) Disney saw fit to re-release The Phantom Menace in cinemas for one week for the film’s 25th anniversary (only two weeks off). It almost slipped my mind until today, hence Monday Musings being a few hours later (advantage of a Bank Holiday, peeps – a freeGhost Mike's Ponyfic Review Monday Musings #11 · 5:00pm May 16th, 2022
Eh, the cover screencaps/gifs and funny captions lasted 10 blogs, but they’re not worth the effort to bring up every week. Leave them for when inspiration strikes, I say! It’s all about streamlining, my friends.
In light of Make Your Mark being a mere ten days away, I’m bringing back another review blog of Gen 5-only Ponyfics… next week. Still undecided at what point to start mixing them in with the Gen 4 content (my backlog of Gen 5 fics read is a small enough portion as to not yet require it), so for now, it’s remaining secluded. Of course, we can hardly wait until September to look at such fics again, so mixing is an inevitability.
That’s next week, though. For now, let’s keep to our delightfully flat, Flash-animated* equines that captured our hearts all these years ago.
* Toon Boom for the 2017 Movie, Best Gift Ever, the shorts between Seasons 8 & 9, Season 9, and Rainbow Roadtrip.
This Week’s Spectral Stories:
Spring Weather by Admiral Biscuit
Thought I'd Let You Know... by Gyro Steambass
Scientific Progress Goes Crash by Drax
I Don't Want To Write This by Aragon
Secretary by Snowybee
Weekly Word Count: 20,265 Words
Spring Weather by Admiral Biscuit
Genre: Slice of Life/Romance
OC/Other (w/Human)
1,325 Words
April 2022
You would think that by the time the calendar hit April, when the equinox had long since passed, and even the clocks had switched to Daylight Savings, that the spring weather would actually be, you know, spring weather. Missouri and its reputation for snow would disagree. To a pony used to the spring equinox marking a hard, definitive end to winter back in Equestria, this is especially bothersome.
I put off reviewing any of Admiral Biscuit’s stories for a while because, frankly, they’re hard to dissect. For those of you who don’t know, the majority of his works concern ponies on a human Earth without more than a fragmented explanation as to how or why, usually pivoting on the culture clash. They are not serious story-driven pieces; we’re dropped into a scenario of original characters (sometimes from the human’s POV, sometimes from the pony’s), and it’s all about the light, fuzzy moments along the way. Man’s got the art of this down to a science, though – I’m a ghost who stays many dimensions away from any HiE stories or those involving humans at all, and yet I largely look forward to Admiral Biscuit’s stories, and not just because all the usual ickiness of those topics are kept far removed. Whether they are loaded with research into a topic it’s centred around (usually motor vehicles, or recently trains and locales across the United States), or about matters so simple anyone can grasp them. Like this one here.
Not much to this one, given the short length: we have the mild grumpiness of our lead pony, Cinnamon Breeze, at the lack of structure to Earth weather intermingled with home and work details about the life of her and her human partner*, threaded along one morning of the two getting up and heading off to their individual jobs. Cute, fluffy, amusing. Just another day at the office for Admiral Biscuit, but that guarantees a baseline enjoyment. Even if this is hardly one of his standout fluff pieces that’ll linger in the mind, you can’t go wrong here.
Rating: Decent
* This is like the 3rd human/pony story of Admiral Biscuit’s I’ve read where the main human’s name is primarily a guy’s name, or at least equally unisex, and thus when female pronouns start getting used, it’s always a jolt. Dunno why he often opts for female humans with names that will get assumed as male (I’ve read the comments in these stories, I’m not alone in assuming this), but I guess three times makes a tradition.
Thought I'd Let You Know... by Gyro Steambass
Genre: Sad/Dark (Alternate Universe)
Twilight, Spike, Celestia
1,475 Words
April 2014Reread
Listened to via Scribbler's reading
Twilight has written to Celestia frequently since she first came to Ponyville, and never received a reply. At first it only hurt a little. Now, though… now it’s more than Twilight can bear. So much she can barely string herself together to comprehend why, let alone write and ask.
