Ghost Mike's Ponyfic Review Monday Musings #51 · 6:30pm Feb 27th, 2023
I had hoped, when I finally got my schedule cleared up enough to do another author spotlight, that it would be fully a joyous occasion. Sadly, this is not the case, for today’s featured author, Ninjadeadbeard, was taken from us by cancer on December 19th last year.
I have almost no history with Ninja myself, having only read two fics of his before, and never having interacted with him directly, largely knowing of him as a successful late-years writer since he came along in mid-2019, and as a presence at Reviewer’s Mansion, one of the last unkempt Ponyfic review groups. Yet between memorial plans made for him soon after by a few close friends, innumerable folks coming forward to pay their respects, and a friendly, cheerful, affable personality evident just from how he responded to comments, it’s clear he really left an impact on many people here above and beyond the quality of his writing. That’s a rare quality in anyone. Making what happened all the more unfair. I don’t doubt, had I reviewed a story of his before this, he’d have responded positively and with warm affection and gusto, which I’d further respond to in kind.
Following Present Perfect's mantle, I figured the best I could do was give him an author’s spotlight too. And when I started reading and compiling them, I found that the short length of most of his work (omitting longfics in his major shared universe that had continuity lockout, of course) made having just five inert. How could five stories of under 30K really represent him? So, you’re getting a jumbo edition – I debated extending this by a story or two, but in the end, doubled the size to ten.
Plus, it compensates for the week of Christmas I took off. 
And wow, were these quality works. Even the small, quickly-done comedies (a broad, useless definition that is nonetheless applicable to a large chunk of his library) usually had spectacular finesse or an unusual element to set them apart, and the more thought-out works, often dramatic ones, really scored a home run. Even when I found some of them weaker, they were still hits or had their positive elements dominate in my impression. Others’ assertions that his Ponyfic catalogue is nearly all hits proved spot on, least on the basis of this ten-fic sampler.
The reasons as to why are drip-fed throughout the reviews below (which I’ve presented in the order I read them, as my attempts to form a chronological tale of his writing in reshuffling fell flat), but in brief, a mixture of a positive, sincere attitude and disposition to the characters, and superb writing skill either at polishing comedy prose or heightening the drama of a situation without even mugging for audience sympathy, all while finding ways to tackle things the show conspicuously didn’t without that aspect draining the fic of energy… well, all those aspects are here. One thing’s for sure, this is quality enough that I encourage those who want more to just browse his backlog and pick more. You almost certainly won’t be steered wrong, and with many being short, jumping in’s easy!
I’m not the most emotionally affected ghost. Even most passings usually elicit silent contemplation over a severe reaction or breakdown. That, and I do believe in finding the best to remember someone by. It’ll never not be a tragedy that he went, but focusing on the quality of his writing feels right – as someone who mostly wrote comedy, I’m sure he’d agree. This feels right and fitting.
M’kay, enough gab. Let’s get to this jumbo author spotlight.
This Week’s Spectral Stories:
Memorial by Ninjadeadbeard
Waffles by Ninjadeadbeard
In the Garden by Nailah and Ninjadeadbeard
The Return of Sunset by Ninjadeadbeard
Here's Looking at You, Spike by Ninjadeadbeard
High Noon: Applejack by Ninjadeadbeard
Garland Graveyard Shift by Ninjadeadbeard
Midnight at the Crystal Library by Ninjadeadbeard
Guarded Hearts by Ninjadeadbeard
Soup: Food or Drink? by Ninjadeadbeard
Weekly Word Count: 63,013 Words
Memorial by Ninjadeadbeard
Genre: Dark/Drama/Sad
Twilight, Mane 6, Fluttershy, Spike, Discord
4,544 Words
October 2019
As time has marched on, Twilight has had to say goodbye to all her friends, one after another. Now, as the last of the original Cutie Mark Crusaders has finally gone, Twilight does what she always does and organises a fitting tribute. Yet afterward, alone once again and brimming with tears, she is visited by someone she once thought of as a friend for tea, with an unusual motivation. One she has to puzzle out now.
