Ghost Mike's Ponyfic Review Monday Musings #59 · 5:00pm Apr 24th, 2023
End of the month, author spotlight time. We got us another new-ish* author that’s amassed a decent following in their time here with a body of work that’s been acclaimed by quite a large handful of folks as largely reliable and consistent, with a chunk of reasonable yet disposable stories, yet when there’s a knockout, there’s really a knockout. That being mushroompone. Don’t worry, they’re not the toxic variety of fungi. 
* Their profile says they’ve been around since 2013 yet needed a fresh start. I’ve been unable to locate what their old account was, if they even had one, much less any prior work of theirs. So take this claim with a pinch of salt.
With nearly 40 stories to their name, there’s quite a share of genre and character variety, everything from light, fluffy disposable pieces to horror, both of the subtly unnerving variety and those with some more visceral, upfront stuff. My impression of the author prior to this from the few stories of their I’d read was that their pieces generally hit harder the deeper they got (though the romantic comedy How to Farm Rocks (in three easy steps) earned a Pretty Good), an impression largely borne out by the five I chose here. Though that’s not to dismiss those lighter pieces; mushroompone credits the speedwritten ones with improving their craft, and as I’m more inclined towards such stories anyway, many of them do still appeal to me, including some that scheduling prevented me from picking here. Their recent Wishberry almost made the cut for the final story here, but I needed/wanted something quicker. In any case, I’m grading on a curve, as one has to when the author’s best stories are as brilliant as mushroompone’s are. It takes a skilled author to get me to read horror and love that I read it.
One thing’s for sure; judging from these five, when mushroompone fumbles in their writing, it’s not for lack of ambition or running with rote depictions. If anything, the fumbles I found came from overambition and quirky touches that got a little ragged, which still produces very interesting fics. As evident from the lengthy reviews many of these dragged out of me. 
Read on and enjoy; I certainly did.
This Week’s Spectral Stories:
Womb by mushroompone
Two-Player Game by mushroompone
Radiowaves by mushroompone
The Head by mushroompone
Rookie by mushroompone
Weekly Word Count: 45,128 Words
Womb by mushroompone
Genre: Dark/Horror (w/Gore & Death)
Sunset
1,000 Words
March 2022
Once, they must have shared a womb. That’s how twins start out, after all. Yet it’s not always how they finish. Sometimes, only one makes it. Sometimes, one twin does something unthinkable. Sometimes, twins eat each other in the womb.
This Gold Medal winner of the Grim category in last year’s Thousand Words contest is probably the one that generated the most word-of-mouth, both before and after the results. And my lord, is it easy to say why. This holds nothing back from its grimness, and possibly because it’s more of the chilly implication variety than a gorefest (though the tag is earned), it’s honestly far more frightening. Least to this phantom. 👻
Standing as a unique take on the “but what of the other Sunset?” query about Equestria Girls, this takes a very elliptical, fragmented approach to the regaled character thoughts, one rather poetry-like at times (hey, tight word maximum, what’re you gonna do?), and it’s one that makes every line hit hard. It’s nothing more or less than a stream of consciousness, watching as Sunset plots and acts on a horrid impulse, all while reflecting on the nature of the relationship between the two. When just about every other line is implying some new horror, you know it works. It all flows really well, with the prose formatting and prose being almost musical at times. And with other details like the human Sunset working at a sushi bar, and the irony of that… well, there’s lots of things like that.
To have so much of the characterisation and effect come through purely in the writing style, and produce something really horrifying and chilling that fills you with dread, yet from which you cannot look away, this is just magnificent. It’s hard at the best of times for the really short stories to nab the top rating: this clears it with aplomb. Even if you’re more squeamish than me on fics like this, it’s fully worth soldering through, and you’ll be glad to have done so.
Rating: Excellent
Two-Player Game by mushroompone
Genre: Romance/Comedy/Slice of Life
Rainbow Dash, Cheerilee, Starlight Glimmer
8,311 Words
May 2022
The unthinkable has happened. Rainbow Dash has lost the top score on her favourite arcade cabinet. Naturally, this won’t stand. She has to be the best in everything she does. She… she just has to. In doing her “level” best to reclaim her former title from the unknown usurper, she comes to be acquainted with Ponyville’s local school teacher, loitering around the filthy restaurant where the arcade cabinet is located to force herself through a mountain of end-of-semester marking.
