What follows was initially going to be my argument for the Dredgemane arc of Shortskirtsandexplosions' epic: The End of Ponies as the best of the story arcs thus far completed. The detail of the post will probably not interest most of you, but I felt a blog post would fit the massive thing better than clogging up the comments section of a story by friend of mine. Red Wings. So, here's the thing in full: (I suppose the very last paragraph acts as a sort of tl;dr since I attempt to summarize my position, but I added some things I never got to in the body of the post, so it's more a conclusion and final challenge than a summary.)

>>1226475 (See replied comments)
All right, if you insist. I'll go into it, but not right now. At least, not all the way right now, but I will preface my argument. (Or that was my intention, but once I got started, I just kept going... and going.)

Each arc of End of Ponies has used a different device. In the expository/introductory arc, the majority of the story comes as world-building. Then we reach the first real change when Scoot goes after the green flame in ponyville. From this point on we've really entered the core of the End of Ponies story. Everything up to and including that first trip back in time really just sets the stage for us. It establishes most of the differences we should expect from this Scootaloo and what we see in the show--how she's changed and evolved over the 25 or so years since the Cataclysm. (If I remember right, we also learn about all the different Alicorn goddesses near the end of this arc.)

When we reach the Applejack arc, the story is a direct narrative. Much like first arc, but there are fewer (if any. I haven't read it in a while) journal entries, and we get to learn about how the Apple family works in the EoPverse. We learn about the relationship between ponies and the earth, and we learn about trolls. The story flows smoothly and quickly, and finally Harmony saves Apple Bloom, and the narrative shifts slightly, given us a view from the Apples' point of view. The visiting goddess of time is gone, and it's assumed they go about their lives. It's possible that AJ mentions Harmony to her friends, and the mythos/self-fulfilling nature of the opening flashback of the story is building. Now Scoot is back in the future and realizes she's learned nothing about why the Cataclysm happened. She's frustrated, but calms down as she prepares for her next trip. That brings us to the next arc.

In the Fluttershy Arc (Honestly, my least favorite, which I'll elaborate upon shortly.) the main device is a series of flashbacks that are all tied together. In fact, it's less a simple flashback, and more a story within a story, Circles within circles. The two sets of events are intertwined tightly together, and when the arc ends we see exactly how the causal relationship works. Scoot has had a direct impact on her own life again/for the first time. (Remember Rainbow Dash mentioning Harmony in the beginning? And ignoring the fact that she named her airship after herself or vice-versa.) Anyway, back to the beginning of the arc, this is the first time Scootaloo has to work to reach the remains of her+Spike's friends and it opens up the possibility, even the likelihood, that it's going to be harder and harder to even get to the past. (Because that's how stories usually work.) She has to go deep into the briar--a dismal place that is presumably one of the most dangerous of the Wastelands-- in pursuit of a skeleton. She gets the remains, and has to use the stored breath as her means of escape from the adult Ursa. (was it still a Minor because of some cosmic thing? If not, Major)

We make it to the past and the first thing we see is Dinky, who it appears saw our time traveler appear from thin air. Moving along, Fluttershy is charged with finding the Capricorn, and Harmony, feeling for her, and anchored to her in any case, volunteers to assist her. They begin searching the Everfree forest, and things... slow... down... Here is the weakest part of the story. (imo) Much of the time spent searching through the forest is filled--so we're not bored to death with the two walking endlessly through trees, or think the task is too easy--with the flashback story of young Scootaloo. It's just hard to care about the annoying little squirt when we're used to the more mature version. Granted, the two stories tie together quite nicely, and overall, I don't dislike the arc, it's just my least favorite. Enough happens in both stories to keep you interested and to keep the plot progressing, and once the Capricorn baby comes fully into play things get really interesting. The tension builds up and we get all sorts of mental candy to chew on as the possessed Dinky spouts utter nonsense combined with poignant truths. Things build up and Harmony has to race against the clock to save the lives of the filly and infant cosmic being. (The whole racing against the clock thing kind of repeats itself in every arc so far, but hey, there's only so much you can do that's new.) Finally Scoot ends up going back and getting out of her deadly situation by using the deus-ex-machina of song. Honestly, I don't dislike the scene, but it really strains that disbelief even with all the reasoning and justification in the story. Then we make it to the Dredgemane arc.

