Tag Archives: human

MSPiper’s “Autumnfall Change”

10 Saturday Oct 2020

Posted by in Features

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

You might want to keep a whiteboard handy for today’s story.

autumnfall changeAutumnfall Change
[Sci-Fi][Slice of Life][Human] • 8,419 words

Magic and technology may have pierced the void and blazed a path between the realms, but that was the simple part. Adjusting to the changes that follow can be far more daunting.

Yet despite the complexities involved even in basic communication, Serendipity has found friends to talk to among humankind who can cheer her up when she’s down. And occasionally inspire her to bursts of ingenuity unhindered by such trifles as foresight.

FROM THE CURATORS: As Present Perfect said in his nomination, “we don’t get a lot of well-written, original science fiction that is under novel length,” and despite the magical subject matter, this work still manages to be fairly “hard” sci-fi.

“It presents a truly fascinating world,” FanOfMostEverything said, “and considers a question asked by few others who deal with human-pony relations: Equestria is a whole other universe. What does that entail?” This fascinating world enraptured RBDash47 as well. “I’m a sucker for harder sci-fi that drops you straight into the universe and doesn’t hold your hand when it comes to figuring out the lingo, cultural norms, historical events, and so on. It was a delight trying to piece together what came before the events of the story and figure out what things like ‘the Quench’ are.”

There was a lot of appreciation for the thoughtfulness paid to every aspect of the story’s world. Soge praised “the way that the author plays with the concept of different senses between both species, and how it impacts the way they see each other’s world”; Present Perfect was likewise impressed by the “strong focus on perception, the ways things like a color monitor would be useless to a species with different eye biology from ours.” RBDash47 noticed that thoughtfulness extended to the story’s formatting as well: “The choice to emphasize by underlining instead of italicizing struck me as a little odd, but then I realized it’s not odd at all: all of the ‘dialogue’ here is written, not spoken, and when writing things out we do indeed underline for emphasis…”

For all its charms, this piece might not be for everyone. AugieDog pointed out “this reads to me more as a headcanon dump than a story”; Soge suggested “it feels like the CliffsNotes to something much more interesting.” RBDash47 agreed — “this feels like an excerpt from a novel, not a standalone 8k shortfic” — and loved it anyway — “but what’s there makes me feel like I’m peering through the porthole of a spacecraft, drinking in what view I have and desperate for more.”

Read on for our author interview, in which MSPiper discusses memorable moments, transcendence, and sensorial realism.

Continue reading →

Advertisement

jakkid166’s “Detective jakkid166 in everything”

11 Saturday Apr 2020

Posted by in Features

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, ,

Missing out on today’s story would be a crime.

Detective jakkid166 in everything
[Comedy] [Human] • 15,616 words

“Every pony thing evre made would be better if it had me in it.”
– me

I, Detective jakkid166, will be prepared to make every pony fanficion, video, and game better by me being in it. All you favorite pony content, except it has ME! And even I could be in some episodes of the show except cause the charaters are idiot I’m good at my job.

The ultimate Detective jakkid166 adventures collection, as he goes into EVERYTHING to make it good.

FROM THE CURATORS: “Wait, come back! I’m serious!” Soge said in his nomination.  “Writing good trollfic is hard … the best trolls imbue their bad grammar, random typos, and nonsensical plot with purpose. And jakkid’s fics are resounding successes in this regard, showing that he is fully willing and able to twist everything you take for granted in a story in order to extract as much humor as possible.”

This spurred a debate over whether trollfics were in our mission statement to spotlight the fandom’s best stories, and amid that debate, one thing quickly became clear: there indeed is quality here.  “OK, so this is… umm… it’s, uhh… it’s featurable, lemme say right off the top,” AugieDog said.  “Because this story is nuts — absolutely, gloriously, exhaustingly nuts.”  Indeed, jakkid166 went on to win rare unanimous approval.  “He’s just got a phenomenal way to make the reader constantly second-guess themselves,” Present Perfect said. “He lulls you into a sense that everything you think you know about writing and the English language might actually be wrong.”

