Ghost Mike's Ponyfic Review Monday Musings #107 · 5:00pm April 1st
Been a while since an Author Spotlight here, hasn’t it? Well, actually, once every three months strikes me as a reasonable duration between them – not too long that they feel like a false promise, but infrequent enough that you can be sure it’s a justified one. And that certainly applies to this author, a late joiner to Fimfic but one who’s posted very frequently since and delivered a lot of quality writing. Folks, it’s focus time for SockPuppet.
That’s not hyperbole, by the way: he joined Fimfic in December 2018, yet has published 66 stories since, averaging just over one story a month for five years (one every 29.45 days, or really one every 28.08 days to his most recent one – and that’s not counting his alt account for… just M-rated stories either 
). Granted, he is a writer of overwhelmingly short fics: nothing above 50K, only 7 above 10K, and an average length of not even 5,000 words a story either. But that’s no sin, especially with a 100% rate of completed fics across that many.
Happily, he’s a versatile author too. His author bio cites that he likes “writing about the worst day of a character's life; it lets us see the mettle inside”, and certainly his most well-known and acclaimed stories are dramas and the like. But a majority of his backlog is formed of quick-n-dirty one shots, largely comedies, with trends emerging in saucy-tinged fics, Human-tagged fics in a very Admiral Biscuit mode (ponies on earth), if often more farcical, and for a while, stories mocking cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Which, hey, they’re a reliable target.
These don’t seem to be the result of a self-imposed story quota either (not that’s that’s a bad thing: authors like TCC56 make it work wonders), but more just rolling with ideas that strike his fancy. Which, hey, more power to them. I like someone who can do both deep drama/adventure but also farcical joke fics, it shows not just range but that they don’t take the artform too seriously.
Sock’s also been a frequent face around a lot of the authors’ blogs I follow, so I’ve certainly gotten used to him even if we’ve not interacted much. And while I understandably haven’t or won’t read most of his quick n’ dirty comedies, and that not even 20% of his fics are E-rated means things are rarely sunny in his works, what I had read before the five fics here impressed me greatly.
Mostly, I noticed a flair for getting into the mettle of not just a character but also a specific aspect of worldbuilding or lore, sometimes as the focus, sometimes just as window-dressing. Sometimes they felt old-school fandom in their approach there (we will certainly see that with the first fic here), but especially where Equestria’s military and or/government are concerned, there’s a certain pragmatism that, while a bit heavy for my tastes at times, I found rather intoxicating.
Not that his work needs my endorsement – you don’t get nearly 800 followers despite only joining here in late 2018 if your fics aren’t striking a strong chord with people. But it never hurts! 
By now with my author spotlights, I strive to not just randomly pick fics, but show off a mixture of the author’s best and/or their range. Thus, after the first fic here being one I read almost a year ago, we have a drama tinged with dark elements, a gentle slice of life with black comedy tinges, him doing his best Admiral Biscuit Pony on Earth impression (
), and a delectable romance that is really doing character, slice of life and worldbuilding work with that on top. Certainly not an “average” range, not with as many short and out-there comedies as he’s written, but that’s not the intent here. Let’s let them loose!
This Week’s Spectral Stories:
Luna's Daughters by SockPuppet
A Night in Tartarus by SockPuppet
Chores at the Cottage by SockPuppet
Pegasus Pizza by SockPuppet
Romancing the Griffonstone by SockPuppet
Weekly Word Count: 36,627 Words
Luna's Daughters by SockPuppet
Genre: Drama/Adventure (w/Violence & Death)
Luna, Celestia, OC
18,084 Words
May-August 2019
All was not sunshine and rainbows upon Luna being freed by the Elements. For Luna, her time as Nightmare Moon passed in the blink of an eye, and thus her first question to Celestia is to know what happened to her daughters. The same daughters who she had been with not even a day ago in her mind. Thus, after hours, Celestia shows Luna the statues commemorating her daughters, and tells of how they rose above the shadow of Nightmare Moon and died as some of Equestria’s greatest heroes.
I don’t doubt it’s been done innumerable times, especially in the fandom’s early years when the show’s initial events and lore were that much fresher and more exciting, but I think this might be the first story I’ve read that fully integrates the concept of Celestia and Luna having families, children, grandchildren and many more mortal descendents that they outlive. At least, it is when combined with Luna returning to them all long gone. I’m used to the topic not being addressed, them birthing alicorns or others who ascended, or them having taken an oath of celibacy for one reason or another. Speaks mostly of me, I’m sure, but I could hardly have picked a better story to start with for this topic. This is a Drama with a capital D: a blunt, sharp look at the legacy of history as shaped by those with unrelenting wills, even as they have prickly personalities.
