Ghost Mike's Ponyfic Review Monday Musings #93 · 6:00pm Dec 18th, 2023
Christmas is almost upon us! Though the holidays are a time that should be celebrated by all, of course. Personally, not being the most social ghost, the family gatherings and togetherness can be a bit much, and are something I prefer in limited quantities. But I do fully believe in taking time off from regular things and doing low-stress relaxation things not on a schedule. Which, after the 23rd, will be through to 2024. As it should be!
My review backlog is well ahead enough to still do next week. But being that Monday falls on Christmas Day this year, I’ll copy last year and take it off. You all have far better things to do on the 25th than listen to me yammering on! And it matches what I did last year on the 26th too. So Ghost Mike’s Ponyfic Review Monday Musings25TM (👻) will be a fifty-one-weeks-a-year thing. Best for all of us. And as I’m nearly done writing my Jinglemas fic, and should finish it tomorrow, giving me plenty of time for editing, I can at least try and relax as I deserve to too. 
Christmas films, gaming, and no writing of Ponyfic reviews. Just for a little while.
As the end of the year crept up on me, I will save my reflective look-back for another time. But at the end of it all, 2023 was consistent as the first full year for Monday Musings. As I only occasionally looked at more than five stories a week for the rare author spotlight, I only covered 267 stories, merely 32 more than the ten-month period I was around for in 2022 (down from 5.6 stories per week to 5.24). But I reviewed a lot more words (1.94 million to 1.36 million), and, thanks to not relying on short quickies as much, and covering novellas and even novels more and more as the year wound down, raised the average words per week from 32.3K to 38.1K. Not bad! Meanwhile, the average story length went from 5,769 to 7,270 words.
Okay, so I’m still mostly looking at one-shots. 
But they’re denser on average…!
I’ll leave the statistical analysis there for now. All the stuff to do with ratings averages, reread versus fresh fics, and my personal feelings, will come later. I’ll leave any further conclusions for you to draw, and get to the reviews. Which brings us to 500 stories covered for the series altogether! 502 with removed stories. Very nice to hit on the last edition of the year! 
I tried to go for uplifting stuff this week, if not overtly holiday-themed. Should still get us all in a jolly good mood! Plus, might we have the first novel that fares better than simply reasonably…? Only one way to find out!
This Week’s Spectral Stories:
The Midnight Run by Midnightshadow
Midnight Run - A Carpet of Stars by Midnightshadow
The Icing on the Hearth's Warming Cake by Impossible Numbers
The Youngest Dragon by Lightwavers
Firebird Dahlia by Albi
Weekly Word Count: 67,968 Words
The Midnight Run by Midnightshadow
[No Cover Image]
Genre: Adventure
Twilight, Applejack
3,150 Words
September 2011
One day, Twilight is approached by Applejack with a most strange request, to join her that night for a run. Twilight is left most confused, especially for Applejack’s nervous disposition, but nonetheless acquiesces. What she finds is a dive into a most unusual side of ponies she didn’t know about, as she runs with the herd.
It’s an unusual beast, this one; a 2011 fic that shows it in every way and was already a bit outdated at its time of publication (it was published five days after “The Return of Harmony - Part 1”, yet best fits no later than mid-Season 1, at a time when Twilight was still looking to bolster her relationships with her friends, and her place in Ponyville; though this fic could have been published first elsewhere, I don’t know), yet one where the rough edges and outdated worldview and tone are what make this. Starting with the notion that ponies running at night is what turns the world, we join Twilight as we delve into a world where they shed their inner selves to operate at one, achieving a different kind of closeness, and one that shakes Twilight to the core.
Now, this fic has shaken many viewers too, and I will confess, I wasn’t that shook myself, but to say that there wasn’t a certain discomfort at watching Twilight merge into this kind of hivemind would be a lie. And this is all arguably more powerful due to it’s contrast alongside the beautiful imagery of this take on earth pony magic with the midnight running (by pure coincidence, my song mix played Running with the Herd from The Good Dinosaur during some of this fic, a stirring mix of landscape Americana perfect for that aspect of this story). And it’s all brought out by a close perspective writing tied to Twilight’s mental state.
