Ghost Mike's Ponyfic Review Monday Musings #67 · 5:31pm Jun 19th, 2023
Ghost Mike, Ponyfic Review Monday Musings #66, 12th June 2023:
we’ve reached that point in the generation where everyone internally knows the writing is on the wall and are already refocused on the future. […] The lack of announcement of further content for G5 beyond the initial episode orders […] only further intensifies this.
Though I take pride in being partially right as regards Make Your Mark not getting renewed beyond its initial episode order, down to Tell Your Tale being emphatically stated to be the “ONE & ONLY PONABLE CONTENT SERIES” for 2024. 
All those stats showing TYT generating far more brand recognition and toy sales really prove it: kids, never mind their parents, are not won over by slack visuals with no life, terribly mangled and lethargic writing, and a condescending attitude pervading the whole affair. Not that TYT isn’t also guilty of these flaws (I even understand those who’d prefer the horrible CG of MYM over it’s cookie-cutter web animation, though I do not agree), but it gets away with the flaws more because of the length and having no pretences to being anything but five-minute timewasters. That, and I’m sure even with Atomic Cartoons winning the production contract off having the lowest bid, it’s still magnitudes more expensive, so this saves for Hasbro too.
In any case, I think my initial prediction of winding the generation down still holds true: they’re just pivoting it to webseries only, akin to the Strawberry Shortcake webseries DHX did in the late 2010s (though ironically, that property is now in a similar situation as G5 of alternating between 2D webisodes and CG animation specials). Allows them to do so at a cost-effective manner while still selling merchandise, and with the financial trouble Hasbro have been in the last few years, they need it.
Now, obviously the stats in the article are questionable: they cite TYT as outperforming FiM in approval rate, size of toy purchases and repeat purchase rate, which surely cannot be true. But renewals for one and the lack thereof for the other speak for themselves. Kids may even like fun bad shows, same as adults, but they’ll only stick with terribly mediocre ones for so long.
It will mean even less effect on Ponyfic for us, even with TYT have free reign to make status quo changes and with a few 22-min episodes per year, it’s just far too generic casually and upbeat and completely lacking in stakes in its very conception for that. Now’s where we really see where the fandom has sustained itself to be whatever time Generation 6 arrives.
After all that, I could state my thoughts on Chapter 4, but this blurb is getting too long already, and it wouldn’t be anything you couldn’t gauge, not if you read my blogs on Chapter 2 last year. Let’s pivot over to Ponyfic. Bit of a shorter crop this week, but still got some offbeat ones here, if that’s to your liking.
This Week’s Spectral Stories:
Every Dog Has Her Day by SilverNotes
Distance Beyond Any Measure by Ice Star
Hearthswarming Shopping by Str8aura
Who We Are in the Dark by FanOfMostEverything
Stood Up by Charismatic Pony
Weekly Word Count: 24,684 Words
Every Dog Has Her Day by SilverNotes
Genre: Drama/Slice of Life
Rarity, Fluttershy, Diamond Dogs
7,584 Words
December 2022
Scout duty, to watch for ponies to potentially take for cart work, is more a punishment for disruptive Diamond Dogs than anything. Precious doesn’t mind, as she really enjoys the surface world. Beats the ego of the leaders below. So her days are uneventful but peaceful, until a pony crosses her path. And she talks with her. And, somehow, can’t bring herself to take her underground.
NOTE: This fic is the one casualty of my brief-lived decision to review the entrants from the Choices: A Species Change Contest, something I walked back on once I realised making commitments like that hadn’t served me well for past contents. That’s just for ones I judge now. Hence holding this review in storage for ages, seeing if I would read enough to make a themed week. In the end, I decided if I did look at more, I would do so as regular entries intermingled with the rest.
Making Rarity a Diamond Dog is quite a masterstroke, as a totally different upbringing does make her different enough to not be a direct match, yet the character’s core and soul remain intact at it all. And pairing her across from Fluttershy is good too; not only playing off their strong relationship early in the show but making it different (given Diamond Dog Rarity is every bit as timid as Fluttershy, but for different reasons). And we get the benefit, along the way, of hearing about these Elements of Harmony, without the “oh, it’s an AU” fact being the point beyond them being mere side details.
