Ghost Mike's Ponyfic Review Monday Musings #109 · 5:00pm April 15th
I don’t know about America, but the price of travelling is going up more and more here. Just got booked in for UK PonyCon in October, nearly six whole months ahead, yet the hotel (same as last year) wasn’t even £10 less despite getting there two months earlier. Not even offsetting the £8 increase in ticket price. Then there’s the flights and if train prices will be different by then… yep, the worldwide travelling cost spike in the wake of COVID sure isn’t slowing down!
On the other hand, it does feel good to get in for the event this early. Some were concerned again about the future of Pony conventions after one of the main remaining players, BabsCon, announced they’ll be shuttering after next year. But at least in Europe, it remains in good health. And with this year being the event’s 20th anniversary (it started as a toy collector con in early G3, don’t forget 
), it’s certainly set to be a winner.
Well, long as I don’t have a loss-of-appetite bug going in again for the third year running. 
Yep, got bugger all I can think of this week, if you couldn’t tell. Onto the Ponyfic, and with no connecting theme this week. Well, unless the only two fics written by one author getting covered together counts It’s 40% of an author spotlight, I suppose. Though the other fics are by no means shabby.
This Week’s Spectral Stories:
A Familiar Feeling by Poptard
A Royal Morning by Poptard
I, Opaline by Rune Soldier Dan
Conference by Dave Bryant
Ever After Never Came by Thunderbug80
Weekly Word Count: 28,010 Words
A Familiar Feeling by Poptard
Genre: Romance/Sad/Slice of Life
Sugar Belle, Big Mac, Applejack, Mrs. Cake, Other
11,142 Words
August 2017Reread
Ever since they became an item, Sugar Belle has been looking oh-so-forward to coming to Big Mac’s town of residence rather than the other way around. There’s a town culture to take part in, another bakery to get to know, and her coltfriend’s family. Most of whom she already knows. Yet it turns out, winning over all the Apple family may not be so simple. In doing her level best, she and Big Mac may learn more about themselves, and what brought them together.
This really won me over. Making a crackship canon was certainly one of the stranger decisions the show made in its last few years, but this fic really explores and expands the relationship, finding reasons for them to like each other besides “besides they say so in dialogue”. There’s never a moment that isn’t sickly sweet or schmaltzy, and during the early going, I was a little uncertain about it, but over time, there are subtle variances in it that more than do the job. Good dialogue that places the characterization well helps too, making the episode’s real inspiration, “The Perfect Pear”, feel fitting beyond the story, for how this turns a sappy premise into something rather powerfully potent by the end.
Which lets the other strengths – Sugar Belle’s backstory, and especially the connection to the Apple Parents – speak for themselves, to subtle but pervasively winning effect. In between those, we have small cute moments that sell these two being a great couple even as much of them as we get, making for an overtly cute fic.
And lest you think the fic is all just romance schmaltz, even well-done that sells its ship, the more pensive moments make for some quietly pensive and emotionally potent moments. A subplot with Applejack feels overcooked at first but comes to a satisfying resolution, Sugar Belle’s backstory feels fully in keeping with her and the show, while not hesitating to not be all sunny and upbeat. Even the final bonus chapter, which felt unneeded at first (the main ones ended on a perfectly fitting note) reached a melancholy level of unnerving sweetness by the end.
It probably still sounds like a cavity-inducing romance fic, and perhaps it is, but once it won me over, I was on board through to the end. A little overly verbose prose and writing throughout was the only lingering niggle – otherwise, I can hardly imagine the fic succeeding over the uphill battle of its genre and particular canon ship any better.
Rating: Really Good
A Royal Morning by Poptard
Genre: Romance/Slice of Life
Cadance, Shining Armor
2,063 Words
June 2014Reread
Being a mother isn’t easy, and expecting to be one is even harder. Something Princess Cadance is coming to know all too well, especially as she continues to retch in the bathroom off her constant nausea. Only halfway through her pregnancy, and it feels like the worst kind of losing battle. Even Shining might find it difficult to comfort her. Then again, their love knows no bounds.
