Tag Archives: drama

Lets Do This’ “Friendmaker”

19 Friday Apr 2019

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Today’s story looks in a mirror, darkly.

Friendmaker
[Drama] • 8,589 words

“I am Friendmaker!”

Twilight Sparkle is concerned that she may one day go insanely evil, as with Nightmare Moon or Daybreaker. So, knowing Twilight, do you really think for one moment she’s just going to wait for it to happen?

FROM THE CURATORS: A popular trope in science fiction involves main characters getting a chance to face an “evil” version of themselves, whether through a jaunt to a parallel universe as in Star Trek or a visit to a simulated reality as in TRON Legacy or Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Today’s feature uses the magic of My Little Pony to take that conceit to a powerful extreme: rather than coming face-to-face with a vile copy of herself, Twilight deliberately corrupts herself and we get a first-row look at the experience.

“We’re treated to an interesting analysis of what it means to be good, and what could drive people to be the worst that they can be,” said Soge in his nomination, “all through the medium of Twilight discussing that topic with some of the show’s reformed villains.” Horizon was “more than happy to back the nomination up,” and felt that “when Twilight started talking to the friends she’d redeemed, it really fired up.”

“Characterization is the name of the game here, and all involved are written and used very well,” according to Soge, and the other curators agreed. “Discord in particular was quite well done, and his explanation for why he chose friendship was a lovely bonus,” said Horizon. Present Perfect was “impressed by the part-by-part analysis of villainy. Some of the short character pieces, Sunset’s in particular, went in surprising directions.”

Horizon called the story a slow burn, and everyone enjoyed the build to a strong finish. “It all dovetails perfectly into a smart moral, and a real moment of character growth for Twilight,” Soge said, and Present Perfect applauded “the tense standoff at the end” because it “reinforces the theme of how anyone can come to power.” Horizon appreciated its thoughtfulness “in how it presents the Alicorn Amulet’s temptations. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, indeed.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Lets Do This discusses the draw of Derpy, the power of online publishing, and the staying power of pony.

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AstralMouse’s “Twenty-eight Boulders”

16 Saturday Mar 2019

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There are any number of reasons to read today’s story.

Twenty-eight Boulders
[Dark] [Drama] [Sad] • 2,038 words

Queen Chrysalis has spent years in hiding. She has been very careful to avoid being caught, but her time spent alone and in constant fear has worn away her sanity.

FROM THE CURATORS: One of the strengths of pony fanfic is the opportunity to read about characters far removed from ordinary life — so stories focusing on unusual viewpoints can be a treat to find.  And this tight, focused look at the far side of sanity hit all the right notes.  “I’m a sucker for a nicely done unreliable narrator, and this one pulled me right in with its harrowing, intense voice,” AugieDog said in his nomination.  “We’re locked with Chrysalis inside her head, and it’s a place even she doesn’t much want to be.”

And indeed, that was our most common compliment about the story.  “The voicing is very, very good — I am completely sold on Chrysalis slowly going crazy in her self-imposed isolation,” RBDash47 said.  “The author mentions that they went through a lot of editing and rewriting to get the tone, and I think they nailed it.”  Horizon, too, found that compelling: “I think the big thing right here is the portrayal of her descent into insanity. Schizophrenic people work by an internal logic which, while disconnected from reality, makes a strangely elegant almost-sense on its own terms.” And FanOfMostEverything added, “I have to agree on how well the story conveys that. It all makes sense to her; otherwise she wouldn’t do any of it.”

We also found meat on the bones of the exemplary presentation.  “The real joy of an unreliable narrator is piecing together the reality they’re denying,” Present Perfect noted, while Horizon spent some time puzzling it over: “The question of whether she’s going back to the same lair over and over again or moving around is a fascinating one, with plenty of evidence to sift through.”  Meanwhile, AugieDog praised the economical storytelling: “It’s just the right length for this sort of character study, too.”  All those factors came together to heighten the core tragedy of the piece.  “The paranoid, vengeful, negative-sum strategy that barely kept her hive fed culminates in her being unable to so much as comprehend mercy on the part of her former subjects,” FanOfMostEverything said.  “It’s an excellent capstone for the tragedy of Chrysalis, and an excellent study of karmic justice in action.”