The author straight up admits in the Author’s Note for the epilogue chapter (where the answer itself is) that said epilogue is not good, and some folks may be better off not reading it. The story’s comments, and the fact it was added two days after publication, confirm it was written off of viewer appetite. Which is totally understandable: both the story’s packaging and content of that first chapter beg the viewer to want to know why Celestia has never replied. Thus, despite the fact that said explanation is an utter botch, where even if the reader can see Celestia acting this way they still want to deck her six ways to Sunday, it’s mandatory reading – I can’t see anyone choosing to skip it, whatever I say. It’s an ugly conundrum that leaves the story finishing on a very dissatisfying note.
Not that the main chapter is some paragon of writing. It does, at least, have the letter within feel like a letter, helped by all the crossing-outs and starting-over sentences, giving it a raw, naked feeling. But it’s not enough to stop it feeling, even in isolation, like pretty typical “dark cynical bent on Twilight/Celestia’s relationship” schtick, and the writing itself, once separated from the excellent reading, is quite shaky, mangling the balance of tell-and-show and repeating itself on end (to be fair, the author admitted their difficulty with making it the 1,000-word minimum; had the second chapter being there from the start, this wouldn’t have been an issue).
Bottom line, a poor answer that’s impossible to ignore wanting to read further to, coupled with shaky delivery of a stock idea, leaves this one rather rickety.
Rating: Weak
Scientific Progress Goes Crash by Drax
Genre: Comedy/Slice of Life
Twilight, Rainbow Dash
2,598 Words
August 2015
Twilight’s fed up with Rainbow Dash crashing into her library, and even more so of the automated “just practising my flying” response. With her initial theories of Dash doing it for fun or being a klutz quickly disproven, Twilight concludes further study is needed. Study that involved a slight breach of personal privacy…
Getting a library-set fic where Twilight is still a princess is rare enough, especially one written after Season 4 finished. Accordingly, there’s a decent amount of Twilight’s laser-minded approach to a problem overriding other concerns here, leading to some funny jokes and imagery. It’s goofy stuff, from the automated model tracking Dash’s movements down to a model of Ponyville in the library. Twilight’s thoughts – like knowing she’s gonna get an earful from the Mayor later for shutting the library for this, and sending Spike off to avoid his moral compass getting in the way – really do make the first half of this fic.
For all that, it’s pretty featherweight stuff, and the foregone conclusion of Dash doing it on purpose and why, with Twilight being ever-so-oblivious to it, lands softly. There isn’t even a real dive into said reason, it’s just implied, and at the end of this, development and resolution are off the ground. This wouldn’t be an issue if the comedy carried the whole fic, but it’s not quite that strong, and slows down by the end anyway. It doesn’t finish on the best note, certainly.
Still, I grinned and had a good time, so I have no qualms about the rating. The fic’s success can hardly be blamed, the title (plus reference therein!) and cracking description are quite the hook.
Rating: Decent
I Don't Want To Write This by Aragon
Genre: Drama/Slice of Life
Rainbow Dash
4,001 Words
February 2015
Locked in a room with no way out until she writes a letter to somepony close to her, Rainbow Dash has to confront both her recent actions, and parts of herself she prefers to not touch.
What we’ve got here is a character study of Rainbow Dash in a time of grief. The proper stuff, where both the body and the mind doesn’t know how to process it, and one both lashes out at others while also internalising a lot, until others perform an intervention. To my immense surprise, this worked, really well, and on reflection, this struck me as how Rainbow Dash would have reacted in this situation. Why I was surprised, I don’t know – maybe because Aragon’s a comedy writer, which shame on me for pigeonholing a writer that good.
For starters, this avoids almost all the annoying failures of both ‘letter’/’journal’ stories, and these kinds of grief stories (it reveals the source a third of the way in, which was still about double the space I’d figured it out, but details, details). Never for a moment in these 4,000 words do you forget who’s writing, to the extent that it sometimes feels too raw and real, more like a voice recording, but not distractingly so. Granted, there are some moments that feel a bit self-aware, more like narration, and a bit irrelevant to the point of the letter writing. Still, with a match between form and content this good, I’m not going to dwell on the small slips. Apologies if I haven’t discussed the story’s merits much, but they’re defying a lengthy explanation for me currently.
