Best story · 12:46am Mar 24th, 2015
Heads in the Cloud just got a very good review from Paul Asaran (good in that he articulates his points well and notes the story's true weakness, not that it's necessarily glowing), and it got me to thinking: if he liked that one, then he should definitely try reading...
What, exactly? <.< What's my best fic?
My usual answer is Treehouse, because it was an experiment that I thought I pulled off well... Except that A Puzzle Unsolved kind of does it better. Except that that's a poor fanfic because it was written for the tiny subset of "bronies who like Agents of SHIELD".
Could it be Dance 'Til We're High, which still has far and away the most views of any of my stories? Fuck no, that story is butts. :B What about Dinky's First Kill, my most popular? Well, it's certainly a good story, and if any of mine had to be #1, I'm glad it's that one, but I'm not sure it's my best.
It can't be Epic Unicorn History because it's not fucking done yet I'm sorry D:
It's certainly nothing with a Random tag, though DORP and Snowdrop and Nyx Get Drunk and Make Out continue to thoroughly entertain me every time I read them. :D (To say nothing of My Full-Sized Goddess Horse.)
Maybe my best story is one of the ones I haven't written yet but keep talking about. :B Time will tell.
Rather than make this journal be about inviting a discussion about which of my fics is most best, though, I'll instead leave this with a question: What metric do you use to determine which of your stories is your best? Not just your favorite, but your best. Assuming you engage in such self-congratulatory practices, anyway.
(Aside: This actually has nothing to do with RedSquirrel's newest blog, but it's probably what got me thinking about this and serves as further quite excellent reading on the subject.)
I go by "which fic I'm proudest of."
Also I still think Dance 'Til You're High is really sweet. SO BUTTS TO YOUR BUTTS, SIR
2903886
NO IT IS TOTAL BUTTS AND I HATE IT D:
If we go by "proudest" then it's gonna be one of the crackfics. :B Or EUH when I finally finish it. Or EoA.
Dance 'Til You're High, but you have other great stories too.
2903918
Noooo don't just talk about my fics! D:
For my part, I think my "best" story is not the one which has turned the most heads (Hard Reset 2 or Social Lubricant), but the one which has hit people the hardest (Thou Goddess). When people talk about their top (#number) stories of the fandom, if one of my stories manages to make the list, Thou Goddess is it. I think that single story accounts for half of the signal boosts I've ever gotten.
By that metric, I personally think your best story is that Pinkie Pie/Hulk crossover you wrote like eight months ago, which I'm not sure you ever even published to FIMFic. But I'm probably alone in that opinion. :V
2903950 Well, what do you want, PP?
2903904
I just went and read A Puzzle Unsolved and that was fun!
BUTTS
It's good to know a fellow reviewer thinks my reviews are 'good.' I always wondered if my reviews were really worth the time I put into them, but I feel a little better about it now.
There are a lot of factors going into what I think makes a story good, and while I'm known for keeping continuous track of the upvote/downvote ratio of my stories, it actually has little to do with that. Personally, I consider Twilight's Inferno my single best story, without any hesitation or doubt. It's an emotionally powerful tragedy that seems to always evoke either hatred or adoration from those who read it – I take pride in both – while following a clean and flowing plotline with minimal plotholes (that I can see), all while feeding off the wild inspiration born of a literary classic and countless hours of research. For all its horrifying aspects, Twilight's Inferno was a labor of love. I doubt I'll ever match it again.
And I'm okay with that.
So my overarching answer would feature a number of things: the amount of work put into the story, the sheer emotion it evokes in both myself and the readers (regardless of what that emotion is), a carefully woven and tended story, the connection made with the characters, and an all-encompassing sense of completeness and finality. Twilight's Inferno is the only story I've written that I feel managed to get everything right.
The ones that, when I look back on them, I have no regrets in writing.
It's nothing about how popular it is or how much it affected others, really. My most 'popular' story is also the one that I personally dislike the most.
It's about me being able to say, "I did my best there, and what I produced was fun for me and ought to be fun for the ones who find it fun". It's the ones that I can look upon and feel comfortable with.
And per your request, I shall not talk about your stories.
It's totally Epic Unicorn History though.
"My Plus-Sized Goddess Horse" OH WAIT YOU HAVEN'T WRITTEN IT YET. :V
I guess something with fibrous nuggets, then.
2903974
This. And, PP, if you agree with this, you already know which of my stories is my best. I will always be most proud of that one, but for one additional factor on top of these listed: how I felt it needed to exist, needed to be shared with the world.
Edit: you should totally read Twilight's Inferno. It's one of only two fics I've ever given a 9.5/10 for in reviews.
Well, since I can't say anything about which of my nonexistent stories is the best, I'm going to say that Dance 'Til You're High is the bestest (Doesn't mean too much, I suppose, since I've only read 7 of your 51 stories, but I'm not sorry).
Also, I found that I've inadvertently adopted your use of 'butts' into my everyday vocabulary.
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I'll take that as peremptory support to finish it. :B And by that metric, it'd probably be either Dinky's First Kill or Civil Twilight, the latter of which I'd also be happy with.
2903961
A million dollars and a diet I can keep up with. :(
2903974
Hmm, by that metric, I have yet to write it! Or at least, to finish it. :B
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Yaknow, I found a good cover image for that recently...
Also you should make a gemsona :V
2904113
buttslol V:
Boring answer, but: the story where everything comes together: I have a genuinely decent idea and readers really like it and I can still read it for my own pleasure months later. The fic that fits that best is We Who with Songs Beguile. If I stopped writing ponyfic now, I think that would be the story I'd point to and say, "I did that". True, It Doesn't Matter Now has been more successful and popular, and I do like it, but it doesn't quite have the same level of satisfaction that WWwSB brings me.
2904130 That could be arranged, perhaps.
I've been thinking about this:
The past couple hours, and I've decided that I'm not qualified to decide what my best story is. Because I'm likely to say that it's History: A Romance Continued. And that's just crazy talk. I mean, it's not just a clopfic--and a futanari clopfic at that--it's also the middle story of a trilogy, has several songs in it that I wrote myself, revolves around the idea that Applejack's parents aren't actually dead, and is the longest piece of Ponyfic I've ever written.
But it's like nothing I've ever tried to write before or since, and I'm just so strangely happy with how it came out that it's the only one of my stories on the site here that I've reread from beginning to end more than once.
Mike
If it was a relative success among the general populace of Fimfic and it still entertains me when I re-read it, then it's good. My best on those merits is most likely Aunt Fleur or Lilies. (Both those stories have Fleur in them, weird. Maybe she's my spirit horse.)
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If you're the only person who would call it your best, I somehow feel that's a very genuine way of going about things. :B
My best story? The one I haven't written yet, because in my head it's just so shiny perfect.
2905680
DOOOO IT :V