) Disney saw fit to re-release The Phantom Menace in cinemas for one week for the film’s 25th anniversary (only two weeks off). It almost slipped my mind until today, hence Monday Musings being a few hours later (advantage of a Bank Holiday, peeps – a freeGhost Mike's Ponyfic Review Monday Musings #100 · 6:00pm February 12th
The big #100. Honestly, I was never doubtful I’d hit it, least after the first few months: my backlog was substantial enough that my reading pace would have to slow fast to not get here without a break. I don’t have any big sentimental feelings or sense of celebration associated with it – I associate that mentally with the first Monday of March, the anniversary of Monday Musings – but yeah, it’s still pretty cool. 
A small let down for today: as indicated two weeks ago, that Ponyfic Review Monday MusingsTM was about to hit the bit one-zero-zero crept up on me too quickly to cobble together a themed week tailored specifically to it. Especially as my energy for laser-focusing specific stories to go together is concentrated on the two-year anniversary in under a month.
That said, I don’t have no theme. Hitting triple digits got me thinking back to my initial time in the fandom, as milestones will. While I only set up an account here in August 2018, I was reading Ponyfic pretty much from January, off seeing the 2017 movie in theatres and bingeing the seven seasons just before the prior year finished. I was also reading a few select show rewatch blogs around (not here, on other sites) that would often reflect on the effect on fan content that any given episode provided. This usually took the form of music, but fan fictions would pop up too, usually signature longfics. As a result, a lot of the early notable fics I read sprung from there, and came overwhelmingly from 2012 (with a handful either side). Thus, despite the many years I’ve had since to experience all sorts of Ponyfic, the first default mental image I have is often the 2012-era Ponyfic, with all the quintessential quirkiness in how they looked at the show relative to what direction canon would later take it.
Incidentally, this is also, naturally, why reading old fics later jossed by canon has never bothered me the way it seems to for some folks these days, even on top of preferring that era of the show. Which I can say and mean, as coming along when I did, it’s not nostalgia talking – my memories of Season Two are only a couple of weeks older than that of Season Seven. 
I bring this all up as, to mark this milestone, I’ve gone back and picked fics from 2012 that fit the mental idea of what much of my early experience with Ponyfic is like (well, minus the lack of longfics here). This does mean all of these carry some date signifiers, either in later canon compatibility, style of idea or content, or the writing itself. But even when they are rough around the edges, they capture the kind of fuzzy comfort I mentally associate with that kind of Ponyfic. And for hitting 100 of these, it’s quite a fitting rescue theme.
This Week’s Spectral Stories:
Running From Myself by torrentialCAM
Cake Story by Blueshift
Certain Advantages by The Descendant
The Ship-Off by TheBrianJ
Mood Wings by Tchernobog
Weekly Word Count: 61,856 Words
Running From Myself by torrentialCAM
Genre: Slice of Life/Sad
Twilight, Rarity, Cheerilee
12,335 Words
January-February 2012Reread
Listened to via Scribbler's reading
How others think of us can affect how we think of ourselves. When two Canterlot ponies from Twilight’s past happen by Ponyville, she ends up having to fully confront that, though she thought she had forgotten about what happened to her as a filly, it may well have affected how she thinks of herself, her habits and her personality in ways she’d never considered.
I shouldn’t be too surprised this isn’t as brilliant as I remember it. It’s not charitable to point out an old story’s writing style isn’t quite all there, so I’ll skip past the LUS, sometimes-slipshod POV, and overwritten tendencies (which do lessen as the fic goes on), and note instead that the fic is split into two halves, as it were. Apart from the second half, to my surprise, being notably stronger (on account of pivoting from the scars of bullying opened up by said bullies coming into Twilight’s life again, to exploring Twilight’s OCD), it does that thing where a character not otherwise present is the one to provide sound advice, rather than the major pillar who’s been with Twilight the whole time, Rarity. And said character makes sense to do this, but it’s still a bit of a structural one-off.
