) 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 #26 · 5:00pm Aug 29th, 2022
Yeah, so my statement of reverting to a random menagerie of fics this week wasn’t quite true – after my first Author Spotlight back in Ponyfic Review Monday Musings #19, I’d agreed to myself to make them a semi-regular thing going forward, perhaps in the range of one every month or two. Well, last week of August, time for some queue shuffling! For the sophomore Author Spotlight, I’ve chosen Tangerine Blast, again largely from having enough of their fics read in the backlog.
He's no new author, having joined nearly ten years ago back in October 2012, and he's been publishing semi-frequently throughout that period, if slightly more frequent in the final few years of G4. Short stories seem to be her main forte, with an average word count of 7.9K, and no story longer than 46K. Mostly Slice of Life, Romance and Comedy, with a little Adventure and Drama. Today’s roster, pulling only from the last five-and-a-bit-years (I gather he is not as fond of her earlier work) encompassing a trio of laugh riot romance one-shots, a more sincere shipfic, and a Royal Canterlot Library-nominated sibling drama, does a good job of showing some preferences for story types whilst being flexible within those parameters. Enough that I should probably consider moving her short novel, Spark Visions of Twilight up the queue; even for something as well-worn as the Nightmare Moon timeline, 16K+ views for a Season 5 story published between Dec 2015-July 2017 is mighty impressive, no? And it’s short enough for me to work with now.
But that’s for another day. Right now, we have a solid batch from a competent author. If one vibes with short stories, of course. Presumably, if you're here, you do, you wouldn’t get much from my Ponyfic review blogs otherwise!
This Week’s Spectral Stories:
Girlfriend Friend by Tangerine Blast
Girlfriend Friend 2: Royally Screwed by Tangerine Blast
Girlfriend Friend 2.5: Best Friend Friend by Tangerine Blast
Under Layers of Dirt and Worry by Tangerine Blast
Growing Down by Tangerine Blast
Weekly Word Count: 24,566 Words
Girlfriend Friend by Tangerine Blast
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Random
Rarity, Mane 6, Spike
2,638 Words
April 2020Listened to via StraightToThePointStudio's reading
An ordinary day at the market turns awkward fast when an innocent comment by one of her friends that she’s dating Rarity is uttered nonchalantly. Then another of her friends says she’s dating Rarity. And another. Now Rarity has to confront all six of them on their assumption of being in a relationship.
Literally right from the very first paragraph, the hilarity of this never lets up. The main joy comes from what evidence each of the six uses for their relationship with Rarity, of which only Fluttershy and Spike’s come off as reasonable and excusable. But they’re all true to their characters, at least as filtered through the absurd premise and tone of this. Like any good absurdity, there’s a basis in reality, and Rarity being specified to be more attractive than other ponies, hey, it works.
The tricky thing with reviewing any comedy this short, of course, and this hilarious, is not wanting to spoil the gags within. Suffice to say they’re all great, the majority of them come across as surprises that fit (even the end punchline), and I was never not grinning. Romantic parodies of this ilk can be difficult to pull off at the best of times, but this transcends the concept’s staleness and then some. Awkward tension has rarely been so funny.
Rating: Really Good
Girlfriend Friend 2: Royally Screwed by Tangerine Blast
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Random
Rarity, Celestia, Luna, Discord, Cadance
2,727 Words
December 2020Sequel to Girlfriend Friend
Listened to via StraightToThePointStudio's reading
Finally, with Rarity’s turbulent quashing of her friends’ individual assumptions that they were dating Rarity behind her, she can return to her actual, letter-communicating with a pony she’s actually in a relationship with. Then said pony shows up on her doorstep, and it turns out the relationship wasn’t quite all that…
To avoid spoiling the preceding fic (something this one does for that and itself in its description, character tags and premise), this review is deliberately very vague. Sorry!
This being a follow-up written at least in part off reader reception to the original and demand, it’s fair to be cautious. Happily, it shows none of the usual signs of weakness of such things, except that ramping up the absurd-yet-somewhat-grounded tone of the preceding story into more “anything goes” territory makes it a bit more ordinary-feeling, at least after the dust has settled. To be fair, this is one of the few directions such a follow-up could have been taken without diluting itself through being more of the same, so while it is diluted, it’s not severely so.