Is all this good or effective? Maybe, maybe not. It certainly won’t vibe with a lot of people’s worldviews or views or mental individuality. All I know is I was still quite affected, and I think folks owe it to themselves to give this fic a try. I love lots of fics this old, but a lot of them do start to blur together after a fashion – not this. It certainly has more to stand out than many fics of this age.
Rating: Really Good
Midnight Run - A Carpet of Stars by Midnightshadow
Genre: Adventure
Twilight, Luna
3,564 Words
July 2013Sequel to The Midnight Run, reviewed above
Now an Alicorn, Twilight can no longer take part in the midnight run. But, that has opened up another kind of journey one can make with the herd, one that Luna, with the fire and passion to rival her sister’s sun, is keen to show her.
To its credit, this is a sequel that emphatically does not repeat the original, subbing out the loss of individuality for what amounts to a spiritual journey of pseudo-religious fiction. It does, however, retain the evocative, stirring imagery, and this is basically what carries it as Luna waxes philosophical about the life cycle and shows it to Twilight. With the horror largely gone outside of callbacks to the prior story, this one has more of a bittersweet tone too, one that benefits it, being all about the journey.
Something else I noticed was a little unkemptness with the prose as regards the pacing, present last time but more noticeable here, was their being dialogue to break up the spiritual dive. It tends to skim through many moments and did make the whole thing feel a little shallower than it should have, and ironically making it feel longer than if the prose hadn’t kept rushing between voids. So, I think it’s not as strong as the prior fic, though it will work better for sure for folks who didn’t like that one or or felt disturbed in the bad way. In any case, they do benefit from being read as a pair, so go for it.
Rating: Pretty Good
The Icing on the Hearth's Warming Cake by Impossible Numbers
Genre: Slice of Life
Coriander Cumin, Saffron Masala
8,212 Words
February 2017Reread
Though the Tasty Treat may be doing better business than ever, Coriander Cumin’s attitude on life remains much the same: don’t slouch on business upkeep, and socialise with customers and others only as much as is needed for success. Certainly, despite being in Canterlot for a while now, he hasn’t really gotten to know it. And in the cold, snowy weather most unlike that where he came from, he doesn’t mind keeping it that way. That’s all set to change now, though, off attending some pageant on Hearth’s Warming Eve his daughter Saffron’s gung-ho about, off all the local gossip. Dutifully, he indulges her, but soon finds that it won’t be just the snow that reminds him of home…
I admit, I put off rereading this one for a fair while, as all I really recalled was finding it a rather sluggish affair, and with little other details surfacing to mind, I couldn’t place what, if anything, set this apart from Impossible Numbers’ numerous other “character studies of pony(ies) of the day”. How foolish of me, though as a result, this rather surprised me on the reread. There isn’t no sluggishness, and it’s not overly unique for this author, but it more than suffices.
In a familiar move, Impossible Numbers has gone to town with the backstory of Coriander and Saffron in a manner similar to the Irish-esque Skyra in Too La Roo La Roo Lar (That's a Skyrish Lullaby) (reviewed here). Lots of research into both the myth and history of India mixed with judgments that feel fitting in the world of FiM. It’s an interesting juxtaposition to have the “real-world country as a place outside Equestria” trope, a mainstay of early fandom fics, for Season Six characters, but a welcome one (and based in canon). We even get the old-but-welcome notion of Celestia being known by a different name in other countries! As we don’t ever leave present-day Canterlot, what we learn is less a full concrete story and more confined to Coriander spacing out, in thoughts that get marginally more expansive as the fic progresses, but even when they last more than a paragraph, they remain scattershot and don’t linger on details. This is, I expect, why I didn’t gel with this before: like many of IN’s fics, it’s no beach read.
