Tag Archives: alternate universe

cleverpun’s “If You Came to Conquer”

27 Friday Jan 2017

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If you came for a solidly built Alternate Universe fic, today’s story delivers.

came-to-conquerIf You Came to Conquer
[Alternate Universe] [Dark] [Drama] • 5,959 words

Nightmare Moon won. She defeated Celestia, broke the Elements, banished the sun. This all happened a very long time ago. So long ago, that she has had plenty of time to change her mind.

Of course, fixing our mistakes is never so simple, and never without consequences. Even with particularly potent help.

FROM THE CURATORS: “This is an intriguingly crafted AU whose version of Nightmare Moon feels entirely plausible and whose Discord is quite solidly done,” Horizon said when nominating this fic.  “The story feels appropriately sparse and mythic, but what makes this worthy of the Library is the meditation on forgiveness.”  It quickly caught our attention on multiple levels.  “‘Nightmare Moon won’ is one of the oldest AU cliches there is, but cleverpun manages to use the idea to good effect here,” Chris said, while AugieDog brought out the superlatives early: “The scene at the end of chapter one is about as devastating a thing as I’ve ever read in a pony fanfic.”

But while our reactions to the story cited different strengths, one thing on which we all agreed was how powerfully it developed its premise.  “Just when you think you’ve seen the big reveal, everything escalates to another level,” Present Perfect said.  “And that ending, wow.”  Chris agreed: “The ending is the clear highlight to me, nailing that ‘surprising when you read it, obvious in hindsight’ effect that a good twist aims for.”  Meanwhile, Horizon praised how thought-provoking it was: “The story’s climax is effective horror that brings up some significant moral questions.”

And while the story worked powerfully on its own merits, several of us felt that it was best appreciated as part of the trilogy which it spawned.  “‘Conquer’ is a nicely twisted idea presented in a nicely twisted way,” AugieDog said, “but I would call the two sequels required reading, since they complete the story arc in such a wonderfully tidy fashion.”  Horizon agreed: “Continuing to read the sequels is very much worth your time.”

Read on for our author interview, in which cleverpun discusses blanket patterns, awkward melanges, and B-grade splatter films.
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BillyColt’s “I Have a Hat”

28 Friday Oct 2016

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Today’s story might just prove to be magical reading.

I Have a Hat
[Alternate Universe] [Crossover] • 8,935 words

Upstart is excited. His mother has hired a unicorn for a party. It will be so delightful to see a unicorn performing magic. It’s sure to be fun for the whole household!

Of course, it’s just a little fun. She’s not really a unicorn. After all, unicorns don’t exist.

FROM THE CURATORS: “An Equestria where magic has ceased to be a factor in ponies’ lives is a fascinating AU right from the start,” AugieDog said, and all of us reading this Victorian-flavored tale — a pony take on G.K. Chesterton’s play Magic — found ourselves swept up in its enchantments.  “This offers a thoughtful bit of commentary on the role of magic in our lives,” Chris said, “and its Equestrian mooring is a surprisingly necessary lens through which to see our own human mythologies.”  As Present Perfect put it, “it turns out there’s nothing to make the reader tremble in awe at the knowledge magic exists quite like taking magic away in the first place.”

And while the power of that theme might have sealed this story’s feature, there was plenty more to like here — such as I Have a Hat‘s tonal balance and character work.  “There’s a noble tragedy that suffuses the entire story, even as its surface content remains light and slice-of-life,” Chris said about the former, while AugieDog praised the latter: “The characters, all OCs, are fully-formed and well-detailed.” Horizon appreciated those both: “The subtle power plays among the various inhabitants of the house were just as fascinating as the bigger, flashier A-plot, and watching the visitors navigate those tensions really helped ground both halves of the story into a more unified whole.”

But our commentary kept turning back to this story’s well-realized setting, perched at a carefully calibrated distance between our lives and the show.  “It was a brilliant choice, I think, to set this in a pseudo-Victorian era,” Horizon said. “I’m reminded of L.P. Hartley’s quote ‘The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there’ — both in the contrast between the setting’s past and present, and the contrast between the setting’s present day and our own.”  Chris appreciated how that also contributed to the mood of the story: “The mix of 1800s-ish setting and moors with a somewhat more modern writing style gives the piece an appropriately uncertain, ethereal air.”  But, like any good magician, most impressive of all was how seamless the presentation was.  “Justifying an AU an like this is always a challenge,” Present Perfect said, “but this one rises to it effortlessly.”

