Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCXXXVI · 8:23pm Jul 13th, 2023
Hey, folks. Yeah, I didn’t make an appearance last week. I have no excuse, save that on Thursday I was busy with a bunch of salesmen trying to get me to buy gutters for my house. Not that this was a bad thing – I was the one who asked for an estimate – but it did take a while. By the time I realized I’d not posted my intended blog, it was already Saturday. At that point the new BPH was about to release, so I was like “meh, I’ll let it be”. Y’all didn’t want to hear my thoughts on the Tomb Raider and Skullgirls controversies anyway.
Today I have an entirely different topic in mind, spurred by the recent release of The Great, the Powerful, and the Bulletproof. We all know the story: “Way back when Celestia had regular tea with pteranodons, you had to carefully time when you released a story because it would only be on the front page so long, but now stories stay on the front page forever because nobody’s writing.” If you had said that a year ago, it would have been true. I released the story with this in mind.
Imagine my surprise when I realized it’s not so true anymore. Not only did it swiftly slide off the New Stories list, it also never stayed on the Updated Stories list for very long.
Curious, I decided to check the site stats. The results are… unclear. For starters, the number of stories published per month has been holding steady since early 2022. You might be able to note an uptick in the last few months, but only if you squint, and it may not mean anything. In a similar manner, the number of blog posts has remained about even since January of this year, without the recent bump shown in stories posted. When I see that, I have to wonder if the sudden upswing is little more than a very recent and short-lived anomaly.
But then there’s the real and unrelated oddity: The number of new users per month has been going up steadily ever since G4 ended. Hell, in May it hit over 9,000 new users (insert DBZ meme here), actually topping the wild spike of October 2013. One has to wonder what’s going on. Are they all bots? Has interest in the show gone up since G4 ended like some sort of brony renaissance? Maybe the whole “toxic brony community” thing has faded from public conscience so it’s now okay for the doubters to take the risk?
Here’s one additional bit of curiosity: If the number of new members is higher than it’s ever been even at the site’s peak in the hiatus between seasons 3 and 4, why are story views still so low across the board? This more than anything would suggest bots. Which still begs the question of why.
While I maintain my state of flummoxation (that’s a word now shut up), why don’t we get to something I’m more confident in? Like reviews.
Stories for This Week:
Scarred Serpentine by Metanoia
Twilight's gift to a Retired Princess by Yoshikage Kira
Just Drive by gapty
I Am Sorry by KingdaKa
Girlfriend Friend 2.5: Best Friend Friend by Tangerine Blast
Candy Mane's Almost-Epic Slice-of-Life Adventure by Trick Question
How Not to Woo a Fluttershy by dragonjek
Bad Decisions Make Better Stories by Sporktacles
Triple Threat by scoots2
The Long Game by Baal Bunny
Total Word Count: 150,292
Rating System
Why Haven't You Read These Yet?: 0
Pretty Good: 5
Worth It: 4
Needs Work: 1
None: 0
Scarred Serpentine
115,716 Words
By Metanoia
Feather Dew. Rambling pony, member of the Manehattan weather team, inexplicably good friends with Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle. He’s going on a retreat to the Amarezon to try a hallucinogen called Ohteotl. Many people have said many things about the experience. The one thing he never expected to see while high was a very real, very aware mare.
If you’ll pardon the cheekiness: What a trip.
This story follows Feather Dew as he begins meeting a random earth pony mare in his drug-induced hallucinations, a mare he is convinced is as real as he is. This is only confirmed when fellow druggie and conspiracy theorist (of the Ancient Aliens variety, rather than the One World Government variety) River Moon informs him that she’s been seeing this mysterious mare as well. Thus do the two decide to go on an adventure to learn more about this mystery mare trapped in their hazy memories and, if at all possible, save her.
