Tag Archives: tragedy

Super Trampoline’s “Feeling That Way”

14 Friday Apr 2017

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(Note: We’re looking to re-feature three of our spotlighted authors, in order to offer them spotlights on stories more representative of their writing!  Our “Correct the Record” contest runs through Sunday, April 23.  Weigh in with your votes and nominations on our FIMFiction thread.  For a “ballot” with a compiled list of nominations and voting links, check this spreadsheet.)

Today’s story brings home the consequences of war.

Feeling That Way
[2nd Person] [Drama] [Slice of Life] [Tragedy] • 1,020 words

You’re drenched in sweat and ennui. She’s fighting the enemy, and you’re fighting depression. Stuck forever in a nowhere town, you try to rise above inertia, but you only end up feeling useless. You’re always feeling that way.

FROM THE CURATORS: When stories tackle challenging topics and perspectives, it’s all the more impressive when they stick the landing.  “While war fics are often a hard sell, this one works by recognizing that,” Present Perfect said in Feeling This Way’s nomination.  “The threat is nebulous and frightening, and since the idea of war doesn’t fit into pony society, the recognition of that makes this feel like a distinctly pony piece.”  And he wasn’t the only one impressed.  “This is certainly a great story, capable of imparting powerful emotion in so few words, subtle in its details, and yet very direct in its approach,” Soge said.  “It walks that fine line between melodrama and genuine emotion splendidly.”

But this story’s main claim to fame is more unusual: This is the RCL’s first feature with the Second Person tag.  “The use of second person strikes a very tight balance,” Present Perfect said.  “Third person would have been too distant for the emotions to hit home, while a first-person narrator likely would have been too familiar, spending time contemplating what certain emotions mean. Instead, we’re fitted into this pony’s life in no uncertain terms right at the start, and get to live out the story through his eyes.”  AugieDog agreed: “For me, the 2nd person works in the sense of the character talking out loud to himself, and I found it quite effective given the dry and dusty sense of madness lurking around the edges.”  And even the dissenters, like Horizon, were impressed with the power of the story. “I’m not as sold as PP on the benefit of the second person here, but that’s not the draw,” he said.  “The big thing right is the effective and efficient storytelling that is packed into the story’s thousand words.”

That quality of writing was apparent both in the large and small.  “I love how it manages to paint a history so rich in details without actually being explicit about any of them,” Soge said, while it was its thematic solidity which impressed Horizon: “All of the beauty is abstract and environmental to contrast with the personal doubt and pain, nicely reinforcing the main theme. The wham line at the end of the mine-tailings discussion is delivered basically perfectly, and adds a sense of layered tragedy.” The overall effect, as AugieDog said, was a hard-hitting short story: “This is very much about being frozen in place, but it still manages to present the reader with an entire world and a couple of characters who have to live in that world.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Super Trampoline discusses olines, happy horse noises, and strap-on horns.
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Protopony350’s “Twilight is Annoyed”

15 Friday Jul 2016

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Twilight stars — reluctantly — in today’s featured story.

twilight-is-annoyedTwilight is Annoyed
[Dark] [Tragedy] • 2,429 words

Twilight has been alone for a long time. She’s not sure how long anymore, but the color of the sun is giving her some ideas.

Twilight stopped dreaming a long time ago, but she is now plagued by visions. Visions of the past. Visions of the worst moments of her life.

Twilight is feeling really annoyed right now.

FROM THE CURATORS: As longtime ponyfic readers, we are always looking for something a little different — so when Present Perfect noted in his nomination that “I can’t say I’ve read a dark fic quite like this before,” the strong execution of this story’s style brought us around to quick agreement on its feature.  “I’ll call it another example of Pony horror done right,” AugieDog opined, while Soge praised its freshness: “It is a clever idea, a more-or-less by-the-books take on ImmorTwilight that still manages to bring something new to the table.”