All the same strengths from before apply, from absurd dialogue that fits the characters to an ending punchline this is just beauty. And if it doesn’t fully capture the deft mix that made the first one really stand out, largely down to the direction taken being a more common comic depiction of the characters involved, it’s still pretty funny. Heavy laughter’s still heavy laughter, folks.
Rating: Pretty Good
Girlfriend Friend 2.5: Best Friend Friend by Tangerine Blast
Genre: Romance/Comedy
Rainbow Dash, Mane 6, Spike
5,986 Words
July 2022Sequel to Girlfriend Friend 2: Royally Screwed
Bummed out and then some at the definitive declaration by Rarity that they are not girlfriends, Rainbow Dash decides it’s time to rectify that. It being Hearts and Hooves Day, she sets out to get herself a Marefriend. Course, given her prior assumptions on gut instinct, she might not have the best approach for this.
One-shot follow-ups to one-shots almost two years after the fact can be dicey, but a time gap that long also often means they come from a fresh idea, feel different, and have sufficient energy. Happily, that applies to this third story, and Tangerine Blast continues the trend of retaining the broad romantic absurdity of the prior entries while feeling different. Given this one features Rainbow Dash, and is over twice as long as the prior stories, you’d certainly hope so. Though that length barely registers
The bulk of the fic concerns Dash visiting her friends one by one, so assured in her romantic appeal, that it is only when none of her appeals go as planned, for one reason or another, that her confidence and ego begins to get worn down. These character-fitting responses (at least, within the tone of this series) range the gauntlet in comedy type, from Pinkie being ever so innocent, to Twilight being a sad sack, to Spike getting left high and dry (probably for the best). Alongside an awkwardly hilarious pair of cameos from Trixie and Starlight. All funny, and yet the fic’s ending scene is easily the most humble, sincere part in any of these fics, coming along at the right time.
All that being the case, “Mane 6 member is self assured of their attractiveness, tries and fails to ask out the rest of the crew” is not exactly an unheard-of premise, and while this is certainly a competent, assured, and amusing take on that idea, it’s not so dazzling in execution and the ideas therein that it quite shakes off the familiarity. Not nearly grey around the edges, but a little of that has creeped in. Ultimately a minor concern, but it’s probably for the best that this series doesn’t continue, and stops on a still-strong note.
Rating: Pretty Good
Under Layers of Dirt and Worry by Tangerine Blast
Genre: Drama/Slice of Life
Pinkie, Maud, Mrs. Cake
3,598 Words
January 2018Reread
With another long, exhausting and perilous mission to save Equestria behind her, Pinkie returns home in the dark of the night, ready to collapse into bed for a well-earned rest. However, to her immense surprise, somepony close to her is waiting just inside the door. And despite Pinkie trying to brush off the dirt, scrapes, traces of blood and bruises, her sister remains insistent on probing further as to what she was doing, and why.
On the one hand, it’s surprising there aren’t more “close family/friend of featured Mane 6 member worries about them always riding off to save the world, and chastises them for doing this when the return from one such mission” stories (at least, among my sample size), but on the other hand, there’s a fairly limited number of ways to (conventionally) do a story like that, given outside of the Apples, none of whom could hold a stubborn conversation like that with Applejack, it’s just younger siblings (among whose number I include Spike) and whatever relationship the Cakes have with Pinkie. Thus, the story’s masterstroke is involving Maud: not for her difficulty in expressing herself (though that does end up being quite the strength here), but for capitalising on her recent move to Ponyville’s outskirts in Rock Solid Friendship, and though the canon timing of her reaction here is largely just implication, it does inform the piece a good deal.
Of course, the main benefit from choosing Maud is how it upends the way these situations usually go: putting a Maud very consciously aware of how she can’t easily express much in this situation beyond bluntly stating the facts of Pinkie’s condition as the worried family member, opposite a joyfully dismissive Pinkie not immune to physical harm as the dismissive battle hero, well, it leads to lots of unique interactions between them. And I mean unique; while Pinkie and Maud are recognisably them (itself a good achievement, they’re hard characters to write), there’s a certain extra dimension to their dialogue and reactions here that’s quite rare, and which I’ve never seen in a situation quite like this. It makes for very investable dialogue as Maud cleans Pinkie up.
