Category Archives: Features

iisaw’s “The Celestia Code”

02 Friday Jan 2015

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Dig into today’s story for a rousing archaeological epic.

celestia-codeThe Celestia Code
[Adventure] • 70,356 words

Princess Twilight Sparkle discovers a centuries-old mystery hidden in the Royal Archives. Her investigation leads through layer after layer of deception and misdirection, setting her hooves on a path that seems to be leading to a mysterious secret. Along the way, she learns that some friendships can be very, very strange.

FROM THE CURATORS: Despite its title, this story is “mostly not a Da Vinci Code crossover,” Chris noted.  “What it is is a history-delving adventure, with some touches of mystery and romance on the side.  The result is a story which is often funny, full of forward momentum, and — after a bit of unfocused jumping in the first chapter or two — settles into an engaging mix of action and history.”

Not only engaging but memorable: it’s not often that we stop debate to reminisce about the story’s great moments, but those filled our thread.  “What an amazing battle scene in Chapter 22,” Present Perfect said, while Horizon paused his reading after Chapter 8 so he could comment: “Goddamn but that was a glorious chapter.”

We all cited different elements in our search for what made it exemplary, which was a sign that The Celestia Code got a lot of different things right.  “It compellingly wove together a lot of big ideas, and the worldbuilding felt effortless, which is generally a sign of a huge amount of work behind the scenes,” Horizon said.  Present Perfect appreciated the characterization: “You’ve got a well-voiced Twilight who grows as a character over the course of the story.”  While Chris agreed — “Twilight is quick with a quip as narrator, and the vibrantly unique voices used throughout breathe life into the story” — he focused on the bigger picture: “It’s a fast-paced story which is easy to follow despite its mystery elements, and which is funny, clever, and exciting in equal measure.”

That solid execution carried it through some rough spots (such as a lackluster romance subplot) to earn a well-deserved feature.  As Horizon put it, “this is a novel of big ideas, magnificent setpieces and brilliant moments — a summer blockbuster of a ponyfic.”

Read on for our author interview, in which iisaw discusses pony motivations, coyote nomenclature, and the heartbreak of spousal “Best Pony” disagreements.
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The Ponytrician’s “The Truth About Myths And Legends”

26 Friday Dec 2014

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Today’s story will bring some smiles to warm the dark midwinter’s chill.

myths-and-legendsThe Truth About Myths And Legends
[Slice of Life] • 4,211 words

A troubled Princess Celestia, wandering her School for Gifted Unicorns late one night, chances upon her young faithful student Twilight Sparkle, who has problems of her own:

She can’t catch the Tooth Flutterpony.

What possible advice could Princess Celestia give to her upset young pupil, who is desperately trying to prove that an old ponies’ tale is real?

FROM THE CURATORS: “I’d heard good things about this fic going in, and was not disappointed,” Chris said about this sweet coming-of-age tale.  “The author really captures young Twilight as a brainy, over-serious filly… but a filly, first and foremost. … It’s not too silly, not too dramatic, and feels important despite its surface ephemerality.”

There were several factors catapulting this story to its feature, but it certainly didn’t hurt that it melted the hearts of our curators.  “This one is adorable,” JohnPerry said, and Present Perfect agreed: “Gads, but this is precious.”  We also noted its strong characterization — as Horizon put it, the story “derives its feels not from any twist, but from the characters being earnestly themselves” — and its gentle sense of humor.  “There are plenty of clever jokes thrown in, and the ending is a fun surprise,” JohnPerry said.

Ultimately, on the strength of both its storytelling and its themes, this was an easy choice for a heartwarming holiday-season feature.  “This is a story about childhood and innocence, and the titular myth is just the lens through which we see it,” Horizon said.  “But even more so, it’s about two characters flailing for connections, and a moment that brings them together, and that’s the best kind of heartwarming.”