Now that I'm past that, and properly attentive, I can better appreciate this. This isn’t the kind of fic meant to soften up the old coot at the core of it all, not on an active “this is the focal story point of the fic” level, and what is present there is mostly seasonal dressing to Coriander privately coming around to this city more. Yet at the same time, the old grump is made likeable enough without straying from his (limited) established character, the oscillation between them packing up for the night, trudging through the freezing weather, partaking in some festive treats, and finally settling down at the play sharing space with details both about him and Saffron now, and in the past, along with other aspects of his life. I daren’t spoil them much, but they are integrated well into the framework and the things that trigger them, and we get a lot more than most readers would provide, from a wife coming from a higher caste and a layabout son, to a brief but traumatic adventure in his youth that did much to shape him.
Not much actually happens in the fic, and even the recollections – alongside the present-day parts – do reach a point of diminishing returns (for instance, we get rather more “something in the play programme or the opening of the play triggers a recollection” moments than is best suited). But it’s no less so than most fics from this author and less than most. Best of all, it’s quite rich, and the gentle yet poignant tone makes it land well for the attentive reader. Not one to read after a full holiday meal, certainly, but quite the treat all the same.
Rating: Pretty Good
The Youngest Dragon by Lightwavers
Genre: genres
Rarity, Dragons, Twilight, Spike
4,223 Words
February 2018
Rarity’s vacation in the down n’ dirty market town of Gold Springs is almost over. It hasn’t been exactly what she wanted – everything is far too practical and functional over artistic, and hagglers are an ever-present mine – but she’s almost ready to head home. All that’s left is getting some amulets for her friends. She didn’t count on the tiny scamp of a dragon clinging relentlessly to one of the coins in her change that refuses to let go.
A very curious fic from a most curious author, being one of those sorts who showed up, wrote 18 fics in nine months, and then never wrote again. None of their stories have much in the way of views, except for this one. I’ll bet the cover art helped. And it is a pretty cute slice of life, taking some snapshots of Rarity in this backwater trading town as she grows reasonably attached to the little hatching curling up in her bag, on her bed, on her back, and so forth.
The scene-setting here is actually rather special; unshowy, but it manages to conjure a lot of visual detail without describing it (it’s never described as a desert town or one with a low of browns, nor are the clothes specified to be the kind of heat-based gowns, but I sure envisioned it that way), and give a sense of the ponies and the place. Ditto for Rarity’s time in where she’s staying and her mildly successful day haggling her own wares (her adapting to the temperament needed to make sales here is intriguing too).
That all sounds like enough for the one-shot, primed to end with Rarity deciding to keep the little scamp that seems to be a fixture around the town. It’s not; a little past the halfway point, the action moves back to Ponyville, and settles into “explanation mode” in a manner that doesn’t feel of a place with the fic to that point, but also ends so suddenly after the backstory of the whelp is revealed as to feel like a precursor to more. A very odd choice indeed (though I approve of this seeming to be pre-Season 5, if Rarity entering the library without a mention of a castle or even Twilight’s wings is any indication).
This was enough to leave the fic ending on a rather muddled note, but even though this occupies 40% of the fic, the stronger quality of the non-Ponyville parts dominates in its impression. Cute slice of life stuff with personality and place ain’t to be snuffed at! This would have been undeniably stronger were that the whole thing (and it easily could have been), but the rest doesn’t drag that part down, even if the rating does reflect the average of the whole.
Rating: Decent
Firebird Dahlia by Albi
Genre: Drama/Slice of Life
Sunset, Spitfire, OC, Other
48,819 Words
January 2015-June 2016Reread
Things have finally turned around for Sunset Shimmer. The Battle of the Bands led to her acceptance by all of Canterlot High, friendships have been amended, and everything is finally right for her in the human world. But Sunset didn’t come from this world, and in the one she did come from, there are still things she has to mend. Thus, during Spring Break, she returns to Equestria, as a pony, to mend bridges with her former family. The princess who nurtured her. The parents who raised and loved her.