That novelty was in this story’s memorable depiction of its protagonist.  “I really love how the author chose to represent Twilight, and establish her inner conflict,” Soge said, and Horizon agreed: “The way this pulls off its slow reveal while keeping Twilight broken and unmoored is a big thing right.”  The prose was a major contributor to that.  “What works best is the sentence structure,” Present Perfect said.  “So many begin with ‘Twilight’, which just drives home how alone she is. Her actions are choppy, there’s little in the way of transition from one to the next, which along with her constant repeating of actions sells her fractured and damaged mind.”

Oddly, we found ourselves approaching the story’s laconic, direct style rather differently.  “A little more subtlety would have gone a long way here,” Soge said.  “However, it is a striking, memorable fic, able to convey much through style and atmosphere.”  AugieDog admired its restraint, though: “The way everything’s so tamped-down here — the emotions, the language, the storyline, the grammar — it just all works really well.”  And Chris disagreed with them both: “I say, there’s nothing wrong with hitting the reader over the head with a two-by-four as long as you let them hold the wackin’ stick themselves,” he said.  “Subtle? No. But even as it abandons nuance, it still gives the reader freedom.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Protopony350 discusses breadcrumbs, robot obsessions, and double-necked guitars.

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N00813’s “Schemering Sintel”

22 Friday Apr 2016

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Today’s story walks the lonely road to revenge.

schemering-sintelSchemering Sintel
[Adventure] [Dark] [Drama] [Sad] [Tragedy] • 29,611 words

It’s been a long, long time since Spike was stolen from her, but Twilight hasn’t forgotten nor forgiven.  After a long and arduous journey, she has finally found him and his kidnapper.

She will save him.

No matter the cost.

FROM THE CURATORS: While Schemering Sintel doesn’t flinch from its Dark tag, it’s “a very clever grim fic,” as Soge put it:  “It is a great example of how to twist a character beyond recognition without alienating the audience.”  Indeed, it was the way that the story handled its vision of a morally altered Twilight which drew the most curator praise.  “Where this piece excels is showing,” Present Perfect said.  “It’s not just a story about Twilight finding Spike, but about her changing over an extreme period of time filled with hardship. And that change is shown perfectly in the final chapters, when it seems like the plot has finished, but the story is still going.”  Chris agreed: “This is character development done right.  Twilight’s dual growth and collapse as a character doesn’t stop at any one point … the dramatic moments are simply waypoints that show what she’s become.”

We also found the construction of the world around Twilight worthy of note.  “It’s a great fantasy adventure,” Present Perfect said, “from the unfriendly civilizations Twilight encounters to the beautifully-described landscapes and the cool stuff like her mythril tattoos.”  Horizon also praised that worldbuilding: “There are some really unique ideas here that feel uniquely Equestrian while supporting a tone we’d never see in the show.”  But in the end, Soge said, it came back to the strong writing of that world’s inhabitants: “It is an adventure that focuses on character rather than action, and is all the stronger for that.”

It was that strength which has kept Schemering Sintel relevant despite its vision of Equestria becoming increasingly obsolete with newer seasons’ canon.  “I think it’s interesting to note to what extent this story is a product of its time,” Chris said.  “The broader world of Equestria wasn’t nearly as well fleshed out before Season 3; I don’t think you could write a story with a similar tone today without doing significantly more to set the stage for all the violence, cynical choices, etc.  But viewed in the light of the first two seasons, this holds up extremely well as a glimpse of how the world can silence our better angels.”

Read on for our author interview, in which N00813 discusses friendship entropy, thematic architecture, and glued-together pieces.
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Wellspring’s “Arthurian—The Black King”

18 Friday Mar 2016

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You always go back to the classics — and with today’s story, you can return to a pony take on one of the great classics of English literature.

arthurianArthurian—The Black King
[Dark] [Romance] [Tragedy] • 30,305 words

“Those of us who have a general overview and knowledge of King Sombra regard him to be a despotic autocrat, a power-hungry potentate and a vicious oppressor. And, even if this condemnation is justified, we may perhaps not have the right reason for this attribution. This is due to the fact that before King Sombra turned to the tyrant we all know him to be, he was the greatest knight of the Crystal Empire.”

