Ghost Mike's Ponyfic Review Monday Musings #99 · 6:00pm February 5th
In what is an actual first for this series (just before hitting three digits too!), I am not here to post this week’s blog. However, thanks to the magic of tab synchronisation and Google Docs, Fimfiction’s lack of an upload scheduler altogether and a New Blog button on the mobile layout is no issue. Huzzah for careful planning!
Very much a shorter week today as fics go. In a perfect contrast to 99K last time, this is the first week to not even break 20K in nearly 11 months. 
There is a reason for the combination of largely short fics again that tends to cause this: some of you may recall that last year, I did a themed week on Berry Punch, consisting in part of fics I’d read as research for using the character in my 2022 Jinglemas fic. Though it took me until July to do so. 
Least I’m timely this go round: it hasn’t even been six weeks since my Jinglemas 2023 fic I’m Just an Old Lump of Coal, yet here are five fics I looked at for inspiration or to get a better bundle on characters/aspects I wanted to use. It certainly helped: over a month on, I’m still quite surprised at the directions the fic led me, and believe it’s at least my second-best published yet. Possibly best, depending on your tolerance for G5 period and the other contender for pole position. 
Though I suppose you could also call this a Starlight Glimmer themed week, given she’s in all five of the fics, even if only three are about her, even from a focal perspective or for the research/inspiration angle. 
Which is just as well – being an actual main character for the show’s back half (I’d bet she might even outrank some of the Mane 7 in screentime across Seasons Six-Nine) Starlight has so much to her that trying to have five fics represent her would be a fool’s errand. Not at all like Berry Punch, where most fandom depictions start and end with “drunk/bartender/adult humour/snarky comedy”.
Mostly, for research for Starlight, I was curious to see what authors did for her pre-cult days, primarily but not exclusively the period after she lost Sunburst. Given I was working during that time period for the fic myself, even if I had pretty clear designs on what I was going to do, I still felt better looking around a bit. This period always struck me as rather unexplored by the fandom, actually (and some of the explorations were written during Season Five when we only had her as a villain to go off of), though for me it remains fascinating enough. Least, relative to a lot about the character rubbing me the wrong way. Thus, we have a pair of one-shots from her childhood (one as a child, one as a sullen teenager), and a fic where she’s married to Trixie but reflects on her whole life.
Add to that a Starlight/Maud friendship fic (Maud I largely followed my own instincts, not needing outside inspiration) and one Pie family fic I chiefly looked at for a refresher on doing the Pie Parents’ archaic dialogue without being overlaboured about (though it gave me plenty more entertainment), and it’s certainly an interesting quintet. Especially once you get to the ratings… 
Just, you know, bear in mind there are gradients within the ratings, and they’re evident from the body of text on the fic itself.
This Week’s Spectral Stories:
Âme Câline by The Cloptimist
Starry Darling by Climaclysm
Hiraeth by Climaclysm
Understudy by DrakeyC
Earth Ponies by GaPJaxie
Weekly Word Count: 19,768 Words
Âme Câline by The Cloptimist
Genre: Romance/Slice of Life
Starlight, Trixie
6,128 Words
February 2021
Starlight used to consider it bad if she was awake when the sun rose, because it meant she couldn’t sleep. This morning, though, she doesn’t do that. She reflects on her life and her past, good and bad; the mistakes she’s made, the ones who got her to see the good in herself. And the mare who she’s cuddled up with right now.
I can be fair, and see why StarTrix is so popular for others, off the dynamic and character chemistry they have together – being together did tend to bring out new aspects and mitigate some of the old flaws (at least, until their episodes started repeating themselves). Romance is still a harder sell for me with those two, naturally, but this does it, despite being about StarTrix far less than you might think. No, instead it takes the form of Starlight writing down her thoughts (with a literal ‘thoughts to writing’ spell, which absolves it of the usual medium-immersion flaws of journal fics while allowing for the comedic reflections on some rambles having gone on too long), as she reflects on her past, and where she is now.
Trixie is often a part of that even when she isn’t mentioned, in the kind of inferred manner that sells the character chemistry and how Starlight’s worries about either snapping being judged again, or being feared will come to light. Which is the key to making the ship feel right. Mostly, though, I’m here for Starlight’s perspective on different phases of her life, and The Cloptimist does a solid job of focusing on less-well-trodden parts and views while not making it feel short-changed. He also brings more depth to Starlight’s worries, from why her talent at magic couldn’t inspire fear as a child, to what living in more fear than the rest of her village did to her. Which further bleeds over into a proper memory of confronting her fear of those related to her villagers calling her out on it. All tied together quite naturally with comedic asides, not least Starlight’s reflection on how slow she was to realise Trixie’s attraction to her. Some of the smallest details about her (not least some small-size coloured text used right) really make it.