After the initial setup, we spend half the story with Celestia telling of the fate and legacy of Luna’s first daughter, Tranquility, and the other half on her second, Equinox. Across the 5-8K afforded to each, Sock runs the gaumant of heightened epic tales, with the contrast of Tranquility’s initial shame at her mother’s actions giving way to her heroic defence in an impossible battle that I cannot possibly do justice; it truly nails being an epic tale of Equestrian history, feeling for all the world like reading something akin to history of Chinese dynasties, larger than life yet familiar, relatable, and intimate. Such that even when the material is hard to wade through – this gets at the gut quite a bit – it’s far too captivating to let go. And that’s without even mentioning the present-day cutaways to Luna’s responses to the info Celestia tells her, with many clipped lines designed, and succeeding, at leaving the reader wobbly with emotion.
This continues through to the second, longer tale of Equinox, this of a healer combatting a great plague (I probably should have read this 3-4 years ago, eh? 
). It is probably not as hard-hitting at the first (it was written a few months later, and being frank isn’t as tightly told), but it is phenomenal all the same. Long as you’re okay with a different genre of epic tale told therein, it’s just as captivating, through just as brash and unwavering a personality in Equinox as in Tranquility (the story duped me into expecting a Mage Meadowbrook personality for this healer; not even slightly, and while a surprise, it was the right call). The ability to make us care for such blunt ponies whom we know the fates of both from fiction structure and Luna hearing that before the tales… that’s magnificent.
Weave in the stories really getting a gloomy, Roman Empire/mediaeval Equestria, and in how Celestia herself is portrayed in these tales and with Luna in the present (the few moments where her own lineage is touched upon hit plenty hard too), and other than the poems within the first two chapters, reworked from Horatius from the Lays of Ancient Rome, constraining those tales’ structure/incident a little and being a bit tepid when they appear in full, I’ve hardly a word to say against this. Whether for the feels, the characterisation, the epic history or the scope and scale of the drama contained in just 18K, this phenomenal work, which I understand to be SockPuppet’s personal favourite of the stories he’s written, least at the time (must be glad it’s his most-viewed story, then 
), just floored me.
Rating: Excellent
A Night in Tartarus by SockPuppet
Genre: Dark/Drama
Minuette, Royal Guard, Cozy Glow, Tirek
5,948 Words
November 2019Reread
It was Minuette’s turn to draw the short straw for the volunteer sessions that month. Only, the worst unusual place for a dental surgeon to be sent as a one-off has just changed. The new locale? Tartarus? And the patient? The filly Gozy Glow who very nearly drained the whole land of Equestria. Adding to the conundrum is the state of the filly’s teeth, the rampant infections and fevers she’s got, and even an abscess, the worst kind of swelling. Then there’s the attitude of the royal guards on duty escorting Minuette to the prisoner’s patient’s cage…
Despite the tags, one might expect, even if the story is sensibly dealing in moral greys, for this to either pivot in the direction of redemption or Cozy’s good qualities, or at least have the rebuff to Minuette’s kindness for her patient be Cozy’s usual sickly-sweet manipulation. Indeed, for the first third or so of this story, while it was earning its Dark tag (mostly from making Tartarus foreboding and refusing to sugarcoat the details at the margins), that did seem to be the direction it was pivoting in.
Not so: this story leans hard into heavy, weighty moral dilemmas for Cozy’s fate weighed against her crimes, and does not hold back in extrapolating implications that could be possible within the Season Eight finale. I would be loath to spoil them, but suffice to say that every time a new detail regarding Cozy’s actions/personality is let slip, it makes Minuette stop cold, such that you can feel the heavy silence. Possibly I can imagine actual fans of Cozy taking object – she’s far more of a psychopath here, and many of her usual traits aren’t present – but it weirdly manages to fall into the area of pleasing non-fans of the character like myself.
Mostly, that’s because this isn’t really about Cozy, and not just because she spends most of the story comatose while being operated on. It’s about raising discomforting questions and not giving answers to them. Solid OCs in the four royal guards present allow for this (all strangely mares, for no discernable reason – I’m guessing SockPuppet felt the need to course-correct from the show only having stallion royal guards up until, ironically, the Season Eight finale), especially the only one knowing enough medicine to pitch in. The medical science I already mentioned, allowing this story to have the highlights of a medical drama without the tedium in-between. Similarly the blend between that, the royal guards and specifically combat medics feels right and well-applied (and this was nearly a year before SockPuppet wrote his novella Redheart's War).