The first hurdle a reader will have to get past is Metanoia’s writing style, which is tangential. I know that’s a weird thing to say, but it’s the best word to describe it: tangential. It’s rare for any more than 500 or so words of plot to go by before we’re diverting into long philosophical ramblings about how we are all connected, or how the forest may be a living entity, or the view of mortals for gods, or the feeling of wind blowing through one’s mane. On the one hand, it can feel grandiose. On the other, it can feel like Metanoia’s trying too hard to be so. There were several instances of me losing the last few paragraphs because my mind couldn’t focus on whatever tangential, philosophical ramble was going on only to suddenly jolt back into the story because I don’t understand what’s happening because, hey, something contextually important happened three sentences ago!
If you're among the “get to the point” crowd, you won’t get very far.
Underneath all those distracting tangents, you’ll find a story in which Feather Dew, River Moon, and eventually Twilight Sparkle go hunting through the Amarezon for a lost city in hopes that finding it will rescue a mare from a half-death purgatory. I’ve got to say, I love the setting, partially because it’s so uncommon in MLP fanfiction but also because of how Metanoia creates a distinct, clear, and fantastical image for it all. That’s one of the strengths of their style; you will often be given a great comprehension of the grandeur of the settings.
I also like how so much of our characters are gradually revealed over time, rather than spoon-fed to us when they are introduced. How is it that Feather Dew knows Rainbow Dash? Where is he from, what does he do? Simple questions that often get answers if you’re just patient enough for them to come up. I appreciate that Rainbow Dash has a presence in this story without actually being part of the story herself.
Not all questions will be answered. For example, I often questioned how Feather Dew – a weather pony from Manehattan – can financially afford to abruptly extend his vacation, pay for cross-country airship rides, hotels, food, and so on all without so much as sending his boss a letter. Is he loaded with bits? Does he not care about his job, or does his boss not care if he doesn’t show up for work for weeks without reason or warning? What does River Moon do? Why was Princess Twilight Sparkle willing to drop everything to travel all the way to the Amarezon because of a single letter that barely explains anything to her? What happened to the conquistador?
What do you mean you told her “all about” what you just found out? No you didn’t. You said, “hey, I found something,” and that was it. That hardly constitutes “told all about.”
Don’t even get me started on that ending. There’s enough WTF-ery going on there that you’d think the whole thing was just another Ohteotl trip.
By now it should be clear that I have mixed feelings regarding Metanoia’s storytelling style. I can’t tell if they’re being very careful about how much they clue us in to or are simply forgetting or unaware that some things warranted explanation at all. This story does appear to come from a “by the pants” writing style; perhaps they go so lost in their own tangents that the details got scrambled.
Yet, despite all these issues, the underlying story is still a good one, fascinating in its methods and direct in its purpose. Yes, direct. The writing style is tangential. The story is not. Oddly, that juxtaposition seems to work in its favor. If Metanoia can learn to use the tangents of philosophy to improve upon the story – as opposed to them being there just to be there, as they often seemed – then this writing style could really work in their favor.
Metanoia also needs a proofer. Badly. There are countless instances sprinkled throughout this story of words being used that don’t mean what the author likely intended. Like the one time a bound, gagged, fighting-for-her-life mare is described as groaning ‘lecherously’. Metanoia, do you have any idea what that word means and what its use in this context implies about Jade? I’m pretty sure you don’t. But these kinds of issues are all over the place, accented with failed attempts at colloquialisms, incorrect copulas, and dialogue that makes you question if we’re not still in one of the hallucination scenes.
I’m rambling at this point, so let me get to the final thoughts. My impression is that Metanoia was trying for something ambitious but couldn’t quite stick the landing. There are many instances where the philosophical asides worked wonderfully to compliment the ongoing events, but there were just as many that felt like needless fluff. The underlying story is a good one, interesting and different and even fun at times, but it was often drowned out by Feather’s insatiable need to daydream about the nature of reality itself. This will do for people looking to read something ‘different’ and set in an unusual place, but those expecting a direct adventure should look elsewhere. When Metanoia finds the right balance to make the style shine (and gets someone to proof their work), then we could see some real gems from this author.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
Twilight's gift to a Retired Princess
1,437 Words
By Yoshikage Kira
Former princess Celestia thinks she’s a shitty teacher. Current princess Twilight Sparkle informs her why that’s bullshit.