Beginning with this one wasn’t intended, but yeah… appropriate, if in a melancholic way. A post-show immortality angst story is very well-worn material, as is Twilight talking with Discord about it all, but this story does quite a lot to offset that. Including the CMCs within that original group is one such thing, though it does lead to fairly drab early material expositing on trends since the show’s end and newer bearers, both largely unnecessary to have the actual details of and rather tired.
Things pick up once Twilight retires to her quarters; I’m loathe to spoil exactly what Discord’s up to this time, but it’s a far different take on what he’s done since losing Fluttershy and how he’s coped with it. Probably not original, but I can’t recall a similar example. What elevates this above routine immortality angst is that this all actually has something to say: on what we owe ourselves when others have left. And the story’s actual ending gets more nicely positive in a way
On the other hand, a lot of this is rather scrappy and a little slipshod, leaving much of Discord’s game ambiguous but not in a way that makes it all that tantalising to work out, just confusing. To a degree, this works, giving it an eerie core that makes it stick, but it certainly could have stood to be more thought out, and frankly, does leave the story kind of less then the sum of its parts. But this is all stuff Ninja acknowledged in other comments and reviews, and even here, he’s showing much of the unique, offbeat approach to well-worn topics (or ones that would become so, given this was published three days after the show’s final episode, though several weeks after the leaks).
A mixed story, then, but one where the strengths still mark it well above much of its genre. Making it an appropriate one to begin a look at some of Ninja’s work, to see how he evolved and changed over his three years of Ponyfic here.
Rating: Decent
Waffles by Ninjadeadbeard
Genre: Comedy/Slice of Life
Twilight, Pinkie
3,607 Words
December 2020
Twilight is looking oh so forward to breakfast, courtesy of Pinkie. Yet instead of pancakes, it’s waffles, something her party friend claims is her favourite breakfast food. A claim she made about pancakes just last week. Naturally Twilight investigates, because Pinkie may be odd, but she’s not odd like this.
This is a hard fic to discuss, because this does not go in the direction you’d expect at all, and spoiling that would be the worst thing I could do. Least the story tags don’t spoil a thing. Suffice to say, the misdirection is exemplary, making the reader think they’ve got it, and then it subverts it in the best way possible. Twice.
Yeah… perhaps don’t read this instantly after my words here, give it long enough to forget the specifics of what I’m saying here. Boy, that feels weird, a reviewer encouraging his audience to forget the specifics of his takeaway on a fic, but that’s the place we’re at.
By this point in Ninja’s writing, he had either polished his instinctual comedy writing to a high sheen, or he just laboured over this one quite heavily, because the hit ratio of the jokes here, as well as the pacing and balance between them and the scenario, is really strong. Other than possibly a little pushed meanness on Twilight’s part at one point, there was nothing here that didn’t land. It flows well, it all fits and makes sense, and short of the comedy here being largely of the wry and amusing variety over actually laugh-worthy, it all works. And these are the successful kind of wry and amusing jokes, ones that’ll still stick, from Pinkie trying to control a conversation by hyping up what makes waffles so good (the kind of thing you’d expect going in), all the way through to her being the nonplussed one at Twilight’s nonchalant reveal towards the end. Lot of zingers here.
It’s nice to have fics with high hit ratios on the comedy, or ones that succeed in subverting the expectation of nothing fluff for a bigger takeaway, or one with this much prose polish; to get all three at once is a real treat, and short of some folks feeling rubbed the wrong way with where this one goes, it’s a hearty recommendation. And also a great starting point for newbies, if you’re looking to get hooked on Ninja’s work.
Rating: Really Good
In the Garden by Nailah and Ninjadeadbeard
Genre: Romance/Slice of Life
Fluttershy, Applejack
2,044 Words
July 2021
Fluttershy has often asked Applejack over to help with her garden, but her true purpose goes beyond that. Really, she wants to find out more about earth pony magic, and maybe now she’ll pluck up the courage to ask about it. Whether she’ll be able to further move to her feelings for Applejack… Well, that’s another story.
Featuring a fic written by another user that Ninja co-authored on is an unusual choice, I grant. I may not have done it at all, were it not for the memorial theme of this blog, thus making his whole resumé worthy of consideration, and my desire to show a range of his talent on styles he didn’t normally dabble in much. Though don’t worry, I’m not gonna go speculating on the balance of authorial voice between him and Nailah here. You know what they say about presuming, especially for fics about equines. 