A little light humour is present from an amused Tirek (and it’s quite well-timed and used), but this fic doesn’t hold back on being discomforting and unsettling in moral implications and dilemmas if it’ll make it more potent. There isn’t no room for improvement (the cold open feels tonally off-key to the rest of the piece, for one), but this races by and I couldn’t stop reading, even if I often paused. I feel I’ve done a poor job selling this fic, but it easily has to rank as one of the best Cozy Glow stories I’ve read (even if it’s not really about her). Especially for folks who don’t like her.
What a fic to be my first proper one with Minuette (the prior two being small supporting roles), and in resurrecting her old fandom personality as Colgate the Dentist, eh?
Rating: Really Good
Chores at the Cottage by SockPuppet
Genre: Slice of Life
Fluttershy, Luna
1,158 Words
February 2021Reread
Following her first Nightmare Night in Ponyville, Luna found herself spending time with each of the Bearers, both to get to know them and to get more acquainted with the modern world. Each experience has peculiar quirks either for them or her, but a good time was had by all. Then she gets to Fluttershy, and while helping her with her animal feeding, encounters quite a surprise.
First, where’s the comedy tag? This is quite funny even before it gets to the punchline: the first half of the fic is a very strongly-voiced narration of Luna’s misadventures with the other ponies, all with their own individual punchlines that surprise even once the structure has become clear. In particular, the turn of phrase employed leads to some very witty asides and mental images. It’s not a story on its own, but it is very satisfying, and not at all just a setup for a comedy fic that otherwise wouldn’t reach 1,000 words.
That said, the comedy both there and with Fluttershy is of the earthly, grounded variety, and this gives it quite some heft. There’s a great moment of Luna being nonplussed by some great scientific smarts on Fluttershy’s part, before the punchline which, like the rest of the fic, hits the best of being in that early-season era without the weaknesses common to fics of that era.
It’s certainly a sobering ending, but the fic is also blissful and sweet the whole way, so it’s never less than pleasurable. Quite strong for such a short and unassuming li’l story.
Rating: Pretty Good
Pegasus Pizza by SockPuppet
Genre: Slice of Life (w/Human)
White Lightning
1,993 Words
January 2020
Time on earth has been a mixed affair for White Lightning. She has a great human husband gladly working a pizza delivery job while he grinds his way through college, then they can swap who’s studying and who’s working. On the other hoof, she’s delivering pizzas, which brings its own set of difficulties in beating the 30-min delivery timer even before accounting for people’s reactions to these new pony creatures in their world.
Nearly 20 of SockPuppet’s stories are Human-tagged, so I couldn’t not use one in this spotlight. A cursory glance through his list of stories seemed to indicate most play in the mould of Admiral Biscuit’s charming slice-of-life ficlets about a pony on earth or a human in Equestria, far removed from the Anons of ponyfic. As such fics are ones I do enjoy when reading but tend to blur together, and largely don’t leave much to say for reviews beyond “cute, I liked it”, I settled for just picking his highest-rated one.
Being an entry for Admiral Biscuit’s not-a-contest for ponies with day jobs on earth, this result certainly is that. That the featured background pony was one I didn’t even recognise and might as well have been an OC only added to that. You’ve got the quick scene-setting in her apartment after a hard day of work (with some lovely throwaway details as to what deliveryponies will do to maximise their chances at success during a rowdy American football game), followed by the bulk of the fic showing the trials and tribulations of a problematic delivery where the customer didn’t have GPS location turned on, just a description of a red truck in a parking lot full of them. It’s a pretty standard formula.
But, it’s standard because it works, and being that I rarely read pony-on-earth these days as they make for poor review material, it felt fresh-ish to me once again. Besides that, on top of capturing the cosy and relatable horrors of retail, the piece’s flow is well-used to show a variety of human reactions to ponies along the way, from heckling and unhelpful passer-bys to the recipient’s family. And the control of prose with witty and succinct descriptors, thoughts and dialogue along the way makes it exceedingly pleasant. A very solid example of its genre.
Now, for SockPuppet to say I should have picked a different human-tagged story for this spotlight instead…
Rating: Decent
Romancing the Griffonstone by SockPuppet
Genre: Romance (w/mention of Sex)
Glenda, Stygian
9,444 Words
May 2021Honourable Mention for most well-written story in the 2021 May Original Pairings Contest
Glenda the griffon is Stygian’s biggest fan in Griffonstone. Mostly that’s because she’s his only fan from there, but it’s a lot in life she’s used to – though she enjoys reading and libraries immensely, she mostly ended up as the archivist assisting Twilight at the Convocation of the Creatures by default. Still, she’s gotten quite hooked on his novels since he returned from limbo and became a most-successful author, so attending his book-signing in Griffonstone was a no-brainer. When it turns out he used to live here in the days of Old Griffonstone, and is also here to see what he can find and remember from then, she finds herself acting as his guide. Rather willingly too…
Unlike Pegasus Pizza, this fic was basically chosen for me, partly as otherwise this spotlight’s word count would be on the short size and this looked the most appealing of Sock’s longer one-shots leftover (plus, the Honourable Mention contest endorsement). Mostly, though, it’s because Sock cropped the commissioned cover art done by the wonderful Harwick and made it his profile picture. And it is amazing cover art, but one doesn’t do that unless they have immense affection for the character/piece. So picking it struck me as doing right by him.
