In today’s story, chart a course for Epic Island as you sail through the Adorable Archipelago.

Pipsqueak the Valiant’s Adventure Journal!
[Slice of Life] • 38,554 words

Pirates, swordfighting, buried treasure and hidden treachery — you don’t need these to live the adventurous life.

FROM THE CURATORS: The story’s description plays a bit coy: you certainly don’t need world-spanning travels and high-seas swashbuckling for the adventurous life, but this delivers on them regardless.  “I want to tell you a story: I had to set PtVAJ! aside when I was only four chapters into it,” Horizon said.  “When I returned to my RCL reading and realized that I had more Pipsqueak ahead, my face immediately brightened, and I clicked through to the next chapter like greeting an old friend.  It immediately rewarded me with not only a pitch-perfect scene of the trials of Ponyville bureaucracy, but then a scene of Twilight Sparkle, Princess Luna, and epic badass Mayor Mare launching a frontal assault on a pirate ship, and escalated further from there.”

But even when the events of the story are lower-key, there’s a lot to appreciate here.  “I love the early chapters for the narrative voice and the succession of foals doing adorable things,” Present Perfect said.  “Mayor Mare’s backstory is fascinating, Pip’s voicing is perfect, and the fact that he’s able to convey so much through a child’s POV is what put Casca on my radar.”  Horizon also appreciated the voicing: “Pipsqueak has that perfect Dickensian edge of rapier-sharp authorial satire underlaying adorable childish innocence.”  And AugieDog praised the way that the story unfolded: “Of the many fine things on display here, what’s impressing me the most is the structure of the thing — the way that little details in the first chapters, details that seem to exist only to add color to a scene, slowly develop into major plot points.”

It was that slow unfolding which sealed the deal of the story’s feature.  “It really morphs as the story goes along, but the narrative straying from Pip himself is more than made up for by the fact that Mayor Mare is an equally marvelous protagonist, and walking through their various encounters in overseas Maretopia is like rounding random corners in a goblin market and glancing through the stalls,” Horizon said.  “This story is about adventure, about striking off into the unknown with no idea what you’re going to find, and its core is that joy and surprise of discovery.”  Present Perfect summarized in glowing terms: “It’s brilliantly told.  This has always been one of my absolute favorite stories in the fandom, hands down.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Casca discusses mayoral juxtaposition, Cadence coincidences, and the repainting of mental walls.
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