Ghost Mike's Ponyfic Review Monday Musings #62 · 5:00pm May 15th, 2023
This being Ireland, and not the Western/Southern United States as it is for a hefty chunk of the audience, only now are the effects of Summer starting to make themselves known. And still in a limbo where sometimes it’s warm enough to only wear a t-shirt outside, other times it’s not, and there’s no rhyme or reason. Plus the unpredictable rain, of course.
On the other hand, I have such a low climate range tolerance that outside of the UK, there’s very few other places in the world I’d choose to live. Long as I stay on the east coast, and not the far muddier and wetter west coast bearing the brunt of the Atlantic weather, I’m content. You certainly won’t catch me living in LA! And while I’m not the best person to appreciate them, this country does have plenty of lovely scenic sights, many of which I’ve yet to see.
I guess what I’m saying is, beauty surrounds all of us, and not just in the landscapes. There’s supposed to be something profound, deep and meaningful in there somewhere, but I’m too distracted at this particular moment in time to articulate it any more gracefully.
Another week over 50K this time, that’s a good sign. Does that mean I’m making good on keeping the word count up? 
Um… what Rainbow Dash said, yeah. Let’s not count my Parasprites before they multiply. 
In any case, let’s get to today’s roster.
This Week’s Spectral Stories:
Trust by Bad Horse
Inheritance by Mica
Go South, Young Mare by FanOfMostEverything
A Darling Little Secret by Gusto Starstorm
Sacanas by Lets Do This
Weekly Word Count: 53,551 Words
Trust by Bad Horse
Genre: Dark (Alternate Universe)
Celestia, Trixie
1,448 Words
October 2012Reread
Listened to via Scribbler's reading
Celestia does not lose her calm easily. And even when she does, it’s invariably in the context of harm being threatened on her little ponies. But when she hears of the web of lies spun by a boastful showmare in Ponyville, her temper is truly tested. For if there’s one thing Celestia cannot stand, it’s ponies contradicting the trust omnipresent in the land.
It’s certainly startling, watching Trixie cower in fear as Celestia prompts Trixie to list her misdeeds and then explains why trust must be maintained, all with enough ferocity that even the on-duty guards keep their distance. What saves this from being a wallowing exercise in Tyrant Celestia (which it isn’t, but the above might make it seem like it is), is that this does still paint a very positive picture of Equestria. Even the actual ending, and how it recolours what Celestia said, still makes the piece feel like an earnest one. When the fic is set, sometime between “Boast Busters” and “A Canterlot Wedding”, was a smart choice too, allowing for an extra layer to this that makes all the difference.
There isn’t much else to this fic past its exploration of trust as a concept, what can be done in 1.4K, but that exploration is done via effective showing. Not nearly the fandom mini-classic many would have you believe, and it very much feels like an early fic generating flop sweat as it does its level best to be clever and subversive, but neither is it a disappointment.
Rating: Decent
Inheritance by Mica
Genre: Drama/Slice of Life (w/Profanity & Sex)
Sunny, Hitch, Argyle
6,275 Words
March 2023
Hitch was right on the money getting himself sorted out with a paid-off mortgage so early in life. Almost enough to make one overlook that he’s not the only young landowner in Maretime Bay. For somepony else recently inherited an old coastal landmark. And that somepony is now grappling with the aftermath of the loss of her father, how to move on with life, and the unrelenting efforts of estate agents with offers for the land lighthouse.
That ordinary description doesn’t remotely sell this story’s actual main selling point, which is the way it’s told. It has a rhythm of bouncing between ordinary recollected thoughts and present descriptions, to heavily fragmented ones, and right back. Scenes are often short as they present the reality of suddenly being the homeowner of an old unused lighthouse, with Sunny’s frustration at mowing her lawn early on being a pivotal example.
It’s still plenty focused in its opaque way, though, given the bulk of this consists of Sunny debating whether to sell the house, getting convinced by Hitch to do it off how little she can maintain it, and during the process, coming to her own decision on the idealism of her values and morals. It would be easy to tell all that in a standard, ho-hum manner, but the gentle touch Mica employs here really elevates the material. Not least in how this may well be one of the best and most unique portrayals of grief I’ve seen in Ponyfic, never about the incident directly yet still letting it affect Sunny’s life in buried ways everywhere.
If it’s not clear by now, the “show, don’t tell” mantra is very strong with this one, from Sunny’s standoffish conversations with the main agent later on, through to how she and Hitch interact, in a restrained and accommodating manner that not only suits this point in the timeline but says so much about their relationship above and beyond the usual “Hitch sighs as Sunny preaches to the wind” approach common to G5 backstory fics. Am I appreciating this because of how rarely I’ve seen it in G5 fics? You bet I am.