—Sir Sombra de Onyx, Foreword to the Third Edition

FROM THE CURATORS: “This is a very ambitious piece,” Present Perfect said — as its roots show.  “The author lists Le Morte D’Arthur and Ivanhoe as the primary inspirations,” Chris said, “and Wellspring does a commendable job capturing both the literary style and the feeling of history-by-way-of-myth which permeates Le Morte D’Arthur.  A capital-r Romance in the truest sense, this is a story about character archetypes presented in a tell-heavy style.”  It is also, in Horizon’s words, “metal as heck.  From Sombra’s world-serpent origin to the way the sphinx is killed, this continuously finds new ways to crank up the level of epic.”

And while The Black King can be an easy story to bounce off of — “I can appreciate what the author’s doing here, but I can’t read it,” AugieDog said — it richly rewards readers willing to engage with it.  “The style is obtuse, and all the grammatical errors don’t help the story at all,” Soge said, “but this story sold me on its metafiction aspects levels so hard that by the end I went from ‘Wellspring needs a editor’ to ‘Boy, Equestrian grammar sure has changed’. The afterwords are tone perfect, the historical and plot inaccuracies feel legitimate, and the footnotes complement the text beautifully.”  Present Perfect had similar praise for those margin elements: “There’s so much unexpected humor with the historical inaccuracies in the footnotes. And there’s historical poems in them! They do quite a lot more work than one expects footnotes to. … I’ve also never praised an afterword before, which should say enough by itself.”

What locked in The Black King’s feature, though, was that its unusual style was wrapped around solid storytelling.  “Sombra’s backstory is really powerful,” Present Perfect said, while Soge praised its worldbuilding more broadly: “The story carries some fascinating ideas about Sombra, the Crystal Kingdom, and historical Equestria as a whole. I love how Sombra’s tragic flaws are mostly positive attributes, which makes the inevitable conclusion all the stronger.”  It all added up to a package worth the time spent in adjusting to its presentation.  “The more I think about it, the more impressive I find this story to be,” Chris said. “The Black King captured my imagination in a way few fanfics do, and I feel like that’s the definition of something worth spotlighting.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Wellspring discusses showy footnotes, writing archetypically, and the evil of Cervantes.
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Wisdom Thumbs’ “The Weak”

05 Friday Feb 2016

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Today’s story is a strong addition to our collection of tales about Equestria’s distant past.

the-weakThe Weak
[Dark] [Tragedy] • 7,723 words

They say minotaurs live by the scars they bear. Bismuth’s hide is a map of the world: his life was the blade, and the blade was his life, carried unto a hundred red fields, down a thousand roads, singing among elk, deer, and dragons. He stood at ramparts long since fallen, and was counted a hero in lands forgotten, when ponies had only begun to dream.

Maybe it’s all true, but now he only rocks in his chair, stirring at embers, while his deeds turn to rust in the shadows. What kind of scars call that living? And if you ask him, would he tell you?

FROM THE CURATORS: Connoisseurs of classic ponyfic will find a little extra bonus in today’s feature, as Chris pointed out when he introduced this story to us. “This borrows its setting from Jetfire’s It’s A Dangerous Business, Going Out Your Door stories,” he said.  “But I believe The Weak stands on its own.  All of the things it borrows are gleaned easily enough from this story itself.”  And the rest of us quickly discovered that it was richly rewarding even without the context of its source.  “Having forgotten pretty much all of Dangerous Business in the four or five years since I read it, I didn’t have any trouble with the set-up,” AugieDog said.  “The writing is top-notch, and the revelation at the end of who Bismuth is telling this story to was just the perfect cap.”  Present Perfect agreed: “Unfamiliar with those stories as I am, this comes off as just another excellent piece of world-building. The fantastic writing, the solid character voice, tell a story of the horrors of war with all the fantasy a Tolkien or Tolkien-after reader could ask for.”