Read on for our author interview, in which AstralMouse discusses weapon padding, imagined chitin, and black as the new black.
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Novel-Idea’s “Spectrum of Gray”

22 Friday Feb 2019

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We hope our appreciation for today’s story colors your expectations.

Spectrum of Gray
[Romance] [Drama] • 17,470 words

Rainbow Dash and Applejack have cherished the years gone by at one another’s side, but beneath the wear of time, the fuel that is love can turn to ash and smother the flames they hold dear.

Beyond the smoke rising from the cinders, they face an uncertain future. Now, they must come to terms with the harsh truth that, sometimes, love alone isn’t enough to keep a marriage burning bright.

FROM THE CURATORS: There’s a classic proverb that you always find missing things in the last place you look.  “I can’t believe we haven’t featured Novel-Idea before,” Present Perfect noted after a comment in our recommendation thread brought Spectrum of Gray to our attention.  (It was also hard to believe we’d missed this story’s first-place finish in the “Second Chances” AppleDash contest — but as the proverb says, hindsight is 20/20.)

What earned it those accolades?  As RBDash47 said in his nomination: “Spectrum won me over for two big reasons — its deft handling of four different character POVs all focused on the same problem, giving us a progression of different insights and perspectives; and the maturity of the problem the characters are dealing with, which is reinforced for me by the realism of not actually presenting the answer to the problem at hoof.”  Horizon concurred — “It sets up a heck of a situation” — and Present Perfect noted the story’s breadth: “This handles so many issues with such a deft hand.”

It was not just Spectrum’s maturity but also its use of tension which drew our praise.  “The thing that I like best about the story is that it takes place over such a brief period of time, like the whole story is an indrawn breath, suspended and not quite ready to exhale,” AugieDog said.  “The problem’s been building and building and building, but this is the crisis point, the moment where everything pivots because the characters are finally ready for it to pivot.”  That led to solid emotional engagement, RBDash47 said: “You’re left wondering how Dash and AJ will move forward, just as the characters in the story are wondering.”

Exemplary character work rounded out the story’s virtues.  “The character voices are all strong, and Granny Smith is especially written well,” Present Perfect said.  “This might also be the best future fic I’ve ever read, in terms of making the characters feel like themselves while still giving us the weight of time passed.  It was fantastic on so many levels.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Novel-Idea discusses musical suckers, squee notes, and fandom concussions.
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J Carp’s “It Turns Out They’re Windmills”

08 Friday Feb 2019

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Turn to today’s story for some cross-dimensional drama with heart.

It Turns Out They’re Windmills
[Equestria Girls] [Romance] [Comedy] [Drama] • 64,228 words

As Fluttershy’s birthday approaches, she learns two jarring things: not all of her friends are as fine with her new relationship as she had previously thought, and her human counterpart is extremely closeted.

This is a story about queerness, friendship, bunnies, humans who think they’re bunnies, magic explosions, and extremely terrible flirting.

FROM THE CURATORS: When we discuss a story which is posted as a sequel, usually our conversation drifts to whether to feature the series’ first work instead.  But in this case, discussion shifted from the original to the sequel once we realized everyone was even more excited about it.  “Everything that makes the prequel, I Am Awkward (Yellow), great is amplified fivefold in Windmills,” Present Perfect said in his nomination.  “The jokes are further between, but they are adamantly memorable. The pure relationship drama has been replaced by a coming-out story that uses the dual-dimensional setup of Equestria Girls to perhaps its fullest extent. I mean, just the ethics of whether knowing a pony is gay means that you’ll out their human counterpart, alone, makes this worth exploring.”

The number of superlatives in our discussion quickly made the breadth of our appreciation clear.  “This knocked it out of the park,” FanOfMostEverything said.  “It has everything: Romance, drama, action, comedy, parallel universe shenanigans. … The story passed by in an amazing rush — mine, not the pacing’s — making the plotlines sync together in brilliant, seamless passes from one narrative arc to another.”  AugieDog, meanwhile, gushed about the story while assigning it a top score: “The author’s character work is gorgeous,” he said.  “There’s a scene in the first chapter where Fluttershy quietly seduces Moondancer that is funny, adorable, and sexy all at the same time, and the jaggedness under the surface of Twilight and Moondancer’s relationship gets completely exposed and explored during an arc that I can only call harrowing.  That the author brings in the Equestria Girls characters as well allows the story to explore their similarities and differences in a way I don’t recall seeing before in a fic.”

