The King's Top 10 Least Favorite MLP Characters · 3:13pm January 12th
Greetings, subjects. The King is here; sorry I haven't done any stories yet to kick the New Year off. My muse is a fickle b*tch with a very short attention span (shoutout to the BioShock players that understood that reference). Anyway, I told you all that I would do a Top 10 for my favorite and least favorite characters, and I like the start with the bad so I can end on a good note. Yep, with over 150 followers now, it's time to weed out the neighsayers.
Here are the 10 MLP characters I hate the most.
10. BABS SEED
Starting off with a pretty obvious one. The star of the most universally hated episode in the series, Babs Seed. An episode so reviled, they never brought her back after Season 3. Babs was a worse bully than Diamond Tiara ever was and the fact that they have the CMC portrayed as in the wrong for fighting back is beyond insulting. Then there's the fact that they try to make her sympathetic by explaining that she had been the victim of bullying and was trying to not be bullied herself; which is not only hypocritical, but it's not the least bit sympathetic. First of all, bullying someone due to peer pressure in order to not be bullied yourself is not sympathetic; it's cowardly. Second of all, Babs went far beyond bullying the CMC to get into DT's good graces; she wasn't bullying out of peer pressure, she did it out of sadism.
She only appeared in one episode and she did technically redeem herself and was much better in her only other appearance, but geez, this whole thing just leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
9. SNIPS
Why the frick did they make these two recurring characters? Just two stereotypical stupid boys doing stupid crap. I'll give Snails a very light pass since he showed some redeeming qualities; particularly in Buckball Season. Plus, Snips was always the worse of the two; with his annoying voice and ugly design; and never showed any redeemable qualities.
He probably should be a lower on the list, but I just don't have any strong feelings about either of these twats.
8. SCOOTALOO'S 'FAMILY'
Oh, Steve Irwin rolled in his grave. You know, with more development and better writing, they could've made Scootaloo's parents more likable; address the hardships of kids whose parents are away a lot. But the way they wrote that fricking episode, they just come across as selfish, neglectful pricks. And her aunts are hardly any better, considering how they're constantly shoving off Scoot to other ponies that, you know, actually care about her. It may not of been as bad if a previous episode didn't have Scootaloo mention that no one had ever been there to support her; made worse by her flying disability. Then Scoots' parents try and take her away from the life she had built without them, not once thinking that maybe she would want to stay with the people that actually fricking care about her. Seriously, everyone in Ponyville that stood for Scootaloo to explain the obvious to these thick-headed a-holes are more family to Scoot than them. Heck, even Diamond Tiara is more family to Scoot than them just for being there.
Speaking of crap familty members...
7. ZEPHYR BREEZE
You have to be a real sack of crap when even Fluttershy can't stand you, especially when you're her brother. Everything about Zepthyr is unlikable; he's lazy, selfish, rude, and his perving on Rainbow really make you wish RD would knock his lights out. The most insulting part is that, after spending an episode getting to know this a-hole and the writers very weakly trying to show that he could get better, he comes back and shows that he hasn't changed at all; because character development is a concept alien to Zephyr. He still refuses to take responsibility for anything of the crap he does; he still perves on RD; he's still a narcissistic loser with no redeeming qualities. So, what was the point of his episode?!
6. THE EQUESTRIA GIRLS SPECIALS' VILLAINS
Equestria Girls has a rough relationship with it's rouges gallery. The first movie had Sunset; who was arguably a weak villain who then became the series best developed character. Then we had the Dazzlings, who were great. Then we had Principal Cinch, who acted as an effective, realistic villain for Twilight to build off of. Then we had Gloriosa, who was okay.
Then we got the Specials, which were for the most part very good... aside from the antagonists. Juniper is definitely the worst, with her lack of sympathetic qualities and motivation, boring character, and atrocious starring episode. While she's the worst though, Wallflower is the one I hate the most. This bitch tried to ruin Sunset's life for something that not only wasn't Sunset's fault, but was entirely Wallflowers own fault. She actually would've made for a great villain if she had been portrayed as the irredeemable scumbag she was, but instead we got the typical half-assed redemption that this show went to so often. Vignette is the most forgettable; a vain bitch who nearly killed a bunch of people because she's a vain idiot; half-assed redemption, cookies and cake for everyone. K-Lo and Su-Z are just as forgettable aside from the unforgivable fact that the special was set-up to be the Dazzlings' big return and they just got reduced to a cameo while the story suddenly tried to focus on the petty squabble of these two forgettable, unlikable characters.