All that being the case, this does get both at OCD, barriers, mental lies, and what makes Season Two Twilight. Even before it’s directly referred to in the text, the shadow of her actions of “Lesson Zero” looms over this, and if one found that pushed too far, well, this really gets at why she’d have been like that. Otherwise, the feel of early Ponyville, the camaraderie of Twilight and her friends, the ending sentiment of taking pride in oneself, they’re all present and accounted for in charming ways. Rarity in particular gets a stellar showing. A final scene with Celestia might rub some folks the wrong way, but I found it tied the fic together.
An inconsistent result, then, but the highlights are as good as you’d expect from a fic of this age and legacy. May speak better to those who personally identify with Twilight, or relate heavily to stories about bullying or mental health. But I think it works on balance even without that caveat.
Rating: Decent
Cake Story by Blueshift
Genre: Dark/Comedy
Pinkie, Mrs. Cake, Mr. Cake, Other
18,351 Words
April 2012Listened to via Scribbler's reading
A curious incident one day where Mr. Cake bleeds slightly, and Pinkie spies in the aftermath not blood, but jam, with crumbs to boot, leads her to the only logical conclusion. Mr. Cake is actually a cake! Ordinarily, Pinkie would drop such a ridiculous theory right after the Cakes it shot down, but it quickly becomes apparent that something is being hidden from her, when Mrs. Cake reacts not with a chortle, but with strictness. Thus begins Pinkie’s investigation into the matter.
Blueshift is known for his weird stories, but even by those standards, this is a weird one. The first chapter and the first half of the second chapter (about 40% of the story) play out more or less like it seems from the outside, a goofy Season Two comedy (set pre-“Baby Cakes”, though it was released three months later). There is a little more of that early fandom fic feel than I’d expected, in the rhythm of how Pinkie thinks and phrases herself to others feeling like a take on her characterisation that’s not quite fully there. Mostly, she can be a bit more abrasive – the number of times she prompts somepony telling her something to find back on track is quite notable. Otherwise, there’s one background pony with an odd quirk, another fun OC, cameos by some of the Mane 6 reacting in different ways to Pinkie’s research. The comedy is a little undercooked relative to what it could be, but it’s agreeable and fun, and perfectly in line with Pinkie’s brain operating as only she can and making a comedy of errors out of things.
Then we get near the halfway mark, and the story does a major tonal whiplash that justifies the Dark tag as a solo tag, not as a pair with comedy (none of the comedy to that point is dark). In fact, comedy ceases altogether, and the story becomes almost horror-like.
The rest of the story eases out of this more slowly into a typical FiM-style resolution, and in terms of plot and character, it is all one concrete story, and has a consistent theme and thoroughline. But it is basically two totally different tonal ballparks, and there isn’t much of anything building up to the second during the first, or bringing the first back during the second (the warm sentiment comes back, but only the barest hint of comedy).
It’s a peculiar case – a story that is always engaging, has its themes well-integrated, and outside of Pinkie being a bit pushy, the characters feel right, as long as one can roll with when the fic is written. And there’s so much in the back half that is really stellar, down to several twists that are just perfect and make the story. The lurch in mood and atmosphere does feel intended (I’ve read Blueshift stories before that have gone from comedies to not that), and even deliberately sudden, so the fic knows what it’s doing. I’m just not all that convinced by it, and feel the fic might have fared better sticking in one ballpark the whole way. But the others strengths still make it quite the read. That it still left quite the impression on me between writing this review and posting it was the decider on the rating.