That authorial skill came out in sharp comedy and frantic wordplay.  “Despite its deliberately broken language, it’s quotable as hell,” Horizon said. “Every paragraph drips with surprising punchlines and glorious turns of phrase.”  Soge agreed: “It is impossible to finish this without having one (or several) favorite sentences.”  And while many of jakkid166’s stories offered that same hilarity, this fic in particular was elevated by its structure.  “Jakkid grows on you. Like a fungus,” FanOfMostEverything said.  “Having him intrude on classic tales (and Flash games, and episodes…) elevates his usual blend of impossible awesomeness and incomprehensibility by giving him a plot he has to at least acknowledge.”

Several of us similarly appreciated the parody of fandom classics on display.  “This fic’s vignette style worked just perfect for me,” Soge said, and Present Perfect agreed: “I found this a hilarious sendup of numerous fanfics, a la Starlight Fixes Everything, just with jakkid166’s own personal brand of insanity.”  And ultimately, it was adding that to the exemplary-yet-broken writing which won us over.  “The fic not only offers a hilarious takedown of some fandom sacred cows, it’s almost embarrassingly witty and creative,” Horizon said. “That it does so via its insane internal logic is a sign of how much thought went into its construction. It’s the fanfiction equivalent of a classic Looney Tunes cartoon inventing its own physics.”

Read on for our author interview, in which jakkid166 discusses prison breaks, methlessness, and unsalted soup.
Continue reading →

Unwhole Hole’s “The Murder of Elrod Jameson”

01 Sunday Mar 2020

Posted by in Features

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

Today’s story is some killer noir.

The Murder of Elrod Jameson
[Dark] [Mystery] [Sci-Fi] [Human] • 234,343 words

[Note: This story contains scenes of blood and gore, sexuality, and a depiction of rape.]

Elrod Jameson: a resident of SteelPoint Level Six, Bridgeport, Connecticut. A minor, pointless, and irrelevant man… who witnessed something he was not supposed to.

Narrowly avoiding his own murder, he desperately searches for help. When no living being will help him, he turns to the next best thing: a pony.

FROM THE CURATORS: This week’s feature — and its content warnings — might seem a little unusual for a My Little Pony fanfiction site.  And indeed it is, in Horizon’s words, “a shining example of how to write ponyfic that strays nearly as far from the show as possible while the MLP content remains front and center.”  But for those willing to stray from the light-hearted tone of the show, Elrod offers a unique journey.  “The author has very carefully constructed this bizarre world of sci-fi trappings, mutant humans and world-ruling corporations so that by the end, if ponies don’t make sense for the world, they at least make sense for the story,” Present Perfect said in his nomination.  “What lies within this twisting labyrinth is lush, depressing scenery; a twisting mystery involving genetics, corporate protection and a worldwide bounty; and plenty of surprises.”

Indeed, the novel quickly inspired comparisons outside of our equine niche.  “In the cadence of its writing it reminds me of some of the best classic sci-fi,” Horizon said, while AugieDog adding: “It reminds me of Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon novels or Jeff Noon’s Vurt series in a lot of ways.”  However, Present Perfect said, it’s got plenty to offer to pony fans: “You could not sand the edges off this and rebrand it as something original.  It deserves to be evaluated as fanfiction.”  That wasn’t a unanimous opinion — with AugieDog noting, “I’ll disagree with Pres and say that this could be turned into a non-Pony novel pretty easily” — but our consensus was, as Horizon put it, “it deserves special mention for the subtle, logical, compelling way that it works in its pony content.”

The strengths of the story were enough to send it to a feature despite curator reservations.  “Not gonna lie, after reading chapter 16’s explicit on-screen rape, I put this one down for a week,” Horizon said.  “But there is more than enough here to justify sitting through that (and the book’s ongoing need for editing). Elrod‘s at its best assembling its vision of a noir, dystopian future world.  This also does an excellent job with the pacing of its mysteries and world reveals … the overall picture fit together extremely satisfyingly.”  And the story won over some doubters.  “If I’d just run across this on my own, I would’ve quit before the end of the first chapter,” AugieDog said.  “But by the last line of that first chapter, I was completely and totally hooked. ‘Cause this is an incredible example of just plain ol’ storytelling. A lot of it comes from the author’s deft use of hard-boiled detective tropes, and there’s a real narrative voice here once things start firing on all cylinders.”

