Ghost Mike's Ponyfic Review Monday Musings #57 · 6:00pm Apr 10th, 2023
Hopefully you’re not tiring of these Author Spotlights yet, because today's an absolute doozy. After a few weeks of picking authors I just happened to have some stockpiled reviews of and picking others to fill up a week, we’re back to specifically selecting someone and their stories for this from the get-go. My friends, today we're spotlighting the one and only Chris.
Frankly, ordinary human name aside (
), it’s maddening it took me over a year to even review a fic of his at all, but I suppose doing five at once is an acceptable compromise.
This may surprise you if you glance at his sub-500 follower count (more on that later), but Chris is probably the most well-known retired Ponyfic reviewer (only Titanium Dragon could arguably contest that), and up until he stopped in March 2018, likely second to Present Perfect overall. Largely this is because he reviewed offsite at his blog One Man's Pony Ramblings, so many casual Fimfiction browsers wouldn’t know this side of him. And he was also never much of a self-promoter. But his reviews were really, really good; there’s an immense structure to what he chose to look at, starting out as an appraisal of Equestria Daily’s 6-star fics (now there’s a throwback to 2011!), and later blossoming into Fandom Classics and Mini-Review compilations for other stuff. So he largely reviewed known fics to serve as accurate appraisals past all their hype. His standards were tough (the kind where ‘fine’ more means ‘I could have done something more productive with the time reading this’ rather than ‘I don’t regret reading this’), but fair, and very good at acknowledging subjective preferences and to whom fics will appeal to alongside their more objectively-quantifiable strengths and weaknesses.
More than just his reviews or their audience engagement (plus curating the Royal Canterlot Library on the side, don’t’cha know 
), he was very good at populating his blog with other Ponyfic-related topics, from the odd rambling to talking about points in recent episodes to guest columns written by other Ponyfic folks (most notably, Second Opinion, where the guest author could provide a different take on a fic Chris had already looked at, usually a far more positive take defending it) to even reviewing other Ponyfic reviewers for one brief spell. And the atmosphere hit the right balance of being dedicated to the craft while being friendly and welcoming.
That leaves us with a rather sensible lad except when he’s cracking jokes (or insisting Carrot Top is Best Pony: not that’s he’s wrong, just that he advocates for her more than many folks do for Derpy… and he’s totally gonna find some way to rip on me for this, isn’t he…), but what of his own Ponyfic? Chris didn’t write much, only amassing 21 stories in a nine-year span (ten if we account for original pre-Fimfiction publication), and wrote almost exclusively one-shots, with his whole library only totalling to 144K and the three not one-shots being the only ones to go over 10K, one being a short story collection and another a Choose Your Own Adventure. As far as I can tell, the majority of his stories were for writeoff events – a healthy chunk of which he won or placed in – or other contests, leading to a wide range in focused characters and genres, though all but one were E-rated (hey, alongside mostly writing for contests, another similarity between us! 
). It’s probably this sporadic writing frequency and not having an obvious ‘type’ of fic, beyond the length, that is to credit for a relatively low following for such a well-known and respected Fimfictioner.
Because his fics tend to be really rewarding and immensely satisfying. I already knew this, both from the quality of his offsite reviews (which I definitely don’t dip into after reading a fic myself nearly as much as I should; shame on this spirit!) and the few I’d already read, but they always struck me as the work of someone who just knows his craft instinctively and labours to perfect the end goal of his quickly-conceived-and-written output. Whether they be responses or his own take on types of Ponyfic, explorations of a character, or just a light comedy looking to blend humour and characterisation into a satisfying blend, they just sing, and I’m confident in recommending his whole resumé, give or take some softer early entries (I’d be surprised if an author didn’t have growing pains when they started out).
Two last things before we get to the five fics I picked for today. I wholeheartedly recommend his Choose Your Own Adventure The Purloined Pony, a wonderful story starring Carrot Top in pure S1 Ponyville shenanigans gone terribly wrong that evoked wonderful feelings of similar CYOA stories in my youth; I’ve no idea how to review such a thing, so there’s your endorsement. The other thing is he never published an incomplete fic (the anthology doesn’t count), so his whole library’s up for grabs. Go nuts!
