Ghost Mike's Ponyfic Review Monday Musings #121 · 5:00pm Jul 8th, 2024
Well, that was definitely a bit of a wallop revealed last week, wasn’t it? 
All the same, I’m relieved the announcement of Monday Musings’ end as a regular, scheduled upload series went over well. Gave me greater confidence about the hard decision, enough that I can set it aside from active discussion here for the next few weeks until it goes live.
I don’t exactly have anything else prepared to say here – today (as I write this) is very much a lazy Sunday for me, owing to two late-night parties I was at recently (something I very much don’t do). One being the summer dinner party at work on Thursday, which on top of going into the office that day for a scheduled meeting that worked better in person, thereby necessitating an early rise, left me drained enough. Then there was a big party in the house on Saturday for my brother before he goes away for his government posting, and he’s socially active enough and bounced around enough that there were fifty people there, between college, his Masters, his current job and others. Great for him, but not the most engaging experience for me, though the people were perfectly nice and sociable.
In any case, all enough that I’m suitably drained right now. So, I’m not gonna feign attempting to dig up much else to say, and will just leave you with these fics. Ignoring the short wordcount and any implications it has as evidence for slacking interest in Monday Musings lately. 
This Week’s Spectral Stories:
Neither Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Grappleglorp... by Dash The Stampede
A Former Student of Mine by Pascoite
Shimmercode: Syntax Terror by FanOfMostEverything
I Have Many Forms, but This One is Mine by Raugos
The Dreamwalker's Lament by Sledge115
Weekly Word Count: 15,399 Words
Neither Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Grappleglorp... by Dash The Stampede
Genre: Comedy/Random
OC (not actually, more incidental Character of the Day)
1,022 Words
June 2015Reread
Delivering mail to Discord wasn’t the last job on Booko Stamps’ route that day. The problem with doing what’s left is this large, toothy grapplegorp that’s picked him up and is flying across the void, ready to swallow him whole. Leaving Booko with little to do but ponder on his short career.
Like a lot of writeoff entries, it’s tangibly clear even before the Author’s Note confirms it that this was originally even shorter than its barely-1K length here. Between about twice the amount of snippets and thoughts from Booko, and the abruptness of the comedic ending getting short-changed due to having to prolong it, it’s a familiar set of expansion issues. Even so, the energy of the postal worker’s feverish-yet-nervous commitment to his job is entertaining, and the balance between that and pondering the nature of his captor and his inevitable fate is amusing. If one likes the vibe of the mortal perils largely being here for comedic effect.
Toss in some chortle-inducing side details – the name for the creature is just one of several such inventions throughout – and while unremarkable, it’s diverting.
Rating: Decent
A Former Student of Mine by Pascoite
Genre: Drama/Slice of Life
Sweetie Belle, Cheerilee
2,819 Words
January 2015Reread
Virtually none of Cheerilee’s former students – her “flowers” – visit her in her old age. Which leads her to ponder whether what she taught was any use at all. Today, however, Sweetie Belle of all ponies, now a popular and accomplished singer, visits, and tells of the role Cheerilee played in shaping who she is.
There are any number of tones a story like this could take in its subject matter, from dark and depressing with no sunny outlook through to being positive and upbeat on the beauty of life. This one seems to have gone for an in-the-middle melancholy, which is also a valid take, except it also seems to want to hint at the various other possible tones, but is hesitant about committing to many of them. Thus, beyond a vague melancholy-leaning-positive, it doesn’t really feel, just present.
Also, unless the original writeoff version of this was written nearly a year or more before this fic, before “For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils”, it weirdly contradicts that episode in having Sweetie be a fan of Sapphire Shores even as a foal, which wouldn’t resonate except for how key a plot point it is here.
Most bits still work fine (mostly it’s just the reason for Sweetie’s visit pertaining to Cheerilee’s medicine that is a tonal dud as presented), and the material on how Sweetie learnt more valuable lessons about family from Cheerilee than her own family (not just her parents, Rarity gets thrown under the bus here too) resonates strongly. This is all tied up with a perspective voice on Cheerilee that seemed at times to be flirting with memory loss or dementia, but ultimately wasn’t, just instead a subdued take on old bones and being out of touch.
It wins on the balance of being well-written, but unless I’m just not getting some deeper meaning (and, well, can’t rule that out with the depth and layering Pascoite goes for; though if so, said meaning not coming across still doesn’t reflect well on the fic), it’s a bit more muddled than I’m used to from him.
