News Archive

  • 180 weeks
    MSPiper’s “Autumnfall Change” [Royal Canterlot Library]

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


    Autumnfall 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.

    Read More

    6 comments · 9,150 views
  • 194 weeks
    TCC56's "Glow In The Dark, Shine In The Sun" [Royal Canterlot Library]

    A villain might just have a bright future in today's story.


    Glow In The Dark, Shine In The Sun
    [Equestria Girls] [Drama] [Slice of Life] • 27,035 words

    Despite all attempts, Cozy Glow still hasn't been shown a path to friendship. No pony has been able to get through to her, and she's only gotten worse with each attempt.

    Reluctant to return the filly to stone again, Princess Twilight has one last option. One pony she hasn't tried. Or in this case? One person.

    Sunset Shimmer.

    Can Sunset do what no pony has been able to?

    Read More

    10 comments · 9,345 views
  • 196 weeks
    The Red Parade's "never forever" [Royal Canterlot Library]

    Today's story never says never.


    never forever
    [Sad] [Slice of Life] • 1,478 words

    Lightning Dust will never be a Wonderbolt. When she left the Academy, she swore she'd never look back. When the Washouts disbanded, she swore she'd forget about them.

    Yet after all these years, against all odds, she finds herself here. At a Wonderbolts show. Just on the wrong side of the glass.

    Read More

    20 comments · 8,140 views
  • 201 weeks
    Freglz's "Nothing Left to Lose" [Royal Canterlot Library]

    Don't lose out on today's story.


    Nothing Left to Lose
    [Drama] [Sad] • 6,367 words

    Some things can't be changed.

    Starlight believes otherwise.

    FROM THE CURATORS: One might be forgiven for thinking that after nine years of MLP (and fanfic), there's nothing left to explore on such well-trodden ground as changeling redemption — but there are still stories on the topic which are worthy of turning heads.  "Though the show seems to have moved past it as a possibility, the question of whether and how Queen Chrysalis could be reformed alongside the other changelings still lingers in the fandom's consciousness," Present Perfect said in his nomination. "In comes Freglz, with a solidly reasoned story that combines the finales of seasons 5 and 6 and isn't afraid to let the question hang."

    Read More

    26 comments · 7,558 views
  • 203 weeks
    Somber's "Broken Record" [Royal Canterlot Library]

    Today's story puts all the pieces together.

    (Ed. note: Some content warnings apply to this interview, regarding current world circumstances and mentions of suicidal ideation.)


    Broken Record
    [Drama] [Slice of Life] • 7,970 words

    There has never been an athlete like Rainbow Dash. The sprints. The marathons. The land speed record. She held them all.

    Until she didn't.

    Until she had only one left... and met the pony that might take it from her...

    Read More

    11 comments · 5,358 views
  • 205 weeks
    jakkid166's "Detective jakkid166 in everything" [Royal Canterlot Library]

    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.

    Read More

    171 comments · 9,625 views
  • 207 weeks
    Mannulus' "Sassy Saddles Meets Sasquatch" [Royal Canterlot Library]

    Today's story is a rare find.


    Sassy Saddles Meets Sasquatch
    [Comedy] [Random] • 5,886 words

    The legend is known throughout Equestria, but there are few who believe. Those who claim to have seen the beast are dismissed as crackpots and madponies. Those who bring evidence before the world are dismissed as histrionic deceivers. There are those who have seen, however -- those who know -- and they will forever cry out their warning from the back seats of filthy, old train cars, even to those who dismiss them, who revile them, who ignore their warnings unto their own mortal peril.

    "The sasquatch is real!" they will cry forevermore, even as nopony believes.

    But from this day forward, Sassy Saddles will believe.

    Read More

    16 comments · 6,209 views
  • 209 weeks
    SheetGhost’s “Moonlight Vigil” [Royal Canterlot Library]

    Take a closer look into tonight’s story.