Read on for our author interview, in which The Ponytrician discusses biographical standards, the advantages of not knowing, and ham and cheese.
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Pale Horse’s “Destination Unknown”

19 Friday Dec 2014

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Octavia and Vinyl Scratch are fandom’s classic “odd couple” — and today’s story makes one of them even odder.

destination-unknownDestination Unknown
[Romance] [Alternate Universe] • 4,114 words

Two passengers on a train ride toward an uncertain future. One is a pony. The other only pretends to be.

FROM THE CURATORS: “A little bit of originality can take a fandom trope a long way,” Present Perfect said as we dove into this story, and he was right — Destination Unknown paid off on that promise in spades.  “Vinyl + Octavia is one of the fandom’s most cliché and mismatched pairs, and yet this is a real romance with genuine depth and emotion,” Horizon said.  “This story also made Vinyl more plausible to me as a changeling than as a pony.  It’s rich with little details like the source of her love for dubstep that show a lot of care and craft.  I really appreciate how it plays the two competing clichés off of each other to great effect.”

What sold us on this story was, simply put, the quality of its construction in a crowded field of fanon explorations.  “I think most folks will come away from it with better feelings about fanfiction than they had going in,” Bradel said.  “The execution here is much smoother than I see through most of this fandom.”  Horizon agreed: “This one is simply exemplary on execution.”

While Present Perfect thirded that statement, he went even further — finding the story unexpectedly winning him over.  “The writing is solid, and it’s far more melancholy than romantic,” he said.  “You won’t understand the full gravity of this statement unless you obsessively take notes on my fic recommendation journals, but it’s a ScratchTavia fic I actually like.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Pale Horse discusses crazy lies, dragon development, and following your heart while naked.
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ambion’s “Racing Thoughts”

12 Friday Dec 2014

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A search for love, in all its glory,
Is central to our featured story.

racing-thoughtsRacing Thoughts
[Romance] [Random] • 1,530 words

In a fantastical universe the bastard love-child of Edgar Allen Poe and T.S. Eliot got hooked on ponies.

The resulting poem, pulled through the void, is presented for your reading pleasure.

A (loosely) iambic tetrametric narrative of Twilight Sparkle struggling to understand, accept, and ultimately express, her love for Rainbow Dash.

FROM THE CURATORS: “When I start recommending poetry, you should stand up and take notice,” said Present Perfect, the RCL’s resident curmudgeon, as he brought this story to our attention. “This borrows heavily from the J. Alfred Prufrock school of poetry and excels for having done so. … It all comes down to ‘I hate poetry and I like this.'”

We did take notice — and it broadened our collective horizons, as Bradel affirmed.  “This is probably the first pony poetry I’ve read,” he said. “It’s a lot better than I’d generally expect. The structure lends itself well to the stream of consciousness style, with meter and rhyme scheme shifting in a very natural way throughout the piece.”  Chris agreed: “The pitter-pat flow came through clearly, and the mix of academic language and more conversational tone gave the poem a nice lilt, in addition to making it feel very Twilight.”

That mixture was used to good effect, drawing thoughts of yearning and lust out of a normally analytical character.  The occasional suggestive turn of phrase was a distraction for some of us, but Bradel “found it very endearing. While it’s certainly not out of the ordinary for TwiDash fiction, it provides a few welcome twists in the flow of the poem.”

Overall, Racing Thoughts (which was originally posted as a single complete work, though unrelated poems have since been added to the story) was enjoyable for poetry fans and non-fans alike.  As Present Perfect summarized it: “This guy can poetry. He can poetry good.”

Read on for our author interview, in which ambion discusses noble hobos, signs in the stars, and majestic and subtle ironies.
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FanOfMostEverything’s “Mandatory Fun”

05 Friday Dec 2014

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Today’s story might polka hole in your conception of party ponies.

mandatory-funMandatory Fun
[Dark] [Random] • 2,650 words

The Alicorn Amulet twists its wearer into madness and megalomania. Nopony can wear it without repercussions, both for themselves and others. Nopony is safe. Nopony is exempt.

Still, nopony expected him.