Rating: Decent
Shimmercode: Syntax Terror by FanOfMostEverything
Genre: Comedy (w/mentions of light comedic Sex, Profanity, Gore)
Sunset, Fluttershy (EqG), Mane 7 (EqG)
2,319 Words
August 2019Reread
Fluttershy’s first appearance on Sunset’s streaming channel Shimmercode was such a hit, when it came time for her fans to vote on which friend should return for a guest reappearance, she won hands-down. Though with them now playing a more hardcore game than Fluttershy’s choice on squirrels depositing nuts, when things don’t go as planned again, Sunset’s frustration will take a rather different direction…
A followup to the surprisingly hilarious EqG short “Game Stream” (with mentions of another short where Spike the Dog does unboxing videos), there’s naturally some diminishing returns, less for being a contextual “let’s do Round 2 of this idea!” then because the reason that short succeeded where social media stuff in MLP usually crashes and burns (somewhere, a smol pegasus is crying 
) is due to a quick, restrained format that uses it for harmless character jokes, based around “Sunset is inexplicably terrible at a single-screen item-gathering game, and her frustration is funny”. Here while the more overt nods to how being a streamer works in the opener with the Mane 7 are handled deftly enough, and glossed over once their joke purpose is past, it’s still uncomfortable material.
A nitpick, of course. What isn’t, is the form Sunset’s frustration takes once the unfair game design of the Diablo-type game the two are playing (Tirek’s Revenge, also from another EqG short) makes itself known. It derails the fic into… I don’t even know how to describe it, beyond “Sunset curses and reveals secrets onstream”, which does at least provide a funny button to end the scene on. That, alas, is then undone by a coda that takes even that random direction and runs with it further to more heady material about the connection to Equestria. That it is used in a “laugh at the characters’ misfortune” tone (and, judging by the comments, can provoke thought about the severity of certain insults to pony and what they mean for certain pony names) only alleviates this somewhat.
I get that a end result like that is hard to tease without giving the game away, but the fic changes tack so quickly it feels like whiplash, and FoME’s character writing, while exaggerated, daft and a bit silly as ever for him, is still too grounded and subdued (as it should be!) to feel nearly random enough for this to fly. A rare misfire from someone whose one-shots, while rarely something to gush about (to be fair, outputted by one author on average once a month) can nearly always be counted on to be satisfying enough to feel worth the read on the other side.
Rating: Passable
I Have Many Forms, but This One is Mine by Raugos
Genre: Slice of Life
Starlight, Pharynx, Changelings
3,535 Words
September 2017Reread
Following a fun and festive feast the hive threw together after chasing off the maulwurf, Starlight takes a nighttime stroll to clear her thoughts. Who should she find looking out at the wilderness but Pharynx. Sitting in silence with him, once she bottles up the nerve to ask what’s going on, and moves past the tough facade, she learns about the significance of a changeling’s true form.
Initial airing Episode-reaction fics, by their very nature, are borne of inspiration, and that can certainly be felt in this fic, making it slot into place as an extra denouement to “To Change a Changeling” quite well (it falls into the middle ground of obviously not something that could ever work onscreen, being just talking and too slow for a 22-min episode, while still building on the ideas there without shading into fixfic territory). The other side of that coin is they can also often feel a bit perfunctory, or like they didn’t do as much as they could have, and that is also true here.
Pharynx’s main dilemma boils down, naturally, to being stuck with the newer form he got in the episode. The fic thankfully avoids ever being obnoxious in his words against the newer changeling forms, so it never feels like a mouthpiece, even if we as viewers of course agree with him. At the same time, it only adds a few wrinkles to his frustration, and while they are welcome wrinkles, they aren’t enough to dissuade a lingering “that’s it?” feeling.
The rest of the fic is a little fresher in the kind of connective tissue it finds between these two (how Thorax and Pharynx suit their roles especially), though at the same time, their chemistry and interactions feels a little off. Not distractingly so or anything, just enough that they don’t quite sparkle. Perhaps it’s that both seem a little softer and tamer than they should be (Pharynx should be, of course, it’s more than the fic has gone 10% too far), thus making their interactions blander. Either way, it’s enough to make the relaxed pace of the piece, something that should ostensibly be a strength, drag somewhat (especially with some pensive silences that attempt to be meaningful but just kind of sit there – and I’m for dialogue-less moments in scenes like this).