And that wasn’t all.  “The characters are doubtless the strongest part,” Present Perfect said to quick agreement.  “Elrod is an enigma wrapped in a mystery, and figuring him out was really rewarding. Twilight has a great deal of depth to her; important, since she’s actually the main character. There’s the other Twilight — it makes sense in context — who on her introduction is a breath of fresh air, and whose arc provides a lighter counterpoint to the grim and gritty main story.”  Horizon agreed: “Morgana (Twilight) and Elrod are largely overshadowed in their own story by a vibrant supporting cast, and the book wisely realizes this and rolls with it. You could remove the entirety of Book 3 — the other Twilight’s arc — without impacting the A plot in the slightest, but if you did, you’d rip out the beating heart of the story.”

Ultimately, that added up to a package that was more than the sum of its parts.  “This is what I would call a hidden gem,” Present Perfect said. “I’m really looking forward to seeing what else Unwhole Hole has come up with, because the expansiveness of this world is in many ways astounding.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Unwhole Hole discusses mocking bridges, furniture stains, and aquarium power trips.
Continue reading →

JumpingShinyFrogs’ “School Tour”

21 Friday Jun 2019

Posted by in Features

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

(RCL NOTE: We’re attempting the hopeless task of choosing the fandom’s Single Best Story™ at a special panel at Bronycon.  Help us pick the competitors!  Details here.  Voting is open until July 13.)

Today’s story comes out of the dark into the spotlight.

School Tour
[Dark] [Human] • 6,481 words

I was looking forward to the school tour for a really long time! We were going to the beach, and I love the beach. I love the bus trip as well, singing and talking with my friends. But then we drove into a tunnel. I’ve never really liked tunnels, but it’s always been fine because my friends were there. We always try to hold our breath the whole way through the tunnel, which is a lot of fun.

Today, we couldn’t hold our breath the whole way through, because the bus never came out of the tunnel.

FROM THE CURATORS: Fanfiction, by definition, is authors getting inspired by the settings and characters of others’ works.  So it shouldn’t be a surprise that sometimes quality fanfiction spawns fanfiction of its own.  “Since we’ve featured The Last Pony on Earth, I’ve been going through some of the side stories it spawned, and I feel confident in nominating them on their own merits,” Present Perfect said in his nomination.  “This is many things. A story about survival and holding out hope against certain death. An excellent example of journalfic written in a nine-year-old’s voice. And a really good application of the setting and timeframe of the Ponies After People universe.”  Soge quickly added that this tale of a bus full of children turning into ponies worked as a standalone: “I only noticed it was related to Last Pony on Earth when it was explicitly mentioned near the end.  That didn’t actually impact my enjoyment of the story.”

One of the factors driving that enjoyment was the story’s tight and careful focus.  “It’s a very claustrophobic story, with essentially one location until the end,” Present Perfect said, “but the strength of the writer’s voice and the sheer desperation of their situation, on top of the fact that these are mostly kids, is what really sells this.” FanOfMostEverything agreed: “The story does a brilliant job of using the limited space and information given to the protagonist to drive home the claustrophobic atmosphere. The pacing is one of the best parts, gradually ramping up the dread as all the easy solutions fail and the situation worsens.”  And Soge appreciated the nuance that provided: “The limited perspective and understanding of Clara is used very well here, the child narrator being the best possible PoV to sell the bleakness of the situation, without actually falling into melodrama.”

But we also praised factors such as the efficient prose.  “There are tons of neat details peppered around, and in a very short amount of time it sells the reader very well on the characters, the world, and their predicament,” Soge said.  That was even more impressive considering the way the story was framed.  “The sheer innocence of the narrative voice is almost painful at times, when the reader sees the severity of Clara’s predicament so much more clearly than she does,” FanOfMostEverything said.  “Overall, this was some excellent suspense.”

Read on for our author interview, in which JumpingShinyFrogs discusses sneaky principals, acceptable birds, and story graveyards.
Continue reading →

OfTheIronwilled’s “Again”

24 Friday May 2019

Posted by in Features

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

Today’s story is (a) well worth your attention.

