Ghost Mike's Ponyfic Review Monday Musings #14 · 5:05pm Jun 6th, 2022
Aw, geez, not even 15 blogs in, and I’m already reaching for things to say for these intros. Hope that isn’t a sign of things to come!
Okay, that’s not strictly true. I have been structuring my reading time a bit more, enough to slow/stop the decreasing backlog of prepared reviews. It’ll be a little while before it’s returned to the safe threshold of when I started these (that was nearly 50 stories, somehow), but it’s something.
I’ve also been gradually trying to get in some longer stories too. Not too long, but eagle-eyed readers will notice the last few weeks have had a novelette in. My goal for now is to try and have at least one 15-30K story each week, and as can be seen below, that’s getting the average word count around the 30K mark, which is nice. I’m hoping soon to increase that, and get in longer novellas, but no rush yet, eh?
Anyway, time for some stories. And it’s a pretty strong crop this week too!
This Week’s Spectral Stories:
Best Friends Forever by Obselescence
The Secret of Celestia by Blueshift
The Joy Hive by TheDriderPony
Friendship = Evil by PaulAsaran
The Thinkin' Spot by bats
Weekly Word Count: 31,418 Words
Best Friends Forever by Obselescence
Genre: Dark/Sad
Twilight, Celestia, Mane 6
3,702 WordsReread
Listened to via Scribbler's reading
A long time after she last saw them, Celestia pays Twilight and her friends a visit. After all this time, she still has much to do.
Despite Obselescence being one of the largest authors on Fimfiction, with over 3,000 followers, I have read almost none of their work, just this and In Memory Of, and I don’t remember anything about either. Them having left Fimfiction five years ago, several months before I would see my first My Little Pony content at all*, will do that. If this fic represents the normal quality of their work, that small sample will have to change soon.
* Almost five years since I saw my first My Little Pony content with the film? Geez, when you say it like that… I’m sure that’s peanuts to all you lifers who came along into 2012/13, but it seems pretty titanic to Casper here.
I’m loath to give away much more, because going into this story as blind as the sparse description permits is very satisfying (and gladly, I’d forgotten it totally, so this reread was like coming to it afresh again). Suffice to say there are hints right from the outro that something is wrong, from the descriptions of the landscapes Celestia is flying over, to the wards she has to get past to penetrate the former Castle of the Two Sisters, down to the accommodations within, and who’s there. I’ll only say that is one of the better fics I’ve read in quite some time of Twilight having gone properly psychologically crazy, and gets bonus points for ending on a gut-wrenching decision. Even before that, the growing tension throughout as the reader learns more, and the characters’ patience wears thin, keeps it going well.
I will scale my praise back a little; it’s a well-executed version of darkfic concepts normally done poorly, but not so impactful to fully rise above its genre. And as much as it wisely doesn’t directly explain main things therein (the characters already know, after all), and opts to let the reader infer it through side hints, I wish the narrative didn’t lapse into some of its cases of outright telling us what was happening. Just a little tighter voice control.
Still, this is definitely worth a read, even if one normally doesn’t care for these kinds of darkfics. And it’s given extra power from Scribbler’s reading, even if I don’t fully agree with the casting choices for Celestia and Twilight (though the latter emotes pain so well it's almost tangible). A gripping and engaging one.
Rating: Pretty Good
The Secret of Celestia by Blueshift
Genre: Comedy/Random
Twilight, Celestia, Spike
1,088 WordsListened to via Scribbler's reading
Celestia has many secrets. But this one in particular, once revealed to Twilight, will change everything. And… perhaps raise more questions than it answers.
Knowingly dumb, random and stupid, this fic holds nothing back in its Abridged Series-style humour (I gather this to be a speciality of Blueshift), with Celestia being smug to the moon and back, dropping random “what the” bombshells as the fic deconstructs the Chessmaster Celestia trope six ways to Sunday, all while paying no attention to Twilight being so shocked and flabbergasted. It knows not to dwell on such things, turning corners with not one but two “twists” at the end that fly because of the “why not” tone it’s indulged in to that point.
I confess, this type of humour is not really for me, but as a random fic of its type goes, it works. You’ll probably either laugh, or shake your head yet smile in doing so. Gets in and out in barely 1,000 words too, I’d probably look less fondly on this if it tried to sustain it for longer than such a dumb joke could be held. Oh, if only more dumb joke fics knew to get out before their lack of substance starts to itch!
