Looking back at Kicking Back

Previously in this series: Sunset's Sales Snag, Ever Let the Fancy Roam

It's been several months since I posted anything in this series, so let's alter that! As before, I've let a random number generator pick which story I'm going to feature, and it's come back with Kicking Back. This is a fic which I wrote as a bit of silly fun but which did slightly better than anticipated. Not the most overperforming story I've had, but even now it's still mentioned occasionally.

This is a Cloud Kicker story, inspired by her personality in the first chapter of Chengar Qordath's highly popular The Life and Times of a Winning Pony. The reason I emphasise first chapter is that it's all I knew of at the time: in that fic Cloudy's story becomes deeper later on, but to start with she's seen as not that much more than a sex-obsessed airhead. That was what I found amusing to pick up on.

While Kicking Back isn't even remotely close to M-rated territory, it does go a little more down the innuendo route than I generally prefer. My usual complaint when stories do that is that there's no particular reason for it, but here it seemed integral to Cloud Kicker's personality, or at least the part of it I was using here. I tried to keep the tone light and fun, and I think I did fairly well there.

You see, in this story Cloud Kicker's reputation is not justified, and she's getting seriously tired of it. She even goes to the extent of hiring an image consultant. It... ah... doesn't go quite as she'd planned. I still smile at some of my descriptions of her sometimes physical rages when something goes horribly wrong – and so I think I got the humour level pretty much where I wanted it.

Would I have changed much? In all honesty, no, not really. Kicking Back isn't some great piece of ponyfic for the ages, but then it wasn't written to be one. I think it stands up quite nicely as what it is: a tea-break fic for those looking to, well, kick back and relax for a few minutes with perhaps a few laughs along the way. All the more so if you enjoy a little humorous wordplay.

One thing I will say is that you'll probably get more out of this if you have read at least the odd bit of Winningverse fiction. On the other hoof, you may for the same reason find it irritating and a bit one-notey. Maybe the ideal audience is the one I was part of when writing it: someone who knows about Cloud Kicker's reputation but hasn't yet read on to the other 300,000 words of Winning Pony!