plumander’s “Happy Ending”

25 Friday Mar 2016

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Today’s story bubbled up to the top of our reading lists.

Happy Ending
[Sad] [Slice of Life] • 4,552 words

Golden Harvest farms carrots, is incredibly devoted to her husband, and lives in bubbles.

Written Script writes and travels far too often, but is charismatic and well-liked.

Derpy likes muffins and is legally unfit to take care of her foal.

And then there’s Dinky, who (legally) belongs to Golden Harvest and (legally) must visit her mother once a month.

Life is incredibly complex, but it’s also profoundly simple.

FROM THE CURATORS: Let’s not mince words here: the tragedy here is on a level rarely seen in ponyfic.  “This story does such a masterful job of making you squirm as you read that I felt absolutely compelled to nominate it,” Chris said, and the rest of us agreed as it sailed to a rare unanimous approval.  “Often, Sad-tagged fics prod you continually with ever-increasing woes, like sticks, hoping you’ll eventually break and cry,” Present Perfect said.  “This Sad-tagged fic punches you in the junk and steals your lunch money.”

At the center of that were the exemplary portrayals of Golden Harvest and a vivid supporting cast.  “This is a story about characters trying to make the best of situations they wouldn’t have chosen for themselves,” Chris explained, while AugieDog focused on Golden herself: “The portrait of a character completely out of her depth is terrific.”  Horizon agreed: “All of the characters are painted solidly, and Golden is laudably complex — while she’s clearly the villain, she’s presented sympathetically, and we see how she’s been damaged by forces beyond her control.  And when she crosses a line, and the story gamely continues on with the other characters pretending like nothing’s changed, we see that damage from a very different angle.”

Several of us also singled out the story’s structure for praise.  “I love how the themes manage to resonate with the plot, the characters, and each other,” Soge said, and Chris agreed: “Perhaps the best thing about this is the poignant simplicity of its ‘bubbles’ motif.  It frames the entire narrative as an exploration of who we are when we’re rocked from our comfort zones.”  But as bleak and non-pony as that might sound — “this is earth-analogue to a fault,” Present Perfect noted — it felt informed by the show on a deeper level.  “It manages to feel pony in spite of all the darkness,” Soge said, and AugieDog agreed: “As the eternal optimist, I’m able to see a bit of light in the ending.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Plumander discusses technicolor reality, non-anti-heroes, and ninja plums.
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Wellspring’s “Arthurian—The Black King”

18 Friday Mar 2016

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You always go back to the classics — and with today’s story, you can return to a pony take on one of the great classics of English literature.

arthurianArthurian—The Black King
[Dark] [Romance] [Tragedy] • 30,305 words

“Those of us who have a general overview and knowledge of King Sombra regard him to be a despotic autocrat, a power-hungry potentate and a vicious oppressor. And, even if this condemnation is justified, we may perhaps not have the right reason for this attribution. This is due to the fact that before King Sombra turned to the tyrant we all know him to be, he was the greatest knight of the Crystal Empire.”

—Sir Sombra de Onyx, Foreword to the Third Edition

FROM THE CURATORS: “This is a very ambitious piece,” Present Perfect said — as its roots show.  “The author lists Le Morte D’Arthur and Ivanhoe as the primary inspirations,” Chris said, “and Wellspring does a commendable job capturing both the literary style and the feeling of history-by-way-of-myth which permeates Le Morte D’Arthur.  A capital-r Romance in the truest sense, this is a story about character archetypes presented in a tell-heavy style.”  It is also, in Horizon’s words, “metal as heck.  From Sombra’s world-serpent origin to the way the sphinx is killed, this continuously finds new ways to crank up the level of epic.”

And while The Black King can be an easy story to bounce off of — “I can appreciate what the author’s doing here, but I can’t read it,” AugieDog said — it richly rewards readers willing to engage with it.  “The style is obtuse, and all the grammatical errors don’t help the story at all,” Soge said, “but this story sold me on its metafiction aspects levels so hard that by the end I went from ‘Wellspring needs a editor’ to ‘Boy, Equestrian grammar sure has changed’. The afterwords are tone perfect, the historical and plot inaccuracies feel legitimate, and the footnotes complement the text beautifully.”  Present Perfect had similar praise for those margin elements: “There’s so much unexpected humor with the historical inaccuracies in the footnotes. And there’s historical poems in them! They do quite a lot more work than one expects footnotes to. … I’ve also never praised an afterword before, which should say enough by itself.”

