Present Perfect vs. Looking Glass · 11:00pm Aug 9th, 2020
I'm sure you're all sick of seeing blogs that start with these words, but it's the year 2020 — and I have no idea what successful ponyfiction looks like anymore.
I save these versus blogs for big-name stories with bazillions of views and upvotes, after all, right? But since about, oh, let's say 2015 or so, those bazillions are far harder to come by. And especially nowadays, getting a thousand views on a story might be the best you can do. Just ask anyone who pays attention to stats; the readers are going elsewhere, and the MLP fandom, while vibrant, has been shrinking for a long time.
So why not vs. a fic like Krickis's Looking Glass? I don't think I'd heard of it before now, outside of putting it on my RIL after watching the author, but it's got nearly 7k views, over 600 upvotes, and it's the beginning (chronologically, at least) of an expansive series of EQG romance fics.
The reason I'm even approaching this story at the moment is because the author did an audiobook (the channel name is Katie Bunn), which I just so happened to notice was finished ahead of the next reader-based blog. So let me take a minute to comment on that: It didn't work for me. The reader herself says this was a first effort, but while the expected fast pacing wasn't really an issue, I found she mumbled a bit, and overall had zero volume, which is of course a problem for me. I'd recommend her other readings only if you use headphones in a quiet spot. I had to listen to the story via Fimfiction text-to-speech.
Not a huge issue, though, because — spoilers — I ended up reading one of the all-time best MLP fanfics ever. Let's talk about it.
Looking Glass is a very unique story because of its lack of uniqueness. I've read so much (so much, you guys), and while I've seen fanciful idea after fanciful idea, I have never seen a story this dedicated to following canon.
This is the story of Sunset Shimmer, Celestia's prized student, as she abandons from her mentor, runs away through a portal to another world, and becomes the kind of person we see in the original Equestria Girls movie. Every pain has been taken to make sure everything that happens in this story lines up with canon. Every pain. I've never seen an author so dedicated to canon before!
I mean, there are definitely things which cannot be proven to have happened by canon. Sunset and Applejack knowing each other before going to CHS, for instance, is a major portion of this story; did that happen? Well, not that we know. But here, it's certainly extremely plausible, because the author took that much care with the little details. The purpose of Looking Glass is to build a bridge between the show, the comics and the humanized spinoff, and really dig into what would motivate someone to become Sunset Shimmer.
Let me take a moment to try and impress something upon everyone reading this blog: This story is really good. Like, really really good. I picked up the audiobook maybe a week ago? and proceeded to blaze through all 194,000 words in record fucking time. After about chapter five, I was hooked, I had to know what happened next. What makes this even more amazing is that, toward the end of the story, I damn well knew. Timeskips are used to good effect here, but by the time Sunset ends up in high school, everything coming after that point is a foregone conclusion. And yet? Did not decrease my need to consume the text any.
Also, this is only the second of Krickis's stories I've read. The first was their entry into the final Sunset Shipping contest, and that story was so good, it earned an immediate follow. If you're not familiar with Krickis's work, it's time to fix that.
So, now that I've heaped a ton of praise on the author, let's start at the beginning so that I can talk about the story's flaws! Because there are two of them: The first two chapters.
The prologue is a novelization of the Fall of Sunset Shimmer comic book. I honestly would probably not have realized this if not for the audiobook, which uses comic panels for the video. All the dialogue syncs up, and though of course there's plenty of good narration, this is still the equivalent of recapping an episode at the start of a story. Yes, in this case, it's not a foregone conclusion that the reader will be familiar with the source material; yes, it serves to make sure everyone's on the same page at the start of the story; yes, the author could hardly have picked a better issue of the comics to use. But it's still an episode recap, effect though it may be. :B
The first actual chapter then is far less of an issue, but it's nevertheless a fairly by-the-numbers "X goes to Humania" sequence. Sunset is surprised by her form, she nearly gets hit by a car, she's surprised to learn she can't use magic, she's afraid of literally everything, and later on, she discovers these creatures eat meat. You've read this story a hundred times, and though this one is excellently written, it's nevertheless familiar to a fault.
Until it isn't.
You see, there's one caveat in all of this that gives Looking Glass a solid opening which outshines its more plebeian initial conceit: Sunset is turned into a five-year-old girl when she comes out of the mirror.