This Week’s Spectral Stories:
The Circle and the Cross by Chris
Demise Reprise by Chris
Going Up by Chris
To Make a Spark by Chris
Bantam Tales by Chris
Weekly Word Count: 33,079 Words
The Circle and the Cross by Chris
Genre: Drama/Mystery
Rarity
5,839 Words
December 2020
Five days ago, the Friendship Map did something it has never done before* – it called just one pony on a Friendship Mission. That pony being Rarity, to the centre of an uninhabited swamp. Now, she’s returned, all ready to share her tale. Because it turns out, the Map always has a reason for who it calls and to where
Whether Chris intentionally jossed “A Royal Problem” (Twilight: “Because it’s never just called one of us before”) or not – and I would wholeheartedly agree with it being intentional if so – I applied him tremendously for setting this as early in the timeline as it could be. More of this please, authors!
Ironic I’ve picked his most recent fic at the first to look at here. But it was the one that sparked doing an Author’s Spotlight once it wormed its own onto my RiL list. Does that make it fitting the first fic is his last? You decide. In either case, this is a delightful little mystery, making for a funky spin on some old Ponyfic tropes. Thankfully, there’s more to like about it than simply the end reveal, otherwise I’d have nothing to talk about.
The fic takes the form of Rarity quasi-narrating her quest to the Mane 5/Spike after the fact, and there’s a nice balance of her language being crafted enough to feel like her without getting overbearing. This is the case for her eloquent-but-speedy breezing through her journey to her destination (complete with the odd meta comment to her audience about skipping ahead a bit), and when she actually arrives in this no-pony’s land, and meets with an actual archeologist as opposed to the Daring Do of the Graverobbers Kind. Even as the fic’s tone takes an unexpected and unnerving turn in the back half, this voice and characterisation remain present and keeps things chipper, in their own way.
As for the final mystery, it’s a good example of how you don’t need originality to make something work sometimes, for Chris has hit the reason why its type of reveal usually doesn’t work, and adjusted things so that obstacle isn’t present. The end coda that deliberately doesn’t answer some followup questions may leave some readers upset, but I took it in stride. Add in some sprinkling of worldbuilding history that intrigues even through the unsettling material, plus an appropriate shift in Rarity’s perspective for the present-tense scenes (one of those “summarise the dialogue rather then have it said directly” sort of things), and this is a story that, while simple and shallow, and in possession of a few unavoidable flaws off of its concept, is brimming with character and wit. I had a marvellous time with this.
Rating: Really Good
Demise Reprise by Chris
Genre: Comedy (w/Suicide/Self-Harm, Death)
Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Mane 6
3,714 Words
August 2020Reread
Rainbow Dash, in her infinite wisdom, has decided to kill herself, leaving it up to Twilight and their friends to bring her back. Of course, this isn’t the first time this has happened, so the initial shock from earlier instances has largely been replaced with annoyance. As will happen. But, friendship will out.
So, Rainbow Dash being the idiot ball and rationalising her decisions via the most hairbrained, deranged logic is the cornerstone of this fic, requiring that as an acceptance criteria by the reader to get much of anything out of this fic. If you can do that, you’re in for a real treat – stupid humour done right. And also the rest of the Mane 6 being heavily snarky without it feeling tired or rote.
Primarily, the dialogue just crackles and snaps with energy, strong enough that even the lengthy ‘talking heads’ passages barely register. Ditto for the pacing, which other than maybe a marginally overlong back half never lets up and makes for a mile-a-minute jokefest. This is the kind of fic that can have Twilight as the sensible and level-headed one for the bulk of it, yet be briefly dense at one point for a joke, and make it work. This is the kind of fic that squeezes in at least one lasting and impactful comic moment for everypony, even when said pony is absent to the proceedings. It’s the kind of fic that can spring several comic twists out of nowhere that we really should have seen coming, the mark of delicate comedy writing. All with a perfect final note of an ending gag.