It does lose the needle in terms of the density of good details and pacing towards the end, though an extra epilogue with Trixie counteracts that in part. Though ostensibly a fluffy shipfic, there’s honestly a lot more to this that both sells it ship very well and makes it work even for those opposed to it. As will happen when you truly get to the heart of what makes the character who she is. Harder to give higher praise than that!
Rating: Pretty Good
Starry Darling by Climaclysm
Genre: Drama/Slice of Life
Starlight, Fireflight, OC
1,000 Words
May 2022
Starlight’s parents sit down to discuss the recent incident with their daughter, Starlight, and another foal. Her magic is getting stronger, and this latest excessive use ended up melting the other foal’s toy. Firelight can only see the best in his foal, and keeps making excuses for her, but Bright Glint isn’t quite so optimistic.
Let this fic show that writing something that has to be 1,000 words doesn’t have to be a limit. This story packs rather a lot into that frame, and still manages to make it all breathe, to the point I don’t know it would be more than marginally stronger were it given 3K to play with. The discussion between the parents and the worry Starlight’s mom shows are plenty fine, workable elements and all. But it’s the things at the margins that really colour the fic in. An ending scene showing hints of the forceful mare Starlight will become really hits home, and the hints at why Bright Glint isn’t around in canon, and the juxtaposition to her hope and the knowledge of what Starlight would commit that she never saw, really colours the event here.
It is, of course, the kind of fic that demands more, but less for feeling incomplete than for what’s here working really well. I’m certainly happy this was the first take on Starlight’s mom I’ve read.
Rating: Pretty Good
Hiraeth by Climaclysm
Genre: Drama/Slice of Life
Starlight, Firelight
2,910 Words
June 2022Standalone Sequel to Starry Darling – Reviewed above
Starlight’s birthdays are the same year in, year out. Literally, thanks to how her father organises them. She doesn’t have it in her to tell him that, as a teenager, this is too much. But the frustration and self-loathing she’s felt since, against her will, getting a cutie mark in magic, may change that.
Most sequels to one-shots written on a whim, even to expand something ripe for future expansion, don’t turn out as well for one reason or another. Not this time: Hiraeth – a word meaning a deep longing – is a remarkably sensitive and nuanced portrayal of the kind of inner turmoil Starlight might have felt in this situation.
With Starlight refusing to directly acknowledge the issue in front of her, the first half largely consists of her noticing the telltale signs of her dad’s “surprise” party, weighing whether to avoid it or put up with it, and after settling with the former, giving the most short, clipped replies to his questions she can muster. We don’t get a reason why she doesn’t call him out on this, though it’s easy to read into this her knowing she’s all her dad has in the absence of her mother (that possible reading being the only direct link, as opposed to a thematic one, between this and Starry Darling).
Like that fic, the second half, the aftermath of her losing her temper and brief control of her magic in the wake of prodding about doing something with her mark, leads to the true meat, with Firelight doing his level best to help Starlight see the good side of her cutie mark. Even before the ending’s direct setup for the future, it’s pretty potent material, getting inside her head indirectly just through the dialogue. And then the ending leaves proper chills.
The fic is solid alone or with the first one, but it’s a strong work either way, and the use of inferred meaning and thoughts throughout give it stronger impact then it might have otherwise had. Don’t let the same rating fool you – if the prior fic scraped into Pretty Good territory, this is at the top rung of it.
Rating: Pretty Good
Understudy by DrakeyC
Genre: Comedy/Slice of Life
Pinkie, Pie Sisters, Igneous Rock, Cloudy Quartz, Starlight
6,373 Words
December 2021Reread
This year, the Pie family are visiting Maud in her Ponyville-adjacent cave. The relative piece is soon interrupted by Starlight: turns out the rest of Pinkie’s friends all picked up the same sickness while she was setting up for the family, leaving the School of Friendship’s yearly Hearth’s Warming pageant with five of six roles absent. Starlight needs five actors who know the story to heart, and as luck would have it, the Pie family is well steeped in tradition enough to recite it every year anyway. What could go wrong?
This one, I reread to get a bead on how to approach writing the old-fashioned dialogue and phrasing for the Pie’s father Igneous. But I didn’t expect to have such a good time besides. It is not, perhaps, a consistent riot throughout, not perfectly balanced amongst the cast, but it’s close enough on both fronts to suffice. You have the expected in this rendition of the play, in Pinkie playing Chancellor Puddinghead as she usually does, and Maud’s inability to emote making Smart Cookie’s reactions even funnier. But when Cloudy resurrects her former acting self and goes full diva, and Limestone switches pegasus roles with Marble because of an ill-fitting costume and the shy pony can only screech her lines when prodded… well, you’ve got a recipe for unending hammy hilarity. Even Starlight’s frustration, Sunburst’s nonplussed narrator reactions and a heckler get in on the fun.