And… and the sister whose life she nearly ruined. Leaving wounds that an apology can’t fix.
The absence of an EqG tag isn’t a fabrication. Not a single scene of this fic takes place on that side of the portal, and while there’s enough mentions of the crucial events and facts there as they pertain to Sunset, Albi (formerly The Albinocorn, I gather) keeps such mentions focused on the personal effect they had on Sunset’s journey. Not lip service for those who care, and it gives those of us who want to stay in Equestria what we want instead.
And boy, do we ever get it. This story has a lot of masterstrokes, but making Sunset sister to Spitfire, and the only unicorn in a family of pegasi, is the key one. There’s plenty of layers to their dynamic as we learn both from present-day retellings by both players to others, and interspersed non-chronological flashbacks to key events in both players’ lives. Both ponies had enormous egos growing up, from Sunset being the odd child out and often teased as the baby sister, to Spitfire scrambling to keep up when Sunset became Celestia’s personal student. Even their parents’ assurance it wasn’t necessary didn’t help, and the dialogue and thought both of them felt then and now really sells it. Making these two sisters is a great idea (though still rare: only 23 stories have both of them tagged, and most are gimmicks or just happen to have both play pivotal roles), but the particular way their history spells out is very compelling, and demands one to keep reading. As might be evident by “just one more chapter” striking enough for me to read this is barely more than a day. Spitfire is no slouch either, with many things stated and inferred that solidify why she is the way she is, for bad and for good (the origin of her taste for going drill sergeant on new recruits is a goodie in particular).
It goes beyond just that, for the pair have stellar characterisation and chemistry, whether arguing, being rough ‘n’ tumble siblings, or getting along. Even as much as they fought as kids, the sense of buried respect and admiration is present enough to make Spitfire’s feeling both ways not feel like plug-and-paste elements. Sunset’s interiority rather sells the turn from a shy and nerdy kid into a megalomaniac in a way few fics do, and coupled with her not being an orphan/only child raised under Celestia with barely a glimpse of her life before that, makes this depiction of her really stick in the mind.
The other characters are solid too: Sunset’s parents, separated in her absence, seem comparatively shallow at first but gradually peel away more layers as the fic goes on (imagine her mom as like Mrs. Shy and her dad as like Rainbow’s canonical father, and you get an idea of what they’re like), and the remaining players, while occasionally guilty of feeling like plot vehicles with how they’ll disappear and reappear only when convenient (Sunset amending bridges with Celestia feels like an afterthought), manage to stand out fine enough. Complex character handling a redemption story with a hefty degree of sensitivity gives this quite the leg-up.
Unlike many such drama stories about earning redemption, this one doesn’t ever feel like it's dragging its heels, and while there are occasions where some developments go a little fast, by and large it’s well-paced at the right cadence to capture the key moments and revelations, yet make the drama feel earned. It’s the right kind of 48K, more fulfilling than many stories 20,000 words longer. The writing itself can tip into flowery prose from time to time, but is largely unobtrusive in presenting the deep craft of place, time or character. It knows when not to say or wrap up things a lesser fic would think to, but leave questions for the future that don’t need a sequel to resolve (which is good, as a years-later one, looking to be more of a minor continuity continuation than a full-blown second story, petered out after just two chapters).
There is a sense, towards the end of the fic, that it does pull its punches a little, both in the brittle drama and tangible pain dissipating, and the tension fading for still-interesting but somewhat-plain slice of life plotting. That, and the main conflict largely concludes by the two-thirds mark, with the rest coming after a nearly year-long hiatus, with the scrambling that usually implies. Thus leaving the finale to instead be about a secondary (though related) problem, which does result in the fic feeling a little meek towards the end, though the epilogue does reverse this trend quite well. This was enough to make me dither on the rating, but on balance, the core strengths of the characters, history, making this unique history for Sunset just work, and resolving the past for a better future, makes it favourable enough to get the higher rating. Also the first novel I’ve revisited that gets to stay in my Favourites! Even if Sunset and/or Spitfire are characters you’re normally cool on, this is a very solid fic, and one that will fly by without feeling like it’s just a highlights reel.