All that said, the particular outlook on changeling culture after they’ve changed sticks out, and even in a neutered form, Pharynx’s snark makes for a good time. Not a standout fic for him or Starlight, but a pleasurable enough one.
Rating: Decent
The Dreamwalker's Lament by Sledge115
Genre: Romance/Drama
Twilight, Luna
5,704 Words
June 2022Reread
Becoming Princess of Equestria was one thing. It also brought controlling the day and the night. The latter is a strange realm of magic Twilight doesn’t know, but she has Luna to guide her, to nurture its garden. So when Twilight starts having trouble controlling the moon, she asks Luna about it in her realm, that of dreams. A place where neither of them can truly keep secrets from their marefriend.
Evidently Sledge115 has a thing for Luna being a gardner (as seen in Moonbug, reviewed in Monday Musings #112), and also likening governing the dreamscape to being a gardner (two years after this fic, Izzy and the Moonlit Garden, covered way back in Monday Musings #17). Now we can add to that list the passing on of the torch and the difficulty of letting go, all wrapped in one of the more unusual, subtle and effective approaches to TwiLuna I’ve seen.
Possibly that’s because the romance is merely a feature of the story, rather than the focus. But it’s not superfluous either, enhancing the connection of how Luna teaches Twilight, especially in a lot of lovely imagery of the dreamscape envisioned as threads, and making the whys and hows of their interactions, and the issues they face, and that they come to the other, ring truer. That alone would be enough to elevate it above many TwiLunas (with all due apology, most of them purport to having a reason for inserting it into the story but ultimately fail to disguise that it’s just for the author’s own preferences), but what pushes it even further, to the degree several commenters say it sold them on a ship they don’t normally like, or converted them to it in the first place, is that the story goes for a softer touch.
This probably sounds backwards, given both Twilight and Luna are generally tough, proud, even stubborn characters. But those aspects of their personalities are not erased, only de-emphasized, and either still inform their actions in other ways (Luna dodging Twilight’s question, and Twi pressing the point in response, shows these aspects without breaking the fic’s tone or flow) or get inferred at the margins. A small thing, I grant, and so too is that the romance is mostly foregrounded in the small moments, the small joy that the characters feel inbetween the bigger plot beats. But it’s those very decisions, along with other flourishes I don’t quite know how to describe, that make it all ring truer. Twi can be both authoritative and calm here, and so can Luna on different wavelengths, and the flow and transitions between both feel very natural.
Flow, of course, has always been a strength of Sledge115’s writing, and it’s certainly evident here too. The fic doesn’t prolong or overcomplicate its poetic or descriptive passages to the point they lose the reader, with the prose flipping between techniques with careful decision in their composition. This allows the more normal talking chunks to not feel like they’re from a different story (a common flaw with approaches like this). It shows without being showy, as it should be, and is another storys of theirs worth reading purely for the technique.
The actual story itself is a muddled one, for two reasons. One, it punts on the inciting incident of Twi’s trouble with the moon being the actual focus, sidelined so thoroughly after it’s breached you’d think the story was embarrassed by it. This perhaps wouldn’t be so notable if it had been bought up quick (whereby it being just a plot device would be forgivable), but it comes up rather later, after the characters and world have sucked us in. And while in theory this is also okay, to let the story be a character or mood piece, which it very much wants to be, it’s neither too short nor too long for that to fly either (I say too long as with more length, an actual story with escalation and conflict could have been woven out of Twi and Luna’s personal issues – not what I would have chosen, but a possibility).
It’s enough to leave a milieu of dissatisfaction around a piece that has a lot to recommend it for. But, I will still do it the praise of considering it moderate by the standards of Sledge115’s other stories. That, and how the TwiLuna is used here, still earns it a hearty recommendation.
Rating: Pretty Good
Spooky Summary of Scores:
Excellent: 0
Really Good: 0
Pretty Good: 1
Decent: 3
Passable: 1
Weak: 0
Bad: 0
Yes, the original writeoff version did predate that episode, and I didn’t want to retcon it to make that change. The original also took a much darker tone, but several commenters weighed in to say they didn’t appreciate that, which isn’t unusual for that crowd. Maybe I shouldn’t have listened to them, but I did soften it, and the result is that it doesn’t commit to much. I liked the original when I wrote it, but this isn’t one I ever come back to read. Still, I do like the “appreciate your teachers” message. I’d rate this in the bottom 10% of my stories. What made you choose it?