Just about the only actual complaint I’ve got is that even given the situation Rainbow Dash is in, I don’t believe she’d write this much. Easy to forget for us computer jockeys, but handwriting hoofwriting mouthwriting wingwriting is a far slower and more taxing process, especially in one sitting for that much. It could stand to be more concise, maybe? There are repetitive moments within that feel justified, but I dunno, I think the piece needs some truncating. Not just for realism, it does feel like it’d be more emotionally impactful. Which, obviously I can’t tell someone how effective it is there, that’s in the eye of the beholder. Me, no tears, sadly. Make no mistake, it’s quite the moving piece, I was just more aware of that rather than feeling it, as it were.
Eh, I digress. It’s a pretty fantastic character study, which is what it really is, not a sadfic. While I don’t quite feel it’s top-tier, it’s still worthy of a pretty hefty recommendation. And for a story Aragon wrote on a dare! I’ll never be so quick to genre-cast a writer again.
Rating: Really Good
Raven Inkwell is many things – punctual with a sharp tongue, some might say. Primarily, of course, she’s the personal secretary of Celestia, and a close friend too. Just when she thinks she’s got the job underhoof, foxes from a far-off land arrive to further communications with Equestria. Now, on top of avoiding causing any offence, she has to keep up with Celestia’s mind games, all while keeping professional. A secretary’s gotta play the part, after all.
This story definitely has one of the more unique portrayals of Celestia I’ve seen in a while – literally the first thing is her smoking a pipe. And it only gets more odd from there, with a relationship between her and Raven that, at least behind closed doors, has none of the professional measured politeness such characters always carry. They rib at each other, and don’t hesitate to pepper in vulgarity, yet it all feels genuine. On reflection, I have elected to find this charming. The swearing does get weirdly off-putting in other parts, but I won’t dwell there, it still feels of a place with the piece.
It’s a good thing that gives the story a backbone (well, that and the arc of Raven wondering if she’s up to the mad requirements this position necessitates sometimes), because the rest is a tricky thing to get a handle on. A fast-tracked meeting morphs into their research getting sabotaged morphs into a friction-heavy political meeting morphs into a more private conversation with two outsiders morphs into a ponynapping morphs into a, a, a… If that all sounds a bit madcap and erratic, then I have encapsulated the experience of what reading this story is like. The events within make sense on reflection, but the modulation from part to part is just… disjointed, in a way I can’t put my mitt on. It’s not alone – there are some odd choices in character voicing throughout, with many paragraphs requiring a reread to figure out who was speaking. If there’s one thing you don’t want, it’s immersion-breaking confusion like that. Similarly, some non-dialogue chunks, especially one or two high-tension scenes towards the end, are really confusing to follow. And while it didn’t bother me, it’s not really a comedy, outside of the juxtaposition of just what Celestia and Raven’s professional/personal relationship is like.
I don’t want to take away from the fact that this story was a fun and entertaining read. The lore around the kitsunes’ culture (not named thus in the story, but with all their Japanese-based customs, they might as well be) delights, at least until the story gets addicted to u-turns towards the end. For all that the dialogue is sometimes confusing, it’s striking and memorable, and the ideas never let up. I did enjoy it – I just wish it would have met me halfway and facilitated the read better, rather than generating dilution due to storytelling confusion. Some people won’t have those issues, and like this more than I did; others will find it fully confusing and off-putting. Take my middle-of-the-road evaluation with a grain of salt – it’s the kind of mixed reaction indicating a large gulf in possible takes, rather than just a flat ambience.
Rating: Decent
Spooky Summary of Scores:
Excellent: 0
Really Good: 1
Pretty Good: 0
Decent: 3
Passable: 0
Weak: 1
Bad: 0
Tell Your Tale: Commentary Corner
Hope there’s a sound reason for that all-caps title…
We start off with Izzy performing a bad Haka, proclaiming it’s Tee-You-Eee-Es Day (written phonetically here to drill in the ‘joke’), complete with dropping her voice into unconvincing male territory. The other girls are stunned mid-breakfast until Sunny realises she’s late to open the smoothie cart (which she mispronounces ‘court’ – did they only have time for one take?), with Zipp and Pipp also heading off to an already-started marathon and Mane Melody. Izzy’s proclamation that the day stands for Unicorn Expression of Sparkle Day (work on your abbreviations, honey), a special day for unicorns and their friends, goes unnoticed. I might feel bad for Izzy if she’d bothered to mention this day to her friends, you know, on an earlier day. Don’t feel bad, plot contrivances are a dime-a-dozen round here.