Rating: Really Good
STRAY SPOILERY OBSERVATIONS
- Honestly compels me to admit the characterisation does have its share of bumps – characters in the past and present make some obviously bad decisions due to not thinking, and Sunset cries or is mentioned to have done so a bit too much at times. Enough to be noticeable, not enough to actively irritate.
- The fic resolves a lot of timeline snarls by having it progress at different rates either side of the portal. Ten years in Equestria is only 2.5 in the human world. This isn't made something that takes a lot of time away from the fic, with the characters obsessing over the longer age gap between both siblings now. No, mostly it's just used on Sunset's end to highlight her turmoil at her family having been without her for a decade.
- Something many fics written alongside the show suffer from is, despite canon jossing them to a least a degree (here mostly just in Spitfire's canon mother), feeling an obligation to line up with it. In this case, the Grand Galloping Gala that concludes it includes more-than-cameos from Discord and the Smooze, and they feel out of place (the fic having had no such episode tie-ins before then). Little more than a weird diversion into more-awkward-than-funny comedy in the home stretch.
- Other nice story techniques and beats I especially liked were the story bookends of journal entries across the portal, making it clear Sunset will have to choose between one world after graduation in Canterlot High, how Spitfire moved past not being the youngest ever Wonderbolt off Sunset's semi-accidental sabotage of her tryout to still make a name for herself, and the role of the titular flower and how the aerial stunt named after it both splits the family apart, and also brings them back together (slowly and for the future in the parents' case).
- I mentioned how the story's main conflict, the estranged sisters, wraps up two-thirds in, leaving the rest of it to be about reuniting their parents. This works – Sunset and Spitfire's chemistry butting heads even once their egos are shelved does sell them as sisters – but it's still a little soft. Possibly, if the story had instead has Spitfire dither a little longer, Sunset resolve to get her parents back together regardless, and just when the one dance at the Gala clearly isn't going to be enough, Spitfire shows up, suggests they do the stunt despite the risk, and after it goes off, the pair have their makeup elsewhere in the garden, the story would have kept the main focus on what matters and not had the tension trail off before the denouement. Just my first thought on this reread.
Spooky Summary of Scores:
Excellent: 0
Really Good: 2
Pretty Good: 2
Decent: 1
Passable: 0
Weak: 0
Bad: 0
Happy Wolfenoot, Eponalia, Winter Moon Celebration, Longnight, Mean Geimhreadh, Yule, and whatever else you wisely choose as an excuse to celebrate!
I read The Midnight Run many years ago. So long, in fact, that it never made it onto my bookshelves here.* But I still remember it, millions of horse-words later. I love MLP stories that are horsey at their hearts, and this is one of the best. Thanks for the reminder; it's well worth a re-read. For whatever reason, I never knew it had a sequel, so thanks for that as well!
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* I don't think FiMFic existed then! If it did, that was back when there was only Favorites and Read Later tags.
I feel this. One wouldn't think it considering how many weekends I'm off visiting family. The truth is I never actually want to do that until after I'm already there. Back in my high school and college days I could go for months without stepping outside my door except for food and classes. I'm sure I could still do that today if I decided to fully embrace my true nature. But in my middling age I've come to realize that my parents aren't getting any younger and I don't want my nieces and nephews to grow up without knowing me, so I dump my inner Scrooge into a closet, put on my best Grinch smile, and march once more into the fray.
Besides, the kids love when Uncle Jeremy visits. Mom says it's because I'm a pushover. I prefer to think it's because I'm in touch with my inner child, but eh, she's probably right.