Very scattershot review, this, I grant, but this fics just works and feels right in its depiction of Sunny in its time. The snapshot and fragmented approach does ceiling its threshold somewhat (just barely keeping it from Really Good territory), and some of the side details do sour when they should have just been left out – Maretime Bay has internet, and there are other earth pony settlements – but overall, there’s no denying this leaves quite an impressive and nuanced tastes in one’s mouth from all the things it does well. Considering how gloomy the backstories are for most of the Mane 5, it’s fitting to get nuanced depictions of grief and life like this. More, fandom, please – the G5 backstory as regards non-G4 elements does have a limited scope, but there’s still plenty of potential!
Rating: Pretty Good
Go South, Young Mare by FanOfMostEverything
Genre: Adventure/Comedy
Derpy, Daring Doo, Cherry Berry
4,184 Words
April 2017
Sometimes you get a job not because you’re the best for it, but because you’re the only one available. Such has been the case for Ditzy Doo for Winter Wrap Up three years running now, guiding migratory birds from the South despite her terrible internal sense of navigation. Surely, things will go better this time. They certainly seem to at first, for Twilight has provided her with a means of reliability. It just wasn’t meant to sidetrack her into a calamity.
I’ve nothing against Derpy, but I certainly largely lack the fanish enthusiasm much of the fandom has (as will happen when you enter it far past her breakout period, Derpygate and her return), and any fic featuring her has to impress me as strong as if it featured anypony else. And since most writers and readers of said fics come with said favouritism, there’s a certain baked-in expectation of coasting, or at least utilising that, to resonate with the viewer.
This is all a prelude to say this is 100% the case with this fic, and yet it still worked really well. All the more surprising given it’s a short comedy-adventure, a genre combination liable to be rather frivolous at this length. And yet, it just clicked.
Naturally, it’s got perfect pacing, but the main reason it works is because of its density, not feeling the need to dwell on points too long but just to present the facts as they are, let the implications and emotional resonance hang at the side, and press on. This is absolutely a story designed to give a screw-up Ditzy (I haven’t read enough FoME Derpy stories to remember if abiding by that name is just a preference for him in general, or a specific choice here) a chance to shine, but she’s not a screw-up in the usual rote way; we just hear of her trouble with navigation and past Winter Wrap Ups, and other then the odd mention later, that’s all we get and need. It makes the opening with her and Twilight just sing, especially with its crackerjack dialogue.
This largely continues through to Derpy happening upon a mishap by chance, getting the lowdown from somepony else, and finally her own chance to be a hero. Never once does this feel like the clichés it probably reads as here; between silky-smooth flow and a balance of dialogue and how far to push info and character introspection, it just sings. The talking heads scene that occupies the story’s middle is a little softer than the rest, but it rallies thereafter with an action scene culminating in a comedy smash-to-black ending. Oh, and it’s also quite funny without ever mugging for comedy, the jokes largely character-based. This even made me enjoy Daring Do, another character that’s a tough sell for me due to her personality and dramatic foundation.
What on paper is an unassuming and formulaic scenario banking on affection for the fandom mascot just excels, largely for being dense with many layers of character and jokes and hammering home none of it, just zipping through like a favourite soda. Whether you adore Derpy or are cool on her as written like myself, don’t pass on this one.
Rating: Really Good
A Darling Little Secret by Gusto Starstorm
Genre: Slice of Life
Rarity, Rainbow Dash
3,692 Words
November 2022Listened to via Scribbler's reading
With only one week to go to Nightmare Night, Rarity makes a trip to Canterlot to stock up on some costuming material for all the outfits she’ll be making for her friends. While there, she bumps into Twilight’s old Canterlot friends, and is most confused by their new companion. A blue-coated mare with a prismatic coiffed mane, and a habit of saying Darling. A mare that seems all too familiar…
Crossing over the Rarity-esque Rainbow Dash from G3 into G4 certainly has promise, whether that be Rarity befriending a new pony that she can’t quite get past the similarities to her athletic friend under the fanciness, or an eventual meeting of the two Dashes. Among other concepts that just write themselves. Which makes it rather underwhelming that, instead, this goes for the tired route of this just being the G4 Rainbow Dash having a side of herself she feels embarrassed expressing. Both for being a direction done before, not being believable in the timeline this fic is set (at least late Season Five, and it reads as later), and for the crossover potential and meta aspect being pretty much used up once Dash reveals herself to Rarity a little before the halfway mark, at which point it becomes any old “Dash likes being fancy” fic.