Normally I leave at least a month between repeating authors, but as Poptard only ever wrote two stories, I figured I’d cover them as a set. Being published shortly after “Twilight's Kingdom”, this actually preceded the show’s confirmation of the two having a baby by over a year. That may be an obvious idea for the two, though the recollection of Twilight’s reaction therein is similar enough to how she did in canon (and other past moments of delight) as to make it feel even more impressive.
That’s not the only impressive thing here, by any means: the depiction of undying love and support through one of the couple going through a rough, painful patch is uncommon enough for fanfic. And its depiction here, with Shining being a supportive dork and Cadance alternating between justified “how am I going to make it?” moments and mustering up what witty retorts she can, is nice and sweet.
There’s not really much else to it: the depiction of pregnancy sickness is factual but falls into the trap of describing how it feels without really feeling itself (to be fair, unless one goes through it, it’s a tall hurdle: I certainly wouldn’t be able to do it), and while the fic’s short length is correct, it leaves little else to it but “nice and warm support”. That being the case, there are more than a few funny moments (it’s certainly better than “vomiting into a toilet” likely conjures), and quite a few wry moments are gained from contrast, from retching in the royal bathroom on down. And the characterisation of the pair feels different enough to set it apart as a romance. Nothing too notable, but it’s satisfying and, if in the right mood, smile-inducing.
Rating: Decent
I, Opaline by Rune Soldier Dan
Genre: Drama
Opaline, Sunny, Zipp, Hitch
5,647 Words
March 2024
Opaline had been on the verge of victory. Nearly all the cutie marks of Equestria flowed through her, including those of all the friends of that imposter alicorn Sunny Starscout. Just one to go… and then she relinquished it all. Unable to even answer herself why, in the aftermath of the ‘battle’, she putters about community service and ‘therapy’ with Sunny, keeping to herself otherwise. It’s as she does so that it hits her: the desire to rule left her, and without it… she’s nothing.
Late last year, shortly before MYM concluded, Rune Soldier Dan wrote Evil Must Be Healthy, a mild AU portraying Opaline as slightly more sympathetic to Misty, against her will, than the poorly-written one-note gaslighter the show kept her as to the end. It was quite good too, avoiding the common pitfalls of compassion-hinting fics. Well, now he’s done a full AU of the show’s end for his favourite G5 character-by-potential, and it’s quite different, and not at all what you might expect.
There are, more or less, two types of scene here. Ones where Opaline has to reluctantly interact with others, in Hitch warding the police station where she sleeps, Zipp’s eternal suspicion, and Sunny, naturally. These start off being kind of familiar, through Opaline’s silent loathing of Hitch’s cheery quirks and getting an occasional rise out of Zipp, with the caveat that Opaline, though not yet realising it, barely has the will for her usual retorts and hammy villainious lines. By the time it’s reached Sunny, the threads from the other half of the fic have taken hold, though they don’t make themselves fully known until even later.
That other half compromises the solo scenes, which start out of her brooding on her connection to Celestia, Luna and Twilight, hitting a good balance of telling the important stuff that matters to the story, while leaving everything else out. Doubly so as Opaline is finding her memories of much of them foggy. It all builds to a realisation that caught me off guard in the fic’s emotional climax as to why Opaline is the way she is, one I never would have considered and makes emotional sense even if it could only exist in the realm of fanfiction (and not just for content rating). It’s one folks could miss – only one commenter thus far truly got all of it – though the fic’s throughline does land regardless, but it does complete all the layers of Opaline’s reflection, realisation and final step.
There are plenty of other subtle details that boost the fic too. Sunny has one of the best rebuttals I’ve ever read to why she won’t rule as past alicorns did. The tone and atmosphere make the exclusion of other characters work for what the fic is trying to do. It manages to sell that care for Misty isn’t the reason she relinquished. And while the moments of interactions with other ponies are more ‘normal’ then her solo soliloquy-like brooding (which gets quite potent in its unusual approach to prose), the rhythm of her talking with Sunny and Zipp feels lived-in and not hokey the way the source material, and thus nearly all fics based on it, do.
