One Man's Pony Ramblings

6-Star Reviews Part 145: Pony Psychology Series

2013-06-17T00:00:00.000-05:00

To read the story, click the image or follow this link

Sometimes, when I read about stuff like this, I think it might be fun to go to a con or large meetup sometime, to put a few faces to (pen)names, go to some panels, and generally be in the presence of people who share this particular hobby of mine.

Then I realize that, even for the closest large convention, the costs of food, travel, lodging, ticket, and incidentals wouldn't be much less than a thousand bucks. Oh well.

Below the break, my review of Saddlesoap Opera's Pony Psychology Series and sequel.

Impressions before reading: I've heard a lot of good things about these stories, though I've never read them myself. According to the people who like them, they're supposed to be an intelligent, adult take on the FiM cast. That all sounds well and good, but it does make me a bit leery all the same; "intelligent, adult take" is sometimes code for "horribly out of character and inexplicably grim." Based on the reactions I've seen, though, I'm optimistic that that won't be the case here.

NOTE: The top review is only of Pony Psychology Series. The sequel is done separately below.

Zero-ish spoiler summary: Twilight and her friends struggle to come to grips with their wants and needs, for themselves and for one another.

Thoughts after reading: This is actually six interconnected stories, about each of the main six. As far as the plot of each and all goes, I'd say that "intelligent, adult take" sums it up pretty well. Series is about the ponies dealing with things like depression, addiction, and other serious problems, but it treats those issues seriously and respectfully--enough to set it apart from many "mature" fics by itself. Moreover, the author ties these issues to the characters through their canon characterization, in ways which are for the most part believable. The Equestria which Twilight and the rest inhabit in this story may be more "realistic" than the Equestria of the show, but the fact that it's still definitely Twilight and the rest dealing with that Equestria (rather than a group of unconvincing doppelgangers) makes the decidedly grown-up tribulations which the ponies confront (mostly) easy to swallow.

Part of that strong sense of character comes from voicing; the vocabularies and vocal mannerisms of each of the major characters is deftly captured. Unfortunately, with this strong dialogue comes some absurdly over-the-top accents. Applejack is actually one of the least objectionable here; Carrot Top makes her sound positively refined by comparison. Be that as it may, dialogue is strong and clear throughout.

I don't really have much to say about the writing itself, but I did want to mention somewhere in this review that Saddlesoap consistently capitalizes Pony, Earth Pony, Pegasus, and Unicorn. Kinda bugged me, it did. Past that though, editing and grammar are excellent.

With this story come three appendixes. First, there's one from the perspective of Princess Luna (listed as the "Alicorns" chapter), which sheds a bit more light on Twilight's chapter and which expands upon the worldbuilding elements in the story proper, specifically regarding the Elements of Harmony and other artifacts. I highly recommend reading this one as an addendum to the Series.

There's also a Trixie appendix, which is really a completely self-contained story which piggybacks on some of the aforementioned worldbuilding from Luna's chapter. Although it doesn't really add anything to the loose narrative of the Series, it's written in a similar style, does a wonderful job of capturing Trixie's brashness and ego (this is all pre-S3, of course), and is generally likely to be enjoyed by the people who likes everything else enough to want to read a follow-up in the first place.

Then... there's the Ditzy Doo appendix, the unsurprisingly-subtitled Muffins.

It's really hard to overstate what a disappointment the Ditzy Doo story (like Trixie's appendix, this one is basically self-contained) is, compared to everything which preceded it. Where everything else in Series tries to hold to a consistent tone of realistic introspection, the better to encourage reader immersion, Muffins wanders between slapstick comedy, full-on action sequences, and Doctor Who crossover-ing. Where everything else in Series treats its characters' issues with respect and intelligence, Muffins goes with a depressingly ridiculous (by comparison, at least) amnesia plot, which it portrays as unrealistically as the phrase "amnesia plot" should lead one to expect. Where everything else in Series eschews the maudlin in favor of believable character interactions (save where the maudlinity itself is in-character), Muffins revels in overdramatics of every sort.

So... I'd go ahead and skip that one, if I were you.

Star rating: ★★★★☆ (what does this mean?)

Pony Psychology Series accomplishes the difficult task of crafting a "realistic" Equestria, and addressing the main six within that context, without divorcing itself from the show proper. Further, it's consistently interesting, and believable in its worldbuilding and titular psychology.

Recommendation: Anyone seeking a story which takes a closer look at what makes the main six tick (circa season 1) should definitely check this out. Anyone who does so should absolutely follow up with the "Alicorns" appendix, as this builds on the story, and readers who enjoy will probably want to move on to the "Trixie" appendix. I highly recommend skipping the "Ditzy Doo" add-on, however, unless you have some especial fondness for that character.

Secrets and Lies

Zero-ish spoiler summary: After Discord was defeated, Twilight and company thought they could rest easy... but Discord left behind a "fan..." and dealing with that fan might be more than Twilight can handle.

Thoughts after reading: As with many sequels, most of the comments on the first story apply to the second. Voicing is still strong, accents are still overdone (the spa sisters' are to a hilarious degree: "The rocks in the sa-oo-na are hee-ting up," and the like), and the emotional turmoil of the ponies is still presented believably and intelligently... mostly. How the chaos-keteer and her particular outlook on life fits into the world of Equestria is a bit of a question mark, one which the story never really addresses. Still, problems like Rarity's struggles to balance sales with quality are thoughtfully examined.

This story does take an unwelcome turn in the direction of full-on comedy, however, and that's not a terribly good fit for an ostensibly serious piece of writing about guilt, madness, etc. Some touches work, as with a repeated bit where Pinkie's Pinkie Sense keeps going off while she obliviously ignores her sneezing, pinchy knee, and so on. More often, though, the humor in this story was a distraction, and never more so than with the songs. Maybe I'm just a grump, but I don't care at all for re-written show tunes dropped into stories in any event, and especially not in something which isn't a full-on random/comedy.

As for the story itself? It's a bit darker than Series, and ends on an awfully disconcerting note (at least, I found it so). Twilight is the main player here, though all of the ponies (and their issues) get time--even Ditzy, unfortunately--and her primary issue is pretty heavy, which informs the tone of the entire story. This is another part of why much of the more overt humor stuck out: in this sequel, the plot got darker, while the window dressing got lighter.

Star Rating: ★★★☆☆ (what does this mean?)

Other than a less consistent tone and some unfortunate filking of Modern Major General, Secrets and Lies is very similar to Pony Psychology Series in both its strengths and weaknesses.

Recommendation: Readers who enjoyed the first story should check this one out as well. Anyone put off by at times mismanaged juxtaposition of heavy drama and goofball humor might find this a bit of a (comparative) letdown, though.

Next time: Summer Days and Evening Flames (sequels to Heart of Gold, Feathers of Steel), by NickNack

What to Do When Joseph Stalin Says Your Fanfic Sucks

2013-06-14T00:00:00.000-05:00

I don't usually do the whole "reblog" thing, but I came across something I wanted to share yesterday. Fanfic author and EqD pre-reader Aquaman posted some comments on how and how not to give and receive criticism which, while more than slightly vitriolic, is definitely worth reading. Click below the break to read his thoughts.

NOTE: For context: after receiving a rejection letter from EqD, an author on FiMFiction recently made a blog post saying (s?)he was feeling dejected about the quality of his/her story after getting a story rejected by EqD. The following was originally a response to one of the other commenters on that post.

If you really want to go find the whole drama bucket, I'm sure you can. I'm not interested in bringing any arguments about the pre-readers, EqD, the author, the commenter whom this is responding to, or the rest over here, however, and I'm certainly not going to link to any of them myself. I thought Aqua's comments about giving and taking criticism stood on their own, and I'm presenting them as such.

-----

I can't speak for [pre-reader], but my problem here is not that you hate us or that you're trying to tell this author it's okay to fail. My problem is the way you're telling him that: by saying that he shouldn't listen to a word the pre-readers say, and that he should just be happy with whatever he writes because he made it and that makes it special.

To some degree, yes, that is absolutely true: you should take pride in your work, no matter what anyone else thinks of it. That being said, though, it is another thing entirely to take that to such a level that you completely invalidate criticism from a certain source or, God forbid, from any source. I don't care if Joseph Stalin himself rises from the dead to pop in and say that he doesn't like the way you wrote your main character; if it's criticism, listen to it, and decide for yourself whether it represents a level of technical skill you aspire to reach.

Right now, you're telling this author that he shouldn't listen to unreasonable critics, but by your apparent definition of the term, there is no such thing as a "reasonable" critic, because that would require that said critic has only objectively correct opinions. You say the pre-readers are useless because they have elitist standards; in return, I would like to ask who made you the one who should determine to what standards this author should aspire? This author's been working at his writing for over a decade, trying to build the courage to take such a big step as submitting to EqD, and the fact that he succeeded in doing so makes me goddamn proud to even come into contact with him.

But when he gets rejected and his completely relatable response is to feel embarrassed and ashamed, what do you do? Instead of comforting him and telling him to keep at it and keep practicing and keep that same fire lit in his heart, what do you tell him to do?

You tell him to give up. You tell him that he should ignore his critics, that he should be happy with mediocrity, that you and so many other deserving authors didn't make it so why in the hell should he expect any different as if his hard work and determination could ever actually amount to anything. You tell him it's not worth the effort to keep trying, that one failure is enough of a reason to quit striving towards his goal, and that is utterly and without question despicable. You are so wrapped up in your own hatred of us that you're dragging this guy down with you just so you can keep preening and fellating yourself over how right and noble and special you are, and that is just about the lowest, most selfish thing I can imagine anyone doing on this site.

I'd like to speak to the author again here, so [author], please listen closely: if you want to get onto EqD someday, that's awesome. If all you want is to play around with writing and have fun with this community and this oft-maligned art form, that's awesome too. And if your true goal is something between, below, or beyond any of that, then I truly wish you all the luck in the world with achieving it. But the most important lesson I want to impart upon you here is this: in your writing career, you're not just going to have to deal with harsh reviews and critiques you find offensive or even completely, abjectly wrong. You're also going to have to deal with ***holes like the ones who've invaded your comment thread, who are so content with their own mediocrity that they see nothing wrong assuring you that giving up is the right course of action, that a rejection or a failure is the fault of unfair judgement or preconceived biases or any number of extenuating circumstances that take responsibility and power away from you and put it in the hands of the people who would build up their own egos at the expense of victimizing you.

These people are toxic, and they are everywhere, and I've seen far too many aspiring writers get sucked into their bull**** to let this happen to you now without saying my piece. Let me emphasize again that I don't mean to say you absolutely must shoot for the moon with everything in life; what I would encourage and implore you to do instead is to decide for yourself what you want out of writing, and once you figure that out, don't let anybody--not readers, not pre-readers, and certainly not the ****heads rampaging around in here--tell you you're wrong to desire it. I can't promise that rousing success always comes with great effort, and God dammit, I wish the world was fair enough that I could. But I can tell you that if you stay strong and stay hungry, and put in every ounce of effort you've got, it is impossible to ever truly fail. No matter what these idiots tell you, never forget that.

Nothing Useful to Say

2013-06-12T00:00:00.000-05:00

I'm taking a personal leave day from the blog to deal with a vague but nevertheless disconcerting case of ennui.

The kind of ennui that comes from having too much time on one's hands and too little will to find something productive to do?

Yes, Merriam-Webster, that's exactly what I'm feeling right now. I think maybe I'll get a bowl of ice cream, then go watch some Voyager reruns or something--It's been a while since I've done that, and it sounds like a nice, low-energy, brain-relaxing thing to do. I'm gonna start with that episode where they encounter a race that has no concept of music, and the Doctor becomes a super-celebrity. That was always my favorite...

(Regular posts resume Friday)

Mini-Reviews Round 12

2013-06-10T00:00:00.000-05:00

I've been feeling pretty listless, lately. I don't know exactly why--I guess I'm just in a funk. That being the case, I've spent more time in the last week or so idly staring out the window or fussing over cups of coffee that I only fixed in the first place to give myself something to do than I've spent actually reading.

I have done some reading, though, and a bit of it was even ponyfiction! Click down below the break to see what's caught my eye recently, and what I thought of it.

1) Tears of an Empty Sky, by Norrie McFly

What it is: In a distant future, a dragon returns to the land from which he was banished to learn why the sun and moon have failed to rise.

A few thoughts: I'm afraid I didn't really "get" this story. It's very tragic, both on a personal level for Spike (I don't think it's much of a spoiler to reveal that the dragon is Spike--I mean, he's tagged as a major character) and on a more general level for Equestria, but there wasn't a lot of pathos associated with either tragedy. The latter is something that "just happened," while the former is presented as more of an unfortunate inevitability than anything else. As such, there's not a lot here for a reader to invest in or relate to.