That was made even more impressive by the number of moving pieces this juggled.  “What stands out most, perhaps, is how good J Carp is at writing nuanced characters,” Present Perfect said.  “One has to imagine it was already hard enough to write two versions of the same character — and there are a lot of characters in this story — but every canon character has had their motives and personality thoroughly considered in order to drive the narrative. And that’s to say nothing of the one important OC.”  All those factors added up to a compelling argument for time-starved readers to dive into the middle.  “The only things you need to know,” AugieDog noted, “are that Twilight has hired Moondancer to move to Ponyville so they can study the Everfree forest, and that Moondancer and Fluttershy have fallen quite deeply in love.”

Read on for our author interview, in which J Carp discusses planetary rankings, mumblecore maturity, and superior Carolinas.
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Krickis’ “Each Small Step”

01 Friday Feb 2019

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Today’s story looks at some big problems.

Each Small Step
[Equestria Girls] [Romance] [Drama] [Slice of Life] • 13,137 words

[Note: This story contains themes of sexuality and self-harm.]

It’s been a long time since the Battle of the Bands, and a lot has changed for Aria. One of the bigger changes has been Sunset Shimmer. The two of them were never supposed to happen, but they somehow still did.

Not that it matters. Nothing good ever lasts, not for Aria Blaze.

FROM THE CURATORS: While stories like last week’s feature draw emotions from MLP by playing the show’s themes straight, there’s also a great deal of power in going the other direction — colliding the show with real life to show characters with all-too-familiar struggles.  And this Honorable Mention in the recent Sunset shipping contest left us all feeling a little punched, in the best way.  “This hit close to home, and it was really a tense marvel to sit through,” Present Perfect said in his nomination, while Soge was likewise drawn in: “Even when going through slice of life scenes, there is this undercurrent of tension to the prose, as if everything could break apart at any moment.  It is this well-constructed web of people doing the precise wrong thing at the wrong time, because that is just how they operate.”

Most of our discussion became praise for the way this illustrated its protagonist’s problems.  “The moment we see Aria’s state of affairs in this story, it’s obvious she’s suffering from depression,” Present Perfect said.  “It also quickly becomes obvious she has no idea what that really means; ergo, the word is never once used. Instead, we’re shown a long, painful snapshot of a woman self-destructing.”  AugieDog agreed that was exemplary: “As someone who’s never experienced anything close to this level of depression, I find myself so glad that fiction just plain exists,” he said.  “This story does such a fine job of showing rather than telling, too, not trying to explain Aria’s situation to me but just plain putting me inside her head to let me see the world as she sees it.”  And while the story goes to some dark places, it never abandoned pony’s sense of hope and friendship.  “It was a great choice to never come right out and say ‘Aria is depressed,’ and I did like the message — you don’t have to go it alone,” RBDash47 said.

Moreover, digging into the meat of the fic revealed depth beyond that solid portrayal.  “There’s some clever prose which brings the full weight of the emotions to bear,” Horizon said.  “Although Chapter 1 is arguably the biggest train wreck, the callback at the end of Chapter 2 is exquisitely painful.”  That plus exemplary character work rounded out the experience.  “I think this might’ve been the best Sonata I’ve ever read in a fic,” AugieDog said. “In just one conversation on the telephone, the author brings her completely to life — I mean, I totally want to read about her and Trixie’s adventures now.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Krickis discusses open worlds, messy ships, and misspelled rabbits.
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Piccolo Sky’s “The Sweet Spot”

04 Friday Jan 2019

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Today’s story will hit the spot for fans of the MLP movie.

The Sweet Spot
[Drama] • 15,679 words

The Cutie Mark Crusaders have dealt with all kinds of ponies having trouble finding their true calling in life, but none can compare to the special request they receive from Princess Twilight Sparkle herself, or the shock they receive on discovering who it is: Fizzlepop Berrytwist, possibly the most hated and feared pony in generations. Can a pony who’s spent most of her life rejecting her true calling possibly find it now? Can the Cutie Mark Crusaders help a pony who almost everypony else in Equestria has rejected?

