Ghost Mike's Ponyfic Review Monday Musings #95 · 6:00pm January 8th
Got some opening blurbs planned for the next while. Let’s lead off with a big one: 2023 for Monday Musings in review! A more sensible soul would probably make a separate blog for this, but I can’t always be sensible, can I? 
And sure, if there are souls reading this who can’t stand statistical quirks, well, there’s always scrolling until the first cover art to bypass the blurb. Which some may do already, come to think. 
Of course, this came out far too long for one blog’s opening blurb, so I decided to split it, and leave some for another week. This week will be all about “normal”, quantifiable stats: the goofy figures and observations will be looked at next time. 
In preparation for this, and because I wanted it anyway, I added a Stats Tab to my Archive of Reviews, and not only set up the rows to produce summed data from each year (and the one in-progress), but also output averages. The words covered on average per week and per fic are nice, but now we have % outputs for the number of fics that are rereads or were listened to. We have how many authors I’ve covered, per year and altogether. And most notably, a number and % of the whole for each rating.
I also duplicated my master Reviewed bookshelf into smaller variants just for each year. They’re unlisted (though findable from the Stats Tab in the Archive), but are handy for checking trends by particular tags, which will make for cool observations later on.
I reviewed 267 fics in 2023, the series’ first full calendar year. This corresponds almost perfectly to five fics a week for the fifty-one weeks, with two jumbo-sized Author Spotlight at ten fics and a third at seven accounting for the extra fics on the 255 that would indicate. This is far more stable than 2022, where on top of the first seven weeks having seven or six fics each before I settled on five, two contests I covered later (Who Crossed Over My Little Pony? and Ancestral Tribute) added more weeks that broached the regular fic amount, adding 25 fics to the five-a-week total.
More important than that, though, was the length of fics. While the average length is still in short story territory, at 7,270 words, I reviewed almost 2 million words last year, at 1,941,187. Which also made the average per week a healthy 38K! My ambition to cover a novel a month towards the year’s end certainly helped, but I think the big difference came from not reading fics just to fill a quota. In the first few months of 2022, I often grabbed really short fics I could squeeze in here and there (some may remember those weeks with seven fics typically only charting 20-30K in words). I still do that to a degree, but largely just for fics I’m interested in. This had another effect on the year, as we’ll soon see.
Something most of you pay little attention to, I’m sure, is the Reread label attached to some fics. Well, it matters to me, to knock off fics I’ve read in my pre-bookshelf days. And in 2023, generally, when reaching for fics to fill up a week, I would grab a chunk from that backlog. Thus, 109 fics were rereads, 40.82% of the lot (up from 68 in 2022, or 28.94%). This isn’t to say I don’t shelve fics in purgatory that I know will be not worth it or don’t appeal to me anymore, for I do. But it’s nice to work one’s way through a list. I’m sure I will never get through all of the nearly-300 fics on my Re-Evaluate bookshelf (not least with all the longfics in there), but it’s a shot.
Another change from 2022 was using fics readings far less. Partially, this is for reading less really short fics, more likely to have readings. Which in turn made me less likely to get such videos suggested by the algorithm. Couple that with me almost never listening to fics readers besides Scribbler to begin with, I only listened to 30 audio readings (11.24%). And fourteen of those, nearly half, came from the first ten weeks of the year. You can see where the trend changed! 
The major thing this has all been pointing to? The average rating. By assigning the seven ratings from 1 to 7, the average score was 4.77, or a Decent that’s 77% of the way to a Pretty Good. Up quite a bit from 2022 (4.31)! Covering less really short fics and less readings was a big contributor to that, as they can often be low-hanging fruit. And I also was picking less fics just for the sake of it, leaning far more towards fics I’d likely enjoy, to the point of no fics getting the worst rating of Bad. Lastly, judging contests can also mean a healthy chunk of low-hanging fruit, but due to miscommunication, my volunteering to judge for Imposing Sovereigns IV got lost in transit, meaning I didn’t judge any. So… yay for that?