Again
[Dark] [Tragedy] [Human] [Alternate Universe] • 1,792 words

When she was young, Megan rode into Ponyland on the back of a flying pony.

Or not. She doesn’t know anymore.

All she knows is that for the second time, a pegasus has crashed into her well.

FROM THE CURATORS: Sometimes we get two nominations at once for works from the same author — only to find them both passing our feature threshold, creating a dilemma of which one to spotlight.  “As a fan of both G1 and Fluttershy, I get two completely different gut punches for the price of one!” AugieDog quipped in our debate.  He was one of the curators praising the character study of Where All My Layers Can Become Reeds: “The impossible dream of being a part while also being apart rings through every word of the story.” But in a split decision, the multi-generational tragedy of Again won out.

“Again conveys a single moment of paralyzing horror fantastically,” FanOfMostEverything said, and the story’s short, brutal effectiveness drew broad praise.  “I love the character work, and the subtle way that it reveals the darkness of the situation,” Soge said, while RBDash47 added: “I did like how no one believing Megan played out; that felt very realistic.”  Horizon’s nomination tried to break down what made it work: “It uses its short length well, swinging in hard with a memorable gut punch of an image, and makes effective use of the generational gap,” he said.  “I think the fridge logic is the most terrifying part of it — there’s no road to the story’s events that doesn’t involve a great deal of implied abuse somewhere.”

If there was a common theme to our dissent on the fic, it was the story’s focus on the heroine of an earlier era.  “I feel it almost qualifies as G1 fanfic,” Present Perfect said, and RBDash47 added: “I wonder if I would enjoy it more if I was more familiar with Gen 1.”  But others saw that as one of the story’s strengths.  “I definitely think the G4 connection is strong enough, but even beyond that, it’s a fantastic allegory for the cost of the fear of seeming immature,” FanOfMostEverything said. “It’s all too easy to let amazing opportunities wilt away because ‘you’re too old,’ ‘that’s not how it’s done,’ so on and so forth.”  It even inspired fond comparisons to former RCL inductees.  “Again poses the question of ‘What if Meghan was the star of Through the Well of Pirene?’,” Present Perfect said, “only to answer it with a resounding, ‘Yeah, no.'”

Read on for our author interview, in which OfTheIronwilled discusses shower blame, piecemaking, and embarrassing edges.
Continue reading →

Celefin’s “Track Switch – Steel Dreams”

07 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by in Features

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

Today’s story is engineered to be quite a moving tale.

Track Switch – Steel Dreams
[Slice of Life] [Human] • 12,434 words

Modern just in time supply chains require arcane logistics. The people I work for specialise in that special kind of magic. Me? I just make sure stuff gets from A to B. And I’m good at it. All over western Europe. Always at night. Always alone — just the way I like it.

FROM THE CURATORS: “I have never read a bad story about ponies and trains,” Present Perfect said as we discussed this story.  “I don’t know what it is about the two, that they go together and inspire people to write great things, but I’m glad they do.”  And while our discussion was full of nostalgia for other great railway writers, what quickly became clear was that Steel Dreams forged its own exemplary direction.  “Celefin has basically created an entire subgenre all their own, one I can only describe as ‘Europone train drama’,”  FanOfMostEverything said in his nomination.  “It’s a pony-on-Earth slice of life with a focus on mundane pony-human interaction and vehicle engineering. It’s also a wonderful tale of found friendship and the intense drama that can be found in everyday life.”

We found ourselves getting sucked into that drama, in all the best ways.  “Oof, this one hit me hard,” Soge said.  “It has this quietly emotive angle to its writing, which — coupled with the sublime characterization work — made for a deeply empathetic portrayal of its protagonist.”  Present Perfect had similar praise: “This surprised me with Celefin’s easy character-centric writing, introducing us to a whole host of folks all at once and making us give a darn about all and sundry.  Then you’ve got the way the writing changes style when it’s just Nightline and her train. The words flow differently, the landscape feels different; it’s a really impressive feat the author’s pulled off.” And AugieDog praised how that solid characterization tied in to the story’s deeper themes: “I like how we get the pony character’s point of view on everything — I’m a sucker for stories that look at our world through an outsider’s eyes — and I especially like how it ever so gently gives us the point that even moving to a new dimension won’t change a pony unless that pony’s willing to change.”