What locked in The Black King’s feature, though, was that its unusual style was wrapped around solid storytelling.  “Sombra’s backstory is really powerful,” Present Perfect said, while Soge praised its worldbuilding more broadly: “The story carries some fascinating ideas about Sombra, the Crystal Kingdom, and historical Equestria as a whole. I love how Sombra’s tragic flaws are mostly positive attributes, which makes the inevitable conclusion all the stronger.”  It all added up to a package worth the time spent in adjusting to its presentation.  “The more I think about it, the more impressive I find this story to be,” Chris said. “The Black King captured my imagination in a way few fanfics do, and I feel like that’s the definition of something worth spotlighting.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Wellspring discusses showy footnotes, writing archetypically, and the evil of Cervantes.
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Raugos’ “Integration”

11 Friday Mar 2016

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Today’s story will change the way you look at fanfiction–inside and out.

integrationIntegration
[Adventure] • 118,733 words

Caramel wasn’t always a Changeling, but he’s going to become one. And he’s going to do it for the sake of his very special somepony.

FROM THE CURATORS:  There are no shortage of changeling-centric, lore-heavy stories in this fandom, so it takes something exceptional for a story to stand out from that company.  But in this case, we had no trouble finding plenty to appreciate.  Present Perfect focused on Caramel’s role, saying, “He’s the perfect kind of layabout Everyman, the sort of character I really want to see succeed at something for once.”  Augie concurred, adding, “It’s got a certain epic feel to it, too, while staying very closely focused on Caramel and his love for Sassaflash.”

Chris, meanwhile, praised the lore: “The story does a good job of lulling the reader into thinking of the changelings in familiar terms, via Caramel’s perceptions of the same, only to throw a wrench in those assumptions down the line.”  Soge also noted that “the way the changeling society is established is impressive, completely alien while still relatable,” and Present Perfect noted that “The transformation sequence allowed for revelations of headcanon without infodumping,” complementing Integration for not sacrificing its narrative for the sake of over-explaining and headcanon justification.

These elements, together with an intriguing mix of action and slow-burning tension, impressed us all.  “There was a lot of humor, and the action was paced well,” said Present Perfect.  Chris, meanwhile, said that Integration “manages to combine moments of high action with longer stretches of waiting and uncertainty, along with exploration, discovery, and plenty of flashbacks, into a cohesive, engaging novel.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Raugos discusses dragon waterfalls, imperious goths, and attention deficit dyspepsia.
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SaintChoc’s “Raven”

04 Friday Mar 2016

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Today’s story will always be here to provide you with some quality teatime reading.

ravenRaven
[Slice of Life] • 6,033 words

No one alive today can say where she came from; simply that she has always been there.

And yet, few ponies have had a greater impact on Princess Celestia’s life than Raven, her most faithful aide.

FROM THE CURATORS: “This was just published by an author whose FiMFic account is just a few months old — proof that there are still quality writers coming into the fandom,” Chris said in his nomination.  And there were many ways in which Raven made that quality obvious, starting with the unrolling of its core mystery.  “This has three ‘whoa’ moments, those moments I always enjoy in a story when a piece of information is revealed that makes me re-evaluate everything I thought was going on,” AugieDog said.  “I can’t remember the last time I came across a story anywhere that did that to me.”

That was just one aspect of the careful construction that earned multiple curators’ praise. “The reversed-time narrative worked very well, thanks to the attention to detail from the author,” Soge said.  “Little things like the tea choices or the expressions they use among themselves were well established, and seeing them deconstructed as the narrative regressed was a great way to show not only the passage of time, but also the evolution of their relationship.”  Chris agreed: “What makes Raven work so well is all the little details it works in.  Even as intentional repetitions from scene to scene — and the slow revelation of Raven‘s nature — draw your attention, there are plenty of small touches at the edges which make this feel like a true glimpse of history.”

We also found much to like about the careful balance of its characterization.  “It’s a nice tale of dedication and friendship,” Soge said.  “Raven‘s actions are never self-centered, but also not really subservient, so there is always the sensation that, even though she serves Celestia, she is her equal in a sense.”  Ultimately, that added up to a read that rewarded us from start to finish, as Chris noted: “It unfolds at just the right pace, and feels a lot longer than it is — the mark of a story with pleasant depth.”

Read on for our author interview, in which SaintChoc discusses small successes, hidden 110%s, and nightmare teas.
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AcreuBall’s “Distance to be Covered”

26 Friday Feb 2016

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The way that today’s story examines the challenges of a long-distance relationship is something to write home about.

distance-to-be-coveredDistance To Be Covered
[Romance] • 9,017 words

Dash had been accepted into the Wonderbolts and was going to be living in Cloudsdale. Twilight was going to be spending much of her time in Canterlot as a new princess of Equestria. Both of their lives would be changing forever, and in very different ways, but Dash wasn’t worried. Their relationship could handle the distance, and though they were both moving away from Ponyville, the town and all their friends were still going to be there, the same as they always had been.

