Ghost Mike's Ponyfic Review Monday Musings #74 · 5:00pm Aug 7th, 2023
With yet another August, and thus yet another year about to be added to my age tomorrow, it felt high time, nearly five years after creating an account here (that long? Dear lord… 
), to make a key change. Being honest, this has been present at least as long as I’ve been doing Ponyfic reviews, since March 2022, and further back still in how I present myself. But now it’s official. Eagle-eyed viewers may have already spotted it… my account’s username here is not Mike Cartoon Pony any more.
Why the change? Well, following on from that, why a separate account name to my username in the first place? A trip back in time is needed: back in August 2018, when I decided to formally join Fimfiction after lurking and reading Ponyfic since January of that year, I had immense difficulty in deciding on a username. My username for past internet spaces, not least for my prior time in fanfic, did not feel worth retaining, too tied to what I did as a teenager. As my primary online outlet at the time was my YouTube channel Cartoon Karma, of the discussion/dissection essay type of video (well, lite format relative to others 
), and I was still semi-active, and, being freshly invigorated by looking at the new property of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic that I had fallen in love with, it felt like a no brainer to have my name here link to that, for cross-branding and so any viewership I made here would be naturally drawn to the future FiM videos I would do. I didn’t want to just be Cartoon Karma here, though, it needed to still feel like a name, and not be a clone. Hence, Mike Cartoon Pony. Ponies are cute, don’t’cha know. 
And that November, when I took avatar snapshots of myself for the channel (👻), using them here to solidify that link was a no-brainer.
You can guess that it didn't really pan out. My semi-active YouTube status, for other reasons dwindled to barely active and, just before COVID, dormant, with only a body of largely-embarrassing videos and some passable ones towards the end (less viewed, alas) in my wake. Leaving just two videos on the 2017 movie (my introduction to the property, don’t forget) as my only coverage of Pony content, and they performed relatively poorly in views (4.3 and 3.7K views after nearly five years for someone with 2.9K subs, even mostly dead subs, is… it’s not much). I quickly discovered that it’s very hard to be a general animation youtuber and also cover MLP content that will draw in the Bronies and keep a substantial chunk of your regular, non-Brony audience – Saperspark and, to a degree, Paleosteno, are the only successful examples I can think of. FiM had had innumerable YouTubers come and go by 2018, I was far too late to the crowd, and while I’m not driven by views, it was enough of a losing battle and mental roadblock that the sizeable number of video scripts I’d outlined (and in some cases written!) never saw the light of day.
Meanwhile, while I did review Season Nine episodes in blog form here as they came out, and later looked back at the first three seasons in the year after G4 ended (neither of which have takes I really stand by, beyond the low quality of nearly all of Season Nine of course), that I was still basically a lurker who hardly ever commented, and hadn’t yet written any fics, meant I had no real following here, to the point most of my followers didn’t even know I was a Animation YouTuber with a 4-character subscriber count. Something I’ll bet is still true now. So any cross-branding and promotion failed on both ends. That, and the few times it did come up, it was clear the Fimfic audience weren’t really interested, in my few Pony videos or otherwise.
Where does Ghost Mike fit into this? Around the time of G5 starting, I started using Ghost Mike as an introduction starter to other Fimfic people, considering changing my username, but not acting on it, as it still felt cute and likeable. When the Ponyfic reviews got going, putting my name in the title felt like a no-brainer. Yet, because Mike Cartoon Pony remained in the header, it tended to be what got referred to by others, especially in those opening weeks of “hey, solid new Ponyfic reviewer, check him out” referrals. Plus, as PaulAsaran once noted, it really should grammatically be “Mike the Cartoon Pony” anyway.
By that point, enough referrals and links under that name had been made around that I felt it would cause confusion to change it now, as I wasn’t going to go around asking every instance and linkage to be changed. After much hemming and hawing, I decided the confusion and bi-polarity of it was doing too much, and I needed to just go for broke, and trust that any instances of Mike Cartoon Pony around would be very clearly Ghost Mike to the uninitiated (though I certainly won’t object to anyone willing to change such instances 
). So, a month or so ago, I locked in this as the week to change it – making Pascoite’s shadow-dropped Underappreciated Author Spotlight in the wee hours of yesterday morning (GMT, that is) all the more hilarious for it’s timing 
.
Well, with any half-hearted illusions of cross-branding well behind us, and me firmly happy with the space I’ve carved out here, largely separate from my other online communities, there’s no need for Mike Cartoon Pony. Just Ghost Mike. Hello there! 