The real strength of this story is in the setting, which is described in a conscientious yet detached manner. On the whole, the writing was excellent, complementing the tone of the story nicely. I was awfully disappointed by the author's decision to explain what every grunt and gesture Spike gave translated to, however; it completely robs him of the mute eloquence which I assume was intended, and frankly gets quite silly in places, which somewhat muted the dramatic impact of much of the "dialogue" for me.

Recommendation: This story paints a very vivid image of a post-tragedy Equestria, and anyone who enjoys such vivid imagery may well find this story worth reading for that alone. However, the "action" which that setting frames is less impressive.

2) The Not So Odd Outcast, by JJGingerHooves

What it is: Lyra's always been seen as a bit weird.

A few thoughts: That pretty much sums up most of the story, actually. More than half of the text is an extended summary of Lyra's childhood and teen years, which is about as interesting as the phrase "extended summary" implies. It's got a nice little moral at the end, true, but after showing that Lyra's social ostracism extends back to elementary school, having everything be solved almost instantly as a result of nothing more than a offhand suggestion is a disappointment; if the problem is that minor and easily solved, why spend so much verbiage building it up? I suppose one could argue that making the problem seem insurmountable, then immediately solving it, makes it's own point, but when that problem is the entire plot of the story, it does no favors to the work's pacing to conclude with such a quick and easy fix.

Recommendation: I know there are a lot of people out there who love stories about Lyra's human obsession; I guess anyone interested in a pseudo-deconstruction (I don't actually know what to call this fic, relative to the "Lyra's human obsession" genre in general, but "pseudo-deconstruction" seems to fit as well as anything) of the same might give this a look, but I suspect most will find it dull and unmemorable at best.

3) An Unepic Pony War in the Non-Distant Future, by anowack

What it is: Twilight and Cadence will be subsuming Celestia's and Luna's jobs for a while. The only question now is who gets whose role.

A few thoughts: Lots and lots of stories trade on comical misunderstandings and confusion due to crucial missing information. This story does so incessantly, not only with its primary focus, but with seemingly every event that happens within its scope, both those that relate directly to the eventual climax, and those that are, at best, bits of scene setting. Honestly, it got grating pretty quickly; leaving the characters (sometimes) and readers (inevitably) in the dark is all well and good, in and of itself, but making literally every exchange in the fic hinge on some sort of deliberately absent context is another.

Past that overabundance, though, I really enjoyed this story. The writing is crisp and clear, the frequent juxtapositions of serious ponies and silly situations was reliably amusing, and the dynamic between Cadence and Twilight was believable and entertaining.

Recommendation: This is a very solid, enjoyable show-tone comedy. Like the show, though, the setup is abrupt (and later, is nearly forgotten in favor of the machinations it sets in motion), if that's the sort of thing that bugs you. Also, deliberate obtuseness is the order of the day, both from the characters and the author himself, if you don't enjoy that sort of thing.

4) So Long, and Thanks for All the Ponies, by Sir Ginger

What it is: A ponified version of Douglas Adams' famous Increasingly Inaccurately Named Trilogy, basically.

A few thoughts: I was shocked when this story updated; I'd given it up for dead long ago. Anyway, seeing as I hadn't touched it in... months? A year? I don't even know. Seeing as I hadn't touched it in a good while, I decided to go ahead and skim/re-read the previous chapters before diving in finishing the story I started reading almost two years ago.

I'll be blunt: there are lots and lots of things wrong with this fic. The editing is below-average, tense shifts and the like mar the writing, character voicing is mediocre at best (regular swearing by the main six, only some of it justified or recognized as being a departure from their normal vocabulary, being perhaps the most noticeable example), and most of the fourth-wall jokes which dot the fic fall flat. The story assumes a great deal of familiarity with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and its sequels, lifting as it does many of the main characters from those books wholesale, along with all sorts of references, major and minor. Both sorts are regularly run into the ground; there must be at least a couple dozen "Belgium!"s spread over less than 60k words.

And yet... I really enjoyed this story. The thing about it is that, when the author isn't riding some reference or another into the ground or interacting directly with Pinkie, he shows a wonderful knack for imitating Adams' style of humor. Not just repeating his jokes, mind you, but coming up with original asides, conversations, and entire plot points which are undeniably of a type with the original (an example of the asides, since they're easiest to quote out of context (the irrelevant context being that the ponies are in a ship traveling "198R," if you must know): "R is a velocity measure, with 1R representing about the right speed to be going to get to a destination safely, but roughly on time. Its invention and subsequent use on all vehicles has become very convenient for the consumer, if inconvenient for anyone wishing to know how fast one is actually going. As such 198R is not a specific velocity; it is, however, clearly far too fast."). Furthermore, the long-awaited ending did a remarkably good job of tying back to many of the tangential characters and settings which the ponies had left behind as they journeyed through the cosmos, in a way which I found both funny and endearing.

Recommendation: Although I can't really say that it's a good fanfic, So Long etc. is one which I got a lot of pleasure out of. I suspect it's one mostly for readers who are willing to overlook a lot of (truthfully quite significant) flaws, if doing so means getting a healthy dose of original humor which does a fantastic job of mimicking the style and flow of the late Douglas Adams.

Have Some Stuff to Read Over the Weekend

2013-06-07T00:00:00.000-05:00

Several weeks ago, I was contacted by RBDash47, proprietor of the Pony Fiction Vault, asking if I'd be okay with having one of my stories, The Purloined Pony, inducted into (onto?) his site. Spoiler alert: I said yes. You should go check out his site for my interview (which should be going up sometime today; no pressure, RBD!), relevant links to and downloads of the story, and, most importantly, to take a look at some of the other entries on the site. There are a lot of great stories collected there, and a lot of wonderful advice and insight if you look through the interviews.

Speaking of other sites, I've got the Links page all prettied up! There are now links to all sorts of reviewers, fanfic posting and fanfic writing communities, and... well, that's pretty much it, actually. Still, I urge you to go glance through the sites listed there and see if there's anything (or anyone!) new to you. And as always, let me know if you're aware of any relevant sites which I haven't linked to.

6-Star Reviews Part 144: The Vagabond

2013-06-05T00:00:00.000-05:00

To read the story, click the image or follow this link

As was brought to my attention recently when someone asked me why I never give stories more than three stars, it's been a while since I came across anything that really blew me away in my (nearly complete!) journey through the 6-star stories. Mid-February was the last time I gave a story four or five stars, in fact. Will this be the fanfic (or pair of fanfics, as the case may be) that breaks the slump? Find out after the break.

Impressions before reading: The story description and tags don't seem, at first glance, to mesh well (saying someone is "condemned to a fate worse than death" seems to me to take an awfully liberal view of what's entailed by the "normal" tag). Beyond that though, there's not a lot to say going in. Past the original work, there are two sequels; the second sequel is incomplete and looks like it's staying that way, so I'll leave it alone and review the first two works seperately (POST READING EDIT: Actually, I'm going to put them together--there's just not enough to say about one that isn't true of the other).

Zero-ish spoiler summary: (The Vagabond) A mysterious pony, suffering horrible injuries, stumbles into Ponyville one day. Twilight and company care for him, while learning of his mysterious, tragic past.

Thoughts after reading: Even considering the wordcount of the fics, this review has taken me a while to get finished. The reason is that, frankly, I didn't want to keep reading after the first chapter. But I did, and here's my conclusion: I have literally nothing nice to say about these two stories.

Well, maybe that's a slight exaggeration. I can honestly say that I've read stories that had worse editing, worse canon characterizations, more hackneyed plots, or which I personally found more unenjoyable than this one. Heck, I could say all that even if I were just comparing it to the 6-star stories I've reviewed. But the fact of the matter is, there was not one thing about reading these that I can honestly say I liked, or even that I thought was done well--a relatively rare feat for a fanfic of any sort.

The problems start with the technical; although actual misspellings are rare--not absent, but rare--punctuation throughout is a weak point in the story ("Lemon Lime took [his hoof] to shake, but ended up being lifted and lowered several times, '...' Lemon Lime's eyes were the size of saucers, '...so would you like to join me?...could use the company.' he said voice cracking."). Run-on sentences are also distressingly common, and paragraphs frequently shoehorn in reams of tangentially related odds and ends, lacking any obvious coherence.

On a larger level, construction is a major issue in the first story (less so in the second, though the problem never disappears). POV changes and time skips regularly occur mid-chapter, without so much as a line break, and these sudden (and on some occasions, not immediately obvious) shifts are jarring and disorienting, often requiring a bit of re-reading to figure out why the story has abruptly jumped from Twilight in her (always capitalized, apparently) Library to Pinkie having a sugar crash some time later.

Characterizations are poor. The main six all appear in the story, and only occasionally act anything like their canon counterparts. Applejack suggesting early on that a doctor shouldn't be called to tend to the (very obviously on death's doorstep) stranger whom Fluttershy had just stumbled upon because it would be too expensive stuck out to me as a particularly dramatic departure from the show's characterization, but all the ponies bear at best superficial resemblance to those who star in FiM. As for the OCs? They are, to a man (pony, whatever) one-dimensional caricatures. Dr. Mend in the first story, and Luna (pre-S2, and at her most angsty) in the second, both come to mind as particularly poor examples.

These characterizations weren't helped by the wooden, tone-deaf dialogue. Speakers frequently launch into mini-soliloquies about their mental or emotional states, and equally frequently resort to hilariously overwrought lines more suited to theatrical parody than an ostensibly dramatic fanfic ("'Let me die!' he screamed, 'I can't take it anymore! It's all too much!" he gasped, "I didn't mean to! I DIDN'T MEAN TO! Oh, Celestia! I killed her! She was my only friend. I LOVED HERRRRRRRRRRRR!'").

As for the plot? Without saying too much, both stories trade on really dark premises--and in the case of the first story at least, much darker than I suspect the author intended. However, these exceedingly disturbing setups (the first story, for example, posits that murderers in Equestria are condemned to be tormented by the vengeful ghost of their victim, an that few ponies so cursed survive more than a few months themselves) are never really addressed, nor worked into the larger setting of Equestria. Plenty of fanfics have shown that it is entirely possible to deal with adult themes without breaking suspension of disbelief, but the effort to meld the tone of the show and those themes is utterly nonexistent here.

Star rating: ★☆☆☆☆ (what does this mean?)

I really can't think of anything positive to say about this story that isn't just, "well, it's better at x than this other fic..." If that isn't damning with faint praise, I don't know what is.

Recommendation: I don't recommend this story. There are worse things to read, sure, but hey: I don't recommend them, either.

Next time: Pony Psychology Series, by Saddlesoap Opera

Over the (Demographic) Rainbow

2013-06-03T19:44:00.001-05:00

I spend much of last weekend watching my friends' children while the two of them were out of town. One of the children I was babysitting was a third-grade girl; let's call her "Arya," because apparently that's what people name their daughters nowadays. Although, I suppose naming your kid after a fictional character is nothing new: my dad lobbied to name me after a minor character from The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, but my mom said no.

Anyway, Arya knew that I watch MLP, and she loves the show, so the one thing she demanded we do while I was keeping order in the house was to indulge in some "pony time." I've never watched the show, save alone. What would it be like, to watch this children's show-cum-internet phenomenon with a member of the target demographic?

Also, we read a fanfic.

Click below the break to delve into the psyche of a nine year old girl... if you dare.

"Pony time" was originally planned to be watching a few episodes of MLP on Netflix. Being the gracious sort of babysitter that I am, I told Arya we could watch whatever her favorite episodes were.

She chose "The Crystal Kingdom" and "Magical Mystery Cure."

Now, if you haven't read my comments on them, I was not really a fan of either of those episodes. The words I used to describe my feelings about them were "underwhelmed" and "extremely disappointed," respectively. But hey, if they're Arya's favorites, they're Arya's favorites, right? So we watched the episodes, talked about them a little bit, and when all was said and done, here's what I'd learned:

-Arya's favorite thing about MLP is the songs. I suppose that's not terribly surprising; lots of people really like the songs, after all. She specifically said that what she loved about MMC was how many songs it had (all of which she sang along with, which was at times pretty amusing since she didn't know the words to most of them). But, based on that, I suppose it's no surprise that she picked two multi-song episodes to watch.