FROM THE CURATORS: One of the best things about fanfiction is that it allows in-depth exploration of ideas or characters that Friendship is Magic only lightly touches — and one of the things we most love about our work is unearthing stories which do so in clever, original ways.  “How is it that this fandom has been given Weird Al Yankovic as a character to work with, and yet this is the first time I’ve read something that makes good use of this golden opportunity?” JohnPerry said.

This tale of Cheese Sandwich’s reign of hilarity terror … hilerror? terrarity? … “is played very straight,” Horizon said, “but it’s narrated by Cheese himself (with all the narrative whimsy that implies), and sweet stars above, the juxtaposition works, like salted caramel ice cream.”  Other curators agreed — “I don’t see the Dark and Random tags together nearly often enough, and I see a story that fits both even less often, but damn does it work here,” JohnPerry said — and found this exemplary in the uniqueness of its reading experience.  “The writing is solid, and I’m coming out of it with a feeling of mixed amusement and terror that I think is perfectly appropriate for what this story said on the box,” Bradel said.  “My brain’s all fuzzy now, but in a very positive way.”

Ultimately, what sells this bizarre collision of ideas is the strong writing underneath.  “The wordplay is deep, rich, and unapologetic,” Horizon noted, and even pun-hating Present Perfect begrudgingly agreed: “This is the first story I have ever praised for its use of puns.”  Chris appreciated “the reveal at the end, which managed not to render irrelevant everything which had gone before while still playing with expectations — a shockingly rare combination for this kind of story.”  And JohnPerry pointed out another rare feat: “Major props have to go to the author for managing to weave in so many pop-culture and meta jokes without taking away from the tone or ever losing sight of the story,” he said. “That alone is a huge accomplishment.”

Read on for our author interview, in which FanOfMostEverything discusses Lord High Executioners, unponies, partillery, and the metasignificance of Cheese Sandwich’s Cutie Mark.
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CascadeJackal’s “Dream”

28 Friday Nov 2014

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Today’s story is a thing of beauty.

dreamDream
[Sad] • 3,252 words

Sometimes, dreams are all we have. Sometimes, that’s enough.

Hidden deep within a maze, well away from prying eyes, there is a statue. The last great work of an artist long forgotten, her time-worn visage watches the raising and setting of the sun and the moon as though enraptured.

Who created such a marvel, this sculpture of copper and brass, of crystal and cog, and why, is unknown, lost to the mists of time … until now.

This is the tale of a painter and a clockmaker, and the love they shared.

This is the tale of a dreamer, who knew only her dream.

FROM THE CURATORS: Dream is “one part fairy tale and one part adventure, wrapped around lyrical, flawless prose and some really powerful storytelling,” as Present Perfect said, and that combination easily won over our hearts.  “This is one of the best stories I’ve seen in a good, long while,” Chris said.

One of the major contributors to that was a unique and exemplary narrative voice.  “The prose in this is just perfect,” JohnPerry said.  “Never too much detail, never too little, always just the right amount to evoke that sense of awe and wonder that makes it so powerful.”  Chris agreed: “There’s a tricky balance to maintain when writing a story where the narrator is a character, and the author absolutely nails it.  The addressing of the reader at the start evokes just the right sense of fairytale wonder, and the clipped but vivid descriptions call to mind a mix of grandeur and ephemeralness which perfectly complements the tale being told.”

But the story is more than the sum of its prose.  “The ideas tackled are big ones — what is beauty? — and the ending gave me a bunch of feels,” Present Perfect said.  “I was shocked to find out it was only 3,000 words long; it feels so much grander.”  JohnPerry summed it up: “The fact that the author can evoke so much out of so few words is amazing.”

Read on for our author interview, in which CascadeJackal discusses fairy tale situations, villainous infatuations, and appellation combinations.
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8686’s “Eclipse”

21 Friday Nov 2014

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Today’s story will shake things up… perhaps even more than it intended.

eclipseEclipse
[Adventure] • 64,552 words

A recurring nightmare convinces Luna that, since her return, she has never regained her sister’s complete trust. And at the forthcoming Festival of the Eclipse, she decides to make amends with a bold gesture.