Clever, ironic, dumb comedy is a fiendishly tricky genre to pull off, so that Chris flexed his writing chops to make this keep pulling the wool over the reader’s eye and accentuate the humour and characterisation is a mighty achievement indeed. Gives funny stupid fics a good name.
Rating: Really Good
Going Up by Chris
Genre: Slice of Life
Carrot Top, Derpy
4,571 Words
December 2012After reading normally for this review, listened to again later that day via Deftfunk and Scribbler's reading
Sometimes, even an ordinary pony can have an extraordinary day. This is one such day, for Carrot Top’s friendship with Derpy is about to lead to a wonderful surprise. Along with a bit of arguing and frustration. This story contains all of those things, and more. But above all else, it is about the time Carrot Top took flight.
I could hardly do a blog on Chris without picking at least one story featuring his favourite pony Carrot Top, and with his CYOA The Purloined Pony already exempt as explained above, that left two choices: this and Even in Dreams. The latter looked too short to give me meat to work with, just shy of 1.5K, so this odd couple children’s story won out. I don’t doubt Even in Dreams is probably quite good, but I don’t regret my choice, because this was fantastic.
The actual content is pure cute, heartwarming friendshipping fluff; Derpy lacks a little common sense as she goes about engineering a way for Carrot Top to be able to go up to the sky, neglecting to explain her plan and doing some mildly insensitive things. We get a Derpy who’s a little clumsy and occasionally forgetful of social norms, but the most earnest, dependable and willing-to-help-a-friend pony you could ask for. The ending beats, and what she comes up with that makes great use out of her cutie mark, really works too. As we follow Carrot Top from an omnipresent perspective, the odd couple friendship just works, plain and simple, and while I don’t know that this Carrot Top really expresses that strong or defined of a personality, beyond her desire to fly, within the confines and style of the story, it’s a perfect fit.
When I say this is a children’s story, I’m not kidding; the narration is like Winnie-the-Pooh by way of Douglas Adams, with occasional interjections for the narrator to express their opinion with a bit of gentle meta commentary. The narration is one of those that was evidently laboured over intensely, delighting in providing chatty wit via amusing tangents that say something about the characters and the whimsical story and tone. It’s bound to evoke pure joy and wonder for all but the most jaded of readers. Without it, the story would be nice and sweet, but it is what makes it.
That said, the narration and storytelling style does have some cracks; there are quite a lot of spots where the vocabulary and prose get too sophisticated for the target audience and style of children’s book this is purporting to be, not helped by the 4.5K length reached mostly via normal-fanfiction-as-read-by-teens-and-adults-length levels of description that feel out of place for this kind of story (you could lose close to 1K just from an editing pass. Probably). Chris evidently knows how to handle this writing from his years of teaching, but it does bleed through in odd phrases at times. More than anything, the narration and perspective gets muddled on occasion (alternating between whether they’re a character or not with little rhyme or reason, in essence) or comes across as very deliberately calculated, some of their playful way with words of being coy playing their hand a bit too much. None of this in any way sinks the fic, or even hurts it really. Just shows that Chris was still learning to employ this style, and missed it by a couple of %. I’d wager, or at least like to hope, that a children's books publisher would still find this impressive enough to just require some more editing rounds. And given this is over ten years ago, he evidently improved over this hurdle fast.
What’s left is one of the most “D’aww”-inducing stories you’re ever likely to find, the kind that both give fanfiction a good name and make me desire more whimsical children’s stories like this in our horse words. Easily one of my favourite portrayals of both these characters, and if not quite a classic for the ages for me, it’s circling that threshold. I fully intend to reread this one down the road, it was a delightfully warm treat.
Rating: Really Good
To Make a Spark by Chris
Genre: Adventure
Cadance
4,188 Words
December 2013
Cadance was already no ordinary pegasus, having fostered quite the talent for singing songs tailored to an individual pony’s troubles that get them to realise what matters most, and makes it all right. Thus, when the call goes out to ponies all across the land that the Princess has not smiled a true smile in recent memory, and with many having tried and failed, all who believe they can lighten her heart are welcome to come and try, Cadance answers the call. She doesn’t know how she will, but she knows she has to try.