Contest runners, don’t misunderstand – I enjoy judging, ask me anytime! 
On top of the average rating, there’s also the number of fics per rating, and percentages of the whole:
- Excellent: 18 fics (6.74%)
- Really Good: 60 Fics (22.47%)
- Pretty Good: 78 Fics (29.21%)
- Decent: 71 Fics (26.59%)
- Passable: 34 Fics (12.73%)
- Weak: 6 Fics (2.25%)
The big question one might ask from that: are my standards too easy? Now, if you actually read the reviews, I doubt you’re actually asking that – certainly, no one’s who read/watched my discussion/analysis of animation media over the years would ever say I’m too easy a mark. Possibly one might say the exact definitions of the ratings have shifted slightly. But I really do think it just boils down to what I choose to read – you usually can tell from the outside if a fic will be worthwhile enough to not regret the read. Which is the definition of the Decent rating, after all. I do think we will see a slight shift going forward again, but unless you go by the standards of the likes of Titanium Dragon, this is probably fine…?
The last cool stat I’ve summed up (for now, I’m sure I will expand the Stats tab in time) is Unique Authors. This was 148 (55.4% of all stories), down from the 170 (72.34%) in 2022. Less low-hanging fruit as discussed above certainly contributes to that, far less authors popping up only once. The main reason, though, was all the Author Spotlights. Regular readers will recall I started doing them monthly late in 2022, then neglected them for a few months, then picked them back up in February and did them every other week to catch up until I’d done a year’s worth, at which point they ceased regularly. This meant I did nine of them in the first half of 2023, in retrospect not a direction I’m proud of – many of them were an obligation done just because I had several of their fics reviewed and waiting already. Which shows in me only doing two in the months since. I certainly would have reviewed some of those fics anyway, of course, but likely not as many.
And, of course, we did lose a few authors last year, and as both of them, Ninjadeadbeard and Level Dasher, favoured short stories, they got jumbo editions of 10 stories. Lucky Dreams also got 7 stories, purely to compensate for the fics’ short length, though the lucky number was a nice bonus. 
Still, 101 authors only had a single fic covered, and 23 just 2. So whatever I certainly have authors I gravitate towards, plenty of non-regulars get in there too.
That’ll do for this week. I’ve never made pretensions to doing anything but just covering the fics I’d be reading anyway, lest this feel like an obligation and stop being fun. That said, these stats do please me greatly, especially off a 2023 that was rather bumpy. And with regular novels, author spotlights only when they feel right, and a bucketload of fics old and news I can’t wait to read, I’m confident 2024 will be a further evolution. And bring in new blog readers and make new friends – sure, isn’t that what this is all about? 
No? Just me? Aw, you guys are no fun… 
Here, have your quintet of new fics.
This Week’s Spectral Stories:
Rise and Shine by Vasar Huineo
Avocation by Kwakerjak
π by Kwakerjak
Singles Combat by MrNumbers
The Price of Generosity by gmen15
Weekly Word Count: 41,924 Words
Rise and Shine by Vasar Huineo
Genre: Comedy
Twilight, Rarity
1,593 Words
October 2019Reread
When Twilight shows up to Rarity’s asking for help, she’s only too willing to help a friend. That said help involves burying a body she accidentally killed certainly makes her hesitate, but not waver. Because true friendship is, if nothing else, about helping friends get away with murder.
It sounds like a dumb joke fic, and… okay, it kind of is, but it’s a delicate, well crafted one, holding back from mugging with the central joke and letting the rather warm character work between the two do most of the work. It’s not a romance, but it was written for the RariTwi Bomb
(organised by Monochromatic, because of course), so it’s leaning in that being a thing for the two in the future. Doubly so while they’re discussing how to cover up the victim’s absence from society.
Obviously, I daren’t spoil who they’re burying, nor the end result of it, but they do make this short, largely gentle fic quite an enjoyably hectic rollercoaster ride at the same time. The dark edges don’t interfere either due to the hilarious tone of it all, and the approach to the dead character’s fate is clever enough too. Honestly, it just needs to be read – imagine a stellar dark comedy fan comic with not a trace of cynicism, and you’re part of the way there.