Rating: Pretty Good
Certain Advantages by The Descendant
Genre: Comedy
Celestia, Luna, Rainbow Dash, Spike, Twilight
12,054 Words
December 2012Reread
Tis the time of year for the Sisterhooves Social once again. But this one promises to be quite different. In the boring leadup and registration, Dash finds out two certain ponies are taking part too. Ever the devious one, she searches for one to gullibly accept her bet on these two. When Spike falls for the goading and then finds out the team is the Royal Sisters themselves, it looks like his fate to be Dash’s dogsbody for a week is sealed. But the path to victory for the two alicorns may not be as simple as Dash figured…
This story is both uncharacteristic for The Descendant and quite characteristic for him. In the latter category, there’s the particular rhythm and vibe to the royal sisters and the lore of their powers, though it’s most obvious with how well he writes Spike’s earnest kid personality. It is the uncharacteristic comedy parts that stick out more, of course: it’s an over-the-top approach to the material, where you can almost hear the prose being recited with a knowing smirk by an omnipresent narrator.
Celestia and Luna being the fool and the fool who follows ends up being just the skeleton for all the remaining goofy nonsense. Celestia being stuck in a barrel all race and Luna not knowing restraint and setting every obstacle to the horizon (complete with cutaways to a ship of Diamond Dogs reacting with more dismay each time they are bombarded) would be enough for most authors. The Descendant gives us many other running gags and subplots, in Spike’s snark with Twilight going too far and having her cry waterfalls as she teleports all over all race, Rainbow Dash generating an anti-gravity field whenever the race doesn’t go her way, Granny Smith getting pampered by the best male masseuses known to ponykind, and a play on words with bunghole. Among others.
It is all very dumb. But knowingly and cleverly dumb, to the point that, while I wouldn’t commit to such a lazy reduction as “if the writing styles of The Descendant and Aragon had a baby”, I wouldn’t veto that as a first approximation either (just minus the political and nerd jokes of the latter, occasional one-off gags excepted). Not all the runners and one-offs work, of course, and that contributes to the fic feeling drawn-out at times for the approach it’s gunning for. Though at the same time, the relaxed approach is far fresher than the hectic pace this kind of story concept and approach would normally preclude. Also, by parallel evolution, the goofy portrayal of Luna feels similar enough to her in the early IDW comics (specifically ones like Big Mac’s two parter “The Art and Zen of Gazebo Repair”) that she feels right at home, and Celestia is just a branch off of that. Especially with their depowered states returning their manes to the one-hue colours Andy Price popularised!
A nonsensical whacky kick, this, given enough extra life and vigour from the author’s usual style and tics poking it to mostly get by the rougher patches. For silly fun, you can’t go too wrong here.
Rating: Pretty Good
The Ship-Off by TheBrianJ
Genre: Comedy
Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Mane 6
9,613 Words
August 2012Reread
There’s a bit of a ruckus in the Golden Oak Library today, and it can’t exactly be settled calmly, so heated is it. The subjects, Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash. The debate, what makes a good story. One argues action, the other argues depth, worldbuilding and prose. The solution, to both write a story in the same genre and see who comes out on top.
The prompt chosen at random? Romance.
Even if one makes a good guess at what approach both ponies take to this prompt, this is still a fun read, alternating between the audacity of Dash’s story and the collective reader shaking at the pit Twilight digs for herself in her approach to the challenge. There is a level of character exaggeration, with how dense Dash is and Twilight being rather obsessed with the micro of writing and being blind to the macro, and truth be told this direction doesn’t quite come around to a comedy of absurd proportions. More being mirthful and audacious in tandem.
That said, the end results of the stories both pull, and the scene of Rarity judging the stories themselves, are absolute gold, and deliver a triple whammy of unobtrusive takeaways, from not getting worked up over disagreements in style, to what not to do in fiction writing (they may be exaggerated, but the mistakes both ponies make are commonplace, and I see them even with my selective process for picking fics to read). Plus how critics aren’t perfect.
Also, there’s some Hilarious in Hindsight bonuses regarding one OCs name in one of the fictional stories (and half of another’s), so unless TheBrianJ retroactively edited that name in, it’s an unintentionally hilarious detail that leapt out at me.