Yes, you’ve read it before. Probably a dozen times. The question of Celestia’s value and impact on Twilight as a teacher and perhaps mother figure has been brought up so often that the concept is older than Celestia herself. Which means that anyone using it as the primary subject of their story needs to bring something special if they want to distinguish it from the ocean of identical pieces.
Alas, Yoshikage Kira does not. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing blatantly wrong with the story. It flows decently, hits the obligatory highs and lows, and applies what might arguably be dubbed “appropriate” amounts of melodrama. But it’s also very direct, dropping the topic just as abruptly as it is picked up. It also leans very heavily on the dialogue, which I know is an issue to some people.
It will probably work well for anyone who wants to see the subject brought up or who is new enough to the fandom to have not seen it before. But if you have seen it before, I can’t say with any confidence this will do anything for you.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
Just Drive
1,330 Words
By gapty
Flash Sentry is just about to head home when a pissed off Trixie randomly gets in his passenger seat and tells him to drive. Not wanting to be on the receiving end of her temper, he agrees.
The whole point of this story is how EQG Trixie reacts to discovering that she has real, Equestria-based magic. Which she does, in fact, have. Gap was even kind enough to offer proof. You might expect her to be over the moon with this discovery, but here she’s torn apart because having magic means her entire life of study and practice to be a stage magician was pointless.
I think I’d have gotten more into this had I not already seen a nearly identical topic be raised in far more dramatic and effective fashion by one thedarkprep. That’s hardly gapty’s fault, of course. As for this story, it’s decent but also awkward. It feels like one of those “Here’s an idea, I’m not gonna explore it, m’kay bye” types of stories, which I’m generally unfond of. I can see why people would like the idea, especially fans of Trixie, but it feels like there could have been so much more done with it.
Also:
He didn’t dare to ask, not with the bad mood Trixie was currently in her car.
The majority of the story isn’t anywhere near this bad, but this being one of the first things you see doesn’t do it any favors.
Not a bad story I suppose, but it lacks anything that’ll let it linger. Read it if you’re interested in awkward situations or want to see an uncommonly explored concept, even if this story does nothing to actually explore it.
Bookshelf: Needs Work
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
New Author!
I Am Sorry
6,368 Words
By KingdaKa
Sequel to Living Happily with the Love of Your Life
If Twilight Velvet is confident about anything in her life, it’s that she’s been a shitty mother. From flagrant alcoholism to disowning her own daughter over her choice of girlfriends, she’s not exactly earned the right to any holiday cards. But these days Velvet understands how wrong she was. With so much going poorly in her family these days, she knows that she needs to face Twilight and try to redeem herself. If only that was the only issue…
The prior stories in this series involved the relationship of Cadance and Twilight Sparkle, which was tumultuous due to Cadance starting off as an evil person. Twilight Velvet didn’t help matters, even if her extreme negative reaction to Cadance had a perfectly reasonable source. But at this point Cadance has made the turn to the good, nurturing young woman we know from the show, and Velvet is trying to make up for past mistakes. This all goes about how you’d expect, but it’s given greater significance by KingdaKa’s excellent depiction of Velvet’s lingering fears and sense of guilt.
Really, the atmosphere here is the best I’ve seen by this author. It’s made all the more powerful by Velvet’s new and ongoing medical condition. Despite this being about her trying to apologize to Twilight, the real guts of the story is KingdaKa’s genuinely disturbing depiction of the onset of dementia. This element stole the show of the entire story in my opinion, so much so that the climactic scene of reconnecting with Twilight felt plain in comparison.