If one doesn’t mind many things still being left unsaid and a certain deliberate elliptical-ness in the delivery at times, this is one of the most unusual and striking G5 fics, born from the question of addressing head-on Opaline being as one-note in her characterisation as she is in the show, and finding a great way to puzzle it out. I haven’t read many fics with Opaline (this is only the third I’ve reviewed with her tagged), and as unlikely as ever to look at others more than once in a blue moon, but it’s far and away my favourite.
Rating: Pretty Good
Conference by Dave Bryant
Genre: Slice of Life
Celestia, Sunset
3,207 Words
October 2016 (originally September 2012 offsite)Reread
Celestia has summoned the Wonderbolts’ leader, Colonel Spitfire, to her quarters for a private talk. One she’s cleared her schedule for, it’s that important. It’s about Rainbow Dash, Bearer of the Element of Loyalty, and her known desire to join them one day. For there’s more to it than just her talents, dedication, and (notable) character flaws. There’s also the balance between what an individual wants, and what is needed of them, where the two may not be able to coexist peacefully.
Slightly spoiler-y, perhaps, but no more so than the fic’s long description, and otherwise I’d be stuck saying “Spitfire and Dash talk about Rainbow Dash”. Anyway, that original publish date between Season Two and Three is key, not just for the fic only having events till then to build off of (so, before we got our first real look at the Wonderbolts and found them less than ideal), but because this fic is very, very committed to treating the Wonderbolts like an actual military force, an offshoot of the royal guard that happens to perform stunt shows alongside more active duties when there is a crisis. Even over eleven years ago, Dave Bryant was so committed to this that he uses proper military jargon and titles in the fic far more than those inherited from the show – “Wonderbolts” appears literally five times in the fic.
A lot of the fic is, ultimately, Celestia and Spitfire going over Dash’s interactions with the Wonderbolts in the first two seasons. The more realistic repercussions of those stunts, yes, but also Spitfire’s formed opinion of Dash’s character from them. So even in that very my-first-fic “discuss canon material” mode (not saying this is actually Dave’s first fic, but it has that energy), the fic chugs along nicely. It stretches beyond this mode when the pair discuss Dash’s actual goal, what they both think of it, and the end conclusion, about which I will say little, but it makes the fic fresher and more nuanced than it seems at a first approximation, in the balance of things like command, rule, rights and liberties. Certainly not what you’re probably thinking it is.
Being basically a talking-heads story, this would leave the fic largely a fine but disposable headcanon dump, except the characterisation and dialogue is quite unusually good. If one can get past this Spitfire obviously not being abrasive and rash like she would be in later episodes, her rapport and interactions with Celestia hit that balance of both being calm and intelligent ponies on the matter, not rising a conflict when they disagree, yet keeping what they’re saying and how they’re saying it interesting despite the lack of direct tension. Not many would be able to avoid conflict poisoning like that. I understand that Dave’s character voicing has improved in the years since with his highly regarded (and, from the outside, seemingly unwieldy) Twin Canterlots series, but even in a fic this old, it’s impressive how much it elevates a headcanon dump talking heads fic on a rare-but-not-unique dilemma regards Dash’s Wonderbolts dream.
Rating: Pretty Good
Ever After Never Came by Thunderbug80
Genre: Sad/Slice of Life (Human)
Pinkie, Other
5,951 Words
January 2020Reread
Pinkie hasn’t had it in her to revisit the other world since the little girl she brought a smile to on each visit. Now, though, there’s an old man that needs her. But he doesn’t want visitors, doesn’t want to smile, and makes this quite clear every time she plucks up the courage to come. Knowing as she does why this is, and why she must go, doesn’t make it any easier.