Also, your rating totals at the bottom are off.
Sledge115 is one of the few writers who have managed to write a G5 story I truly enjoy (Izzy and the Moonlit Garden), and I already have The Dreamwalker's Lament on my list, so I think I should bump it up a bit. Given that I'm an unrepentant Tuna fan, it's a wonder I haven't read it yet.
Gardening as a metaphor for ruling is not an uncommon thing, and that's probably because it works so very well. I have a brief bit in the last chapter of The Celestia Code where Celestia makes that connection explicitly, and another bit (somewhere) where she terrifies a foreign ambassador by pruning roses in front of him.
Not the best week, but it happens. Not awful, at least. I've only read the Raugos fic, which I liked reasonably well. Sledge115's might go on the list, but the others will probably only get read if I have a reason to do so.
Hmm. Not really sure what to say for this one. "Insufficiently zany" definitely isn't a take I've seen before with that story. Sorry it didn't land for you.
dang, lots of stuff at the bottom D: that I wouldn't have expected!
5791015
Well, only having read between 10-20% of your stories, I can't comment on that, but you'll know best. As for why I chose it? Um…
My theory that people gloss right over this tag's presence continues to receive circumstantial evidence.
More specifically, I picked the fic when I was scanning my Re-evaluate list for something quick, as this was right in the throes of trying to stay afloat with the series before I finally decided to pull the plug on it being weekly. So yes, it wasn't picked for the most enthusiastic reason, I'll admit. Little this week was, admittedly.
5791016
They're actually correct. What's wrong is the label for one of the stories – I added your fic to the Decent bookshelf as intended, but mistakingly gave it the Passable rating label here.
Fixed.
5791025
Yeah. In general, this week's fics, all rereads, will be one of the last hang-ons of the "forcing myself through doing reviews" period I was going through. Once I made that decision last week, and looked ahead to what I had ready to go here, I could either drip-feed them out over the next month, or chuck them out from the stockpile now. I chose the latter, perhaps not wisely, but there you have it.
I will say that Raugos' fic was a very high Decent, and the only reason I couldn't in good faith bump it up was because not enough happened that kept my interest. It approximated how to do a good episode followup fic, while missing enough of a story with meat.
And Sledge115 is still such a spectacular author that I'm sure you'll like this one of theirs fine.
5791017
Me too: don't think "wonder what iisaw made of this one" didn't cross my mind as I was writing the review up.
Both because TwiLuna is a hard-on for you, but also because as this approach is quite far-removed from how you write them and how you like to read them (it is nothing like Singles Combat at all), so I was curious whether you would have gelled as well with such a softer take on the two. Guess the answer to that will have to wait for another day! 
5791048
A little confused here, but I presume you're referring to the ratings. Which does still confuse me, both that the third-lowest rating of Passable is considered the bottom (I get why, given how rarely fics land lower, but even so), and that this would be surprising – as I said elsewhere here, and felt was quite tangible in the content today, these fics were among those covered during the last of the slump before I committed to jettisoning a regular schedule.
But I do remember that you said you often blank on details regarding your own review blog, never mind others', so I don't judge.
5791067
Well, I always go for the most dramatic (not to say traumatic) choices, so a quieter tone isn't something I would write, but I certainly can appreciate it. I will let you know what I think about it.
EDIT: It was a very enjoyable as a... I want to say palate-cleanser if that's not too odd a comparison? Anyway, I'm very glad I read it.
5791032
Given I didn't use those words at all, "insufficiently zany" is a weird takeaway to lift from this review. At least, above the clearer point of "better when it stuck to playing the root's short formula of Sunset being frustrated at the video game going poorly for her, just T-rated, before it kept changing direction".
More broadly, this is another example of why reviewing everything I read can be problematic, hence jettisoning that among other aspects in a month. Because when a fic I expected to be satisfying like this disappoints, it not only makes me glum to put it up, but when an author responds with "sorry you didn't like it", it makes me doubt whether I was right even more, thus making me even glummer. Not that I demand authors always agree with the critique and take it on board, everything is somewhat subjective, but takes like this do seem to largely just elicit pity and a shrug over any other reaction.
5791064
The fact that you'd read it before doesn't really answer why you chose to reread it or why you chose to read it in the first place.
5791078
True, but that was covered in the “more specifically” bit written right after my clarification that it was a reread .