She knew everything was going to be all right. They were going to be able to deal with it.  She knew it was going to be fine — she was just having a hard time getting herself to feel like it was going to be.

FROM THE CURATORS: One of the many reasons this feature delighted us was how endlessly quotable its prose was.  Early lines like this one impressed Chris: “She knew just the pegasus to get that packing done — the fastest pegasus that had probably even ever existed — and that pegasus was named Future Dash. Present Dash was already flying out the door.”  “There’s some nice characterization humor here,” Chris said, “and that really buoys the whole fic.”  Closer to the end was the line that sealed Horizon’s approval: “”I’m scared, okay?’ Rainbow said, and the two of them were silent as they lay in the vast, empty sky, the aurora glimmering above them.'”  “It’s a little thing,” Horizon said, “but reinforcing the theme of the conversation with the tone of the setting is exactly the sort of attention to detail and craft that we should be rewarding.”

Little touches like those rewarded us throughout our reading, but the big things — such as the portrayal of the central TwiDash relationship — were equally powerful.  “It sold the relationship well in medias res,” Present Perfect said, and Horizon agreed: “There’s a lot of solid work here to non-intrusively set up the relationship and the characterization, as well as scenes directly showing us why the couple works together.”  For his part, Chris was impressed by “how little of the romance was gratuitous, by which I mean ‘irrelevant to the plot’ … and that is exactly what I want to see from a shipping story.”

Add all those qualities to a story that’s “wonderfully paced and closes strong,” as Horizon said, and it’s easy to see why this one was a winner.  Present Perfect expanded on that: “The ending is intense and romantic, taking Rainbow’s character heavily into account to make an emotional statement while also giving us a look at TwiDash that’s just a little outside the norm.”

Read on for our author interview, in which AcreuBall discusses uncanny Balls, Wolverine neighbors, and personal headcanon cement.
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naturalbornderpy’s “Princess Celestia’s Newest Arch Enemy”

19 Friday Feb 2016

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Prepare for an adorable war on your heartstrings as today’s story marches into the library shelves.

newest-arch-enemyPrincess Celestia’s Newest Arch Enemy
[Comedy] [Random] [Slice of Life] • 4,656 words

When a colt named “Bad Dude” storms into Celestia’s personal study and declares himself as her latest arch enemy, the Princess can’t help but nearly gush from the sight. As perhaps the cutest villain Celestia has ever encountered, she hurriedly calls for Luna to meet him as well.

But is there more to “Bad Dude” than his cute exterior would suggest?

No. No there is not.

FROM THE CURATORS: This story’s path to a feature started — as so many others do — with outside word-of-mouth.  “The clickbait title and blatant appeal to cuteness should have made this story radioactive to me, but when MightyFenrir recommended it, I had to see what that was about,” Horizon said. “What I found was a story that pulled off a surprisingly intricate balancing act between adorable, silly, authentic, and subversive.”

What immediately leapt out at us was the humor that also sent this story rocketing to the top of the Featurebox. “I’m beside myself,” Present Perfect said.  “The Potatoville line is about the funniest thing I’ve heard all week.  This is what reading Progress was like, way back in the day.”  AugieDog was more metaphorical (but no less effusive) in his praise: “Good silly is hard to do.  When we’re all supposed to be sliding and giggling together down the side of Silly Mountain, more often than not we in fact get our sleeves caught on the rocky outcrop of ‘Eh, it’s okay’ or the creosote bush of ‘Yeah, I guess.’  But this one was silly all the way to the bottom.”

It wasn’t just the humor that caught our eye, though — there was also plenty to love about the characterization.  “What makes the story for me is Celestia,” Horizon opined, while Chris said: “Bad Dude may be one-note, but it’s a funny note.”  And the story carried its premise through to a strong ending.  “It manages to pull off a genuine twist without breaking tone,” Horizon said.  “Watching that unfold was the moment that elevated this from ‘enjoyable read’ to ‘RCL feature’.”

Read on for our author interview, in which naturalbornderpy discusses visual drugs, story graveyards, and riding the soup-can gravy train.
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Ara’s “Fluttershy’s Secret Kissing Story”

12 Friday Feb 2016

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Today’s story offers us some vivid characterization straight from the horse’s mouth.

fluttershys-secretFluttershy’s Secret Kissing Story
[Romance] [Slice of Life] • 11,064 words

Fluttershy remembers the kisses she’d shared over her lifetime, reflecting on the different circumstances and how she’d grown as a pony.