An unusual crackship given weight by the way the two ponies hook up, this fic thrives on the different. A lot of energy is given to how outright disgusting this restaurant is (with ponies frequently passing out and remaining that way overnight, as a barometer), with nopony in their right mind coming here for the actual food, drink or atmosphere. Presumably to serve as a counterpoint for ponies getting together at the end of it all. On top of that, we also have a connection between Dash already feeling the onset of being superseded by the next generation as a Wonderbolt, manifested in this arcade game, and how Cheerilee acts as a sounding/teaching board, some indications as to Cheerilee’s true feelings on the Friendship School. Even Starlight around as Rainbow’s main talking buddy between scenes is something I’ve rarely seen. This fic has all the makings of a wonderfully offbeat crackfic.
Yet, it misses the mark, for a few reasons. One is that the various offbeat touches, described in blunt 1st-person perspective, are short and clipped in such a way that variations on how to deliver them dry up fast, and thus they’ve well tired by the end. This is merely a minor irritation for the ones that work otherwise, like the restaurant’s low cleanliness and the arcade game itself (and the awkward interactions of Rainbow and Cheerilee fall into this category too), but serves to further sink the aspects that have other problems.
The decisions here are clearly supposed to be quirky choices delivered wryly that the viewer happily rolls with, but many of them fall short, or are too context-less in an off-putting way to work. Take Starlight’s presence; her as Rainbow Dash’s main friend here is already a tricky pill to swallow, but Starlight is far too brash and chummy with Rainbow both for this vaguely-late/post-series fic (timeline continuity is another issue here, with Rainbow needing to be at least a bit older yet this also being when Twilight still ran the school), that she never registered as any incarnation of the overpowered Creator’s Pet unicorn.
By far the biggest hurdle is the characterisation of both Dash and Cheerilee. The former, as portrayed in 1st-person, is inconsistent in how brash and stubborn she is, and not in the way of mellowing out in later seasons, but in now having a handle on. Meanwhile, Cheerilee alternates between timid schoolfilly with a crush and assertive snarky pony, which might have vibed if her dialogue felt like Cheerilee. But it is too much at the whims of the plot. Or perhaps it’s because, for all the quirky offbeat touches throughout (they are plenty I didn’t mention; the less repeated one is, the better it works, by and large), the ship is never sold convincingly, and the fic isn’t enough of a comedy for making it believable to not matter.
A combination of diminishing returns on its sideways touches and choices, plus those missing the right amount of conceived logic to their proceedings, serve to render this a rare misfire from mushroompone. I’m glad they wrote it, offbeat romance fics in a sea of bland, predictable mush is never not welcome. I’d just have been more glad if the final result had been less off-puttingly erratic.
Still, its reception from its limited audience is decisively more positive, so most of the handful of folks who’ve read it didn’t notice or weren’t bothered by these issues. Crackfic fans might still well like it.
Rating: Passable
Radiowaves by mushroompone
Genre: Romance/Drama/Mystery
Night Glider, Clear Sky
19,987 Words
March 2022Winner of Bicyclette's Crackship Contest
Off her prior absence, Night Glider is denied starting right back as a search-and-rescue worker, instead reassigned to a five-month position as a fire lookout. Something she’s glad at least in part for, off a buried discomfort keeping her from flying. Stationed in one of the most remote parts of Equestria, a place of pure isolation, is exactly what she feels she needs, to get away from it all, to forget. Not entirely possible with her one contact, weatherpony Clear Sky, checking in frequently via radio. Add to that the absolute mess left by the prior lookout, plus the mysterious messages she keeps hearing, and despite being slow and isolated, peaceful might not be exactly the right word for her time here…
You know, if the show revisited Our Town more than twice (plus a Season Five finale cameo), it would be even weirder that all the ponies there all just stayed there forever (M.A. Larson always regretted that story structure and prioritisation meant their roles were reduced even in “The Cutie Map”, never mind no future episode doing anything until later Story Editors dragged Sugar Belle into a canon crackship). Especially Night Glider, one of the greater examples of a minor character with very little personality as written yet whose design and handful of action moments endeared her to many as another cocky, flight-loving pegasus. Starting with the aftermath of her trying to return to normal society in the wake of that is a compelling hook all on its own, so even without the rest, I was very curious to see where mushroompone would take her. Good thing future canon compatibility isn’t a priority for me, else Quibble Pants being with Clear Sky for her solo episode plus Night Glider and Party Favor giving each other infatuated looks in “Hard To Say Anything” might be a problem!