But Luna’s solution causes consequences she never anticipated. Consequences the whole world will feel. Now, Celestia and Luna must set forth on an adventure that will take them even into Tartarus itself, and set everything right before it’s too late.

And if they’re lucky, they’ll rediscover the trust they once had a thousand years ago.

FROM THE CURATORS: Often, there’s one particular aspect of a story which catches the eye of all the RCL curators.  Unusually, all of us seemed to find something different to love about Eclipse.  Chris highlighted the worldbuilding that went into the story, saying it “offers an excellently conceived picture of Tartarus which draws upon both Greek mythology and modern theology, and does some simply excellent stuff with dragons, including race relations and general worldview.”  John Perry agreed that the worldbuilding was good, but went on to add, “But more important is the handling of the plot, and that is where this story shines.”  Present Perfect went a third direction, focusing on the characters: “Everything about the dragons was handled superbly,” he said, “from their society to their individual viewpoints, and Valkyrie’s character arc ended up being well wrought.”

But even though we all had different “favorite” story elements, one thing we agreed on was that they all came together beautifully.  “This guy may be one of those writers who’s equally good at everything, as adept at writing Pinkie and comedy as he is action and adventure,” mused Present Perfect, and he wasn’t alone in the sentiment.  “Every chapter left me wanting more,” as John Perry put it.  At one point while reading, Present Perfect even paused to declare, “this is one of the greatest scenes I have ever had the honor and pleasure to read.”

Read on for our author interview, in which 8686 discusses royal readers, the difference between cruelty and indifference, and Alpha and Beta scenes.

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Pav Feira’s “All of It, for Her”

14 Friday Nov 2014

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An open-ended search for elusive perfection that may or may not exist: it’s not just the Royal Canterlot Library’s mission statement, it’s also the tale of today’s story.

all-of-itAll of It, for Her
[Romance] [Sad] • 4,386 words

Thirty five years. Been roaming Equestria from town to cloying town, looking for her. Not for lack of trying, mind you. Equestria’s just that big of a place. There’s only so many places left to look, though, and it’d be foolish to throw in the towel already. I’m getting close. So I’ll do the same thing I did yesterday: search.

FROM THE CURATORS: While several of our recent features were written for Equestria Daily’s Outside Insight contest — which brought out amazing work from a broad cross-section of our community — this is an older story that should have been.  “This is one thoroughly under-appreciated fic.  It would have placed in Outside Insight’s top ten for sure, and that’s no small compliment coming from me,” JohnPerry said.  Horizon agreed: “It’s full of nice details throughout,” he said, “like the subtle awkwardness of ponies’ internal struggles with racism, and Cranky’s observations on how their culture has gotten inside his head.”

However, while All of It, for Her has a lot to say about Equestria, along the way it takes an exemplary look at an underappreciated character. “This story gives Cranky a very strong voice,” Chris said.  “His story has always tickled that ‘doomed nobility’ bone for me; the idea of consciously deciding to put your entire life on hold indefinitely, and probably forever, just oozes pathos.”  Upping the ante, JohnPerry said that “the characterization of everyone is absolutely brilliant. … Even the ‘minor’ characters Cranky meets on the way feel fleshed out, and to say that Cranky feels true to the show seems like an understatement: it expands on what we saw in the show, and significantly so. Everything about this brings to light the … I suppose not ‘tragedy,’ but the tragicness of his situation.”

Even that tragedy carried unexpected depth. “This is also thought-provoking in how it uses the context of the show to play with the tone of the story,” Horizon said.  “Taken as self-contained original fiction, it’s a tale of Donkey Xoté, a dreamer who wastes his life on a mad quest … but we know that there’s a payoff to his quest. The entire premise of this character is that it works out, at long last, in Ponyville, and that turns the ending surprisingly bittersweet.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Pav Feira discusses stolen appellations, compelling snark, and the crucial importance of cabbage.
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Taranth’s “Little Deceptions”

07 Friday Nov 2014

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Today’s story has a clever plan to steal your heart.

little-deceptionsLittle Deceptions
[Slice of Life] • 5,527 words

Blank Slate is the greatest thief of his generation. He has robbed countless nigh-impossible marks, and his talents as a master of disguise are beyond par — truly, nopony knows who he is. 