Setting that aside, which is somewhat a matter of taste, the fic falls into the trap of both having a fair amount of contrivances to get by (how Dash makes herself look like an earth pony treats itself as a plot device when the means demand that it should be a character moment), and having certain things happen and characters present purely because the author wanted it so: having Minuette and the others as the peanut gallery early on is one thing, but using them later in place of the rest of the Mane 6 is just… forced, not least for how the fics acts as though Rarity knows them a good bit (and it also tosses in references to the Fall of Sunset Shimmer comic, which ic canon contradictory, and not to any real effect either). Then there’s jokes and lines that fall flat due to sloppy technical execution, with the reveal of what Rarity’s costume is failing as it was only described once earlier and not foregrounded upon; reportedly, the author didn’t have the availability to pass this under his usual proofreader (EDIT: He actually did, but later then intended and rushed to get it out before too much time has passed from Halloween, so still not quite what it should have been). Notably, Rainbow Dash is overusing ‘darling’ as part of her act, but so too is Rarity, the classic pitfall of characterising her.
All this contributes to make the ostensible warmth of the RariDash friendshipping largely just acceptable, and Dash’s internal plight mostly just forced. I think there’s enough winning here or of potential that it inches onto a passing grade, but it’s too undernourished or misguided in concept, story incident and technical execution to merit anything more.
Rating: Passable
Sacanas by Lets Do This
Genre: Drama/Slice of Life
Other (& OC)
37,952 Words
June 2022
Sorcerers line the walls of Equestrian history for a reason. They’re powerful, keep to themselves, are totally unpredictable, and believe the ends justify the means. But even among these nefarious mages, Sacanas is an unique entity. Utterly unmoved by anything, and dead set against the tribal unification taking root in the newly-formed Equestria, the most powerful sorcerer the land has ever seen surprises everypony when she agrees to be tutor to the young Princess Palladium, 2nd heir to the unicorn kingdom. Yet while her outward intentions and motives are all completely true and honest here, she has her own inner intentions and motives too. Ones that, should they take effect, result in irrevocable change to ponies everywhere…
This story’s long description states part of its goal was to explore why a mage would fashion a staff designed to seal alicorns’ magic, and why Tempest seemed far more ruthless while under the influence/presence of the staff. Ignoring the inaccurate parts of that (it’s clear the description doesn’t mention the Storm King purely due to authorial bias, never minding every action of Tempest’s was explained or implied anyway), this gestation isn’t present in the story itself in any case, to its benefit. It doesn’t hit the reader over the head with it justifying later canon elements if the reader doesn’t want that. Though backstory for elements from the movie, plus the Crystal Empire, is one of its big strengths.
The other goal, of exploring whether someone can do all the right things for the wrong reasons? Oh yeah, that’s present all over this story, and to great effect.
Sacanas is very much intentionally written to conjure an image of an earlier incarnation of Tempest (minus the broken horn), right down to her colour scheme, clothing and likely the voice you’ll imagine as you read, if you’re anything like me. Occasionally this goes a little too far, and she doesn’t feel like an actual different character as much as prehistory Tempest, but for the most part, this technique works really well, letting implication and the things unsaid between the lines paint a terrifying picture of a pony who has detached themselves from emotion, and is so used to stealthily manipulating others to her worldview, at least to a degree, that it’s all she knows. Never mind her unspeakable power of magic, where the conjuring of solid illusions that do as she wants is the level her powers start out at, not where they finish come the story’s end.
Alongside her is Princess Palladium, ostensibly in the “pouty princess” mode who hates boring lessons. While likely to conjure a physical image of Flurry Heart as a filly, I’m sure, she ends up being the right mix of naive, caring, impressionable and strong-willed. Many times, Sacanas implores her to dictate the action to take, at which point the sorcerer herself accomplishes it in one swift stroke of magic. Other times, Sacanas clearly cares about the filly even as she stealthily pushes her in the desired direction of her views.
The story doesn’t take the direction you expect, either, largely favouring mind games over direct large-scale external events (and the mind games that only tweak one’s views enough for the desired effect, not changing them altogether) and while that does leave the consequences and aftermath of many incidents unexplored, not least a modular shift between the first and second half that shifts the focus and setting (trading in one set of early Equestrian historic elements for another), this is largely to the story’s benefit. It’s a snapshot of history, not the whole, right through to the ending. And the duality of its lead characters, as juxtaposed against a key time in Equestrian history where personalities are tested against the machinations of desires, lends it all a deft blend of tragedy and hope, neither ever present or complete without the other.