This story is marked as a standalone sequel to Thunderbug80’s seven-years-prior Imaginary, and that is true in terms of story – the prior events are alluded to, but everything needed there is reintroduced. Nonetheless, in terms of emotional impact, this needs the prior half of its pair to truly land, even before its endgame reveals itself.
For most of this story’s length, it putters along doing a workmanlike job of tweaking the formula of Pinkie visiting a human facing their final days to not feel like a find-and-replace. We know the broad areas of what’s ailing this man far sooner than there, and while there’s far less to be impressed in nailing a grumpy old figure under these conditions than the child of Imaginary, that lands too. Pinkie displays such nuance and care in being on the person’s wavelength that still manages to feel true to her, and the mid-story scene where she struggles with whether she can keep at it, with his utter coldness to her and knowing what’s coming, plays off the prior story and the reader’s inferring of what going on here to great effect.
When all is said and done, the end tied the duology together beautifully akin to rhyming poetry that evolves and intertwines among itself, and left me rather winded. I think Imaginary affected me more intellectual than emotionally, but this scene broke right through that, and made me feel as though I didn’t give that story its fair due, even though it got a Pretty Good. This newfound appreciation was cemented further by reading Thunderbug’s blog about the real-life roots of this story, and a clarification in PaulAsaran's recent review of the same being true for Imaginary, something I was totally unaware of. The long gap between these two in publish time (understandably so, given how close to home it was for the author and the difficulty with putting such things to keyboard) is probably to blame for how little-read this is. That’s a shame: individually these are strong Human stories, but together they’re exquisite, and the rare sadfics that unequivocally work.
Rating: Really Good
Spooky Summary of Scores:
Excellent: 0
Really Good: 2
Pretty Good: 2
Decent: 1
Passable: 0
Weak: 0
Bad: 0
Oh, it's increasing unaffordable here, too. The "Supply Chain Issues" that excused so many extreme post-Covid price hikes, have only set off an inflation/greed feedback loop that's affecting everything, but travel is particularly bad.
Of this group, I've only read Dave's fic. I liked it a lot. He's a very good writer, and I haven't read more of his work only because of my EQG allergy.
You know, in the US there's a commonly held axiom by many that "A company's only goal is to make as much money as possible, and that is the goal of any successful company." Then somehow, as a collective nation, many of us are surprised when something like Covid happens, prices go through the roof ... and then when it's over the company says "Hey, people still paid. Why would we lower anything?"
Any price spike is just going to be the new normal 99% of the time as a result. Regardless of what the market would otherwise do. Kind of a lousy situation.
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It was a rhetorical "I don't know about…", intended to read as "I'm sure it's the same everywhere, but I can only comment on it as it is here". Maybe it still did.
I also just like pulling the "have the spotlight on a non-American locale's ways without conceding focus to them" card, because it just tickles me to see the trend reversed every now and then. Of course I'm very well aware what it's like there, but it's funnier to act like I'm not.
I will say, as someone who doesn't travel much irrespective of price, whenever I get interested in going to something quite some distance away, the cost of such after crunching the numbers is often a deterrent. Not that I ever feel much of a spur to visit America again, but spending several grand on it just for a few days is… yeah.
Also, on supply chain issues, I suppose the one benefit I could get out of it is, if I ever decided to sell my collection of boxed Kirby games (PAL region) that I collected from 2014-16 for a bit over a grand, I'd probably make several times that now. Next to trading and collectible card games, video games were probably the worst recipient of what COVID did to the collector's market.
Ditto. As is becoming the case more and more lately, I came to him via one of TCC56's Recommendsday blogs, and while I was similarly turned off majorly by a shared Verse heavy on that side of the portal, I was believing enough in his endorsed writing quality to scan through his fics. When I saw I'd read this one before, it was an instant add.
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Though this wasn't about the prices going back down, something I never would have expected – I'm just comparing 2022, 2023 and 2024 here, and noting that it's continuing to spike hefty amounts each year.