Read on for our author interview, in which BillyColt discusses branding arcs, unplayed cards, and toyline invitations.
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Between Lines’ “Great and Powerful”

22 Friday Jul 2016

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Today’s story explores a side of Trixie we know all too well, and today’s story explores a side of Trixie we’ve never seen before.

great-and-powerfulGreat and Powerful
[Alternate Universe] [Drama] [Sad] • 3,470 words

With nowhere left to go, the Great and Powerful Trixie finds herself returning to Canterlot, the city she tried to get away from so long ago …

FROM THE CURATORS: Like Trixie herself, there’s a lot more to Great and Powerful than first impressions would indicate.  “This story looks like a typical ‘sad Trixie’ fic at first, as we see her morosely reflecting on her ill fortune and general misery in her old(er) age,” Chris said.  “But a bit less than halfway through, it throws a wrench into the works which caught me totally off guard.”  Present Perfect agreed: “I really want to call this just another Sad Trixie, but I can’t.”  It wasn’t only the twist which impressed us, but also its execution.  “This flows seamlessly between canon and what could easily be an AU, and ends up feeling larger than its word count,” Soge said.

Given our curators’ different approaches to fiction, however, what was most remarkable about this story was how much overlap there was in what we found praiseworthy.  “It makes good use of intentional repetition, and manages to be almost completely opaque about what actually happened without alienating the reader,” Chris said, and Soge echoed his appreciation of that: “There is something kinda vague, almost mystical in its presentation.”  Another point of agreement was the thoughtful use of MLP’s wider world.  “There are also a few really clever inclusions of minor bits of canon,” Chris said, which Present Perfect appreciated too: “I can’t be down on a story that turns ‘Trixie doesn’t trust wheels’ into an immediate, serious issue,” he said.  “And that salt and pepper metaphor! That’s not the kind of thing you ever see in fanfic.”

Neither was the overall tone of the piece, AugieDog thought.  “The word I want to use is ‘elegiac,’ but not in the modern English sense,” he said.  “In Classical Greek and Roman times, an elegy was more than just a funeral poem … it often dealt with endings, but they could be happy endings, sad endings, satyrical endings, et cetera.  Here, we get two endings, both of them happening at the same time and in the same place but both of them at least a universe apart from each other.  And they’re both wonderfully elegiac, the first in a poetic and sad way and the second in a ‘recalling a life well-lived’ way.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Between Lines discusses Arctic trips, Crackerjack boxes, and Slinky Jengas.
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psychicscubadiver’s “The Endless Song”

21 Friday Aug 2015

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If you’re a fan of unusual perspectives, you’ll find today’s story really shines.

endless-songThe Endless Song
[Alternate Universe] • 2,365 words

Once, I was alone.

I felt neither sorrow nor joy at this. The presence or absence of others meant nothing to me. The universe moved in silence, and I drifted in its flow.

Then came the song.

FROM THE CURATORS: When a story reaches unanimous approval with our team, you know it’s doing something big right — and our accolades started with the premise. “What I love about The Endless Song is that it takes a very simple, almost cliché plot, then tells it from a novel perspective, and wrapped in the language of myth despite not taking the form of one,” Chris said.  Horizon quickly agreed: “There’s nothing like excellent execution of an unexpected approach to renew a classic idea.”  That approach — telling Celestia’s tale from the point of view of the sun she moves — offered more than just a novel narrator. “What a great take on immortality in the MLP universe,” JohnPerry said. “Most immortality stories in this fandom dwell on the loneliness of the immortal; this one seems to take it in the opposite direction.”

More than that, though, we fell in love with the prose. “It’s not a word I get to use very often, but I’m gonna call this ‘elegant’,” AugieDog said, and Chris agreed in similar terms: “‘Beautiful’ is exactly the word I’d use to describe this. It paints an image of the universe that fires the imagination, and does so in a disarmingly straightforward, achingly guileless way.”  Along with that elegance came some emotional moments, as Present Perfect noted: “What really helped make this not be yet another ‘ancient history from a novel perspective’ story was the sun’s character development, when it could look back and say ‘I was naive.’ That and adding more heartbreak to Luna’s story. I’m always up for making that more tragic.”