This fic’s age has its benefits and its determinants. It would be hard to imagine this scenario working at all with Twilight’s calmer, winged incarnation over her snarkier, more fun unicorn self here – she either wouldn’t rise to Rainbow, or wouldn’t have such a huge blind spot in what makes for a good story. And the early-season feel to Ponyville in what little we see of it, and the rest of the Mane 6, is welcome. On the other hand, the writing of this fic itself, while largely competent, can feel slack at times (the scene with the rest of the Mane 6, especially the gag chosen for Pinkie, feels on autopilot). Plus, the concept doesn’t feel all that original nearly twelve years on (not helped by similar ideas that excel, like Cold in Gardez’s take on Twilight writing a romance in Naked Singularity). And the old fandom trope concerning Twilight’s mom being a novelist distracts even beyond its comedic application here.
It’s no fandom classic, and depending on the person it could be a bit of an underwritten fic itself, given it’s rarely laugh-level funny. But though I can’t really call it reread-worthy (despite just doing so myself 
), I am glad I read it again. Let that be your barometer on whether to give it the look yourself. If one can put themselves in 2012, it hasn't aged much in the ways that matter.
Rating: Pretty Good
Mood Wings by Tchernobog
Genre: Comedy/Romance/Slice of Life
Twilight
9,503 Words
August 2012Reread
Twilight is reading through her whole library – yes, all of it – when she comes to a book on pegasus wing body language. What starts as simply one book of mild interest like any other quickly grows to massive intrigue, and it isn’t long before she takes her interest out into the field to observe pegasi wings in pony. It might have been wise to finish reading the book before doing so.
I always remembered this fic primarily for the lorebuilding on pegasus wing language, and while the book passages do take up a hefty chunk of the story – to the point some could find them to be infodumps – the theory and lore is well-framed in the context of accessible academia, from the perspective of a non-pegasus laying out the facts and making them interesting and flow. There’s no denying it could stand to feel more like a story, or at least get more specific rather than speak in broadstrokes (the snippets we get always feel like chapter intro pages, which I suppose they technically are, but still). But as far as the ideas being presented, this largely has the goods.
The framing material is not quite as sturdy. It’s framed as a comedy of errors with romance, but both those elements are rather underplayed and just kind of there. It doesn’t help the story is taking the path of least resistance towards Twilight’s innocent blunder, and the few deviations it makes along the way are for random shipping that, while technically needed to illustrate some of the finer points of how pegasi use their wings, feel superfluous. Least, in the choice of characters – it’s firmly a sign we’re in 2012 land. Well, that and if Twilight were an alicorn, the story surely would have wrung extra mileage from other pegasi putting the moves on her but her not recognising these gestures due to not being born with wings.
That said, if it does feel underwhelming relative to my memories and its view count, even the path of least-resistance is still plenty charming in that early season manner. Differing reactions of the pegasi to Twilight’s adorkable field research especially. It also manages to mostly step around the awkward perspective shifts within scenes that litter the fic, and make the unexplained uses of body language effective. It’s also very clean and mature about the more sexual or adult parts of body language, which is always a plus. Could stand for the framing narrative to be studier and plussed a lot more, and the extracts to be more specific and less broadstrokes, but the fic succeeds at what it sets out to do.
Rating: Pretty Good
Spooky Summary of Scores:
Excellent: 0
Really Good: 0
Pretty Good: 4
Decent: 1
Passable: 0
Weak: 0
Bad: 0
Normally Mrs. Cake stories are an easy sell for me, but that one looks... unconventional.
Congrats on hitting the triple-digits! As one familiar with the issue; yeah, the milestones do tend to sneak up on you, don't they? The numbers, they just fly on by.
Oh, hey, I've read almost all of these! Except Running From Myself. I reviewed Certain Advantages twice; I heavily panned it the first time but greatly enjoyed it the second. I had mixed feels about all the others, and while I can't recall details I feel like we're largely in tune with them.
Woo-hoo!
💯
💯
Congratulations!
This got me to thinking about the earliest fics I read here, and it made me consider re-reading some of my favorites from that era. But then I realized I'd probably be happier remembering them through the soft-focus lens of early fanaticism. So...
