The Most Dangerous Vote · 9:31pm Jul 18th, 2014
The Most Dangerous Game Contest has finally gotten through the first round and into the second. Five out of a whopping sixty-four valid entries were chosen by the judges, and now, you, the people, must vote.
I didn't have a horse in this race - I didn't enter - but my good bud Rainbow Bob did in fact enter. I would say alas, By the Power of Patriotism! did not make it through, but really, that's not a bad thing - the stories which beat it out were (mostly) better, and I only really disagree all that strongly with one of them.
Having read a bunch of stories from the contest, here were my personal picks. If you are going to read any of them, read Far From the Tree; it is the best of the lot, and deserves to win the contest in my eyes. Of the others, To Love the Sun would be my second pick, as it uses the second person perspective and actually uses it well. The others were interesting, but had their flaws, but still... one story that earned a fave and several which earned upvotes out of sixty-odd, especially given that the prompts were more or less "terrible ponyfiction tropes", was a pretty good effort really.
Far From the Tree - Someone asked me ages ago if I had read Aquaman's entry yet.
I hadn't. I still hadn't when it got named to the top five.
That was a mistake. This is the best story in the contest.
It is an OC x main character story, in this case, an OC named Chip Shot x Apple Bloom. And it works beautifully. Applejack comes home early from her chores, feeling beat up after a long day's work, and goes upstairs to find... a teenaged Apple Bloom and Chip Shot rolling around in bed.
Whoops.
The rest of the story is Applejack dealing with it, and confronting... or more accurately, just talking... to Chip Shot, to see who this young colt was that stole her little sister's heart, as well as dealing with the fact that her little sister was growing up faster than she'd given her credit for, as well as doubts about her own life and what her little sister having a boyfriend meant for her.
It worked wonderfully, and was just an excellent story all around. Chip Shot was a likable character, and we got to see what we needed to see, and didn't what we didn't. We got a good idea of why Apple Bloom and Chip Shot were together, and the whole thing worked well and flowed excellently.
Definitely deserved to make the top five. And definitely deserves to win. It managed to make Equestria Daily, and it was rightfully featured there.
To Love the Sun - Told from the second-person perspective of a human-come-alicorn who fell in love with Celestia upon his arrival in Equestria, this is without a doubt the best five prompt entry in the contest, and I say that having read no other such story, simply because I doubt any of them are going to be this good. The summary pretty much summarizes the story, and yet the story as a whole still delivers and even manages to surprise the reader. It also is quite short, weighing in at only 2,600 words, and yet it doesn't feel rushed at all despite how much happens in it; we're being told a story, and the story is as long as it needs to be, and hits on all the points it has to, and it manages to use all the prompts in a very reasonable (if dark) manner.
The largest issue with this story is that Celestia is a bit out of character, here, though not for the reasons that she appears to be off at first glance. Even still, that is more of a quibble than an issue; it is certainly the case, but I felt like the story still worked.
I do have to admit that I was thinking for a bit in the middle of the story that the protagonist was going to turn out to be Discord, blind because he was a statue, broken and mad from the transformation, but that wasn't where it went.
Worthy, but not quite as good
For Whom We Are Hungry - Told from the perspective of a changeling, it was a good shot at the second person perspective, putting us in the mind of someone who was once part of the hivemind, and who now is alone; them using "you" feels relatively natural, and after the very beginning, it just becomes part of the flow of the story and doesn't distract at all despite the lack of agency.
The single largest flaw with this story lies within its pacing; it starts out strong, but then we get less and less tension as the story goes on, rather than more and more tension; indeed, the climax is pretty much at the end of the second chapter or the beginning of the third chapter, which is less than halfway through the story.
I also have one other quibble - it would have worked better in the first person perspective. It could have even used welI interchangeably, and it would have fit with the title of the story. The second person perspective, while it didn't hurt the story, didn't really add to it either, and probably served as a barrier to entry to some people as the point of view tends to be offputting. It hit the feature box when it was originally posted.