-When I asked her who her favorite character was, she told me it was Cadence. Why? "Because she's a princess, and she's pink." Arya's big into princesses*. To be fair, her fantasies mostly involve wielding supreme executive power (which, I guess, is what princesses do nowadays) rather than marrying Prince Charming, but nevertheless she and the many little girls like her are the reason we have things like Cadence and alicornified Twilight.

-Since I was unhappy with (what I perceived as) the moral of MMC, I asked Arya what she thought the episode was trying to teach. She rolled her eyes at me, which is probably what a question like that deserves. But she did answer: "It's about how anyone who's smart and strong and knows a lot can become a princess." Assuming that we take "become a princess" figuratively, that's not a bad moral--but I think it's the one she wanted to hear. She also told me that the reason Sombra was evil was because he was married to Princess Luna, and "when Luna became evil then he became evil too and then he turned into shadow because there are shadows when the moon is out," all of which would be pretty nice if it wasn't completely at odds with what the episode had literally just told us, as we sat watching it together. I think that, like a lot of young children, Arya doesn't care what the show says nearly as much as we adults do, and I don't mean in the "she'll swallow anything they say" way. I mean that she, and lots of kids, will gleefully warp the show to suit their fancies. Honestly, that makes me feel a lot better about some of the episodes which I thought had really disconcerting morals. It doesn't make those morals any more palatable to me though; such are the perils of Chris and his ilk trying to watch a show written for Arya and hers.

-Not surprisingly, Twilight is her favorite main character, because she gets to be a princess and is the strongest. She was less impressed with Applejack, who was "boring," and who didn't have any "cool powers," examples of which include Pinkie's canon, Dash's Rainbooming, and Fluttershy's "pet bear army." No, I didn't know about that one, either.

-----

After those two (three, whatever) episodes, TV time was up. I had thought that would be the only "pony time" we'd have, but that was not to be the case. She asked me to read her a bedtime story later, and when I asked what she wanted to read, she asked if there were any stories about Twilight. I don't think she knows about fanfiction yet (I, at least, wouldn't let my nine year old child into any of the parts of the internet which peddle in fanfiction--too easy to get to inappropriate content, intentionally or accidentally), but I did have a few fanfics on my e-reader. So, we read The Eulogy of Mr. Acorn, by the Coward Twilight Sparkle together.

I'd read it a couple of days before, and thought it was good but not great. I loved the light touch the author used in showing the ethics of dealing with death, and the use of a "mere" squirrel as the deceased (as opposed to something shown to be fully sapient in the show) kept the tone from getting too depressing for what was, ultimately, a slice-of-life fanfic. I also found the language clear and vivid, if occasionally a bit dense for the material. That said, the story gets off to a slow start, and has several obvious plot contrivances (like the fact that Twilight is expected to give this squirrel a eulogy in the first place). Also, the story doesn't have particularly good tonal balance--it seems like it doesn't want to be a "sad" story, but it also doesn't want to be a comedy, despite including a lot of elements of each genre, and as a result it comes off a bit muddled. Although it was a little advanced for Arya in terms of language, the story was perfectly appropriate content-wise, was Twilight-centric, and hey; kids learn words by seeing them used, right? So we gave it a read.

Language was indeed an issue on some occasions (starting with "eulogy"), but Arya's got good context skills for her age, and I was reading it with her and could explain anything she didn't understand anyway. Surprisingly, she picked up the nuances of the story's dilemma--that Fluttershy's upset that Twilight isn't respecting what Mr. Acorn would have wanted, and that by doing (what Fluttershy says) he would have wanted, Twilight is helping really helping Fluttershy--on her own.

I asked her what she thought of the story afterwards, and she told me that she thought it was "really good." She liked that it had Twilight and Luna (two princesses!), but didn't have a lot of specifics past that. To be fair, that was right before bed, and she was tired. I noticed that she laughed whenever the animals started grumbling, though, and seemed to genuinely enjoy a lot of the jokes--even ones that I thought would go over her head.

-----

So, that was my weekend. Sorry if this post didn't change the way you view ponies forever, but to be fair, it did do that for me. Not much, admittedly, but sharing some of the show with someone of its target demographic was fun, and in some ways illuminating. And sharing a little bit of fanfiction with someone outside its target demographic was enjoyable--for both of us.

*Yes, Game of Thrones fans, I know I should have called her Sansa instead. Now quit being pedantic--pedanticism is my M.O.

[Insert Placeholder-ish Title Here]

2013-06-03T00:00:00.000-05:00

Just a heads-up: I've been working this weekend on a super-secret project that will revolutionize the way we view ponies; if this post goes up, it means I didn't convert it to written form by posting time. I'll still have it up today, but it'll be late--probably something in the 15-20 hour range. Until then!

Mini-Reviews Round 11

2013-05-31T00:00:00.000-05:00

Thanks for the comments on Wednesday's post--I haven't added anything because, as I already mentioned, I don't have a lot to add. The whole "the rights holder takes control of your story and everything in it" sounds pretty ominous, though; does that mean that if you write a story with an OC and then later try to write a sequel to said story, you could be sued for copyright infringement for using your own character? I don't really know what the ramifications (both practical and, as in my example, somewhat fanciful) are; I took a class that covered copyright law back in college, but 1) that was mostly in regards to music, and 2) virtually the only thing I got out of that class is that, if you bring a piece of sheet music within twenty yards of a photocopier, FBI agents will burst down your door, throw you in an old-timey dungeon without even so much as a phone call, sell everything you own, and make a gift of your wife to the original rights holder. Or something like that.

Anyhoo, all the stories and my impressions of them, after the break. Well, not all the stories, but... look, you know what I mean. Onward!

1) Applejack is Full of Squirrels, by shortskirtsandexplosions

What it is: Applejack has been kidnapped by squirrels, who've replaced her with a "completely undetectable" squirrel-powered robot, the better to locate and obtain a holy acorn before it falls into the hands of the evil chipmunks.

A few thoughts: So, I really like squirrels. I put out food for them in the backyard, I watch them every day through the window in the living room, and they have a funny way of making my day. I also like stories that peddle in comic melodrama. So, a story about squirrels and chipmunks (I like chipmunks too--there are a pair who come to the backyard, and they're super fun to watch because they get so jumpy around the squirrels, even though the squirrels never seem to notice them) and their epic shadow war is right up my alley.

This is one of those stories that's just stupid, through and through, and it revels in its stupidity, even as the frequently nonsensical plot and random explosions are belied by SS&E's usual level of quality wordsmanship (that is to say, dense and overwrought--it seems an ill fit at the very beginning of the story, but when the rodents start laying on their ridiculous backstories, it starts to feel much more appropriate). And let it never be said that I hate stupid things. Well, that I hate all stupid things, anyway.

Recommendation: Did you know that when I was in high school I wrote an RPG system for playing as squirrels? Think Bunnies and Burrows, only with a lot more human contact and a secretive race of drow-like "dark squirrels." Sadly, the computer it was saved on died, so all I have left of it are a few pages of notes. Maybe I'll try to reconstruct it someday.

Anyway. If you are as fond of cute furry rodents as me, this fic is sure to put a smile on your face. Even if not, fans of zany ridiculousness and robot-pony fights will probably find this to be an amusing short story.

2) The OC Support Group, by M1ghtypen

What it is: After mixing up what day the villain support group is supposed to meet, Lightning Dust ends up attending... the OC support group.

A few thoughts: This strikes me as one of those stories that just doesn't know what it wants to be. It starts out focusing on humor, albeit in an inconsistent way; it lurches between meta-comedy (though not the "address the reader" type, thankfully) and physical comedy without cleanly melding the two. Some of the scenes and ideas are pretty good, actually--the various alicorns who were so sure that they were long-lost prince(sse)s or what have you--but a lot of these jokes were played very one-note: here's the character, here's what's funny about him or her, and now on to the next one. Nothing wrong with that, but a little choppy and unconnected for my taste.

The story then transitions to Lightning battling her inner demons and generally takes a turn for the dramatic, though, and it was not a comfortable fit with the first part of the story. Sure, Lightning's alcoholism is suggested almost from the start, but to suddenly go from a "confound these ponies, they drive me to drink!" vibe to emotional breakdowns and rehabilitation just didn't work for me.

Recommendation: Well, there are some funny bits in the first half, though it's all somewhat awkwardly paced. I kind of enjoyed it, though, and if you're looking for a goofy but not too off-the-wall bit of light meta-humor, this might be worth a look. Beware mood whiplash in the second half, though.

3) Somepony Else's Story, by OtterMatt

What it is: Vinyl Scratch goes to a bar, talks to the bartender... and that's about it.

A few thoughts: This story is told from the POV of the bartender, and as the title implies, it's not really his story; he's just a scene in a larger drama, one that we're mostly not privy to.

That's probably a good thing, because the larger drama looks suspiciously like the kind of TaviScratch pablum that I'd skip over without a second thought. By showing a small bit of that story from an outside angle, the author manages to invest some interest into a tired premise. Said bartender is an interesting character, and his observations about his bar and bar tending generally are some of the best parts of the fic.

Recommendation: This is a good one for readers looking for a short slice-of-life story that uses an interesting twist of perspective, but which isn't at all gimmicky or reliant on "shock twists."

4) Edited By, by TheBandBrony

What it is: Twilight suffers a case of writer's block, brought on by a sense of literary inferiority. Spike tries to help.

A few thoughts: This story is funny enough on its own merits, but I suspect a lot of writers and editors will see themselves in Spike and/or Twi's only slightly exaggerated dance of self-criticism and lack of self-awareness, and attempts to help without destroying an already fragile ego (the exchange to which I related best? "'Twilight, you just gestured to your entire paper.' 'I know, that's where the problems are.'"). The ending was a bit much for me, though; I realize that nobody wants to read an in-depth editing session, but having Spike instantly solve everything by pointing out one awkward phrase was kind of a letdown.

Recommendation: This story will probably appeal more to people who are active in writing, either as writers themselves or as editors/pre-readers/whatever. Still, it's got plenty of inherent low-key comedy to appeal to all readers.

5) The Trials of Elizabeak the Brave Little Chicken, by BronyWriter

What it is: Stare Master, as told by the titular escaped chicken.

A few thoughts: Like Applejack is Full of Squirrels, this story peddles heavily in militant, over-dramatic critters. Chickens are not a species I have any particular attachment to, however. More to the point (that point being to offer some useful commentary, if I'm remembering right), this story doesn't have any of the plot-based absurdities of SS&E's story; it's just Stare Master, told from an unexpected, and comically grandiose, point of view.

While that was funny enough at first, it is kind of a one-note joke. Well before the cockatrice is ever encountered, I was beginning to find the story a bit dull, and the adjective-heavy writing style did nothing to mitigate that. Every time I began to move into skimming mode, however, some particularly funny insight or in-character observation, such as Elizabeak describing the CMC as "One horned pony, one bird pony, and one useless pony," would pull me back in.

Recommendation: There's not much to this story beyond the inherent appeal of Elizabeak as a narrator, but it's not bad for all that. Anyone looking for a story which does a take on an episode, yet doesn't resort to simply retelling the events therefrom without embellishment, might find this to be to their liking.

Discussion: Commercial Fanfiction

2013-05-29T00:00:00.000-05:00

You've all probably already heard, but Amazon announced several days ago that they were preparing to start publishing fanfiction for the Kindle. Although the current plans include only fanfics for Gossip Girls, The Vampire Diaries and Pretty Little Liars, and although it seems unlikely in the extreme that this is a bandwagon Hasbro would want to jump on (Amazon needs to make arrangements with the rights holders to publish fanfics commercially), this is pretty big news in the fanfic world. I've been sitting on it for a few days myself, trying to decide what I wanted to say about the whole thing.

Only... I'm not really sure what to think. Is this good for fanfiction? Is this bad? What are the legal ramifications of the boundary between commercial fiction and explicitly "for-fun" writing being (even further) blurred? How would the ponyfiction community be different if there were a pay-to-read alternative through which authors could attempt to go?

Having opinions about things is something I'm pretty good at, but I just don't think I know enough to... well, to know how I feel about this. So I'd like to open up the comments: what do you think about commercial fanfiction in principal? What do you think about Amazon's plan specifically? And, if this were (for the sake of argument) ever to spread to the ponyfiction world, how would that alter the landscape, for better or for worse?

Drop your thoughts in the comments section; I'd love to hear from some folks who do have strong opinions about this. Or at least, from people with a better idea of what the implications of this are than I have.

For a Change, Let's Talk About Actual Books (Part 8)

2013-05-27T00:00:00.000-05:00

Happy Memorial Day to all you folks who live in Memorial Day-celebrating regions! I intend to mark the occasion by not having a review done. Instead, here's a look at some of the non-fanfic reading that I'm engaged in at the moment. Click below the break to see what books have drawn my eye.