While the story isn’t the first in its continuity, we noted it still made an excellent starting point.  “Having read [the prequel] Frankfurt Calling first, I have a great deal more appreciation for the character of Penny than I think you might otherwise, but reading this by itself is fine,” Present Perfect said.  Part of that was the power the story teased out of unexpected places.  “It speaks volumes of the immigrant experience without ever drawing attention to that angle,” Soge said.  “It is remarkably lifelike, particularly when it show the small ways in which Nightlight relates to the people around her, or how she goes about making (or not making) new connections.” So perhaps it’s no surprise that our most unanimous sentiment was — as RBDash47 put it — “I would love to see more of Nightline and Trax in a future continuation.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Celefin discusses sapient engines, biscuit imitation, and silver-haired memories.
Continue reading →

Starscribe’s “The Last Pony on Earth”

09 Friday Nov 2018

Posted by in Features

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , ,

The last stop for today’s story is the RCL spotlight.

The Last Pony on Earth
[Adventure] [Mystery] [Human] • 102,429 words

Until yesterday, my life was no different than anybody’s. Go to work, pay the bills, sleep. Today, I woke up to a world without humans. The streets are empty, the power grid is running down, and not another soul is in sight. That might not be the worst thing, if I wasn’t also a pony.

Where is everyone? Why is this happening to me?

Will l stay sane long enough to starve?

FROM THE CURATORS: “I’m surprised to see Starscribe hasn’t been featured before,” FanOfMostEverything said at the start of this story’s nomination — launching one of the longest and most spirited debates we’ve ever had. High and low scores flew; all six curators wrote essays filled with praise and critique; and when the dust settled, Soge’s final vote pushed it over our feature threshold.  “I have many complaints,” he said, “but this fic gets a ton of things right — compelling OCs, well-crafted mysteries, a ton of humanity in its portrayals and the dilemmas of the characters, and plenty to enjoy. The Equestrian chapters in particular are deserving of special honors. There are many small, special things which make this fic, and it is thanks to the sum of it all that this story comes off as so strong.”

And while all of us found things to complain about, an equally common theme was the ways in which gripping, unique storytelling overruled those to keep us invested regardless.  “If there’s a big thing right for me, it’s the use of layered media to tell the story,” Present Perfect said.  “We’re primarily in some excellent journal entries for the bulk of the fic, but along with images, these are supplemented by transcripts, interviews, and journal entries from another character, not to mention ARG-style codes for the faithful to solve. I’m really impressed with those codes, they were not easy to crack.  And this has the absolute best use of second-person I have ever seen in a story.”  Soge, too, offered a superlative: “The journal format is one of the best executions of this format I remember reading in Fimfic.”  And Horizon was broadly impressed: “The world around the protagonists was never less than vibrant, and every mystery the story brought up came to a satisfying resolution,” he said.  “Most importantly, I felt that on the whole my trust in the author was rewarded with genuinely cool and thoughtful twists.  The ultimate source of the ‘numbers station’ caught me off guard at least twice, and HPI walked a tricky tightrope between threat and resource which served the story very well.”

It’s worth noting that we found reading pace mattered.  “I’m not sure how it will read when it isn’t a daily serial,” FanOfMostEverything noted, and after some critical comments from speed-readers, Soge was grateful that he decided to slow down. “I decided to read this fic at most two chapters a day, so I could properly appreciate it in its original context,” he said.  “Doing so helped make the pacing more natural, and allowed some of the mysteries enough time to make me properly excited.”