Small wonder that we found it a compelling fanfic.  “It presents a very pony way of looking at life despite its fundamentally alien perspective,” Horizon said, and Chris offered even bigger accolades: “I couldn’t even wager a guess as to how many stories I’ve read in this fandom, but my favorites folder currently sits at 45.  This is one of those 45 stories.”

Read on for our author interview, in which psychicscubadiver discusses musical sensations, body metaphors, and a life free of wasp fears.
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TheBandBrony’s “Save The Records”

03 Friday Apr 2015

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Today’s story is a musical meditation on lost history.

save-the-recordsSave The Records
[Slice of Life] [Alternate Universe] • 2,771 words

The world ends, right? Of course it did. But who in the great struggle to survive the end of ponykind remembered to save the music?

A story build around a series of chord changes from the jazz standard “Blue and Sentimental” — in essence, an improvisation.

FROM THE CURATORS: As the description notes — and as readers will immediately notice — this story borrows its unique structure from a musical piece, and within that imaginative framework lies a tale we all agreed was rewarding.  “This is a dense story, even for those with a musical grounding, but it’s still got so much wonderful stuff going on,” said Chris, our resident classically trained musician.  “I could love it just for the passage about the last note Beethoofen ever heard, but that sort of poignancy is all over the place.”  Horizon was similarly impressed: “It’s got enough depth to soak in, but still has a lot to offer on the surface, which is all I can ask for.”

On that surface is a postapocalyptic retrospective of a part of our culture it’s easy to take for granted.  “Save The Records talks about the importance of music, and how easy it is to overlook, and does so in a style that evokes Kerouac,” Present Perfect said.  That unique textual style also drew JohnPerry in.  “The lyrical quality of the writing here practically demands that you read it aloud,” he said, “and it gets even better upon repeated reading.  There’s so many intriguing details packed into these words that each subsequent reading offers something new to be discovered.”

Ultimately, while we found Save The Records’ rich prose its most exemplary feature, it distinguished itself in multiple ways.  “Lord help us, Horizon and Present both liked it, it must be word porn,” Horizon said. “But it’s not just about the lyricism here.  It’s interspersed with meditations on a lot of thought-provoking topics, in as original a framework as you’ll find.”  Chris summed it up: “Save The Records is a thought-provoking, relentlessly clever, attentiveness-rewarding story.”

Read on for our author interview, in which TheBandBrony discusses paradiddles, runner’s highs, and apocalypse commodities.

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ponichaeism’s “The Mare In The High Castle”

20 Friday Mar 2015

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Broadcasting on all frequencies, today’s story comes to you from an Equestria that’s turned dark in more ways than one.

mare-in-high-castleThe Mare In The High Castle
[Alternate Universe] [Dark] [Drama] [Mystery] [Sci-Fi] [Thriller] • 161,695 words

“Hello, hello, hello, this is Thorny Bends coming at you live on Radio Free Canterlot, and from where I’m sitting, folks, the Land of the Eternal Moon is looking lovely. Well, except for that nasty smog cloud rolling toward us from the coast, but hey, that’s the price of progress. Still, if you’re heading outside you might want to think about an Easy Breezy-brand respirator, guaranteed to make the air taste like new. Buy yours from all major retailers today!

“As I’m sure you all know, it’s been almost a thousand years since the founding of our great civilization. And as the big day approaches, I sure hope the High Castle set their clocks right. I’d hate to find out it was really last Thursday. Ha! But seriously, folks. I’ve been doing a fair bit of thinking about our fair Canterlot, and I’ve realized it isn’t just somewhere we all live. It’s what we build together into something greater as we all reach for the moon. A symbol for a way of life and a state of mind. So, in honor of the thousand years, I’m taking an eye in the sky peek into the lives of the ponies on the streets, and a few in the penthouses too. I don’t often do real news on this show, but these are some genuine equine interest stories, folks. In their own small, unique way, these ponies are as vital to the city as the princess of the night herself. So settle down, get comfortable, and don’t touch that dial.

“You won’t want to miss this, I guarantee.”