This lyrical, mystical fairy tale accepts the notion of Cadance beginning life as a pegasus from the chapter book Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell, but is otherwise fully its own thing. Chris has acknowledged elsewhere that he never set out to write multiple stories in the children’s fable/fairy tale area, it just sort of happened, but I’d say off the results here, courtesy of the immense effort and reboots he made for the fic (as detailed in this journal – heavy spoilers for the fic, though it’s a great read itself), it’s easy to see why it got tagged as one of his ‘things’ for a while. Chap’s got a knack for it.
This call-and-response quest is one of those stories where just as often as dialogue getting told straight, we get told of the effects of what a pony is saying (or singing; every song of Cadance’s pivots to the perspective of her observing the heart’s secrets of the pony she’s singing to). It largely focuses on the ponies she sings and helps along the way, with the effect of her finding herself being a growing subtext brought to the forefront once she reaches Celestia. To its benefit: the repeating structure builds to quite an effective climax, one that wisely hits the ground is still leaving a lot unsaid or still to happen. Journey, not the destination, and all that.
There’s a lot going great here: the tone and lore of MLP just feels right (it’s one of those post-Faust stories that feels very much of a place with the mythical Equestria under her seasons), it nails as a bedtime story, it effectively lets feeling and character substitute for each other in spots where one doesn’t matter (the characters are supposed to be largely ambiguous, after all), the works. More than anything, it trusts the reader to get everything it doesn’t outright explain. Like other such stories, it could be tightened up a bit (mostly the aftermath of most of the songs, though the part prior to singing for Celestia felt the most padded), and there are occasions where I didn’t altogether feel the emotion really whalloping the way it should.
Regardless, this is such an emotionally honest piece of work, my notes are pithy, and it’s easy to see why Chris’ debut in the feature box remains one of his personal favourites even now. Give my trite review the benefit of the doubt, lyrical prose is tough for me to dissect, but I can absolutely appreciate it when done well. This is done really well; of all stories today, this came the closest to inching into that top tier for me.
Rating: Really Good
Bantam Tales by Chris
Genre: Anthology (various; mostly Comedy or Slice of Life)
No Tagged Characters (various, mostly Mane 7)
14,767 Words
May 2014- July 2020
Sometimes an author writes tiny little stories that aren’t eligible for individual publication on Fimfiction. Be they contest entries, personal exercises, or something else. And while sometimes expanding them into a publishable story is a thing that happens, for the vast majority, that does not. What is an author to do, to ensure such little drabbles and vignettes aren’t lost to time of contest boards and Equestria Daily posts?
Why, they publish a story purely for the purposes of collecting these minifics, no association of any kind between them, beyond their origin. And they add to it whenever they have a new suitable entry, sometimes after a further polish. And they leave it marked as incomplete when it was last added to nearly three years ago and the author hasn’t written anything Ponyfic in over two years. Lo and behold, that’s exactly what the maestro here did.
Unusual choice for the final story in this spotlight, I know. But we’d covered a variety of genres in a mystery drama, a black comedy, a children’s story slice of life, and a lyrical adventure fairy tale. Why not add to that with everything and the kitchen sink? We get to see Chris’ evolution as a writer too, as not only do the first ten stories predate this compilation, the first seven predate both Chris joining Fimfiction and Fimfiction itself!
Plus, the word count this week only hit 19K from the other four stories, I needed something in the five figure range.
Unlike Present Perfect, I’m largely at a loss on how to look at what is more or less a minific collection. I did take notes on each story as I went, but I feel ill-equipped to present even short one-paragraph takes on the lot (not helped by many of them being so short I’d spoil them wholesale). So this review is going to jump around quite a bit, considering particular strengths present across multiple stories, Chris’ evolution, and the kind of stories these are.