FROM THE CURATORS: Long-running series like My Little Pony often revisit their characters to explore their full stories on-screen.  But when a compelling character shows up in a one-shot movie, that offers fertile ground for fanfiction to dig in.  “This one is fairly simple on paper: The Crusaders help Tempest Shadow get a Cutie Mark,” FanOfMostEverything said in his nomination.  “What follows is one of the best redemption arcs I’ve read in this fandom, if not ever.”  Present Perfect was equally impressed back when he first read it: “I homaged it in my own ‘Tempest Shadow gets her Cutie Mark’ story,” he said.  “As my first introduction to how that concept would play out (aside from the one in my head), it was a delight.”

And while several curators thought the story could use trimming, it won us over regardless.  “Everyone, from the Crusaders to the background ponies, feels perfectly in character, and Tempest’s struggle for redemption fits the series’ best mold,” Horizon said.  That characterization came in for repeated praise.  “I think that it more than succeeds on the strength of its characterization, and the way that this angle informs the conflict resolution,” Soge said.  “It also deserves praise for how it eschews an easy solution to its central conflict, and how ‘pony’ everything felt. And, despite the bloat, it additionally works as a solid comedy in many places.”

Regardless, it was the exemplary show-like approach which we singled out for praise over and over again.  “The vision of the ‘Tempest episode’ here is gorgeously realized,” Horizon said, “and while the plot points it hits feel predictable, in a way that’s part of its charm, making it feel less like fanfiction and more like a discarded Hasbro script.”  Present Perfect went further: “It gave me everything I wanted, while also being perfectly show-tone and full of solid drama. Not to mention the creative approach to Tempest’s special talent.” In the end, FanOfMostEverything said, that led to a thoroughly satisfying story: “The ending feels earned, the dramatic beats are on point, and the whole thing makes you wish the show could afford to get Emily Blunt back for an episode.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Piccolo Sky discusses dead space, failed coups, and Guard bandwagons.
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Revenant Wings’ “Reconstruction”

30 Friday Nov 2018

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Today’s story assembles a unique look at Starlight’s aftereffects.

Reconstruction
[Drama] [Sad] [Slice of Life] • 6,378 words

The former equalized ponies struggle to reconstruct their town after Starlight Glimmer’s defeat, and Double Diamond struggles to reconstruct his own identity after being freed from Starlight’s equalization brainwashing.

FROM THE CURATORS: If you want evidence that later seasons of MLP still provide fertile ground for wide-ranging storytelling, “The Cutie Map” is arguably Exhibit A — and this story is an excellent example of why.  “In our tenure, we’ve seen story after story that studies depression, anxiety, even PTSD. But brainwashing?” Present Perfect said in his nomination.  “If this story has a big thing right, it’s portraying the ways in which Starlight’s conditioning amplifies and exacerbates Double Diamond’s own self-doubts.”  The story quickly moved to a feature amid comments like FanOfMostEverything’s: “One does not shuck off mental chains in a single triumphant chase scene, especially not when one was the cult leader’s right hand. His falling into a propaganda-reciting fugue state is a wonderfully chilling image.”

And while Double Diamond’s struggle with his past was the story’s most compelling theme, the world around him also contributed to the story’s power.  “Like the characters tell Double-D over and over, he’s not the only one hurting,” Present Perfect said.  “And I really appreciate that they never say that to demean him or his pain, but to remind him that he has friends, and those friends are there for him.”  AugieDog agreed: “It’s quite a nice portrayal of a group of people coming out from the other end of a trauma,” he said.  “And I especially like Double Diamond’s speech at the end, the way Starlight’s maxims are still running through his head even as he largely contradicts each one with the words he’s saying out loud.”  And the narrative kept the focus quite solidly on its powerful moments: “It’s got a well-chosen central struggle and a solid message,” Horizon said, “but for me what elevates the story is the way this sets and holds its mood.”