You’ll find not much has changed, but hopefully you’ll continue to enjoy the Ponyfic Monday Musings all the same. 
Speaking of, how about those musings? Largely an uneventful, unassuming selection relative to the blurb, but they balance out that way, don’t they? 
This Week’s Spectral Stories:
Today, Tomorrow, and Forever by ChoppersTopHat
We Are the Everfree by Loganberry
Even A Princess Needs A Break by Mooncalf
Insecurities by Shachza
Anxiety by Bad_Seed_72
Weekly Word Count: 27,797 Words
Today, Tomorrow, and Forever by ChoppersTopHat
Genre: Sad/Slice of Life/Tragedy
Derpy, Dinky Hooves, Twilight, Spike
2,663 Words
June 2015 (originally February 2011 offsite)Listened to via Scribbler's reading
In all her years as Ponyville’s mailmare, Derpy has never once taken a day off. So when she does, it’s a shock all over, especially to her daughter Dinky. And despite Derpy framing it as a celebration, she soon gets the feeling that something isn’t quite right.
Now, I’m sure it’s commonplace for many of you, but I haven’t read that many stories that were originally published before Fimfiction was founded in July 2011. Many that took years to come here, but nearly all of them were still first published while this site was active yet blossoming. It's a Dangerous Business, Going Out Your Door, and Chris’ Choose Your Own Adventure The Purloined Pony are the main ones that spring to my mind. So, this is rare territory for me.
Because oh boy, does the age show here. Published when Derpy’s fandom personality hadn’t even settled yet, this opts for a “word salad” approach, where she says seemingly random things that only those close to her (i.e. Dinky) can really make out (some of which are pop culture references I could have done without). I’ll look past its cynical depiction of Equestria (the conclusion isn’t really justifiable unless Derpy is a lot more impaired than the evidence here suggests, where outside of her speech she’s fine), and this being a rote Derpy/Dinky sadfic. What of the actual execution?
It’s serviceable, if sloppy. We’ll alternate between a good scene with wonderfully concise and accurate dialogue with Twilight and Spike that sets up the story, to sentences that do the job but that don’t flow well, to those that drop in details that shouldn’t have been present, to constant implied scene breaks without the breaks, making the frequent POV shifts jarring.
This hit just enough emotional bumps along the way that it elicits some reactions. But it’s quite a dicey, shaky read. Whether that mixed assessment speaks well or poorly of the kinds of fics that struck heavy viewership in the fandom’s early early days, I’ll leave up to you.
Rating: Weak
We Are the Everfree by Loganberry
Genre: Sad/Tragedy
OC, Other
1,293 Words
April 2023
With all the other strange going-ons of the Everfree Forest, it’s not that surprising that the Trees there can communicate, least among themselves. They’ve been there for a really long time, after all. And even to them, things do change in the woods. For they weren’t always that way…
This is one of those different-POV-perspective pieces, though thankfully not a second-person one; this is first-person plural, using “we” to refer to the consciousness (if that is even the right words) of the Everfree’s Trees. This lends it quite the atmosphere as a mood tone poem (not an actual poem, to be clear), with much of the fic alternating between the Trees’ quiet reflection on both canon events past plus their own cryptic history in a manner leaving most blanks to be filled in by the reader, and it’s reaction to events it can sense in the forest from particular instances in FiM canon.
The number of these topics certainly gives the piece density and prevents it ever lagging, which is to be commended. That said, some of the crypticness throughout reads as confusingly communicated, and it still wants to have enough of it be clear, given the more concrete thoughts on other topics, Discord especially. So it’s rather muddled. But telling and effective – not a bad dip into perspective and genre switching for Loganberry at all.
Rating: Decent
Even A Princess Needs A Break by Mooncalf
Genre: Slice of Life
Trixie, Twilight
1,706 Words
October 2015
No one can have a brave, helpful face up all the time. Not even the Princess of Friendship, alongside being a rock-solid pillar of the community and multi-time saviour of the world. Even Twilight needs a break sometimes, with somepony she can unwind with and just be herself. It just so happens that pony is Trixie.
The story doesn’t ignore the hydra in the room, of why Twilight doesn’t go to any of the ponies she’s friends with in canon for this, addressing it in a sort of “they support me, sure, but more with generic platitudes rather then just being a sounding board that accepts it at face value; I can’t really drop my shield fully with them” line. Which is still quite the contrivance, no way of spinning it, but it’s not fic-killing, least in the face of the rest of this.