Thanks for the happy memories!
Huzzah for the big 1-0-0!
I must admit when you started, I wasn't sure how long you'd carry on -- especially given the extremely verbose style you tended to employ back then. I'm very glad you've found your rhythm and settled into it so well. Mind you, it does remind me that I need to actually think of something for my own upcoming landmark. Hey ho.
I've read three of today's five fics. Neither of the first two -- though Cake Story as a mood-whiplash Blueshift is something that interests me, given how well he did that in Life is a Lemon, so that one's going on the RiL list. I broadly agree with your feelings about The Ship-Off and Mood Wings -- different specific points, but both solid three-starrers for me and so pretty much in line with your Pretty Good ratings. Certain Advantages is the only real point of difference: that was only a (highish) two-star fic for me, partly because I was finding the running "bunghole" joke beyond tedious by the end.
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That's interesting about Certain Advantages. Maybe I should give it another go myself.
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It certainly is, though in a manner befitting Blueshift, more or less. It's combining his two different styles of fic into one, and while the result could be rather off-putting, I never found it not interesting. Worth the plunge, I'd say, and it's one of those experiments where even if it doesn't work for the reader, they'll likely (not definitely, of course) be glad they gave it a shot.
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Well, yes and no. Still got a decent plan in store for the 2-year anniversary at #103 soon! But yes, they certainly do sneak up on you. We agreed as such last year, if I recall.
All 2012 fics, most from big authors, all with hefty views counts (Cake Story is the only one under 10K – the next lowest is The Ship-Off at 17K), that checks out! Even for one like yourself by no means swayed by popularity – I frequently see old classics pop up in your blogs even these days – this seems pretty reasonable. Plus, looking at "quintessentially 2012 Ponyfic" was always going to make it more likely too.
I saw that, yep (if you reviewed a fic, it would usually have to be quite an old review for me to not see you link in a comment and follow it). Funny how that happens sometimes, isn't it? I haven't had this happen for a fic since I started properly rating them, though I'm sure it has happened for one I first saw in the early.
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That's not unreasonable, though at the same time, even if none of the four rereads here quite lived up to my memory, they didn't really disappoint for doing so. I got my fix from that cozy, nostalgic 2012 feel. And I'm sure I will soon dig up others from that era which will hold up well enough to make the top two ratings.
In any case, thanks a lot for being a frequent reader for nearly the whole run of Monday Musings, bud! It means a lot, and your utter sincerity and sincereness about what you like and sharing the joy the Ponyfic you like gives you… well, I look forward to it, it usually makes me smile to read it.
congrats on 100 mike! ive found quite a few fics thru ur reviews this last while, theyre always a bright point of mondays ^^
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The first bit, I get – I'm sure, over the years, many a newcomer has thrown their hat into this ring and packed it up within a year, after all.
The latter statement does throw me a bit. Certainly in terms of word count, I had my reviews down to the 400-600 range for most fics from the start. Are you referring more to the sentence construction rather than the length of the reviews? Either way, while I do think there's been stylistic shifts over the two years, that wouldn't have been where I've have pinpointed it as lying at.
But I suppose any author will see different aspects about his work than those on the outside, and that's no less true for analysis or reviewing.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't have any apprehension about the blog's long term future, and whether I can still see myself doing it several years from now. But for the short-term, we're for sure here to stay.
All three of them – your ten-year anniversary, your 2000th fic reviews AND your 500th edition are all happening this year. Unlike myself, you have enough of a gap between them that you shouldn't (
) find yourself scrambling to pick something for them. Though it's no trouble if you do – I know you often prefer to not make a big deal of such things either.
I've read the hidden fic before and it really threw me for a loop at the time. Likely I'd be far better-equipped to tackle it now.
And it's a viewpoint I totally understand, as I was finding it rather tedious myself. Jokes that didn't land like that did make the rating wobble a bit, though at the same time, I think PaulAsaran's observation holds some merit (this was a reread for me too) – the more dumb joke fics one reads, the more the traces of The Descendant's usual style gives one like this more of a unique flavour.
