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Phaoray’s “Complex Apartments”

25 Friday May 2018

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Today’s story drives home the difficulties of odd roommate choices.

Complex Apartments
[Equestria Girls] [Drama] [Romance] [Sad] • 9,829 words

Choosing an apartment to live in is important and requires good planning. Location, needs, cost, a lot must be taken into account when looking.

One girl looks to her animals and peace, hoping to have a quiet, fun time with her friends as she goes through high school. For her, the apartment is cheap, comfortable, allows pets, and is close to school. Perfect!

The other is looking to take over a high school, enslave everyone inside, and bring war to another dimension all in the name of proving her mentor wrong. A small, cheap apartment near the school to plan in is all she needs.

Fluttershy really should have met the neighbors before signing her lease…

FROM THE CURATORS: While My Little Pony is excellent about showing sympathy and redemption to its villains, one of the ways that fanfic complements the show is in offering the nuance that children’s programming can lack.  “What got me wanting to feature this in the first place is the careful depiction of Sunset as reluctant bully,” Present Perfect said in his nomination.  “She’s fueled by vengeance, not evil, and as we watch her first tentative steps toward driving CHS into the friendless chaos Twilight found in the first movie, you start to think that maybe being cold, heartless and manipulative doesn’t exactly come easy to a former pony or something.”

That wasn’t the only way that this story aimed high — nor the only way it succeeded.  “With the ‘Changing Seasons’ contest’s stated goal being ‘ship Sunset with someone’, setting the story prior to Equestria Girls was about the hardest thing a writer could do to themselves,” Present Perfect said.  “Well, other than also trying to ship her with Fluttershy. But the odd back-and-forth relationship they stumble into is a highlight of this piece.”  Our broad agreement sent this toward its feature.  “My love for the romantic dynamic in this story honestly surprised me,” Soge said.  “It’s dysfunctional as all hell … and yet it’s the kind of passionate love that, though it may not be eternal, is infinite while it lasts, to paraphrase one of my favourite poems.”  FanOfMostEverything agreed: “I’ve been stewing it over since I read it, especially that beach scene. In the end, though, as Soge said, it is perfect for this horribly dysfunctional relationship. It’s twisted. It’s manipulative. To call it morally questionable would be being generous. Yet Sunset offers Fluttershy a chance at physical intimacy without any prying eyes making her feel self-conscious.”

That balancing act wouldn’t have been possible without exemplary character work.  “It is quintessentially Fluttershy, two legs or not, to spend a night hugging away the tears of someone that constantly abuses her,” Soge said.  And that extended beyond the protagonists into exemplary writing in general, AugieDog said: “The few lines Fluttershy gives us about her parents are absolute models for concise character backstory presentation, too, and they serve really well to show how this Sunset and Fluttershy are both twisted in ways that twine them more closely together.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Phaoray discusses troll hunters, homeless anomalies, and blood ambitions.
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Cyrano’s “Suns and Roses”

04 Friday May 2018

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Put your hands in the air for today’s story.

Suns and Roses
[Equestria Girls] [Romance] [Dark] [Tragedy] [Alternate Universe] • 10,907 words

The Crystal Mirror brought Sunset Shimmer not to the steps of Canterlot High, but to another world all together. She meets Roseluck, a prisoner in her own home trapped beneath the authoritarian rule of her father, and the two embark on a journey of love and bank robbing as they search for somewhere they can truly be free.

FROM THE CURATORS: The My Little Pony fandom sometimes seems dedicated to proving that ponies can cross over with any genre — and often, as with this tale, the result elevates both sources.  “This is a high-speed fic about falling in love, seeking freedom, and getting into way too much trouble,” Present Perfect said in his nomination.  “You’ve got bank robberies, tommy guns, gas that cost twenty cents a gallon, and going out in a hail of gunfire when the odds are stacked against you. Suffice to say, this story is entirely my aesthetic and I unabashedly love it.”  He wasn’t the only one: “I am a tremendous sucker for period pieces,” FanOfMostEverything said.  “And apparently for lesbian Bonnie & Clyde stories set in the Roaring Twenties. And brief interludes with human Twilight working at a patent office. Sorry, bank. I meant bank.”

And while its pitch-perfect genre elements endeared us to the story, those weren’t the only things it got right.  “It’s a gripping roller coaster of a story,” FanOfMostEverything said, while Soge praised the characters: “Sunset and Roseluck worked out perfectly as a romantic pairing, with the kind of chemistry that would make me less harsh towards shipfics. The setting also works wonders in favor of the story, serving as a perfect way of framing this type of story as a pony fic.”  Horizon appreciated the framing as well: “This melds its pony elements into its 1920s framework subtly and smoothly, and uses them to make the gut punch at the ending all the more poignant.”