Genre-wise, the stories lean far more towards silly comedy than anything else, with many of the early, pre-Fimfiction entries especially being of the comedic subversion variety, playing the given prompt not-straight. There’s no denying the early ones are shakier either in concept or execution (an early English poetry almost 1K long nearly put me to sleep, being honest), but for the most part, they’re quick and punchy enough to amuse, and often even generate laughs. Not bad given several were done for 15-minute fic prompts. The weakest here was probably Rarity taking Dash clothes shopping, oddly lacking in any real punchline or joke beyond Rainbow Dash moaning, while the strongest for me was a double subversion of Rainbow and Scootaloo having a race. Though Derpy being a good mom even when sick and having a daughter with strange priorities in such a situation worked quite well too.
It’s tangible, almost, how much more consistent the minfics gets after the initial seven. Starting from the 8th one, a cool take on Dash sucking at card games and the difficulty of non-unicorns playing them that serves as a great bookend to the fic’s first story, also about Dash failing at card games, the hit rate just really soars. Even the second poem, while still losing me in using an unorthodox style, held together much better. It’s also here that we see the rare non-comedy that isn’t a poem; the clever-yet-poignant dairy tale of a dragon beaten and calmed by logic that closes out the collection is probably the highlight on that front, but Spike struggling to end a children’s story that is almost the manifesto of Chris dissecting the prompts inside out, and an aside on how Tirek remains unmoved by friendship even with the advent of his end, both struck a chord too.
Other highlights for me included a griffon fairy tale subverting expected pony values and morals à la Smolder’s dragon tale in “The Hearth’s Warming Club”, but even better; one of the most serious and grave origins for Spike made into a joke; Twilight getting a first-class lesson in not casting a spell as a shortcut, lest you destroy Ponyville; and just Rainbow Dash being the loveable dumb jock that she is – you can tell she’s Chris’ favourite.
I probably run the risk of just pitching the rest of the collection if I list off many more. Suffice to say you really get a bead of Chris’ talents and inclinations as an author, his ability to make do with all manner of story type and character, even if funny/cute character pieces are often his first choice (an author after my own heart! 
). It takes honed talent to place consistently highly in this many write offs with such quick vignettes, after all.
Minifics are a hard sell at the best of times to most folks, as this story’s paltry viewcount barely north of 1K attests. It gets a resounding approval from me; many of these stories would have satisfied immensely on their own, and I don’t just mean the three that exceed 1K and for which this could have been either. Only the somewhat softer nature of the earlier entries and inherent difficulty such short stories face to truly make an impression and stick in the minds holds this back from a Really Good. Perfect for quick, uplifting and (usually) funny reads.
Rating: Pretty Good
Spooky Summary of Scores:
Excellent: 0
Really Good: 4
Pretty Good: 1
Decent: 0
Passable: 0
Weak: 0
Bad: 0
Chris was the OG reviewer. I frequented his blog on a weekly (sometimes daily) basis. He even let me post a blog for an author spotlight he held once (John Perry, wherever you are, you're still my boi).
He even reviewed one of my ancient stories. That was a terrifying experience, let me tell you.
And yeah, good author, too!
I haven't read the first one. While I haven't read the last in its assembled form, I've seen most of the individual chapters as writeoff entries. The other 3 are all ones I enjoyed a lot.
oh my god, Going Up is so fucking good just seeing the cover makes me feel happy :D
Yeah, Going Up is one of my favorites, and all the others are really fun reads!
Fun Chris/iisaw facts;
1) I have an original printing of the choose-your-own-adventure one before the choose-your-own-adventure folks decided it was too close in look and feel to their series and requested* he change the cover.
2) His long-running feature First Sentences in (Fan) Fiction, is directly responsible for the first sentence in The Twilight Enigma.
-------
* They were very nice about it, I hear.
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Am I interpreting that right, in that you're saying Chris' active printing of The Purloined Pony wasn't the first, and a prior version's cover was too similar to this (or whatever cover styling they use these days), hence the switch request from the publisher:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f0/Cave_of_time.jpg
That's quite a surprise! Much like Logan, being on this side of the pond, my primary exposure to CYOA books isn't the namesake series (it was Give Yourself Goosebumps; I actually barely read the regular Goosebumps books), so I often forget that CYOA can refer to that series rather then just the genre.