Alongside all that, there’s the pleasure of seeing many canon elements, either via cameo or getting setups or backstories for them. What’s great here is how un-emphasised they are, invariably having a purpose in this story and rarely there just for the nod. Even when they form the bulk of a sequence here and there, especially later on. It all makes for one of the better historical backstories I’ve read in a Ponyfic in quite some time. Perhaps it’s just that the decisions Let Do This made here are almost all the right ones executed the right way, as opposed to their usual mix of mostly-good with some notably baffling choices diluting the end result, but either way, it works out.
Let Do This’ customary effective-if-unyielding prose style, a sort of one-tone-and-dialogue-description-balance-fits-all approach, ends up working far better for this material then I’d have figured. I’m hard-pressed to pinpoint what’s changed, aside from the pacing and focus being largely sublime with only occasional slips. Perhaps it being almost wholly original material and characters helps, but I think it’s the weight of Sacanas’ personality and actions, against Palladium’s lively, upbeat demeanour, that inject energy weight and depth, obviating if not fixing the lack of prose and tonal flexibility present in virtually all of Lets Do This’ work. Which is still present; every so often there is a bit of mangled prose or flow that feels blandly competent. They’re just largely obscured, so the bits that are actively noticeable only register as nitpicks rather than building up to an active detriment.
Which is kind of applicable to any other flaws; some dropped subplots or aspects of the character psychology that don’t feel quite right can largely be waved aside by the phenomenal character and unobtrusive worldbuilding here, with a blend of show and tell largely done right. It’s not a hugely hefty emotional hitter, but it succeeds at just about every one of its goals, and feels emotionally complete even if it leaves room open for a continuation (for my money, I think it ends the tale just right, unless one demands to see depicted what they can just connect the dots for). Fans of personalities tested against the machinations of history they manipulate to shape as they wish, plus anyone game for strong personalities and good worldbuilding in Equestria’s, should love this.
Rating: Really Good
Spooky Summary of Scores:
Excellent: 0
Really Good: 2
Pretty Good: 1
Decent: 1
Passable: 1
Weak: 0
Bad: 0
Very glad you enjoyed Go South! And yes, "Ditzy Doo" is my preferred nom de derp. Has been since my first story on Fimfic.
(Note: I do not recommend my first story on Fimfic. I like to think I've learned a lot since then.)
Meanwhile, down here in Texas, we're having an unusually cool May with temperatures only getting around 85 F/29.44 C! With lots of rain too. Which is annoying, because my yard needs mowing but I don't want to end up with the mower stuck in the mud.
I'd like to read that Derpy one someday. I think I'll add that as my next FOME story. Not sure when I'll get back to reading one of theirs, but eventually.
I had no idea you were from Ireland! :O I feel like this ought to have been something I'd have picked up on by now, y'know?
Sad to see that G3 'crossover' didn't cut the mustard. However, that's balanced by the review of the final story. :D All of these were on my RIL (or ones I'd read before), and that one gets to stay!
Go South, Young Mare is on my kindle, but I haven't gotten to it yet. It sounds like I'll enjoy it, though!
Just starting to get warm here in the mountains so it still feels like early spring, but the pre-programed native grass is already dying off, heralding true summer. Absolute swarms of young critters around, thanks to the insanely wet winter though. I came across a sounder of feral hogs yesterday on a walk, and there was well over a dozen young piglets with them!
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I always preferred Ditzy Doo, too. Derpy feels like a nickname only close friends or ponies intending to be mean would call her.
Go South is already on my RiL list, so I'm glad (if not especially surprised) to see it's a good 'un. I need to read more FOME stuff anyway, quite a bit more perhaps -- though the first fic ever (disrecommended by its author earlier) wouldn't be on the list anyway given it's an MTG crossover.
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Heh, another climatological world to that Mike and I inhabit. Here in central England we've reached 20 °C/68 °F once this year so far. That's below par, admittedly, but even so...
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Between me usually going with "this side of the pond" type phrases when it comes to locale (this is by intent, for more public internet circles so details remain private and there exists a certain mystique about me, successfully making most Americans think I'm British or at least live there), and very little about the way I write seeming Irish, I don't blame you, buddy. Can't give away everything, now can I? Closest hint was likely me needing to fly to UK Ponycon, and even that has several other possibilities.
The funny thing is, to folks who hear me talk, be that in
personspirit (once they've gotten past the shock of a ghost communicating with them) or on YouTube over the years, I rarely sound Irish either except when using colloquiums or slang. Due to the particular way I watched shows and how they influenced my learned dialect, my voice is a balance between Irish, English and American, to the point that none of those nations will think I'm of their nationality (a taxi driver here once though I was American), and usually pick the other one of the two that isn't right.So… there's your Ghost Mike lore for tonight.