While this was breezing to an easy feature, at times our discussion sounded more like a book club than a literary critique.  “This was a fantastic tale of following a road paved with good intentions to its inevitable end,” FanOfMostEverything said, causing Soge to respond: “I will certainly disagree with the idea that this is about a road paved with good intentions, given their impressive (and seemingly dispassionate) body count.  And I say that because it was probably my favourite aspect of this fic — the inherent tragedy to it all, of two teenagers broken by life finding their only escape to be through love, yes, but also murder. It feels very significant that, at the end of the day, they only lose when they take a more empathetic path.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Cyrano discusses boardwalk empires, spring semesters, and a little more panache.
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Bookish Delight’s “Being Juniper Montage”

30 Friday Mar 2018

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Today’s story will really get into your head.


Being Juniper Montage
[Equestria Girls] [Drama] [Slice of Life] • 42,118 words

Mere weeks ago, Juniper Montage was a spiteful girl, a thief, and even—for a short time—a magical menace. However, Starlight Glimmer and the Rainbooms managed to reach her, and extend the hands of forgiveness and friendship. Juniper has been grateful for the second chance ever since, and eager to show that she can be a good friend herself.

While touring Canterlot High School with Twilight Sparkle, she comes across two girls in dire cinematic straits. Juniper knows she can help, so she decides to step in. However, in the midst of her attempt, her past—all of her past—returns to haunt her, and her self-esteem pays the price.

Now Juniper must discover for herself what it truly means to be a friend, while also fighting an angry, fearful voice in the back of her mind that continues to insist that she’s not worth anyone’s friendship… and keeps getting louder.

FROM THE CURATORS: Maybe the most basic reason Pony fanfiction exists is to take characters and situations we know from the show and explore them at greater depth. A good piece of fanfiction, though, works even if the reader isn’t familiar with the particular character or situation. “I knew nothing at all about Juniper Montage going in,” Horizon admitted during our discussions, “and this story made me curious enough about her background to get me watching Juniper Montage’s episodes.”

“Bookish Delight,” Fan of Most Everything said when nominating this story, “has an almost inhuman talent for taking the bipedal cutouts Equestria Girls calls antagonists and turning them into fleshed-out, multidimensional people.” AugieDog agreed, saying, “The ‘Ex-Villains’ Club Sleep-Over’ made me very happy” with Horizon adding, “the whole cast is unerringly interesting.”

“What I liked the most here,” AugieDog went on, “was the way the story digs so deeply into the process of redemption.” Horizon noted, “This brings a lot of context to the inner struggle involved in the redemption we see characters breeze through in the show.” “Juniper’s inner demon,” AugieDog said, “is just that—an interior force—and her realization that she has to find a way of dealing with this thing at the core of her personality drives the story.” “Plus,” Fan of Most Everything concluded, “it’s a good meditation on the creative process as a whole.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Bookish Delight discusses core idealism, glasses-wearing nerd girls, and playing, not working.
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DwarvishPony’s “Tracks in the Sand”

19 Friday Jan 2018

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Today’s story examines a young woman hoping that someday her prints will come.

Tracks in the Sand
[Equestria Girls] [Drama] [Alternate Universe] • 9,590 words

Scavenging isn’t just a hobby, it’s a means of survival in the ruins of the old world. When you go scavenging, though, you’ll never know what you’ll find.

Pinkie Pie is about to find more than she bargained for.

FROM THE CURATORS: Like all good AU fics, this stood out with a combination of the comfortable and the unusual.  “I love the setting here — the sandy ruins are practically a character, they’re described so well — and Pinkie, while being very much the character we’ve come to know over the past few years, is also someone who’s lived her life on the fringes of a society that’s barely hanging on to the concept of civilization,” AugieDog said in his nomination.  And while those two elements accumulated most of our praise, Present Perfect found even more to like.  “This has the two things you need to really get me into a story: a post-apocalyptic wasteland and friendship,” he said. “Girls kissing each other doesn’t hurt. Neither does an unreliable narrator.”

But there was a great deal of emotional depth to the story, as well.  “As the depths of Pinkie’s loneliness and delusions come to light, I was struck by the tragedy,” Present Perfect said, and Chris agreed: “I really enjoyed the tragedy here; Pinkie’s seeing the world she wants to see, and yet, her world is so terrible that the best she can summon up is ‘everything’s still awful, but at least I have a friend, sorta.’ Her delusions are a macrocosm of Gummy: a grand idea, but feeble and helpless underneath that.”