Rating: Pretty Good
Life has settled down pretty quick for Penumbra in the weeks since she relinquished to Pinkie’s persuasion, defected from being Nightmare, adopted her current pegasus form and startled living in Ponyville for rehabilitation. Though as excitable as bunking with Pinkie can be, it also means stout boredom during work hours. Thus, after some correspondence with Luna, Penumbra sets out to gain employment in this town. Things don’t exactly go according to plan.
Barely a sequel at all, this is more like a bridging comedic vignette collection from Inscape to the next main story in the Petriculture Cycle, inessential except for serving as a primer to the personality of the effectively-OC that will feature going forward. It’s rather inelegant and rushed: taking the form of letters Penumbra writes to her former co-conspirator Luna, but without the return letters, so every letter is basically just a plot recap of Penumbra’s latest employment mishap. Indeed, those who value good letter craftsmanship may be turned off, both by them being tell-oriented and only putting in intermittent effort to feel like letters, though they clip by at the pace of letters, so they and the fic are in and out too quick to get properly annoyed.
That leaves two things boosting a wobbly delivery system here. Penumbra’s personality starts from the same out-of-place, lacking-in-social-clues position as Luna, though after that it leans more towards a sort of deadpan speak-and-interpret-literally place, one that combined with her matter-of-fact discussion of her past when it comes up, leads to a take on the snarky reformed antagonist not as super-stale. This enables mildly fresh shake-ups for why the jobs go amiss, and while the after-the-fact delivery method largely strips them of the comic timing they’d need to be properly funny (one stinger chapter excepted), it makes the fic pleasant enough as a small diversion.
No two ways about it, it’s frivolous and would function better in normal, organic prose that allowed itself to properly develop as part of the next story. But this suffices as a bridging point to this next phase of the series so, though weightless and fluffy, it passes muster.
Rating: Passable
You’d think there would have been more of an upheaval about the new cloudsmith pegasus in town, not to mention the town’s librarian trying to usurp the throne only a few months ago. But Ponyville remains largely unaware of the incident, and also that Twilight, Penumbra and Pinkie are technically alicorns already. It would take something like the return of a showmare looking for revenge to bring that out into the open. And that’s not on the cards… right?
The sad news is that this is basically a rewrite of "Magic Duel" in the Petriculture Cycle, and like a lot of rewrites of canon episodes to fit the new context of a divergent series of fanfics, it falls into the trap of not changing much beyond what it has to. So we get Twilight not legitimately falling to Trixie but instead holding back due to not wanting to use her alicorn powers. We get characters clicking things it took them longer to figure out in the episode, which is good in theory to avoid even more repetition, but in practice feels rather smug, as such things do. Penumbra is a bystander and criticises characters' decisions whenever they are on the passive side. The whole middle chapter is basically another situation of characters sitting around and discussing things that will undoubtedly happen to them in the future (this fic is infatuated with Alicorn Twilight, but has not put in the grace and nuance to earn it, even if there is some thought to it). Other aspects, Trixie especially, feel more like cogs in a machine than ever. And the fic's end tries to pivot it back towards being about Celestia and Penumbra, despite the former having been totally absent.
It's the kind of fic that is so obviously about its greater effect on the future of the series that it would for sure function much better paired with the next and final story. If there is a saving grace, it's that the character interactions, while still convenient, rushed for the sake of the plot, and robotic in the dialogue constructions, do feel somewhat organic, and there isn't no pleasure to be had, especially from Zecora's much-appreciated role.
Reportedly, the final fic in the series, Pandelirium, fixes a lot of the issues here, not least deviating from being a Find and Replace on "Keep Calm and Flutter On" pretty quickly. But it's 77K long, and I haven't enjoyed anything in the series without hefty reservations after the first solid and sturdy entry Petriculture (which continues to be perfectly enjoyable as a standalone). Plus, the series is still indulging in lots of early tired fanfic clichés while rarely earning them, and the initial pleasure of Pinkie being an imaginary friend has been largely lost in favour of a different path to Alicorn Twilight and having Nightmare as a reformed-but-still-snarky-and-not-fully-good ally. I think I'll stop at this entry again much as I did the first time through.
