, what with only three towns, few enough ponies and most still living in their original town (except when extra requirements dictate otherwise; join FiM in the club, G5), but this is not the sort of logic that required more than a little thought to rectify. Which is still more than the zero percent these writers routinely put into their scripts’ logical cohesion.
Following more arguing between the Mane 4, the rainbow at the Brighthouse flickering and pony magic weakening (an event treated with the same light tone of every mild argument in this webseries, it’s worth noting), Haven and Alphabittle give more wise words of wisdom, though I will credit the script for giving them different points, earlier and here: Haven given “they think being a leader means you have all the answers” words, while Alphabittle focuses on finding common ground under the friction of different ponies doing their best to get along. After Sunny’s reflection on how she’s mediated past arguments with her friends to more efficiently make a cake, she mixes the teams up to have level tribal distribution. Cue mini-montage redos of smoother events (the hoofrace is a relay now), and the result is… a tie, because every team won one event. Of course. More warm words from Alphabittle and Haven get interrupted by Izzy saying “Can we go play now?”, which… yeah, I don’t know either, unless they’re inferring she wants to play again just for fun, though the delivery and pacing doesn’t get that across at all.
I’ve seen a decent amount of praise (relative for this webseries) for this short, and I do understand it: it’s jammed with actual incident that, on paper, is interesting, and shows something actually meaningful to the new fresh-reunification state in Equestria. And I can see the folks willing and forgiving of this series’ regular shortcomings getting some fast-paced fun here. It’s certainly a fair sight better than 2, 4, 6, Greaaat… (improving on one of FiM’s worst episodes, let’s celebrate!)
But it’s all just… there. The internal logic of the events and rules is all over the place: you can feel the flop sweat as the writers strain to balance the magic and events, until they gave up and resorted to flippant rule breaking (and it lacks a purpose of intent and cohesion for said cheating that Fall Weather Friends had there, which might have put this over). Like Sunny’s last starring short, Alicorn Issues, the rest of the Mane 5 are characterised dumly and aggressive to facilitate the plot. Easily racist too, come to think, them and the whole town. Without plot armour, unity for these ponies would collapse overnight. Sunny’s dilemma see-saws between hints of the same ‘alicorn pressure’ seen before and ‘getting along’ schmaltz with no rhyme or reason or joining between the two. And the ‘everypony wins’ ending… what is this, Sports Day in Kindergarten? Actually, given this webseries and the intelligence level they assume of its viewers… no, better not answer that. This may be ‘better’ than last weeks’ super-boring short, and many of the ideas here are intriguing. But it’s just… there.
Having Alphabittle back was neat (though was Haven made bigger, or shouldn’t he be taller then he is?; in any case, them being together this much borders on a shiptease for this fandom), and he and Haven’s purpose made logical sense here. His new voice isn’t too distracting, and even manages to make his gentle encouragement of pony unity and sage-like wisdom feel earnest-ish. Still, even that’s only within the realm of Tolerable, not an actual positive, given script constraints. Phyllis’ absence here feels really odd (she was even a background pony two shorts ago), though I don’t know how her ‘personality’ would feed into this either, to be fair.
Last thought: this further underscores why the earth pony magic they settled upon annoys me. It’s just so… arbitrary and on-the-fly-as-the-plot-demands, on top of each individual use invariably being lazy. Even more so than the same being true of unicorns’ power levels. I should be happy to see this, but the only produced reaction is complete and utter apathy.
Oh, the team-coded stickers (probably meant to be badges) applied to the ponies’ chests look absolute murder in this artstyle.
TOLERABLE
- Alicorn Issues (Ep. 14)
- Foal Me Once (Ep. 7)
- The Game Is Ahoof (Ep. 12)
Queens for a Day (Ep. 17)
"NORMAL"-LEVEL BAD
- On Your Cutie Marks (Ep. 18) NEW
- Mane Melody (Ep. 5)
- The Unboxing of Izzy (Ep. 6)
- Zipp Gets Her Wings (Ep. 3) * Originally titled Zipp’s Flight School.
- Neighfever (Ep. 16)
- MARETIME BAY DAY 2.0 [sic] (Ep. 11)
Making a Foal of Me (Ep. 15)
BROKEN WRITING IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT
- Sisters Take Flight (Ep. 1)
- IT’S T.U.E.S. DAY [sic] (Ep. 9)
- A Home to Share (Ep. 2)
- Sunny-Day Dinners (Ep. 10)
Nightmare Roomate [sic] (Ep. 4)
VILE WEED
- Dumpster Diving (Ep. 13)
- Clip Trot (Ep. 8)
I really appreciate that Pop Quiz's image is just a screencap with angry eyebrows MS painted onto Cheerilee. XD
And oh wow, "Well Grounded"... that was a fic I read early on. I'd always longed for a "Earth Ponies are cool too" episode, and while this didn't give exactly what I wanted it was still nice to see, especially for early-fandom Dan. Lil' trip down memory lane, thar.