This is, for the most part, a pretty straightforward piece about Fluttershy being a bundle of nerves about her crush on Applejack, who’s ever so gentle and sweet around the pegasus. There is a somewhat stiff flow between moments, and it does get rather telly throughout, which does leave much of it basically resting purely on the surface of what’s happening, with less nuance. However, what’s happening is fine enough; I’m always gonna bat for a fic delving even lightly into what earth magic feels like, and this even touches on the feel of pegasi magic too.
There are two other strengths here I wasn’t expecting; the ending is really strong, striking a great balance of hinting at further stuff for the two without having a confession of feelings yet, a trap most short shipfics fall into by default. The other is, despite the prose things I mentioned above, the tone is quite good at capturing the wholesome slice of life vibe of early Season One or Two fics, to the point it was startling when Discord was mentioned as an aside (plus, the fic’s timeline would work slightly better the further back it is, implying this has been going on for a while but not for too many years or anything).
A fluffy little surface-level shipfic, then, but one with the right, warm tone, a pleasant character rapport, a little magic lore, and a nuanced ending that leaves a stronger taste when all is said and done. Works well even for a non-shipper like this ghost! Nailah and Ninja must have had a good rapport; there’s no co-authoring seams on this one or strains to figure out how to balance two different authorial styles, just a wholesome ambition to make something nice and cute.
Rating: Decent
The Return of Sunset by Ninjadeadbeard
Genre: Sad/Slice of Life (Death, Equestria Girls)
Sunset Shimmer, Celestia
7,714 Words
October 2019
You want the 100% spoiler-free review of this fic? Well, this fic is too tough to fully give that on. I’m sure my friend Present Perfect won’t mind if I take a lend of her words on this fic from their spotlight on Ninja last month:
The Return of Sunset
Genre: [Redacted]
Sunset returns to the castle, but something about her seems different.
That's right, I don't even want to spoiler the genre tag, lest I give the game away. This is one of the most fantastically unique takes on the "Sunset returns to Celestia" story — a subgenre, if you will, that I am very willing to fawn over even the most basic entries of — and you just need to read it to understand. This is clearly one of many reasons why Ninjadeadbeard will be remembered fondly.
Highly Recommended
Now, my review isn’t going to spoil the whole fic or anything – it’s still written to recommend the fic to someone who hasn’t yet read it, after all – but it will give away enough that happens early on to alter the reading experience. And this fic is worth it if you can go in totally blind. Hopefully the rating below will convince regardless.
Mere days after Sunset Shimmer escaped through the mirror portal, the guards report to Celestia that she’s back. Far too soon for Celestia’s anger to have faded for regret. Yet when she confronts her estranged student, she finds she’s different. Her anger and smug superiority are nowhere to be seen, there’s a genuine smile on her face, and… she’s old. Really old. And that’s just the first of many surprises.
Yep, time travel accident resulting in a geriatric Sunset, coming to visit retired Celestia one last time, instead going to Celestia before she’d even taken on Twilight as a student. That’s quite a premise, albeit one that does set my teeth on edge a bit. And Ninja isn’t afraid to not only flaunt basic paradox avoidance in leaving Celestia with far too much knowledge about the future working out (mostly cryptic, granted, but even the few details are too much), but also run with the common-time travel consequence of making the whole series’ events and tension seem like nothing. Oh, and, of course, there’s plenty of concrete references and extrapolation on FiM’s epilogue for the viewer. Point being, there’s a lot of things brought in here I personally don’t like.
Yet I can easily, easily not be bothered by those things here. There are many reasons for that, but the key one is what this piece subtly and gradually does for Celestia’s character as it proceeds. It’s easy to miss, but while her anger seems to fade upon realising this elderly mare is actually Sunset, it doesn’t really; it is just muddled down into other emotions. The Death tag is justified, but in an unexpected way (well, for fanfic away); it’s about the other things that come with an awareness of death, and thus about death the way it should be. Namely, the focus on life: this piece is really about Celestia starting to turn herself around from a closed mare who isn’t ever really fully happy, and if that happens by a plot contrivance telling her of the end result rather then gradually over time, well, it still works here. It’s the rare story balanced between being authentic about knocking on heaven’s door without ever being melodramatic about it.