I was slightly worried around the midpoint that it was losing steam, but if anything it only got better; Tangerine Blast found a way to escalate the opposition of viewpoints on the matter such that the two argue somewhere approaching shouting, and it actually fits both of them. The last stretch of the fic is a little soft, with an intrusion by Mrs. Cake somehow making the dialogue feel just a little transparently constructed as the story wraps up (the content itself remains solid), but that’s a minor quibble. We’re still left with a surprisingly barbed yet warm take on a unique sibling interaction, one bursting with far more layers of nuance to the events discussed and the sisters’ viewpoints than it would seem. It’s certainly a far deeper story than both its baseline content, its length and this review indicate. Easy to see why it got a Royal Canterlot Library feature! Which, as I understand it, was quite the rarity for fics this short.
Rating: Really Good
Growing Down by Tangerine Blast
Genre: Slice of Life/Romance
Spike, Pinkie
9,617 Words
June 2017
As Twilight’s Number One Assistant, Spike is not only busy looking after her and facilitating her research, but constantly impressioned on adult things like working hard and not wasting time on frivolous tasks when there’s more important things to be done. Pinkie feels there’s no need to grow up so fast, and thus she sets about recruiting him into varying activities to show the importance of slowing down and having fun with those you care for and who care about you. At least, that’s what it started off as…
This fic doesn’t focus on the above as much as you expect (Twilight is almost fully absent, for one thing), yet neither does it divert into other tangential subplots, instead landing in some middle region where it’s neither overfocused nor too aimless, an approach that seemed a bit odd at first. Certainly, in the early going, once the groundwork had been laid for Spike and Pinkie hanging out more regularly, I did start to wonder if there’d be enough material for the length, and while this is an unhurried 9.6K, the true genius of this story ends up being the middle half or so of various vignettes of the duo, for a few reasons.
Firstly, this better allows the theme of Pinkie helping others for the sake of it to rub off on Spike, producing a more impactful framework of their help boosting each others’ morale. And the bigger theme of a child hiding being childish and wanting to look respectful and grown-up, and the harm it can lead to, lands better at the end. Even just on the surface-level text, though, the scenes do a good job of capturing well the feeling of the show and Ponyville in the stated timeline point (Season 2), through older characters (Twist), older lore points (Fluttershy feeding fish to carnivorous/omnivorous animals), and the personality state of our leads at that point. Thus, they skate on by.
That the fic only fully raises the shipfic aspect in the closing stretch, meaning it plays out as just friendship for the bulk of it, doesn’t make the age difference any less off-putting, though it’s softened both by the romance being of the squeaky-clean Disney variety, and by Pinkie being the best fit for Spike anyway; in any case, one can simply bypass that and enjoy the novelty of two characters that are rarely shown together getting time here.
If there is one undeniable issue holding this fic back, it’s tone; maybe this was a slip for this fic, or just a skill polished later in her career, but Tangerine Blast is only intermittently successful here at modulating the prose to better communicate how the incident therein should be perceived. It’s only truly damaging in the more grounded final scenes (in particular, Twilight calling Pinkie out on keeping Spike away and his later retort fall desperately flat), but even elsewhere, it undercuts some moments by virtue of the “mildly sincere smile” feel of much of it, with aspects like Pinkie’s visible displeasure at Spike not perceiving the wrongness of his workload and relaxing just by reading not being felt, just perceived.
Still, Pinkie and Spike make for an effective duo, and the result is a pairing strongly displaying the value of remaining youthful, all much cuter than I’ve made it seem. A little lumpy and light, but still quite sweet, and isn’t that what we’re all here for sometimes? Even with shaky tone modulation, the themes and connection are done with enough skill to make this skate by and leave a smile.
Rating: Decent
Spooky Summary of Scores:
Excellent: 0
Really Good: 2
Pretty Good: 2
Decent: 1
Passable: 0
Weak: 0
Bad: 0
How curious it is that I've read two stories by this author and neither of them are any of these. Fortunately, "X gets all the mares" (or "Everypony wants to date X") is a weakness for me, so I'll probably be reading those Rarity ones at some point.
You say that as though it should have an impact on your willingness to read/review them.
I hadn't recognized the name at first, but I am in fact following this author, and I do believe it's because of that fourth story! :)
5682655
Well, it was a RCL-featured fic, so you'd certainly have read and discussed it!
I have to keep reminding myself, when you comment here, that you're read over 6,000 fics, and thus it's the norm for you to not remember fics covered here which I know you're read, and liked strongly. That's on me, silly little spirit that I am.
Even my nearly-150 reviewed and nearly-1000 rated can't compare to your reviewing resumé! Not that I need it to, mind.