A little touching, a little heartbreaking, but at least it also includes some healing. Overall, a definite highlight of the series so far. I find myself looking forward to the next one.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Lady No Longer — Pretty Good
Living Happily with the Love of Your Life — Worth It
Girlfriend Friend 2.5: Best Friend Friend
5,986 Words
By Tangerine Blast
Sequel to Girlfriend Friend 2: Royally Screwed
The Rainbow Dash doesn’t have a problem, not really. She just thought she was dating Rarity, and she was wrong about that. So now it’s Hearts and Hooves Day and she doesn’t have a marefriend to spend it with. But again, it’s not a problem. After all, she’s The Rainbow Dash. Surely every mare that isn’t Rarity is just dying for a chance to date her!
Girlfriend Friend was a silly story in which Rarity had to inform all her friends that no, she wasn’t dating any of them. It was an amusingly little jaunt with great early-season characterizations of the Mane 6, made to look like Rarity (and Fluttershy) is the only sane pony in the room. Girlfriend Friend 2: Royally Screwed was a crackfic that had Rarity, still the sanest pony in the room, fooled into thinking that she was dating Celestia. It also made all the rulers of Equestria into crazies for the lulz. The first story was much better in my opinion, but I get some people prefer their comedy with the sense removed entirely.
Girlfriend Friend 2.5: Best Friend Friend backtracks from the prior story to land back into intelligent territory, and as a direct result becomes the best of the bunch. Here we have Rainbow Dash depicted as ignorant in the ways of romance while she attempts to ask each one of her friends sans Rarity out for Hearts and Hooves Day. With all characters returned to a general state of sanity (well, show-like levels of sanity), the jokes become hinged mostly on Rainbow’s complete lack of depth and growing desperation for a date.
Applejack was my favorite by a wide margin. Pinkie’s moment takes second place, but is also set apart from the others in that it hinges more on Pinkie being Pinkie than Rainbow being Rainbow.
And then Rarity comes along to be the fount of relationship wisdom Rainbow needed in her time of gloom. Which was very fitting considering Rarity has been consistently depicted as one of the only reasonable ponies in this series (again, except maybe Fluttershy).
All in all, this is easily my favorite of this “trilogy”. It still has its moments of stupid, but Tangerine Blast has gone back to making that stupid be akin to the stupid we often see in the show and never goes overboard. Rainbow being overconfident and daft isn’t a new idea, but it still makes for a great comedic element and this story took full advantage of that. If you want to have a little (or a lot) of fun at her expense, this will absolutely do it for you.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good!
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Spark Visions of Twilight — Pretty Good
Girlfriend Friend — Pretty Good
Recall Memories of Midnight — Worth It
Girlfriend Friend 2: Royally Screwed — Worth It
Candy Mane's Almost-Epic Slice-of-Life Adventure
2,715 Words
By Trick Question
Requested by Trick Question
Candy Mane is not a clever pony.
This short little tale introduces us to Candy Mane, who may just be the least intelligent pony in the history of ponydom. It is, simply put, an average day in her life, which includes unintentional break ins, feedback loops, unwittingly perfect posture, and a brief conversation with a demon from Tartarus.
Is it dumb? Absolutely. And yet it’s also charming, in a strange way.
If you want to read something silly and pointless, go ahead and give this a go.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
The Knight and the Knave — WHYRTY?
The Clarity of Darkness — WHYRTY?
Familiar — WHYRTY?
Shoot for the Moon — Pretty Good
Back to Normal — Pretty Good
How Not to Woo a Fluttershy
4,562 Words
By dragonjek
Fluttershy is “startled” to find that a red and black foal keeps knocking on her door at night. He runs away the instant she opens the door, keeps leaving her roses, and sometimes also really bad poetry. Oh, and he’s an alicorn. What’s a mare to do?
This was silly and cute in equal measure. Written with early characterization – as in Fluttershy is still a doormat – it has the timid pony facing the odd situation of having another pony every bit as terrified of her as she is of everything, albeit for entirely different reasons. The tiny alicorn is known as Petrol Pansy and finding a way to simply talk to him about his apparent schoolboy crush is proving harder than Fluttershy could have ever imagined.