And now he’s preparing the greatest heist in mortal memory: the treasure vaults of the Princesses themselves.

But you have to get up pretty early in the morning to get one past the pony who defines when ‘early in the morning’ is…

FROM THE CURATORS: Like all its characters, this story of a daring theft gone wrong has a little secret — in this case, that there are two chapters.  “It’s bizarre to say, as JohnPerry did, that the best thing about this story is how it sticks the landing,” Horizon initially wrote after be failed to notice Chapter 2, but quickly amended his statement: “It stuck the landing.”  All of us agreed.  In Chris’ words: “The ending is great, no argument.”

But there’s more to this story than a great twist, and it was that richness throughout which propelled it to its feature.  Present Perfect cited the writing’s redemption of an often-poorly-used technique: “This makes good use of talking heads, something that’s hard to do.”  And Chris appreciated the heist’s construction despite his ambivalence toward the genre: “Too often, the number one rule of good mystery writing is ignored — the reason it worked ought to be, if not solvable, at least conceivable pre-reveal.  This story does a nice job on that front.”

Little Deceptions’ richness extended to its ideas and its setting.  “What really struck me about it was the world-building,” Present Perfect said.  “We get an explanation for why a pony would turn to crime. All those magical gems … make sense, and the methods of disguise are entirely believable.”  Horizon seconded that: “The heist is a joy to read, and plays with Equestrian worldbuilding in marvelous ways.  I was debating whether to nominate it simply on the strength of Chapter 1.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Taranth discusses fertility, flowers, fandom justifications, and Shining Armor’s criminal history.
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JawJoe’s “Queen of Queens”

31 Friday Oct 2014

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Today’s story doesn’t have long to make its point, but wow, what an impact it’ll leave.

queen-of-queensQueen Of Queens
[Dark] [Drama] • 15,000 words

Our kind has it that the life of a queen is the happiest, for they are blessed with the shortest time in this world. A mighty queen will be remembered for eternity, forever residing in the hearts of her people. The greatest tragedy a queen can suffer is to be forgotten — to be stricken from history.

I refuse to bend before oblivion.

FROM THE CURATORS: Given the number of authors that entered Equestria Daily’s recent Outside Insight contest (and the quality of their prose), it’s no surprise that it’s been a rich source of RCL features — but what did surprise us was the breadth of the entries’ quality.  Our last two features spotlighted the humorous end of the entries, but Queen of Queens is pure drama, with a tale of struggle and redemption.  We unanimously agreed: what a drama it is.

“Now here’s an author who knows what they’re doing. The story of Chrysalis, from birth to death, is an unparalleled feat of worldbuilding,” Present Perfect said, and the first words out of JohnPerry were similar: “Absolutely exquisite worldbuilding.”  Chris dug further in: “This is how you do worldbuilding.  You make a couple of original assumptions that can still fit within the canon lore, and then you examine them to their fullest conclusions.  [Queen of Queens’ changelings] are an amazing example of race-building in fiction — alien, yet recognizable enough to inspire empathy.”

The core concept — that, in contrast to mortal ponykind with its immortal alicorns, the changelings are an immortal race with short-lived leaders — was “an amazing idea, with sterling execution,” as Horizon put it; but this story went well beyond that.  “It’s not often I get to see a sympathetic portrayal of Chrysalis that doesn’t make me roll my eyes,” JohnPerry said, but as Chris said, “she’s a compelling, interesting character despite the reserved narrative style. … Her fatal flaw is well-established without being sledgehammer-y, and that makes the ending (which, in lesser hands, would have felt like a copout) seem sincere.”

All of this, plus the engaging prose, added up to a gripping and unique fanfiction experience.  “I drank this down in one sitting and never once felt my mind wander,” Chris said. “The entire story feels wonderfully, vibrantly alive.”

Read on for our author interview, in which JawJoe discusses holiday episodes, games of make-believe, and self-imposed existential nightmares.

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