The Absolute Best of Heartstrings - Shelf 1 · 7:20pm February 26th
Hiya, lovely peeps!
I love the written word. I love books and fanficiton and blogs; I just love reading in general. When I first picked up reading in 2016, I expected stories to be just that - stories. There’s a plot, characters do this and that, reach climax and end plot. I didn’t know that ‘themes’ and ‘depth’ and ‘feels’ were ever in those stories.
I’ve never been glad to more wrong.
Heartstrings is there to honor to those fics that are less fics and more works of beauty. Where the author delves deep into a character’s mind or uses the franchise to explore a particular theme or viewpoint. When I’m done reading those stories, I cry or smile or just lay there thinking deeply. Bottom line is, those stories make me feel. The authors managed to turn fanfiction into poetry and invoke something in me. Whenever possible, I leave a comment.
In less poetic terms, Heartstrings is for the touchy-feely.
I would like to give a shout-out to The Choices We Make by Monochromatic, who is the entire reason I created this shelf. And this before I had genre bookshelves. I also would like to shout-out Exilium by Fresnow, who is my last entry into the first shelf.
With that out of the way, let’s discuss the highlights!
The Absolute Best of Heartstrings
Turning the written word into a work of art, these fics are so much more than that. They are literary masterpieces created by literary geniuses. If your work is here, then congratulations, youʼve crafted something truly deep and beautiful.
The story’s title, cover art and description are incredibly deceptive. On the surface, it’s a story about an average pony going through the motions. Beyond the surface, though? It’s an exploration about missed opportunities, the boring repetition of life, and how easy it is to do better.
Average Statistic, our protagonist and viewpoint character, is as mundane and plain as they get. His life is riddled with several small inconveniences, which he can’t - nay, he won’t - ever bring himself to fix. There’s a crack in his ceiling, his cabinet’s broken, his sink is piling with dirty dishes and he leaves them all be. He won’t talk to his crush at work, won’t stop for two seconds to donate to the pony on the street and won’t visit the local bakery despite his desire to. He’s stuck, in a way, in his routine, in the mundanity and mediocrity of his life and refuses to so much as budge. If he makes even the slightest change, he would be so much happier.
But he never will.
All this coats the story in a layer of sadness and tragedy that makes an otherwise ordinary story a piece of art.
I love a good villain protagonist fic as much as the next person, and this one delivers.
Spilt into three parts - present, past and then present again - the story contrasts Cozy’s obsessive need for control in the present with her crippling lack of control in the past. What I love about this is that the backstory given for Cozy isn’t overly complicated or incredibly messed up. Cozy Glow is your normal average filly; she just has insanely overbearing parents. Her parents push her and push her to the point where she snaps. Like I said, her lust for power is an overcompensation for the lack of power she had when she lived with her parents. It also explains why Cozy doesn’t behave like a child; her parents never allowed her to be one.
I also really like her cutie mark story, and the double meaning it has. On the outside, it looks like she got her cutie mark by being good at chess. In reality, she got the mark when she felt power and control for the first time.
Cozy is so well-written here. I love how we’re really pulled into her mind and we get to really understand her feelings and thoughts. She’s evil, alright. Undeniably so. She’s a villain which troubling unchildlike behavior, but she’s a villain with depth. And I love that.
This list is by alphabetical order, but if it was ranked according to my favorites, this one would be first.
It was explicitly written as a treatise, so by definition, it was always going to be deep. The premise is as follows: Princess Twilight falls down in the middle of a battle with the latest threat. And as she’s down, she thinks and reflects. She reflects a lot. About her her job as ruler of the nation, her duty as hero of the nation and everything in between.
As several commentators and reviewers have said, the story is less story and more introspection. Twilight’s job is hard, harder than you could ever imagine. She’s tired all the time, and despite all the good she’s done, she’ll never get her reward in the form of rest. She knows this, and the villain she’s fighting knows this, too.
But through it all, she soldiers on. Stands up and fights another day, despite seeing no end in sight. This resolve is pitch-perfect Twilight characterization. Not a single word in the entire story is wasted, giving us the chance to truly explore the inner workings of Twilight’s psyche. And it’s glorious. I know I’m repeating words here, but seriously. Just give it a chance; promise you won’ regret it.
Short, yet heavy and deep, Still, Like Dust manages to hit you where it hurts.
And now we get to the first, and only, Equestria Girls fic on this list.
Set mere hours after the end of the first movie, The Hand of Friendship tells the tale of Sunset Shimmer’s first hours of her redemption as she attempts to repair the giant hole she blew in the wall. The fic is part introspection and part actual story and is set purely Sunset’s perspective.
It’s very evocative. Incredible manages to pull us into the mind of a Sunset who has just been punched by a magical rainbow. To put it simply: Sunset Shimmer is broken. Broken by her defeat, broken by her failure to achieve her goals, broken by the realization that friendship is magic, and broken by how bleak her future looks. The story hits all of her feelings: guilt, sadness, anger, loss of self along with a good heaping of self-hate. She’s there, busy fixing her mistakes and wallowing in her own misery, content with suffering the consequences of her actions.
Until Rainbow Dash shows up.
I love the way Incredible writes Dash here. She’s sassy, witty and blunt to a fault. But she’s also sensitive, sorta wise and faithful. She approaches Sunset, offers to help her and gives good advice. More importantly, she relates to Sunset. She’s a source of comfortable warmth; a pillar for Sunset to lean on. Also freakin’ love how the narration changes from ‘Rainbow Dash’ to ‘Rainbow’ towards the end of the story, as a reflection of the girls’ newfound friendship.
Excellent work, Incredible.
Our last story on the list is well-known and well-appreciated, but no less amazing.
The first half of the fic details the Thief. It explains who she is, the details of what to led to her knowing about the crown, why and how she got into the palace and everything in between. It’s very descriptive; the Thief sneaks around the candle, and we are treated to a wealth of information about the Palace and the princesses. It’s less what the place looks like and more the feeling of grandeur that it gives. Then, the tone shifts towards describing the criminal underworld of Equestria, expanding beautifully on the lore of the show.
The second half is my favorite. The Thief reaches her target and, just as she’s about to claim her prize, Princess Twilight catches her. This is when the story’s first, and only, conversation happens. Muramasa takes a vastly different approach to the Princess compared to the show and other fics I’ve read - here, the Princess is wise, sage and incredibly diplomatic. We launch into a deep discussion about cutie marks, destiny and, unsurprisingly, forgiveness. Naturally, the Princess offers advice and lets the Thief go. But the conversation they have is handled so well; I love it.
All in all, this is incredibly well-executed.
That’s it for the highlights, but I also wanted to give some honorable mentions.
(Remember, Heartstrings has 100 stories, and I did mention only five stories. That doesn’t seem fair, so I’m going to give some love to a few more.)
Heartstrings Honorable Mentions - Romance
Heartstrings by evelili
The Light and the Solid by EileenSaysHi
The Fault In Our Tender Hearts by TCC56Heartstrings Honorable Mentions - Sad & Tragedy
Discord Writes a Letter by 8_Bit
Tired by Kodeake
Tomorrow by Roundabout RecluseHeartstrings Honorable Mentions - Dark
Cozy’s Glowpinions by Casketbase77
Hate Me, Hold Me by Scampy
The Itch by Voxum
And now weʼre done!
Thank you so much, lovely peeps, for reading all my reviews. And thank you, wonderful authors, for giving us such wonderful pieces to enjoy!
See yaʼll around!
