Spotlights! The horseshoe's on the other other other hoof · 8:19am Mar 9th, 2015
As a reviewer myself, I sorta just get into the habit of slapping down my reviews and then moving on. It's my heavy-air-quotes "job", so I just say my piece, publish it to the public, and hey, good things have been done. As long as some new readers discover the fics, and are able to enjoy or discuss or even just think about, then mission accomplished. That's all that reviews are meant to do. But every now and again, the Angels get these really thoughtful thank you PMs from the authors we review. It's by no means required, which is all the more reason that it's that nice little extra touch. Sooo in light of the fact that I've racking up a couple of these reviews recently, yet I've been massively rood by not replying to them, how's about I return the favor and bounce some viewership back their way?
When one of Seattle's Angels three resident haters comes around and asks "What gives you guys the right to tell us what to read?" my immediate reply is that we don't. No such "right" exists. We're guys and gals with our own specific taste in literature. If your tastes match ours, then great! You'll probably get a lot of value out of the recommendations. If your tastes don't match, that's perfectly fine too. Groups like Seattle's Angels, Royal Canterlot Library, The Royal Guard, Equestria Daily, Tag-a-Long's Book Club... they all carry this "prestige" with them, but honestly that all ties back to the large viewership of these groups, in a somewhat chicken-and-egg fashion. There's nothing—nothing at all—stopping individuals from throwing their hat in, either by themselves or as part of a posse. In my mind, nothing can be better. More voices are great, more opinions are great, more discussion is great. If the existing voices in the community aren't useful to you, as a reader, you can seek out those which are. Diversification makes a lot more sense, rather than forcing someplace like EQD to try to be all things for all people.
With that in mind, all these groups and individuals are doing goodstuff. Go tell them to keep doing goodstuff.
I like You Might Like This. You might like You Might Like This. When I found out about this group, I instantly fell in love with the premise, because they did what I said above. They just up and formed a review group, because screw you that's why. It's got a very simple yet effective premise: reviewers add the fics they like over the course of the month, plus one spotlight fic per reviewer. So, you've always got a shortlist of great spotlight fics, plus a sizable backup of additional recommendations. End of the month, all the folders get archived to the forums, then cleared out. So, you've always got a fresh collection of fics to search from, without folders growing massive and unweildy. The roster has nearly a dozen reviewers in the ballpen with a number of recognizable and trustworthy names in the mix, which sweetens the deal. Anyway, the ponies over here did a really sweet review of All of It, for Her in January, but you should take a look at their spotlights for this month too.
Well, considering she's one of the top 100 most followed users on the site, with a sizable 25 fics under her belt, Bad_Seed_72 probably needs no introduction. But did you know, in addition to rockin' it with stories about Babs Seed, and Apple Bloom, and Babs Seed and Apple Bloom, that she also reviews? A nice recurring, roughly monthly feature, she gets into the nitty gritty of what made each fic really stand out in her mind, and why it's worth your time. One such feature was for All of It, for Her. I admit that I actually wasn't aware of her reviews until my own fic got included, but looking back at the previous picks, they're all quite solid. I don't think I've found one yet that I haven't thoroughly enjoyed.
Have you heard the name Singularity Dream before? Well, somehow they have a paltry 54 followers (!?!) so I guess you might not've. But you've probably seen their comments a lot, especially in some of these other review-related threads, yeah? No? Hmm... Okay, maybe a different alias, what about Griffin, and the blog over here? The Master List? Okay, you're killing me here.
Singularity Dream has reviewed 1,362 ponyfics. Let's let that number sink in. Only Present Perfect-senpai appears to have done more reviews than them, in this fandom. How can I say this with certainty? Well, in addition to reviews, SD maintains what is aptly called THE MASTER LIST, a monumental undertaking of crossreferencing not only their own reviews, but an additional 5,675 reviews across some 40-odd review groups and review individuals. So not only with cross-referencing all the fics reviewed by SA, and all my fics which have gotten reviews, SD had their own kind words to say about K-I-S-S-I-N-G!, which I can all quickly look up thanks to one momumental undertaking. Perchance you could send a little love their way, for all the work and effort going into this community? Eh, eh? 
Well, as Jaxie and I were discussing earlier today, the Internet never forgets. So it's in the interest of full disclosure that I admit that when EFNW mentioned they were doing a partnership deal with Fimfiction to do convention coverage, I was cautiously optimistic. I wasn't exactly sure what kind of service they'd be providing to the site. Well, here's me officially with egg on my face. Now, if you only watch their siteposts, you'd probably only see a small handful from them to date. But'cha see that little note at the end of them, pointing to reviews? Give that guy a click. As a leadup to this year's con, the staff of EFNW's writing track has been tossing out reviews in their spare-time. Three fics per week. That's in comparison to SA's four fics biweekly or RCL's one fic weekly. And they're putting together a con on top of it all. Tl;dr I'll be out of a job soon. But really, though, it's great to see the conventions really giving the fanfic community some love. It's traditionally been all about the artists' alley and the musicians' concert/rave/extravaganza, but now these bigger cons are having writer tracks, with department heads, a goodly number of panels, devoted siderooms for writers to mingle in... the works. I know first-hand that Bronycon delivers in this area year after year (I submitted to be a panelist this year! Fingers crossed that my panel gets approved!), but while I only have word of mouth about the EFNW experience, the fact that their writer track is getting so involved into the community (above-and-beyond their normal Fimfic writing careers, and in addition to con organizing) is a super-encouraging sign.