The Dredgemane arc opens very differently than the others, and yet the main device of the arc is one we're somewhat familiar with: journal entries. The opening takes place after the main events of the arc, and frames for us the location we're going to be working with for much of the time. Scoot digs through the refuse of the past, remembering where she touched it. It's something new for the story, she's touched her past self before, but now what she did in the past is leaving more of an impact on the Scootaloo of the present. Much as she evolved over the course of the 25 years after the Cataclysm before she found Spike, she is evolving and growing over the course of the story. Each trip back in time has impacted her, and we're beginning to see just how much she's changing. This frames the way the journal entries are going to be used. They're all set after the complete events of the arc, but used to illuminate certain sections in a way that the normally tight narrative could not were it to stay in the relative moment. We then transition to the effective starting point for the arc with Fluttershy's burial. (It's a different story altogether, but I honestly preferred the big "falling" motif from the earlier draft to the way the arc is bookended now. I just think it worked better with pacing.) The beginning of the first chapter is pretty slow. A lot of it doesn't even seem immediately important, and that's a bit of a weakness. Once Scootaloo is fully on the trail for Pinkie's remains, things warm back up to a fair pace.

The information about Ponymonium comes as a bit of a surprise, but it makes sense given what little we know about the EoPverse and canon Equestria around the time of Nightmare Moon's rise to power. I'm led to believe there's a lot more in Skirt's recent story: Saros, but I haven't even read all of that yet, so I can't comment too much. It's a separate story, but helps with world-building in general. The events in Ponymonium are reminiscent of Canterlot, but in a darker, more nightmarish way. Yet, the narrative takes a lighter tone with it (already beginning to embrace a bit of Pinkie Pie) There are some genuinely funny moments throughout the entire End of Ponies epic, but some of the best are in the first two chapters of this arc. The second is kaizo to a degree one can only accept with regards to Pinkie Pie, and if Harmony weren't anchored to her, she wouldn't accept it either. We see the mature, and hardened mare of the Wastelands clash with the jubilant party pony of the Ponyville past, and they act as natural foils. (Each arc has had Harmony act as a foil to the mane six pony involved to a degree, but this is the furthest it's been taken yet.)

Things are certainly different from the preceding arcs, but the story builds into an unstoppable roller-coaster of a thing. There is a long and detailed setup for the city of Dredgemane. This is the one, one MLP fanfic that has made me cry, and even on my second reading I was almost driven to tears. Each domino is gently, and precisely, put into place just so, that when the moment comes, the rest of the arc goes in a rush. You simply don't want to put the story down, and you're barely past the halfway point. The entire scene builds so spectacularly, so dismally, that it is a trip just to remember it all. My goal as I slowly, very slowly, record the audio for this arc is to share just how incredible this particular story is. In fact--I may be speaking out of turn for SS&E here, but--I think one of the biggest things holding back the next part of the story (the Petra story arc that's had at least two nearly complete rewrites) is matching the impact of the Dredgemane story while still treading new ground. Of course, then the whole Background Pony thing came about, and it's wildly more popular than EoP ever was for various reasons.

Now, I've kind of digressed from my point, but to sum it all up (Hopefully without spoiling too much of anything, but mostly the Dredgemane arc): The Dredgemane arc is different from the rest of EoP. It's more philosophical, more emotional, and much, much, more powerful. Even so, it still has the elements from the rest of the story: the action, the taste of the Wasteland world, ponies seen at their best and worst. Hell, the Dredgemane arc is the size of all the rest of it put together, it sure as hell better be as good as the rest of it. I can say that it delivers on that promise. Feel free to disagree, but I doubt you'll ever be able to convince me. By any chance, have I convinced you?