You are going to read today’s story — whether you know it yet or not.

Hyperportentia
[Slice of Life] • 6,161 words

Hy•per•por•ten•tia noun \hī-pər-pȯr-ˌten-t(ē-)ə\

1. congenital fate disorder where the affected receives a disproportionate number of visions, prophecies, or warnings of the future directed at them.
2. severe pain in the butt.

It’s common knowledge among ponies that Destiny is a natural occurrence. Much like a pony’s body, it grows and develops over time. Each pony’s Destiny is as unique and distinctive as their voice. The phenomenon manifests in the physical realm through the appearance of a cutie mark.

Unfortunately, like all natural occurrences, sometimes there’s something off. A misplaced gene here, an excess chemical there, and what was supposed to be true Destiny becomes… aggravating.

So it is with Acacia Tree, the first seer Manehattan has seen in five-hundred years.

FROM THE CURATORS: Reading today’s feature caused something of an epiphany for one of our curators: “This story made me realize that cutie marks and destiny have become old hat topics in recent seasons,” Present Perfect mused. “No one writes seriously about them anymore.” But although the premise may not be groundbreaking, the direction the author took it in certainly was; John Perry called it a “very original take on an old concept.”

As a story about a pony who can see the future but can’t seem to change it, Hyperportentia is “a fun play on Cassandra,” in Chris’ words. While Cassandra’s tale is a very dark one, he went on to explain that in this story, “the fates [were] generally low-key and/or silly enough that it feels like an annoyance rather than a tragedy,” and “the direction felt very much at home in the Magical Land of Equestria.”

In fact, the common theme in all our comments was how at home this story felt in the MLP universe. ” I’ve always liked stories that treat magic as a natural force like gravity or electromagnetism, and this kind of does that by looking at the whole MLP idea of destiny as something that arises from each pony’s genetic make-up,” said AugieDog, while Present Perfect noted that, “From a mid-class Chinese restaurant to a flapper club, to elevated trains, it’s very Earth-like, yet not so far removed from ponies that it’s unbelievable.” But John Perry may have summed it up best: “There’s something I love about the wit and the quick pacing in this story; it reflects the animated city life on display here, making the setting of Manehattan feel integral to the story and not just a background for our characters to dance around in front of. There’s a lot of little moments that make this universe feel very alive.”

Read on for our author interview, in which MyHobby discusses LEGOs, the untriteness of friendship, and why “Acacia Tree” is a perfectly sensible name for a pony who has a prophesy cutie mark.
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