And in the end, the fact that the story got us invested enough to react so strongly — both to our dislikes and our loves — was a mark of its effectiveness.  “I have to point out my favorite part of Last Pony: when Alex gets the full story of what happened,” Present Perfect said.  “This is a story celebrating humanity — something of an oddity, when it comes to fanfiction centered on human/pony interactions — and Alex is such a strong character, not to mention that excellent second-person writing, I couldn’t help but be angry, and absolutely loving that I was. It takes phenomenal effort to evoke feelings like that in a reader.  Compared to other survivalist fics, HiEs, and PoEs, this comes out positively on all points, and I’m glad to have read it.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Starscribe discusses outlined organizations, Olympians, and optimism.
Continue reading →

AdmiralTigerclaw’s “Arrow 18 Mission Logs: Lone Ranger”

11 Friday May 2018

Posted by in Features

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Today’s story arrives from the past to look at the future.

Arrow 18 Mission Logs: Lone Ranger
[Adventure] [Sci-Fi] [Human] • 66,605 words

The star system Omega Centauri was just another oddity on a map to scientists in the not too distant future. However when they found the star was orbiting an earth-sized, earth-like planet instead of a black hole as its motion had suggested, a mission was scrambled to investigate this most unusual of celestial behaviors.

Hamstrung by politics, and nearly crippled before it began, the ‘Lone Ranger’ mission was reduced to just one crew member and left to his own devices.

These are the logs of Arrow 18 and its lone commander. This information is classified TOP SECRET by the Global Space Agency.

Do NOT tell the princess.

FROM THE CURATORS: “What we have here,” Horizon said when nominating this story, “is an early-fandom classic HiE (first chapter publication date: 2012), but with a twist: the HiE arrives not via handwavey magic but on a spaceship from 23rd-century Earth. What follows is a curious blend of standard HiE tropes, science-fiction first contact, unique Equestrian science worldbuilding, and a very pony story of friendship across a language and culture barrier.”

This reflection of ponyness and humanity was a common theme in our discussion. “The thing that really wowed me,” Present Perfect said, “is that this is a story about humans meeting ponies for the first time, where we, the reader, learn about ourselves through the eyes of ponies, through the eyes of the human protagonist. This weird feedback loop of discovery was really what kept my spirits high through the whole story, regardless of what was going on.” “The ponies’ reactions to a benign alien all ring true,” FanOfMostEverything added while Soge said, “I was just left with this pure, wholesome feeling inside at the end, just glad to see the characters’ relationships progress to that point.”

Soge went on: “Most of all, this is HiE without all those typical HiE pitfalls: The protagonist is witty but never annoying; he sees the ponies as equals; and most importantly, it does all that without a speck of the misanthropy that seems to plague even the best examples of the genre.” And that, FanOfMostEverything concluded, makes it “a very pony story in terms of its central message.”

Read on for our author interview, in which AdmiralTigerclaw discusses conceptual thunderstorms, strange nostalgia, and the curse of cursive.
Continue reading →

Ringcaat’s “The Pony Who Lived Upstairs”

05 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by in Features

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Today’s story brings a little magic home.

The Pony Who Lived Upstairs
[Drama] [Slice of Life] [Human] • 184,740 words

[Note: This story contains sexual themes.]

What would you do if a pony moved into the apartment upstairs? Would you make an effort to meet her? What would you talk about? And what kind of pony leaves Equestria for Earth in the first place?

This is a series of slice-of-life episodes about a young man who meets a pony in New Jersey. Equestria has made contact with Earth; creations and creators have been sorting things out for a couple of years, and a smattering of ponies are gradually starting to move to Earth. Told though human eyes, here’s the story of one of them.

FROM THE CURATORS: While it’s great to have loud and energetic friends, when it comes to neighbors the best ones are often the most quietly reliable.  That was our experience of this story, too — and one that endeared it to us a great deal.  “I read it slowly over the course of a month, and it was a comfortable read that consistently left me in an agreeable mood,” Soge said, while in his nomination AugieDog praised it for its quiet depth: “It’s a very ‘slice of life’ story, but the arcs that Ron and Peach travel provide a definite and nicely complicated through-line.”  That depth consistently accumulated praise in our commentary.  “I love the effortless way that this works through various implications of the two worlds colliding, and the endless surprises that result,” Horizon said.  “Peach’s reaction to visiting a ranch stands out in my mind. It felt not only well-researched, but also diligent in the details.”