Why does this happen? I don't know. It certainly doesn't happen to Twilight when she first goes through the mirror. But this is the oh-so-important basis on which this story is built. Sunset is a 17-year-old in a 5-year-old's body, and with a 5-year-old's mind and emotional faculties, and she has a terrible time. This coupled with her own tragic flaw of pushing away anyone who wants to help her or get close to her is what creates a woman who would steal a magical artifact from another world and nearly destroy a high school.
Oh yeah, in case you wondered, the rest of this review is going to be me trying to convince you this story is worth your time, because it is. :B Other than the rare typo, the rest of the story is flawless. Like, the writing is so good? Perfectly paced, full of strong insight and motivation for the characters. Krickis wowed me early on by not only writing children well, but also the adults helping Sunset out. In particular, Violet Dusk, her social worker, is the kind of standout character who makes you love them from the word go.
The writing's also full of symbolism and imagery. Mirrors of course play a large role, first as potential portals that show her what she wants to be, and later objects of terror. Mirroring and reflection occurs frequently in the narrative. Fire represents Sunset herself. A flower she likes shows up during her less lucid periods, and has a surprise transformation near the end of the story. Ice and coldness also take center stage during a particularly dramatic sequence, and she's constantly complaining when it's winter out. Dreams are a big deal as well, and I'll talk about those more in depth in a minute, but they pervade the imagery. Someone in the comments compared the descriptions to a Dali painting, and they were right on the money with that.
You know, I mentally compared this story to Without a Hive. Not only do they both feature a character who grows up in an orphanage, they both put in a huge timeskip right when I was willing to continue reading about said character growing up in said orphanage. XD The four periods this story takes us through are Sunset's first trip through the portal, middle school, freshman year of high school, and senior year, which is when EQG takes place. Each of these is marked by Sunset struggling with the real world.
When she first comes to Humania, of course she's seen as just a little girl, but one who is incredibly well-spoken (and swears a lot) and smart beyond her years despite not being able to write her name. She can't answer a lot of the early questions — where do you live, where are you parents — so it's assumed she has amnesia. She does eventually open up about being from Equestria, but wouldn't you know it, that just gets her branded as crazy. So imagine being a five-year-old kid with this other lifetime's worth of memories that you can't share with anyone because they won't believe you; if she hadn't already been a pretty rotten person when she went through the mirror, no surprise she would have become one under this kind of mental and emotional strain.
Because it does strain her. Loneliness is a constant in her life, along with a sense of not belonging anywhere. The people of Earth don't believe she is who she is; she can't go back to Equestria because of what she's done. More than that, she starts having nightmares which often become daytime hallucinations. She hears Celestia's voice taunting her; her reflection spouts her worst self-hatred back at her. When she wakes up, she's never sure if she's a girl or a pony. Psychotic breaks happen all too frequently. And at least one of the dream sequences got under my skin a little just because it took a long time to reveal itself as a dream, but for the most part, they're used effectively to sort through her thoughts and her memories.
By the time she's twelve, after the first major timeskip, she's actually convinced herself that Equestria was just a child's fantasy, and she's just an orphaned loner who no one cares about. The crazy thing was, we're so deep in her mind the entire time, there were spots where I started doubting Equestria had ever existed! That's some strong narrative trickery!
But for the most part, this story is just heartbreaking. Like I said, we know where she's heading, but the author pulls no punches in getting her there. Whenever someone gets too close, she pushes them away, and if they persist? She hurts them. Most of this is her own hurt externalizing itself, but even before she had that whole dual-lives-crazy-girl thing going on, this was a factor in her life. I mean, she pushed Celestia away when she wouldn't tell Sunset the secret to becoming an alicorn. That's what set her down this path in the first place. And no one gets hurt more in this story than Applejack.
I was really surprised by Applejack's role in Looking Glass. They meet when they're kids, in a really memorable sequence that I won't spoil, and Applejack remains a constant in her life thereafter. Even when they part ways, she keeps showing back up. One of the big story climaxes involves them getting in a fist fight in the snow, and ends with Sunset having to save AJ's life. It was intense. This comes in a period of AJ's life when she's still dealing with the deaths of her parents — and as I noted in the comments, it's amazing how you can tell this is what's going on despite it not coming up in the text — and Sunset says the wrong shit. But afterward, Sunset keeps at it until Applejack finally leaves her alone, because that's what she wants.
