Beautiful Lives, Tags with Potential, and Lists, Lists, Lists · 12:39pm Mar 6th, 2017
Blog Number 26: Reviews and Relief Edition
Now there's the stallion we'd all love to strangle.
First of all, I have a milestone to report; my latest story, Beautiful Lives, hit the Featured Box yesterday/today depending upon timezone, the first time this has ever happened with one of my fics. And of all the fics it could have happened to, it of course had to be a fic basically pointing out how much Zephyr Breeze, a character I actually quite like, is a waste of space. My life continues to throw me curveballs.
This is a good bonus, and I hope to get such an achievement once more in the not-too-distant future. Chuffed as I am with that result, however, the reader response is even better. I delight in seeing people say what was so vivid about the story for them, or even just give it a positive adjective. If only this sort of thing happened more often, because it is a wonderful thing to see my efforts become more than I'd hoped for.
Less Sophisticated Translation: MY FIC GOT FEATURED! MY FIC GOT FEATURED! OMG YOU GUYS! MY FIC GOT FEATURED! YAY! :D
Anywho, on to the main course of this metaphorical meal. Please select your preferred dish from the menu below. Or not. Who cares?*
* Seriously, Coriander Cumin needs a happy day. Or at least an hour.
Featured Fic (hint: look up, stupid)
Underutilized Tags, and the Time Action Glory Challenge!
FanOfMostEverything's Contest
Relief: Productivity!
Reviews of Honour
Underutilized Tags, and the Time Action Glory Challenge!
Statistics for character tags are fascinating, at least if you've got the patience. Take out the "OC" and "Other" tags, and the Queen of Character Overuse is none other than Princess Celestia, appearing in roughly a quarter of all stories on the site. Work your way down via the main characters, and the distribution shows some jumps, both unsurprising (Twilight's right at the top, but then the show all-too-often seems to be hers) and downright saddening (Rarity is at the bottom, lower even than Discord!). Then, broadly speaking, you've got the most popular background characters and the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and then as far as I can tell, after that it's a free-for-all.
I mention this because the really depressing part comes when you go and see the lowest of the low. Of course, I'm not really going to get emotional or pretend not to understand why this happens. Some characters are gravitationally strong, attracting all sorts of stories and interpretations. Other characters require a bit of bending before you can get much work out of them, or just don't leave any impact. Heck, background pony tags are basically OC stand-ins, for all the characterization the show gives us. And ultimately, the whole thing is probabilistic, as open to the random contingencies of the fan climate as the real climate is to everything under the sun (and including the sun too).
Nevertheless, it seems vaguely unjust to me, for instance, that Seabreeze has a prominent role in one of the 143 released episodes of Friendship is Magic, and thus a representational percentage of roughly 0.7%, yet features in only 22 out of over 100,000 fics, or barely 0.02%! He's not a bad character, and I'm confident the combined talents and creativity of the fandom could produce for him the sort of varied and spectacular fics rewarded regularly to other character tags. Even focusing on the recent glut of tags, the lopsided distribution and low story counts make me think a lot of potential remains untapped. After all, a major key to diversity and any kind of evolution involves finding a niche and thriving in it. I really believe it can be done for these overlooked cast members.
That's where the Time Action Glory Challenge group comes in. Their main purpose is to take these overlooked tags and give them their time in the spotlight. Their frankly ambitious aim is to ensure each tag has at least one hundred stories under it by the end of 2017, though if you ask me that's nigh impossible without a fantastically high production rate, or at least most of the fandom getting involved. Therefore, I consider it at least worth trying for the target and accepting a consolation prize: as many fics for each neglected tag as possible. Let not the good tags fade into the shade.
Each month is expected to have a certain theme: this month's is "Marching Forth", an open theme allowing for many kinds of interpretation. Tangentially, FanOfMostEverything has invited its members to contribute via his own Imposing Sovereigns contest, though see his own blog for the terms and conditions of that particular challenge. And I myself intend to begin a prompt later this month.
So, if you believe there's a tag that's woefully underappreciated, or if you wish to find a poorly-tapped niche in the fandom, or just want an arbitrary challenge, remember the name: Time Action Glory Challenge. The only inspections we pass are yours.
FanOfMostEverything's Contest
Oh yeah, and FanOfMostEverything has a contest on at the mo: Imposing Sovereigns. Apparently, he got it from a book or something. Don't ask me. All I know is that his contest involves taking a princess (he's very loose about what counts as a princess), taking a role from a list (Schemer, Warrior, Partier, etc.), and then writing a fic about them before the end of this week. That's the abridged version: if that's not enough to fully win you over, check out his own blog on the subject and see if there's an opening for you. Also, cash prizes are involved.