Rating: Decent
The Joy Hive by TheDriderPony
Genre: Comedy/Slice of Life (Alternate Universe)
Pinkie, Mane 6, Changelings
19,156 Words (16,183 Words if omitting original ending)
In the wake of the wedding at Canterlot, Pinkie stumbles home, well weary from all the events. A wedding, an invasion, the cleanup, and a wedding again, it’s enough to exhaust even her! Yet shortly after collapsing into bed, she becomes aware she is not alone. There is a changeling in her room. A small, weak hungry changeling.
Unsurprisingly, Pinkie feels pity and compassion for it, and keeps it secret in her party cave. Surprisingly, this kick-starts a chain of events, opening up a new chapter in life for her and too many others to count.
While, like any type of Ponyfic, they run into danger of repetition of certain story types and tropes, I remain a sucker for a good changeling fic. And is this ever one. Given that plot, you’d expect a longfic, or at least a novella, of Pinkie gradually nursing and befriending this changeling, and it coming to earn its place in the community. Effective if very standard and ordinary fare.
TheDriderPony doesn’t give us that. Instead, he gives us a fragmented approach, one where each chapter takes place after a time skip (with very clever yet subtle signposts along the way to keep it on the path of canon, even if it is an AU), and which uses the leap forward in progress and the re-contextualisation to its advantage. Each chapter functions like its own story, but also as a part of a wider whole. It’s fabulous economic storytelling, one where you want more but know it’s perfect as it is.
Of course, it wouldn’t be that way were it not for the writing within. The development of how the changeling, and others, come to respect and adore Pinkie is grounds enough for this, you get a good sense of how her presence has softened them, but they are still unmistakably changelings. The development of the titular hive as it progresses is another great element, boosted by the time skips. Every plot development feels just right. And while a relatively minor element, the changeling lore within, in its few fic-invented ideas, remains as interesting and as delectable as it ever was.
The real triumph, though, is how Pinkie is written. There’s not a drop of flanderisation anywhere, an almost perfect mix of her taking the appropriate situations seriously, yet remaining purely Pinkie. Her bubbly, caring personality really shines through sweetly in those early chapters, and it gets moments in the later ones too. Like the plot, every moment done with Pinkie just feels right, enough so I can’t think of much else to add there.
For a fic where basically everything goes right at every step for the focused characters, it’s amazingly gripping, and a pure pleasure. The one weak link, the original ending chapter, doesn’t even apply, having been replaced with a longer, better, more organically connected one, TheDriderPony having decided to rectify the fic’s most common criticism following its submission in an Imposing Sovereigns contest (I feel ya, buddy; cuts or revisions, it’s good to improve an piece post-publication when the flaw is that clear-cut, Imposing Sovereigns or otherwise). Wordcount limit notwithstanding, this could well have won with the revised ending, rather than placing 3rd with the original.
I debated what rating to give this fic, but it honestly gave me that much pleasure, and is one I think just about everyone should read. That made my mind up for me; this is a superb little novelette. Welcome to Ghost Mike’s Changeling Hall of Fame*, The Joy Hive. Hope you enjoy the prestigious company.
* Not an actual viewable bookshelf.
Rating: Excellent
Friendship = Evil by PaulAsaran
Genre: Comedy/Slice of Life
Twilight, Celestia
2,393 WordsReread
Trouble in the bowels of the Royal Canterlot Library? Trouble involving the latest royal student Twilight Sparkle? Call the Princess. But this isn’t the usual sort of trouble. This time, Celestia’s little pupil had made a fort of books. One sizable enough to require most of the library’s contents. Oh, and she’s also come up with a theory via a personal logical path of deduction, one that Celestia, millennium of experience be darned, couldn’t have expected.
‘Adorable’ isn’t a sufficient review, I’m told, so I’ll go a little further. Celestia and Filly Twilight stories are hardly rare, but they’re not uber-common either. But even if they were, you’d be hard-pressed to find one more pleasurable and delightful than this. We spend the first half with Celestia approaching the library, getting the lowdown from her staff, and then approaching and breaching the focal book fort. Or palace, as it were (the chapter title ‘At the Palace of Book’ should tell what kind of tone we’re working with). The second half concerns Celestia figuring out why Twilight did this, discovering what she thinks of Cadance and Shining Armor, and having to confront Twilight’s theory and exactly what logical reasoning led her to this.
The characterisation in this is just perfect. The naive innocence of a kid Twilight’s age crossed with her adorkable reasoning and approach to solutions lead to a seemingly infinite array of moments that will have you grinning, shaking your head, going “Oh, Twilight”, knowing she’ll get it one day, and so forth. It’s exactly like reading/watching the best Winnie the Pooh material out there, and for similar reasons, having the satisfaction of seeing a child approach something as only they can. Having these reactions mirrored in Celestia’s approach through tightly-controlled pacing (there’s lots of quick asides that are extra effective due to being unstressed), with a little toddler Spike at the side, and many lines I daren’t spoil if you haven’t read it (though being PaulAsaran’s top-rated fic, you probably have; I had before, don’t think I’m that late to the party), makes this one a treat.
