Eventually I’ll have to contend with these yearly anniversaries getting a day further off each time (or two, Leap Year and all), as I started on March 7^th. Price to pay for committing to a fixed day in the title, eh? But that day isn’t yet (likely next year, where I’ll have it three days after rather than four before, to be closer). Right now, it’s here. Folks, Ghost Mike’s Ponyfic Review Monday Musings^TM has been going on two years now.

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Christmas is almost upon us! Though the holidays are a time that should be celebrated by all, of course. Personally, not being the most social ghost, the family gatherings and togetherness can be a bit much, and are something I prefer in limited quantities. But I do fully believe in taking time off from regular things and doing low-stress relaxation things not on a schedule. Which, after the 23rd, will be through to 2024. As it should be!

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The big #100. Honestly, I was never doubtful I’d hit it, least after the first few months: my backlog was substantial enough that my reading pace would have to slow fast to not get here without a break. I don’t have any big sentimental feelings or sense of celebration associated with it – I associate that mentally with the first Monday of March, the anniversary of Monday Musings – but yeah, it’s still pretty cool.

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Hope none of you are feeling the post-Thanksgiving blues too hard. Me, well, it’s an odd holiday to observe from outside America. I’m well aware and tuned in to its commercial reach and importance (when you work in mobile app development you can’t avoid the importance of holiday season targets, plus you kind of notice any American-based companies you’re in collaboration with largely vanishing for a week), but the actual familial reunions and bonding? Doesn’t tend to penetrate my mind too much.

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Okay, well, after three weeks of fun year-in-review stats, no real news today. Just moving out of the January doldrums. Not that it’s been a bad month: outside of the royal pain from last week, it’s actually been pretty good, as January tends to go. And I have a weekend with friends coming up centred around a Bank Holiday next Monday (new enough in Ireland, only its 3^rd year). But nothing to really say here and now.

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Last week was the “serious” side of looking back at 2023 for Ghost Mike’s Ponyfic Review Monday Musings^TM in review, focusing largely on quantifiable stats calculated in the Archive Spreadsheet. Now it’s time for the fun, goofy side of that – quirky takeaways that don’t mean much except being something to chuckle at.

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I guess I’m looking forward to Pokémon Scarlet and Violet coming out on Friday, though I tend to play new Pokémon games at my own pace these days, which is less hectic than most people’s need to finish it in a week. My association with the franchise these days is a little grey in places, and the online community is to blame for that partially, to the point I often tend to just enjoy it on my lonesome more often than not. To a degree, anyway.

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Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me if this week’s Monday Musings sailed by most folks, what with Hasbro and Netflix, in their infinite wisdom, dropping nearly three hours of G5 content across eight Make Your Mark episodes on us today. I’ll certainly be watching at least a few of them. Regular readings know of my expectations, but I’m gonna continue to largely keep them out of these Ponyfic Reviews. I doubt they will affect the fics here much, either in the short term or the long term:

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I am often struck by random-yet-interesting thoughts as I go about my day. That’s not worthy of note. But just as I was pasting today’s reviews from my master review workfile into this week’s lot, I noticed the publication years of the fics, all different except for two, and spread over the site’s history. It got me to thinking: is that true of my reviews as a whole, or do I lean more towards certain years or eras of Fimfiction?

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I have quite the habit of timing my finishing of a video game – be that the main campaign, 100%’ing it, or just to the goal or stop point that I’m satisfied with: whatever I’m gunning for at the time – right as the next game that will be my big one for a while comes out. I’m sure that’s hardly unique, many folks probably do the same, especially when direct sequels of the game they’re currently playing are on the horizon. But it can take many forms, I find.

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Ghost Mike, Ponyfic Review Monday Musings #66, 12^th June 2023:

we’ve reached that point in the generation where everyone internally knows the writing is on the wall and are already refocused on the future. […] The lack of announcement of further content for G5 beyond the initial episode orders […] only further intensifies this.

Well, that aged well.

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What’s this? Halloween, you say? You know, it used to be an exciting time for me. Even as an adult, the last few years, I’d look forward to a little pumpkin carving, at the very least. But eh, lately I haven’t even done that. This year hasn’t really broken that trend. It’s not alone – most one-day holidays tend to glaze right by me these days, over in a flash. Honestly, though, it doesn’t bother me much. I certainly want to get back to carving a pumpkin every year, but otherwise, it’s fine, I

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Some minor but important housekeeping this week: I finished adding the word counts of every reviewed story to the spreadsheet Archive. Somewhat annoyingly, despite double-checking the story lengths and accounting for the two de-listed stories (I’m sure my fellow Ponyfic reviewers will baulk that only two of 250 have been removed), the word count is still off of that in the Reviewed bookshelf here… by forty-nine words.

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When I started out these Ponyfic Review Monday Musings, I didn’t have any definitive goals, beyond reaching the end of that calendar year. Which I did, evidently. And truth be told, both before achieving that and after it, I didn’t see a situation in which I didn’t make it to the one-year milestone. So even now, it doesn’t feel like that big a deal.

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You know, no matter how much I tell myself this is the year to get Christmas preparations sorted nice and early, they always build up towards the end. This despite me indeed getting some done early. But between yet more Christmas shopping, other bits and bobs, and a Jinglemas story that has been a slow nut to crack, I’ve got a hectic week ahead. Even with today being my last day of work until the new year.

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Happy 2023, my friends! I hope you all had a good holiday. Mine was okay; uneventful, and I still allowed myself to get stressed over nothing for stretches. But towards the end, I relaxed and loosened up, and it did me some good. If nothing else, I’m resolving to try and go with the flow more this year, continuing to work hard on what matters, but allowing myself to have fun, in casual and dedicated hobbies, without worrying or guilt-tripping myself as much.

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Now that I’m over 100 fics in, about high-time I provide easier access to the review backlog, me thinks. Got a public archive of the reviews available now! Currently, it’s just a single tab with the fics in review order and links to the blogs, though it also contains the fic title, author, rating, and whether it was a reread and if it was listened to via a reading, and by whom. In the

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What’s this? Ghost Mike actually has some news! Well, yes. I had quite the weekend, my friends. It was my parents’ 30^th anniversary yesterday, and as they passed on any celebration for their 25^th​​, they decided to have a massive gathering here. 60-odd people (a mix of family and close friends), catered buffet, the works. Been a long time since a family gathering (in part) was anything that size, even omitting COVID, we’re all just older and busy with our lives.

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