Written in late Season 5 when Trixie had been absent from the show for nearly three years (with only EqG cameos and minor roles in the interim), this take doesn’t bother to directly establish how Twilight and Trixie established this sort of kinship. It largely doesn’t need to, the cadence of their dialogue sells it well. And no romance is this either, feeling more like the comfort siblings might give each other than anything.
The fic doesn’t go overboard with drama or angst either, more content to show how Trixie, though far more mellow than usual depictions of her (which makes sense, when a reader could reasonably interpret she’d humbled herself following “Magic Duel”), still has her boastful stage persona, it’s just dormant here. And letting the sweetness of the fluff between the two as Twilight softly expresses her frustration, and gets a bed for the night plus breakfast.
There really isn’t much to this, but the characterisations behind the fluff make for a pleasant and comforting read. Especially for those, like myself, often tired of Trixie’s usual portrayal (a show carryover, granted) and how her relationship with Twilight in pre-Starlight fics is usually depicted, with Trixie being the sad sack of angst. A nice little surprise, all in all.
Rating: Decent
Insecurities by Shachza
Genre: Drama/Slice of Life
OC
11,347 Words
September 2014
Fleur Lumineuse, grown daughter of Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis, has made a very big mistake to an unsuspecting airship mechanic. Feeling she has to make amends, she treats this near-total-stranger to dinner. In the process of a long, convoluted, and highly awkward dinner, both parties see firsthoof how vastly different they are from each other, and struggle to understand the other. Then, and only then, can Fleur truly help.
This one isn’t for those who like their stories to be zippy and to the point; this story is not only glacier-level paced for lengthy stretches, it’s also very cagey about revealing not just the backstories of the two leads, but even what led to them arranging this night in the first place. To the point of being rather unclear in the intentions and purpose for much of the first half without any real benefit to it. And yet, while this strategy is off and misguided (you very much feel it even after the story is done), it has just enough tantalising teasers strung along to get you reading it that bit more until you’re fully won over.
What makes this a winner by the end of it all is how much it embraces the contrast between the perspective character, a social butterfly, and the reclusive introvert, Hyperic Cable, across from her. Whether it be in the small talk she tries to keep him lively with, or the biting statements that leave the recipient stunned later on, it’s very present and ingrained throughout the prose, pervasively so. The discomfort can be felt, but never makes the fic unappealing, overextended slow burn excepted. Throughout, you really feel how much of an effort this is for both parties, both in the interaction and the challenges of building an actual relationship, much less here. With all the slip-ups, from his smattering to her tossing out insensitive remarks without thinking, making it feel all the more lived-in.
Though even if the story and characters are focusing far more on the socially phobic Hyperic, it’s Fleur Jnr. who really sticks out here. The story doesn’t hide that she’s kind of a nasty pony in many ways: bigoted, a selfish narcissist, almost incapable of true empathy beyond that which makes oneself feel better for doing so, much less seeing a perspective so wildly different than her own. And yet, between her seeing things by the end and putting in a genuine effort in response, and enough charisma and flashes of likeable personality traits along the way, she just works, with a earnest authenticity that feels, much like Hyperic’s social anxiety around ponies he’s interested in, like a mirror is being held up to our lives.
While there were some choices I questioned (Fleur being the daughter of Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis never comes into play beyond her wealth and class; she could have been a standalone OC to such a degree I wonder if this was done just to widen the fic’s reach), and the fic could have well been shorter and not so slow while still achieving the same effect (this slow burn also makes the last chunk drag somewhat), the fact that a fic with an author’s note confessing itself to being “blatant self-insertion and gratuitous wish fulfilment” never registers as such, and still sinks its teeth into you for the right reasons, is a minor miracle of writing. It certainly is far more gripping than the overwhelming majority of conversation stories.
Rating: Really Good
Anxiety by Bad_Seed_72
Genre: Dark/Sad/Slice of Life
Spike, Twilight
10,788 Words
October 2013Reread
A sight like what Spike saw in the dark doorway of the bowels of King’s Sombra crystal palace doesn’t fade easily. With his nightmares plagued by alternating visions of that dark empty place with no Twilight in sight, or when she is there, his worst fears of abandonment playing out, the anxiety has even begun to haunt him during his waking hours. With his failures constantly at the forefront of his mind, and his visage that all is well starting to slip in public, he is eventually forced to confront his greatest fear face-to-face: What if Twilight never needed him?