A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, vol. 2), by George RR Martin

What it is: A fantasy series set primarily amidst the Seven Kingdoms, chronicling the battles and schemes of dozens of different nobles, warriors, and claimants to the Iron Throne.

How I'm liking it so far: Yes, I'm several years late picking up this "Game of Thrones" thing, but when I finally watched season one I loved it, and now I'm making my way through the books. The characters are, for the most part, delightfully human, and there's an excellent mix of humor and drama throughout. There's also plenty of casual cruelty, incest, and general medieval-era morality, some of which I found offputting; the TV show aged most of the characters up, and there were times when I wished the author had done the same. Still, an all-around excellent and engaging series, halfway through the second book.

One thing I don't get, though; I've been pretty cautious about exploring the internet for Thrones-related content, not wanting to spoil anything for myself, but I gather that Jon Snow is widely beloved of the fans. Maybe he does something amazing past the point where I am, but so far he's been a decidedly "blah" presence. He's got an interesting enough story, I suppose, being a bastard child in a world where bastards have few rights, but he himself is awfully bland. On the other hand, I'm absolutely in love with Tyrion Lannister. Every time I get to a chapter from his POV, I start grinning like an idiot; his is a much more nuanced take on the distress of noble blood barred from the possibility of ascension, and I never get tired of his acidic wit. That's who I want to read more about, dangit!

Recommendation: These books are popular for a reason; anyone interested in a slightly grim, low-fantasy take on a war of succession should give these a look. There is some questionable content though, and readers looking for unambiguous heroes are unlikely to find them here.

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, by David Sedaris

What it is: A series of bestiary fables by the famed This American Life contributor.

How I'm liking it so far: I heard that Sedaris had a new book out, but it didn't look like my cup of tea. However, the review I read compared it favorably to Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, his previous work, which sounded much more up my alley. So, I gave it a look.

This collection is... odd. A series of unrelated fables, some of these hew closely to Aesopian structure (animals demonstrate a moral, the end), some deploy Thurber-esque twists, and some lack any obvious lesson at all. Some are comic and lighthearted, some are darkly humorous, and others are just plain depressing. This is a real mixed bag. I guess on the whole I'm liking it, but there's no cohesion at all to these stories; nothing in tone, structure, or POV (beyond being about talking animals, I suppose) to connect them.

Recommendation: Anyone to whom the phrase "bestiary fables" appeals ought to check this out, if only to see what they think for themselves. I suspect that readers who are put off by major tone shifts and a general feeling of disconnectedness will have trouble enjoying this collection, though.

Vampire Hunter D Volume 8: Mysterious Journey to the North Sea (Part Two), by Hideyuki Kikuchi

What it is: A series of books chronicling the adventures of the titular D, a half-human half-vampire who travels the post-apocalyptic, monster-filled future, selling his vampire-slaying services and just generally being beautiful and inscrutable.

How I'm liking it so far: For those of you only familiar with the movies, Vampire Hunter D began as a Japanese novel series. And it's really, really bad. Seriously, if this was a fanfic, it would be infamous for its purple prose, its rampant misogyny, its Mary-Sue protagonist, its stilted writing, its... look, let me quote a bit from volume 1 to give you a taste of what we're talking about, here:

Before she'd finished speaking, a streak of white light shot toward her breast from D's left hand. In fact, it was a foot-long needle he'd taken out at some point and thrown faster than the naked eye could follow. It was made of wood. As it traveled at that unfathomable speed, the needle burned from the friction of the air, and the white light was from those flames.
But something odd had happened.
The flames had come to a stop in front of D's chest. Not that the needle he'd thrown had simply stopped there. The instant it was about to sink into [her] breast, it had turned around and come back, and D had stopped it with is bare hand. Or to be more accurate, [she] had caught the needle with superhuman speed and thrown it back just as quickly. The average person wouldn't even have seen her hand move.
"If the servant is no more than a servant, still the master is a master. Well done," D murmured, heedless of the flaming needle in his hand or the way it steadily scorched his naked flesh. "For that display of skill you get my name. I'm the Vampire Hunter D. Remember that, should you live." As he spoke, D sprinted for the young lady without making a sound.

Mind you, that's a representative sample; if I went looking, I could easily find even "better" selections to share. So yeah, this isn't good. Also, I'm up to volume 8. Can you say "guilty pleasure?"

Recommendation: I enjoy these books in much the same way that I enjoy Sy-Fy original movies. I don't recommend them for their quality, obviously, but there's a certain appeal to seeing a campy, ridiculous train wreck unfold.

The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us, by James W. Pennebaker

What it is: From the dust jacket: "...social psychologist and language expert James W. Pennebaker uses his groundbreaking reasearch in computational linguistics--in essence, counting the frequency of words we use-- to show that our language carries secrets about our feelings, our self-concept, and our social intelligence. Our most forgettable words, such as pronouns and prepositions, can be the most revealing: their patterns are as distinctive as fingerprints."

How I'm liking it so far: I'm only 40 pages in, so it's hard to say too much. The premise is one I was interested in from the start, but the presentation so far has been very academic, and more focused on the mathematics and definitions used than on any actual results. That may change once I get a little farther in, but right now, it's feeling pretty dry to me.

Recommendation: Anyone interested in the confluence between linguistics and sociology might want to give this a look, though those looking for something easily accessible may find this not to be to their liking.

6-Star Reviews Part 143: Heart of Gold, Feathers of Steel

2013-05-24T00:00:00.000-05:00

To read the story, click the image or follow this link

You know, it's funny. Whenever I'm out and about, I'll constantly have inane revelations or tidbits of which I'll think to myself, "Hey, that would be a great for an above-the-break bit!" But then, when I actually sit down at the keyboard... I got nothin'.

Below the break, my review of NickNack's Heart of Gold, Feathers of Steel.

Impressions before reading: I have a complicated relationship with this story. I read Heart of Gold as it was being written, and was quite enjoying it up through chapter four or five, when the author went back and made some revisions which I personally didn't agree with (but which I was apparently in the minority regarding). I finished that story, and got several chapters into the sequel, before another set of revisions convinced me to just wait until the Nick had a finished product before coming back. Now on the one hand, it's hard to be upset with someone for wanting to improve their story. On the other, it is something of a disincentive to pre-completion readership; nobody wants to read the same chapter twice, and authorial tl;drs (I don't recall if Nick used them or not, but plenty of other authors who've re-written their in-progress stories have) are a poor substitute for the ficreading experience.

Well, it's been a long time (this fic was started 'round about two years ago), but the sequel--since split into two stories--is nearing completion, and the original appears to be in its "final" form. So, I'll be reviewing Heart of Gold now, and coming back to review the two sequels together once they're finished.

Zero-ish spoiler summary: Gilda has been living on her own for three years, an outcast from her tribe. When she decides to visit her only friend, Rainbow Dash... well, you've all seen Griffon the Brush-off. What you haven't seen is what came before, and what came after.

Thoughts after reading: One of the things I really liked about the original version of this story was that Gilda's thought processes were intriguingly alien; she was raised in a vicious, brutal culture, and that cultural outlook shown through in her actions. That aspect of the story has been almost entirely excised from this version, in favor of a softer, more relatable Gilda. Here, she is a victim of her parents and her society, emotionally stunted but possessing the same (broadly speaking) moral and ethical worldview as the ponies--and presumably, the reader. This is dangerous territory; "justification fics" are a dime a dozen (though admittedly, most of this fandom's are about Trixie), and all too often degenerate into nothing more than lengthy strings of excuses. Thankfully, NickNack mostly avoids this pitfall.

While it's true that a fair bit of time is spent explaining how and why Gilda's actions during Brush-off weren't as one-sidedly mean-spirited as they appeared, Heart of Gold doesn't try to absolve its protagonist of responsibility for her deeds, nor does it go out of its way to paint Pinkie and the rest in a negative light. Although some of Gilda's hand(claw)-wringing over her own actions seems a little too much like it's attempting to mitigate her deeds in the reader's eye, the fic paints a consistent, believable portrait of Gilda which can be matched up with the one seen on TV with little trouble. This isn't so much a re-imagining of an episode as it is an expansion upon it, which is definitely the right approach for this story.

However, that approach does mean that several scenes lifted directly from the show fall flat. The scene culminating in Gilda crashing Pinkie's heli-whatever is one which adds almost nothing to the show's portrayal of events; Gilda's perspective is gained, of course, but since her perspective boils down to "Pinkie was annoying the heck out of me, so I kept trying to get me and Dash away from her," that whole segment brings little to the table besides a literal retelling of the show's events. Thankfully, this was not common to all such show-scenes; the description of Pinkie joy-buzzing Gilda comes immediately to mind as one which repeats show events, but adds interesting and original context to the mix.

Although the first chapter is heavy on needless modifiers, with plenty of "at first"s, "pretty much"s, and the like in places where they added little, writing was a strong point overall. Gilda's voice comes through clearly, and some of her juvenile word choice in the show is cleverly (if obliquely) addressed as a product of Equestrian not being her native language. Likewise, the way her isolation has left her mind prone to wandering gives the author both an excuse to dole out some backstory and worldbuilding, and to use the narrative style to show Gilda's mental state. There's a level of conscientiousness to word choice and story construction here which I appreciated.

Speaking of backstory and worldbuilding, there's a whole lot of it here, too. The author's griffons borrow heavily from the Klingon's "violent, prideful, and occasionally too dumb to live" cultural playbook, and the bits and pieces of their backstory that we get to see are invariably interesting in their own right. The fact that Gilda appears to exist, morally and emotionally, outside of that culture does weaken the impact somewhat--it makes her father, and her tribe generally, seem less like they have a foreign worldview and more like they're just terrible people (griffons)--but it does have the advantage of giving readers a relatable view of that society.

The final chapter may seem like an over-long denouement, moving the action away from Dash and Ponyville as it does, but I've always preferred too much settling time after a climax to too little. Explicitly laying out Gilda's central conflict (via title drop, no less) did seem heavy-handed to me though, especially considering that the rest of the story was content let Gilda's actions and inner thoughts speak for themselves.

Star rating: ★★★☆☆ (what does this mean?)

Ironically, the close connection to Griffon the Brush-off provides both the story's strongest and weakest moments. The best paint the events in that episode in a new light, without invalidating or re-imagining anything about them; the worst simply parrot the scenes without any meaningful additions. But there's a lot more to this story than its canon tie-ins, and Gilda's story is interesting and dramatic in and of itself.

Recommendation: Readers who are put off by stories which use show episodes extensively will want to avoid this story, but anyone looking for something which expands upon canon in both worldbuilding and character portrayal will find a lot here to like.

Next time: The Vagabond, by Truthseeker

Mini-Reviews Round 10

2013-05-22T00:00:00.000-05:00

Just a few fics this go-round; the things in my life which aren't pony have been keeping me busy lately, and they have a disappointing tendency to demand precedence over my fanfic reading. A few thoughts on some casually-read stories, below the break as always.

1) Mission: Implausible, by John Perry

Zero-ish spoiler summary: Vinyl Scratch and Octavia are secret agents for the crown, sent to investigate a cartel operating in San Fransiscolt.

A few thoughts: I've reviewed a couple of Mr. Perry's stories previously, but this one never cracked the six-star barrier. Pity, that; I liked this story a lot, and would go so far as to say I liked it even better than those other two.

The overall vibe is light action/comedy, and while the tone does occasionally wander towards heavier action staples (some (non-explicit) sex jokes and references to ponies dying feel out of place against the rest of the story), it mostly maintains an engaging readability. It's also full of the name puns and comic/expository asides which I love to see in humorous works, but never becomes so obsessed with being silly that the plot gets overwhelmed or tossed aside. There's a nice balance of elements here, on the whole.

Recommendation: Anyone looking for a mid-length (about 30k words) bit of light reading will probably find this entertaining, and I highly recommend it to readers who want to see an author do something with Vinyl and Octavia other than ship them unconvincingly. Heads up, though: if you're one of the people who react violently to any hint of LUS, this fic will drive you batty.

2) Two Beats, by NickNack

Zero-ish spoiler summary: Crossfade is an industrial worker by day, and a DJ by night. His life is also rapidly spiraling out of control, as he tries to balance these two lives--and the addictions that are maintaining and destroying him.

A few thoughts: This is another one of those "pony in name only" stories. I always kind of wonder why the authors of these don't just write original fiction, if there's nothing about the setting, tone, characters, or meta-commentary to connect the story to its nominal source material.