It works because for most of the story, this is buried; we get bittersweet and melancholy laughs and tears as Sunset dispels the guards with a time travel safeword, gives Celestia the idea for things the older Celestia had already done both intentionally and by accident, has tea with Celestia as they talk about Sunset’s life and kick up a more friendly rapport they once had a long time ago, and so on. All the while, this spiritual enlightenment on Celestia’s part is always present even though it’s rarely at the forefront, dancing through all manner of emotions on both players’ parts even as Sunset often diffuses things with wry asides on what will be in Celestia’s future, changes she needs to/will make, and the effect a certain future student of her will have on her.
If you are even marginally less irritated at meta grandfather paradoxes and/or heavy inclusion of FiM’s ending then I am, you can go ahead and judge this as an Excellent. The tonal management, pacing and characterisation sing otherwise, and outside of a decent handful of cases of Sunset speaking for several paragraphs with not-instantly-clear tagging that broke my immersion every now and then, I can hardly think of anything else to hold against this fic. It’s good enough as to make me feel better about life, no joke. Writing stories like this so soon after his arrival on Fimfiction, it’s no wonder Ninja gained quite a following and rapport just like that.
Hm… two fics already with ironic subject matter and tones given recent events. Though I think I appreciate this one all the more as a result. That said, let’s move on to what he mostly wrote – comedy!
Rating: Really Good
Here's Looking at You, Spike by Ninjadeadbeard
Genre: Comedy/Random
Spike, Rarity, Pinkie
3,071 Words
June 2022
Spike the Dragon? Naw, man, more like Spike the Private Eye. He has been through many, many cases, and now his most recent tale, The Case of the Diamond Dress, comes to its 9th and final part. He must make a decision that will change both his life and those of everypony who dwells in Ponyville the seedy Big Muffin.
This is a… weird, weird story. What this is, is sort of a lampshade of any number of hard-edged noir/private eye tropes that derives much of its humour from not giving much context for anything. It does bill itself as the 9th part to eight prior chapters that we’ll never see, after all, though of course it does contain enough hints to roughly infer things. We get Spike’s narration delivering so brittle a tone over things that are both serious and silly (a confectionary speakeasy, Don Twilight, Rarity having framed another for a dress murder, etc.), a bar food fight, a “tearful” parting between Spike and Rarity that certainly makes the title nod even clearer for those that missed it (hey, Casablanca is one of the very few black-and-white movies most people today know of and have seen, can’t fault that).
It’s all amusing enough, as such things go, and not forced by any means – the tone and parody are relaxed enough – but it rarely ever takes off to eliciting any big reactions. Less so if you haven’t read High Noon: Applejack, as this story purports itself as written by the same in-universe author as that, and it’s something of a tone preparer, regardless of there being no connection (alas, I didn’t read it first). That said, this utter madness still has a certain spark that makes it sing, so while it’s a very modest and unassuming final fic from Ninja (obviously it was never meant to be), it’s an earnest one.
Rating: Decent
High Noon: Applejack by Ninjadeadbeard
Genre: Adventure/Comedy/Random (Violence)
Applejack
2,259 Words
April 2021
In the Equestrian Old West South West (it’s cooler-sounding, don’t’cha know), there dwells a legendary gunfighter by the name of Applejack. She’s back in Appleloosa to take out a sneaking scoundrel who’s gone and upended her cousin sheriff and tried to take over the town. With it being High Noon, it’s time for a showdown. Now, since ponies can hardly use guns, give or take a unicorn horn to operate them, how will they open fire? Hm…
Add genre pastiches to Ninja’s resumé of writing skills. The first half and change of this story is so dedicated to evoking Old West standoffs you can almost hear the music, from the villain drowning their sorrows before the avenger arrives to the dismissal of small talk, to the interesting take on how ponies might operate firearms. It’s all a snapshot of a very derivative pulp fiction, one that might be boring were it not so honed and in-and-out quick, and this turns out to be the point.
At that endpoint, the story switches gears to something else that lampshades how utterly ridiculous and nonsensical it all is, and even when this framing device shelves itself and allows the story to resume, the in-jokes continue at the margins, not just to the end but into the author’s note. Oh, and did I mention it basically unravels and then reassembles the Western trope lingo?