5682652
As it happens, your review of Spark Visions for Twilight was what got it on my RiL list back some time ago. Convinced me it was worth considering, despite my soft aversion to many alt timeline fics (they became… a bit commonplace and dreary, after a fashion).
Ah, well, that doesn't impact it. The fact many of those early fics are cancelled, or look off or unappealing, on the other hand…
I've encountered Tangerine Blast multiple times, so you'd think I would have read many of her stories, but in fact I've only read one, and it is the novel you mention wanting to move up your list. I'd forgotten that I read it when Paul reviewed it, so I didn't comment on that blog. Though I did get assigned to write her prompt for one of the Jinglemas events, so I have interacted with her in that regard, plus met her at one of the Bronycons. 2018, I think, maybe 2017.
Well, Under Layers of Dirt and Worry goes on my list!
5682664
oh, really? XD lol, I probably nominated it too
Wow
wow Wow WOW DUDE!
I was kinda having a bad day and this was the most wondrous thing to find at the end of it.
Your thoroughness impresses me immensely (I think there are some things in that overview about me that I didn't even know) and the way you write and writing is freaking fantastic. I feel like I'm being reviewed by the New York times (or probably better actually). Reading this left me flustered and unable to speak from just how darn happy it made me. So don't mind how long this comment is. I am bursting with joy and have got to put it somewhere.
I thank you immensely for not going too far back in my catalog. While I don't believe in deleting art on principle the things I wrote when I was thirteen were, uh, written by a thirteen year old. And you can't review kid's stuff! That's rule number one! My pride thanks you.
I'm glad you listened to the live readings! StraighttothePoint did such a good job and I felt made the stories even better.
Man, the way you write about how I write comedy is just...it's just so good! "Not nearly grey around the edges, but a little of that has creeped in." Freaking poetry! Also, has it really been two years since Royally Screwed? I could have sworn I wrote those stories yesterday. And as for ending the GFF series on a high note... *shoves GFF 3's draft behind me* yeeeeeah that's tooootally what I was planning (though at the rate I'm going you'll have to wait a decade for it).
Under Layers of Dirt and Worry was probably the story me and my editor, shipmun, spent the longest editing and hammering out out of all my stories. I think we knew we had something good here and if we just kept tweaking it we could turn it into something great. (for example the original draft was probably a fifth of the length and just kinda... ended.) I am so so thrilled everyone likes it. I really got to compliment Shipmun again for how much he pushed me on this one. He's a big reason this isn't just a generic story about sisters yelling at each other. And getting a spot on the RCL was on my bucket list so I'm extra thankful to this story for getting me there.
Growing Down was actually the first story I finished writing that I thought "this is actually good" (Spark Visions had not yet finished and nothing before that came anywhere close to decent). And I love this review on it! I'm so glad you picked up what I was trying to do with the slow scenes, with the theme, and with the little details to ground us into season two. Even though you rated this one the lowest it was my favorite review. You just totally and completely got it. And it's like, freak, that recognition from the audience is really what being an artist is about. I gotta frame this review on my wall or something. All of them maybe!
All the comments on this, from everyone, remind me how much I adore being in this community. Thank you so much for the great reviews! And now I'm going to read all of your other blog posts just to read your critique poetry some more.
5682816
D'aww, you're very welcome.
Not at all! Authors and reviewers getting all analytical is infectious. I'm sure you won't mind if I get equally long in replying to some of it.
Mostly that was me glancing at your About page to gauge the range/frequency of your fic output, though the RCL interview for Under Layers of Dirt and Worry informed it a bit too.
Ha, you're a woman after my own (spectral) heart, dear: my pre-pony fanfiction career from my youth in 2009-14 (one short fic excepted, I basically didn't publish anything again until here in 2020) had a very similar writing age, mentality and, eh… lasting quality (at most, 20-30K of that isn't utter rubbish). I wasn't consciously avoiding it for that reason, it was more that the fics of yours I had reviews ready to go for came from more recently. But handy still!
…So where does Spark Visions of Twilight, written when you were 16-18 (I'm estimating), fall into that equation?
I definitely like him as a reader, though I do have some quibbles which can be immersion breakers at times (no pauses between scene breaks, occasional line confusion, it not always being clear whose voice is speaking). As it happens, the first two Girlfriend Friend fics here were read a few months ago (the rest were read more recently), and I don't think I use him as much now. I don't pay as active attention when listening to a fic as when reading it, and coupled with usually doing so away from the laptop, that leads to shorter and more insubstantial reviews. Just compare the one for Best Friend Friend to the first two! So, yeah.