And while we all found different details to like, we agreed it added up to a solid overall package.  “I found it nothing short of astonishing how well the author made the ponies-on-Earth conceit work, and while the philosophizing that goes on during the course of the story sometimes got a little thick for me, the characters carried me through it all quite handily,” AugieDog said. “The humans are very human, and the ponies are equally ponies with a subtly alien outlook that the author conveys really well.”  Horizon disagreed on the philosophizing — “for me, that’s what carried the early sections” — while Soge praised both aspects equally: “The characters love partaking in philosophical discussions of the type I tend to despise in fics, which tend to quickly turn into an author soapbox where they keep tilting at strawmen. Instead, not only were the discussions nuanced, they were perfectly in character, and a significant part of the story itself that gave me plenty of food for thought.”

Soge went on to cite that as an example of one of the story’s biggest strengths: its enormously unique approach.  “If there is one big thing right to be taken from this fic, it’s how well it manages to make certain despicable tropes work, to the point it seems like the author set a challenge to turn certain things on their heads,” Soge said.  “Every time it seems to go for something trite, it manages to turn the concept on its head in clever and inventive ways.”  He cited a further scene which executed an easy-to-fail trope unexpectedly well, a scene which Horizon also praised: “I need to single out the chapter after their visit to Radio City Music Hall in particular,” he said.  “The way that it handles the multiple levels of conflicting emotions is not only a triumph of unreliable narration, but also walks an ethical tightrope whose navigation is very much to this story’s credit.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Ringcaat discusses forgotten passwords, melodic advancement, and undiscovered secrets.
Continue reading →

AShadowOfCygnus’ “Cold Light”

27 Friday Oct 2017

Posted by in Features

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Today’s story might offer up some cold comfort.

Cold Light
[Dark] [Human] [Sad] • 3,209 words
[Note: This story contains sexual themes.]

Even in our darkest moments, the stars shine coldly down — distant and remote, but bright in the blackness. Refuse them, shut them out, and they remain. Let them in, and they may convince you of the warmth in their embrace.

This is not a story about stars.

This is a story about people and ponies, and what they visit on each other in moments of darkness.

FROM THE CURATORS: While most of our features are exemplary because of the ways that they reflect the show we all enjoy, sometimes we run across a story that draws its power from its willingness to use pony as a lens onto far darker problems.  “This is not an easy story to read,” Present Perfect said in his nomination.  “It deals with a difficult topic, but unfolds it in a way that is insidious, pervasive, and excruciatingly gentle, up until it kicks you in the teeth.”  We quickly reached broad agreement on its quality.  “It manages to establish a nice balance between sadness and melodrama, talks about trauma without glorifying it, and despite the bleakness of the situation, it ends on a good and positive note,” Soge said.

For AugieDog, it was that emotional balancing act which tipped the scales toward a feature.  “It’s the protagonist’s initial anger toward the unicorn that really makes the story,” he said.  “She wants to be tough, capable, realistic, not needing any unicorns … but finds a different kind of toughness: the toughness that doesn’t turn away a unicorn’s help.”  Both main characters’ portrayals were hard-hitting, Chris said: “The unicorn’s matter-of-fact declaration about giving and taking is something wonderful, a credo delivered with such certainty when most it’s needed. … This is a harsh piece of writing, as anything that tackles this subject would have to be, but the way it doesn’t flinch away from the toll taken on the girl feels necessary rather than exploitative.”  And Soge noted the power of the raw premise: “There are a lot of metaphorical implications of meeting a unicorn after that particular situation, and I’m glad to see the ways the fic explored that.”

Beyond its quality, much of our discussion centered on the fact that “this is almost non-pony fiction,” as Present Perfect put it.  “Outside of a reference to two royal pony sisters, it looks like urban fantasy.”  And ultimately, for a majority of us, quality won out.  “I don’t know that this is a great fanfic per se, but it’s a great story, and the fact that it’s presented as fanfic doesn’t harm that story,” Chris said.  “In the end, I’m going to have to come back to Benman’s ‘Aren’t we here to spotlight the coolest shit our community has done?’ standard; this could be published in any fantasy magazine right now, with zero changes to the text.”

Read on for our author interview, in which AShadowOfCygnus discusses Boswell watersheds, anachronism stewpots, and poking holes in the world.
Continue reading →