Be that as it may, this is a powerful story on its own merits. A casual read might leave one feeling that it strained credulity a bit too far with some of its contrivances, but these contrivances make their own point about Crossfade's present state. The ending, without revealing too much, is one that will probably frustrate, but in the service of driving the reader to think about the story--the best kind of frustration to have.

Recommendation: To be clear: anyone looking for any semblance of the tone, sensibilities, or worldbuilding of FiM will not find it here. But readers who don't mind a bit of original fiction which happens to be enacted by ponies will find this a brief but powerful piece.

3) Mortal, by BenMan

Zero-ish spoiler summary: Twilight's friends are old, but having become a princess, she remains as youthful as ever. Twilight has the power to grant them immortality as alicorns, but must not... something not all of her friends can accept.

I'm pretty sure the premise has been shot down by show staff since the author began writing, but never mind that.

A few thoughts: The additional tags on this story are "I hope you like melodrama," and that's as good a review as anything. To be clear, I actually liked this story, but it's mostly ponies arguing back and forth. The draw here isn't so much the story as the moral and ethical arguments made, plus one key fact: I genuinely had no idea what was going to happen for large chunks of the story.

The biggest compliment I can pay this story is to say that, although the dialogue sometimes edges towards the cliche, the story events assiduously avoid falling into predictable tropes throughout. It's a rare story that can make me say "Wow, I never would have thought that's where this was going" without adding "...because that's really stupid," but that's exactly what the author accomplished multiple times throughout this work. As much as anything, I finished this story because I was curious to see just how (or if) everything was going to resolve. Add to that strong characterizations, the apparent variances with canon of which are all addressed over the course of the fic, and there's a lot here to keep one going.

Recommendation: Folks looking for a story that's heavy on ethical dilemmas, and one which will keep them guessing, should absolutely check this out. But readers seeking something less debate-oriented (despite the high stakes, some of the conversations can get rather dry) and/or heavier on action and narration may find this too dull for their tastes--or rather, the wrong kind of interesting.

The Worlds We Build

2013-05-20T00:00:00.000-05:00

Guest post! Getcher guest post, right here!

Today's installment of One Man's Pony Ramblings (Except when it's Not) is brought to you courtesy of The Descendant, that inimitable fanfic bastion of Victorian prose and occasional potty jokes. He also has some has some thoughts about the vitally important yet easy-to-do-poorly execution of worldbuilding within one's writing. He also also has some exceptionally interesting hobbies besides writing ponyfiction, as you'll find if you click below the break. So... do that.

-----

The second we step out of the woods and into the cornfield, everything goes to Hell.

The plans that the officers had made, the grand strategy that they had pondered, and the way they had carefully explained it all washes away amid the tall stalks of the corn. The leaves tear tiny cuts across my hands and face as I plunge forward, following the other men of my company.

I pull my Sharps rifle closer as I walk the furrows between the rows, and the sound of the musket fire only seems to grow more constant around me.

There is a volley off to our left, and the high staccato sound of the rebel yell drifts through the field. The eerie wail reaches my unit like the cries of innumerable banshees. The day is warm, and I can feel every bristle and bur that clings to the wool of my uniform. I’m miserable, hot… terrified.

There’s another volley. The men of my company and I listen for the insect-like drone of the Minie’ balls, the clap of musket fire, and the cries of wounded men. Snaps leaps from our right, and we know that we are in the thick of it, that despite not being able to see more than a few yards in any direction we know that we are amid a conflagration.

“Sounds like they’re to our left and our right,” I pant, stating the obvious. “Sir!” the sergeant calls to the lieutenant, politely ignoring my sun-addled idiocy. “Sir!” he calls again, some small panic in his voice.

I stare through the corn, imagining figures behind every stalk.

“Christ!” someone calls, and in a second thundering hooves are upon us. Cavalry! Ours? Theirs? The outline of a horse arises from the corn. The first trooper pelts past us… the second stops in our midst.

Grey and butternut! Theirs! Theirs! Shit!

There’s a flash of metal, and a cavalry saber flashes past my head. I turn, lifting my Sharps. I squeeze the trigger. A “ka-kang” lurches out into the corn, and I retreat into the rows, hiding amid the white smoke of my shot as my hand frantically goes to my cartridge box.

I take off, desperately searching for the other men of my company. I nearly fall over them as I reload on the run. We follow the retreating rebel cavalry, knowing that they are protecting something.

We burst out of the corn, and there on the very edge of a woodlot sits the Stars and Bars, the Confederate battle flag. Beneath it sits the flank of an infantry regiment, the last few men in the battle line staring at us wide-eyed.

“Fire away, lads!” calls my sergeant, and I lift my Sharps. “Fire away!” he calls again. I level my rifle, dropping to my knee to steady my shot as…

Something catches in the corner of my eye. I wheel about… and find myself staring at a video production crew.

A late-summer morning in September of 1862 drifts away. What had been The Cornfield at Antietam becomes a farmer’s field sitting close to Interstate 81 in twenty-first century Maryland. The contrails of jets bound for Washington D.C. appear overhead as a final punctuation to the end of the world the Civil War re-enactment had been presenting me.

The 150th Anniversary Reenactment of the Battle of Antietam was the largest re-enactment I’d ever been a part of… but I can’t honestly say it was the best. The “battlefield” where we fought for the ten thousand spectators was under some massive, hissing power lines. The Dunker Church replica looked like it was freshly purchased tool shed from Home Depot, and the model of Burnside’s Bridge (which I have the dubious honor of having been the first Union soldier to fight his way across) was mostly constructed of crepe paper.

The process of building a world, either in our fiction or at a Civil War re-enactment, is one that requires a fair amount of care. It is so easy to damage the illusion, to have the foundations crack, or let the seams show. Fan fiction is “easier” in some ways, in that there is already a developed canon to work from, but then again it is our want to explore that canon the drives us to write concepts that spring from our creativity alone.

Fan fiction is a form of speculative fiction, and as such we can’t help but let our own ideas come into play. This is often referred to as “head canon”, but I can’t help but prefer “personal fanon”, as it reveals the simple truth that we all have our own visions of the shadowed, unrevealed aspects of the series are that we are trying to explore.

I’ve been writing fan fiction for a great long while, and reading it even longer. In doing so, I’ve observed what I’ve seen as being the most successful ways to go about the world building we require to make our personal fanon, and our most original concepts, come to pass.

1) Remember that the reader has no idea what you’re talking about.
The greatest mistake a fan fiction author makes when they begin to write for their unique vision is believing that others share in it, and that they inherently understand it. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The job of the author is to involve the reader in the work, to make them feel present within it. For an author to simply assume that a reader understands their setting and the premise is akin to dropping the reader in some foreign city and expecting them to know the streets.

How do we avoid doing that? By following the next two rules.

2.) Stay rooted in canon character development.

Readers are a largely forgiving bunch. They wish to see what the author comes up with, and are generally willing to go with the narrative to some very unusual and unexpected places. It takes a measure of trust for them to do that, though.

Nothing destroys that trust faster than removing the characters from their canon portrayal.

Once again, we write fan fiction because we wish to explore what these characters would do in the different situations we present to them. If we radically change who these characters are, then we’ve essentially created original fiction rather than a work of fan fiction.

This is not to say that character development should be ignored within the fan work itself, but rather that it should continually be tempered and tested against what we already know of each character.

3.) Find the line between “too much” and “too little” information.
The least effective way that any author can present any sort of information is as a block of text. These “infodumps” are pedestrian, and the only worse way of presenting a back-story is by simply beginning with a note stating “Pretend that X didn’t happen”, or that “Rainbow Dash is actually a seventeenth century harpsichord repairmare,” etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum.

The situation only gets worse when one of these cascades of information begins with one character telling another “As you are aware…” or “As you already know…” Imagine what that would feel like in real life. How long could you stand having an associate ramble on for long minutes about something that you already know in detail before you finally scream and run off into the distance, arms flailing through the air?

Or, at least, become bored. The readers feel the same way.

But, keeping our first rule that the reader must be informed in mind, how do we find the happy medium between leaving the bewildered and sending hem running off? The answer lies in looking at successful examples from literature.

The hands-down champion of world building was, of course, Tolkien. I was reminded of this as I watched the first installment of the new movie version of The Hobbit. With a few subtle clues he informs us of how much is going on in his constructed world, Middle Earth, without drowning us in details and turning it into a history lesson.

For me, one of the most effective scenes in the work is when Elrond simply inspects the swords that Thorin and Gandalf found in the troll cave, the ones we come to know as Orcist and Glamdring

In a few sentences we learn that they were used by powerful Elvish lords in ancient times, before the fall of a great kingdom… and then the narrative moves on, opening the reader to a great, vast new understanding of Tolkien’s world without taxing their patience or willingness to invest in the work.

Sometimes, what an author does not tell the reader is as important as what they do. Finding that middle ground takes patience and trial and error, and is fraught with missteps and errors. Yet, once accomplished, it is a powerful aspect of the story, one that adds many dimensions to the work.

In this fandom, I’ve encountered effective use of world building in places where I least expected to find it. I’ve read tales of Equestria entering an industrial age, and of it rising out of the sea. I’ve enjoyed stories where characters were taken to the logical extremes, and ones where they were played against themselves. The only thing that has successfully separated the worlds that these authors created from their less successful contemporaries was how well they settled the characters we’ve come to know into these worlds, and how they developed the vision of the reality they saw in their minds.

A successfully crafted world immerses the reader in the writer’s vision, the “personal fanon” of a fan fiction author, and makes them believe that it could exist. Carefully considering how to successfully approach such world building is an important lesson for the author to learn.

Three days after my adventure in the farmer’s cornfield and with the video production crew, I was still wearing my uniform.

It was six o’clock in the morning on September 17th, 2012, and as the dawn broke across Antietam National Battlefield, I disappeared into The Cornfield. This was no hastily assembled replica, no falsified version. This was the actual killing ground where the bloodiest day in American history had begun one hundred and fifty years earlier to the minute.

The cornrows consumed all other noises except for their own ambient rustling. I walked forward, tracing the horrible, anxious minutes of the unit I represent. I stood where they stood, listening to the breezes drifting through the corn where those men had suffered. I pressed forward, and in my head I began to hear the cries of the wounded, the droning of the musket balls, the shriek of the artillery.

The present melted away, and as the corn brushed my face the world of those first desperate hours of a nineteenth century day revealed itself in full.

Stay Awesome,

-T.D.

-----

I don't really have anything to add. Thanks for sharing, TD, and for both the good advice and the great story!

Son of a...

2013-05-18T11:34:00.002-05:00

Hold on a minute...

[Edit: Okay, so when I set the review to post, I forgot to actually copy/paste it in. Uh... oops. Anyway, go read my review of The Vinyl Scratch Tapes (Season Two). It's there this time, I promise!]

6-Star Reviews Part 142: The Vinyl Scratch Tapes (Season Two)

2013-05-17T00:00:00.000-05:00

To read the story, click the image or follow this link

Since I'd already used the actual cover art for my review of the first story (which you can read at the link above, or read my review of here; this review may contain spoilers for the original story, so use your discretion), I took a look at the handful of pony images I liked enough to save. This is the most closely related thing I have. I would also like to submit that Octavia playing a theremin is awesome.

On an unrelated note, the capcha stuff seems to be doing a pretty good job filtering out the spam; I can still see it, but the messages don't seem to be making it through and onto the blog proper. I think the spambots may have noticed, though. Where the messages used to all be positive things like "Wow! You're post is informative &helful!"--when they weren't obscene, anyway--now they're things like "my God, i thought you were going to chip in with some decisive insght at the end there, not leave it with ‘we leave it to you to decide’." I guess the honeymoon is over.

Click below the break for my review of Corey W. Williams' The Vinyl Scratch Tapes.

[EDIT: For posterity's sake, let it be known that this post originally went up without the actual review attached--hence the first twenty or so comments. All fixed now, obviously.]

Impressions before reading: Well, I liked the original story well enough; that's always a good sign going in. I'm mostly hoping that Season Two doesn't rely to heavily on the shipping angle from the last chapter of Season One, and aims more towards the comedy which pervades the original.

As I always do when reviewing sequels, I'm taking the first story as a given going in. In other words, don't expect me to spend a lot of time talking about the script format, characterizations which carry over from that story, or the like.

Zero-ish spoiler summary: Following the events at the end of the first story, Octavia and Vinyl take a brief hiatus. When they resume their show, they find they have a new competitor in the still-young field of radio broadcasting: Prince Blueblood and his station, National Pony Radio.