There were some odd deviations, like a side-note regarding the CMC trying to get their cutie marks as timberwolf nursemaids and Angel being something that might literally be demonic. They were short enough to not take away from the overarching point of the story, so I guess they’re fine. The tone and descriptions fit really well with the context of the story, being lighthearted and laid-back at all times.
Ultimately, I liked it a lot. I think the angle of pre-Season 3 Fluttershy struggling to deal with a foal’s attention was enough on its own to keep me interested, but dragonjek’s writing is strong enough to give it that extra boost. Definitely worth your while if you feel like reading something light and are maybe nostalgic for oldschool Fluttershy timidity.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Music for the Mare in the Moon — WHYRTY?
The Fall of Cloudsdale — Pretty Good
Bad Decisions Make Better Stories
3,263 Words
By Sporktacles
Alternative Title: Please Don’t Banish Me
Princess Celestia is away from the palace on a diplomatic visit in Yakyakistan. Then she receives a profusely apologetic letter. Things devolve from there.
Simply put, this is a story in which we learn the true reason Sunset Shimmer fled Equestria: she threw the biggest party in the history of parties and needed to get out of Dodge before a blazingly furious Celestia came home.
This was hilarious. No, really, it was. Ponies will get stoned and/or drunk, there will be questions regarding pregnancy, Discord might get involved, Yaks will be furious, and poor Celestia may have an aneurysm. I was entertained from start to finish.
If you want to have some lighthearted fun at both Celestia’s and Sunset’s expense, you can’t go wrong here.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good!
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Sunset Shimmer Lends Pinkie Pie the Wrong Thumb Drive — Pretty Good
Triple Threat
1,521 Words
By scoots2
Cheese Sandwich watches after his and Pinkie Pie’s year-old triplets on their birthday. It’s also Pinkie’s birthday. Also also, Pinkie invited her family. Cheese wasn’t aware of that last one.
Simply put, this is Cheese Sandwich reflecting on his family while giving Pinkie a break from watching their foals. One half is exposition, but that’s alleviated by how it is interspersed with the other half: Cheese interacting with his kids. Then his in-laws show up, at which point we discover that Pinkie never told them that she was getting married and having kids.
Maybe it’s just me, but I really like the idea that party ponies have a habit of neglecting their own celebrations. I mean, Pinkie is so busy celebrating everypony else’s monthiversaries, how could she possibly remember to get ready for her own wedding? And not because of some self-sacrifice or anything like that, I mean genuinely forgetting. That just feels so… so Pinkie to me.
In the end this is little more than a fluff piece about one of the very few canon relationships of the show, albeit written before it was canon. Go in expecting nothing but good vibes and you should be fine.
Bookshelf: Worth It
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Flash and Trend Steal All Your Waffles — Pretty Good
Good Morning, Beautiful — Pretty Good
Say Goodnight, Pinkie — Pretty Good
Goodbye, Boneless — Worth It
The Long Game
7,394 Words
By Baal Bunny
Hydia, Queen of the Lamias, once tried to conquer Equestria so as to consume the little ponies. In return for this, a vengeful Celestia and Luna murdered her children. But what Luna witnessed that day tore her conscience so much that she begged Celestia to no longer use capital punishment against Equestria’s foes. To her chagrin and frustration, she agreed. So now Hydia gets to be the very first prisoner of Tartarus. A prisoner… and perhaps a test subject.
Baal Bunny reimagined a few things for this one. To start with, the witch Hydia from the very first My Little Pony movie ever was a human, not a lamia. That might take a moment to comprehend for those who saw said movie, but really, it’s not a big deal. The other thing – which is more of a story-specific headcanon than an actual change – is that Tartarus is the collapsed body of an active volcano, and Luna created powerful enchantments there that force the inhabitants to think about their actions and self-reflect. It’s basically a massive rehabilitation center.