This may all sound like not much, but there’s a finesse to the comedy, whether underplayed or overplayed, that really makes it just work, to the point that despite the story within being intentionally trashy, I don’t doubt it would keep my interest were there more of it. As Western mockeries go, this is one of the most effective ones I’ve seen in the Fimfiction Old West.
Rating: Really Good
Garland Graveyard Shift by Ninjadeadbeard
Genre: Comedy/Sad/Slice of Life (Death)
Nurse Redheart
8,809 Words
December 2021Reread
For most ponies, you couldn’t pay them to work on Hearth’s Warming. For those working in hospitals, that goes for factors of their pay. Of course, Nurse Redheart isn’t most ponies, and she gets exactly the same joy from working on that day that everypony else gets from having fun at home with friends and family. Probably because her patients are her friends and family. Even when this year throws some different, unusual roadblocks in the way, that remains a constant.
It’s a testimony to how impressive Ninja’s fics I’d read to this point have been that the combination of the Comedy and Sad tags, a cause for alarm in the hands of most writers, didn’t worry me at all. Not even the fact that it was a Jinglemas fic, cranked out quickly and with characters chosen by another, elicited concern. In fact, I looked forward to rediscovering what he did with this tonal blend (I didn’t remember anything about the fic from the first time I read it when it was new, to clarify). Suffice to say, my faith was rewarded.
This blend isn’t instantly apparent; the first half is exactly what you might expect from a “Redheart puts up with all the insane accidents that befall Ponyville’s citizens” story, just with the caveat that the chosen patients and their predicaments are really, really funny. When you can produce an Octavia/Vinyl interaction that doesn’t make me groan, you’ve done well, but an “AJ/Dash growing closer together” one too? Amazing. Couple that with perfect names for the rest of the staff, and the narrative tone and voice for Redheart. Even just this first half alone, with a satisfying enough ending, would elicit a Really Good. All for a vignette compilation!
Then there’s a pretty fast and hard shift into some more grim realities, and it’s far more earned that you could possibly figure. Between a short but poignant scene on the death of the tag, to the one vignette heavily set up earlier coming back and forming the cornerstone of the fic’s ending, all with some circular insight into Redheart that gets at her beyond just being a strong-willed nurse – one that does, yes, justify her loving working on this day and considering patients as family – it’s pretty powerful stuff, ending the affair in a manner you’d never expect even with the tags, much less that affecting.
The emotional arc and balance of drama and comedy is so strong here that it calls to mind the Dickens-coined phrase “streaky bacon”, one used (mostly for British works) to describe stories with comedy and drama sharing the same space and heavily boosting each other, for real life’s like that, happy and sad back-to-back and simultaneously. Even though most of the comedy is in the first half, that’s still true here. That we also get one of the best portrayals of Nurse Redheart I’ve ever read is just icing on the cake. I don’t know how I only gave this a Really Good on its debut in my pre-review days. Ninja may have some objectively better fics, but of the ones in this spotlight, this is easily my favourite.
Rating: Excellent
Midnight at the Crystal Library by Ninjadeadbeard
Genre: Adventure/Drama
Main 6, Midnight Sparkle, Mane 7 (EqG), Starswirl, Tempest Shadow
24,971 Words
August 2019
The Crystal Empire’s return also brought with it many ancient tones lost to time elsewhere through Equestria. Hence a good reason for Sunset Shimmer and the other world’s Twilight to journey there for more than an afternoon to plump its depths for a possible solution to prevent more stray magic leaking through the portal, with Starlight, Sunburst, Trixie and the other Spike along for help/company. Course, they didn’t count on crossing paths with Starswirl assisting Tempest to restore her horn, nor that their own attempts to help with that would result in multiple dimensional paradoxes, and old foes from their past resurrected. Combine that with quite a few existential crises going around, and it’s one doozy of a dramatic adventure, this.