Thoughts after reading: Since I was pretty unhappy with the seeming inconsistency of Blueblood's characterization in the first story, let's start there. Season Two's Blueblood is comically inept and revenge-fueled, but unlike the cartoonishly villainous role he was assigned in the last chapter of the original story, an attempt is made here to flesh him out as a character. This meets with mixed results--while the conversation between him and Luna is genuinely touching, the entire ending (which, for the sake of not spoiling, I will simply say revolves around a very cliche and predictable revenge/redemption decision) is disappointingly melodramatic and uninspired. On the whole, however, this story is a welcome step up for Blueblood's characterization.

Most of the high- and lowlights from the original story are repeated here. As in Season One, there is some goofy low-key humor (one of Octavia's bandmates habitually shouting everything she says is hardly highbrow, but the incongruously punctuated ALL CAPS dialogue gives her lines a Kate Beaton-eque whimsy which I enjoyed), coupled with plenty of in-character quipping and engaging banter. As in Season One, there are some lovely bits of drama scattered throughout, such as the Luna scene I mentioned above. And, as in Season One, these two story elements don't always fuse cleanly. A plot thread that has Vinyl questioning herself, for example, might be interesting territory in and of itself, but it takes on an unfortunate air of melodrama when much of the dramatic "action" is sandwiched between two much more lighthearted, silly scenes. On the plus side, the romantic angle in this story is mostly a backlight against which the story is set; while I don't have anything against the two protagonists being together in principal, I can't imagine a way a serious shipping angle could have been executed here without exacerbating the mood swings of the fic even further. Although it still has its issues, Season Two does improve somewhat on that aspect of the original.

Another problem which carries over from the original story is inconsistent use of the framing device. Since the conceit of the story is that it's a series of radio transcripts, stage direction-like descriptors such as "Harpo: [Says nothing. Nods.]" are a serious disappointment, and are a regular barrier to immersion. To be fair, I should note that the last three chapters are much better than the first two in this regard, but the problem never entirely goes away. Likewise, the backstory-filled introduction and transitions which fill the story remain a weak point, both conceptually and tone-wise, but these are thankfully kept short, allowing the story to spend the majority of its time on its greatest strength: character interactions.

Although the tone may still waffle between absurdist and earnest, character dialogue remains strong throughout the story--a good thing, too, since character dialogue is most of the story. Among the major characters, at least, vocal mannerisms and personality come through clearly in word choice and speaking style. Moreover, these characters are engaging, even when the story itself occasionally traps them into cliche and predictable scenarios. There's plenty of entertainment to be had in simply watching the ponies interact.

Star rating: ★★★☆☆ (what does this mean?)

Although this is the same rating I gave to the original, Season Two does show some improvement on several fronts. For the record, this is a "high three," or at least, a higher three than Season One.

Recommendation: Anyone who read the original and enjoyed it will probably also enjoy this continuation: it offers much of the same humor and stylings, does improve on the use of Blueblood significantly, and is all-around engaging and entertaining. Readers put off by script format will obviously want to give this a pass, though, and anyone unimpressed by the mood swings of the original will find them repeated (albeit somewhat less dramatically) here.

Next time: Heart of Gold, Feathers of Steel, by NickNack

Mini-Reviews Round 9

2013-05-15T00:00:00.000-05:00

Have some fanfics! Specifically, have some fanfics I read recently that you may or may not have already happened across a month ago, because I'm always way behind on my everything. As always, included is a link to the story in question, a bit of light commentary, and a recommendation. Tally ho!

1) Rainbow Typhoon, by Nonsanity

Zero-ish spoiler summary: Rainbow Dash is given a chance to be a stop-gap Wonderbolt for a short-staffed show, but things quickly take a turn for the dramatic when the flight team is called on to assist Manehattan in preparing for a massive storm.

A few thoughts: This story functions primarily as a coming-of-age story for Rainbow Dash, and for the most part I think it succeeds brilliantly on that front. Dash is very well-characterized, the author nailing the mix of brash arrogance and self-doubt which define her, and her emotional growth through the story feels smooth and natural despite the short and drama-packed timeframe over which it occurs.

I suspect some readers will be put off by the fact that the central external conflict of the story (the giant storm) doesn't fully resolve at the end; there's a lot of explaining left undone. This was clearly deliberate on the part of the author, and actually makes its own point about Dash's worldview, but that doesn't change the fact that it will probably be unsatisfying to many. Personally though, I thought it was a perfect denouement.

Recommendation: This story has a good blend of action and introspection, and does a wonderful job melding conversation, inner thought, and high-stakes conflict. Readers put off by incomplete-feeling endings may be disappointed by the conclusion, but I'd recommend this to anyone looking for a story which meshes inner and outer conflicts cleanly and without (excessively) straining credulity.

2) Five Things that Never Happened to Twilight Sparkle, by Scribbler

Zero-ish spoiler summary: Five key moments from the show, re-imagined as if everything had gone horribly wrong and friendship hadn't saved the day.

A few thoughts: I don't have a lot to say about this one; it's all there in the summary. I suppose there was nothing wrong with the five shorts (most just a few hundred words) for what they were, but there wasn't any real hook other than "[Villain] succeeds instead of fails, now on to the next scene." Reading these is kind of like watching the last couple minutes of a half-dozen episodes of The Twilight Zone in a row: you get the twists, but all the meat that makes those twists exciting is missing.

Recommendation: Readers interested in the novelty factor of seeing the exact moment at which villain X could have won if things had gone differently may want to check this out, and at only a few thousand words between all five scenes, there's an excellent climax-to-time-investment ratio here. These really are just five scenes, though; anyone looking for more (say, for enough build-up and resolution to invest in those climaxes) won't find it here.

3) Old Friends, by RBDash47

Zero-ish spoiler summary: A young pony sees Death at a funeral, when nopony around her seems able to. It is not the last time they meet.

A few thoughts: The basic premise of this fic is one I've seen several times in various pieces of original fiction--that someone or other has the rare or unique ability to see Death personified. This story avoids the heavy-handedness and overwrought prose of the worst of those, using the scenario as a raison d'etre rather than a springboard for some larger point. As a result, this is a surprisingly light read, despite its seemingly weighty subject matter. That said, the sparse descriptions and languid pacing, a seemingly odd combination in the abstract, match the tone very well, and the epilogue doesn't try to pull out any cheap or unearned sadness, which is always a plus. It's sad, but that sadness is a natural product of the story, not the result of any particular attempt at emotional manipulation,

Recommendation: If you're looking for a short bit of character interaction which doesn't try to be more than it is, this is for you. And, if you're looking for a sad story which isn't cloying or ham-fisted, this is a good one.

4) Knowing Everything Hurts Your Brain, by Princess Glitzy

Zero-ish spoiler summary: One day, Twilight wakes up knowing everything. Everything.

A few thoughts: I quit on this one about a quarter of the way through. I thought the concept was funny enough, but editing was merely adequate (although there were a variety of problems, the most annoying to me was multiple tense slips--for whatever reason, those seem to bug me more than most other grammatical errors), and the first quarter of the story basically just repeated the same joke thrice.

Recommendation: As I said, I liked the idea, and it's entirely possible that the story ultimately does something interesting with its premise. But I didn't get far enough to see it, and readers who are put off by mediocre (but, I hasten to add, definitely not awful) editing and repetitive structuring probably won't get any farther than I did.

5) I Alone, by Razgriz557

Zero-ish spoiler summary: From the author: "Me is the best friend I could ever hope to have. Me is always there in the pond waiting for I. I love me." I realize that's pretty vague, but I'm not sure how much I can add to that description without spoiling the effect.

A few thoughts: This is one of those stories that just wasn't for me. It's well-executed by any reckoning, but the cloying (but necessary, for the fic) simpleton-speak was kind of a turn-off for me. I was also bothered by the fact that there's literally nothing about this that's "pony." In fact, you could replace just a few dozen words in the entire story and have a piece of original fiction about a human who lives in total isolation, and the story would lose absolutely nothing for it. When I see that in a story, I always wonder why it borrows the Equestrian setting at all; if anything, the fic would have been much stronger without the suggestion that this is all happening right outside of Ponyville.

Recommendation: Although it wasn't for me, this wasn't a bad story by any stretch. Readers interested in seeing a unique spin on narrative voicing will definitely want to give it a look. But if awkwardly obtuse (again, necessarily so) pronouns and lack of pony-ness are turn-offs for you, this might be one to skip.

6) Blitzkrieg Poison Kills Assassins, by Cleverpun

Zero-ish spoiler summary: Blitzkrieg Poison, ninja extraordinaire, kills some assassins. This is one of those random/comedy-type stories, if it's not obvious.

A few thoughts: The nominal premise is that Blitzcetera is a movie, which weakens some of the punnery in the story. Although the over-the-top dialogue and absurd plot twists are nicely parodic, some of the writing gags fall flat when the medium is expressly non-literary. Lines like "Thanks to his training, the words were clear despite the sword handle in his mouth. His mouth barely moved, but his words were unmuffled" nicely mimic narrative redundancy, but narrative redundancy (of that sort, at least) is a non-issue in movies. Still, I did appreciate that the story didn't drag on longer than its premise permitted, and the after-the-movie scene at the end was both comic, and tied the whole thing back to Twilight and co. in a pleasant, amusing way.

Recommendation: As goofy, random comedies go, this one's pretty good; it's consistently funny, and the plot (such as it is) ramps up nicely. Anyone willing to accept that the premise on which some of the humor is based doesn't hold up well to cursory examination ought to get a few chuckles out of this.

Overarching Topics are for Sissies

2013-05-13T18:49:00.005-05:00

Welp, I was going to try to tie everything in this post into some neat little theme or other, but I kept finding other things I wanted to talk about... and any connections between them all were really tangential... and ellipsis lists need to have at least three items or they look stupid...

Anyway, click below for a little bit about a lot of things. There's probably at least one item in here that's of interest to you!

On PP's blog post:

On Friday, I posted a guest column by Present Perfect in which he made some controversial statements regarding the responsibility of the fandom to push the boundaries of the show. And by "controversial," I mean that nearly everyone who commented, myself included, disagreed with him.

Now as part of the Las Pegassist dealeebob, he got to post a guest column, but I made sure to include language to the effect that I wouldn't post anything that I didn't think was worth posting. Moreover, PP asked me to look it over when he sent it in, to see what I thought. Although I didn't agree with him, I thought he made an interesting argument, and posted what he sent me as-is (as-was, whatever).

I think there's inherent value in being exposed to intelligent opinions counter to one's own, and while I may not have agreed with PP's conclusions, I definitely thought they were intelligently conceived and presented. I was very happy with his post, and was equally happy with the way that the people who commented disagreed civilly and substantively. It's always nice to see people discussing or debating a point without resorting to name-calling, personal attacks, or the like.

In conclusion, you guys rock.

On anti-critical culture:

As you all know, if you have any idea what this blog is about, I am very much pro-criticism (I'm using the word in the sense of "analysis and judgement," obviously). I realize that the world of ponyfiction, and of fanfiction generally, is skewered heavily towards positivity, but there's nothing inherently antithetical about criticism and positivity. So it bothers me when I see anti-critical thought taking root in the community.

Now, only once or twice has anyone posted anything particularly vitriolic about me on this blog itself, but I occasionally see the snide or angry comments that pop up re. my reviews on fimfiction, /mlp/, and the like (almost never from the authors whose works I was discussing, interestingly). It doesn't really bother me--people say things on the internet, and I've got a thick enough skin to ignore it. But I do worry that this kind of thing discourages other reviewers; who wants to put a lot of time and energy into something if they're just going to be called names, after all?

I don't know if there's anything to be done about that. I just look at the culture of authorial positivity that exists in most fandoms, including this one, and I think about how many people have been encouraged to try writing something for the first time because of that atmosphere. Why can't ponyfiction have an air of critical positivity, too?

On other reviewers:

Well, I don't know if there's anything I can do about that culture bit personally, but if nothing else, it'd be nice to see a little more reader-oriented reviewing in this fandom. There are a few dormant/defunct fanfic reviewers whom I know of, like Ezn and InsertAuthorHere, and a few new or budding ones that I've been introduced to, like Not Worthy and Admujica. But I'm sure there are some reviewers out there that I simply don't know about! If you are/know of anyone who does reviews on a regular basis, please send me an e-mail; I'd love to be able to post a compilation of review blogs.

On grammar:

I read a story about the role of grammar in society today which I thought was fascinating (mostly what I got out of it was that not using apostrophes is a turn-off on dating sites). You should read it, too.

