Author Archives: AugieDog

Bookish Delight’s “Being Juniper Montage”

30 Friday Mar 2018

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Today’s story will really get into your head.


Being Juniper Montage
[Equestria Girls] [Drama] [Slice of Life] • 42,118 words

Mere weeks ago, Juniper Montage was a spiteful girl, a thief, and even—for a short time—a magical menace. However, Starlight Glimmer and the Rainbooms managed to reach her, and extend the hands of forgiveness and friendship. Juniper has been grateful for the second chance ever since, and eager to show that she can be a good friend herself.

While touring Canterlot High School with Twilight Sparkle, she comes across two girls in dire cinematic straits. Juniper knows she can help, so she decides to step in. However, in the midst of her attempt, her past—all of her past—returns to haunt her, and her self-esteem pays the price.

Now Juniper must discover for herself what it truly means to be a friend, while also fighting an angry, fearful voice in the back of her mind that continues to insist that she’s not worth anyone’s friendship… and keeps getting louder.

FROM THE CURATORS: Maybe the most basic reason Pony fanfiction exists is to take characters and situations we know from the show and explore them at greater depth. A good piece of fanfiction, though, works even if the reader isn’t familiar with the particular character or situation. “I knew nothing at all about Juniper Montage going in,” Horizon admitted during our discussions, “and this story made me curious enough about her background to get me watching Juniper Montage’s episodes.”

“Bookish Delight,” Fan of Most Everything said when nominating this story, “has an almost inhuman talent for taking the bipedal cutouts Equestria Girls calls antagonists and turning them into fleshed-out, multidimensional people.” AugieDog agreed, saying, “The ‘Ex-Villains’ Club Sleep-Over’ made me very happy” with Horizon adding, “the whole cast is unerringly interesting.”

“What I liked the most here,” AugieDog went on, “was the way the story digs so deeply into the process of redemption.” Horizon noted, “This brings a lot of context to the inner struggle involved in the redemption we see characters breeze through in the show.” “Juniper’s inner demon,” AugieDog said, “is just that—an interior force—and her realization that she has to find a way of dealing with this thing at the core of her personality drives the story.” “Plus,” Fan of Most Everything concluded, “it’s a good meditation on the creative process as a whole.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Bookish Delight discusses core idealism, glasses-wearing nerd girls, and playing, not working.
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Timaeus’ “Coming in From the Cold”

23 Friday Mar 2018

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Settle in and warm up with today’s story.

Coming in From the Cold
[Romance] [Slice of Life] • 11,961 words

Starting over is never an easy thing to do. Lost, alone, and cold, sometimes a friendly smile and mug of cocoa are all that’s needed to warm the heart.

And right now, Bon Bon is very cold.

FROM THE CURATORS: With winter and spring currently engaged in their annual slippery baton pass, here’s a story, as AugieDog put it, “where the cold and the warm are practically characters.” But the main focus lies squarely on Lyra and the mare now known as Bon Bon, newly arrived in Ponyville after the dismantling of her previous life and full of uncertainty.

“Bon Bon’s unsureness about who she is,” Present Perfect said, “was a great place to start” with FanOfMostEverything noting that the readers “get behind Bon Bon’s eyes and stay there for the whole story, the evocative imagery selling everything from struggling through the storm to the anxiety of Lyra getting uncomfortably close to the truth to the warm fuzzies at the end.” Lyra’s equally well painted, AugieDog said, “working as a waitress back home in Ponyville after failing to become a musician in Canterlot.” They’re “two lost mares,” Augie went on, “meeting at the exact moment they most need a friend.”

And more than friends, of course. “I may be a little biased,” Present Perfect said, “as LyraBon is a long-standing OTP, but…the flirting was top-notch.” “Yes, the attraction is mostly physical,” FanOfMostEverything added, “but they’ve only just met and are still getting to know each other, much as Sweetie Drops is still getting to know Bon Bon.” Soge brought up “how well the author utilizes ponies’ physical actions to convey emotion, like ear flicks, tail movements and the like. That helped sell me on their flirting, and the progressively more intimate actions made for a really well realized progression throughout the story.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Timaeus discusses writing as a social activity, second chances, and “playing wild.”
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SaddlesoapOpera’s “A New Age”

26 Saturday Nov 2016

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Today’s story lets us hear some voices from Equestria’s past.

A New Age
[Dark] [Drama] • 14,963 words

In the closing days of the Pre-Classical Era, at the dawn of the rule of the Royal Pony Sisters, the devastation of Discord’s cruelty hits hard and leaves an open wound. As the young and inexperienced Princesses Celestia and Luna struggle to keep the peace, powerful figures in all three Pony tribes bridle at the upstart Alicorns who so quickly and easily claimed power…

FROM THE CURATORS: Epistolary stories present a number of unique problems to a writer, but sometimes confining the narrative to letters written by the characters is the best approach to take.  And when Soge praised this story for “managing to showcase a variety of points of view from a number of very distinctive characters, all of which have great voicing and believable motivations,” the rest of us had to agree.

“Absolutely necessary from a storytelling perspective,” Chris said, while Present Perfect called attention to “the variety of media… the stories told, the multiple crumbling tragedies” and called the whole piece “unspeakably awesome.”

“The characters are perfectly voiced throughout,” AugieDog noted with Chris calling them “sometimes petty, sometimes poignant, but invariably fascinating.” “The way that the author weaves in and out of show canon, while simultaneously doing a ton of world building was particularly masterful,” Soge concluded. “But what really clinched the nomination for me is how, from so many disparate parts, a full narrative emerges.”

Read on for our author interview, in which SaddlesoapOpera discusses fictional vacuums, plausible reliability, and the earthy aspects of earth ponies.
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