Succession - Featuring an alicorn OC, it is set in the distant future and puts the alicorn in the uncomfortable position of having to deal with Queen Twilight Sparkle, who has apparently been ruling Equestria alone for a very long period of time without the aid of the other alicorns, something she seems to feel bad about. The OC is alright, and we get a vision into a new and very different Equestria where bad things happened and Twilight has had to stand alone, just as Celestia did.
Overall, it has no really big outstanding issues, and does a lot of world-building and hints at a larger story. That being said, it also feels like it is the start of a larger story, rather than a true short story; while I think that it stands as a short story, I think it really wanted to be a novella, and I feel like a few thousand more words might have helped make the conclusion feel like more of a conclusion, rather than the start of a larger tale.
As with For Whom We Are Hungry, it hit the feature box on release.
All Skin and Bones - A necromancer comes to Ponyville to regain the magic that the ponies took with them when they died long ago, but there are some things that man was not meant to play with and control.
I liked this story. It was short, dark, and to the point, and the human in Equestria felt totally natural and like he was a coherent part of the story. The tone worked, and the man's desperation worked, and even the alicorn worked, though they didn't end up with a whole lot of personality - they didn't need it, though, for their role.
I don't think I cared quite enough for his dog, though, which made the ending a bit weaker. Even still, it was a solid enough work.
Faun - What to say about this one?
It is really hard to go into describing this story without spoiling the whole thing. So read on at your own risk.
The story starts out from the point of view of someone in the forest - a child, perhaps - alone and frightened and injured by the timber wolves. He longs for home, and for someone who loves him, and it isn't entirely clear who he is. He seems like he might be a human child - alone and perhaps misshapen, perhaps not, it is hard to tell - but he is hurt and he is scared and he wants someone to love him, but has no one at all, and all the ponies are too scared of him to let him near.
We then go to Lyra and Bonbon talking about having kids. Now, while I understand why this was included, there were a few things about this scene. The first is that, at the time, I was thinking this was going to result in them adopting the kid in the woods. The second is, after reading the story, this scene feels really awkward for some reason - and I don't mean awkward in a good way, I mean like "this scene feels like it is part of a different story". It isn't that the scene doesn't tell us anything, it is that it really feels like it has the wrong tone to it, somehow. It sets up the lead in to the scene with Twilight musing on the heightened fertility of ponies, and how they never have messed up babies or miscarry, which is vital towards the reveal.
Anyway, Fluttershy finds the injured child, who left the woods because he had to get help, and he is almost too horrible to look at, but Fluttershy tries to help him and get Twilight to help him. Twilight is likewise horrified, and he ends up running off into town and finding Lyra and Bonbon... who are also horrified, Lyra most of all. The reason?
The kid is her kid, a half-human, half-pony hybrid, the result of a coupling with Annan (who is, presumably, Anon) when she was 15 years old. He said it was impossible, but... well, obviously it wasn't. And of course, because ponies never miscarry, she had the baby, and it was... horrifying. It was wrong, a sort of twisted thing, and apparently so awful to look upon that most ponies cannot. She left it in the woods but went out to feed it at times... but eventually Bonbon had told her not to go into the woods alone, and she had stopped and had seemed to hope that the monsters would "take care of it". They didn't, needless to say.
The story ends with the freak of nature defending Fluttershy from timber wolves in the woods, and dying of his wounds, with Lyra and Bonbon on the rocks and Twilight pondering the implications, before finally writing Princess Celestia, who writes back about how the magic which prevented ponies from ever miscarrying or having messed-up foals apparently had terrible consequences she had not foreseen, and she wasn't sure if she could fix it.
All in all, I thought it was a pretty good story, but there's something that feels wrong with it. It isn't the fact that it is basically about how squicky a human/horse hybrid would be; rather, I think my problem is with Lyra and Bonbon. I think the basic backbone of the story works, but the bits with Lyra and Bonbon feel out of place, like they belong in another story, and like the characters don't quite fit in here - or at least, the scenes with them did not.