Oh, and, yep, quite a rarity you have for yourself there.
As for point 2, yep, I noticed that on your comment on one of Logan's recent chapter reread blogs for Northern Lights. Looked up both Chris' blog series out of curiosity and the first sentence of The Twilight Enigma again out of curiosity and everything.
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First you, and then iisaw with the "OMG Going Up is da best" talk. Stop making me second-guess not giving high-tier Really Good stories an Excellent, come on!
What a wonderful surprise to come home and see this! Thank you for taking the time to read through a bit of my oeuvre, and I'm glad you largely enjoyed the time you spent.
I'm tempted to quote-reply to, like, fifty different things you said, but that feels like it would get excessive really fast. So instead, let me thank you for the glowing resume (not to mention the highly accurate one; promotion has never been my forte, it's true!), and for the thoughts on my stories, which largely mirror my own. Well, except maybe in the rating department; I'd have been harsher on some of my stuff, but then, "we are our own worst critics," I suppose
Also, thank you for, with the exception of the first few stories in Bantam Tales, avoiding my very earliest stuff. I'm sure it would have made for an interesting "how far he came"-type comparison, but honestly, I came into ponyfic off a five-ish year creative writing hiatus, and in my first few stabs at fanfic? It showed. I mean, I leave it all up because I don't believe in deleting things once you put them out for public consumption, but it's certainly not the stuff I'd point anyone but the most hardcore Chris-completionist at.
It was a pleasure to read through your thoughts. Of course, it is every week, but it's a double pleasure when those thoughts are mostly gushing about stuff I did. I appreciate it!
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You are indeed interpreting iisaw right! The original covers looked like this, before a lawyer for the CYOA books very politely informed me that they were no bueno. And, since both RBDash and I had no interest in getting a less-polite follow-up, he pulled those and shortly thereafter put up the current version: all the same words, just in a less copywrite-infringing package.
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You're very welcome, buddy! I think this was one of the first author spotlights where I really got a theme and proper selection going as opposed to just grabbing fics largely at random and with stockpiled reviews, and I feel it shows. Unless someone got bored by my history lesson on you, or on the lengthier spiels/context for some fics like Bantam Tales, I think this is one of my strongest review weeks yet, not just author spotlights.
Reviewing such a great reviewer/author spurs one on, who knew?
You know, I half-expected a joke "What, no top rating for any of the stories here?" quip like you did when Logan did a spotlight on you some years back, and I am least slightly disappointed I did not get it.
That said, it's fair that only the author of fics this good could have the opposite reaction to these ratings, feeling they're too generous, if only marginally (if you must know, both The Circle and the Cross and Demise Reprise were straddling Pretty Good/Really Good before I made a call).
Though what author isn't like that? Sure, I only consider one of my five stories thus far to get to Pretty Good territory (leaving two at Decent and two at Passable). So, I do get it, man.
Come on, man.
The best partOne of the best parts about reviewing Ponyfics at all is getting the author not just thanking you but replying to specific points with extra context/opinion/behind-the-scenes info/something. Nitty gritty stuff, I know, but whenever I get it, it makes my day almost as much as the reviews make the author's day.Should I have not done an author spotlight so your fics would pop up here normally here and there, and being just one at a time, they would get the nitty gritty responses? Maybe.
Hopefully you'll reconsider and maybe respond to at least some choice bits throughout.
I remember that info from somewhere, though I haven't the foggiest where. Probably one of your blog posts, or maybe an author's note on one of your story.