The story takes place over several centuries with Celestia going to talk to Hydia in Tartarus, sometimes with that specific intent and sometimes not. It relates how these two change as the centuries slip by. What I find curious is that the story doesn’t really clarify which part is truly affecting Hydia, the rehabilitation enchantments or the fact that Celestia keeps coming to visit her. It may be a combination of both, but I suspect that Celestia helped a lot just by showing up and giving Hydia someone to talk to other than herself. If she’d gone to visit Tirek once every quarter-century as well, would he have ever made another attempt on Equestria?
It’s a curious story, but one I greatly enjoyed for its slow-burn path and effective narrative. Baal Bunny has failed to disappoint yet again. I don’t know why I waited so long to read another of their works.
Bookshelf: Pretty Good
Previous stories reviewed for this author:
Collaborators — WHYRTY?
Doing Well by Doing Good — Pretty Good
Grouchisaurus Rex — Pretty Good
Bowled Over — Pretty Good
Stories for Next Time:
Stormy Seas by Rahheemme
The Equestria Chronicles: Prelude by Slippin_Sweetie
Bug in a Blizzard by Paracompact
Immortality by IGIBAB
The Best and The Worst by Firesight
The Looking Glass by wonderkid125
The World Beyond Her Dreams by Foals Errand
What's the Point? by Violetta Strings
Love Flies Innuendo by Baal Bunny
Seabras by Vanilla Mocha
Recent Review Map:
Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCXXX
Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCXXXII
Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCXXXIII
Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCXXXIV
Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCXXXV
You Are Here
Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCXXXVII
Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCXXXVII – Estee Edition
Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCXXXVIII
Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCXXXIX
Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCXL
Need some editing done? Working on a story and not sure how it’s shaping up? I’m now doing editing and critique commissions! Check here for more information and pricing and PM me if interested.
I'd suggest it's definitely bots, and annoying ones at that. I've had bots spam posts on Axtara - Banking and Finance with investment or crypto posts, and SockPuppet actually started a "honey-trap" tracker on his page since his pny crypto comedy stories attracted so many crpyto bots he just made a game out of it.
Without an authentication for new users, the bots seem to be rising in number. There are still plenty of people around, just ... definitely not the most this place has ever seen.
I looked at this for a while, wondering what's so bad about it, until it hit me and now I'm cringing myself that I didn't see it before. Just cutting the last two last words would've fixed it
Thanks a lot for the review! I recall my intention with the fic being more about how Trixie needed someone to rant to and Flash being forced to be the silent listener, so I didn't had in mind to explore the idea—which if course isn't an excuse
For what it's worth, I enjoyed the latest Bulletproof Heart.
5737757
Ditto! So much so I've made the first one my new priority.
I love Candy Mane SO much XD
Another issue with stories dropping off the front page quickly is that there's another of the 1000-word contests going on now, so the number of those posted has been ramping up over the last few weeks and will continue through the end of the month. Quick reads like that take a penalty (as I understand it) in the feature box algorithm, yet they get so much attention that they can overcome it at times. They'll fill up the new stories column, anyway.
I do know that recently there's been a relatively big resurgence of a younger audience joining the fandom + people who dropped off from the show coming back to finish it (me included!), especially on twitter / tumblr. I've had a handful of "empty" accounts follow me with usernames I recognize from other platforms. My guess would be some of the new accounts are reading the "classics" for the first time, so all the views are going to popular stories or smth? But idk, it IS pretty strange ^^
Not bad, stories this fortnight, nothing particularly incredible, but good to see all the same!
And I've seen that Bad Decisions Make Better Stories, It's really funny! I was actually introduced to this story on our own pony fiction website here in our country, which is fimtale.com and it's name is 上错花轿嫁对郎, the translation really captured it's nonsense comedy craziness~
And about the user count…
Well the number of new members of our community is certainly rising, and I can tell that based on the stories posted, and some factors over on other media I am on, but the new user count here really mean nothing because I'm certain that most of them are really just bots.
It's obviously because the site's been hacked or something so the not-bot-confirmation doesn't work, and not much action has been conducted to stop this, unfortunately.
