It Is Recommendsday, My Dudes #2 · 6:40pm Mar 31st, 2021

Opening today is a recommend because of excellent timing - Phoenix-born Rising - The Ascension of Sunset Shimmer just came off hiatus to start Book 2 yesterday. And I am giving it an extremely strong plug. This masterpiece by The Voice in the Water originally popped up in the Imposing Sovereigns II contest and was rewritten and expanded starting two months later.

And it is goddamn beautiful.

The story itself is well written, circling around Sunset Shimmer and her adventure of diving into the ritual, mythology and politics of the phoenix-born.

But I'll step back slightly there and first praise the strongest thing about this story: the world-building. Voice does an absolutely stunning job creating a just-alien-enough fantasy world that, while it contains characters and situations mostly familiar to us, creates a wildly different story. The world is deep and detailed, yet still includes a wide range of teases of other things behind the curtain we can't see. It's easily one of the best Alt-U stories on the site and the effort that's gone into it really shows.

Getting back to the story: it oozes style. Packed with sweeping visuals, vibrant characters and a complex (but not incomprehensible) plot, I've been blown away by this story since day 1. It's absolutely a must-read.

TPhoenix-born Rising - The Ascension of Sunset Shimmer

The day of ascension has come. After 300 years, a new phoenix shall hatch, and with that, one child with great potential shall be chosen to be reborn in its flames. But, when a young orphan is chosen, it throws everything into chaos.

The Voice in the Water · 337k words · 553 5 · 8k views

Our second piece today is A Good Sun Day by Waxworks.

An excellent shorter horror/tragedy piece, this story focuses on Marble Pie. Pressured by her family to take a direction in life, she's set up for potential betrothal to a string of local stallions.

All of whom die in terrible accidents.

By coincidence, Marble found a weird flower recently that bloomed from an ember.

I'm not normally one for horror, but this story really hit the center for me. It's particularly good because all of the characters are - at their core - not terrible people and are acting reasonably from their own perspective. (Yes some of the suitors aren't good but they're not mustache-twirling villains either.) The core of the story is around Marble's attempts to live the life she wants and the fast slippery slope she goes down to get it.

It's a tragedy on every front as the poor repressed gal lashes out in the only way she feels she can: lacking the strength to speak, she instead acts. And at the end, everyone regrets it.

It's an understandable tragedy with familiar tones, and I think that's why it hits so well.

TA Good Sun Day

Marble enjoys sculpting rocks, but her father doesn't see that as a lucrative or useful way to live one's life. He thinks she needs to get married. Marble doesn't want to, and will go to great lengths to ensure she won't have to.

Waxworks · 18k words · 63 0 · 1.5k views

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