Rating: Weak
Singles Combat by MrNumbers
Genre: Romance
Luna, Twilight
10,626 Words
November 2023
One of the pleasures of having stepped down from the throne for Luna is, now freed of all the mundane minutiae that comes with co-running a kingdom, she can devote her time to vanquishing evil. Which, in this era of unrivalled peace, largely means venturing back to the moon to best the monsters from the stars that can be spotted there. It’s on one of these such trips that she finds Twilight also escapes to the moon, to get away from it all. Being the kinds of ponies they are (or, well, the kind of pony Luna is – Twilight’s just willing to indulge her), idle chat can only sustain so long, and they soon turn to a duel. One where Twilight has everything about Luna pegged, including the real reasons she’s here.
However unconventional that blurb sounded, it’s not nearly enough, because whoa boy, is this unconventional, a take on Luna and Twilight well far afield of everything I’ve seen. And not for the setting or other gimmicks, like them having to touch to talk in the lack of air (this gets a lot of clever working out during the duel), though those do play a big part of it. Primarily, it’s Twilight’s characterisation that really warps this in new directions. It’s hard to ascertain how far along in her rule she is (she’s slightly bigger than Luna, though not yet Celestia-sized), but she’s so confident, all-knowing, sure of herself, in control of everything, that frankly, were the writing merely competent, she’d feel like an imposter, and this would be an irritating drag.
The writing is far more than merely competent, however. It can have Twilight state matter-of-factly that she was stronger than Luna even as a unicorn, and come across not as boastful but as someone who is modest and never claims an untruth. It can have her and Luna exchange questions and answers in a give-and-take on the topic they put up with but the others wants all the juice on (Luna having drafted many Equestrian laws, and Twilight knowing tips and tricks for monster fighting), and feel organic to the point of neither character (well, not Luna, Twilight seems to be controlling everything) realise it’s flirting. Somehow, just about every out-of-left-field thing Twilight does throughout just clicks, such that when the fic gets to the romance (the one area here Twilight shows some weaknesses in, and only because she lets Luna see them), and even sprinkles in some mild hints at kinks for either characters, it flows like water.
Twilight may stand out more, but I would hesitate to undervalue Luna. The fic manages to have its “Luna’s deep-rooted insecurities” cake without ever being about her banishment or mental effects from it. She’s plenty confident and assured herself, the trick coming from no one else besides Celestia being somepony she found herself having to look up to, literally and figuratively. Leaping off of that, there are thus many effective one-liners from both ponies throughout that are absolute gems of character psychology, down to the big one of why Luna so often feels starved of praise. It also makes the acknowledgment of Celestia’s flaws as a nurturer and raiser not be canon-bashing, yet not be so neutered as to have no value being included either.
Honestly, I think only my undying resistance to later-era Twilight, and especially Ruler Twilight, is keeping me from flat-out adoring this, as opposed to my current stance of being impressed and admiring it with every fibre of my being. Possibly also some length concerns and the writing style being one I’m impressed by more than enjoying…? Regardless, for all I wouldn’t want to read more of this Twilight, I can hardly think of a better Ruler Twilight, nor a more unique and delectably right depiction of TwiLuna, a ship I am open to but find hard to accept as having developed the way many fics posit such – this fic sells me on them actually hooking up in a way few have, by giving Luna reasons to want Twilight that don’t just feel like “gratitude for saving me” rewired into attraction.
This is an absolute must-read, and the fact MrNumbers wrote this on commission in three days is nothing short of phenomenal (and apparently this wasn’t for financial woes either, which does at least explain the quality: as blunt as it might be, I’ve found most commissions written to combat dire finances rarely rise above functional). Don’t sleep on it.