    Moonlight Vigil
    [Tragedy] • 3,755 words

    Bitter from her defeat and exile, the Mare in the Moon watches Equestria move on without her.

    Read More

    1 comments · 4,852 views
  • 211 weeks
    Unwhole Hole's "The Murder of Elrod Jameson" [Royal Canterlot Library]

    Today's story is some killer noir.

    [Adult story embed hidden]

    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.

    Read More

    14 comments · 5,342 views
  • 213 weeks
    Grimm's "Don't Open the Door" [Royal Canterlot Library]

    Today's story lingers like the curling mist in a dark forest.


    Don't Open the Door
    [Dark][Horror] • 13,654 words

    After an expedition into the Everfree Forest ends in disaster, Applejack and Rainbow Dash take refuge in an abandoned cabin until morning.

    This is probably a poor decision, but it's only one night, after all. How bad could it be?

    FROM THE CURATORS: "I don't care much for horror stories," AugieDog mused. "But this one does so much right, I found myself really impressed." Present Perfect thought it was "simply one of the best horror stories I've ever read," and Soge agreed "one-hundred percent" that "this is pitch-perfect horror from beginning to end."

    Read More

    8 comments · 4,657 views
Jan
17th
2015

Author Interview » Daetrin's "Apotheosis" [Royal Canterlot Library] · 12:26am Jan 17th, 2015

Today's story is a fandom classic about a journey of discovery — both of the mind and of the heart.


Apotheosis

[Romance] [Adventure] • 46,300 words

When Twilight is sent with Luna on a diplomatic mission to Draconia, they quickly find themselves somewhere that doesn't appear on any map, and Luna is lost in more than one way...

FROM THE CURATORS: Although Apotheosis — which is a sequel to the Pony Fiction Vault-featured Off The Edge Of The Map, but features different characters and a standalone plotline — was written in the early days of the fandom, it quickly became clear that it had stood the test of time.  "This one had been on my read later list for ages, and I finally plowed through it the past couple of days. And I gotta say... wow," JohnPerry said.

While we had some hot debate over the story's handling of its central romance, there was one issue on which we were unanimous. "You can't swing a hoof in this story without hitting some truly sublime worldbuilding," Horizon said.  Chris agreed — "It's got some of the best, most evocative worldbuilding of any fic I've read" — and JohnPerry piled on further superlatives: "These are some of the most vividly described and original settings I've ever seen in a fanfic."

The exemplary construction of the world and its characters — "the basilisk and ouroboros especially," Present Perfect pointed out — solidly earned this one its feature, but there was a great deal to like beyond that.  "The final chapter is epic as hell," Present Perfect said.  Horizon praised "the great thematic contrast between Twilight and Luna, reinforcing the long road to redemption Luna has to walk," and Chris said that "Daetrin's language use is excellent. … This isn't just scenery porn.  This fic was a pleasure to read, through and through."

Read on for our author interview, in which Daetrin discusses silent demons, dancing angels, and seasons of madness.


Give us the standard biography.

Well, I’m a thirty-year-old programmer with a background in Materials Science and Engineering.  Who writes ponies and original fiction too!  I have a fantasy novel out, and I’m working on a sci-fi one (though admittedly, Cartography has slowed my progress on it).

How did you come up with your handle/penname?

I saw the dualistic cover of C.S. Friedman’s The Madness Season and thought it was awesome so I stole the name.  And now I’ve been using it for over a decade so I’m really unlikely to change. 

Who's your favorite pony?

Proooooobably Celestia at this point.  It’s wandered as I’ve done writing though.  The very first time I was exposed to MLP it was RD, slid over to Fluttershy, flopped over and stuck on Twilight, vacillated toward Luna, and then latched onto Celestia as I considered Triptych.

What's your favorite episode?

Hard to say, but "Cutie Mark Chronicles" remains very watchable for me. 

What do you get from the show?

Mostly I really enjoy a narrative with an optimistic outlook that isn’t portrayed as hopelessly naive.  Too much fiction these days is the dull slog of cynicism masquerading as maturity, lacking any wonder at all.

