A little self-bashing: ranking my own Completed stories from worst to first. · 4:28pm Sep 15th, 2017
Because there's nothing like some locally-directed torture to start off the weekend right!
The following rankings solely reflect my opinion of my own work, under the rules that:
* Everything I write svcks
* But some things svck less than others
This is not an attack on your taste. You can rank them any way you like: I'll be surprised if I don't see at least one Top Ten/Bottom Ten in the Comments, and some people will have everything tied for 73rd. This is just how I happen to feel about the catalog today. Next month may be different. For starters, it may be possible to have a full tie for 74th.
Presented without personal comment. (Personal comments & reasoning for the rankings would require a separate blog post and/or six hours. As such, someone's pretty much going to have to make a Patreon "Dictate My Blog" request on it.)
73. "Why do all our new adversaries rhyme with each other?"
72. Tales Of The Canterlot Deportation Agency: A Typical Day
71. A Special Offer From Shutterfly!
70. Knotty Logic
69. Dragon-Dog Day Afternoon
68. Permanent Record
67. Fluttershy Gets Replaced By A Sherman Tank
66. If I Gave You Diamonds And Pearls
65. Pony Up A Tree
64. Sonic Rainbigot
63. Two Plus Two Equals Five
62. RariTwi Shipping
61. The Hays Code
60. Tales Of The Canterlot Deportation Agency: Ben
59. Auk-ward...
58. My Little Nyx With Cupcakes At The Rainbow Factory
57. Customer Disservice
56. Every Time A Pegasus Flaps Their Wings, A Kitten DIES
55. Tales Of The Canterlot Deportation Agency: Melissa
54. Rainbow Splash
53. Six Ponies & One Corpse
52. Twilight Spackle
51. Season's Bleatings
50. Cutie Mark Crusaders Alpha Pack Leader
49. Orange Is The New Blue
48. Cart-ography
47. Twilight's Escort Service
46. Snowflake Shoe-Hare
45. Suited For Terror
44. Barnyard Barge-Ins
43. Cut, Color, Carat, Clarity
42. Haunted Hayride
41. Pinkie Pie Has Infiltrated The Changelings' Secret Base!
40. Multi-Factor Authentication
39. Dear Friend,
38. Mechanical Aptitude
37. The Hypocrisy Of Tolerance
36. Three Hundred And Sixty Degrees Of Saturation
35. A Good Trot, Spoiled
34. Post Negative Comments Only
33. Captains Crash
32. On The Application Of Time And Motion Efficiency Studies To Initial Relationship Formation
31. The Bounce Test
30. Sick Little Ponies (And One Dragon) {aggregate}
29. Goosed!
28. Good For Nearly All Princess Labor, Public And Private
27. Trav(ap)est(r)y
26. 0G Network Coverage
25. Princesses Can't Cook
24. Tales Of The Canterlot Deportation Agency: Bree
23. Unstable Sale
22. Blessing
21. One Tenth-Bit
20. 100% Move = 50% Fire
19. Luna's Lottery Lunacy
18. If Rainbow Dash Can't Sleep...
17. Scootalift
16. The Remainders Of The Day
15. Jury Duty
14. No Sale
13. Unnoticed
12. Naked Lunch
11. A Mark Of Appeal
10. A Total Eclipse Of The Fun
9. Stupid Direction-Face
8. Tricks Of The Trade Show
7. While Their Name's Still Spoken
6. Five Hundred Little Murders
5. Lazy River
4. Pinkie Pie Vs. The Souffle
3. Senior Living
2. Twilight Sparkle Vs. The Equestrian Cutie Mark Constellation Registry
1. A Confederacy Of Dunce Caps
And so it goes.
Maybe I should do something like this. Although, if I did, I'd have to go back and look at some of the truly dumb stuff I've written. Might be worth it.
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It's either cathartic or traumatizing. I can't quite decide which.
The little agonies come from weighing stories off against each other. I did benchmarks: this is where the Top Ten should come in, this is the median tale, this is the worst thing I've posted here... but when it comes to things like "Thirty-fifth or thirty-third?", get ready for a really long day.
But on the whole, you set a few things as X, Y, and Z. And then it's just "Is this better than X? Is this around Y? Did I somehow go worse than Z?" Repeat until the catalog is clear.
Rereading Z to make sure it was really that bad is left to the discretion of the hairshirt affectionado.
Fluttershy gets replaced by a Sherman tank ought to be #1. Just sayin'.
Also, FWIW, my faves are One Tenth Bit and Pony up a Tree. Also the speed dating one.
Why do you feel the need to censor socks?
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Feet are unclean.
I'm pretty sure there was a Diamond Dog clopfic with a similar title in the featured box some time ago...
Also, I think 32 was the first fic of yours I read.
dunce caps is one of my all time fav fics, its the one one to make me hate, pity, feel sorry for, and like diamond tiara
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There's no accounting for taste. And less accounting for you.