If there is a flaw, it’s that not much happens. And I don’t mean that in some “not enough for the word count” way. After the setup, the rest of the fic consists mostly of recollections about the passing year and snippets of further meetings between the two, before it leads to a ostensibly high-tension climax that is kind of just there. And while the fic ends on a good note, especially for the characters, it can’t help but feel like a fragment, either of delving more into Diamond Dog stuff, or of Diamond Dog Rarity interacting with more ponies.
Regardless, the base reimagining of Rarity in this form, and her interactions with Fluttershy, carry this shaggy story to a satisfying result. If you value that kind of characterisation, this is worth your time.
Rating: Decent
Distance Beyond Any Measure by Ice Star
Genre: Drama/Sad
Cadance, Celestia, Sunset, Philomena
9,706 Words
January-April 2020Reread
Celestia now has two protegés to look after; her current Faithful Student Sunset Shimmer, and pegasus-turned-alicorn Mi Amore Cadenza. Having a second really puts into the limelight the stark differences between the two, which eventually forces Celestia, after all her years of studying prophecies and moulding ponies to confront the inner reality, and an impossible obstacle: how to tell a child – or in this case, children – that she will never be enough.
Probably because it is told like an anthology, this is a hard story to summarise and pitch, but not all that hard a one to follow. I gather its mixed reception comes in part from a deceptive cover, and description, leading readers to believe Cadance was the pivotal student, before it pivots hard to being really about Sunset’s relationship to Celestia. Perhaps because I’d had that spoiled or copped that before the fact (can’t remember which), I had no such trouble, nor with the decision to time skip between chapters; it was always clear when something was happening, and this gave a different wrinkle to the oft-depicted events. For instance, I do agree with the author that the obligatory “Celestia reflects on Sunset while looking at the mirror” scene works better in the middle before jumping back in time for the next chapter, rather then being the conclusion to the whole affair which we’ve all seen before (though it honestly isn’t needed period, but I digress).
As to the story itself, it pivots from Celestia introducing Cadance to her new home, to reflecting on her time thus far at a late date to confronting Sunset (here portrayed as a goth-leaning tween on top of her usual traits from this time, which is an appropriate enough take), but that’s just the outer layers. The real point is to show, not tell, how Celestia doesn’t know how to raise foals, alternating between sensible-on-other-occasions-but-not-here decisions regarding Sunset to remaining aloof and distant against her better judgement with Cadance. And given an extra wrinkle via this Celestia having poured a lot of work into the forthcoming prophecy of Nightmare Moon’s return, preparing for it, and what to look for (turns out the cutie mark in the tiara isn’t a reflection of the current bearer, but a future indication; at least that’s how Celestia interpreting it). All this comes together quite well, helped immensely by restraint in the incident and especially knowing when to end chapters (the last sentence of the final chapter is a real sucker punch). And that’s on top of the frontal text’s material too – the Sunset material is normal, but this depiction of an adjusting Cadance is rather rarer, and both too cute and too disheartening given future knowledge.
That said, there are times when this story’s goal and point isn’t altogether clear; the overall purpose being about Celestia’s still-frankly-terrible parenting remains a thorough link, but the pivot to Sunset being a focus just doesn’t come across gracefully. Sometimes the implied emotion or reaction Celestia is feeling is rather muddled in effect (other than restraining herself from getting attached, it’s hard to get a bead on her actual thoughts about Cadance much of the time). Perhaps some over-muddled prose and flow between paragraphs (which either contradict themselves in Celestia’s approach of phrase things in a convoluted manner) is to blame here, not helped by some stilted sections. In general, this only happened for the longer chapters, not the shorter ones, so perhaps the needle was just being lost a bit.
Still, the strengths of its depiction of Celestia and these two pupils, along with the way and style it is told (bar some prose oddities) make it shine and stick out even through the muddled aspects. If nothing else, it shows that a flawed story, when the flaws are personable, can still leave quite an impression.