As it so happens, I have some pronounced affection for the two-parter comic “The Convocation of the Creatures.” that Glenda is sourced from: it’s a darn solid two-parter in the IDW series, especially for the tail end of 2017 (the only better multi-parter thereafter is “Tempest’s Tale”), but it also happens to be the first MLP comic I read, right off the back of my initial 52-day binge of the series. Being honest I don’t remember much of Glenda from that, instead just the rough plot and it being Raven Inkwell’s one featured role in any official MLP media (she’s pretty great in it, and has wonderful character chemistry with Twilight), but that’s okay: this fic plays out like she’s an OC otherwise.
And she’d be quite an OC at that. This fic is very deft at a lot of things, from evocative and descriptive prose to handling the varying tones of the scenes in this briskly-paced travelogue around Griffonstone, but it’s Glenda’s perspective writing that most leapt out at me. Less for how immersive it is, but for how invisibly so it is. Which might not sound like a compliment, but unlike a lot of run-on character thoughts or side details, Sock is remarkably good at keeping things concise or shorts where it fits. There’s remarkably little of thoughts that exist just as exposition (sure, he’s got two characters meeting each other for the first time for that), so it all just feels natural and right.
What is done with Glenda here is very solid, a little temperament setting her aside from the likes of Gabby but otherwise not too far removed, just with her being a nerdy cat-bird-leopard (apparently she’s an osprey, which I guess is a reasonable interpretation of her design from the comic). Stygian himself is no less impressive, and his attitude and the rhythm of his dialogue paint a picture of how well he’s adjusted in his time back (well, but not fully). This really comes into play with the time the fic spends in an old library, the two talking about and reminiscing on Old Griffonstone and its unappreciated role in Equestrian history, differing languages, as well as themselves. I’ve read a few fics that have done solid explorations of Stygian’s personality following the tidbit from “A Rockhoof and a Hard Place” that he became an author, but much like Glenda, this one is so invisible in how it gets him across, even though the fic is still dialogue-driven.
The character work and especially the worldbuilding is so solid here (it’s easily some of the better lore of griffons and Griffonstone I’ve read), that the story does feel a little softer for the meal that occupies the story’s back half. Or, really, the last chunk of it that brings the building romance, small enough previously as to not justify a tag at all, to the forefront. It’s subtly and gracefully done, but it still feels a bit of a misaligned ending for the way the fic was leading. And not just because of the saucy hints that become more explicit, though Sock did have the decency to mostly keep that in a M-rated followup on his alt account.
Somewhat deflated conclusion aside, this is a really wonderful story and exactly the kind of fic (taste in saucy margins notwithstanding) that one hopes to see from the Original Pairings contests. I can easily see why Sock was spurred to write it and (presumably) cherishes it so much.
Rating: Really Good
Spooky Summary of Scores:
Excellent: 1
Really Good: 2
Pretty Good: 1
Decent: 1
Passable: 0
Weak: 0
Bad: 0
Huh. Turns out I've only read one story from this author, and it's a feghoot. Perhaps I should look into their more serious works soon.
Wow... how did SockPuppet fly under my radar for so long? Added almost all of these plus several more to my list. From your reviews and the short descriptions of some others, I get a distinct "cozy" (not the pony) vibe from a lot of these, which (believe it or not) I'm totally into!
SockPuppet p gud :V
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I mean… I did note that he only joined in December 2018.
That should register as the primary answer, given when you were most active around here.
Aw… and after we'd just exchanged witty banter the other week about nearly all the fics lately you'd add being ones you'd already read.
Plus, to rephrase what I said prior, most of his stories are the kind of quick n' quirky comedies that one may need to have a taste for the author's work to get hooked on. Myself, it was actually him writing one of the better early G5 fics in the month following the month's release, Finding a Haven that got him on my radar proper.
Think you've made this clarification a few times around here by now? Which leads me to believe others have misread it when not referring to the pony. In any case, don't worry: I can spot whether such things are intended as the proper noun even if the capitalisation is missing.