The big danger one might fear with a fic like this, that it will run out of ways to make the play we know go wrong, does occasionally rear its head – another editing pass or two to trim out some of the material that goes off successfully would have helped – but it never goes long without picking back up again. And the end result after the play, the aftermath of this farce of overacting, underacting, 180 characterisation and Pinkie, has to be read to be believed.
Rating: Pretty Good
Earth Ponies by GaPJaxie
Genre: Romance/Drama
Maud, Starlight
3,357 Words
December 2017Reread
In the lead up to Hearth’s Warming one year, Maud talks to Starlight about love, and ponies falling in love. She then asks for a favour. It’s not what Starlight, or indeed anyone, expected.
Very tricky story to discuss without giving away its full deal, so this will be rather bland if you have not read it. But, as usual, woe is me for expecting anything normal from GapJaxie. It’s a tricky one to process, at least: on top of alternating scenes in chronology, between the past and the present, it’s the kind of fic bursting with lots of ideas, really big ones, and committed to expressing or showcasing them in a very offhoof manner. More down to earth than the ponies of the title, you might say.
The ending absolutely ties it together, in terms of recolouring what’s happened and providing a concrete thematic takeaway. That takeaway being on differing kinds of love, and how they are all valid. Unusually for a GapJaxie fic, there one is almost fully free of the cynical, pessimistic worldview his fics tend to carry (even his other Jinglemas fics tend to repurpose it in the direction of comedy, dark or otherwise), though through the details at the margins and the particular rhythm of how the characters express themselves, it’s still unmistakably his.
Outside of a poem mid-story, there’s honestly not an element here I wasn’t impressed by (rarely has Starlight’s frustration at her own issues felt so genuine), even if some still left me closer to muddled than anything. Most importantly, it gave me plenty of thinking juice about Maud both in the ways the fic portrays her and otherwise, just what I needed in approaching writing her perspective. Not for everyone, but the more open you are to unusual directions on the way to utterly sincere conclusions, the more you’re likely to be floored.
Rating: Pretty Good
Spooky Summary of Scores:
Excellent: 0
Really Good: 0
Pretty Good: 5
Decent: 0
Passable: 0
Weak: 0
Bad: 0
Thanks for the review.
Whoops! You put down 5 Pretty Goods, but one of those was a Really Good, right?
Looks like you had a good set of reads this week. I myself haven't explored Starlight's past much, either as a reader or a writer, so this subject might be something worth exploring myself. Especially with all the good ratings getting thrown around.
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Other way around, actually; that would have been one of the borderline cases I only decided on last minute. Was indeed meant to be a Pretty Good. Can’t edit it now, as I don’t have access to the edit blog feature on mobile without preparing it before the trip away. I’ll edit it tomorrow.
[Yet again, the very rare occasion of a small inconsistency mistake is noticed right away by someone. Both a blessing and a curse, that…
]
You did once say in the comments of a blog of yours that you view everything from Season Six onwards as just official fanfic anyway (a stance I overlap with quite a bit), so this isn’t too surprising. With over 4,000 fics to her character tag, there definitely are a lot of good and even great ones out there, even if there is a LOT of filtering to be done in shifting out not just the bad or disposable, but those too tied to unappealing aspects of the character or later seasons.
Starlight took me a while to appreciate (loathed her intro episode with Trixie), but she grew on me as time went on and she settled into her own dynamic.
Which is apparently why I sped right to the end here and flagged the two stories about Maud/the Pie family. Love em. The dynamic of a traditional, serious family still unreservedly loving and cherishing their 'black sheep' Pinkie is something I've always found heartwarming, and they're all neat characters in their own way. So seeing them highlight a comedy that takes them well out of their comfort zone will be a treat.
You don't have to give me the hard sell I'm already reading it!
Thanks for the review, it's been a very long time since anyone reviewed one of my old stories (that I know of, anyway!)
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But you're quite welcome!
Was about to remind you of Logan's review of your recent fic, before I noticed the "old" adjective.
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I definitely far preferred how she was used in Season Seven onwards, as rote a cliché as that is. It's just a pity it happened right as the show itself dove off a cliff, but that's neither here not there.
It was never one I didn't find heartwarming, per se, but writing that aspect recently certainly turned me onto its merits more.
It is honestly quite a bit stronger and funnier than the premise might seem for a Jinglemas fic. TCC56 boosted it recently for Recommendsday (after neglecting to formerly thank DrakeyC for writing it for him for two years
), and it deserves its place there as well as here. 
Sometimes some points to sell write themselves for the review on top of in the fic itself, bud.