Rating: Pretty Good
Hearthswarming Shopping by Str8aura
Genre: Slice of Life/Drama
Diamond Tiara, Cheerilee, Silver Spoon
2,749 Words
December 2020Reread
The Hearth’s Warming holidays upon them, Cheerilee is taking her time grading some papers for the new year – rather a slow, unpleasant task, you understand – when who should appear at the school door but Diamond Tiara, asking for help picking out a gift for Silver Spoon. In doing so, the pair talk, and Cheerilee finds out the filly rather needed her. And not for the gift part either.
Post-“Crusaders of the Lost Mark” stories always have their work cut out for them in what to make of Diamond Tiara’s character, even when they show that her change wasn’t as easy as all that. Even the added wrinkle of her not being sure how to approach and be friends with Silver Spoon again isn’t that unusual. What caught my attention the most here was Diamond Tiara’s admission that not only did she often only see ponies as tools to use for her own ends, without them having their own needs and wants and freedom, she still feels that way, despite wanting and trying to not.
Throughout, the story is mostly from Cheerilee’s perspective, but does splice in some flashbacks to Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon’s youth, as well as ones of Cheerilee’s viewing both or either of them. This isn’t random or careless: Str8aura frames these from Cheerilee’s viewpoint as regards how to help in a situation like this, and the stress a teacher might feel. And that’s just one of a few elements; this is a story with a lot on its mind.
The key elements are done quite well, and the prose appropriately minimal and clear-cut (this is a dense 2.7K), yet it would be prudent to deny it’s a little less than the sum of its parts. Mostly because it has so many parts; Diamond judging others, her relationship with Silver and Cheerilee’s perspective on this is all well and good, but when we start getting parts about her mother and the CMCs, even just at the margins, it’s perhaps more than the fic can do. At least, above lip service. A tighter focus might have helped here.
Still, as stories that are glosses on Gift of the Magi go, it feels fresh enough, and that alone is cause for celebration. As old Jinglemas fics I read years ago come, this is a solid one.
Rating: Decent
Who We Are in the Dark by FanOfMostEverything
Genre: Drama/Slice of Life
Main 6
3,144 Words
April 2020Reread
When six mares stood at the precipice of the Everfree Forest, only one really had an idea of what lay ahead. Yet the others, strangers to her yesterday, insisted on coming. As they had no way of knowing the end result would be a success and they would be heroes, much less tight friends from that moment forward, what was going through their minds when they made that decision?
The hook of this, as you might expect, is short perspective monologues from the Mane 6. Monologues that, in just several hundred words apiece, have to sell their decision to follow someone they just met, and who doesn’t want them to help, into a mortally dangerous situation with the world on the line. And while being unique and distinct from one another and showing off the personality and quirks of that pony. Quite a tall order, yet one FoME pulls off really well.
Each of the segments is full of quirks that both tell and show the pony’s personality relative to later, their relation to the Mane 6, their personal stakes in ending the endless night, what they make of this Nightmare Moon business, and their opinion of Twilight at this point in time. All without feeling too dense, too telly, or too showy in the writing. And as befits the best drabble anthologies, the pieces directly compliment each other and make for a stronger whole; as standalone fics (word count publishing restrictions notwithstanding) these would be effective but fade fast. As a whole, they ring truer. I could list many more strengths (not least the order of the segments), but this is every I want from a fic like this, managing to make fresh meat out of the show’s pilot even now and show why we love these characters so much via their differing, multi-layered outlooks and perspectives. Their transitions are captured greatly.
There is a catch, and it’s not a small one. The story closes with a bookend that reflects on these events and ties them together. The problem is that it pivots so hard from the tone, flow and point of the story to that point, and instead of foregrounding why the Mane 5 went in, what was on the line for them, or the positive aspect of them pledging to Twilight, instead highlights an angle present only if squinting, pity for Twilight on the other’s part and how they came together at all. That, coupled with the switch in characters, timeline, perspective technique and tone (it is more playfully cute relative to the main content’s sombre, reflective tone), makes it feel like it’s from a different story, even if it makes narrative sense. And that’s without me not personally liking the choice of characters or timeline.