After several visual instances, this is the first dialogue confirmation of Sunny running the smoothie cart, for what it’s worth. And I guess only Sunny, Pipp and Hitch have day jobs then? Must mean a lot of days around the house for Zipp and Izzy. Then again, Zipp could be busy with science experiments much of the time…
Course, with almost 60 seconds of 300 already gone (
), Izzy’s sad wonderings of making a unicorn friend quickly lead to her grabbing anything round and outside the lighthouse to actually make one. Toy Story 4 beat you to that joke by almost 3 years, dear. Still, uni-cycling in action, complete with electric dischargers! Though the Frankenstein parody as she proclaims the result clues us in to the… monstrosity she’d made. Like, Senor Butterscotch is practically creative, but if she starts treating it like it’s a real friend… well, it fits for Izzy’s past.
Jokey ventriloquism isn’t the worst place to start from. Taking the thing to Male Melody for a dual beauty treatment, on the other hand… Yeah, if I were Jazz, and Izzy kept throwing her voice onto that thing, and it's "leg" fell out, I’d be horrified too.
Hm, seems the Maretime Bay cinema only has one thirty-seat screen. Finally, something that fits the town’s size. Wish they went beyond the basic parody lines of “Trotformers, roll out!” and “Autobots, transform!”, though. And seriously, guys, stop trying to turn Posey into the new Where’s Derpy. Pick other ponies to cameo! Though it’s better than last week, her anger at Izzy and Butterscotch blocking the way and dunking food/drink on her at least fits her “personality” established thus far.
Knowing this fandom, that odd subversion of the Lady and the Tramp spaghetti moment is enough evidence for a ship. Hitch getting startled, blowing his whistle and ploughing through hedges as he runs away… not clear whether he’s taking action or scared. Now, Sunny’s reaction when the two show up at her cart, that’s animated unambiguously!
Now we… shift perspective to the other four (really thought this was a mostly-solo outing), with Zipp and Pipp sharing stories about what they saw Izzy and Bucket-of-Bolts doing, while Sunny realises… that she forgot it was the special unicorn friendship day of the title. Fixes the earlier issue, but now Sunny’s the one with the forgetful Plot Contrivance Ball for the episode. And I’m gonna ignore the “it’s Thursday” non-jokes.
Naturally, they all surprise Izzy with a celebration back at the house, complete with another Haka-esque dance (having done it, it’s not a flattering impression). When she thinks they pretended to forget, Sunny admits the truth. Sweet, but rote and formulaic. I can see her admitting they’re still learning about being friends and what’s important to each other flying in a more grounded, sincere and longer show, but not here. Least Izzy’s happy she gets to do this clunky unicorn friendship day all over again. Plus, Butterscotch gets levitated into the party too.
“Optimare Prime”, says the voice credit. Except, you know, male voice, and voiced by a man. An incidental character only named in the credits, not a big deal, but come on now.
Man, last week’s focused episode with only two characters and a Sunny cameo really spoiled us, huh? We’re right back to usual territory of a plot squeezed down – the switch from “insensitive to Izzy” territory in the setup to the limp “Party of One” pastiche of the middle and back to the repeat take on Nightmare Roomate may be one of the worst cases of tonal whiplash yet. Lesson obligation meant they didn’t even commit to the sedate mental craziness of Izzy and Butterscotch… It’s more than just switching moods too quickly, they don’t even feel like they’re from the same episode. And the flat, processed nature of the animation and voice “acting” just makes the moral resolution so drab. Throw in weak, unfunny lore existing just for this short, and yup, it’s Tell your Tale all right. That said, I did marginally prefer this to Nightmare Roomate, as it focused far less on Izzy’s friends being bad apples and got some… well, not good gags out of the middle, but there were less bad jokes there than most. Oh, and them bailing yet again on a proper Izzy episode is also something to be thankful for – getting this limp exercise that doesn’t even register her loneliness beyond what’s needed to set up the plot, she deserves better.