Bottom line, the villains of the EG Specials fricking suck.
5. DISCORD
Oh, this one hurts. I actually really liked Discord at first. It's easy to argue that he was the show's best antagonist, being both very funny and legit threatening; acting as an opposition to everything the Mane 6 stood for, His redemption arc was interesting, building on the fact that Discord never had a friend before Fluttershy and had a lot to learn about friendship and empathy in general. But come the later seasons, he became more and more annoying due to not having to face consequences for his actions despite his constant antagonism. Then came Season 9.
I like to disregard Season 9 entirely as non-canon, but I simply cannot let go of the absurdity of Discord being Grogar. The motherfricker directly caused all the major problems in the overarching story and very nearly doomed Equestria. And why? Because he wanted to give Twilight a proper challenge before she was crowned ruler? Discord is supposed to be the Spirit of Chaos; not Stupidity! Even by his standards, none of this made any sense. And the fact that he faced no consequences and was even allowed to help punished the Evil Trio for what he made happen is just all types of insulting.
Discord was fun at first, but now he's just the worst. Well, fifth worst at least.
4. SPITFIRE
Well, here she is; the center of the worst episode and second worst storyline in the show. The Wonderbolts were all around horrible. They were a group of bullies with a disturbingly realistic gang mentality that were portrayed as cool people that RD became a part of. Really, Lightning Dust should have been made a Wonderbolt over Dash with how these a-holes operate. Spitfire was, as the ringleader, the biggest example of this. A horrible bully who never grew as a character and was eventually portrayed as justified in her behavior.
The only thing that keeps her from being lower is due to how minor her role in the show is. The same can't be said for...
3. PRINCESS CELESTIA
You know, I really wanted to give Celestia the benefit of the doubt. With all the questionable writing decisions, from turning Twilight into an Alicorn Princess to being generally useless despite her supposed statis, I still wanted to see Celestia as the beacon of good that she was set up to be. Then came Season 9. Like I said, I like to disregard Season 9... But I can't disregard this because this was the payoff to all those bad writing decisions. This was the payoff to all of Celestia's questionable antics; she was grooming Twilight to take her place. Without care for how Twilight would feel or the fate of Equestria as a whole, she set up to make Twilight her heir without her knowledge or consent. Heck, perhaps the reason she was so useless was because she wasn't trying and that would force Twilight into the role. It would actually be kinda genius... for a deliberately evil character. But no, we're supposed to go along with this. Making Twilight the ruler of an entire country and all that entails; making her an immortal who will have to watch all her loved ones age and fade away while she remains; all while knowing that Twilight looks up to her too much to rebuke her. Not to mention the bullcrap with Discord and the Terrible Trio that I mentioned earlier.
Despite it all, we're still meant to see Celestia as a good ruler and mentor, rather than the selfish, manipulative bitch she really is. And it sets a very ugly light on the entire series in hindsight.
2. TRIXIE
Those of you that have been in my kingdom for a while are probably surprised that Trixie isn't number one. It's impressive really; right from the first scene she appeared, I hated Trixie. Never before had a character annoyed me so fast. In yet, she managed to get worse and worse with every episode she showed up. Trixie is an all-around horrible person; a narcissistic, envy-ridden, toxic bitch with a capital B-I-T-C-H. In her 'friendship' with Starlight, the show tried to gloss over her behavior and frame her toxic personality as acceptable; which for a show dedicated to teaching about friendship, that is probably the worst thing you could have done. Despite continually being portrayed as a horrible person with no redeeming qualities, the show continued to treat her as reformed, to the point of Starlight making her the fricking school counselor, because that's the perfect job for a toxic narcissist.
I could write an entire essay on all the things that makes Trixie one of the worst characters ever written. My hatred of Trixie is kinda comical at this point, to the point that she verges on being a Love to Hate character... except that would require her to be entertaining on-screen, when she's just painful to watch and listen to. Really, Trixie should be Number 1, but there's one other I had to put first.
1. STARLIGHT GLIMMER
Everyone who has ever said that Starlight is not a Mary Sue is a damn liar. Starlight is one of the most alarmingly textbook Mary Sue characters you will ever see. She has a crappy villain arc that concludes with an absurd and unbelievably petty 'backstory' that leads to her being instantly forgiven by everyone for all her evil crap and being shoehorned into the main cast. Seriously, Season 6 and 7 was The Starlight Glimmer Show. She's like Sunset Shimmer, but without anything that made Sunset work. Heck, even her color is unoriginal; it's the color of Aria Blaze right down to the teal stripe in her hair. The show was forced to revolve around this awful Creature's Pet, Self-Insert character.