You're totally right, of course. But that doesn't mean I'm going to relinquish on a basic faith in humanity, however misguided. Just who I am, my friend!
Also, corporate capitalism is maybe a handful of percent less shrill and craven here relative to the States, so you know, that sometimes raises my hopes a little.
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Speaking of American VS European business, there's a fun anecdote from Ghost Ship Games, makers of Deep Rock Galactic (that's probably warped a little in the retelling), concerning the company front and center in their title (that being DRG). Being European, they wanted to make a shady, questionable employer of the dwarves in DRG, and so they did. Only to be slightly horrified/amazed when while European players saw it as a shady, questionably morally bankrupt employer, American players reacted with enthusiastic gusto because it was so much better than any of their jobs. Healthcare provided? Profit-sharing? Merit-based structure! This job would be great! That's way better than anything I've ever had! The "European corporate dystopia" was a far better employer than most the US players had worked for.
It led to a lot of "What is wrong with America?" reactions from the playerbase.
You did wonder why I follow recommendations, so here is one reason. I did join late (created this accounf on May 2022), so I did and still do miss out on authors/fics published before I joined the fandom. While usually sorting by rating does the job, to find underappreciated gems are more lucky accidents.
Now I gonna check out Dave's works
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Well, not recommendations in general, that was always clear. Just me specifically. But you'd answered that before anyway, and I appreciate it then much as I do now.
In any case, while I came to fandom earlier enough than you, in early 2018, that it was easy enough to find a fair share of older works revered in their times for me, there are still always more, so I relate to following others to find more.
As I'm sure you've noticed, this very much favours older works and authors due to age and fandom size, and it especially makes the oddity of a work designed to not be controversial that is satisfying without being knock-your-socks-off, already something that can get quite a high rating these days, dominate even more if it's from back then. One need only scan the Top Rated for the site in general to see that.
That said, I do find ratings reasonably useful, if no hard-and-fast rule, when browsing within specific authors or other filters. I will concede that I rarely look at a story if it doesn't have at least a reasonable handful of likes (50+…?), or unless it's got some trustworthy endorsements. Drawbacks of limited reading time these days!
Regarding the travel: I only started taking capital-V Vacations recently so I don't have a great sense of the Before. But while explanations of corporate greed are entirely accurate, travel faces the additional uphill hurdle of "people spent two years going nowhere and making more money than before" so when things opened there was a surge in travel that never really subsided. National Parks, my own usual destination, have been growing in popularity for many reasons and in the big ones I found I have to make reservations exactly a year in advance to stay in their hotels.
"A familiar Feeling" gets my curiosity, being what seems like a quintessential story for one of MLP's few canon pairs, and one that has its share of controversy. The decision to abruptly ship Macintosh with a one-shot character in another town after developing his relations with multiple eligible bachelorettes raised quite a few eyebrows in its time. While I do appreciate the writers' willingness to remember the Our Town cultists and not treat them as a single unit, I feel the show would have been strengthened with greater development of established minor characters instead of adopting a one-shot: more time for Zecora, Mayor Mare, and in this case, Cheerilee would have been welcome. This could be the story I need to properly appreciate the canon romance (though I admit, S9 ended it with a home run).
I'm glad you liked "I, Opaline"! It was one of those flash-of-inspiration stories, where I drop old projects for this notion that came to me suddenly. Though perhaps not too suddenly, as I wrote several Sadlestia fics in my mid-series days and was quite overdue for another. If you'll indulge me a boast, I feel very clever with how I handled the reveal, dribbling in little clues such as her fondness for both tea and cake, and her markedly different opinions of Celestia and Luna which might entertain on a second read. I vaguely want to write more redeemed Opaline - either in her silly mode of my last fic or the more introspective take here - but that shall have to wait for if and when the lightning strikes again.
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If you haven't heard of it before now, you might find One Man's Pony Ramblings a very helpful review site as a guide to earlier works and "fandom classics." Chris no longer updates it, but there are tons of great reviews there.