Almost half of Ninja’s resumé falls into The AnarchyVerse, including almost all of his longer stories. Plus, the Verse itself is split into two sub-series, one dealing with EqG-centric or adjacent stories and the other with or adjacent to the OC that gives the verse its name (which is also one of those sets of stories set a whole generation after the show’s end (*shudder*). There’s also sub-categories for Trixie-centric ones and those with meta connections, which does include Memorial and The Return of Sunset, covered above. And despite the assurances that some of them, especially the one-shots, are more or less standalone, I was naturally reluctant. Especially as most didn’t look to align with my tastes. But, they are a large part of Ninja’s Ponyfic writing, so I had to at least touch on them. Thus, I went with the first story in the verse, and only his second overall, published 7 days after he first joined the website. Helps that, at short novella size, it’s a snack as longer stories go.
The characterisation is largely solid, all the more impressive given the large cast, with something like twenty characters across the story. Even when the characters are doing this that wouldn’t be done in the show, or speaking in ways they wouldn’t there, it largely feels right, making this all clearly the work of someone who adores canon but is eager to resolve or continue threads it didn’t or couldn’t. That’s always an admirable trait, and to see that level of ambition on a new Ponyfic writer (as was the case at the time) doing a canon-extension fic is neat. Even in just his second fic, the unfailing kindness and sincerity afforded to the cast and their issues make it investable.
However, the execution, in many ways, doesn’t live up to the ambition. Obviously there are some growing pains in the prose, with dialogue repetition and functional yet largely perfunctory action scenes, alongside clumsy perspective switches that the large cast necessitate at a rapid rate the further along the story goes. But the major issue is how completely overstuffed the story is; not just in the characters vying for screentime, but their arcs getting more than cursory acknowledgment. Sci-Twi’s insecurity at feeling compared to Princess Twilight works more often than not (it certainly provides the most emotionally resonant moments), but even it feels like a non-entity when not in the limelight, while Starlight’s “maybe we shouldn’t mess with time travel”, overlapping with Star Swirl’s feelings on the same, feel like subplots torn to shreds in a film’s editing bay. Both this, Tempest’s horn desire and the whole reason the crew are in the Crystal Empire in the first place are effectively forgotten once the crisis emerges and are only touched upon again in the denouement chapter that resolves every plot and subplot in scenes one after the other with minimal connective tissue. And that’s not even touching on the villains, where every one of them is given something of an arc and attempts at character development. With that many, small wonder no one gets much development at all.
Unsurprisingly, this leads to a very, very unfocused story, one that feels like it couldn’t decide whether to continue threads from EqG, “The Cutie Re-Mark”, “Shadow Play”, and several others, and thus went with all of them, leading to an experience where it feels as though the story is always more excited about the next scene. Even with “Shadow Play”, the granddaddy of overcrowded FiM two-parters, there are really only two actual arcs pertaining to Star Swirl, Stygian and Starlight. This story has something like ten arcs even if we group similar characters together. The two main arcs here do feed into each other, but between the villains’ connective tissue and backstory, shared inferiority complexes, numerous relationships (and one romance), all the timelines and dimensions, and an ending that tries to resolve all of these and plant so many sequel hooks it feels like another story altogether, a lot of it is all over the place, even if the individual bits work well enough in the moment.
So, a story that is very much weaker than the sum of its parts, but not for lack of trying; there is a lot of effort, often successful, made to connect these threads (though I would refrain from claiming the story simply needs twice the length to function; that would dilute many of the problems, but not eliminate them, and also take away the crackerjack pacing that is also a strength), even if they’re fighting to really break out. It is certainly one of the more tonally acceptable cases of “secondary cast in the spotlight” stories, without the aggravating meta lampshading that often permeates such stories; when these characters acknowledge this, it feels like something they’d actually do, and that they’re just trying to do right as best as they can by Pony Twilight. And I don’t doubt those far warmer to these various late-season threads and characters featured here may well get invested enough for these issues to feel less prominent.
All of Ninja’s other stories I’d already read make it clear his writing got honed and improved fast (The Return of Sunset came out a mere two months after this), so I don’t doubt future longfics in the AnarchyVerse improved big time over this one’s kitchen sink approach. Hay, Ninja’s mission statement with the Anarchyverse was to patch every plot hole he can in FiM, all while retconing nothing in the show. Though at the same time, I don’t know if I see myself reading most of them anytime soon. Still, ongoing series have started from far worse, so if you like his writing, this story’s quick enough to justify reading to judge whether more of the big boys here are worth it.