Trixie is technically a worse character, but at least she was never a main character; also, Trixie is awful in an interesting way. Like I said, I could do a whole essay on the many things that makes Trixie a bad character. Starlight is just you're typical Mary Sue bad; the kind of character you see all the time in fanfiction. The only notable thing is that she's in the actual show and was made by supposedly 'professional' writers. Bottom line, Starlight is easily the worst character in MLP.
So, that was my 10 least favorite MLP characters. Did you agree? Of course, you didn't. So, let me know who you're least favorite characters are and why. Next up, my 10 favorite MLP characters; which is considerably harder to nail due to there being more characters I love than I hate.
The discord part was right in center m8.
Honestly, I find Starlight to be a tad overhated. Her redemption was bad, no doubt about it. And Season 6 didn't do the best job of handling her initial redemption arc. But Seasons 7-9 really did a lot to redeem her in my opinion. They toned down her overpowered ways, they gave her time to develop real friendships, and they didn't constantly shove her into episodes just so she could have the spotlight.
And with Scootaloo's parents, including her aunts, are we to ignore the fact that Scootaloo practically idolizes Rainbow Dash? Of course she'd want parents that are just like Rainbow Dash's parents, even if those parents are the absolute worst. Scootaloo's parents and aunts are far better. Not the best parents ever, but far from the worst, and it was good the show finally stopped going down the "Amazing Embarassing Parents" route, that trope got just as overused as redemption.
I feel like the only reason anyone ever hated the Wonderbolts was because of "Rainbow Falls". If not for that episode, people probably would've given the Wonderbolts a pass.
As for Princess Celestia, here's the thing: Twilight still had free will. She could've said no to the throne if she really believed she was unworthy. And keep in mind, Celestia actually reconsidered her original decision and gave Twilight time to learn before finally giving her the reigns. Besides, there is nothing definitive either way about whether alicorns are in fact immortal, or just long lived.
Ooh, now here's a list that's after my own heart quite a bit! Though I do have some stylistic caveats in how I judge these things.
You yourself already said you considered Season 9 as non-canon (something I share, and for S8 too), but in my case, I'm pretty good as thus considering characters' bad moments there in the context of the writers, not them. Not fully – nothing could forgive that Grogar concept – but it does mean I don't judge Celestia for what she did to Twilight in Season Nine.
For that, I have what she did to her in Season Three, and the mess of writing that is "A Royal Problem". Among others.
Yes, I'm aware disliking the latter episode is far from a consensus opinion, though enough dissenters exist.
But it does mean that with characters like Scootaloo's parents, I just shrug it off and say "Nicole Dubuc, what're ya gonna do?" Though her forwarding her own agenda over those last two seasons, not least in shoving the aunts she co-coined in the chapter books, into canon, is… yeah. At least G.M Berrow referring to her own chapter books in her episode was just side details, not the core of the plots. I feel the same about Zephyr Breeze still being an ass in "Sparkle's Seven".
I dunno, I suppose I'm far too invested in the process of media creation and writing to be angry at the character when I have that much evidence uncooked as to what the people making it did.
One thing I am very grateful to this list for? You blasting the EqG specials villains (though I would argue against them being very good otherwise, but that's beside the point). Yeah, Vignette and the pop duo are often called forgettable, and everyone acknowledges the repetitive plot thread of them being whiny losers who stumble across an Equestrian artefact and use it. Juniper does not get called out on how terrible she is nearly enough, and frankly, aside from her design and speaking to the quiet introvert in a lot of us, I've never clicked with Wallflower's fandom popularity.
Myself, I would put Spitfire not as badly as yourself, but not give her the pass that 5763398 does. Yeah. "Rainbow Falls" was her worst moment, but "Wonderbolt Academy" had already rubbed people a little wrong, and later on, "Newbie Dash" would do the same with how it makes out this level of hazing to be okay, and that Dash, traumatic nickname be darned, should just suck it up.
Trixie, I never understand those who didn't like her flipping when she went with Starlight. Also, it's telling they repeat the plot line of her being insensitive and narcissistic to generate friction between the three in all the episodes about them as a pair. Also:
The show towards the end was doing this in lots of areas, to the point of sometimes painting Equestria as a rather dark place. And not intentionally, but through sheer writer neglect and/or indifference.