Applejack in this story is really amazing. She's just got such a big heart, and boundless optimism that things will always get better with a hug and a talking-to. Even after losing her parents, she doesn't lose hope that she can find the best in Sunset. No, that takes the scene I described above, which finally teaches her that Sunset is an awful person who isn't willing to change. Despite the fact that Sunset spends a lot of time trying to tell Applejack (and everyone else around her) precisely that, actions as they say speak louder than words. By the time they enter high school together — they both went to CHS hoping to avoid the other — Applejack's done trying to be Sunset's friend, which is of course heartbreaking in and of itself.
The really keen thing through all of this is that Sunset actually cares a ton for Applejack, but she doesn't want to be friends or have AJ be close to her. I think this was actually a very important part of her character arc, because if she'd successfully pushed everyone away without leaving room in her heart for anyone, I don't think she could have been reformed at the end. She needed that hanging thread, that lingering doubt, that loose end of "this girl helped me when I needed it" that leads her to tell someone in their middle school that there's only one person she cares about. The assumption is that Sunset means herself, but of course, she doesn't.
(Sidebar: What Sunset's done to CHS by the start of the first movie, we also see her enacting at her middle school. Is this really a thing? I don't remember major drama like this in middle school, but then I was really autistic, naive and wrapped up in my own little world. I don't think I even had any friends; I sure wouldn't have noticed if it were happening, and doubt I would have been a target. Did you experience this kind of thing in school, middle or otherwise, or is the alpha bitch student less universal an experience than the EQG franchise would have liked us to believe?)
Let's talk about something that doesn't happen: Sunset doesn't kiss Applejack, despite me being agog at someone being so tsundere for friendship. <.< The Who We Become series description comes with a warning about "romantic drama" about queer characters, but there's no Romance tag here. Yes, I wanted more kissing; there is some (more on this later), but it's hardly a focus of the story. In fact, the 'queer issues' warning has almost nothing to do with this story, though I suspect that won't be case further into the series. Was I disappointed? Yes. I like when the horse girls kiss. :|
But I also like when they finally achieve true friendship in the end despite all their faults and the mistakes they've made along the way. It's a decent tradeoff.
Also, Flash Sentry's in there because of course he is. (No joke, he was actually really great in this story. He's this giant, affable dork who's just really earnest and easy for Sunset to take for a ride. I adore Krickis's portrayal of him, and while it's clear the bullet points for his character exist in the movies, I really wish they'd done him more like this, because he's an actual character.)
So yes, elementary school is about Sunset's arrival in the new world and the encounter at Sweet Apple Acres; middle school features the fist fight; freshman year is more low-key and features her getting to know Flash and deciding whether or not she's actually going to rule this school, too, while also trying to get emancipated and live on her own; and senior year is the plot of Equestria Girls. Which brings us to the end, and I want to spoil something because it's really cool and honestly the best part of the story: What happens when Sunset gets hit with the Elements of Harmony. Or the one, you know.
The keen-eyed reader might note that most chapters of Looking Glass are between about three and nine-thousand words apiece, with one major exception: Chapter 31 is over 20k. This is because it's actually three stories in one.
Again, major spoilers for the next few paragraphs.
So Sunset gets blasted by a friendship beam, and okay, wait, I actually need to stop and analyze that final movie scene for a second. "Take over Equestria with a horde of mind-controller teenagers" has always been one of those MLP villain plots lambasted as, quote, "really dumb", up there with [NON-CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENT ABOUT DUMB MLP VILLAIN PLOT]. What does this story do with that, how does it fit into her motives and character throughout the whole story?
Well, basically, it doesn't. She spends a number of chapters being haunted by her demon self, which is all her worst parts but also still just her, and once she's put the crown on, she gets drunk on power and just blindly does whatever it says, not thinking or really even cognizant of what's happening. And I think that's a really good way to approach this from a more realistic angle. It doesn't matter that the plot is stupid, it emerged from an unbridled id coupled with phenomenal power and a lifetime of hurt and self-loathing.