FROM THE CURATORS: “This is an experience,” Present Perfect warned us along with his nomination. And, indeed, this was one of those rare features where our fellow curators’ reactions were nearly as engrossing as the story itself.  Horizon flailed for adjectives: “Visceral, tactile, disquieting, and memorable as all get out.”  Chris tempered his dislike with respect for the story’s effectiveness: “In many places, it’s disgusting, and occasionally deeply disturbing … and yet, I can’t argue with either those things’ effectiveness, nor their appropriateness in context.”  AugieDog, meanwhile, assigned it his first-ever top score: “This story hit me right between the eyes, drilled through my head, and popped out the other side like a perfect, dew-bedecked daisy.”

What made the story so effective?  “It takes all the tropes and trappings of a romance story and uses them powerfully to create something very different,” Horizon said.  “It does supremely awkward things and then doesn’t shrink from the consequences.”  But it’s not just a shock story, as Present Perfect noted: “It exists in this weird Schrödingerian realm of not making sense and making perfect sense all at once.  The writing is that weird, awkwardly discordant style you get from trollfics, but it’s all straightforward and serious.”  And if you take the story seriously, it will reward you with unexpected depth, he added: “The strangeness of the kissing ties together not only Fluttershy’s character, but some major elements from the show.”

It was ultimately that depth that most impressed us.  “The prose — such as the passage from Chapter 1 about the way kissing changed as she grew into adolescence — shows a level of insight that I find deeply appealing,” Chris said.  “There are a lot of powerful moments in this story.”  And underneath it all, as AugieDog noted, was a core earnestness that was most powerful of all: “I support wholeheartedly any story that shows how even the most damaged of us can maybe turn out all right.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Ara discusses spurious inspirations, soonish horses, and self-imposed sticky conceits.

Wisdom Thumbs’ “The Weak”

05 Friday Feb 2016

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Today’s story is a strong addition to our collection of tales about Equestria’s distant past.

the-weakThe Weak
[Dark] [Tragedy] • 7,723 words

They say minotaurs live by the scars they bear. Bismuth’s hide is a map of the world: his life was the blade, and the blade was his life, carried unto a hundred red fields, down a thousand roads, singing among elk, deer, and dragons. He stood at ramparts long since fallen, and was counted a hero in lands forgotten, when ponies had only begun to dream.

Maybe it’s all true, but now he only rocks in his chair, stirring at embers, while his deeds turn to rust in the shadows. What kind of scars call that living? And if you ask him, would he tell you?

FROM THE CURATORS: Connoisseurs of classic ponyfic will find a little extra bonus in today’s feature, as Chris pointed out when he introduced this story to us. “This borrows its setting from Jetfire’s It’s A Dangerous Business, Going Out Your Door stories,” he said.  “But I believe The Weak stands on its own.  All of the things it borrows are gleaned easily enough from this story itself.”  And the rest of us quickly discovered that it was richly rewarding even without the context of its source.  “Having forgotten pretty much all of Dangerous Business in the four or five years since I read it, I didn’t have any trouble with the set-up,” AugieDog said.  “The writing is top-notch, and the revelation at the end of who Bismuth is telling this story to was just the perfect cap.”  Present Perfect agreed: “Unfamiliar with those stories as I am, this comes off as just another excellent piece of world-building. The fantastic writing, the solid character voice, tell a story of the horrors of war with all the fantasy a Tolkien or Tolkien-after reader could ask for.”

It wasn’t only the power of that prose which brought to mind another blast from the past.  “I’d compare this story to our previous feature The War and What Came After,” Chris said, “in that it doesn’t seem like a particularly ‘pony’ story until the end — at which point it ties itself back to its Equestrian setting in a way that not only justifies its being written as an MLP fanfic, but also perfectly encapsulates the tone of the world it’s set in.”  Other curators also singled out for praise the way in which The Weak connected its original writing and the show we love.  “I’m impressed at how ponies pervade this story while barely appearing in it. It’s very Outside Insight that way,” Present Perfect said.

But no matter how many fond memories of other stories this invoked, there was never any question that The Weak earned its own place in our hearts.  “I’m most impressed with the writing,” Present Perfect said.  “It’s hard not to adore a line like ‘I tried to feel dry’.”  Chris agreed: “Once the narrator stops addressing his audience and starts telling his story, the word choice and ability to paint striking visuals are consistently engrossing.  All in all, this was a gorgeously written story which has a lot to offer to a reader.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Wisdom Thumbs discusses unwilling farming, animated salves, and lawn-based characterization.