Babs, in my rewatch of the show over the last few years, "One Bad Apple" was one of the worst-faring episodes of the first three seasons (which would put it middle of the pack overall
). And it basically boils down to her being far worse a bully than Diamond Tiara ever was, and the phony excuse of being bullied herself, and that making it okay. The Bronx accent, one of the few cases in the whole show of being rather miscast (or mis-directed, more accurately), doesn't help, given thick New York accents always make people seem rougher.
As for Starlight, the only reason I don't use the Mary Sue label is because no one takes it seriously, so I find other ways to get the point across. They definitely got better with her worst tendencies in Season Seven, and made her not always the focus, and further distanced her from the horrible two-parter that ended Season Five that I can, sometimes, squint and consider her a different character. But that's as far as I can be charitable – outside of DHX's visual virtues, and Kelly Sheridan's tangible enthusiasm in voicing her, yeah. It's super lazy to call her the downfall of FiM, and I would say she's a symptom, not a cause – she just makes it easier to signpost where the divide lies.
Also, the Discord section better let me see why you wrote your recent G5 fic where he was present the way you did. Not that hard disagreement with his actions in Season Nine wasn't already evident, but you know.
Because I'm often able to look at the writing separate from the characters, there aren't many other not on this list that really grind my goat. And many of them are just one-off characters, not really worthy of scorn, or a waste in concept and usage, like the Pillars or the Student Six, as opposed to their personality. But Cozy Glow really grinds my goat. It doesn't help that she's one of the few characters who exists only in the CINO seasons (Canon In Name Only), so she doesn't have a better foundation we know is how she should be.
You've all doubtlessly heard all the criticism against her, so I won't dwell on it, but her lame manipulation and "friendship = power" gimmick is so poorly written it makes my head swell. And then, in Season Nine, she's supposed to be as evil as a centaur devil and the disgraced ruler of (former) parasite infiltrators? Never mind that her only real power is manipulation, so they have to constantly invent ways for her to contribute to the Legion's schemes because in this situation her skillset isn't worth a monkey's toss. Like Starlight, she's more a symptom than a cause, but geez, what a tumour of a symptom. At least Starlight has a crackerjack opener than is still the series' second-best two-parter, behind only "The Return of Harmony".
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I always appreciate a long, detailed comment with in-depth responses.
Just as neither of us can forgive the Grogar thing, I can't turn a blind eye to Celestia's portrayal, particularly because it was the payoff of all her actions throughout the series; most obviously making Twilight an Alicorn Princess. I can't overlook something that the whole series build towards, much as I'd like to.
Side note: While Season 8 was also awful, I actually don't mind the overarching story that much because I like the School of Friendship. I feel like that made a lot of sense; the whole show is about teaching kids about friendship after all; and I feel like Twilight being the head of the school was a very natural development for her... then Season 9 ruined that, but non-canon.
I meant Sunset's Backstage Pass and Forgotten Friendship in particular. The others are pretty meh at best. And Movie Magic at worst.
I can see the argument of Rainbow Falls being her worst moment, but I say Newbie Dash is. I'll talk about that more when I do my Top 10 Least Favorite Episodes list, so for now I'll just say this: that episode upset me so much and stuck with me so bad that it was legit a contributing factor to the start of my ongoing battle with depression. That might make her high placement make more sense.
I mean, it is what it is whether people take the label seriously or not.
I mean, with the fic's context of Discord knowingly putting the three in the And I Must Scream situation they're in in the first story, I think we all wanted to see him get his just desserts.
I think the fact that one-off characters like Babs, Zephyr, and Scoots' folks on the list is more a positive testament to the show overall. As for the Young Six, I have mixed feelings on them. I like them as characters and I like how they bring in more of the different races and their cultures, but the problem is, the show became bloated. There were too many main characters. Heck, in my upcoming line of stories that's essentially my version of Season 9, I don't really have hardly anything for them because there's not much place in the story for them to fit.
You're 100% right on this and I would also add that her treatment by the 'heroes'; being sent to Tartarus then encased in stone; makes them look really really bad. They put less effort in trying to help a mentally ill child than a treacherous chaos god. That being said, I actually have a bit of a warm spot for Cozy due to my upcoming story building on a father-daughter relationship between her and Tirek that brings out the good in both of them... But that's more the character in my stories rather than the show itself.
I really appreciate the blog review; hope to see what you think of my 10 favorite characters in the other blog. And I'd love to hear who your 10 least favorite characters are; especially with how you tend to perceive them.