Rating: Really Good
The Price of Generosity by gmen15
Genre: Sad/Romance/Slice of Life
Rarity, Spike
11,643 Words
March 2013Reread
It was lucky Rarity was on a nighttime stroll, else no one might have been able to rescue Spike from the burning library in time. Less lucky was that she suffered permanent scarring from it. Even after her hospital recovery, she confines herself to her room with the light off and drapes drawn. Only daily visits from Spike brighten her mood, yet she keeps her new look even from him, unable to see the beauty that still lies within.
Woe is me for not noticing the tags, else I would have remembered the Sparity directions this goes towards the end, and which just feel out of place. Literally, what has been Rarity’s growing appreciation for Spike and guilt at leading him on flips to reciprocation in the last scene, in the kind of wild lurch you’d expect from someone’s first fic. It does a lot to damage the stronger emotions the fic had been about.
Not that it was great to that point, even though I had favourited it once upon a time. The cause of the fire is the most arbitrary excuse the fic pays only the bare minimum of “satisfactory” attention to, and the presence of the Mane 5 is heavily downplayed in the unnatural “focus in the OTP” mode. It fits for Rarity to have longer paragraphs of thought, but these ones are given to wind-ons and a bit of purple prose, something the fic’s flow is guilty of too, to the point of being both too long and too short. The core emotions Rarity is feeling, and Spike’s quiet support, are certainly handled reasonably enough, and do stir emotions a bit, but are still rather mangled by the fic’s other shortcomings. Not least an odd approach to chronology and scene order to get points across (Rarity’s dream was… a choice).
Enough of it works to largely supersede the niggles in terms of the read being worthwhile, even though many of its decisions also weaken it enough to make it feel like it didn’t deliver on its potential.
Rating: Passable
Spooky Summary of Scores:
Excellent: 0
Really Good: 1
Pretty Good: 1
Decent: 0
Passable: 2
Weak: 1
Bad: 0
Re: Rereads, I did the same thing when I first started doing reviews. It took me ages to get through that particular backlog, so I can appreciate the effort behind such a thing.
267 reviews for the year is nothing to sniff at, especially with a ~2M total wordcount. Makes me wish I'd kept those kind of records, if only because now I'm curious about my own wordcounts for the year. I could go back and tally up the listed wordcounts of every 2023 blog, but that's a lot of work just to appease a whim. This year, though...
Okay, I now want to read Rise and Shine. That looks amusing.
I doubt it'll ever truly go away, both because I'm always coming across fics with the blue checkbox ticked to add to that list, and because the more I go on, the more it's filled with novellas and novels, even with me personally deciding to exclude some. But we will reach a point where it's a smaller chunk of the whole. I suppose my determination to take care of them means I'm in this for the long haul…?
You waxed this in the presence of a stats-obsessed chap with some spare evening time on his mitts. Don't be too surprised I went and added them up for you. 👻 Turns out that the Total Word Count across your 26 "Paul's Thursday Reviews" blogs last 2023 add up to… 8,726,702 words.
What.
I kind of had it in mind that your average per week was 150K, with the weeks that had giant, 300K+ novels being real outliers. This blows that out of the water – it means on average 335.6K for each blog, and 33.6K per fic. Granted, doing them fortnightly while keeping it to the equivalent of five a week does effectively multiply the weekly average by 2 compared to your past years, but still. Jesus.
Like, this isn't news – I've read your long blog on how you organise your reading time, and I see all the jumbo novels you cover. I knew you read over 100K a week But to see it all laid out like that… wowzers.
More amusing: the account which only has these this story and one other is an alt of Undome Twine's. But yep, it is an amusing one. Apologies if it was sold blandly – you know the difficulty with reviewing dumb joke fics!
missing something, it looks like! too many numbers this week maybe xd
loved reading the stats breakdown tho so cant complain, im always so impressed by people who can keep track of stuff like that and then make sense of it at the end. its almost a magic of its own in a way lol
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Nope! I was just dithering on quite a few of these rating till the last minute, which can make it possible for the double-checking of the total at the bottom to slip through the cracks.
Fixed now.