To give you a preview, here's a list of the roles more fully fleshed-out, and the current slots available and taken. I'm afraid it is limited to one user per slot, and you have to claim in the comments section of his blog, but hopefully there's something here to grab your attention:
Roles
• Warriors: Princesses Who Fought Their Own Battles
• Usurpers: Princesses Who Grabbed Power in a Man's World
• Schemers: Princesses Who Plotted and Planned
• Survivors: Princesses Who Made Controversial and Questionable Choices
• Partiers: Princesses Who Loved to Live it Up
• Floozies: Princesses Notorious for Their Sexy Exploits
• Madwomen: Princesses Who Were Likely Mad, or Close to It.
Sign-Up List (as of this moment of publishing)
Warriors• Celestia: Foals Errand
• Luna:
• Cadence:• Twilight: River Road• Flurry Heart: Lise Eclaire• Platinum: Carabas• Pumpkin Cake: Daedalus Aegle
• Others:
Usurpers:
• Celestia:
• Luna:
• Cadence:
• Twilight:
• Flurry Heart:
• Others:
Schemers• Celestia: Impossible Numbers
• Luna:
• Cadence:
• Twilight:• Flurry Heart: Georg• Ember: Masterweaver
• Others:
Survivors• Celestia: SirNotAppearingInThisFic
• Luna:
• Cadence:• Twilight: PegasusMesa• Flurry Heart: ReluctantBrohoof• Platinum: Silver Moon• Starlight Glimmer: Czar_Yoshi
• Others:
Partiers
• Celestia:
• Luna:
• Cadence:
• Twilight:
• Flurry Heart:• Platinum: bookplayer
• Others:
Floozies
• Celestia:
• Luna:
• Cadence:• Twilight: Thought Prism
• Flurry Heart:
• Others:
Madwomen• Celestia: Aragon
• Luna:
• Cadence:• Twilight: DarkSpark
• Flurry Heart:• Ember: Bugsydor
• Others:
I've ruled out the slots that have already been taken, and if you find that limitation too much, don't hesitate to tell him. He explicitly welcomes feedback. Please do read his rules, though, if you want to take part.
Relief: Productivity!
Anyway, back to narcissism mode. To my own surprise, I have just emerged from an uncharacteristically productive month. Seven fics in one month is, to put it bluntly, not something I was expecting to achieve even when I was starting out in 2011/2012. Especially not during that slump in 2014. So I am immensely gratified to see the muse has done a workout since then!
The fics of honour are listed below, because if there's one thing we can't get enough of, it's lists.
Petalback
White Lightning and the Elite Pony
The Icing on the Hearth's Warming Cake
Raven Night School
Stinging the Trail
The Web Untangled
As Winter Dies, So Spring Is Born
As for this month, I doubt I'll match that level of output, as it would require an average rate of one fic every four or five days. This may well be a simple fluke, and of course it's about quality, not quantity: no point rushing out a dozen fics if they're a load of dingo's kidneys**. But hopefully this will still be a good month for writing. One can only hope... and one can do some actual writing, of course. 
** Darn, but I wish Douglas Adams was still alive. Now there's a writer who needed to be more prolific.
Reviews of Honour
As if to compliment my increased output, this year has also seen an increase in the number of reviews I receive, though that was hardly a difficult achievement. But reviews on all over the place! Yay!
Seriously, these are immensely gratifying, not only for the valuable critical feedback and pointers for improvement, but for the sheer pleasure of seeing people appreciate all the effort devoted to these stories. Comments so far have been encouraging too.
Incidentally, the Big Master Review List (link goes directly to spreadsheet, FYI) is a great resource that links to various reviews. That said, it currently only has four of mine up (should I nudge Singularity Dream about this?). So more comprehensively, I'll list my own reviews here in no particular order:
Louder Yay blog has given me two of them. In fact, it was because of Loganberry's first review of one of mine that I first became aware of the Big Master Review List, as my story Practical Nightmares Only was added, resulting in my receiving a notification. A bonus upon a bonus, indeed. The two reviews were: the aforementioned fic in a Carrot Top Edition post (three stars out of five, which seems respectable enough to me); and Lapidify: To See and Die (four out of five) in a Royal Canterlot Library Edition post. So far, so good!