To me, using poor grammar in one's writing is like playing an untuned piano--maybe it's good enough for when you're just goofing around by yourself or with a couple of friends, but it's not something I'd perform on, and that being the case, it's not what I would want to practice with, either.

On EqD pre-readers doing everything wrong (again):

So, for those of you who missed the latest round of pre-reader attacking, here's the short version: an author got e-mailed a rejection, but was accidentally also forwarded some internal discussion where the PRs joked about banning the story for not being a Waiting for Godot parody, and laid out the Cliff's Notes of what they didn't like about the fic bluntly and without elaboration. A surprisingly large group of people took this as confirmation that the PRs are biased, arrogant, elitist... you get the idea.

Really?

Look, it sucks for the author to see that internal commentary, sure--but how does it prove, well, anything? I take shorthand notes on the stories I review, and somewhere between reading and posting, a highlighted passage and a "wtf no" turns into "this fic suffered from poor characterizations for all of the canon characters, such as..." The fact that it started with "wtf no" doesn't make it any less true. I really don't see how a PR grumping about a story in (supposed) privacy has anything to do with the veracity of the PRs' opinions themselves.

Look, it's not like these guys are perfect, but can't people at least hate them for things that aren't hilariously asinine?

(DO NOT POST: Okay, super-secret EqD pre-reader cabal, I stood up for you guys. I held up my end of the bargain. Now, hurry up and figure out a system for getting some new six-star stories; I'm down to my last half-dozen or so!)

C'est Ne Pas Une Post

2013-05-12T22:30:00.002-05:00

Monday's post will be about 18-24 hours late.

That is all.

The Purpose of the Fandom

2013-05-10T00:00:00.000-05:00

Guest post time! This one comes courtesy of Present Perfect, who has the heady honor of giving me a couple days respite from typing up new posts. Also, he's got some insight into the reasons for the existence of ponyfiction, and non-commercial derivative works in general. Hit it all up below the break!

-----

Upon being given a chance to write a post for this blog, I knew precisely what I wanted to write about. It's only after recent comments hereabouts that I realize there is no better time for me to talk about my strange pet theories than right now.

So let's begin with a thinking exercise. Take a moment and think over this question:

Why do we write My Little Pony fanfiction?

Answers I came up with in short order include "Because we're writers involved in the My Little Pony fandom", "Because I'm inspired to do so", and "Because it's fun". No doubt, you've come up with something similar (though, I'm sure, entirely cleverer).

Now how about this one: What's the purpose of writing My Little Pony fanfiction?

Or making any sort of My Little Pony-based creative work?

Or making any creative work based on any intellectual property at all?

What is the purpose of "fandom" as a source of derivative creative works?

Let me tell you what I think the answer to that one is.

There are limitations to paid creative works. Television shows have to run episodically, either 22 or 45 minutes at a time. Movies tend to be one-to-three-shot affairs. Video games are a whole other bag of muffins, narrative-wise. And when dealing with an IP directed at children, those limitations are joined by more, and greater: don't offend, don't challenge, be educational, sell toys. Each is a restriction on what creators are able to do, and while some can blossom under such confines, eventually whoever is financing a creative endeavor is going to bring some sort of hammer down and say, "You do this now."

In those instances where creativity blooms under duress, hints emerge. We, the fans, become privy to a broader world. We notice characters developing despite efforts to keep them static. We catch the details put in just for us to see. And then we take these details, and we run with them.

Fandom, in short, is tasked with pushing a creative world beyond the boundaries put into place on its creators. To bring it back to brony fanfiction in specific, we have no onus to be family-friendly, for instance, and can thus write about all the horse kissing and horse wars our little hearts desire. We can take characters from the show, or from other shows, put them in a box together and see what happens. We can delve the dark depths of characters' psyches, asking questions like "What was this character feeling when...?" We can find out what happens when they're dropped into, say, a science fiction warzone. As none of these are situations we can count on the show's writers to explore, we therefore have free reign to do so ourselves.

The flip side of this is -- and here I would like to emphasize that this getting deeply into my own opinion -- we should not be trying to do what the writers could do. Stories about the mane characters' families, their friendships, their typical lives in Ponyville are what we're likely to get more of as the series continues. This isn't to say that we should avoid writing in an episodic style -- and I welcome anyone to try; it's way harder than you'd think -- but that when we do, we need do so while tackling issues beyond those that are presented regularly in FiM, and in directions that they wouldn't otherwise be considered. (This is why I tend to get so down on "slice of life" stories; I don't want to spend time reading about something too similar to an actual episode.)

This changes, of course, once the show goes off the air. Then is the best time to go back and say, "Well, they never answered this question, so let's do it ourselves." The X-Files is a great example of this, a show that's been off the air for over a decade*. While it was running, your average fanfic dealing with Mulder and Scully chasing down a monster had a high chance of being negated by the show itself going off in the same direction. The only purpose of writing such a thing was generally to introduce one's own characters into the world (and we all know how that goes). With the show off the air, though, fans are free to invent and explore, filling in the gaps where the characters never went, without worry of "canon screwing".

So what do I mean by all of this? Go write something crazy. Shipping, grimdark, crossovers, alternate universes, stories where the mane six are all sharks: this is what we're here to make happen. So take lines spoken by Rainbow Dash and turn them into innuendo-laden come-ons. Explore what ponies would do with guns, or why ponies having firearms is stupid. Shove them into Columbia. Make them human. Do it with abandon, for no one but us has that freedom to do so.

So, if and when the time comes that Hasbro calls it quits, hopefully before the show has had a chance to get bad, then we can go back and say, "Well, Luna never interacted much with Rarity; what if she went to Ponyville for a spa day?" and write a little slice of life like no one ever had. But until that moment comes, why not go wild? Be bold, be brash, and above all, explore this wonderful world and these wonderful characters that we've been given to play with.

*Trivia time for those inclined: The X-Files is also another great example of a property whose creators ended up really showing their appreciation for their fans by working them into the show. The episode openings in season 9 contain lists of fan handles, and minor character Layla Harrison was named for a fan who died during the show's run. That fan also inspired the character's hero-worship of Mulder and Scully.

-----

Thanks for the article, PP! I actually disagree with most of what you said--I think that if a person is inspired to write a slice-of-life fanfic that maintains the show's aesthetic and uses its characters, then that can be just as amazing as anything else (and retroactive canon discrepancies don't bother me nearly as much as they do some people)--but the suggestion that it is the fandom's purpose to push past the limits which constrain the show is interesting. With a modicum of power comes a modicum of responsibility, I suppose.

6-Star Reviews Part 141: Background Pony

2013-05-08T01:29:00.001-05:00

To read the story, click the image or follow this link

Yessiree, the review you've been impatiently waiting for is finally here! Late, no less--was there any other way?

Below the break, my (looong) take on shortskirtsandexplosions's Background Pony.

Impressions before reading: I read the first chapter of this story after reading Inquisitor M's review of it (review of the first chapter, that is), and was definitely intrigued. In fact, I've been really looking forward to picking this back up based on that first chapter, despite what I've since heard about the ending.

Though in truth, I don't know much about the ending other than that it's a downer--although I could hardly help but notice people ranting about it, on this blog and elsewhere, I've made an effort not to read their comments, to avoid spoilers for a story I knew I was going to be tackling sooner or later. So, if you're one of those ranters, sorry for ignoring you!

Zero-ish spoiler summary: Lyra Heartstrings is cursed: she can't leave Ponyville, and everyone she meets forgets who she is and everything she's said or done as soon as they leave her presence. The only clues she has to her condition are the ancient elegies which haunt her, songs she is determined to learn and play in hopes that they'll help her regain her old life.

Thoughts after reading: Let's start with the colored text: this story uses colored text. As such, you need to read it on a color screen to get the full effect of the fic. However, I gave some thought to the matter, including re-reading a couple of key chapters on my e-ink reader, and would like to suggest that the story is actually stronger when read in black and white. Although it's difficult to explain why without getting into spoilers, I will say this much: there is little or nothing to be gained from the colored text which a reader can't discern from the words themselves (albeit at later points in the story), and the presence of chromatic writing calls attention to the framing device in needless and distracting ways. Nevertheless, SS&E obviously intended for the work to be read in color, and I definitely recommend doing so if you want the full Background Pony experience.

A bit more on the framing device, now: the entire story consists of Lyra's diary, starting not too long after the curse that turns her into a living ghost takes effect. Although journal-format stories often struggle to balance the needs of the narrative with the limitations of containing only what the focus individual would plausibly chose to write in a journal (or, even more often, completely ignore the latter in service to the former), Background Pony's central plot justifies much of the meticulous recording of conversations, musings, and other such: Lyra literally has no one else to talk to, after all. Indeed, the author does a commendable job of showing just how starved Lyra is for meaningful interaction, from the obvious (when she talks about how starved she is for meaningful interaction, natch) to the subtle (describing Applejack's twang as "something that violins can only dream of" sounds like a stretch, especially coming from a musician... until you realize that Lyra isn't really commenting on AJ's timbre, whether she herself realizes it or not). The dense, rambling style in which Lyra writes further drives home the nature of her plight; I've seen people bash the "purple prose" in this story, and while it's true that there are plenty of pretentious excesses here ("As a matter of fact, ponies have always been cursed since the beginning of time--not by a frigid dome of amnesia, but by a transitive sphere of ignorance that constantly threatens our very dreams and aspirations from their genius conception to their desperate expression."), they serve an important purpose: they serve as a gateway both to the depths of Lyra's isolation, and a window to her character.

Of course, dense and pretentious prose isn't for everyone, even when it has a concrete purpose. But it's important not to confuse dense and pretentious prose with pointlessly dense and pretentious prose, and this story clearly belongs in the former camp.

No, the biggest problem with Background Pony (outside of yet another mediocre Zecorah ("Come and enter, stranger or friend. For I have brews for all ills contained herein.")) lies in its inconsistent tone, and its beyond-languid pacing. To start, the former: each chapter of this story has a wildly different tone, almost as if each were separate stories. From the domestic desperation of Lyra trying to help a pony with an abusive father in one chapter to the psychological horror of some of the "discovery" chapters to the whatever-the-heck-SS&E-was-thinking-when-he-wrote-the-Pinkie-chapter chapter, this fic is all over the place in terms of mood. To some degree, that makes sense; each chapter is a different journal entry, and one would expect a prevailing attitude to carry each such entry. But these don't just feel like different moods; they sometimes seem to lack any relation save their protagonist and her plight. Especially the Pinkie chapter. While there is the odd reference gag throughout the story (I managed to both scowl and smile when Twilight explained that robots were banned from Equestria after the Coltlerian Jihad), Pinkie's chapter is basically one giant meta-joke, an unending stream of fourth-wall allusions, memes, and show/fanon name dropping. Personally, I wouldn't have enjoyed reading it on its own, and when it interrupted a story I was interested in, I found it an incredibly unwelcome intrusion.

Although I may have especially disliked that chapter, the entire story is full of intrusions of varying levels of offensiveness. You could probably gather as much without my telling you; a story with a simple conceit (if one ripe for exploration, admittedly) doesn't get to a half-million words without some padding. Some of this came in the form of Lyra's wordy and self-absorbed musings, with their tendency to ramble and repeat. More came from extended side-stories, which often ran tens of thousands of words themselves. The relationship between Twilight and Moondancer, a childhood friend (and Lyra's non-role in the lives of both) is interesting territory to cover, certainly, but thematically it doesn't really add anything over its 70-pages; it merely reinforces what previous chapters have already made explicit to the reader.

This kind of dithering directionlessness is endemic to the fic as a whole, and as such there are places where the work loses all momentum. There's a sort of meta-appropriateness to that, I suppose--Lyra's path forward is as nebulous to her as the story's direction is to the reader--but it's certainly easy to see how one could begin skimming large segments of the story, trying to find the end of one seemingly interminable sub-plot whose only purpose seems to be to reiterate what the reader already knows for emphasis (a not-unreasonable thing in and of itself, but taken to ridiculous lengths here).

Voicing is hard to judge, as all dialogue is transcribed by Lyra. Thus, when one comes across overwrought philosophical arguments which seem out of place for the ponies having them (I'm looking at you, Twilight and Moondancer chapter), it's easy to suppose that Lyra's voice is merely slipping into the words she's attempting to write from memory after the fact. Likewise, when characters begin to adopt vocal mannerisms which seem strangely formal (Pinkie using the phrase "atop the hill overlooking Ponyville" in a casual conversation, say), it's quite possible to interpret that as a feature of the journal format, rather than an error. Nevertheless, I found issues like these to be a distraction to me.