The primary focus of the story, or at least its central pillar, ends up being Night Glider’s voice-only interactions with Clear Sky, who it becomes clear also works out here to get away from something. As the characters note, ponies near-invariably accepted isolated jobs like these for that reason. Seeing how their interactions change from chapter to chapter (each one covering a month, or snapshots of one at least), from Night Glider being wiped and not wanting to talk, to doing so but being nowhere near as chipper as Sky, to have the tables reversed, it’s all effective purely on incident, but far more so for the fluctuating, minimalist way it’s told, with ten times more things unsaid then said. All for ponies who only communicate via static-y radio too (something roughly believable with the ideal Equestria-as-late-19th-early-20th-century timeline).
Anyway, these are the kind of mysteries far more about the effect they have on the characters and reader than about getting a clear-cut foregrounded solution. Some do get that answer, while others get it more via implication (Night Glider’s fear largely amounts to “look, she only just got her cutie mark back, what do you expect?”), and some not at all (largely, I’m sure, out of the contest’s word count limit). But the execution of them all is so effective that this “journey not the destination” philosophy works great.
By execution, I mean the tough-to-handle isolation genre, where the author needs to keep the reader engaged with few characters, minimal action or conflict, and minimal use of dialogue. Intimidating enough most don’t try until they’re broken in their writing skills quite a bit, and often fumbled when it is. No such issues here. We move from descriptive prose to flowery, atmospheric words to blunt, short and sharp statements in moments of intensity, all done with a purpose. The kind where you really feel the author having laboured over every line for the desired effect. From this, we get a mix of desired-yet-still-lonely isolation balanced with a desperate-yet-closeted need for closure, all while constantly surprising me with how the story is told and gets into the reader. From the different and alternating ways Night feels a radio in her hoof or against her cheek, to the way she describes what she imagines the actions Sky is doing at the other end, is just one example of how masterfully executed this is.
It is fair to admit this is somewhat constrained by the word count limit, for while mushroompone chose the right things to focus on in lieu of that, and knew what mysteries to emphasise and what to not, this is still felt. Not to “this should be twice as long” levels; mostly, the chapter jumps feel a little too sprightly for what is still at heart a slow burn story, especially in the sharp pivot to the story’s climax and aftermath. Though perhaps I just wanted more of this, it’s that good.
This certainly is not a fic for everyone, less for not answering some mysteries, more for the cryptic prose and flow requiring at least a decently attentive reader (might explain the somewhat high level of dislikes for a story this quality). For that reader, though, this is likely to hit at least really well, and possibly even better. Unless this sounds off-putting, don’t sleep on it.
Rating: Really Good
The Head by mushroompone
Genre: Dark/Horror (w/Gore, Death, Self-Harm/Suicide)
Starlight, Ocellus, Trixie
10,805 Words
October 2022
One day, on a chilly morning in early October, Ocellus wandered into her class with no head. After quelling the instant panic and dismissing the students, Starlight receives the full explanation of how she could be walking and alive with no head from a changeling on emergency services. And even after digesting the indigestible facts of changeling science and culture on matters like this, Starlight still had to watch over the body until Ocellus’ family comes. A matter no one should have to do, least of all here.
This is the epitome of a fic I’m glad to have read yet very frustrated to review. Because I never would have looked at a fic of this kind of content with that many red tags, not even for an author spotlight, were it not for the instant classic status it gained upon debut. Yet that also means many others have acclaimed it better than I can. Very frequently, in this case; once every ten comments you’ll find a much better and more eloquent encapsulation of why this fic is so amazing. Plus, I rarely read/watch horror media unless it’s must-read/see territory, and this is thus way outside of my repertoire of analysis skills. But, all the way from the spirit world, I shall give it a shot. 