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Honestly, Cozy Glows feels like she was designed intentionally to be a middle finger to all those complaining about the overuse of redemption and the overuse of evil unicorns for villains. And the DHX staff seem completely apathetic about how Cozy completely blew up in their faces. She's a twist villain solely for the sake of being one, even if nothing about her makes any sense. If anything, Chrysalis and Tirek didn't deserve being lumped in with her.
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Oh, I should be clear, I'm not turning a blind eye to it. It is undoubtedly a terrible payoff, poorly executed. But in my eyes, as regards Celestia's characterisation and her preparing Twilight, there had been major fumbles on that front pretty consistently since Season Three. By the time I get to S9, I'm just numb to her screws-ups on that front. So I'm intellectually insulted, but not personally, because there's little left to be insulted.
Forest for the trees, of course, it's a cesspool of writing either way.
Eh. It may be hard for me to separate my feelings here from when I found out a lot of Lauren Faust's original plans, which had kinda been derailed hard by Season 4 anyway – "Twilight's Kingdom" my butt. In theory, Twilight being a teacher is a great development, but off how little of that was successfully shown with Starlight, it's not surprising they fumbled hard on showing that in any coherent manner. And teaching friendship in a class system in school is just a no-go, either as moral guidance for the audience (that's not how it works on Earth), or in-universe, with how emphatically it's been shown across seven seasons that those lessons are learned from real-life experience. And the "justification" of showing friendship to other cultures who don't get it is… well, uncomfortable. I need hardly have to say way.
Oh. I'm very sorry to hear that. I suppose, in my case, "Newbie Dash" had all the Wonderbolts like that, not just Spitfire, and was poorly written besides (the cringe humour did not work), and came when viewer faith in the Bolts was already low. "Wonderbolts Academy" was her first main outing, and she was kind of the only real problem there (okay, no, the scenes with the others back in Ponyville were dead weight too), so it sticks out more to me. But I really like that episode overall, while "Newbie Dash" sucks, so I'll concede the point.
Indeed, and I only didn't point this out because everyone has and it's a known thing. It does tie in to what I said before about S8/9 Equestria looking like a pretty dark place under the surface, due purely to writer incompetence.
A lot of people online here find it hard to separate how they/the fandom use a character in writing versus them in the show, and I see it impact character lists like this all the time. Not this one, thankfully – you did good there, bud. But the fandom-writing infatuation for Cozy has superseded how she was done in the show.
I'm looking forward to it! A lot of "worst characters" lists will overlap, because even in as wide a fandom as this, there are some writing fallacies fans can agree on. But one's favourites tend to be more unique and telling of that person's personality. Bring it on!
Hm. I tend to shy away from such negative lists these days, as they tend to derail into lengthy rambles fast. That, and as you noted, nearly all characters are solid enough enough of the time that they'd hard to pick out as consistently bad.
But since you asked, I shall deliver.
Here's an unranked (except by debut) list of my bottom ten. And honestly, some of these only intellectually irritate, not personally. Bear in mind that as someghost with a very "structural writer" mindset, my biases on that front will show, especially as some of these characters are more symptom than cause.
Very true. As I said in the blog, I really wanted to give Celestia the benefit of the doubt and hoped the writers would give a good payoff for everything; I didn't want to be one of those 'Celestia is the villain' people. That was my mistake.
Quite true. It was better in concept than execution. I would like to say that 'showing friendship to cultures who don't get it' thing, while having unfortunate implications, at least makes sense in-universe given how antagonistic the other races had mostly been up to that point and they never try to establish Pony culture as superior to the others (at least, not deliberately). To your point you mention later:
Rarity and the others were portrayed as in the wrong for that, I'll point out. What's kinda funny about you pointing that out is that in my story series that takes place in, as I've called it, my take on Season 9, it leads to my own version of G5. And in parts of the story that explains what happened between Gens, there's a villainous group made up of members of the other races that take offense to the implications you pointed out and see Equestria as Pony Elitist. So, fair's fair.
Perhaps I should've more specific; all the Wonderbolts are horrible, but I rank Spitfire the worst as she's the ringleader. Consider her a placeholder for the group as a whole.
Yeah, there's a big difference between a character in the show and the character's portrayal in fanfiction. Like, why would I hate Pinkie for what she did in Cupcakes?
What's really funny is, in my early days on this site, after a blog where I dissed Trixie and asked why people like her, this guy recommended a few fics where Trixie is portrayed better as examples. I explained exactly what you said; that I don't judge characters in the show based off of their fanfic counterparts. His response was 'cunt' and 'fight me, dickhole'. A very strong argument, I'll concede, but I think my point rang true in the end.