(You're not an accountant, right?)
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Happily, FIMFic's search function doesn't work on 'titles sort of like this which may have been clop so I don't know if I want to see them...'
I'm one of those people who gets discovered (rediscovered?) every six months or so, as new people come into the site and start curiously peering at whatever might be in the New column. (I don't think this is a unique quality. A lot of popularity surges around here seem to be cyclical.) Coming in on #32 makes you one of the earlier arrivals.
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Without going into the long form: the argument for Confederacy is that it might be the best character study in the group, the strongest Below Decks story (not a wide category), one of the more emotional pieces, and just might celebrate its own ambivalency: in the end, what, if anything, Diamond learned -- and what happened to her after the camera turned off -- are very much in the mind's eye of the reader. The central argument against may be that it's one of the worst stories to come in first on: her use of magic will completely throw anyone who hasn't seen a few other 'verse works, and that toss might be forceful enough to take them out of the tale entirely. It's also a rather different Diamond than canon, and her altered family situation might not feel right to many readers.
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The fic is called Knotty Pleasures and it stars Diamond Tiara and Diamond Dogs. I guess Double Diamond should also be in it, if only for the bigger combo.
Also, I read "On Application..." back when it was in the featured box. In 2013. Two months after joining the site. Time sure flows quickly.
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*sigh* Tell me about it. I've been tempted to do anniversary/retrospective blogs for certain stories, but A. Depression & B. Not sure I can justify it without invoking Ego. And A is not the most minor factor.
oh man, I hope this becomes a Thing :D
I would do it, but I already have two blogs I need to post today D:
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Well, that's fair.
No, thank Celestia. My job mostly involves hitting cars with things and swearing at cars.
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Oh... so you do valet parking...
First one I read was either 32 or 4. It's been a really long time, so I can hardly remember...
Honestly, I think they're all really good; a new Estee story goes straight into my favorites before I even read it
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I look forward to That One Post where someone ties all their stories for first. And the tie is with The Catcher In The Rye.
(This will not become a Thing. I don't have the popularity or connections to start Things. I can't even find out about actual Things until two weeks after they're no longer a Thing. Also, Ben no longer drops by my house for poker. So there.)
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I never felt like making anniversary blogs, as it'd require me to remember when I posted a story and not forget about it. The closest was when I took a photo of my watch at the exact time and date when the story took place. Also, my early stories are not that worth remembering...
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t. (Which I suppose doesn't exclude me from being a parking valet).
I can't park worth s
This is what I actually do:
i.imgur.com/R5j1W0A.jpg
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Oh, you're a sculptor!
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I'd say that's fair. My best work at the moment is titled "Transmission Sitting On An Oil Barrel With Various Van Pieces Strewn About."
It's a work in progress.
Confederacy is an amazing fic. I would have put Mark of Appeal right behind it.
I'm very pleased to see Senior Living ranked so highly. That's probably the fic that took me by surprise the most.
I pretty much agree with the top ten list, those all stayed with me for quite some time.
Glad to see Naked Lunch placed well. I still really like it, and would very much like to read more of your take on gryphons.
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This is probably going to come out wrong, but... of the entire group, I feel Senior Living is the most magical.
0 G Network Coverage is still one of my favorites. Trixie just makes it, really.
I think Sherman Tank is terribly under appreciated. But I'm biased.
I actually have 500 Little Murders and 100% Move/50% Fire at the top of my list. (Sniff. That poor piano)
I hadn't realised you'd written so many stories.
And I'm pretty sure I've read every one of them.
Kudos on managing to sort your stories according to your own feelings.
Whenever I think about my favourites I always give up and think of them like the location of electrons in an atom.
(Electrons are still considered to have a probability smear rather than a definite location within the atom, right?)
Surprised that TofCDA: Ben was rated so poorly. It’s rare to see Paranoia played straight, and rarer still for someone to truly capture the kind of horror that such a dystopia entails.
I've only written 5. I suppose I could rank them, if I wanted, with little effort. (Also, an analysis on the current state of likes, dislikes, and views. With a bit more effort. But not much.)
I'm glad to see the one we picked for your RCL feature still, four years later, is in your top ten.
I don't know offhand if I have any Patreon credit saved up (I'm pretty sure I'm supporting you, and if not, I need to be), but if I do I'll have to fling a dictate request at this. Not for the whole list — that's a big ask — but I do have two specific questions:
1) Pick a few stories that you think you rank especially high or low relative to how much your readers enjoy them. Why, in your opinion as an author, do you think those stories are better or worse than people give them credit for?
1b) For example, why is Sherman Tank so low in your personal rankings?
Personally I'm surprised to see Twilight's Escort Service so low, I thought that was one of the funniest.
My personal favourite is No Sale. I loved that story when I first read it and I still love it now.
I'm surprised you put "If I Gave You Diamonds and Pearls" so low; I thought it was one of your more thoughtful pieces.
Holy spitballs, you've written a lot of stories.