It wasn’t only the power of that prose which brought to mind another blast from the past.  “I’d compare this story to our previous feature The War and What Came After,” Chris said, “in that it doesn’t seem like a particularly ‘pony’ story until the end — at which point it ties itself back to its Equestrian setting in a way that not only justifies its being written as an MLP fanfic, but also perfectly encapsulates the tone of the world it’s set in.”  Other curators also singled out for praise the way in which The Weak connected its original writing and the show we love.  “I’m impressed at how ponies pervade this story while barely appearing in it. It’s very Outside Insight that way,” Present Perfect said.

But no matter how many fond memories of other stories this invoked, there was never any question that The Weak earned its own place in our hearts.  “I’m most impressed with the writing,” Present Perfect said.  “It’s hard not to adore a line like ‘I tried to feel dry’.”  Chris agreed: “Once the narrator stops addressing his audience and starts telling his story, the word choice and ability to paint striking visuals are consistently engrossing.  All in all, this was a gorgeously written story which has a lot to offer to a reader.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Wisdom Thumbs discusses unwilling farming, animated salves, and lawn-based characterization.

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Grand_Moff_Pony’s “Ciphers”

01 Friday Jan 2016

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There’s no secret to the quality of today’s story — just a gripping look at the secrets of a mare facing a life-changing decision.

ciphersCiphers
[Drama] [Romance] [Slice of Life] [Tragedy] • 6,110 words

Untold luxury and wealth. A place in high society. A life full of the finer things. All this and more await Fleur, but at what cost?

Now, Fleur must decide: Is love worth nothing, or is it a secret worthy of sacrifice? Can she be the mare she is and the mare she has to be?

A cipher, after all, can be anything — or nothing at all.

FROM THE CURATORS: This story came to us via multiple recommendations in our story suggestion thread — and it was easy to see why.  “The writing is gorgeous,” Chris said.  “Pleasantly full of detail without falling into overlong rambling, it nicely mirrored the opulence of the setting.”  Horizon similarly praised the way the story grounded itself in detail: “All the little motions and mementos bring Fleur to life.”

That writing was in service of a story far afield from the show’s usual fare.  “This is a great piece, full of drama and romance and upper-class tragedy,” Present Perfect said.  “We get Fleur on the eve of an arranged marriage, barely pulling off the adoring trophy wife routine while desperately trying to hang onto the last vestiges of the life that once made her happy.”  We found Grand_Moff_Pony’s treatment of that premise unexpectedly captivating.  “Stories about the tribulations of the exceedingly wealthy have never really resonated with me … so it’s doubly impressive that I enjoyed it so much,” Chris said. “She’s faced with a choice where there’s no good answer, but her decision makes her feel more real — more flawed — than having her either bet on love or try to make a ‘noble sacrifice’ would have.”

It wasn’t just Fleur’s characterization that we appreciated.  “Even though her lover spends most of the story offscreen, their relationship is vibrant and moving,” Horizon said, and Present Perfect agreed: “She’s characterized well, and she’s got really good chemistry with the OC brought in to be her paramour.”  And the setting itself came to life in much the same manner.  “What really struck me was the sense of ‘negative space’ in the story, the feeling of emptiness, isolation, and echoing stillness — I don’t think Fleur moves more than a handful of steps throughout the entire piece,” AugieDog said.  “It surrounds her and her mementos in a very effective way.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Grand_Moff_Pony discusses cardboard starships, on-screen level-ups, and over 9000 moments.
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Feo Takahari’s “How Equestria Was Made”

02 Friday Oct 2015

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In today’s story, reach back to the fundamental core of My Little Pony: The fertile imagination of horse-loving children.

how-equestriaHow Equestria Was Made
[Tragedy] [Sad] [Human] • 14,778 words

The base and the glass are no different from any other snow globe, but it holds an endless void inside it. When two young sisters jokingly request for it to show them its magic, it gives them the power to fill it as they please. Within that dimension, they might as well be goddesses–but to the world at large, they’re still confused, frightened children.