Anyway, after I read The Circle and the Cross off Logan's review of it some months back, then noticed Demise Reprise sat on my Re-evaluate bookshelf and decided to do an author spotlight in the first place, I at first considered nearly your whole backlog, except for the other two I'd already read and rated (Artistic License and A White Hearth's Warming – both Really Good, though my rating standards then were a bit different, as I had no Pretty Good rating) and the Read-Not-Rated The Purloined Pony). Once I noticed your first five pre-dated your joining of Fimfiction, I decided to omit them from consideration, remembering that. But I also knew I couldn't just pick stories only from your newer half of stories either, as while I'm all for showing largely an author's highlights, I still like to show a wide-ish scope of their years. Thankfully, it didn't take many endorsements for me to deduce Going Up would be the perfect early story for that, at over ten years old yet still one you consider one of your very best (and to judge from iisaw and Present Perfect here, many folks' favourite Chris fic). Everyone's a winner!
On the topic of Bantam Tales (which you might want to mark as complete if no other stories are coming for it, three years on
), is there any other Ponyfic you wrote not on Fimfiction? Write-off entries you didn't repost in it, some pre-Fimfiction stories you decided to not cross-post over here, that sort of thing? Don't worry, I won't hunt any of it down if you'd rather I didn't. Just wanted to know if the 144K here truly is all of Chris' horse words.
An ethos I follow too. Though… *Eyes shift in direction of his old fanfiction.net account from when he was a teenager, then to most of his YouTube videos* … it's not easy.
Well, considering I've reviewed five here, rated two others, and read-not-rated another, that leaves only thirteen. Couple that with the short, quickly-digestible length of your resumé, and there's a higher-chance then-with-most-authors I'll have to cover the early stuff at some point. Would you consider Going Up to be the cutoff for the worthwhile stuff, or would you set the bar back to just the five pre-Fimfiction fics?
And it was a pleasure to read them! Funny you mention the gushing, because I think Really Good reviews are the hardest to do right, as the praise needs to be controlled, otherwise they just read as an Excellent fic that didn't get that rating for an unknown reason. That, and, well… look who I'm talking to, the maestro of Ponyfic reviews.
Gotta make them come across as intelligent, measured and not mechanical in their structural composition.
Irrespective of the lack of nitty gritty quote-rific responses, your response warmed me a great deal. Thanks very much, buddy.
Oh, that's alright then. I knew the actual prose would be identical, mostly I was just curious about the original cover. I see there that the new one just recomposed the core elements, moves some around, and swapped the show-derived background assets behind the tree. So not a full new cover. Phew! Probably should have reckoned as such. What a silly ghost I am. 👻
Finally getting round to commenting here! Not a lot to say about the fics you chose, though: excluding Bantam Tales which I haven't read, I gave all four of them four stars, so it seems we're very much in agreement! Will also echo basically everything you said about Chris, and add that he was just as pleasant to get along with back when he was an active reviewer, too. One of those people, a bit like FOME I guess, who almost always seemed to be in a genial mood -- so on the rare occasions when he got annoyed, you took notice.
(I realise speaking about Chris in the past tense when he's not only still around but commented here less than two hours ago might be considered rather weird, but in terms of him as a reviewer and author, it seems reasonable.)
Well, since you asked nicely...
This I don't doubt. The infrequent/irregular writing speaks for itself (comes of being more of a FiMnonFiccer, dontcha know), and most of the stuff I did write was me, in one way or another, trying to do something a little different from what I'd tried before. Which is great fun for me, but hardly a way to build a dedicated audience. Still, hundreds of followers always just floors me, even if it's far removed from the "big boys" of the FiMFic circuit. That's a whole lot of people who want to know if/when I do something, you know?
Do you know that you're the first person to comment on that? My intention was that this story was set firmly in the S4 era, and to be honest, I didn't even remember that it did/would contradict A Royal Problem until well after I published--and at that point, I looked at the story and description and decided that they were probably clear enough on that that it didn't merit a specific "set before Starlight," since apparently readers weren't having any trouble placing it.
Truth is, I personally feel the best bits of the fic are all back-loaded... but I know I'm a minority view on that. I actually tightened up the Tartarus stuff a bit from the Writeoff version for that exact reason, but there was enough stuff I wanted to leave in that I ended up cutting less than I probably should have.