- Foal Me Once (Ep. 8)
- Mane Melody (Ep. 5)
- The Unboxing of Izzy (Ep. 6)
- Zipp's Flight School (Ep. 2)
- IT’S T.U.E.S. DAY [sic] (Ep. 9)
- Sisters Take Flight (Ep. 3)
- Nightmare Roomate [sic] (Ep. 4)
- A Home to Share (Ep. 1)
- Clip Trot (Ep. 7)
Hm, I liked Aragon's story, but it's not one of his better ones. I'm kind of a stickler for format, and there were a few things that didn't make this feel like an authentic letter. Some mundane, like what the difference between italics and regular font is supposed to be when it's handwritten, and some stylistic, like it not always feeling like Dash would have her attention on something she's writing about. I could take it as a monologue a lot easier than a letter. The twist is pretty obvious up front, and then you're just waiting for her to finally say it. However, it is an Aragon story, and he has a way of turning a phrase that makes even his middle-of-the-pack stuff enjoyable to read.
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Not remotely a surprise, given you've produced one of the best letter stories I've ever read in The Art and Science of Letter Writing!
Aye, as noted, I did feel that – it's revealed about 1/3 into the story, and I pegged it 500 words in, meaning there was almost another 1,000 of wheel-spinning for me reading it. It'll be different for different folks, but it's another reason, on top of Dash not writing that much even in situation, why a more truncated and compact letter would have flown better.
Amen to that. It's arguable that it's perhaps not quite a Really Good story, but it worked really well for me, and that's enough. Reviewing's never 100% subjective, after all. As well you know!
the summaries make it sound like this show is just getting worse <.<
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I wouldn’t say that, as I do feel the weekly-released episodes are largely better than those from that first release batch, excepting the Tik Tok monstrosity two weeks ago. But certainly, after last week’s short was almost at the level of an EqG short – disposable and quickly forgotten, but largely inoffensive – we’re back to the same pile of problems. I will spot your comment in that it gets more dispiriting the more one witnesses the stale writing formula get used again and again with minimal variety. Thus making the episodes feel worse even if they’re not.
We’re still several shakes above whatever the hay Pony Life was doing. I don’t see this descending to the Actually Unwatchable territory of that outside of rare blips. It’s a small comfort. And perhaps it’s just the recent screenshots and clips of the new sets in the CG content, but I do quite like the backgrounds and designs there. Unexpectedly, they’re the best element.
Also, low key, but your trying to make sense of these Commentary Corners every week, blind, is a highlight of doing these for me, buddy.
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G5 pony as filtered through your descriptions is a terrifying beast :B
-Gawd, Izzy's toy looks like the villain of a FnaF ripoff game.
-Secretary has my attention for the cover art, and lovely slice-of-life with Sunbutt is always welcome.
-Thought I'd let you Know does the opposite, as the premise feels like a pointless "Change plot details so you FEEL SAD NOW" combined with clickbait Celestia-hate seemingly designed to stoke people against her. Like those early-fandom Lunafics and Lunacultists who desperately shuffled details to make Celestia the bad guy while pounding the reader's FEEL SAD buttons to elicit sympathetic rage.
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Even my limited outsider experience of FNaF leads me to agree with this. Bucket-of-Bolts (no, I'm not calling it Butterscotch) has the potential to spawn creepy fanfiction/fanart. If, y'know, this web series lend itself to inspiring that sort of stuff at all. Which it really doesn't.
You can thank the Subscription Cover Variant for Issue #61 of the mainline comics for that! Great art, even if for this fic, Twilight was understandably cropped off. Pretty neat of the comics to run with Unicorn Raven and her paperwork role, given that was a recycling error and she appeared as an Earth Pony aide to Mayor Mare more – she even mentions she handles the aftermath of Twilight's adventures like the peace treaty between the buffalo and the Appleloosian ponies, with the exact level of unamused wit you'd figure. She serves as an archivist in that two-parter. It has problems like most of the comics, but is one of the better ones from around it's time (it was actually the first issue I read when it was new, as opposed to catching up with the backlog, so there's a slight sentiment there).
But yes, the slice-of-life intimacy with Celestia is really good in The Secretary, and if that interests you, you'll dig it, and then some, odd writing quirks and structure be darned.
Yeah, I'm still getting the odd fic I should have read but where my curiosity got the better of me out of the backlog. Usually they get in because my fondness for Scribbler's readings overrides my defences. Still, I suppose the lower ratings do need to see some action, don't they? Though ideally with fics that had the potential to be interesting rather than wallowing in old tropes like that.