What do you want from life?

Ask the hard questions, why don’t you?  To be happy and make others happy, I think.

Why do you write?

See above.  Partly because I enjoy telling various kinds of stories, and partly because I think other people enjoy reading the stories I write.

What advice do you have for the authors out there?

Read.  Read some more.  Keep going.  I’ll tell you when to stop (hint: never).  Seriously, the most useful education I got for writing was doing analysis in STEM, not anything in any literature or writing course.  Most of my concepts of how writing worked came from digesting some very talented authors (Roger Zelazny, Lois McMaster Bujold, CJ Cherryh, to name a few).  And writing.  Compare how terrible my early works are to my later ones.  I get less terrible as I go!

Where there any specific inspirations for the key characters or setpieces of the story — the Hungry Wind, the basilisk, or the rest?

The hungry wind was — although some people may not believe this — not inspired by Dr. Who’s "Silence in the Library" or Machiin Shin from Wheel of Time.  It was more inspired by classic folklore, as you can see when Luna talks about it, saying “brothers of the biting wind and the scouring wind.”  I started with “Wind as an enemy” and it went from there.

Tozomuc is a character who actually is recycled from a prior incarnation, though only in the most vague terms.  I mentioned Zelazny before — his thing is the flawed superhuman.  Not in the sense of a comic book superhero, but in the more Nietzschean ubermensch kind of way.  I liked that so much I started thinking about those lines and ended up with a few themes that play out more in Triptych and Cartography but are visible in Apotheosis.  One is gods, but the other is of defeated villains.  What happens to them after the “the end.”  So, Tozomuc.

Since the story was mostly a character study of Luna, pretty much everything I came up with was related in some way to her, though it was part of the continuity of the world I’d been building, like the ouroboros god for the dragons, or the horrible thing that happened in the Everfree Forest that day.

The entire Equestrian Dreamtime is, of course, inspired by the Australian Aboriginal namesake which is so incredibly fascinating I cannot do it justice.  I also took a little bit of inspiration from Aztec mythology, so far as feel goes.

How do you balance continuity with accessibility while writing a sequel?  How do you think this story would be different if it weren’t a sequel?

I’ve done it different for different stories.  For Apotheosis, very little was required — Scar is, more or less, the only point of continuity and that takes two paragraphs of explanation.  So I didn’t much worry about the entry cost.  Triptych directly follows from Apotheosis, so Apotheosis is required reading.  But I feel so long as your world is consistent, even if you enter partway through a series, you can pick up on the assumptions made even if you don’t know the details of the backstory.

A lot of our discussion of this fic centered around Twilight and Luna’s relationship — whether it was healthy or not, and what the two characters’ motives were for their relationship.  How do you think each of them thinks about their relationship as the fic progresses?

Ahhh yeah, the romance was not as well done as I would have liked.  Ah well, that’s the cost of not knowing everything when you write.

I’ll start by saying no relationship is equal.  Reciprocal yes, equal no.  If I wanted to condense my view of the TwiLuna relationship down to a pithy quote it would be this: Luna needs someone to silence her demons, and Twilight needs someone to dance with her angels.

If you keep the characters...well, in-character, Twilight is sufficient unto herself.  Yes, she has friends, but she isn’t incomplete without them.  Luna, on the other hand, does seem to be lacking.  This has been somewhat ameliorated by later episodes, but not that much.  Keep in mind Apotheosis was written almost in its entirety (all but the last chapter and epilogue I think) before the Nightmare Night episode.

So Luna, ultimately, needs someone to prop her up.  Twilight, though, doesn’t.  What she would most benefit from is someone who can keep up with her and even challenge her.  She’s extraordinarily bright and incredibly powerful, fast-tracked for alicornhood and all-around prodigy.  Luna, by courtesy of immortality and alicornhood, should be able to match wits with her in, if not the jargon angle of things, philosophy and decision-making.