I'm not taking a break from the reviews. Instead, I'm reading in advance, building a lead on my schedule. That way when I'm visiting I can read a lot less or not at all. This is a great time to do it too, because I intentionally scheduled the next few weeks to be a lot lighter in terms of wordcounts.
Oh, Firebird Dahlia! I remember really liking that one. Oddly, I go back to my review and find I didn't have a whole lot to say about it.
Midnight Run looks interesting, and not just because I saw the cover of A Carpet of Stars and immediately thought of my own Drops of Jupiter. Also, the author's name has a song stuck in my head. If I have to suffer through that, so does everyone else. Have at you!
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Well, the story was only published here in late September 2011 – it had an ID of 975 but in terms of actual stories still active, isn't even the 430th. So it could go either way. However, as the author published their first story upon joining Fimfiction on its second day, I doubt it was published somewhere else first. Authors who joined right away usually didn't wait two months to add another one. So most probably custom bookshelves were still lacking when you came along the following year.
Eh, it came two years later, pretty easy to miss. You know yourself!
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Key difference! I still see my immediate family every day, so they're still a part of the normal. I'd like to hope it wouldn't be an effort to visit regularly once that's no longer the case, though.
Interesting point. I'm still a kid on that front, no nieces or nephews yet. I do have a fair share of first cousins once removed by now, though. I too don't mind them once I'm around them, though as I only see most once or twice a year, and there isn't much in the way of opportunities for a higher frequency, it's okay to just roll with the visits or gatherings. I will certainly bear your approach for actual nieces/nephews down the line, though.
Oh, I may have been misunderstood. I'm only taking a week off the blog, not the actual reviews. Similar to yourself, I have stockpiled extra work to make up for it, and though I was intending to save this as a surprise, I'll let it loose now: there will be a jumbo week in the new year to make up for skipping a week here.
Really, it just boils down to the fact that no one's gonna read, or want to read, Monday Musings on Christmas Day! Or Eve, or Boxing Day. That's it, really. So things are shuffled around to accommodate that, but I'm not missing anything.
Well, no more than usual.
It's a keeper for sure. As to your review length, I've noticed some of your earlier reviews of novels were often not much longer than normal ones. This seemed to get filtered out over time, so I suppose this April 2019 one was just a straggler that didn't get the memo.
Ooh, for once I've read all of these! :D Firebird Dahlia was really good, as I recall, and Midnight Run I have always touted as the best story I didn't like. Hivemind shit freaked me out! But I even wrote a song about it, which I sadly never recorded because music is hard. :B
To expand on a bit of your review, it was indeed featured on EQD first, and before then, published as simply a free-floating Google doc shared around various message boards and chatrooms (because that's what we did before Fimfiction! Can you even imagine?) So the date of its publication is just for showing up on this site. :)
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To be fair, The Youngest Dragon came to my attention via your Fic Recs of it.
So that was a given. And I saw your reviews of Firebird Dahlia and The Icing on the Hearth's Warming Cake after reading them as I sometimes do in getting a bead on other's takes. So it was always going to be a "Present Perfect has read most of these" sort of week! Just not a "Present Perfect has read all of these" week. 
Oh, I am well aware of this practice. Hard to miss all the fics with 2012-15 publish dates noting they were originally written in 2011. Plus the odd reading that links to an EqD page, and it to a Google Doc. The only reason I had some hesitation that this was one of those fics was because of how quick it came to Fimfic, and the author taking two months after signup to re-post it (authors generally ported existing fics right away).
Just goes to show, the pattern sometimes lies!
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Oh Holy Carp! That's where I read it! And now I'm having flashbacks to EQD's six-star stories. Back when the show was good, and the writing was mostly aimed at celebrating it. Good times.
I've read the first one, and I liked it. It was kind of a neat atmospheric effect. I'd heard there was a rather adult version of it as well, though I never read that one.