The obligatory wave here from the annoying guy who liked that "TikTok monstrosity" -- even though I have very little interest indeed in actual TikTok.
But still, I think you may be the only person doing serious, full-length (by some of our standards!) reviews on TYT, and that counts for a lot.
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That image isn't showing up for me, btw. Might just be me, but thought I'd give you a heads-up.
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Well, after the first standalone Commentary Corner on Mane Melody ballooned out to almost 2,000 words, they’ve been more manageable. 1,200 words for the following two, just under 1,000 last week, and under 900 for this one! I don’t know how much more they’ll get squeezed down, but they’ll probably keep shrinking marginally as there’s less new things to say with each short, given how beholden they are to formula.
Besides which, I wouldn’t consider them reviews. There’s a reason they’re titled Commentary Corner, after all.
The stream-of-consciousness flow to them, with only a paragraph or two of normal review thoughts at the end, makes FoME’s Friendship Is Card Games the closest comparison, minus the card games. Though perhaps not as concise here, as I don’t assume the reader has a working knowledge of the given short or just watched it, so more context is provided.
And “serious reviews”, heh. Like the snark and asides and image links peppered throughout don’t make them more of a casual lark than my usual fare.
It’s not meant to be embedded and visible here, but a link to the full cover. If you mean the link is not bringing up the image for you? Working fine for me, buddy.
Thanks for the review!
The culture clash is the fun part. How (or why) they got there is less fun. I’ve got a few stories that go into depth about how the ponies get there (or how the humans get to Equestria), but most of my one-shots don’t worry too much about that.
Hmm . . .
I assume that one of them you’re referring to is Sam in Sam and Rose, where that was a deliberate choice. I have no idea what the second one is.
As for Harper . . . all the Harpers I know are female. Doesn’t mean it isn’t a guy’s name, too, I have no idea. Perhaps there could be regional differences; I read a fic where the protagonist was named “Lee,” which the author meant to be a unisex name, although all the Lees I know are dudes.
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Correct, but I've worked out why now. The link goes (for me) to this URL:
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/0/05/Comic_issue_61_sub_cover.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20170920162007If I chop off everything after ".jpg" it shows up fine, but not with the extra guff. So all well now.
Thanks for the review! I get pigeonholed by about everyone, so don't sweat it much; comes with writing comedies 99% of the time. I had a running joke back in the day where I'd wait for the inevitable comments that went "oh my god you can REALLY write??" whenever I posted something serious. All in good spirits, mind.
Either way! That story should've been shorter, i agree. I didnt edit it half as much as i should have, but i still edited it a lot (original was 6k! Imagine. Tedious as hell it was). It's an old one, so not particularly torn on it, but still, i can't say i don't agree with the review.
Also! The secretary! That was an entry for my comedy contest, and if i remember correctly it was my personal pick because like. It was weird and it took odd choices with the characterizations, and the voicing was strange, and it was just so fun. I had so much fun reading it, it had so much heart. You could tell Snowybee had an absolute blast writing it, and I enjoyed it so much because of it. Definitely one of the stories i have the most fond memories of. Hell of a good time.
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6K? On my lord, thanks for that.
Truth be told, I probably get hung up a lot on "is this the right length for this story", and even if I'm mostly reviewing one-shots where you feel the short difference more, it's probably a bit too much. Especially as I'm hardly the master of conciseness myself! Thus, I only try to bring it up where the extra length is an active detriment to the work. And I wouldn't say that was the case here, more of a mild softening.
I didn't notice until you pointed out when it was written either, I think it still holds up really well for being over seven years old. I mean, I felt it was before Season 7, otherwise the mentions of Dash's parents would have had a few canon details sprinkled in, but you know.
Perfectly fair, I can totally see that, especially for a comedy connoisseur like yourself. It's certainly memorable and uniquely weird, and full of personal passion. Hence my cautioning that I think there'll be a wide gulf in how people jibe with it, and despite my pointing out such things, one really needs to read it themselves to see how it suits them. It's certainly one of the most "you still need to read this" Decent stories I've reviewed, a tier that normally means "worth it if it interests you, even if it's not quite worth a solid recommendation". It takes all kinds, sure!