Story’s still recent enough, so some folks won’t yet have heard of/read it.
As you might expect from that opener, there isn’t a single element of this fic that isn’t phenomenal. While it does have passages of differing perspective or tone where reality seems to distort, as you might expect in a good implicit gore kind of story, a lot of it is in a “normal” perspective for Starlight, and it does have things happen, not a given for a “discovering/reconciling with the aftermath or a tragedy” fic. It certainly makes it easier to jump in for non horror/experimental folks, anyway; for this type of story, it has an actual plot, which makes the unsettling depths it goes to (and they are deep) still worth getting through.
There are a few rare elements at play here which strike me as the magic ingredients that elevate it above being a horror genre story. The concepts themselves certainly help, with how nonchalant other changelings seem not only about death but about dismemberment being one of the best incorporations I’ve seen yet of the post-reformation changelings still feeling like bugs. If you know your biology of how earth insect bodies act after losing parts, you probably get it already. And how Starlight is utterly unable to really process this or how the body acts, which leads me to how structurally immaculate it all is. Not just the usual nuts and bolts of flow, action and recourse, and buildup, and all that stuff; this is the rare story where the escalation is one of external conflict/choices, but also of character emotion, all leading to the final decision Starlight makes at the story’s end.
Thematic material and there being a point to this beyond being a horror abound too, not just from the culture clash but also from a later point about the difference between understanding and respect. Apart from Starlight trying and failing to be level-headed, this is an amazing showcase for Trixie, who is supportive while being unnerved herself yet also what the Body is doing far more; there’s a revelation on her part later on that will floor many folks, I don’t doubt.
And along all that, there’s the actual horror and gore itself, which works most obviously for pulling out the gore when appropriate but only when appropriate, and relying on more unsettling horror for the remaining passages. This isn’t just for the usual “imagination is scarier than the reality” reason either, because there are some visceral details and images in here, especially towards the end, that are properly horrifying, yet still retain a character reason for being so. It’s the rare horror story that gets what horror means, as opposed to just mistaking scary for it.
You know, I’m never proud of any review that turns into a pretty transparent “laundry list” one, just means I’ve done a pretty routine job of appraising it. But I think I got across at least some of the reasons why this fic is amazing, and there’s plenty more too (the reason for Ocellus’ decapitation, when we get to it, will resonate with many folk, and is all the stronger for not taking over the rest of the story). My reaction to this is a bit like that I had with John Carpenter’s The Thing – whatever your feelings on the genre or these types of story, or on squeamish moments, you have to read this, it’s too great to not. Though for somewhat different reasons.
Rating: Excellent
Retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be when you’re immortal. Thus it is that a decent stretch of years after hoofing the crown to Twilight along with her sister, Luna has joined the Wonderbolts as a cadet, seemingly to stave off her boredom. Captain Rainbow Dash might have been happier about this, were it not for Luna’s flying skills. Or… the lack thereof. A topic made much more difficult to breach by the Princess’ former princess’ upbeat, bubbly demeanour.
After quite a few heavy stories, and two very unsettling ones (good unsettling), I wanted to wrap up this look at some of mushroompone’s work with a light, fluffy one-shot. Which is not quite what this is, so warped expectations cannot help but affect my impression. I’d assumed this would at least mostly revolve around Luna lagging in Academy training while remaining chipper about it to Rainbow Dash’s frustration. Truthfully, that’s really only the pretext: after a setup scene of Dash happening upon Luna practising laps after hours and some awkward (for Dash) exchanged pleasantries, the bulk of the story concerns the pair having breakfast at a diner.
The depiction of these two at sometime around or near the show’s epilogue episode (the only thing to date it is Dash reaching an age of developing thin spots in her mane and her wings getting a little knobbly) is interesting. Luna starts off largely just an extension of her more outgoing, bubbly side we know, with added wrinkles fitting this situation; as somepony who has only known the royal life, she oversteps her boundaries in ways others largely don’t correct her on because she still feels like a Princess. And even then, her bubbliness is of a more subtle, subdued variety then you might expect, or at least it comes across that way, next to this Dash, who is quite a demonstration of how age can change a pony. There’s none of her old bragging or brashness, though she hasn’t softened either: the impression is of someone who would put Luna in her place if only she could muster the mojo to do so.