FROM THE CURATORS: This story’s path to its feature started with a suggestion on our recommendation thread, and despite its 160,000-word length, it caught our attention right away with its vivid portrayal of an eternal-night Equestria.  “This story is far from being merely a pony re-write of Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle,” JohnPerry said.  “The level of thought that went into developing this nightmarish — yet eerily familiar — alternate world and its cruel philosophies is astounding, and it manages to combine an epic scope with surprisingly intimate portrayals of its characters.”  Chris agreed: “This is a wonderful use of the AU tag. It takes a single conceit — that something went differently a thousand years ago — and projects how that one change would reverberate to the present, butterfly-in-China-style.”

We all agreed that the characterization which followed from that shift was exemplary, and Horizon cited one of High Castle’s central examples. “Twilight Sparkle spends the vast majority of the story as a reprehensible alcoholic racist haunted by nightmares,” he said, “and yet the entire setting and theme of the story are crafted so as to make it clear that she is that way because their world is fundamentally broken, and the Twilight we see is just a reflection of that.”  JohnPerry agreed, adding, “it’s incredible how ponichaeism managed to make the characters recognizable in spite of all the horrors of the world they are subjected to.”

The story doesn’t flinch from presenting those horrors as necessary to explore the dark corners of its premise, which earned high praise from Chris. “Can we take a moment to talk about Granny Smith?” he said.  “Because she’s where the author most impressed me on the pacing front. … She’s slotted in right where she needs to be to have maximum impact with minimum premise-questioning by the readers, and (up until the end) that’s how I felt about most of the big revelations.”

But The Mare In The High Castle isn’t just a parade of bleakness.  “It has a lot to say about the earth counterparts of the things it ponifies, but it has a lot to say about the ponies at the same time, and this is fundamentally and unquestionably MLP at heart,” Horizon said.  “For instance, this is the finest Flash Sentry story this fandom will ever produce.  He’s just as broken as the rest of this world, but he owns it, and he stands up and shows us that there can be beauty regardless.  I want to feature it for that alone.”

Read on for our author interview, in which ponichaeism discusses Gnostic sects, uncarved blocks, and the curious collision of Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski and Philip K. Dick.
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Chuckfinley’s “A Persimmon Spring”

07 Saturday Feb 2015

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“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” the ancient proverb says.  In today’s story, that relationship goes a little deeper.

persimmon-springA Persimmon Spring
[Sad] [Dark] [Alternate Universe] • 2,935 words

I, Queen Chrysalis of the Changelings, was a paragon of my kind. I was the greatest military ruler my people have ever known. I was mere months from conquering the most prosperous nation in the world.

Then a strange dragon rose from the stone, and everything changed.

I do not think of conquest any more. Now, I think of persimmons.

FROM THE CURATORS: Exemplary Alternate Universe stories require walking a fine line — balancing events that contradict the show with the familiar characters and themes that readers love about it — and A Persimmon Spring rises to meet that challenge.  “It’s a great idea — a memoir, with elements of romance, about a very nuanced and powerful Chrysalis dealing with Discord’s reappearance in the midst of her attempted takeover of Canterlot,” Present Perfect explained.  Horizon marveled at its thematic balancing act: “It feels very much like a pony story despite the essential grimness of the setting.”

We unanimously agreed on the story’s emotional power.  “I love how the author uses the ‘little’ things, like Hythacine and the titular persimmon,” Chris said.  JohnPerry opined that “[the Chrysalis/Shining relationship] is one of those all-too-rare instances of romance written with a distinctly mature tone,” and Bradel agreed: “I’m in love with the way Chuckfinley threads the Chrysalis/Cadance juxtaposition throughout.”  Present Perfect’s admiration was more wide-ranging: “I loved the narrative voice. It’s a good example of world-building with limited resources.”

The construction of the alternate-universe elements provoked some curator dissent, but Horizon’s position was typical of our majority. “The AU didn’t bother me at all,” he said, “but I’m coming from a sci-fi background, where you learn to go in willing to spot the story its core premise and then see what cool things it does with it.  This easily passes the cool threshold.”  Even those who disagreed never had any doubt about the quality of the writing. “The presentation of the AU leaves one feeling like there’s a lot being left out,” JohnPerry said, “but judging it strictly on its own, this fic is brilliant.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Chuckfinley discusses Bruce Campbell’s names, George Orwell’s porn advice, and Genghis Khan’s life lessons.
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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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Soundslikeponies’ “Equestria From Dust”

29 Friday Aug 2014

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What would Equestria be without the rule of its solar princess?  Today’s story speculates that the answer might be “nothing” in a more literal way than anyone suspects.

equestria-from-dustEquestria From Dust
[Adventure] [Alternate Universe] • 69,579 words

Celestia awakens to see an empty world, white sandstone stretching the horizon. She wanders the world as she builds it from her imagination, filling it with life, but as time passes, the world that she created begins to seem like little more than a lucid dream, conjured from the dust.