Low-fi work has its charms, all the more so when it's this well-matched to the fic's content and tone.
While my review blogs definitely have far more fics from the later half of the fandom's life then the first half, for a multitude of reasons (site algorithms, YouTube audio reading algorithms, new stories here, being able to use prior reviewers to determine whether many old fics are worth my time, many older fics don't hold up), I do try to get in more older fics when I can. I've done well in that regard on the show's mid-era, plenty from 2013-17 here, but comparatively little from the Unicorn Twilight era. So it's always nice to get one in.
The spreadsheet is neat, and very useful, thanks! I really liked Singularity Dream's Big Master Review List back when he was maintaining it.
Impressed by your spreadsheet, especially as I've been too lazy to do the same. And I'm pleased to see you enjoyed We Are Forever. It's something different, and provided (as here) the different is done well, that's worth quite a lot.
5673337
Bearing in mind moments like your prior miss of The Incognito Cart (rectified by Logan, thankfully), and how inconducive Fimfiction blogs are to searching for particular info or filtering them, and how much I use other reviews' archives to find reviews of particular fics of theirs, I knew the linked comments on the fics could only help so much. This was a no-brainer, even if the current format is quite similar to Present Perfect's archive. Hey, it works! Well, long as one's using their CTRL/CMD+F function, of course.
I was vaguely aware of Singularity Dream's master list, but I took a proper look at it now, and wow, that is impressive. And it has several reviewers I'd never seen before. Like, I knew the big ones that folded up shop, but not some of the smaller ones. Even if it hasn't been updated since late 2020, it's chocker-block stuffed. Pity he's stopped maintaining it, but life does march on.
5673339
Well, the one advantage of you being off on Blogger, and thus you blog being in its own space, is that it's easy enough to find a fic by title, or to search by author. Given it's 8 years and 1K+ reviews too late to start maintaining an archive yourself, least you've got that bonus!
Indeedy!
Getting recommendations off of friends in the Ponyfic reviewer trade is a two-way street, as they say.
Especially with the nearly 150K fics floating around here – and that's published and public fics. Something really unique that manages to deliver on what it promises is worth spreading the word. Even if this fic already got a bit of that from a Royal Canterlot Library featuring (though, granted, being so late in the RCL's run, and still quite the quirky, offbeat concept, it wasn't a big a traffic boost as it might have been).
5673344
I still find that big spreadsheet very handy. If you ever see me refer to someone else's review in the course of one of mine, there's a fair chance I read it through finding the link on that spreadsheet. No use for newer fics of course, but plenty of use for stuff that had a brief flare of popularity in 2014 or something.
Passible seems about right
I quite liked PapierSam's story, and I've always been sad that he didn't write very much. He definitely had a knack for it.
The newest TYT was probably my favorite one so far. Actual, relatable problems? No heavy-handed, forced resolution to them? Sunny feeling kind of isolated? It felt like someone actually put some thought into its construction so that it had a legitimate narrative. Right after watching, I was surprised at how much I liked it. Now they've set the bar that they can do this.
5673363
Oh, for sure, it's handy for reviewers to have it: I was just saying why, from the perspective or us looking for your reviews of certain fics, we can get by more then we would if you were based on Fimfiction here.
5673413
As 13 of his 18 series are EqG stories, most of his backlog is very unlikely for me to check out, given it takes special factors or known exceptional quality on most stories utilising that spin-off for moi. But I'll certainly bear this general endorsement for the author in mind.
And as said above, I do get this short being praised highly for this webseries, even as I am obligated to note that every point of merit you acclaim here has been done in a prior short, and while it's certainly neat that they were all done here, I found most of them were done better in their prior appearance (sometimes only incrementally, sometimes more).Plus, come on: 18 shorts in, and the quality's continued to fluctuate wildly and still has yet to produce a short above Tolerable. Even if the average quality rises out of the gutter incrementally over time (as it has done so, if one crunches the numbers), it ain't getting to a higher level, it's too hamstrung by the formula.
That said, I think I ranked this one wrong; it probably deserves to be in the Tolerable tier, if only just. If I still feel so by next week, It'll get a boost up.
Apparently, Pop Quiz is something I read just recently enough to not have reviewed yet! And I apparently really liked it, since it's in my favorites. :)
5673329
Ha ha, I made it myself! In MS Paint. You'll always get High Quali-Tee(tm) from Apple Bottoms products!
5673427
It's been getting some random likes and faves recently, which is always nice to see, especially when it's been a little while since publishing!
And I appreciate that, thank you!
Thank you for the review, Mike Cartoon Pony! I'm glad you got a kick out of it!
5673544
Something about that picture makes me grin whenever I see it.