Take a wild, whimsical wander through a fairy tale, a literal fairy tale, in this Friday’s featured fic.

The Big Butterfly Brouhaha
[Random] [Adventure] • 14,839 words

“Have you seen a butterfly around here?” I asked Derpy one day. Next thing I don’t even know, we’re saving Equestria from the fairies in Fluttershy’s chicken coop!

FROM THE CURATORS: From the moment, from the moment that you first lay eyes on this story and its unique storytelling, it will be obvious that you’re in for an experience. “I’m not sure if the narrative style is brilliant or completely bonkers (or both), but it definitely fits the spirit of this story,” JohnPerry said.  We weren’t unanimous fans of the style, but the clear consensus was best expressed by Present Perfect: “The appropriate emoticon for this story is somewhere between o.O and :D.  By the second sentence, I was in love.”

That narration is in service of a compelling melding of MLP with an older and wilder mythology. “It’s a fairy tale, at its core, but a vividly Equestrian one — full of the strangely-ruled magic and mysterious fey-creatures which are the hallmark of such tales, but placed carefully in a setting where magic is practically mundane,” Chris said.  That combined with a clever sense of wordplay to engage us with prose as well as plot.  “There were many moments in this story where I found myself caught between a desire to laugh out loud and smack my forehead,” JohnPerry said. “‘The gigglers, now turned yellers, are riding hummers’ was one of them.”

However, despite the story’s wide list of strengths, our commentary kept returning to the narration.  “it sounds like music! It’s astounding!” Present Perfect said.  “The little rhymes, the repetition … there’s a certain timeless poetry about this that doesn’t preclude character or plot.”  Chris agreed: “It’s playful, lively, and shows a delightful interplay between narrator and reader without becoming too condescending or grating.”  In the end, all we could do was marvel — and offer this Random-tagged tale a well-deserved feature. “What amazes me is that there’s so much here that clashes, that by all rights shouldn’t work, yet somehow comes across as very natural,” JohnPerry said. “Discord would be pleased.”

Read on for our author interview, in which adcoon discusses loyalty, passion, necessity, and a raccoon-based muffin obsession.
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