As for your list of 10 least favorites, the ones that aren't already on my list I don't have strong feelings about either way. Cadence, Daring Do, Thorax, and Flurry Heart are just kinda there. Like we both said, the Young Six suffered from the cluttered writing, but I like them as characters.
I find it really interesting how your least favorites come from an intellectual place while mine is emotional. I can't wait to see how it plays out with my favorites list!
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You should be very glad I happened to look at this blog post again due to wanting to remember a specific point you said on these of these characters. Otherwise, I'd never have seen this comment – you forgot the reply button, meaning no notification.
Don't worry, it happens to the best of us.
It ties back to what I said about the dark edges of Season 8/9 feeling like an accident via writer incompetence. The whole angle of other cultures not getting friendship is trying to straddle a line of not painting anyone as 'wrong', given the target demographic, and at least for me, that is actually worse when they muck it up than the typical "racism = bad!" parables that have had a chokehold on animation since Zootopia.
I have at least one friend who dislikes Flatfoot more than Spitfire, as the former was a jerk from her first spoken appearance, and didn't have the slight shades of grey in "Rainbow Falls" that Spitfire did. So different people have different reasons at the margins.
It is funny how people apply the reverse far less, isn't it? A bad portrayal in fanfic won't affect their take on the character in canon, but a good one will. Though I can't fully blame this instinct – we do want to see the best in everyone. Human nature and all that.
Well, somewhat. I did have a barometer going through this, which is, without knowing what episode in question, if I'm about to watch an episode where this character is a main player, what reaction does that generate on the scale from "Ah, great!" to "Ah, s**t!". Filtered to concentrate on the characters, of course; otherwise Young Six episodes would outrank just about everyone else.
It's not just that, of course – using that alone would put in many one-off characters whose one role was a wet fart. So there's filtering to largely include ones that personally annoyed me. Then among the bland players, I consider those that are more prevalent and symbolic of a greater trend from their time period. And then of course most of the ones also on your list do personally tick me off.
So, you know, it goes both ways.
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Oh, I feel so dumb right now.
And I thought you were just busy with stuff like your weekly Monday blog.
Anyways, if you're still interested and in case you didn't notice, my Top favorites list was made the same day if you wanna check that out. As I mention, it was quite a bit trickier to narrow down than this one.
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Oh, no I didn't! I think the only reason I saw this one was due to the story you'd tagged in it being one I'd reviewed before, and thus it popped up in my feed. Now I see that you alluding to that post was a "it's there to look at", not an "it'll be there soon".
I'll give it a look tomorrow.
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Looks like we both did a silly.
And thanks for the follow, my spectral friend.
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Hey, Ghosty, I don't know if you do recomendations for your reviews, but I'd like to give one. Ambergris by Pascoite. It's easily my favorite story on the site and probably the best story I've ever read period. So, I thought you might like to check it out for your reviews.
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Curse Fimfic for author profile pages only showing the one-liner blurb and comments on mobile. What’s the point of having my policy on this matter visible if most people won’t see it?
In short, requests are a hard no, too much in my backlog. Recommendations of another author’s story may be considered, if it looks interesting to me.
Hm. EqG stories are a very hard sell for me, as are gritty ones there, plus the Sirens. On the other hand, several people there in the comments have said this fic worked to fantastic levels for them despite those aspects being hard sells for them (not least my friend and fellow Ponyfic reviewer Loganberry). This is mirroring the situation with Who We Are in the Dark, where several choice endorsements made me look into it and while I didn’t love it as much as them, I found it unquestionably great.
So, I guess off this fic’s acclaim, plus me liking Pascoite’s work and him saying this is one of his favourites… I suppose I have to give it a look in, don’t I?
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Pascoite is a phenomenal author in general from what I've seen. And I only bring the fic up because I truly believe it deserves more recognition.
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12+ years writing Ponyfic, pre-reading it for EqD and otherwise, and lots of reviewing, plus whatever else he got up to in his pre-Pony days. That'll do it, yep.
Mm, I dunno. Fic does have 5K views. Not saying that it doesn't still deserve to be seen more: based on the outside reception, that's looking more likely than not. But given how hard it became for even wide-appealing one-shots from established authors to get views of more than a couple thousand after the fanfic peak of 2012-2015 (this fic is from late 2016), there are so many great fics in the last eight years with a lot less views then this.
Not starting any kind of debate: just noting that saying that about a fic with 5K views is setting the expectations even higher.