Anyway, yes yes, enough gushing. They too appear on this blogpost/list for just recently reviewing My Little Chrono Triggers. The review makes a bunch of sweet, insightful points, and mentions that even thought the fic is Incomplete, it's still....
W-Well, but I mean, I've been busy with work and stuff, and I—
Yes okay, but all the same, this is a pretty lengthy and involved crossover, and I have some other side-projects that I was excited about, so I was just taking a small break to—
*quietly logs out of MMO and closes other GDocs*
Ahem. Maybe I should, ah... Maybe I should do the thing. With the typing, and the words, and the pretty horsies.
Yeah.
Waaaaaait... What's this? <.<
... I am NOT kissing you, Paveh, sorry. Love you like a bro, but it ain't happening.
2862050 The successor to Twilight's Library, after that crashed and burned.
I owe SD for allowing me to locate a few reviews of my own stuff - including one by Chris that made me squee - that I otherwise wouldn't have had a clue they existed. Sometimes, we authors like to know what others think and like to say about our pieces, so when I find out I got reviewed - well after the fact - I find myself a little irked. SD has become the shining light in that endeavor.
Why aren't I following him yet? That's an issue to solve :DEDIT: Apparently I already was.My latest fic nailed Tag-A-Long's club as well, and that's awesome :D
Thank you for saying the unspoken awesomes for these groups/peeps, Pav. It's what we would say if we had the viewerbase to do so >.>
I was 100% on board with all the Sunset until that last image.
Pav why
Link to Everfree Northwest is broken. fimfiction server interprets a trailing '/' as part of the username. So you need
https://www.fimfiction.net/user/EverfreeNorthwest
not
https://www.fimfiction.net/user/EverfreeNorthwest/
2862166
H'oh snap. I just saw a story with the girl scout ribbon on it today for the first time. :D
You ah the roodist.
2862192
And then you get 4 bookshelf adds out of the blue, and you're all like "WTF, why am I getting all these favs, did someone promote me?" and then you try to search blogposts for your fics and then you realize that blog searching is awful.
2862367
Fixed!
2862466
Yeah, Tag-a-Long's features arcum42 and a number of old staff members, but rather than the EQD "we are legally obligated to devote our souls to reviewing and accepting user-submitted stories 24/7" model, it's now "we, the group mods, liked this story. Nuff said."
2862231
Csquared.
Search within your heart.
You know it to be true.
2862065
Trev.
Search within your heart.
You know it to be true.
2862571
dashie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/rsz/mlfw8949_small.jpg
2862575
If my life could be summed up in a single jpg...
2862571
So it's actually more like the RCL now. :O Cool.
2863379 Sorta kinda not really. No set schedule (they add fics whenever), no group consensus (any admin of the group can add fics without peer approval) and there's no reviews per se (you just get feed notifications that they added some new fics)
Basically, it's a lot closer to arcum's original vision for the group, versus the EQD/TRG clone that Twilight's Library had morphed into.
No, no, no. We need less reviewers! I'm having a hard enough time keeping the big master review list updated as it is! So, um, everyone who wants to review ponyfics must now pass a 57-part exam and physical trial.
That warm fuzzy feeling when someone else mentions you in positive manner. It's nice. Thankies. Ugh, so need to get caught up updating things. Also, following me here won't get you much so it's not really a problem that I don't have followers.
Good news all around, it seems.
And say whaaaaaat a panel say whaaaaaaaat
I demand details!
2867646
Mhm! If approved (we won't hear back until end of this month) it'd be a panel for editors, prereaders, and reviewers. Sort of a "how to get started" and "beginners tips and tricks" for the support side of the Fimfic community.
2867671
Ooo very interesting, I like the sound of that.
So I shall stand in the back and heckle!
*Casually pushes over last years EFNW writing track info.*
You open it. Your jaw drops. Then a note slides out.
Dear Pav Feira,
Sadly we won't be able to match the 14 guests, 50+ person Iron Autors Contest, 4 different peer critique sessions, 8 panels (2 of which included IDW comic authors), and 2 fanfiction chillouts all in our own room this year. But I'm gonna make sure we still include a good 20+ hours for fanfiction including pretty much the entire variety of events.
-Piquo Pie, Head of the Everfree Northwest Writing Track
P.S. Props for the liberal use of Sunset Shimmer
2869339
*removes his glasses, refills your wine glass*
Why, you saucy little minx...