As I mentioned in the last post, SS&E has a habit of writing "even still" for "even so," which irked me to no end as I read. Past that though, the story is mostly well-edited, at least considering its size--such technical issues as I did encounter were isolated incidents, and widely spread. About a half-dozen editors are credited at the end of the fic, and one a work this scale, I imagine they were every bit as necessary as the author insists they were.

And now, we come to the ending. Alas, I'll have to break out the spoiler tag again; if you don't want the ending, er, spoiled, then don't click it. Up here, I'll just say this: it's clearly not for everyone (I used the word "downer" above; for the sake of not giving away too much, I won't elaborate or correct myself up here), I had no problem with the ending.

So there's that.

Star rating: ★★★☆☆ (what does this mean?)

At its best, Background Pony is intelligent, insightful, and demands reader investment. At its worst, it's an interminable muddle which seems to aspire to nothing more than finding a way to make in 20,000 words a point which it made in 500 in a previous chapter. Still, even the muddle is usually interesting in its own right.

Recommendation: This isn't a story for readers who aren't willing to make a serious time commitment obviously. Readers with a low tolerance for lethargic pacing and tone shifts will probably lose interest in this after a few chapters, and anyone who needs a "happily ever after" to complete their pony stories will be sorely disappointed. But those looking for an immersive journal experience, an intriguing hook, and plenty of food for thought should give this fic a try.

Next time: The Immortal Game, by AestheticB

Yeah, I'm not diving from one 500,000-word behemoth straight into another. Instead, let's go pick up a few 6-star stories and sequels which have completed since I passed by them the first time, starting with...

The Vinyl Scratch Tapes (Season Two), by Corey W. Williams

6-Star Reviews Part--Nah, I'm Just Kidding

2013-05-06T00:00:00.000-05:00

I was cautiously optimistic concerning my ability to finish Background Pony over the weekend. The weekend, however, had other plans.

Between the snow melt flooding my basement and one of my water pipes bursting (giving the basement-flooding a handy assist), I didn't get a lot of reading done over the last few days. Oh, well.

Even so (or, as SS&E has an infuriating habit of writing, "even still"), I'm about 90% finished with the story. Granted, 10% of Background Pony is still equivalent to a small novel, but my review is definitely coming this week, barring interference by woodchippers, chainsaw-toting serial killers, or anything that could double as the title of a disaster movie.

Those of you playing the "read along at home" game can breath a sigh of relief; you've got a few days yet! And those of you playing the "hurry the heck up I want my review dangit" game can keep spasmodically twitching.

A Small Experiment, Concluded

2013-05-03T00:00:00.000-05:00

We got about a foot of snow today (Thursday, as I write this)! In May! What kind of garbage is this? Schools were canceled, travel warnings issued, and I spent something like two hours shoveling (I swear, I've spent the better part of three decades living in white Christmas territory, and this was the heaviest, soggiest snow I've ever seen). Summer can't come soon enough.

But you aren't here to listen to me whine about having to dig the snowboots out just a week after I put them away for the year; you want to know where I'm going with Wednesday's post. Well, click down below the break, and wonder no more.

I know I've mentioned before that I'm in a barbershop chorus. Well, at our rehearsal this week, a couple of the guys were reminiscing before practice about an old comedy quartet; apparently, one of their shticks involved performing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" for a first-act finale. They'd sing the first word on a tune-up (practice) chord (which is a perfectly normal thing for a quartet to do, in and of itself), but then launch into the song one word off. They'd get to the last word, ending on the second-to-last chord (a V7 chord, i.e. it feels obviously incomplete without resolving to the last note), and stand there in confusion for a few moments before awkwardly shuffling off the stage.

Honestly, that does sound pretty funny to me. But what got me wondering was that the two men discussing this were both completely taken by how insanely difficult singing the song one word off is; the word "impossible" was tossed out, along with "crazy" and "too hard for me." Well, it didn't seem all that impossible to me, so as I was waiting for chorus to start I tried it out myself. After a minute or two of thinking it through, plus one failed attempt (it was "for it's one, two, three..." that got me), I had it down.

So then I wondered: why was I able to pick it up without much fuss, when the barbershop guys had so much trouble with it? Was it just that those two were both well past retirement age, and my mind hadn't yet calcified as much as theirs, or was there something more to it? I decided to try it out with another choir I work with, one with a much younger membership. At that rehearsal, I asked most of the singers to try.

Interestingly, most of them did incredibly poorly. More than half of the people I asked were completely unable to get more than a few words in (these are all people who could sing the song "normally" without a second thought) without having to pause, and often found themselves back on the normal words within two lines, even after trying more than a dozen times. One poor girl I watched keep mumbling it to herself all night, whenever her section wasn't being asked to sing--in retrospect, maybe I should have asked people to try this after practice instead of before. And even among those who did get it, most took much longer than I had. The plot thickened; why was I doing so much better at this than everyone else?

Because I'm brilliant, of course. But why else?

After thinking a bit more (I did a lot of bits of thinking this week), I came up with another theory: maybe it's that I'm a linguistic learner (yes, I'm rolling out Gardner's multiple intelligence theory--even if you hate it, stick with me). Given the nature of this site, that probably comes as little surprise. Even within the world of music, I've always been drawn to stuff like Gilbert and Sullivan patter songs or Donald Swan's comic repertoire which lean heavily on the synthesis of music and language. And for as long as I can remember, I've picked up lyrics much faster than most of the singers around me (though I have plenty of accompanying weaknesses to compensate, I assure you). Maybe, seeing as the challenge is basically a linguistic one, linguistically inclined people would do better than musically inclined ones.

Well, wouldn't you know it, I've got a blog audience which fits that description...

More than a dozen people took me up on the singing challenge, and just like the choir, results were mixed. However, about half of the people who responded were able to sing the song with a one-word anticipation within a few tries--a far better result, on average, than the choir group. Now, none of this is even remotely scientific, but I think there's something to be said for my "this is a task which language-oriented people do well at" theory.

So, beyond satisfying my curiosity, what does all this have to do with fanfiction? Well, let me ask this: what does singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" one word off have to do with music? Something, obviously, since four men made it one of the centerpieces of a popular musical routine. And yet, it's also something that draws upon an entirely different set of strengths than a classical recital (disparity of difficulty level notwithstanding, obviously).

Everyone processes information in different ways; we all have our own strengths and our own weaknesses. We also all have our own interests, which may not always mesh with those strengths and weaknesses. But finding creative ways to utilize our strengths to pursue our interests is always a worthy goal. Whether it's me in the real world, finding songs that take advantage of my linguistic bent, or Rarity in the show, using her talent for finding gems to pursue her dream of becoming a fashion icon, it's about finding ways to do what you love to the best of your ability.

I can't believe I just directly compared myself to a pony. And to Rarity, no less. Ugh.

Anyway, whatever your loves in life, don't be afraid to pursue them. And don't be afraid to seek out creative ways to do pursue them your way. Who knows? Maybe you'll come up with the next "Me Out to the Ball Game, Take."

A Small Experiment

2013-05-01T00:00:00.000-05:00

Today, we're going to try something a little different: I have a short, simple challenge for all of you who read my blog (and some other people, but that's not important right now). On Friday, I'll take a look at the results, but for now, click down below the break for part one of this two-part exercise.

You know the song "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," right? No? Well, stop being from non-baseball-playing countries!

For those of you who do know the song, though (and that should, at minimum, be everyone in the US, baseball fan or no), I want you to try to do the following: sing the song, but with a one-word anticipation. So on the first note sing the word "me," on the second note sing "out," and so on, so that you run out of words on the penultimate note of the piece [EDIT: just the chorus will suffice--don't stress yourself trying to look up the verses which you might not even have known existed]. Don't worry about how you sound; it's not like I'm there to judge you. Just see if you can sing the song (or a reasonable facsimile thereof, if you don't consider yourself musically inclined) with the words all one note to the left.

If you can't do it right away, see how much effort it takes you to get it down. None? A little? A lot? Is this something you can do on the first try, something that takes a few minutes' effort, or something that would require more time for you master than you're willing to devote to the whims of some guy on the internet?

Whatever the result, post it in the comments section below. Assuming I can get at least a few people to respond, I'll have a nice post on Friday summing up the results (you aren't the only people I'm asking to do this), and hopefully explaining just what this has to do with MLP fanfiction.

Have fun!

Equestria Daily, Fanfiction, and You: A Survey: A Response

2013-04-29T00:00:00.000-05:00

I assume most people who visit this blog also visit Equestria Daily on a regular or semi-regular basis. That being the case, I'm guessing you've all already seen this post, with its survey about the future of fanfiction on EqD. If you haven't already taken it, you should definitely find a little free time to go do that; I've already done so, but I thought I'd take a little time to lay out my opinions on a few of the broader questions, as summarized by me, in a more public place. Below the break, as always.

>Should fanfiction continue to be posted on EqD?

Look, fanfiction is the red-headed stepchild of the fandom; I get it. There are a lot of reasons for this: it's faster and easier to consume media like pictures, music, and videos than literature; fanfiction as a word carries a great deal of stigma; because the barrier to entry is lower (and because quality is harder for low-information creators and consumers to assess) with fanfiction than many other creative mediums, low-quality stories are both posted and praised at a much higher rate than typically occurs in those other mediums; lots and lots of people just don't read for pleasure; and on and on and on. I understand, and I think most fanfic authors and readers do as well, that fanfiction is never going to be treated with anything approaching the reverence, or even the broad interest, that other media receive.

But for Pete's sake, no reasonable or intelligent person (traits that can suddenly be in short supply when one stops dealing with individual people and starts working with "the masses," as I'm well aware) could possibly conclude that there's any good reason--that there's any reason at all--why a site dedicated to FiM episodes, news, and fanworks would chose to start ignoring fanfiction entirely. I don't understand why there's a "no fanfiction" button on the site in the first place, when there's not a "no drawfriends," "no comics," "no games," or "no PMVs" button. Those buttons would all be asinine and useless--I can't recall the last time I watched a PMV via EqD, but I don't need a special search mode to get rid of them. It's one to four posts a day, and I can just scroll right past; why, exactly, is it so hard for people to do the same thing with fanfics?

Anyway, I'm getting off-topic. I'm hoping the question was put up just to mollify the irrationally angry and bibliophobic, and isn't being seriously considered. But even if that's the case, the fact that it has to be asked at all is incredibly depressing to me.

>What sort of feedback should EqD pre-readers give?

Although the pre-readers' job is supposedly to chose high-quality fanfics to post, they often end up becoming surrogate editors, tasked with pointing out flaws and, if not helping authors fix their works, at least giving them a place to start. The question being asked seems to be "given that it would probably speed up responses (which are tragically slow at the moment), would it be a good idea to cut the review part and just give an accept/reject response?"

I'm of two minds about this. From what I've heard from the PRs, it's my understanding that somewhere between many and most of the fanfics they receive (this is just the ones that pass their filter, even) are obviously unsuitable for posting--major editing problems, the first two pages being nothing but the narrator relating his OC's backstory, that sort of thing. For these, I think a one- or two-sentence rejection is probably sufficient, along with a link or three to some of the many editing and story-help services which exist in this fandom. For authors whose stories are rejected for less immediately obvious reasons, however, I think the review-rejection is probably necessary.

>How many fanfics should be posted per day, and how should they be posted?

Although I didn't like it at first, I've grown much more understanding of story update group posts with the passage of time. However, one thing that I've never liked about them is that a story's original post doesn't get bumped when a sequel contained withing that post begins or ends. I know I've missed sequels to stories in the past because they were "hidden" in an update post, and I doubt I'm the only one. I'd prefer to see any new story, and any completed story, regardless of sequel status, bump the original post.

Other than that, I don't have a real problem with the amount of fanfiction posted on EqD. It's something like 1-3 new fanfics a day, I believe, which doesn't seem unreasonable for a site which is expressly only for highlighting selected works. I wouldn't mind seeing a few more fanfic posts, personally, but I don't think the current level is wildly out of whack with where a reasonable person would conclude it "should" be.

There's also some mention of combining stories into group posts. While this is a far less stupid idea now than it was a couple of years ago (then, most fanfics were in gdocs, and the comments section was the primary forum for feedback and author interaction; today, the stories are often on FiMfiction, and the EqD link directs such conversation there), I still don't like it. I can't imagine any way it could be done which wouldn't shaft either all the stories, or all but the first posted, in terms of attention, nor can I imagine any way in which such conversation and feedback as still occurs on EqD wouldn't be dramatically reduced.

So yeah, those are my big thoughts on the matter. I suppose we'll have to see what comes of it all.