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M.A. Larson has stated in many interviews re: his work on "The Cutie Map" that he really wanted to give the four featured ponies of Our Town more to do, and would have really liked being able to revisit them again in the future. Possibly if his experience being Story Editor for the first half of Season Five hadn't gone so sour, he might well have gotten to. Just another of the many "What Ifs" surrounding the production of Season Five, which has so many.
It's a weird one for me in that I do find it rather cute and sweet when they properly focus on it, but the show does it no favours by having all three episodes about them be wacky comedy hijinks ones pivoting on being comedies of errors.
Not unlike how PatchworkPoltergeist's take on Spoiled Rich is so good I can't vibe with her being written less well or without that nuance, I'm basically spoiled on Opaline now whenever she lacks the spark you bring to her. It's quite different, as you getting there requires some AU rejiggering, the approach has differed between your two current fics, and it's still not something that blows me away, being more of the "made something interesting of such fundamentally broken canon ingredients" mould.
But I'll say this: it's quite likely, long as it looks individually interesting, that I'll give any other Opaline fic you write a look. And considering any G5 fic that isn't just based on the movie is a near-instant no for me these days, that's saying a lot.
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It's funny that the show went so poorly for many that you'd think "build off the movie only" would be the easy way forward, yet it seems like most of the work we get is heavily based off the show instead. I suppose it makes some degree of sense - there's more material for fanfic writers to build off of - but if I ever got around to doing actual G5 stuff (beyond the brief dumb short I did) I'd have to ignore the show, even with the risk of those who like the shows coming in the comments to tell me my characterization of them is 'wrong'.
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That reminds me greatly of my own late-series musings that the show would have been freshened wonderfully had they allowed the Mane 6 to step back and let others take the spotlight: Our Town, which seemed to ready four quirky new ponies with their own inevitable mistakes and joys ahead, but also the royals, the students, familiar minor faces, and more. Certainly the strain felt pronounced by S8, which gave us such wonders as "Rarity and Rainbow realize they never got an episode together," and giving the time instead to Limestone or Double Diamond (or Limestone AND Double Diamond!) would have tickled me to no end.
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More or less, yeah. When one is writing any fanfic one may often be discouraged if most of the audience would be wary of some particular canon rejections. Meaning most folks skeptical of the show's directions largely just don't bother.
I've noticed myself that, in the early days of TYT and MYM, material pulling directly from the shows was still light on the ground, but once it had been running for a while, sheer volume and that the movie had been more or less mined dry meant it became the default source for all those G5 lovers. Makes sense – I suppose it's little different to how the fics sticking with Twilight as a unicorn, or those simply getting around it by being set before she got her wings, got rarer as more folks accepted her as an alicorn being the new norm over time.
For what it's worth, I've read a few fics written after the shows come out that rejected it and adhere only to the movie, so such things do exist. And they've been largely quite solid too! Mica's Like a Princess (which he brainstormed before the shows arrived, but didn't write until last Fall) is one such example I rather liked.
I appreciate the review. As was already touched on, writing Ever After Never Came was quite difficult, given the circumstances behind it. Even rereading it today, I constantly find little things that I feel I could have improved on. For me, it will never be good enough. The storyteller in me says that the end arrived too quickly. There could have been more development between Pinkie and Jesse.
But that's the entire point, isn't it?
In real life, we sometimes don't get that chance to get to truly know someone until it's too late. And yet, that brief moment in time that you did begin to understand that person will be cherished nonetheless.
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I feel like it's kind of gone like the other fandom controversies: Princess Twilight and such went from a subject of scorn to being broadly accepted, even if the decision wasn't always loved.
It helps that as much as everything G5 post-movie has been a misfire at best, the actual world and characters are as ripe for fanfic exploration as G4. So writing things based solely on the movie is just needlessly limiting oneself as with the magic of fanfiction you can just ignore all the bad parts anyway.