I agree with wanting a bookend to tie things together, and don’t mind it swapping out of 1st-person perspective. I fully see why FoME didn’t want a standard “one/some/all of Mane 6 reflecting on events after having saved the say” bookend either. It’s just that this particular choice, while fine in isolation, not only doesn’t boost the story as it was to that point, it actively softens its effect and end takeaway, with the new takeaway not nearly as satisfying. The story would be stronger with no bookend then this one.
Now, this is not a common take – a hefty portion of the comments have found the ending boosts the story for them. If you don’t find it to dilute it, you will really like this. And even while it knocks what had a possibility of inching into Really Good territory down to barely scraping a Pretty Good, that first 2.2K will stay with me for quite a while. Whatever else can be said about this, FoME’s writing craft remains at full force.
Rating: Pretty Good
Stood Up by Charismatic Pony
Genre: Romance/Sad/Slice of Life
Rainbow Dash
1,501 Words
January 2023
Rainbow Dash has had a lot of time and incidents throughout her life to think about how she is not what would be considered conventionally attractive, a matter not helped by most stallions feeling threatened dating someone faster/stronger than them. So getting a date really had her hopes up. When she’s still at her table alone at closing time, she’s left only with her thoughts. Thoughts she doesn’t like.
One of those rare featured box hits from a new or previously-tiny author that, rarer still, looks appealing to me, this was quite a curious one. It was clear from the length alone that it would be almost exclusively a thoughts reflection piece, and within that, it’s quite poignant. Charismatic Pony doesn’t hold much back in Rainbow’s feeling of self-criticism bordering on loathing, nor on how what she really wants is a stallion to be with (plus, with Dash being the most consistently represented as lesbian or another orientation that excludes males, give or take Soarin fics, this also stood out). The pessimism and depression we feel in such moments is very present here, giving the fic effective emotional resonation.
Now, there is little elegance to the style, direct and plain and rather over-reliant on communicating Dash’s thoughts directly, or describing the action she does without any flair (to the point this could have even been a little shorter, one more editing pass). There are certainly better lack-of-desirability reflection fics out there, but I don’t know if even them would tackle Dash like this. So while the resulting fic is a bit crude, the fic is short and effective in its whiplash. A commendable pass at a sad slice-of-life shipfic.
Rating: Decent
Spooky Summary of Scores:
Excellent: 0
Really Good: 0
Pretty Good: 2
Decent: 3
Passable: 0
Weak: 0
Bad: 0
FoME never disappoints.~
The only one of these I've read is Who We Are in the Dark, and your review interested me particularly as I'm that awkward person who wasn't really sure whether I liked the ending or not. Maybe I should reread it to see how I feel now. Still, FOME pretty much always writes well and I agree with you that the first two-thirds (though maybe not quite as memorable for me as they apparently were for you) make this worthwhile in any case.
5734048
It is to the lad’s immense credit that I can say the 900-odd-words ending scene to a 3.1K fic was heavily misguided and contradictory to the degree of dropping the fic very nearly a full tier, and yet still agree with this wholeheartedly. His generous “finding the good side in every piece of MLP media” approach may mean a lot of his fics are on topics or characters I don’t care for, or includes them to the fic’s detriment when they weren’t needed, but when those factors are barely present or not at all (with today’s topic nearly getting there)? Heaven!
That's an odd way to spell NaiadSagaIotaOar.
Well, I generally like FOME's work. I might try that one someday. But there will only ever be one WWAinD for me.
The whole concept of Rainbow's attractiveness has been one of interest to me for a long time. One of the scenes that often plays in my head is of Rainbow at a bar, just enjoying a night with friends. Then she overhears some group of stallions commenting behind her back that it would be "weird" to date her because she's too much like one of the guys, and it triggers a crisis of self-identity within her. Every time I think of it I find myself wanting to write it, but then I realize that I've already written a story with that theme for Scootaloo, and do I really want to hit the same topic all over again?