FROM THE CURATORS: “Mythology fics are always going to be divisive,” Chris warned us when he nominated this one, but he had nothing to worry about — this one solidly won over its critics.  “Even though I generally don’t care for premises that hinge on Celestia and Luna being gods, this story does too many things too well for me not to support it,” JohnPerry said.  Similarly, Horizon got hooked: “We’ve seen so much great Equestria mythology come through here that the merely good is getting underwhelming … but once the world had fully come together, Equestria From Dust grabbed me enough that I read all 70,000 words in a single sitting.”

What made the story so compelling?  “Celestia,” Chris said. “It paints a vivid picture of who Celestia is in relation to Equestria, and does so while crafting a suitably grand parallel for her budding awareness in her shaping of the world.  I’d recommend this to anyone looking for a great example of how to paint a character in a memorable, expansive manner.”  JohnPerry found other elements to like: “The characterizations, in particular, felt right (which is high praise from me whenever Discord is involved).  Going through it, I kept fearing that moment when it would slip up as we moved from ‘creation’ to ‘ruling’ to ‘fighting evil,’ but it never did, thanks in large part to the clever stylistic choices the author employs.”  And Horizon found its use of narrative tension exemplary: “Not only is there a compelling mystery in the darkness that Celestia fights, but the relationships we know from canon are also kept dangling over the characters like the sword of Damocles.  It won’t end how you expect, but it will tie everything up beautifully.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Soundslikeponies discusses Lovecraft’s reality, redeeming artistic flops, and trial by bear.
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Karazor’s “Outside The Reaching Sky”

08 Friday Aug 2014

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Today’s story looks to the future, with a tale of first contact gone horribly awry.

Outside The Reaching Sky
[Adventure] [Alternate Universe] • 106,310 words

(Curator Note: Although this story is a sequel, it requires no knowledge of the original work.)

Eighty years after the events of The Dread Chitin, Equestria is a radically different place.  The arcane science of the late Duran Thirk and the information found on the Star League library core have combined to catapult the nation’s science ahead by hundreds of years.

Now, facing the possible aggression of a completely unknown alien power, Twilight Sparkle and her friends have to gather together once more, leading a crew of the best ponies they could assemble in a voyage outside their own star system.  They seek to learn about their potential foe, to explore the galaxy around them, and possibly find allies and friends to stand alongside them.  Who knows what they will actually find?

FROM THE CURATORS: Outside The Reaching Sky is science fiction in the best classic tradition — “straight-up space opera,” as Horizon put it. “It’s got the same sort of verve as Star Trek: gratuitous space battles mixed with character drama.”  Equestria stumbles into a galactic war and conspiracy as they bootstrap themselves off their planet, and the ponies’ new frontier is richly realized. “The worldbuilding and technical additions feel ‘real’ in a way too few stories do,” Chris said, and Present Perfect agreed: “Karazor’s done a good job crafting alien mindsets, not just in the actual aliens the ponies encounter, but for the ponies too.”

Like much classic sci-fi, it lingers richly over the details of its civilizations and  technologies.  That attention to worldbuilding was too much for some curators, but a majority of us dove in and found ourselves quickly swept up.  For instance, Present Perfect did a double-take after getting sucked into a multi-hour reading marathon: “Wow, I’m halfway through already?” Chris was similarly sucked in: “I read a couple of chapters right before bed, and found myself too worked up over what an idiot Fluttershy was being to get to sleep.  Any fic that gets me that invested in its characters deserves a feature.”  Horizon summed it up: “If it doesn’t grab you within the first chapter or three, it won’t; but if you enjoy it, it’ll reward you right through to the end.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Karazor discusses birthday panic attacks, eighty-year changes, and the language of infinite monkeys.
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