Spike characterisations are hard to get right. Of course, all the Mane 7 have traps they can fall into there, but Spike is especially hindered because he lies in this malleable middle ground between child and adult, one most writers strain to make work. Not helped by the show being inconsistent on his intelligence and the level of respect afforded to him, though those don’t help. All coloured by a very unique upbringing that had very decidedly shaped his personality. Being a Spike fan, I’m thus always eager for a good portrayal of him, though far more often than I’d like, they fall short or just feel flat.
This is a roundabout way of saying this effort here is a quite solid end result of Spike feeling right. As this fic is examining the show’s core premise of friendship being magic through a very adult lens, that of anxiety of our deepest fears, it would be very easy for Spike to feel like an adult. It’s thus very impressive that his reactions – to the sights in his dreams, to the normal sights in the waking world turned ugly, to the confused reactions of others, and above all to the increasing voices in his head telling his of his worthlessness – never once feel like they’re not coming from a frightened kid.
Despite Spike’s fear of abandonment being a common topic to tackle in the wake of “The Crystal Empire”, the intensity of said fears and how they manifest make this fic stand out. From the mental blocks and doubts of self-esteem Spike has, to the nature of the other voice in Spike’s head and how it fluctuates, and later blends into his own internal voice (speaking hear of direct vocal narration, not the normal un-italicised thoughts), there’s plenty of moments here that land hard for anyone who’s ever had this kind of persistent fear. Even the voice making him ignore or forget things that just happened feels right. And the climax where he finally opens up to Twilight sticks the landing in making this sometimes dark and often depressing fic feel fully FiM.
There’s only reason I didn’t love this fic, and it’s the usual one; the length. But it’s not just me being pedantic; a piece like this, where it’s the only plot as opposed to being a B-plot in a longer work, benefits from short intense bursts, and while the scenes are rarely too long, they are often overlong to the point of repeating points. The incident is cyclical at least one time too many to drive home the point, the thoughts in Spike’s head go on too long to feel like the kind of short bursts that really knock one down quick… in both number of scenes, what happens in them and how it’s told, the fic is bloating itself to an extent of diluting the net effect. It still lands powerfully, but a less indulgent 7-8K version would be really intense and a powerful wild ride, instead of this effective but somewhat muted assembly cut of the same.
Granted, I’m more susceptible to such things, so while many readers may still feel a little more worn out than they should, they probably won’t mind it. An effective encapsulation of Spike’s character and how it relates to Twilight’s.
[And don’t mind the cover art of Twilight’s shadow having wings; this is unambiguously a Season 3 story. ]
Rating: Pretty Good
Spooky Summary of Scores:
Excellent: 0
Really Good: 1
Pretty Good: 1
Decent: 2
Passable: 0
Weak: 1
Bad: 0
I've sometimes considered doing Youtube stuff. I thought about doing ponyfic review videos, but decided the audience probably wasn't there to make it worth it at this stage. I also considered Minecraft videos, something my cousin was very into and really wanted to help me with, but he lost interest in the game once he'd built everything he was willing to via redstone and I concluded that the market was too saturated for my particular gaming style to make a mark, so I gave up on that too. I'm sorry your attempts at it didn't pan out.
Oh, Insecurities! I remember really liking that one.
Incorporeal high-five!
Of these I've read two. Even A Princess Needs A Break, which I thought was a neat little switch from the typical Twilight/Trixie dynamic. FiMFiction shows that I've read Insecurities, but I have no recollection of that story. I might have done it as a Seattle's Angels feature as I see it in one of our group folders. I've forgotten so much...
5741143
More of a high-mitt, given the lack of fingers for my kind (not a problem with unicorn-like telekinesis, of course). Don't get a lot of workout with them either way when you go through most willing hi-mitt recipients. But I'll take it!
Almost nine years since it was published, time will do that, don't'cha know.
5741141
Quite a reaction to the equivalent of just changing my name on my driver's license to match the nickname I've been going for ages, friend.
Unless you're dreading the couple of minutes it will take to update the name/links to me in your fics I've reread/edited on…? 
Depends. Can you say "Mike Cartoon Pony" three times without including on reflex a "the" that feels like it should be there? 👻 If not, you might be in trouble.
That is a big clincher, yep. The other thing is the timesink; if one is writing for them the same way they would write a text review on a blog here, that's a lot of narration to audio edit and match footage to. And simplifying it (as much be done a little when you're writing sentences intended to be spoken) has the side-effect of making the review more infantile. Most take it too far; I recall Chris once noting how he never bothered with video episode reviews because it usually meant watching 5+ minutes of content for something you could read in twenty seconds.