Well if there's one good thing about it, then it means that this site is getting attention…
No seriously, after all this time, I'm still seeing more interesting people joining in here, and more old things coming back to life so that's saying something~
5737757
Many thanks! I didn't want to discuss it much in this blog because I figured the Author's Note said all I needed to, but I'm definitely pleased with its reception.
5737753
It's always harder to see when it's your own work, I suppose.
5737763
I would dare to say the first one (as well as Sunset in Little Longhorn) are far superior products. Glad to have you nonetheless!
5737787
ORLY? I must have missed that, I might have timed my release different otherwise.
Yeah, as others have noted, the gigantic rise in user accounts is overwhelmingly bots. I'm not sure why they're only striking now after FiM ended, and it's even weirder how you only see occasional bot comments around as a result. Unless Fimfiction's software is just very lacking at preventing bot accounts from being created but really good at stopping them making comments. In terms of new stories, we're at about 73% of what we were when FiM ended, and we had barely 1,000 new users per month then, so we're probably getting in the 700-750 range nowadays of actual new users monthly.
Though blogs posts are down to 60% in the same timeframe, which means that this much time removed from new pony content (that most users care about) is causing activity levels to dwindle with time all around, even as 2023 has been otherwise level with 2022 in activity.
And yep, as also noted, the second thousand words contest is huge right now, already with more entries than last year, with half a month still to go, which is contributing somewhat to less feature box time. And that had a little over 100 entries! In fact, thanks to this contest, through to July 13th, we're had 3,355 new fics this year to 2022's 3,211. Mostly from the last few months. Dunno if it'll stick, but it's interesting to see growth proper for the first time since… 2013? That said, as this upswing doesn't include blogs, I do think it's just a mix of that contest, and a few other decently popular ones (also, G5's latest content drop doubled the monthly stories from 20-30 to 60, off following up off its conclusion mostly, which is a tiny contribution to the whole but isn't nothing).
Though worth noting, that Mature stories haven't dropped off in popularity as much as everything else over the years. In other words, they occupy a larger chunk of new stories than ever, anywhere from a quarter to a third of new stories each month. Many of the… objectionable variety. It does mean that the Feature box with the mature filter on often has more extra slots to spare, so you might be on there for longer.
While I didn't find the third Girlfriend Friend the best of the three, I did prefer it to the second, and for the reason you cite, of being somewhat less crackfic and feeling more of a place with the show and the characters. For a two-and-a-half-years-later followup, that's pretty darn solid, I'd say!
Nothing else I've read here, and while some of the fics look interesting, none really grab me this week. But it is a week without a single WHYRTY, so there is a correlation…
Thanks for the:
Kind words. Putting "Long Game" together was an odd experience for me. I tend to start at the beginning when writing a story, type through to the ending, then stop, go back, and start revising. This one, I wrote the first section and another section, then decided that there needed to be something between the two.
So I went back and wrote that, wrote another, decided that I'd again jumped too far forward, and went bobbing and weaving along that way, filling in sections even after I'd written the last scene: I think the bit with Hydia doing her "you" and "thou" stuff at Luna was actually the last part of the story I wrote...
And I'm on again for next time, too? It's Christmas in July!
Mike
I'm sure a lot of the trend is art bots, but much as us old-timers may grumble about G5, it is attracting a new audience including passionate creators, and it stands to reason some would find their way to Fimfic. There's also possibly a trickle of people who who under-age during the G4 heyday and are finally starting to check it out as adults.
The only one here I know is The Long Game, and I found it quite good. A bit predictable, but for me that's barely a criticism. It's nice to see Celestia and her enemy evolve, growing over shared loss to learn about each other and slowly come to terms.
5737750
If you look at the New Users tab, it's a good bet 99.999% of them are botts. Usually when anything is written in something other than English, or they're supposedly a real-life company advertising on a fanfiction site, they're a bot.
Plus a few more tip-offs that I've forgotten,