Yet the overarching concept still interests me, so when I see a story that might explore it like Stood Up my metaphorical pony ears perk.
5734053
inorite? My immediate reaction was that I'd heard of that title before, and it wasn't until I saw your comment that I knew where. (I haven't read either story but like both authors' work.)
I've read 2 of these!
"Distance Beyond Any Measure" is probably one of the stories I liked best by that author, as you usually have to drop any objections to Alien Shipping Syndrome, and this one isn't a romance story. Your rating's right about where I'd put it, too.
And hey, for the second time in recent memory, you've reviewed something I received for Jinglemas! "Hearthswarming Shopping" took a different direction than I would have expected for the characters I asked for, even making Silver Spoon more of a background character in favor of Diamond Tiara, but it worked, and it was a pleasant holiday-themed tale.
Thank you so much for the review! I really enjoyed hearing your thoughts on the story.
5734053
[Looks up story, then reads reviews of it by Present Perfect, PaulAsaran and Loganberry, sees all three gave it their top rating, and that it got a Royal Canterlot Library feature.]
Goddammit Paul.
Well, I suppose I can't ignore that level of praise from that many reviewers whose opinions I trust, can I? Not even on the grounds of me having no real feelings for Adagio, what with both Logan and Present Perfect going from that to the polar opposite by story's end, and the story being cited as a must-read even for those cool on EqG.
I will admit, irrespective of sharing its title with this other fic, the title of FoME's entry today always struck be as a bit overwrought, all in all.
Not that exact scenario, but certainly that fear on her part has occurred to me on occasion too. Again, heightened by how (relatively) rare such situation are in Ponyfic, what with her being the most commonly lesbian of the Mane 6 – except for Rarity, Dash's pairings with the rest of the groups are all among the top pairings in the fandom. Well, give or take LyraBon Bon and OctaScratch, of course.
That would be one of the fics in your Generosity series, right? I've read them all, but have forgotten all but the elevator pitches, so I can't pinpoint which one offhand. Unless it's your earlier Foundations, or a fic where Scootaloo isn't tagged but has this role .
5734071
If you don't mind me asking, my friend, what is Alien Shipping Syndrome? Something common to Ice Star's stories not present in this one, I gather? I'd guess something to do with shipping characters from across the mirror with each other, but Sunset was originally a pony and a Equestrian, so I'm stumped.
Even considering I have a ton of Jinglemas stories in my re-evaluate backlog to cover (at the 2020 one, I read a lot of them*), it's bizarre I covered the two for you this quick. It can't happen again now! Well, short of looking at a not-year-read one from a different year for you, of course.
*Thirty-four, to be exact, enough that even covering one a month (any more frequent would get repetitive for readers here fast, as a lot of them are just fluff) will take years. I tell you, I am occasionally temped for a rated-but-not-reviewed corner. Or a round of mini-reviews akin to Present Perfect or Logan's. Options are always open.
5734076
Happy to have made your day!
Well, there is nothing quite like getting a surprise review of the enthusiastic variety for a story you're rather proud of, is there?
5734081
Alien Shipping Syndrome is where an author just jams two characters together and expects you to invent any chemistry they have instead of demonstrating it in-story. Basically, two characters get together because the author says so, not because they're shown to have any reason to.
I'm just gong to say this: Luster is wrong. She completely misread the situation and is mapping her own insecurities onto those memories because she's still on the outside looking in at friendship. This is why Starlight encourages her to go spend time with her own friends rather than review friendship archival footage alone. As with Twilight before her, Luster just doesn't get it yet and requires direct experience to understand. Hopefully a less intense experience than facing down Nightmare Moon, but still.
5734083
That is actually one of the stories I'm pretty proud of.
5734081
Here is a vote for the mini-reviews, though if you go that route I recommend keeping to positive points and higher-rated stories (to make it easier for you to make those points)
since you have a limited space to provide a holistic view. 
5734156
Is she though? Pity does fairly resonate from the Main Five's words.
5734628
Speaking as the author, please stop trying to kill me.