And it was that fine balancing act between the bleakness of the world and the authenticity of the protagonist that solidified our appreciation of the story.  “Everything about the story was showing us how much Pinkie needs companionship, how much she needs hope in this world that’s utterly inimical to her personality … and then, twice, taking it away from her,” Chris said.  And that worked both ways, Soge said: “I enjoyed Pinkie’s characterization.  You get the sense she’s a stone’s throw away from a breakdown, which helps sell the post-apocalyptic setting.”

Read on for our author interview, in which DwarvishPony discusses space creation, compensatory delusions, and Hobbit mounts.
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Monochromatic’s “The Choices We Make”

12 Friday Jan 2018

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You won’t regret choosing today’s story.

The Choices We Make
[Equestria Girls] • 5,146 words

Every Friday, from five in the afternoon to eleven at night, Pinkie Pie does volunteer work. She doesn’t have to do it, the world won’t stop if she doesn’t, but she chooses to do it anyway. Even if it’s doing seemingly insignificant little things.

After all, the best ways to help aren’t always with grand gestures, but with the little things in life.

FROM THE CURATORS: When Horizon first nominated Monochromatic’s The Enchanted Library for consideration by his fellow curators, he realized that adding 343,000 words to our already-overflowing list of stories might not work out in the timeliest of manners. The rest of us reluctantly agreed — as AugieDog put it, “our unrelenting schedule demands that it be fed.”

So Horizon nominated this lovely story as well. “This didn’t repeatedly reduce me to tears the way The Enchanted Library did,” he said, “but it’s an equally worthy feature as a bite-sized package overflowing with heart.” And this time, the rest of us enthusiastically agreed. “Safe to say,” Present Perfect wrote, “this punched me in the gut more than once,” while AugieDog found himself “hard-pressed to think of a better piece of Equestria Girls fanfiction.”

“The character writing,” AugieDog went on, “just shines from the easy rapport of Pinkie, Rarity, and Rainbow to the OCs we meet at the call center,” and Present Perfect added, “I can’t remember the last time I read a story about supporting supporters, and I am floored by the amount of sympathy this story has for literally everyone in it.” Horizon praised the story’s “amazing verisimilitude as it examines the ‘behind the scenes’ of the job” and pointed out “an author’s note about the research they did to get the details right.”

So read on for our author interview, in which Monochromatic discusses RariTwi, Barney the Dinosaur’s act of passion, the undying drive to create, and just a little more RariTwi.
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MaxKodan’s “Dappled Shores”

10 Friday Nov 2017

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Today’s story warns about the hidden dangers of “shows, don’t tell”.

Dappled Shores
[Romance] [Comedy] [Drama] [Equestria Girls] [Slice of Life] • 4,640 words

Rarity and Sunset are having their third weekly Dappled Shores marathon.

And then Sunset ruins everything.

FROM THE CURATORS: Don’t let that story description fool you — this third-place winner in the recent Changing Seasons contest is a light-hearted (and ultimately heartwarming) romp about the perils of spoilers.  “The story is consistently both witty and hilarious,” Horizon said in his nomination.  “Bon mots like ‘it was time to call in the least terrible people she knew’ litter the text, and the dialogue is consistently whipcrack smart.  The shipping scenes, too — with their wealth of loving detail, like the matcha tea and Rarity’s nose for laundry detergent — are a delight to read.”  AugieDog agreed, much more succinctly: “I’d call this romantic comedy done right.”

But we quickly found that there was plenty to like in the story whether readers appreciated shipping or not.  “The comedy is the big sell here,” Chris said.  “Once the story started diving into Sunset’s and Rarity’s overreactions, the hushed horror of their friends, and Rainbow having only one make-up plan, I was sold.”  Soge was impressed by the prose: “God damn, the writing is really strong here, full of clever turns of phrase, great pacing, and a keen sense of comedic timing.”  And the relationship itself even won over some doubters.  “Maybe it’s just that the prescription on my shipping goggles needs an adjustment, but I’m always a little leery of stories that start off with any of Our Heroines in a romantic relationship,” AugieDog said.  “By the end of this one, though, I was absolutely convinced that there was something very real between this Sunset and this Rarity.”

The icing on the sweet cake of the prose was the solid construction throughout.  “Most impressively, in less than 5,000 words it manages to give solid moments to each of the entire Humane Seven,” Horizon said, while AugieDog praised the structure: “I really enjoyed the way we only see the unfortunate aftermath of each plan and the way Rarity sort of floats over the whole middle section of the story like a will-o-the-wisp, drawing Sunset on to ever-increasing extremes.”  That reinforced the core strength of the story, Chris said: “The running gags and the winking mockery of the sillier parts of the show (and movies), all while letting the characters take the central conflict seriously at every turn, kept things funny without turning it all cynical.”

Read on for our author interview, in which MaxKodan discusses object transpositions, old film, and midnight definitions.
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