Plus, as the final full chapter reminds us, that was still Sunset. She's not absolved of her actions, because even if that were some nightmare parasite that had taken over her mind, it's only through the string of actions that she's taken over the course of her life — again, pushing away people who wanted to help, pushing away friendship and other interpersonal relationships — that she allowed it to take hold. She nurtured the worst parts of herself until they all but turned into a separate personality, and then once that personality grabbed hold of the power she always wanted? It ran a little rampant. It was clearly not stable. But then again, neither has Sunset ever really been stable. And that's a large part of her problem.
Okay, but back to the Elements. Friendship laser to the face. Blinding white flash, and she wakes up in a metaphor. Seriously, it's not like the Realm of the Alicorns or whatever, for all that it's all white. This is a place that demonstrates to her that the path she is on is that of her own design. She sees memories of major turning points in her life. And then she enters a realm of fanfiction, and I am not making this up because she literally touches a book to start the first sequence. >:B
What sees — what she is shown by the Elements — is an alternate timeline where one conversation ultimately leads to her happiness. This is maybe the third fic I've ever read where Sunset and Cadence are peers (and any story where a young Sunset punches and/or makes a young Princess Cadence cry is a good story in my book :'D), and the premise here is that if she had opened up to Cadence instead of ignoring her, her life would have turned around. I won't spoil the details, suffice to say that this is a complete story in its own right, taking us from pre-canon through to the Canterlot wedding, and past the end of season three into the opening scene of Equestria Girls (which is very cleverly mirrored from when we see that scene play out earlier).
This does two things really well. First, it gives us an Equestria where Sunset Shimmer is a major player, Twilight's predecessor without being her replacement. It gives Twilight things to do, many of them familiar to us (she, for instance, is sent to find the real Cadence while Celestia and Sunset hold off Queen Chrysalis, which, word to the wise, was fucking badass), and never robs her of her agency nor her eventual character payoff.
Second, it's the Element of Magic showing this to her, as I said. We've all wondered about just what it is the Elements actually do when the rainbow lasers come out, and I'd like to think this is precisely what a person like Sunset needed. Just a nudge to say, hey, I know you've still got some goodness in you; here's what you might have had if you'd made one or two decisions differently. Now you've got that knowledge, go use it.
It's the same with the second AU, which is basically an alternate ending for this story. Instead of pushing Applejack away after their fight, she opens up — again, just like with Cadence — and ends up becoming friends with the humane five once she enters high school. It's a really uplifting sequence, plus it's got some shipping (they both do).
And then Sunset just has to deal with the knowledge that she fucked herself out of that and hope that everyone giving her a second chance means she won't fuck up a third time. And that's where this story's power lies.
If people are telling you that they believe in you, that they expect big things of you, that they're proud of you, they want to listen, they care about you, they love you, it doesn't matter what your inside voice says. Don't let that be louder than the voices of those around you; those people aren't lying. And if you push them away, you're just going to be alone with the voices in your head, and you already know how much you don't like those. Seek friends, seek other people, don't let yourself be alone.
I love it when a story is written well enough that it gives me a lot to talk about and makes me sound like I know what the hell I'm talking about. :) I could add in things like how this has the most original use of Snips and Snails I've ever seen. I could mention that the humane five sound rather old for teenagers (Sunset of course gets a pass because she isn't one), but that that tracks with their portrayals in EQG, and that Sci-Twi is really the only one in their group who's really a teenager, except for Fluttershy, but that's because she's Fluttershy. I could point out that I love the little detail of how the number of kids at the orphanage fluctuates over time but is always above 20. I could mention that I spent the whole time wondering just what state Sunset was a ward of, and why that detail wouldn't have clued her in harder to the parallels between worlds. And how the temporal link between worlds is really played up. Or how a single emoticon was the creepiest thing ever. Or how the one chapter from Celestia's P.O.V. is maybe the best part, except for all the other best parts.
But I won't. Because all good things must come to an end. Just, believe you me, this is definitely a good thing. If I haven't convinced you that you need to read it, I don't know what else to say.
5/5
The best EQG fic I've ever read. This is going in my top fifteen.
It's just a shame the sequels are equally as long if not longer. >:|
God, I wish.
These days, the surest way to get a thousand views on a fic is to have written it four years ago. Sheer gradual readership takes care of the rest.