Actually, I do believe it, quite easily. And not just because the amount of actually worthwhile pulp action-adventure fics that are your numero uno raison d'être are always going to be in short supply. Over time, I've picked up enough of the things you don't like (unearned juvenile or sentimentality, conflict poisoning, etc.) to know that a fic being of this warm and fuzzy type is not necessarily an obstacle at all. Just needs a minimum guarantee of quality. And an author like Sock, with the ratings I'm giving him here, will certainly give that.
Sure, even as I said Pegasus Pizza was an Admiral Biscuit type fic, it was a good one, and I did very much enjoy it for the cozy vibes you mention. And sometimes, that matters more than the rating the fic gets.
"Cozy" is certainly an odd word for the author's works (again: less than 20% are E-rated, and he has a M-rated-only alt account), especially when one considers the brutal and violent turns fics like Luna's Daughters and A Night in Tartarus take. But I get what you mean, that such a feel can still be present in the hope or basic decency of some ponies.
5774609
5774611
You really, really should look into them. I'll add my voice in here: SockPuppet is an absolute favorite author of mine, and has done some of my favorite stories on the site. Luna's Daughters is a masterpiece, and I could easily rattle off another ten stories of his that are top tier.
5774651
This makes me ridiculously amused, and I am (in proper piratical fashion) stealing it for further use!
Aaand, oh Good Goddess, a G5 fic that looks appealing!
5774614
Y U no tell me dat?!?!?
I mean with the description, review, and easy 1k word investment, I don't have a reason to not read Chores at the Cottage.
Romancing is the only one here I've read previously. While the base comics were a turn off for me (owing singularly to wacking Celestia with the 'useless' stick), Sock's adventures of the nerdy Ponyphile griffon and the charming antiquated Stygian was a delight. At the risk of sounding dramatic, taking two extremely minor characters with no canon interaction and giving them a story which builds both their characters and the world around them is the most quintessential fanfic I can possibly imagine. It's formulaic, but that's because the formula works, and frankly any adventures of two totally unrelated characters will never fail to at minimum earn my curiosity.
Another author I really want to read more fics by! I've read two over the years, one that didn't much grab me (At the Swimmin' Hole) and one I had a good time with as a motorsport fan (Scootaloo, Formula One Driver). I haven't read any of the five you've covered today, though, Luna's Daughters is going on the RiL list right now! I have to say I was slightly concerned scrolling down: Excellent, Really Good, Pretty Good, Decent... would the last be a mere Passable? Fortunately that ending was averted!
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Considering I half wrested with keeping that part at all, thinking, ""iisaw's not the sort who wouldn't vibe with that kind of lingual melange… right?" I am even more amused at how much you dug it.
It was not only the fic that opened me up to the mini-genre of "prequel movie pieces with the older generation of flawed leaders" that resulted in many of the best G5 fics between the movie and the series – it was what inspired me enough that I ended up writing my own "prequel drama of the older generation conflicting with their virtues against the tribal divide" fic for that same contest, which is still unironically my favourite of my six fics published thus far. That should tell you how much I dug Sock's Finding a Haven.
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Honestly, this is why, of all the contests that have struck it well over the last few years, it's the Original Pairings one I'm most enthused by. Even if I've never written for it myself: bringing together canon aspects or characters that never/barely met can result in all sorts of wonderful things. I too often get curious with such pairings each if either character normally doesn't grab my interest (Stygian, for instance, is certainly fine, but nopony who draws me to a fic, certainly).
So, yes, it's one fanfic trend I'll always welcome more of too.
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Both Present Perfect and PaulAsaran didn't react too well to it either: it seems to have been one of those experimental dumb fics, and a reshoot on top of that, that missed the mark, or at least its audience.
I'm sure most people know this, but all fics in a given week are always presented in the order they were read. So there's never any deliberate manipulation for any kind of rating domino effect or placing the longest fic at a certain point or anything.
But you are right, it is quite a coincidence! In this came, it came down to how I ended up doing the spotlight: Luna's Daughters was reviewed nearly a year ago, and then more recently, the Minuette fic was what triggered the decision to do a spotlight. Chores at the Cottage got chosen next automatically as I'd read it before and I always want to cut that Re-Evaluate backlog down. Then Pegasus Pizza, as mentioned above, got chosen to represent the Human fic side of his works. Leaving me to chose the last one on my own whim.
Many thanks and much appreciated! I'm glad you enjoyed them.
And yes, I still consider Luna's Daughters my magnum opus.
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It's like
fanfiction at its purest, somehow. Just a phenomenal desire to expand the world we all love and the characters within it. What is fancition, if not that?