What links the two is Dash being rather uncomfortable with how she’s getting older, already at a point where she can’t quite do the moves she used to, while Luna, someone who isn’t physically ageing and thus comes across as a more idealised version of an older person discovering a youthful area and throwing themselves into it without measuring their capabilities first, seems to digest pacing herself in trying this out towards the end. What makes this unique is how these two hardly even acknowledge it with the other, except in some direct conversations about how Luna’s faring; it’s all internal thoughts largely expressed with subtle hints and symbolism.
It’s a bold choice, and certainly more unique than the louder dynamic one would expect from these two. It’s just… a little too aggressively subtle, a feeling of wanting to have surface-level stuff with meaning underneath everything. In a vacuum, basically all of this works, like their interactions with the waitress, the other topics they touch on, especially in the epilogue, and the difference between their ordered meals, but the story, though leaving this all to implication for the attentive reader, still wants it all to grab the reader and demand to be noticed, rather then having some of it just sit in the prose, unconcerned with whether it’s actively noticed or not.
That sounds like an awfully specific and gear-grinding complaint to have, and it probably is. Make no mistake, the approach to the characters, the message it’s trying to get across of ponies losing/having lost their talent/purpose and, in jumping into other things/ignoring it, going about making new things and passions of life the wrong way, that’s all there. And it’s still amusing, charming and funny from the surface-level interactions, Luna’s bubbliness and quiet desperation to socialise with others, Dash’s awkwardness giving way to letting her younger self out again, and other bits. A little more refinement and scaling back, and this would have shone quite strongly, but even in this somewhat muddled form, it’s still a very interesting take on these characters at this point and with these interactions. A rather flawed fic, but one of the best kinds of such.
Rating: Decent
Spooky Summary of Scores:
Excellent: 2
Really Good: 1
Pretty Good: 0
Decent: 1
Passable: 1
Weak: 0
Bad: 0
This week is only the second where more than one story was rated Excellent – and that prior week was my one year anniversary where I personally selected some of my favourite stories to review. Quite an achievement, mushroompone! And all it took was a pair of visceral, unnerving horror stories.
There's… a lot to unpack from that fact…
Oh, the mushroom! Definitely an author worth keeping an eye on. Only one of these I've read is Radiowaves, which was my introduction to them and proved an excellent first encounter. If you ever get the time, I highly recommend The Haunting of Carousel Boutique and The Architect's Wings.
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Haunting's already on my list, and after the showstopper duo of Womb and The Head here, you can bet it's leaping up the backlog quite a bit, horror or not (besides which, it seems to be more of the slow, unnerving "leave it to the imagination" kind of horror I tend to be somewhat more open to. Hence it being on the list in the first place.
As for Architect's Wings… eh, Sci-Fi in Pony's a real tough sell for me, but never say never.
Holy moly!! 10 notifications?? On a Monday afternoon??? I thought for a minute I'd posted a story and somehow forgotten..
In all seriousness, thank you so much for the reviews! I've felt entirely spoiled lately with author spotlights popping up everywhete I turn, so many of them featuring glowing recommendations of which I feel only slightly worthy. I appreciate your feedback, particularly when it comes to subtlety - in my opinion, the right balance and pace of reveals in a story is absolutely the hardest thing to master. As the author, you can never forget what you thought up! It's funny that you bring up Wishberry, actually, since I feel as though I was being to obvious while writing it.. only to discover that, for my early readers, I'd somehow miraculously hit the nail on the head! Go figure.