It is worth revisiting? I could go either way for you, buddy, being honest. Ball's in your court there!
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Having covered over 540 by now, I would hope I'd have turned some folks onto at least a few that hit big for them by now. 
So the confirmation that is so for yourself is a nice and fuzzy thing to read. 
You're very welcome!
Congratz on 100!
Congrats on hitting the big one-double O! Since this blog is based around early fics, it's got me wondering: What was the first fic you read on here?
The first one I recall reading from here was The Light in the Darkness; you know, the one where Cupcakes was a nightmare Pinkie had and RD comforts her.
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), though I remain confident it does hold up, give or take a lethargic pace and stakes that can take hold in longfics planned as they’re written.
I think my first Ponyfic was It Takes a Village, as it was specifically cited alongside a few Spike episodes in the rewatch blog Deconstruction is Magic I read heavily in those early months. Being 150K, I haven’t quite yet found a large enough avenue on the schedule to revisit it (
That said, being that it centres around Spike growing to full drgaon size while everyone in Ponyville helps him adjust, it does hold up another trend of 2011/12 era fics not overtly showcased by the five here: Ponyville and the characters’ lives progressing on without the status quo changes brought about by Buy Our Toys every following season. An obvious thing to note, yes, but it tends to take a very particular form in those early fics. And I, for one, get weirdly sentimental in seeing Ponyville and the characters’ lives remaining as small as they were in that Unicorn Twilight era.
Weirdly, I don’t think it’s even tied to my distaste for the later seasons; again, like a lot here, I saw this sort of thing so much in my first year of reading Ponyfic it was a norm to me, until I properly realised it wasn’t anymore (even in 2018, it was long since gone). So it just tends to take me back, like a lot here, to those early months devouring Ponyfic.
As for your fic, haven’t read it, but I suppose it’s fitting of the less-fondly-remembered trend of early fics. Though better a Cupcakes course correction than the thing itself!
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Yep, definitely both trends of the early days of FimFics. And I always like seeing fics that take place in the pre-Alicorn!Twilight days. I always preferred the Golden Oaks Library to the castle anyway. Funnily enough, the latest fic I wrote does take place in that time, just because I felt it.
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I always have a not-so-secret admiration for any fic that takes place earlier in the timeline than the default of “the most recent point in canon that’s been released” or the cutoff where the story dictates it has to happen. Let me tell you, I’ve read many a fic that feel totally and utterly like an early-season fic… and then Alicorn Twlight or the Friendship Castle wanders into frame, playing no purpose except to remind us “the author felt obligated to show readers they were keeping up with canon”.
More recently, this happens with many a fic set after Twilight has become ruler of Equestria (typically before the time skip that ages everyone) and it’s just background dressing for no discernible reason. Occasionally to the detriment of the story or character arc therein in small but pervasive ways.
My preference in eras within the show and the different moods they bring is a part of that preference, of course. Another reason is it indicates a daring on the author’s part, and I always admire that. Mostly, though, it’s my beliefs in storytelling that a character has more potential to surprise people the earlier in their lives or arc we are at, when they haven’t settled yet. Whether that means disregarding later canon or still abiding by it isn’t the point; it’s more about finding the spot that will most dramatically (or comedically!) boost what you’re trying to do, and more often than not, earlier is better for that when you have the choice.
It’s no hard-and-fast rule – many a fic takes place later and benefits from doing so. But it is true more often than not. At the same time, I do get that for the veterans who have been through the fandom in real-time, they’ve largely seen their fill of early-season-set fics when it was current, and thus default to what’s now.
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Yes, to some extent, though tbh I also think I was misremembering how you wrote at the time, probably confusing it with some of your comments on my own blog -- which in the earlier days really were long. So mea culpa at least in part.
It's cliched to say something "could have been an episode" but back when we didn't have a Celestia/Luna episode I was so hoping for a reprise at the Sisterhooves Social.