It’s a simple fic, but proof that being delightful and adorable, done this expertly, suffices as well as a much more complicated fic. The perfect little story to go to if one is feeling down or needs a pick-me-up – I can’t fault the author for returning to it for a smile even now and then!
Rating: Really Good
The Thinkin' Spot by bats
Genre: Slice of Life
Twilight, Applejack
5,079 Words
Getting Winter Wrap Up in order was a rewarding ordeal for Twilight, but it was still an ordeal. In the midst of a break before an all-nighter for everypony to wrap it all up, Applejack approaches Twilight and offers to show Twilight a special place she often comes to when she needs to unwind.
Not a whole lot happens beyond that setup in terms of plot, just Twilight deciding on her own terms to make visiting it a regular thing. But that’s okay, because plot would get in the way of the true purpose of a piece like this. It pulls no punches with S1 nostalgia, taking full advantage of the characters still being at a not-fully-defined stage in the show’s timeline and their lives. Twilight and Applejack talk about the former’s place in Ponyville and about mixing expectations of others and one’s expectations of themselves, something that could only really apply this way to these two ponies. The friendshipping is really sweet, yet it makes you believe that these two very different ponies can be stronger, partly by tackling that directly at one point. And like many early season pieces written after the fact, it benefits marginally from knowing future events, largely in how Applejack and Twilight interact across the years making their interactions here feel more right, especially with a line of Twilight’s towards the end.
It’s a sedate, slow piece, and a benefittial one for it, making good use of images and visuals, and then alternatively of largely dialogue, with the switch being unobtrusive. Not going to wow anyone, but it’s the rare piece of its kind you don’t digest and forget about quickly either – on coming back to it for this review, I swiftly recalled it fondly, even if the details were understandably lost, this being a mood piece. Not a bad endorsement at all!
Rating: Pretty Good
Spooky Summary of Scores:
Excellent: 1
Really Good: 1
Pretty Good: 2
Decent: 1
Passable: 0
Weak: 0
Bad: 0
Tell Your Tale: Commentary Corner
‘Ahoof’. As in, ‘The Game Is At Hoof’. Honestly, that’s far from the worst horse pun G5 has cooked up so far. Not saying much, but minor victories, folks, minor victories.
It only lasts five seconds before the camera pulls back from the tv, but the Frankenstein parody that opens is easily among the best visuals in this webseries thus far. With the effective varying shades of green and high-contrast shadows, It could pass for a tv/streaming cartoon, with the varying shades of green and high-contrast shadows.
And of course, Hitch is the most scared of the four watching it. Sigh. Though they’re all high-strung enough to duck behind the couch when Zipp arrives with foreboding lighting and shadows, demanding her sunglasses.
Already, this would roll better if Zipp had worn sunglasses (or any glasses) before now. Hitch did in Foal Me Once, and it was “one of his things” then. Lad can’t keep anything unique, can he.
Following some mugshots of the other four, we’re introduced to Zipp's workstation, all hi-tech, though with enough of a sci-fi sleek look to it that, while hardly original, doesn’t irk the way everything in Zephyr Heights does. This looks new, replacing her prior bed, as her new one’s on top. Follow-on from becoming a detective-investigator (and stealing more from Hitch, again…)?
Zipp accuses Hitch first (…), and… okay, flashback to a beach incident that Zipp mangles (saying Hitch nicked her shades) and which Hitch has to retell (just noting he left his at the station). We’re going CSI: Miami here. Nothing new for this series, but the fast runtime should make it zipp by. Sunny & Pipp groan at his “don’t need sunglasses to see the problem” line. I appreciate acknowledging bad puns, but girls, you crack worse jokes every short that you all laugh at. Be quiet. Least Izzy liked it, mare did something right.
Zipp’s theory for Pipp nicking them is that she said “function over fashion”. Pipp is quick to correct Pipp that using them to shield her eyes from soapy water gone amiss in her salon so she could shut off the new device is an emergency, and she’s got others that suit her. You ask me, Mr. Rabbit rocks them better than she does.
Okay, Sunny dropping her own shades before Zipp’s even finished “making smoothies all day in the sun, you must need –”, and casually sipping on one, that was a good gag. And even though it’s the norm for the time spent in these numbered cases to get smaller until the last one, which rebounds, this pushes that comically further than this series usually goes. See, writers, all it takes is a little effort to produce something halfway competent.