So really, for Luna, it’s recognizing that there’s someone whom she can trust and depend on, and from there Twilight’s virtues are self-evident.

For Twilight, I tried to show the bits that would mesh with Twilight’s proclivities.  Deep knowledge, deep understanding, flashes of humor.

Which is why I ended up making it a “I’ll give this a shot” relationship rather than a “one true wuv!” one at the end of Apotheosis.  Luna was in love, Twilight just had a healthy respect for her and liked her.  There’s also the fact that there was, in fact, shipping all throughout the story, though far more subtle than most people noticed I think.  Perhaps I should have made that more obvious, but, hindsight. 

So I think it’s defensible, though I understand people who feel it’s rather jagged-edged.  I do try to smooth it out in Triptych, but that’s a different story altogether so perhaps that’s somewhat of a cheat.

Do you feel like Celestia’s gambit was justified?  Or rather: without being certain of the ultimate outcome, do you think she did “the right thing?”

Well, that’s actually the entire point of Triptych.

Okay, not the entire point but ties into one of the main themes that drives it.

No, it wasn’t justified.  It was base manipulation.  Did she do the right thing?  I think she did a right thing.  It’s a complicated situation (especially as you learn more about the gods in Triptych) to which there are no easy answers.

Do you have any advice on how to write compelling settings and locations?

A few.  One is, don’t be afraid to raise questions you don’t answer.  I’ve had some (good-natured) flak for doing this in OTEOTM, but if you just say “This is the forest where you can never mention your name or else it gets eaten and you no longer have a name” and be satisfied with that, that’s a compelling location.  It raises a lot of questions just with its existence that you don’t have to answer.

Another is to take a close look at reality.  Reality has a lot of exotic locations and exotic cultures that you can completely steal for fiction, or at worst only mildly alter them.

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Zelazny wrote an essay called “The Parts That Are Only Glimpsed: Three Reflexes.”  It’s short, and I recommend it.  It had significant impact on me both for what it suggests and how it suggests it (i.e., not as immutable rules but ways of thinking about things).

And if you enjoyed OTEOTM and Apotheosis and Triptych, do try Cartography of War.  I recognize that it’s OCs and thus not half as compelling, but I’m trying to write something with the adventure smoothness of OTEOTM with the thematic focus of Apotheosis (on gryphon and pony culture rather than a person, though), and it will tie in eventually to that continuity.

You can read Apotheosis at FIMFiction.net. Read more interviews right here at the Royal Canterlot Library, or suggest stories for us to feature at our Fimfiction group.

Report PresentPerfect · 2,215 views ·
Comments ( 12 )
PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

Hey, guys! RCL posts will be coming a bit later in the day than they have been, for a while, on account of my temp job. Won't change the post date, though!

RBDash47
Site Blogger

2727443
HOW DARE YOU

AHA! YOU DIDN'T FIND SOMETHING I HAVE OPEN IN MY 200 ODD TABS THIS TIME. VICTORY IS MINE!

#4 · Jan 17th, 2015 · · ·

Truly fascinating stuff I'll give a read.

Pff. Deatrin, Cartography is amazing.
2727964
200? Ouch. I have 25.

2728348

Its all good, its all pony related one way or another, mostly stories from FimFiction

An original fiction? Cool! I'm writing an original fiction myself. How scared should I be about the publishing process?

2730385 If you self-publish with amazon (which is what I did, mostly because I don't like the way publishers treat IP rights), then you mostly need to worry about formatting your file to their standards which is a pain. Everything else associated with it is relatively straightforward.

Oh, a Zelazny fan! There's a name I don't hear very often. Lord of Light remains one of my all-time favorites. So much delicious worldbuilding.

Wow, it's almost hard to imagine that Dae is still around. I remember when he helped me (under another name) with my very first ever written fiction work. A class guy, and a fantastic writing companion.

2727443
Jobs, pffff. More trouble than they're worth.
*looks plaintively at the clock*
:applejackunsure:

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

2741874
Oh, that reminds me...

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