In the end, well-chosen imagery and good use of literary techniques carried the day.  “The big thing right is the tension between the townfolk’s old, brainwashed patterns and their new struggles to define themselves,” Horizon said.  “It covers that quite heavily, and normally when a story chased its own tail so much I’d get restless, but here Diamond’s backsliding feels consistently fraught, an excellent use of repetition.  The vivid imagery certainly contributes to that, and the many little variations on the equals-sign pattern are nice touches, especially the minus of the stacked skis.”  RBDash47 agreed, adding: “The notion that DD’s mind would keep turning up that particular signal in the noise of his world is compelling.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Revenant Wings discusses little detours, final fantasies, and paladins vs. giants.
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Lost + Found Features: “Decisions” / “The Unicorn and the Crow”

16 Friday Nov 2018

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From time to time, despite our best efforts, we don’t have a feature ready to post come Friday—but that doesn’t mean we can’t recommend some reading material! We keep track of the stories which passed our approval process but whose authors have proven impossible to contact. We’d like to give these stories their time in the spotlight too, so read on for two RCL-approved tales for your reading pleasure.

decisionsDecisions
By hester1
[Sad][Slice of Life] • 2,818 words

A server waits on six ponies in a restaurant. The diners have drinking contests and discuss social responsibility. The clock ticks ever on and on.

FROM THE CURATORS: Everyone appreciated this story’s attention to detail and excellent use of “show-don’t-tell.” “The more I think about this one, as more pieces fall together inside my head, the more I appreciate the subtlety and power hidden inside what’s apparently a little Slice of Life piece about an evening in a restaurant,” said Horizon. “Piecing together the situation from the details draws you into the story, letting you explore a second layer to the conversation that works more richly as subtext than it would out in the open.”

RBDash47 seconded the nomination: “It’s definitely a fantastic example of show-don’t-tell, and it’s a bonus to me that it’s done in first person; using the waiter’s POV to bounce us between the three tables is a nice framing element.” Present Perfect called it “a masterwork in subtlety and how to tell a story with a scattered focus” and Soge said “it is in looking at how everything suddenly fits together that this becomes something special.” FanOfMostEverything applauded how the story asked “fascinating questions about responsibility and duty that settings other than Equestria can’t pull off nearly as effectively.”

the unicorn and the crowThe Unicorn and the Crow
By Foxmane Vulpequus
[Drama][Mystery] • 128,032 words

Madeleine Crumpet: A world-trotting jeweler with an eye for gems… and pleasant company. Of the stallion persuasion.

Rubyk of Trotheim: A cold noble of the forbidden Equestrian North.

What cause could bring these two unlikely figures together?

FROM THE CURATORS: In his nomination, Horizon felt this story was shockingly underappreciated; at the time, it hadn’t received enough votes to have its ratio displayed, “which is startling, because having read through it this is some pretty high-level stuff … it definitely deserves more attention than it’s getting.” He went on to compliment the story’s style, “languid and stately and modestly archaic … but that style works in synergy both with the fantastic character work and the foreign feel of the setting.” Chris agreed that “it’s not going to be for everyone, but I found it very effective for what it was. It’s the kind of prose that encourages slow reading, but doesn’t demand an unattainable attention to detail — perfect for reading by the fire while sipping at a glass of scotch. And the setting is clever and original, without abandoning the feeling of being an MLP fic.”

Present Perfect loved the character work: “few fanfic authors strive to be this deliberate with their words. By the second chapter (not part), I was hooked, and never failed to be impressed by a character.” Horizon felt the same way, and noted that “as the story goes on, Frost Pane begins stealing every scene she’s in, turning that larger-than-life bombast into a positive, and Madeleine’s inner narration is consistently engaging. The supporting cast is almost uniformly vibrant, and are written sharply enough that I found myself analyzing them in the same way the protagonists did.”

 

Tangerine Blast’s “Under Layers of Dirt and Worry”

02 Friday Nov 2018

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Today’s story worries.

LayersUnder Layers of Dirt and Worry
[Drama][Slice of Life] • 3,598 words

It had been a long day of saving the world, and the usually perky pony wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed.

Unfortunately, somepony’s waiting at Sugarcube Corner.

Pinkie was fine. She just needed to sleep.