The younger sister, bitter and lonely, thinks it’s a chance to make a better world than our own. The elder sister just feels responsible for protecting the innocent pastel quadrupeds they’ve created. But can two children really be the goddesses the pony race needs? And when monsters begin to threaten the ponies, what must the sisters sacrifice to create the Equestria they dream of?

FROM THE CURATORS: We speak from experience when we say that this story will surprise you.  “I’ve just never seen a creation fic done like this before,” Present Perfect said.  “I’ve seen humans as princess-goddesses, I’ve seen Celestia and Luna make Equestria, but this is in a league of its own.”

Even though How Equestria Was Made quickly earned comparisons to our previous feature In The Place The Wild Horses Sleep, the surface similarities — children’s imagination letting them construct and enter a magical land of ponies — conceal a wealth of surprising yet smooth worldbuilding.  “Far too often, we see ‘six virtues’ crop up in a creation story and know where things are headed, and yet not once did I suspect that was the path the narrative was taking us on,” Present Perfect said, and Horizon agreed: “The story kept surprising me (in positive ways) with its mythological choices.  The tale of Brunhild and Hearth Flame by itself makes this worthy of a feature.”  Chris cited another of the story’s many novelties: “The entire Nightmare Moon reveal and resolution wasn’t just powerful, it was surprising and original, too.”

But there was more here to like than just clever ideas, such as the authenticity of the children’s portrayal.  “The relationship between the two sisters struck me as very real,” AugieDog said. “The way the two of them come together with all their faults and virtues to create, nurture, and interact with Equestria reminded me of a much more serious version of the ‘let’s pretend’ games my siblings and I used to play.”  Serious indeed, as Horizon pointed out: “It deals effectively with some very adult questions of responsibility.”

What all that added up to was a small fic successfully executing on big themes.  “This is really making me reconsider the relationship between fanfic, reader and author,” Present Perfect said.  And while not every scene worked for every curator, “the ending blew any doubts I had right out of the water,” Chris said. “Here’s an author that mined genuine pathos from a couple of girls making ponies with a magic snow-globe.  That’s amazing.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Feo Takahari discusses flowing stresses, memory lapses, and everything from Lemony Snicket to lemons.

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IceOfWaterflock’s “The Mare Who Fell In Love With The Wind”

07 Friday Aug 2015

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Although today’s story is a tragedy, you can fall in love with it without any regrets.

mare-who-fellThe Mare Who Fell In Love With The Wind
[Romance] [Tragedy] • 3,806 words

Once upon a time, a Princess was alone in her crystal palace, and she sang to the wind in her sorrow. But when the wind is a Windigo, the wind sings back.

FROM THE CURATORS: The first thing you’ll notice about this multi-part fic is its small size — six chapters in less than 4,000 words — and that was one of the factors that turned our heads.  “This story shows how to do more with less,” Chris said. “It’s a bare, almost spartan storytelling style, and I thought it did a great job of showing the strengths of that type of writing.”  Horizon agreed: “IceOfWaterflock shows a deft touch in keeping us flipping the page.  This is exceptionally economical storytelling.”

What that storytelling skill presented was, in JohnPerry’s words, “a genuinely engaging story with a classic star-crossed lovers premise and a great fairy tale feel in places.”  While — as Present Perfect noted — “the fairy tale structure really helps it along,” it went beyond those roots.  Chris’ nomination offered an idea of the breadth it was able to pack in: “Even as it builds a fairytale romance, spins a history of the Crystal Empire, and speculates on the nature of windigoes, this slim fic doesn’t resort to clunky exposition or asides.”