Last pony. When Zipp realises Izzy’s been measuring her in all the flashbacks, Izzy creates a distraction by levitating papers into Zipp’s face. Closest thing to physical violence in G5 thus far. Cue chase over the ground floor where Izzy tangles Zipp in a blanket long enough to finish preparing a box at a desk, then giving it to her.
It’s… a sci-fi style visor, in Zipp’s colours. Okay, that’s pretty nice. Even shows a pony’s heat signatures. That scan of Izzy is gonna live with me for a while, even if the following skeleton visual is (predictably) rather inaccurate.
“Any good detective has super-fancy gadgets.” Okay, so this is a follow-up on that aspect, loosely. Writers no doubt wrote this knowing what the first season will do come September. Anyways, nice thought by Izzy, though her vocal delivery prevents it from being more than marginally rousing.
In Zipp’s breaking-in of the visor, she finds their apples have worms. Yeah, that can happen when leaving them out in the open, dear. End result of her trying them out is to slip on her pillow back upstairs… and breaking her glasses underneath. Ha, finally she’s not perfect, though it’ll take much more than misplacing shades under one’s pillow in a weightless webseries short to stop being a bland “basically perfect” character. In any case, I’m with Hitch’s “Amateur” (hey, a line that adds to his character! He would know sunglasses maintenance) and Sunny’s “You gotta be kidding me.” Least Izzy offered to fix them!
This was easily the 2nd best short after Hitch’s detective vehicle Foal Me Once, for largely the same reasons; a parody of a less sentimental genre that forces it to abandon the limp Obligatory Moral formula and have far less Idiot Ball moments (just Zipp and her sunglasses here, and that actually kind-of worked). It doesn’t win the war, mostly for continuing to throw Hitch under the bus and having Izzy, who was not good with tech last week, make a tech visor out of the Crystal Empire in one day (the botched accusation of Hitch confirms this, Izzy was still measuring Zipp then). Plus, that same visor, already in these things’ credits, cameoed in Nightmare Roomate [sic] and at the end of the Make Your Mark special. Silver Quill’s “Continuity!” continues to lie dormant. Still, bearable and with some amusing moments, and writer Ryan Denham has now written two of this series’ best, also penning Mane Melody (though he also brought forth IT’S T.U.E.S. DAY into the world.
I have thus concluded this webseries is at its best, or more accurately, its least-problematic, when doing schticky genre parodies.
- Foal Me Once (Ep. 7)
- The Game Is Ahoof (Ep. 12) NEW
- Mane Melody (Ep. 5)
- The Unboxing of Izzy (Ep. 6)
- Zipp Gets Her Wings (Ep. 3) * Originally titled Zipp’s Flight School.
- MARETIME BAY DAY 2.0 [sic] (Ep. 11)
- Sisters Take Flight (Ep. 1)
- IT’S T.U.E.S. DAY [sic] (Ep. 9)
- A Home to Share (Ep. 2)
- Sunny-Day Dinners (Ep. 10)
- Nightmare Roomate [sic] (Ep. 4)
- Clip Trot (Ep. 8)
NOTE: Hasbro has added episode numbers to the thumbnails of these now, which is handy. And they’ve also shuffled them back into production order, moving Sisters Take Flight to 1st and having Foal Me Once swap places with Clip Trot (dunno why that aired out of order, moving Sisters Take Flight makes sense on wanting to start on an ensemble/Sunny piece, plus we got four out of the gate anyway). The episode numbers above now reflect this order, with the numbers bolded for those episodes that have shifted. Zipp’s Flight School has also been renamed to Zipp Gets Her Wings, easily done when the titles aren’t in the videos themselves.
Ah, F=E. Definitely one of the few I like to go back to on occasion just for the smile. A fun story, and I'm always glad to see it come up in blogs like these. I was a little surprised when you called it my "top-rated fic". I had to check the numbers, and now I'm wondering how you came to that conclusion.
Oh, The Thinkin' Spot. Haven't thought of that one in ages. I recall really liking it as an easy, low-stress read.
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Sometimes I debate "is there much point in reviewing this? Most folks have seen it, and it's pretty clear from the packaging the quality you're getting anyway." But sure, I read it, a review's quick to write up. Plus, getting folks talking about fics they've read is always nice. Honestly just as nice as introducing new ones, and it usually generates more discussion!
Well, if one sorts your stories by rating, it is at the top.
The traffic says it is (right now, anyway) the 458th highest-rated story on the whole website. 