In fact, Lapidify did quite a few rounds recently. It has been covered by PresentPerfect (recommended), the Royal Canterlot Library (um... I think this one's self-explanatory), Seattle's Angels (you know you're in a good place when your fic's being compared to the raptor kitchen scene in Jurassic Park), Shrink Laureate's blog post here, and even this dude, whoever the heck he is. All it needs is a review from City of Doors, OneManPonyRamblings blog, Titanium Dragon, PaulAsaran, Pleasant Reviews!, John Perry, The Royal Guard, Soge, The Goodfic Bin, Meridian Prime, MLPmatthewl149, Cerulean Voice, Inquisitor M, Foals Errand, and the Pony Fiction Vault, and I'll have the whole set!***
*** Tricky, considering at least two of those on the list are no longer active.
For completeness' sake, here's some older stuff too:
Griffon a Load of Bull, reviewed by Seattle's Angels and briefly mentioned by theRedBrony in a signal boost post. I still find it a bit unfortunate that this is apparently my top-rated fic of all time. That's probably due to longevity and this unexpected shout-out, but given what else I've written, I think it's way overdue a dethroning.
Last but certainly not least, I'd like to give a hearty thanks to xgfhj for their rankings, both in blog form and via their library additions, which have consistently challenged me to finally try and get a higher rank than four stars.****
**** Even if I still think All of a Fluttershy wasn't bad enough to deserve just two... 
Ah well, different palates, I guess. It's hardly my proudest achievement either way. On the other hand, The Campaign for Extra Trixie is something I think needs either chopping up or scrapping altogether, though I'm not sure which, hence its continued survival.
Well, that's most certainly all for now. If this post seems a little too self-indulgent, then my only defense is that I'm enjoying my own minor renaissance while I still have one. I've got huge gaps to make up for.
Until next time, Impossible Numbers, out!
Statistics
List of Fics Accepted by Equestria Daily
Nothing new to report since last time. Although I have submitted Splash Dash, I'm still not feeling entirely confident after my last mistaken bout of optimism. The obvious solution would be to edit Villainy Abroad, but sentimental as I am, I just can't bring myself to do it. My resolution instead is to try harder with future fics.
New Stories?: Six. Again, rain check on any advanced analysis, though it should be obvious the Time Action Glory Challenge influence was strong here. Also, I marvel at how a Fluttershy fic about the wonder and solace of spiders gets less attention than a fic about a barely noticed Hearth's Warming Eve character.*****
The Icing on the Hearth's Warming Cake
Raven Night School
Stinging the Trail
The Web Untangled
As Winter Dies, So Spring Is Born
Beautiful Lives
***** I'm not being fatuous; the spider one was inspired by watching an episode of a David Attenborough series, Life in the Undergrowth, and subsequently got more attention and effort from me. By contrast, the Private Pansy one was a result of a moment's inspiration and completed more or less in a day. Based on that, I honestly anticipated wholly different reactions to the ones these two fics actually got.
New Updates: No
Story Count: 48
My Total Story View Count: 38,429
Age: 1,910 days, or 272 weeks and 6 days
My Follower Count: 105
My Followed Count: 77
Okay, I concede defeat: you are indeed the Champion Rambler.
Beautiful Lives is a story I definitely want to read. When it will happen, I know not, but it's (at least somewhat) Fluttershy-related and under 10,000 words. That combination never does a story any harm with me!
I really like the idea of the TAGC group, and joined it almost as soon as I found out about it. Of course, that's not the same thing as actually doing anything about it! I don't exactly have a good record of writing about uncommon ponies (Fancy Pants is about as out-there as it gets) but there are one or two tags in there -- Filthy Rich, for example -- that I might one day write for. And I'm amazed that Gabby hasn't even made it to double figures.
You and me both. An Adams/Pratchett collab would have been a wondrous thing. Or a complete train wreck. But probably a funny train wreck, even so.
Blimey! I had no idea those even existed, but that's a lot of stuff. I'll have to poke around in that list and see if there's anything I can get irrationally angry about. (Two minutes later: yup. How can you read three PoweredByTea stories and still not have read Height, you strange, weirdly-named person?!?)
4445286
I do like walking.
Thank you for noticing.
To be honest, Fluttershy's most direct role in the fic is restricted to about a quarter of it, and I originally didn't have her tagged at all. I changed my mind because it's such an important quarter to Zephyr's character arc, and because of the general history touched upon between the two siblings.
Obviously, Rarity's the star.
As for the TAGC group, I'll be much happier if I'm not the one writing most of the stories, but then I have a weakness when it comes to not running off with the latest idea that occurs to me, especially considering how many I've still left hanging. And I second that surprise over Gabby, especially when the Gabby-Gilda team-ups are just begging for expansion.
I don't think the world could survive that big an alchemical explosion. I mean just look at what happened when Pratchett teamed up with Gaiman.
For every well-known reviewer, there are doubtless dozens more users who post out simple blogs seen by few. Of course, I never get irrationally angry about anything.
Rationally angry, maybe.
Also, I should thank you for your reviews too, especially the fun we had fighting and shouting over the details afterwards.