I was going to write something about how I see Carrot Top's personality here, but then I realized I already did that and can save myself a bit of trouble by just copy-pasting! Here's an excerpt from the end of my (Carrot Top-centric, of course) chapter in a collab about the Alicorn Amulet:
Yup, that seems like it pretty well sums it up. Shame I didn't put that into Going Up
Well, I can hardly object to being compared to either of those
A bit tangential, but between that and what you said about my Writeoff entries earlier: one thing I really loved about writing minifics is that they got me to edit my ideas down. When I had a draft come in at 850 words when the wordlimit was 750? Those were the entries that medaled. The ones that were comfortably at or under the limit from the start? Mostly didn't do as well. For someone who doesn't write all that many words to begin with, maybe it's strange to say that my stories consistently get better with less rather than more, but there you go.
I would always rather err on the side of "emotionally honest" than "emotion really whalloping," even if those aren't really opposites. Incidentally, another reason why I'm glad you didn't pick some of my earlies ponyfic stuff; even if I don't think I wrote anything emotionally dishonest in this fandom, I've definitely got some stories that lay on to a frankly unseemly degree.
Just for that, Imma write another minific and throw it in there. It'll be ready by 2025.
Okay, but can I interest you in... a 5000 word piece of early English poetry!?!
Wait, come back, the last 2k words or so are prose! Because I annotated my own poem, in-character!
...He's not coming back, is he?
My inner contrarian inevitably drives me to find some sort of angle for every prompt, whether it's a true reinterpretation (like a lot of those "dash off something in 15 minutes" shorts) or just a flipped corner (like with Spike in The Last Line giving everything a metafictional overgloss).
...Okay, that's probably enough. It's still not 50, but there's some thoughts, anyway. Hope that scratches the "what's he think?" itch!
Oh, I almost forgot:
5722524
Next time give one of my stories an "Excellent," you coward!
Just the pre-FiMFic ones, I think. The only other two earlier ones are Letters, which is (thanks mostly to Pascoite's editing and advice!) pretty solid despite being an earlier work of mine, and the aforementioned alliterative epic (which I'm sensing would definitely not be your cuppa regardless).
Knew it wouldn't take much to crack you open.
Like taking carrots from a golden harvest!
Honestly, even apart from my feelings on the later seasons and certain episodes in particular like "A Royal Problem", I most like when authors set their fic earlier because it shows guts, and because characters are largely more interesting the earlier in their period of growth is, when they aren't as fully defined and they can be taken in more gripping directions. Not a hard and fast rule, and not one particularly applicable to this story, but there you go.
I do find it funny how you only noticed afterwards and figured "eh, readers can figure it out", because I also approve of an author placing subtle implications as to when a fic is set without making a deal out of it, much less feeling they need to say so in the description. Though I'm guessing you meant the S5 era, given the story uses the Map?
That's fair, and I know I've been susceptible to that many a time myself. The best bits are largely in the back half, I agree; I think the first structural half just has such a relentless pace that the slower "talking head for 2K" vibe of the second did register for me.
Interesting observations. My experience writing drabbles and minifies has been that they have taught me a lot about economical writing, even if I'm still more inclined towards vignettes that are too overlong to do well in the limit (so, there's little correlation between how I did and length).
Regardless, this is one reason I always do a "tighten the prose" editing pass on everything I've written now; even if the fic doesn't feel overlong, most of the time, it does make a difference.
Still here! Benefits of inter-dimensional travel, don't'cha know.
Anyway, given I will probably read all your works eventually, and Logan was in awe of this despite similarly glossing over with poetry. Get me in the right mindset (the Bantam Tales poems caught me off guard) and I'll wade through it.
Most of the rest satisfied me, but didn't demand a response, and consider I'm not the best editor for comments (I write succinctly with pieces in advance, not on the fly), I'll leave it at that. Very glad you caved, though!
I'll look forward to more of the same next time I slot in a fic of yours to a normal review week.
As surely as night follows day and I have mitts in place of hands (👻), one truism in life is that a letter-based story will improve tenfold if Pascoite is looped into the production process.