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SleepIsforTheWeak’s “Just Give Me a Reason”

29 Friday Jan 2016

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There’s a very simple reason to read today’s story: it’s an intimate and moving portrayal of a troubled relationship.

just-give-me-a-reasonJust Give Me a Reason
[Romance] [Sad] [Slice of Life] • 3,653 words
[NOTE: This story contains sexual themes.]

She waited for Rarity’s face to bloom into softness, the way it always did when Rainbow made some big romantic gesture like this. Rarity’s face stayed impassive. But she smiled. It was a smile that was reserved and slightly tired—barely genuine. The warmth in it was quiet, self-contained.

And that’s when Rainbow’s entire world came crashing down.

She did not need her any longer.

FROM THE CURATORS: “Call me a sucker for tragic romance,” Present Perfect said as his vote spurred this story to its feature, but this story was richly rewarding to more than just genre fans.  “Even though this one had my guts twisting almost from the get-go, I loved it,” Chris said.  “It uses the relationship that’s falling apart as an opportunity to explore its characters, and to really get inside Rainbow’s head in particular, all while offering authentic and rewarding hope.”  He wasn’t the only curator commenting on authenticity.  “As someone going through an amicable divorce, I can confirm that this is heart-rendingly authentic to the way that two people treat each other when they care for each other but are no longer quite in love,” Horizon said.

Those two people — or, rather, ponies — were central to what made this story exemplary.  “The author sells me on the romantic relationship right from the start,” AugieDog said. “Of course, ‘romantic’ is probably the wrong word, but the portrait of the two characters in the dust and ashes stage of things is just marvelously well done.”  Present Perfect also agreed on the excellent character portrayals.  “What really makes this work is you can’t tell this story with two other characters,” he said.  “More to the point, this is very obviously a Rainbow Dash who’s been Rarity’s marefriend for three years. She can read Rarity like a book; she understands nuances of decor! She can, in a perfectly matter-of-fact manner, talk about her feelings. It’s one of the most believable ‘the ship already happened’ stories I’ve ever read.”

That sense of realism drew us all in, and the end result was a story that was gripping and powerful from start to finish.  “This hooked me early, and my engagement extended straight through until the very end of the story,” Chris said.  “The very end of the story provided perhaps the most honest and believable reason for Rainbow Dash and Rarity to be in a long-term relationship I’ve ever seen, and managed to somehow be completely cynical and emotionally reaffirming at the same time.  No mean feat, that.”

Read on for our author interview, in which SleepIsforTheWeak discusses invincible bouncing, sweet torments, and the benefits of professional jealousy.
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Miller Minus’ “Analemma”

22 Friday Jan 2016

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It’s always sunny somewhere in the world, and it’s always a good time to dig into the mysteries buried in today’s story.

analemmaAnalemma
[Mystery] [Slice of Life] • 11,639 words

Once every month, a mare appears on a remote beach, far from her home. She plays, she reads, she sleeps, and she wastes precious, precious time.

FROM THE CURATORS: Princess Celestia taking relaxing vacations on an idyllic beach — certainly not the first thing you’d think of when browsing through the archives of FIMFiction’s new Mystery tag.  But this one was positively arresting in the slow build of its revelations.  “Wow, what a remarkable piece,” Present Perfect said.  “Hardly anything made sense throughout the story, until the final chapter tied it all together in the most satisfying way possible.”  Chris agreed, adding: “The real brilliance of this story is in how often Celestia or the narrator does something that doesn’t seem to make any sense, even as the story gives you enough clues and assurance to convince you that yes, there’s a reason for all this.  And when that reason comes, it’s invariably satisfying.”

That’s not to say that the mystery here is the only thing to appreciate.  “The narrative voice is unique, and I really appreciated the way it manages to pull off multiple levels of headfakes as it slowly unrolls its core plot,” Horizon said.  Chris also appreciated the characterization: “This story manages to tell us a lot about both Celestia and the narrator, in ways both obvious and subtle.”  And AugieDog found Analemma’s pacing exemplary.  “Puzzle stories like this are really hard to do; they’re all about doling out the information at exactly the time the reader needs it,” he said.  “This one added each compelling detail just when I needed one, and kept that pace right up to the end. Even the point-of-view switch in the last chapter, something that throws me out of a story 99% of the time, didn’t bother me that much.”

It all added up to a story that left us unanimously impressed.  “The story makes a lot of promises and fulfills them all, which is an exemplary quality in a mystery,” Horizon said.  Chris summarized it as “a clever little bundle of a story,” and Present Perfect found it “a joy to read” throughout.  “In the end,” Present Perfect said, “it shows us that there are still creative new ways to tell age-old stories.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Miller Minus discusses poetry creeping, trampoline jumping, and magical husband lamping.
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