Just the way some folks' (and ghosts'
) brains are wired, really. If you thought these ones were interesting, just wait until next week – that's when the fun, quirky and kooky observations from the stats come into play! 
The statistics are great, but I would love to see some graphs and pie charts!
Mmmmm... Pie.
A couple of sentences into the review or Rise and Shine I thought, "Oh, yeah, I've read that one," but it turns out not. Who knew "X helps Twilight bury a body" is a thriving comedy sub-genre?
I really enjoyed the first story of the Petriculture Cycle, but... Yeah, not feeling the love, here.
Awwwwww... π.
As for Singles Combat, I think you really nailed it with, "...absolute gems of character psychology..." There are so many that, once articulated, provoke an "Oh, of course!" reaction, which is the best sort of illumination. I've just re-read it, and I can't help but point out that there are also a great deal of witty and memorable lines packed into it. I'm a sucker for really clever verbiage, and in that regard, this story also gets top marks. I do adore this fic, which should come as a surprise to absolutely nobody. I could go on and on about all the reasons why, but I will spare you that; you've read it for yourself.
I will note that Mr. Numbers has worked this into a larger series of connected stories that are also very worthwhile for people who don't mind more mature-themed (and EQG) stories.
BTW, your score summary at the end has a mistake.
looks like you had a far more normal stats distribution last year than I did! :O
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What do I look like, someone with time on his mitts and the interest to carve it out?
For whatever reason, though it's quite quick to host images elsewhere for posting here, I tend to trigger my lazy bones with blogs where I can't just use existing internet images. And truth be told, besides a pie chart of the different ratings, I don't think any of the above would get massively more interesting just by being in visual form. Given most of the rest is just "x happened y times this year, which is % of all the fics covered", or averages.
Still, I suppose, never say never, you know. If I do end up adding them to the sheet, at least, I'll let it be known, anyway, so the five or so interested folks (
) can see them there.
It's right next to "Twilight Sparkle is killed and ponies try to resurrect her".
Which I read at least two of last year, and recently read a third that will pop up soon.
As in, you agree with me feeling it went downhill after the first? Or that it comes across here like I didn't even like the first one at all? Or just that I soured on the series fast? I presume the "Awwwwww... π.
" is just a gag and not a reaction to my take on these two stories here. In any case, after a fashion, all the old-fandom bland episode-reworking with phoned-in alicorn lore than just kind of shuffle from event to event blend into each other.
It is the kind of fic I can spend 700 words on and not highlight everything. That said, I think that was implied-ish…?
I've also read its comments, where you pop up a decent few times. Each is small, but they add up. So, yeah, got a pretty good idea of the rest of the reasons you love it!
I will add one personal reason the fic spoke to me: Luna's thing about wanting recognition from equals/those better than her spoke to me deeply. As you put it, 'Adulation from the masses always means less than another master of your craft saying, "Hey, I saw what you did there, and that was really great."' Though kissing is optional in my case.
Why this is, is because as a lot of the interests I'm in don't really cross over with one another, it's rare to get people who like one thing I do online be into any of the others. Ditto for real life (you'd be amazed how few people, friends and family, ever even looked at a single video I did on five years of YouTubing). Couple that will a lot of the stuff I do being dissection of others' content, rather than actual creative arts, I don't often get feedback, in either direction, from people I consider pros at said craft. Not quite the same as Luna being one of the most powerful ponies in the world, but it's enough.
Oh? Didn't see anything about that in the long description, there were no Author's Notes, none of its groups looked to be for that purpose, and none of his recent blogs noted this either. So that's certainly a surprise for me. Also that you'd be into it, given you're even more turned off byEqGthan myself.I realise now you're simply referring to his most recent, 38K story.
Not by the time you posted your comment, bud – someone beat you to it!
I'm surprised that leapt out enough for two people to comment on it – coming at the end of the blog, I always presumed people just skimmed on by.
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In… fic ratings, like?
I presume so, because the only other stat we both reported on is audio readings, and my 11.24% to your 80-odd% surely can't be what you're referring to! 