However Fimfiction's aggregate rating algorithm works as regards balancing lives vs dislikes proportionally against the number of each, anyway.
That's it, part n' parcel. If Friendship = Evil is good for making one smile and cheer up quickly, this is good as a soothing, relaxing, quiet read.
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Top 500, huh? I never check for that kind of thing so I had no idea. Pretty cool now that I'm aware of it.
I always figured Of Angels and Lessons in Generosity were my best-rated by virtue of having a higher likes-to-dislikes ratio. Granted, we're talking differences below 1%, but still.
It's a pun on the phrase "the game is afoot" :)
I laugh only because I have been there a-frequently. :D
A really good slate of fics this time! You gotta read more Blueshift, though. >:B
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Thankfully, my generic statement about it being far from the worst pun they’ve done applies equally even if the pun is what you just said, rather than my initial assumption of “the game is at hand”. Hooray for ambiguous statements serving to future-proof against a ghost’s cultural ignorance!
To absolutely nobody’s surprise, there’s the jaded veteran smirking at the newbie’s flop sweat.
Nah, I kid. I’m sure I’ll just end up reaching for non-pony stuff and whatever I’ve been up to that’s interesting (which it usually isn’t, heh) every now and then.
Indeedy!
And it’ll be close-ish to that for the most part going forward.
Honestly, that’s more down to me getting out of the early “mostly read short fics so I can have lots to review” phase, and focusing more on a length of balance now. Not picking fics automatically because they’re short thus means I’m far less likely to read fics destined for the lower tiers now, so you will probably mostly see just Decent-upwards most weeks, with the odd Passable and Weak. This might be less acceptable if I were aiming to be very prolific in covering a wide range of fanfics, but between lots of genres and story types I rarely or never touch, plus still covering substantially less in words than yourself or PaulAsaran even now, I’m cool with this being more of a minor “what I’ve been reading, sharing with you all” review blog. FimFiction has over 140K stories, covering more then a tiny fraction of that at this stage ain’t happening!
Even apart from the few fics of his covered so far here, I’ve read a few others before now, and several others are on the list (most notably Rise, which is hear is an Excellent waiting in the wings). It will happen!
I do try and avoid close author repetition though, even though there’s no hard-and-fast rule about it. We’ll see how it works out. If I ever do Author Spotlights, that’ll change, of course, though I imagine such a feature would mostly be for lower-visibility authors.
Pinkie written well?
Okay, I’m all in on that one!
I appreciate the review, and I think the story accomplished for you pretty much exactly what I was going for with it. Just something gentle and comfy.
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Mission accomplished!
I mean, I knew the top rating would get many folks interested anyway, but I was especially intrigued to see how game you’d be for it.
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It’s always nice when a story is received the intended way, isn’t it? 
You’re welcome!
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Honestly, I'm not that excited by changeling-centric fics unless they are exceptional in some way... Huh. Thinking about it, I guess I'm not excited by any fic unless it's exceptional in some way. Anyhoo, it's the Pinkie part that got me excited. I have to admit that I actively avoid Pinkie fics without some pre-knowledge of how she's written, because the default portrayal seems to be "random irritating idiot who is only likeable because the author says she's likable," and Pinkie Pie deserves better than that.
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I mean, me neither, honestly. It's just that when they land, for me, they really land.
While not to quite that level, I'm cautious about Pinkie fics for this reason too. Course, as a reviewer, sometimes one has to take gambles with a fic that looks promising, but of which they're not yet sure. Certainly, It is one of those fic types where, if I'm curious, I usually try and get some second opinions (ideally that other reviewers have given) before proceeding.
And aye, in an ideal world, I'd fill these blogs with nothing but Really Good and Excellent fics. But that's hard to predict and control at the best of times.
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Don't discount the service you're doing by reviewing bad fics! We have to know what to avoid too!
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Oh, for sure! But it is probably true to say that for a fair share of Bad and Weak fics, you can tell that in advance through a mix of the subject matter, reception, and the packaging (description, title, pic, etc.). And generally, there's no need to bother with those. Plus, of course, I try and look for stuff I'm actually gonna enjoy reading in any case. I consider these more valuable when I look at a fic that seems really promising, yet it turned out somewhat disappointing. But, like with many things in life, you take them as they come, sure.
For what it's worth, of the 82 (
) fics I've reviewed thus far, we have 5 Excellent, 11 Really Good, 23 Pretty Good, 19 Decent, 12 Passable, 10 Weak and 2 Bad. With notably less of those last three tiers (the 'generally not worth your time' tiers, as I think of them) in recent weeks, due to me being more selective.