Anything to help prune down your 4-digit RiL list (between the two bookshelves), my friend!
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Doubtless we both added it off TCC56's Recommendsday that had it a couple of months back. That is invariably the case when one of us review a fic that he featured recently and the other comments "that's on my list too, the kind words fill me with confidence!"
Lad does have over 140 stories to his name, and considering I've only reviewed 4, and yourself 12, there's plenty move yet to simply read, never mind review! Even if we're picky both on apparent quality from the outside and personal preference, which we can afford to be here. He's chill as a cucumber, he won't mind.
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Maybe you will sometime in the next few years, to judge both from the word count in your Kindle bookshelf and reviews from myself and others adding to it every now and then, among other sources. But I do
livefloat to recommend.And right on cue, a mention of local climate prompts another anecdote from iisaw about what it's like in the Californian mountains. Wet grass drying off, complete with the sight of a whole tribe of hogs and piglets (I will never forget the first time I saw a litter of piglets sucking milk from their mother)… yep, iisaw sure is living the peaceful, isolated life.
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"Peaceful" and "isolated" are not unconnected...
They are cute little devils:
i.ibb.co/VSmPYf3/Pigs.jpg
N.B. Despite how close they look, this was taken with a good zoom lens and cropped for posting. These are feral animals and not to be trifled with—particularly when they have younglings!
Thanks for reviewing "Trust"!
What did you think the last sentence of the story implied?
Thank you for the review!
Not just Ireland--even here in the San Francisco Bay we're still stuck in chilly "May Gray" and "June Gloom" weather. Summer doesn't truly kick in here until August and September.
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Oh, I got what the very end of the fic meant. Hence “isn’t much else” as opposed to “nothing else”. But there’s only so often I can write a review that says “most of the fic is normal until the end contextualises everything”, especially as knowing something is coming may itself be a spoiler (a spoiler many people often figure out just from the fic’s packaging, but I digress). I decided to be a little more cagey this time. Evidently you took that to mean I missed the point.
In any case, it certainly made the fic feel more worthwhile (the rest of it would have just been a Passable), but perhaps it’s just too aged to really land these days the way it did for folks back when. I was more aware of being stunned that actually feeling stunned, if you get me.
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“June Gloom” when it’s not even June yet? Oh my.
As it happens, I am familiar with the greater San Francisco area getting the Indian Summer treatment; I visited there once almost a decade ago, and that fact got very drilled into my brain both from experience and hearing or reading about it. But that would have been a bit of a tangent to insert into my statement and made it far less quickly readable!
Even when your Summer does arrive it’s a proper Summer. Here it’s a rarity to get even a day over 30 degrees most years. Honestly, I’m fine with this; I neither like the weather hot or cold, but in the approximate middle. So this mild weather country (least on the east coast, relative to the more rain-frequented west) suits me down to the ground.
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Okay, but I'm curious what you thought the very end of the fic meant, because readers came up with several interpretations I didn't intend. The most popular was that Celestia was actually Chrysalis.
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Being real, I had this review stockpiled for at least six months, probably longer (I'd estimate end of last Summer, honestly). So I cannot for the life of me remember my interpretation of the ending, only that I elected to not discuss in in the review because it would be spoiler-y, as noted above.
However, since the fic is really short, just for you (
), I'm after reading it again now. 
I can't guarantee my reading now is the same as when I reviewed this, but I didn't interpret Celestia as being Chrysalis either, despite the AU tag. I just took her sun-lowering powers being a ruse at face value, and the dramatic irony of her insisting on trust to Trixie and being so outraged at the breaking of it, for it is key to keeping Equestria safe, despite herself living a lie. It's a very short fic, I didn't figure there absolutely had to be more the way many readers did; the changeling and shield bit tied just into Celestia not being all-powerful like she pretends and needing another line of defence beyond Shining. I've read plenty of stories where the comments get well tangled up in different readings or opinions or something, but that doesn't tend to be how I mentally tackle such fics, unless they really grab me on a personal level.
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Okay, thanks!
There are 2 two common variants of that interpretation: (A) Celestia rants at Trixie because she's a hypocrite, or (B) because she's angry at herself, and envies Trixie for having been caught so early, and not being trapped in that cage of her own making (my intended interpretation).
This story was a real lesson to me in how important it is to be aware of all possible interpretations, and wall them off; and on how misleading reader response theory is, because most unintended interpretations aren't very satisfying.