Still, I wouldn't have said your stats distribution looked odd. Certainly not when considering you used fic readings for most of them – if anything, I'm surprised that didn't bring more low-hanging fruit to weigh the ratings down.
In any case, over half of my fics (58.42%) got a Pretty Good or higher, which is equivalent to a Recommended or higher from you (where the same was 46.8%). We could make much of that on both ends, I'm sure, though you did have 56.1% from the same the prior year, so maybe it makes more sense than I'd first figured.
That's a lot of words and reviews! Especially given some of the titans you covered this year. Congratulations!
Congratulations with all the massive work you did in the past year! Will eagerly wait for more from you
Regarding the assortiment of these fics, I've read only Singles Combat here, and Luna came off to me as being naive, simple, and easy to please. But I'd fully attest that it is a personal peeve of mine and not an objective problem of the work
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The graph thing was (mostly) a joke, but... I know you can generate bar graphs and pie charts inside Excel. Not sure if Google sheets has that capability?
Yes, exactly that. I thought the first was very enjoyable. The π gag was just that, a cheap throw-away.
From a fellow scattershot polymath, I understand and sympathize completely!
That's probably wise. It is not a story I would generally recommend, because it is, in some parts, very graphic (though appropriately so) and, frankly goes way, way beyond my comfort level in the final chapter. That said, I liked it because of the "absolute gems of character psychology," as a perspicacious person once said. Yes, I dislike EQG stories and avoid them—except when I don't. This is a cross-universe story (and romance, for that matter) so it helped that it started out on the Equestria side of the portal.
Congrats on the numbers, Mike! Always a satisfying feeling to look at something and think, "I did that. Me." Sure you didn't write the fics you reviewed, but you read them and wrote about them. Here's to many more horsewordstats in 2024.
The MrNumbers story is already on my RiL list, unsurprisingly. Of the others this week, I've read and liked Rise and Shine. None of the others really stand out tbh, though you never know.
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Yes, it does. Not as many options as Excel, but if you're not too demanding it does the trick. Of course, this means I have even less excuse for not doing a stats post of my own, given I can host pics directly on Blogger...
I was really impressed by this review - not just because it's glowing, that helped, but because you did things like read the comments, check the associated information with it, actually engaged with the intentions of the story really well. I'd put it like this - the fact that your review is as quality as it is makes the fact that it's so positive worth so much more. I've received more favourable reviews, and I'd still call this the best review I've received in memory.
I'm really curious what you mean by:
Length concerns I get. I'm of the general opinion there are 8K stories and 12K stories, and a 10K story is either an overly long 8K story or an undercooked 12K story, and I wrote a 10K story. I'm curious about the writing style being something that impresses you more than you enjoy it - I've tried changing my style up a lot over the years, so I'm really interested what this one looks like that inspired that reaction.
I'd also be really curious if there's any one liners especially that stand out to you from memory. This is actually really helpful for me, because of the nature of criticism I'm way more articulate about what people dislike about my work than what they like about it - It's really helpful for me to know what people actually like about what I'm doing, like this, so I know how to do it more.
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That chapter of the story begins with: "I feel like this chapter needs a content warning, but I can't figure out what the specific one should be," because the energy and characterization of it is viscerally uncomfortable in a way that just describing the actions can't convey. Which makes me very proud of it in the sense that it reflects just how hard I committed to the execution, but it's far less accessible for it.
If one does not pull their punches, one cannot complain the impact has recoil.
5762879
I do my homework!
Obviously not every review is going to be able to show that off the way the 700-odd words I spilt on this one did – you can only say so much about many quirk n' dirty comedies, after all – and I did benefit from the comments on the fic giving me extra talking points. But I always do try and honestly engage with what a fic is trying to do.
Regardless, really glad you were suitably impressed by the review – that makes me feel good much the say way it made you feel good.