Rating: Decent
Guarded Hearts by Ninjadeadbeard
Genre: Romance/Comedy/Slice of Life
Flash Sentry, Tempest Shadow, Flurry Heart
4,307 Words
February 2021Standalone story in the Anarchyverse
It’s hard for much to go wrong in the Crystal Empire, both with the Crystal Heart protecting it and with two mighty Guard Captains leading the charge. And thus it is that Hearts and Hooves Day this year looks to be a completely peaceful affair with no unusual incidents. Yep, certainly nothing like notes leading both Tempest and her fellow Guard Captain Flash Sentry to a romantic dinner setup out of a fairy tale. Surely, this plan is so set to work that the mastermind behind it is risking nothing by spying on the ensuing events from close range.
Of course, this is Equestria, so things rarely go the way they’re planned.
Feels like it's been a while since I’ve read a solid Rom-Com. And this is more than solid; the pairing certainly isn’t the most secure one, but it has potential, and Ninja more than finds a good rapport between Tempest’s domineering personality and Flash’s gentler and more easygoing demeanour. He proves to be the good kind of canon blank slate to work from here – I certainly found him better company then I’ve ever found his more well-known EqG counterpart, though of course I’ve read far fewer fics with him in it then most. It certainly is more of a comedy than the other half of the equation, but these characterisations as expressed and reinforced gradually over the fic really do sell the pairing. So, great characterisation at the margins.
And that’s just a side detail; the majority of the fic boils down to Tempest playing a long-con and then weaselling the truth out of the perpetrator, and her no-nonsense attitude that is nonetheless softened from years working with ponies now, and not above having fun, makes it a joy. Seeing the logic and personality of the culprit unveiled proves only marginally less fun. And that’s before the aftermath of it all that makes the whole thing that much funnier. Purely for making me laugh and doing a pretty good job of selling the ship, this one soars.
By this point, Ninja seemed to have nailed how to do offbeat comedies like this in whatever genre he liked. And with it being 99% standalone (only a reference to the end of Tempest’s story in Midnight at the Crystal Library mars things, mostly from having a link right there in the text), no reason to not recommend this. Maybe I have reason to reconsider my stance on the AnarchyVerse! Or, at least, the largely standalone one-shots.
Rating: Really Good
Soup: Food or Drink? by Ninjadeadbeard
Genre: Comedy/Random
Twilight, Pinkie, Applejack, Starlight
1,687 Words
July 2020Listened to via StraightToThePointStudio's reading
Another Saturday, another situation in Ponyville. This time, though, it’s one even Twilight cannot comprehend; two angry mobs have alighted outside her castle for her to settle a debate on a matter that should never have been breached. Namely, what category of sustenance soup belongs to. And they won’t rest until they have an answer.
Maybe a spoiler, the end of the blurb, but it’s in the title, so nearly impossible to avoid. Anyway, if that ridiculous premise further pushing the collective intelligence and mob mentality of Ponyville (and the Mane 6, who all get involved) sounds like it has potential, then you’re in luck, because this fic capitalises on it. Doesn’t overstay its welcome, has hilariously appropriate use of every canon character that appears throughout, gets much mileage from Twilight.exe having a breakdown at it all, it’s quite the hoot. Sharp, crisp dialogue, and the right balance between short, bare descriptions and sharp, crisp dialogue makes many of the jokes land harder than you might expect.
Within the confines of a daft premise and a quickie fic, this acquires itself quite well, and other than an overstrong accent of phonetic dialogue for Applejack, it all works. If this doesn’t turn you off on sight, it’s well worth it.
Rating: Pretty Good
Spooky Summary of Scores:
Excellent: 1
Really Good: 4
Pretty Good: 1
Decent: 4
Passable: 0
Weak: 0
Bad: 0
Huh. I'll be reading one of these soon, but the sheer number of high ratings suggest I'll be reading even more in time.
Oddly enough, though I've read and enjoyed a couple of Ninjadeadbeard's fics and have several more in the pipeline, only one of them is in your list here. It's Garland Graveyard Shift, and though I deliberately skimmed your review I obviously noted the rating. I'm now very keen indeed to read that one!
buddy left us a lot of good stuff to remember him by :)
I love waffles.
Stumbled on Ninjadeadbread recently. It is sad to see such person to pass on, but at least he is remembered. Good reads, and thank you for leaving the reviews