FROM THE CURATORS: As FanOfMostEverything points out in this week’s nomination (and Tangerine Blast alludes to later on in her interview), every idea has been done before; it’s the execution that matters. “The hero’s family grappling with the fact that one they love is risking her life is hardly a new idea in fiction; it’s who’s involved that makes this one shine. After all, Pinkie Pie as the imperiled hero? Maud as the hand-wringing family staying up past midnight waiting for her to get home? Now we’re getting somewhere.” AugieDog chimed in to praise the juxtaposition of the premise and the setting too: “It’s one of my favorite sorts of story, actually, the sort that the late, great comic book writer Steve Gerber called the ‘what do you do the day after you save the universe?’ story. This expands on that idea to ask, ‘what do the people around you do the day after you save the universe?’ and that’s a very effective question to ask, especially in the My Little Pony universe.”

A large part of the success of this particular execution of this particular idea has to do with the author’s character work. “This is a striking, unique portrayal of Pinkie, Maud, and their relationship, with some very interesting ideas at play,” said Soge; “Maud is an extremely difficult character to write correctly, but I think this author has done just the thing, and found a unique role for her in doing so. Her frustration at her own inability to ‘properly’ comfort her sister is relatable,” said Present Perfect; “Not only is Maud a hard character to write well, but Pinkie is, too, and the two of them interacting just about creates a third character who is also difficult to write well. Add Mrs. Cake to the mix as the quiet voice of experience, and the story pretty much hits all the character bases that it’s aiming for,” said AugieDog.

But good character work is not enough, and the curators appreciated the story’s other strengths. Horizon pointed out that “this has some lovely and memorable details, like Pinkie falling asleep in the tub, and it’s centered around a compelling problem rarely covered.” Present Perfect also enjoyed that “the source of Maud’s worry is something that’s rarely tackled in either the show or fan fiction.” And FanOfMostEverything summed things up well when he said, “The layers of nuance at work, the sibling bonding, and the resolution make this a much deeper story than its length would indicate.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Tangerine Blast discusses being like Twilight, the slow percolation of inspiration, and fresh perspectives.

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Cherax’s “Sundowner Season”

05 Friday Oct 2018

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It’s always a good season to read today’s story.

Sundowner Season
[Drama] [Sad] • 21,493 words

With a heavy heart and an empty journal, Rarity heads north.

FROM THE CURATORS: “Cherax is more well known as a musician,” Soge said in his nomination, “but in Sundowner Season she shows quite the writing chops. In it we follow Rarity, taking a long trip to the farthest reaches of Equestria, with a purpose in mind which only becomes clearer to the reader — and to her — as we reach the end of the trip.”  Along the way, there was plenty to like.  “I loved the atmosphere and the sundowners themselves,” RBDash47 said, with AugieDog adding: “Rarity’s voice in the journal sections and in the third-person POV parts is simply phenomenal.  She changes during the course of the story, but she’s always recognizably herself.”  And while the story also accumulated some critiques during our voting process, we collectively found it winning us over.  “It starts at such a slow burn that I had to begin the story four different times before I made it past Canterlot,” Horizon said.  “And yet I was won over by how artfully everything was done … I came away impressed.”

The digressions during that lengthy unfolding were polarizing, but there was one thing on which we were unanimous: the exemplary touch provided by the story’s many well-chosen details.  “I liked how Rarity kept traveling to progressively smaller and more remote settlements as her ability to deny the reason behind her journey dwindled,” FanOfMostEverything noted, while RBDash47 said: “I also got a kick out of the formatting choice of setting flashbacks off by right-aligning them; I feel like it was a nice way of accentuating the ‘back and forth’ of Rarity’s inner turmoil.”  Although a few details were unintentionally personally disorienting: “Why am I in this story?” Present Perfect asked.

And what tipped the vote was the story’s lush, deliberate pacing.  “The big thing right for me was the slow drip-drip-drip of revealing exactly why Rarity was feeling what she was feeling and why she was going on this journey to begin with,” RBDash47 said.  Horizon summed it up similarly: “It was that slow rolling reveal most driving my vote; it worked well in concert with the story’s pacing and the gentle leavening of the distractions,” he said.  “This is a tightly controlled story which asks the reader to follow along exactly in its footsteps, but I found it repaid that investment of trust.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Cherax discusses interstate buses, snow biomes, and pastel distances.
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