It's going to be The Immortal Game · 11:40pm Aug 27th, 2015
As promised, I've chosen the story I'll be liveblogging here over the coming weeks. It wasn't easy to pick a story from the shortlist, but the fic I've selected is The Immortal Game by AestheticB. I'll start sometime next week, and posts will be made on this 'ere blog until I finish all 297,000 words of the thing. (Gulp.) In my first post, I'll (again) steal Soap Box's idea and see what I can come up with in terms of predictions, based solely on the cover art, the story description and my wild guesses. My ability to get these things wildly wrong should lighten the mood a bit!
Why did I choose this fic? First, because it looks a bit on the grimdark side (though it is T-rated) and so I've kept putting off reading it; hopefully having some of you guys to read it with me will give me a bit of a push. Second, because Chris gave it a four-star review (I know nothing about said review beyond that rating). And third, because I'm fed up with the show's lack of Celestia this season and this is a story that has a Celestia character tag! Even if she turns out to be wildly evil and destroys the universe, it'll be better than nothing. 
Oh, and though I'm sure I don't have to say this: please, no spoilers! You can hint that such-and-such a thing may become important later, of course. But I'd really prefer not to get any "Twilight gets wings and becomes an alicorn princess"-type spoilers.
Loganberry gets wing and becomes an alicorn princess.
3351994 Things that have already happened aren't spoilers. :P
3352028 you have wings and Earth pony strength?
Psh, that's not even half a Fallout: Equestria. :B Piece of cake.
3352070 I didn't say I was a very accurate alicorn princess.
3352084 It's also shorter than WInning Pony, so I suppose I should indeed find it a breeze.
3352116
That's the spirit. :D
Really looking forward to this!
I've been planning on reading The Immortal Game for a while, so this shall be fun!
3352651 3353151 Yay, more people to point it out when I miss the central point of the entire story!
Kind of Grimdark? More than kind of, at least in places. The evil mind control stuff alone.
Wait, is that a spoiler even if I didn't say who was doing it to who?
3357941 Nah, you're fine -- the long description makes that much pretty clear. ("Twilight Sparkle is trapped inside her own mind, slave to a cruel and impulsive consciousness...") Still, I got through Fallout: Equestria and those alternative Hard Reset stories. I expect I'll cope, even if it's not a barrel of laughs.
3357959
True. Compared to those it's not all that bad. Oh, and I was referring to the other evil mind control stuff besides what happens to Twilight.
Quick question. You going to put back/forward links into each blog about it? Doing multi-post things for the big master list is always tricky.
3358007 I intend to do a summary post right at the end, which will contain a potted review, including star rating. That will be posted on Louder Yay as well, so if you're looking for a "review" post to link to, that'll be the one.
I will try to include back/forward links anyway, though, and/or a contents page like the one Soap Box has set up.
And I was imagining it wouldn't just be Twilight. The story's too long for it to work if nobody else gets evilly mind-controlled. :P
3358067
Neat! Though I probably won't be getting around to adding it to the list for a while. Sooo backed up with the list.
3358081 Yeah, I noticed that on your blog! No worries -- it's quite a backlog you have there. :P