And as for the first time? That was several years ago; beyond me just bouncing from fic to fic and read a lot in multi-hour binges, I couldn’t tell you why now.
Oh wow, what a sight to see this morning
Guilty as charged! Something clicked to me when I set out to write Luna, thanks to A Royal Problem, that there's much to do with her as a gardener. So I figured I should double and then triple down with gardening as a defining characteristic of Luna, as I write her. Because - come on, it's perfect, between her affinity for lavender and her dreamweaving. But yeah, I'm very proud of it, and I hope she's enchanted you too this way.
I will die on the hill that TwiLuna is shipping perfection, as there is a certain beauty to it, how they interact, who they are to one another, that makes it just work. And all the flaws of The Dreamwalker's Lament aside, I'm happy to see it worked for you, too
.
The Dreamwalker's Lament is not actually the first time I wrote TwiLuna - the first time is in Spectrum, but it's quite deep into the story as I hadn't taken the lead in writing until Act Two. In fact, it wasn't actually planned for that story from the beginning, either... but right when I got to Act Two, something clicked to me that it just... works. They're adorable together, and therein lies where my drive for The Dreamwalker's Lament came from, heh.
Anyways, this is just me being an unabashed supporter of TwiLuna
but all the flaws of it aside, The Dreamwalker's Lament, Moonbug, and The First Second of Eternity are really where my own writing style crystalised and took proper form, and I will forever treasure them for that.
I'll just keep this short but... well, yeah. No objections here, because the length was at the time something I'm not familiar with, and I compressed more than I'd intended
At any case, thank you for the insight
I hope you've enjoyed the story!
5791017
A fellow person of culture, I see
Hope you'll like it!
5791175
I enjoyed it very much!
I've got several others of yours on my enormous To-Be-Read list and I've bumped them up to the "Sooner" section.
I think this is my first time hearing that you genuinely appreciated a piece of the official EQG media in Game Stream. I'd be very interested if you ever put out something like "Five Gen5 and Five EQG episodes that were actually good" to see which parts manage to appeal to someone who isn't a fan.
5791229
Huzzah, hope you'll like them!
I suppose that there's a little bit of the 'charged' element being lost over time, because from what I remember, the new appearance of changelings alone was more than enough to start heated debates or rants. If anyone had said "That's it?" when the fic was fresh, I very likely would've pointed at the fires all around and replied, "What more do you want?"
I've never been a fan of the trope of appearance being tied to morality, especially when they'd already put so much work into showing that Thorax was a good bug. The garishness of the new designs didn't help.
Why, yes, I'm still sour about the reformed changelings even after all these years, how could you tell?
Thanks for the review!
5791459
Oh no, the response to that part was not at all diluted by familiarity to the changelings' newer forms – I still detest them as much as when I first came to and binged the first seven seasons of the show off getting introduced via the 2017 movie.
That part was meant quite literally, in the sense of this being an episode response fic that plays out Pharynx's internal reaction is a way that is nuanced and well-thought out, but mostly what one would expect, and it adds some wrinkles and layers to it. Just not quite enough for the next rating up, least next to the fic's other odd quirks.
But it's a top-tier Decent, make no mistake!
5791309
It's a good thing you put in "think" and "hearing" there, because I have definitely acknowledged well-done pieces of EqG media before. Not often, granted, given it carries virtually nothing that triggers the dopamine effect, which is often most of the battle for thinking about something once you're done watching it. But it's happened.
I'd have to buckle down with the EqG shorts to truly get out such a list, but as obvious as it may be, the weaksauce quality of the Pony Life and Tell Your Tale shorts has really elevated my retrospective feelings on the EqG ones. Hay, I sometimes think I prefer them to the movies/specials there. Obviously the voice acting and Daniel Ingram's songs help a ton, as does DHX's far better approach to how they visually execute the scripts. But while they aren't anything more than good for a mild chuckle, they do honest-to-god hit that without feeling guilty about it. When I think of these shorts, I think of Sunset's driving test with Cranky, that sort of thing (though the musical shorts sometimes get a good look in). Light, amusing, harmless (but, like, good harmless). And they make the most of being just 2-odd minutes long. I still don't know many would work for those cold on EqG, given all the modern tech and non-fantasy stuff inside there, but it's not nothing.