I've lately found myself in a bit of a groove (or perhaps 'rut' is the better word) with writing for events - I believe The Head was the first time in nearly two years I'd written something not related to a speedwrite, on-site contest, or story exchange. In fact, everything that you've reviewed (besides The Head) was written for a specific audience (in the case of two-player game and rookie, just one person!) and with specific limitations. While I do absolutely credit those sorts of events with my current skills, there's always a barrier to overcome in them, most prominently time and wordcount. This isn't to say that I'm not proud of the stories I write for these events, simply that I almost always post them while the little voice in the back of my head goes "hey! That's not done yet!" You wouldn't believe the sheer volume of unpublished - but entirely complete - stories I have languishing in my Google docs... For shame. This is all to say that I do credit the success of The Head with being unrelated to deadlines and word limits, and I've since stopped constantly occupying myself with events and started focusing more on the stories I feel truly motivated to tell. I'm hoping that I can carry forward the great lessons I've learned from these events and write some stuff I can be proud of without reservation :) it's reviews like this that make me feel like I can really make that happen, so again: thank you!!
Lastly, I will say that I am 100% honest about my history on the site - I joined back in March of 2013 at the ripe old age of 14 to write some truly appalling garbage. I stopped using that account in the summer of 2016, took a two-year hiatus, and remade to write Threshold. While the old account is, um... Hideously embarrassing, I can't bring myself to delete it. That said, I certainly won't be sharing the account name any time soon, and I very much doubt anyone could connect it with my current account. Maybe in another ten years you all can drag it out of me ;)
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And it would be fifteen, if I didn't toggle my rating bookshelves to private when adding the stories in so as to not spoil the rating for the writer. Good thing too, sound like you might have had a heart attack if you got fifteen.
A mushroom after my own heart – all five MLP stories I've published have been for contests (or, well, Jinglemas for some of them). For me, the issue is plain and simple that I find it nearly impossible to write without the right story striking my and compelling me enough to write it without outside motivation. And even then, contests only compel me if the prompt strikes the right idea for me. But, like yourself, I find they've taught me a lot about writing, while always feeling they could have been better with just a little more time and polish (which hasn't stopped me going back and doing edits sometimes – mostly just prose polish, but for one I shortened it by nearly 1,300 words). Small world, isn't it?
In any case, I know that most of the time a writer is never going to produce their 100% absolute best work for a contest, while also knowing they're very important to their development and to making works that will inspire them and the readers. So while I largely dread having to look at all entries for a contest, I cherish getting to pick the appealing ones.
Yeah, I didn't quite catch what the stated purpose of those and some other fics were. Best I could tell was they were written as gifts for friends in private groups/servers that you've rather chummy with (the comments even point to said groups seeing Two-Player Game much earlier than its Fimfiction publication). That the case? Can hardly fault if so, nothing like a great rapport with others.
Mm, I would, actually. Not a hefty volume, but I had quite a few from my former fanfiction.net days (more on that below) which I never published despite being finished. And not for the reasons you suspect either. Given the no. of stories you do have here and what I've observed about how you write and get yourself to write, I have no trouble accepting this.
Hey, more power to you, buddy. Funny thing, I'd noticed that your story output had basically slowed from its prior about-one-a-month rate from early 2020 through to May last year, to one every two months, to then a nearly-five-month hiatus, but didn't catch the reason why. Now I see that was when you switched to writing without contests or something similar as a motivational factor. Less output, but really knocking it out of the park, can't fault you for that.
That's… why I'm here.
But yep, writer gratitude is part of what makes the effort I go to write up my thoughts on fics I'd be reading anyway to be public for others all worth it.
Can never get enough of it, it's to my kind like love is to a changeling! 
Ah, the teenage backlog. I can relate, with my original output for other fandoms on fanfiction.net coming in my teenage years being largely bad too. Then I basically stopped writing fanfiction for four years (one okay one-shot excepted) before I got into MLP late and joined here in August 2018, though it took another two years before I actually wrote. The quality of MLP fanfiction combined with maturing writing skills just spurs us to actually improve, eh?
I haven't read Rookie, though I might get around to it eventually (a Decent isn't quite enough to propel it to a certainty), but I have read the other four. In three cases all I can really say is "Yeah, me too" since I think it's fairly widely accepted that Womb and The Head are masterpieces, and that Radiowaves is only a notch or so lower. It's a shame you didn't get on with Two-Player Game, where I'm with the majority who loved it, but you explain your issues perfectly cogently. At any rate, mushroompone's hit rate is fantastic and I'm so glad they're writing here.