Reminds me of all my studies, professional and self-taught, on the form of 7-minute cartoon shorts and 11-min cartoon tv episodes, and the myriad of differences between the two. I especially can vividly recall many Cartoon Network shows (where length was less rigid), where one half of a half-hour tv slot would be a 9-minute episode (the other being longer than 11 to bridge it out), and it would feel like a somewhat padded 7-minute short.
Even apart from that, though, I do totally agree with the principle here. Seen it in action on many stories, felt it occasionally on my own. I wouldn't even say there are any proper length concerns here – lord knows it kept me engaged – but I can certainly imagine a version closer to 8K that isn't any less effective.
Of course, you wrote the thing so quick, and for a commission, so I pass no contextual judgment either way.
The "…?" was used to indicate it was just a theory. As the only concrete reason I can come up with not being personally infatuated the way, say, iisaw was, is that though it's taking something normally done poorly and doing it really well, it still features a character being awfully smug about their own capabilities. And that character is Ruler Twilight. Both of those aspects are things I really don't like personally. But I do feel this missing the Excellent rating isn't owing just to that – as noted, this fic does those two elements about as well as I've ever read – so the above was just theorising.
Sadly not by now – the review may have only gone up yesterday, but it was written over a month ago, being read in late November. I can certainly recall that it was good with dialogue being clever and witty, but with me having read nearly 40 fics since then, specific lines are long since lost.
5762879
I don't believe writers should ever pull their punches. Yes, you had me squirming at places, but that was the point, wasn't it? I am not in the least bit sorry I read it, but I am still cognizant that many people prefer to wear Disney Goggles when "consuming media." The warning was perfect. Anyone who reads it ought to know they need to put on their big-boy pants and buckle up.
5762895
It's weird, isn't it? In school, after a year of tests and exercises, we had to produce a 1-minute animation. Nearly everyone in the class did it with ease. The next year we had to do a 3-minute piece, and most people quit or flubbed it. It wasn't three times as hard, it was an order of magnitude more work and substantially different in character.
5762876
Once I'd crunched the numbers, I did find myself thinking, "Hm… is 1.9m really that much? I'm sure lots of folks read that much, or much more, every year". Weirdly, I find I have to remind myself that they mean more because of the reviewing. Not just cause of the time and effort to write them up and post the blogs, but the different mindset and focus they require when reading the fics too. As you know.
So, yeah, it's… it's nice. And it's equally nice for you to say so too. Thanks, bud.
For what it's worth, I would very much like to see a pie chart (or an equivalent) of the % distribution of your ratings over the last year. Not many other stats you track to make much out of beyond word count and cute observations on how many story spotlight you had and such, but if not worthy of its own post, it's be a nice opener to a future week.
Having said that, I suppose I'm now obliged to do some of the same myself, aren't I?
5762948
I enjoyed this anecdote, though given the statement of mine you replied to, I do feel honestly obligated to re-clarify that I didn't do animation in college nor have I worked in it professionally. Did some basic paper walk cycle/bouncing ball tests for a portfolio preparation course, and later while doing computing in college (not having made it to the animation course), I did a digital 2D walk cycle (that I do take pride in being one of the best in the class by actually incorporating animation principles), and a pretty routine "robot arm plays chess" 3D animation.
I misused "professional" early on, wanting a way to distinguish from observing with my own judgments (what I meant by self-taught) and watching/reading a practically infinite number of guides and practicalities on the subject purely out of personal interest. Not my finest phrasing hour! I know you probably remembered I'm not nor have I technically been in animation, but I felt that was important to clarify.
I have reached that point in life where I'm more or less okay with not being in animation professionally. Both off having seeing the difficulty friends face holding down a job in it, and learning, as I got older and mellowed, that it's okay to keep some hobbies as just that. Maybe I'll return to drawing and improve my art skills in the future, but if so, it'll be purely for fun.
5762954
No worries! I related that as an example of how most anything becomes geometrically more complex with a small increase in length. And pro, or not, you certainly understand animation!
There's nothing wrong with being self-taught! (Unless your teacher is an idiot.
) All my formal training was in traditional animation, and almost all of my professional career was in computer animation, which I either taught myself or learned on the job!