As for G5? Oh boy… the problem with MYM is virtually every episode still wades in problematic stretches and weak sauce writing/visual execution, so even one like "Portrait of a Princess" is still a right grind to actually watch. If I could cheat by picking just some songs in isolation (virtually all are chopped up with a butcher knife in the episodes), I might be able to assemble five, but full episodes? Not happening.
TYT can at least theoretically produce a short that can not trip up for five minutes, though right now, only "Opaline Alone" has stuck in my head (and even then, due to abbreviating the song and going for hijinks that are a bit of a one-note joke, it's still a downgrade from just playing the song in full).
5791175
Only gonna respond to things here that need a followup, but I'm happy you're happy about it.
Enthusiastic, grateful response from Sledge inbound!
Not that I expected otherwise, but a small part of me does have to sigh that you quoted a large chunk where the main point was "most of the time TwiLuna does not remotely justify itself contextually", and ignore all that to laser in on the part that could let you gush about your OTP. It does kinda further prove that most TwiLuna shippers are in way head deep to be remotely objective about it.
Luckily, you get a pass on this blind obsessiveness because you write it well enough to make it work for anyone, which to me is the barometer for writing a ship well.
[To prove I'm not biased my own way: one of my favourite relationships – platonic, this is – in the show and fics is Twilight's and Spike's, but I'll be the first to admit the hit rate for getting it right in Ponyfic is not very good at all. Mostly that's because many fics writers clearly aren't into it and sideline Spike where possible, but the greater nuance required to make it still feel true to itself while avoiding the more problematic directions it's easy to take it in is another reason.]
My memory's a bit faint, but I do recall the particular way similar quiet and tranquil scenes to this were written in Izzy and the Moonlit Garden, and comparing that to this, I can see both the similarity and also the evolution. So yep, that tracks!
The length is more a casualty rather than the cause – assuming the contest this was written for had a max word count, the obvious answer is to go shorter, such that the fic doesn't need the plot thread of the trouble with the moon, and could fully commit to being a mood/character piece. But, four years ago, I digress.
Anyway, you're four for four on fics reviewed here now! Considering that hit rate, I really should grab the rest of your standalone one-shot I've not yet covered and get to them soon – I actually get excited to read your stuff, which means they'll still have a home in this new, no-pressure-to-read-for-obligation era for Monday Musings.
5791555
Perhaps "moments" that were actually good would be more appropriate, then.
You have put out many horsewords in your time here, and I do not pretend to have read them all. 🙏
I get that, and I also feel that the short format works for EQG because we have preexisting attachments to the characters albeit in pony forms, but the groundwork is there with a pinch of salt. It wasn't hard for me, an Applejack fan, to translate my attachment to Humanjack, the exact same character with fingers. So to see 120 seconds of this character my mind knew was the character I already like going through some slice of life hijinks landed a lot better than TYT's "This is a mainline series helping to form the identity of these characters in wacky 5 minute shorts."
5791560
I was throwing together a "Top Five Post-Movie G5 Moments That Are Properly Good" list at one point. And honestly, unless we allow the window to include five-to-ten seconds snippets and instantly ignore what's on either side, it's really hard. I stalled out after the obvious picks of the "Portrait Day" and "Opaline" songs, it's that dire. At least, if one cares about the execution beyond merely the ideas, which I do. Maybe someday I'll give it another whirl.
I was referring to just these intro blurbs/reviews, and less in the sense of remembering specifically what I said then a general impression that "oh yeah, Ghost Mike has given credit there before". But memory is a fickle mistress, so I don't judge.
This is probably another reason why I think I might prefer EqG as a short form thing, or at least consider it closer to the longer content than most. When it's a movie or even a special, the fact of how much the Humane Five (and really, everyone but Sunset and Sci-Twi) are coasting on their pony groundwork and purporting to develop them into their own thing but punting on it, except in marginal differences in trait/personality, really sticks out to me. Short-form content that obviously can't do that, and gets out before the lack of depth can be a problem (and, like you say, doesn't have the weight of being the main ship, being side content to a spin-off), well, that's able to mitigate showing off those flaws.
Myself, I don't really personally translate my affection for the Mane 6 to their human counterparts, because them being pastel ponies rather than gangly, poorly-design human Flash rigs is a big part of the charm for me. But I concede that's partly an "animation fanatic" thing.
5791559
In another time, I'll have a better post outlining why the ship works
But in all seriousness, yeah, I do think the key is subtlety, really. I liken it to a simmering flame, and not a raging inferno.
Always nice to hear your thoughts, cheers!