A lot of it is my fault, getting discouraged easily and thus outputting less, which thus made me get watched even less, and so on. But it's a tough area; unless one is 120% committed (
) to being very regular, or having stuff so highly polished to a shine that it's immaculate, you just won't get more than peanuts in interest. For someone who never quite locked a clear channel identity and whose followers were overwhelmingly casual hang-ons rather then dedicated lifers like I have a decent few of here now, I didn't do too bad; none of my friends or acquaintances who have given YouTubing a go over the years came anywhere close to my views of followers. And it informed and depend me as a spirit. I still haven't given up on going back to it someday, but whether I did or not, it wasn't a waste.
Plus, you know, it brought me to Pony, and subsequently here. So it's important for that.
What I do know about those kind of videos suggests that unique personality and style and commentary type of the narrator tends to be the key to grabbing and growing a following. So, you never know. Maybe could have worked. But it is a very saturated market indeed.
Speaking of, just on Saturday I was in a CeX (second hand gaming/DVD/phones store over here), and some kids came in with their dad looking for a certain edition of Minecraft. Didn't get it, but I was surprised, in this era of Fortnite and Robolox and the other big kids' gaming fads, that it's still a notable thing with the kids.
I'd hope so, otherwise a WHYRTH? wouldn't mean a lot, would it?
Ah, I read (an helped edit) Schachza's story. It was quite good. I haven't read that last one, but I have read several by that author, and she's consistently good. I helped her edit several of her other stories.
Name change makes perfect sense. So much that I hardly noticed! :O
Those last two stories! So good!
Aha, thank you for the review! Very fair and thoughtful as ever from you. Though I have no quibbles with the Decent rating, I think it's one of those fics that might manage (in your terms) a Pretty Good for some readers, but I don't think realistically it would get beyond that for anyone. As you might well imagine, I found it difficult to write first-person plural, but the more I thought about it the more that seemed to make sense. "We are one, and we are many" so to speak. The Swamp Fever angle was there from quite early on, but the tie-in with Pinkie and the S1 premiere was added considerably later.
5741141
I frequently reflect on the irony of a the number of would-be writers who have let me know that they really wish I'd do YouTube videos for Being a Better Writer instead of articles because they want the advice, but don't want to have to read something. Who does that, apparently?
They're not even long articles. 4-5 minutes is too much reading for some people on a subject they want to learn, it would seem.
5741165
So they want to be a better writer without having to read about how to be a better writer?
...
Is this another sign that our society is doomed?
5741169
A portion of it, at least. A portion that will really struggle with their fiction.
5741157
I'd like to think it's not only more of a username clarification then an outright change, but also about as noticeable as the time I realised you generally spelt your username without a space, at least here (it having a space on Louder Yay made me default to that when referring to you for a while here, my friend
),
Two (unintentional) RCL-featured stories in one blog, what can I say?
5741165
5741169
The whole culture of those kind of wanting videos over articles is very much a sort of mass media, broad demographic sort of thing. Me, I've progressed to the point where I will near-always pick reading a written blog or whatever over watching an equivalent video when it's primarily just being a words delivery system; for a video to be worthwhile, it needs to be on a topic where the visuals or clips actively boost both the enjoyment factor, and ability for the material to leave an impression/sink in.
But yeesh, writers not wanting to read to learn the craft? Talk about a self-defeating prophecy. And as you say, they're not even long articles – these days, I dabble in creative writing as a side hobby that is rarely my "big" thing at any given moment, no longer looking at it as the big hobby or a career path, and yet I still enjoy reading your blogs weekly. Quick n' cheerful, I'm in and out like a yo-yo.
Only way this makes even a little sense is if these people aren't really, really interested in being an actual writer, but just want some background noise on the craft to keep them perpetually in intrigued territory. Which, well, nothing wrong with that, but still, yeesh.
5741161
That's about right – this was very close to a Pretty Good, as you probably figured, and probably an edge case for most folks, I'll bet. I was certainly impressed enough! Not least for the different perspective. Your previous fic may have been a feghoot that didn't jive with me, but this jived quite a bit. Good show!
5741246
I literally do not care about the space :B I think I thought you couldn't have them when I made the account, lol
5741178
It's really hard to digest things from a video, too. All well and good when listening to interesting documentaries, not so much for trying to integrate something into their own work.
No matter the name, you will always be spooky. Ghosts are scary!😱