Well, a fic's got to hit a thousand views at some point.
I love this continuity. Finding Home is obviously my favorite of the bunch, but Amber Glow and Scootaloo's stories are also great. The only real flaw in it is that PinkieDash didn't happen because Rainbow couldn't be gay for Pinkie.
Also, the Human world is like, so much a shittier place to be a character in than the horse world.
But yeah. Read this story, Read the sequels. They are super good.
As for "In fact, the 'queer issues' warning has almost nothing to do with this story, though I suspect that won't be case further into the series"
Um yeah. Yeah it is. You've got a number of non-traditional relationships that future stories are about. From bi- and lesbian relationships, to trans issues, to gender fluidity, and polyamory and polygamy, to a lesbian liking a straight girl and it not working despite both parties giving it a shot. Also, Rainbow is pretty sure both Pinkies have fucked.
They are all really good fics.
From what you have said here, I can tell that this will be a good read. Definitely worth looking into.
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I looked at my five most recent fics on my userpage after posting this blog.
The oldest one has around 600 views. And each one has 100 less than the one before it. :/ (Princess's Captain of course doesn't count because it's ongoing.)
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Yeah, I figured as much. :)
I am so glad you covered this. It's one of the few I'd say is a near-flawless 11/10, would recommend to anyone. Anything negative I have to say is an afterthought. I don't know how it doesn't have more views and likes.
I really do need to go back and read the rest of Who We Become like I said I would, especially now that Inner Strength has been edited a lot.
Oh man now I gotta read that before this!
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Yup. My two most recent stories were published in March and June. One is focused on OC's and the other on a fan favorite character. They're roughly the same length, have excellent vote ratios, and are EqD approved, but neither has gotten that many views (based on my expectations at least). The OC story actually has more views, contrary to everything I've come to expect from publishing stories here.
Fimfic isn't the same place it was X years ago, my expectations might just need to catch up… The kind of stories I write isn't going to change, but the amount of ponies in them might.
I think it’s not just a case of readers going elsewhere (although that’s certainly a factor), but it’s the fact that there’s a far larger pool of stories than there were back in the day, and so readers can afford to be far more selective than they were in the early days of the fandom.
The print version of the story is also gorgeous.
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Yeah, definitely.
Or like me, just continually adding stuff to the list and having less time to read. :B
A fic so nice I told Krickis fuck you I'm writing my own sequel where the horse girls get to be happy c.c
Because GODDAMN are you in for a rollercoaster with the rest/others...
City of Everton, Canter County. Either North Carolina or Virginia, me'n Kricks have gone both ways on it.
I had to stop reading this every few minutes to happy stim, your words mean so much to me here that they were positively overstimulating (but in a good way)
I've gotten a few reviews here and there, but this is by far my favorite. Not just because it's so positive, but I really appreciate how thorough the review is. Thank you so much, I really appreciate it!
I will say that I have the same thoughts on the prologue. Actually, I'm probably more negative about it than you are lol, I hate that prologue and it's the one place I felt canon held me back. It was an eight page comic, so it didn't have the time to make emotional dialogue, but I did. I feel like I should have kept the same story but rewritten the exchange between Celestia and Sunset. I had never considered that the first chapter is generic for pony on earth stuff, but I can absolutely see why it would be; I've never read any other pony on earth stories (not that I thought I was the first by any means, I was aware of the genre just haven't read it).
I don't think the alpha bitch thing is a real thing, just a common trope in school stories because it makes for a good villain on the school level.
I had more to say when I was reading, but I'm just too xjajqkejr to think it through right now. Thank you again, this really means a lot to me!
Great to see this story getting some love! The entire series is fantastic (and from this point forward is far more focussed on romantic drama) but there is something truly special about Looking Glass. I often say it is the one good age regression fic since it actually fully considers all of the ramifications of having a near adult thrust into the body/mind of a 5 year old. It's not pretty, but damn was it interesting. There's not many series that I completely ignore the word count on because I just know I'll enjoy any story in it. I'd put this series up there with some of SS&E's best work or Kudzuhaiku's Weedverse.
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well heck c.c
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Thank you. :)
I just spent money on the Lulu print of this, due the glowing review.
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That's too true. I try a little to read newer stories, hopefully ones with authors who are still around to see the comments.