Present Perfect recently put up a long and extremely positive assessment of mushroompone's The Head (a fic I read and raved about myself in PR 435). If you haven't already read it, drop whatever you're doing and get to it. Yes, it's Mature rated. Yes, it justifies that rating. Yes, it's disturbing. Yes, it has three warning tags. No, it's not gratuitous. Yes, it deserves all its fame.
(Mild and unnecessary sideline: it happens that this is one fic that refers to a female character – Starlight – as "headmaster", a usage which I noted on Fimfiction looks really odd to me as a Brit.)
Anyway, I think most people agree that The Head can be called a modern classic of ponyfic. But what else is? If we define "modern" as being published since the start of 2020, order them by view count and the top five are M-rated, which I find slightly uncomfortable. The next one, though rated Teen, is incomplete.
The most viewed modern complete, non-Mature story is Lynwood's What a Strange Little Colt. It has 34,000 views, a huge number for a fic first published in 2021, and yet I'd never even heard of it until I did this search. Look further down the list, and there are yet more M-rated and/or incomplete stories and a bunch of [Human]-tagged ones. Humans make really, really popular reading these days, it seems.
So, what about the stories I usually read, ie one-shots that aren't M-rated, don't feature the [Human] tag and are complete? There's Mare of Mystery's Quick! Distract Chrysalis!, but that's a second-person story and I very rarely read those either. Next comes errant's Twilight Sparkle Has a Type. That looks more to my taste,¹ and it has 16k views, but again I'd not heard of it until just now.
¹ Enough so that I've added it to my Read it Later list.
So, overall views aren't the defining factor. Okay, we knew that already. The Head has 5.8k views. Good by modern standards but not overwhelmingly so. mushroompone's story is widely accepted as a modern classic, in that the large majority of people who've read it have raved about it. That includes very accomplished writers such as Cold in Gardez, Aquaman, Daedalus Aegle and Aragon.
Anyway, back to my subject line here. In the comments to Present Perfect's post, Jarvy Jared made this suggestion for what constitutes a classic: "1) enough time passes and it's still talked about (which you cannot know ahead of the time), and 2) it's a story that, after you've read it, you have a feeling it's going to last a lot longer than most others."
So, with that in mind, what other ponyfics do you think qualify for the title "modern classic" – and if you feel like expanding on that, why do they?
A very good question, and a very hard one to answer these days. As your analysis of the domination of M-rated and/or human fics these days shows, there's rather a divide between different viewing factions on Fimfic in the last half-decade or so. Not that there ever wasn't, but it's more prevalent now. Those fics are only being looked at for short-term thrills, people don't remember even the good ones.
ReplyDeleteMyself, I did the lazy thing, sorting my bookshelf of fics I gave my top rating, Excellent, by publish date, and seeing what I found. Only 17 fics from 2020 on, less once I account for those from my early rating days where I'm sure I wouldn't give them that now. Some, despite their excellence, I don't think would inspire that sort of remembrance needed to become a classic, while others, despite having the acclaim and remembrance, just have too few views to truly qualify.
That said, I did find a few fics I think qualify for this:
* Cozy Glow: FIENDship is Magic by RainbowDoubleDash. It just has one of those "backstory you basically subscribe to once you read it because it's perfect" tales, to the level of the best FIENDship comics. Not that I've read many Cozy backstories, but those I have all faded next to this. It strains not at all with inventing explanation for why she is the way she is, and setting up the future connection to Tirek. And it does seem, far as I can tell, to have hit that sweet spot of working both for Cozy fans and those who don't care for her.
* Redheart's War by SockPuppet. Truly captures the brutality and mental effect of being on the front lines. The framing device of this being told years after the fact means it's never wallowing in brutality and can be stomached by the squeamish too. Moreso, there's almost no straining with fitting an Equestria where these kind of crusades would be necessary in with that of the show (no EqW AU this is!).
* The Enemy Within by Jake the Army Guy. Takes three fics types – Spike dealing with the mental effect of his greed-induced rampage in "Secret of My Excess", him getting a pick-me-up from someone else over being often "left out" by the Mane 6, and Luna forming a connection with him over feeling like the forgotten younger child – and executes them together so well as to feel like the definitive fic of all three genres. It's so good, that when I was writing a Spike and Berry Punch fic for Jinglemas 2022, once I settled on using "Secret of My Excess", I steered clear of approaching it anything like this, for how could I hope to equal it? Probably the least talked-about of these suggestions, just because the topic has been done quite a bit. But had this come out in early 2012, and gotten lucky with the algorithm, it would have had stratospheric views for sure.
Izzy and the Moonlit Garden by Sledge115. 4th highest-rated G5 fic, and top that isn't part of a series. Only 3.4K views, and being a pre-MYM fic, probably not noticed much by the G5 fic audience nowadays. But many recognisable names seem to have acclaimed it. There's no G4/G5 connection strain, nor with it being a wistful tragedy fic, and it brings out a sadness underpinning Izzy character in a way that meshes greatly with this spectre of Luna.
Dang, now I'm wanting to reread the above! But I am totally sincere when I say, considering both Jarvy's criteria and how the fics have been received, that I fully think they qualify for being modern classics (were 2019 included, I'd toss in Fallowsthorn's Time too).
Next comes errant's Twilight Sparkle Has a Type
I've actually read this! It's one of those "extrapolate a coincidental connection the fandom like to joke about and have characters analyse it" sort of fics, the kind that hit a large view count off giving words to thoughts in many readers' heads. Had it come along even a few years earlier, its view count would be even higher.
I gave it a Pretty Good, so it's plenty diverting in the moment, but a short-term thrills sort of one. Don't think many would call it a classic.
I've read three of the stories you mention. Cozy Glow: FIENDship is Magic got a five-star rating and I think I'd agree it qualifies. It's utterly brilliant, and my only slight reservation is the sheer quantity of chess notation. It works, and it works well, but it may put a few readers off.
DeleteThe Enemy Within got a (strong) four. I had small reservations about the limited Fluttershy content -- not merely a personal whinge, but a point relating to 'Shy's canon instant friendship with Spike in S1E01 -- and a couple of other things. (Jake's comment on my review post is very interesting. He goes by "Tweak" there.)
Izzy and the Moonlight Garden got a five. I think it's fantastic, and I think it's the likeliest G5 fic to secure lasting classic status. Is it there yet? Hmm, not sure. It should be, either way.
I haven't yet read Redheart's War, but I most definitely intend to do so, and hopefully not far in the future either. I'll reserve judgement until I have, but the word of mouth about it has been very impressive.
As a side note, I think one especially impressive thing about mushroompone's achievement is that they're not someone who's had that account for a decade, unlike all the other authors mentioned. Yes, in their own words they've been around ponyfic since 2013, but as far as I know their former identity on Fimfiction isn't widely known. (I don't know it and I'm fine with that.) It's only really been in the last couple of years that I've seen major hype about their stuff.
"What makes a modern ponyfic classic?"
ReplyDeleteQuoth Mark Twain: "a fic that everypony wants to have read and nopony wants to read." :P
Heh, points to you for that! Made me smile, especially as in the case of The Head I think a lot of us were apprehensive going in, simply because of the tags.
DeleteWhat makes a modern ponyfic classic?
ReplyDeleteA miserable pile of horsewords! >:V