Home - This is a human in Equestria story which isn't a human in Equestria story at all. The protagonist is a jerk - an unsympathetic asshole who thinks he is better than everyone else, smarter than everyone else, that all his failings are because the world is against him, and that his dead-end job is the fault of the Man keeping him down.
Home is Equestria - but not really Equestria. No, it is an imaginary place in his head; him imagining himself amongst the ponies, talking to them, and he makes himself increasingly more important there as time goes on. It is all about the ego-stroking... but also, the ponies are the only ones who are allowed to criticize him at all. They are the voices in his head which tell him that something isn't right, that something is off.
But he doesn't listen to them. And over the course of the story, things go worse and worse for him as he increasingly rejects them and rejects the world in favor of himself.
In the end, he makes all the voices in his head agree with him, always. They're only there to support him, never contradict him. But he loses something important and vital, and withdraws from the world to live in the imaginary world in his head - not going crazy, just simply disregarding all else that is.
I liked this story overall, and there are altogether too many people like that. Not that, you know, this story is probably directed at any of them. 
That being said, I'm not sure if I really adored this story; the whole thing felt a little bit too... obvious to me?
A Children's Story
In the Place the Wild Horses Sleep - I don't know that I can really recommend this story, but on the other hand, if you're interested in reading a children's story, this is probably the best effort I've seen in that regard on the site.
It is very much like many children's books; it is very simple in its ways, and also teaches a very simple lesson via the story, as many children's books do.
Unlike most Human In Equestria stories, it works extremely well precisely because it is a children's book, and it is about a child being taken to the land of Equestria because she wanted to run with wild horses, and by the end she realizes that what she wanted was not quite what she was asking for, and once she got what she was asking for, she realized that all she really wanted was to go back home.
It was very simple, and it worked very well, though I'm not sure that the use of colors in the text was actually all that effective; I think this would have been more effective as an illustrated children's story, but even still, it was what it was.
Unfortunately, while I can appreciate it for what it is, I'm not an enormous fan of children's stories, and so while it may be good for what it is (and make extremely good use of the prompt of a human in Equestria) it isn't the sort of thing I personally can get much enjoyment out of; I am too old for such things, and I suppose my standard for children's books is The Lorax. It managed to make the top five, and might be worth a read if you're interested in seeing a children's story... but otherwise, probably not worth reading.
Anyway, if you're interested, The Most Dangerous Game Contest's voting is open; the top five entries (which include the first three from this list, plus In the Places the Wild Horses Sleep and one other entry I didn't really like the ending of, which was a bit of an issue as it was only in the ending that the prompt actually played out - not to mention the ending being a very important part of the story to get RIGHT) are being voted on by the audience and I would suggest that, if you are interested, you read the stories and vote for them.
But mostly just vote for Far From the Tree, To Love the Sun, and For Whom We Are Hungry. 
:D
D;
2297645
I'm sorry Bob. I DID SAY MOSTLY.
YOURS WAS WAY BETTER THAN THAT DUMB STORY ABOUT THE SEAPONIES.
FUCK THE SEAPONIES.
Any species where the girls knock up the boys is obviously messed up.
2297654
You have wounded me, TD.
MY LIFE MEANS NOTHING NOW!
2297665
That's okay. I'm sure if we capture and sacrifice enough people here on the site, between all of them, we might be able to get you another one.
Maybe.
I didn't enter, but I already did 3 of the 5 “most dangerous things” in Pony Play.
Did anybody hit all 5 in one story?
2298258
To Love The Sun does indeed do all five, and it is one of the better ones in the contest despite that fact (or possibly because of it?). I think it most encapsulated the spirit of the contest by taking what should have been a terrible premise and actually making something good out of it. It also actually made good use of the second person voice, and the fact that it was written in the second person worked... though I think that's mostly because the entire story is, essentially, the narrator cursing himself for his foolishness.
On the other hand, Far From the Tree only did one of them, but didn't feel like a contest entry at all, which is good in its own way.
There were many others who tried for all five and failed (miserably in some cases), and Horse Voice did four (all but the second person perspective), but sadly the pacing on it didn't work for his.