The core fairy tale, meanwhile, inspired several comparisons to the classics.  “This is the Brothers Grimm version of the Fall of the Crystal Empire,” Horizon said.  “It’s almost ‘Biblical Monsters‘ dark — and it’s made a hell of a lot darker with a little fridge thought about what canon shows us in modern times — but it carries its own weight.”  AugieDog went even further back: “With so much of the show being inspired by Greek myth, I’m surprised to think that this might be the first fanfic I’ve seen that really visits that same well.  And that it’s sort of a pony version of ‘Iphigenia in Aulis‘ just makes me grin.”

Read on for our author interview, in which IceOfWaterflock discusses therapeutic stories, immortal robots, and Bermuda Triangle dragons.
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Stereo_Sub’s “RUN”

04 Friday Jul 2014

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Today’s story is, quite simply, poetry in motion.

RUNRUN
[Romance] [Tragedy] [Alternate Universe] • 6,647 words

We were the summer-sunset-wind, warm and wild and untouchable.

We were rulers of a crumbled-down kingdom, prince-and-princess of the sandstone sky.

We were long-day shadows, stretching ourselves dark and blurry past our breaking points and more.

We were pulsing breath-and-blood, flowing fast through veins of buildings and wide-open spaces.

We were rebels rivals friends lovers runners…

Until that moment, that second, when it all fell away.

FROM THE CURATORS: “It’s about an adult Scootaloo and her boyfriend living a high-stakes life of parkour and not giving a f**k about anything,” Present Perfect said when introducing this story to us. And while there was some disagreement on how to summarize it — “It’s about two ponies who can’t live lives where they’re whole, and can’t survive being broken,” Horizon suggested — what we immediately agreed on was the gripping power of the prose.

“This piece marinates in style.  It’s featurable for its narration alone,” Horizon said.  Present Perfect agreed: “The words are thrown like knives, but they’re all on target and everything is just so tight.  This is the first fic I’ve read since White Box that makes good use of textual gimmickry, and the effect is wonderfully kinetic.”  That gimmick — lines with single words shifting the visual direction of the text — “was very well done,” JohnPerry said.  “It never felt hokey in its execution, which is a feat in and of itself.”

But even beyond the surface flash, this found ways to delight us.  “It packed an emotional punch with a very minimalist style,” JohnPerry said. “It takes the ‘Scootaloo as cripple’ idea and actually does something clever with it, and the characters are strangely engaging.”  Though the Alternate Universe tag is well-deserved, that gave it the breathing room to build itself into one of the most approachably literary stories we’ve reviewed.  “The author needs to get off this site and go write a Pulitzer-winning novel,” Present Perfect said, though we’re quite grateful for the ponyfic in the meantime.

Read on for our author interview, in which Stereo_Sub discusses invisible monsters, mutual catharsis, and nocturnal productivity.
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Horse Voice’s “Biblical Monsters”

10 Friday Jan 2014

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Today’s story is a controversial, yet powerful look at a meeting of cultures gone horribly wrong.

biblical-monstersBiblical Monsters
[Tragedy] [Dark] [Human] • 10,947 words

At 3:15 AM, Adams woke me with a loud knock on my front door.

“Put your boots on,” he said when I answered. “There’s a biblical monster in my house.”

FROM THE CURATORS: As a glance through the story’s overflowing comments section will show you, this is a piece which is not afraid to be thought-provoking.  Its final chapters take a swerve from quiet tension into some of the most unflinching Dark fiction in the fandom.  What makes Biblical Monsters remarkable is how effectively it supports that twist.  “Horse Voice did a great job setting up his character and motivations to make the ending a tragically logical inevitability,” Chris said. Benman added: “The clues were there all along.  The core themes and conflicts are constant throughout.”

We all agreed that the story, in Chris’ words, “practically screams ‘literary.'”  The quality of the writing is exemplary.  Benman went even further: “I decided a while ago to limit my FIMFic favorites list to ten stories. This is currently one of them.”

Read on for our interview, in which Horse Voice discusses thematic twists, anonymous villains, and lessons learned while handling controversy.
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