By no means am I saying you shouldn't do more if the fancy strikes you, even this third entry was still plenty fun. Just that I've seen many a series of one-shots drop with each entry and taper out on an outright whimper. But, as noted, you have varied each entry up, and even if neither of the sequels have captured the freshness and energy of the first energy fully, they're still corking riots in their own right. And they speak to people, if that blog of yours acknowledging how readers of the first all found differing Mane 6 viewpoints of their 'relationships' with Rarity to get behind. Fics don't generate that unless they speak to folks through the absurdity!
It for sure shows; it very much felt like the kind of story where just about every line has been fussed over and sharpened with the precision of a scalpel to achieve the best the author(s) are capable of making with the scenario and their cumulative writing skills. That kind of precision and labour deserves recognition. So well done! And I suppose I must credit Shipmun for it too then. I gather he's been your editor for many years now? Handy to have a regular collaborator! I see he followed me alongside you off of this blog too, which is awfully nice.
Presumably that's not meant literally, given a fifth of 3.6K would be… 720 words.
I kind of get what you mean about it just ending because there are no more words, rather then finishing organically.
No denying it, the story had a bit of an uphill battle, coming after four more recent works that all showed improvement in writing finesse, chosen scenario, and so forth. All that being said, it did feel like it came at the end of a growth period, where one is still figuring out a few things but has a lot in hand now. You had a goal beyond the baseline surface-level story, you sought to reinforce that and the theme through links, parallels, and other things I'm too tired currently to whip out my analytical cap for (
). If it was a little stiff and clunky along the way at spots, the earnestness and confidence did a lot for it. I realise the review may have read like a higher rating than Decent, and to clarify, this was on the tipping point between that and Pretty Good. But in good conscience, I couldn't place it in the same tier as the two Girlfriend sequels. Nothing to be ashamed of.
It really is, isn't it? As artists, we always have to resign ourselves to audiences not getting and appreciating all the little niceties and depth and layers and thoughts and technique and and and that we've put into it. Learning to let go of it and release it out into the wild, and all that. Which makes the occasions when someone gets into that so delectable. As I said before, authors and reviewers getting analytical in an excited way is mad infectious. I try to give the reviews I'd want to get (even if it would probably hurt at the same time, for I'm nowhere near as much of a writer as many of the works here I review).
In any case, Tangerine, your joy at this unexpected gift was infectious, I loved reading your comment.
It might not be too long again before you see your name round here: apart from Spark Visions of Twilight, I also have your recent Pinkie's Boutique on the reading backlog. I read the early chapters of Take No Prismers back when I read incomplete fics (which I don't anymore, so that'll wait until you finish it). I read your Iron Author Everfree Northwest entry from last year, Feelings are Stupid in my pre-review days (I gave it a Decent, though I don't stand by most of those early ratings). Oh, and as I've read Growing Down, How to Cuddle Your Dragon will probably get a look in at some point too. Expect some of that intermittently!
You flatter me. In most ways, I am still an amateur writer and reviewer (there are plenty of reviewers around here, especially in the review groups, that can do proper literary criticism well beyond my grasp). But I do pride myself on having a unique, offbeat style of media dissection that prioritises what a fic is trying to do, and whether it's doing what it can to help it achieve that goal as best it can. This is with the caveat that there are many fic genres and story types I don't read, for they don't interest me.
Regardless, years of fiction reading, self-taught writing (primarily for screenwriting, but it applies here too) and writing/voicing/editing animation discussion videos has helped to hone it, enough that I can basically write these offhand after reading a fic and have something halfway intelligent to say. 
Regardless, thanks very much, Tangerine. If you decide to pop into future (or past) Ponyfic Review Monday Musings, I'll look forward to it.
Oh, one other thing: the profile pic is adorable (I'm a huge Spike fan, he's my second favourite FiM character, and I'm very flattered by your comment in your RCL interview that the 2017 movie was your favourite (at the time) "episode" of the show. Not only for being a rare and hot take, but it was my introduction to Pony, and while I cannot in good faith call it anything but a mixed, inconsistent bag now, that comment took me back to the enthusiasm and affection I do feel for it being my introduction to MLP. So, after a fashion, your writing moved me the way my analysis here moved you.