Fic Spotlight » Fic Spotlight #19 - Can We Fics It? · 2:54am Nov 7th, 2015
The Royal Guard—Running Out of Edition Names Edition
[Obs] Hey guys! Time for more fic spotlight. You're probably all really starving for high quality horsewords, so here's some high quality horse words. It's really convenient that your wants lined up with what happened to be available. It'd be kind of weird if you were starving for like actual food or something and all we had was just high quality horsewords.
It'd be really awkward probably.
Anyways just click below the break and you'll get more words than you'll even know what to do with.[/Obs]
Every two weeks, we recommend six high-quality stories from a variety of authors and popular genres. From action/adventure to slice of life, from drama to comedy, from stories about ponies kissing to stories involving pink hairless apes, we feature a wide variety of stories so that every post has something for everyone.
We’re always looking for a tip-top tale, so if you’d like to submit your fic, here are some links you’ll probably find useful:
-The Royal Guard Group
-Submit Your Story!
-The Royal Guard's Official Handbook
Finally—and I cannot emphasize this enough—we are always recruiting. If you think you’ve got what it takes to be a prereader, then don’t hesitate to send us an application. If you have any questions about the application process, please direct them to Prak.
AND NOW, WITHOUT FURTHER ADO... STORIES!
This Week:
Action/Adventure
Daring Do and the Weapon of the Ancients, by FanOfMostEverything
Drama
The Sunset Room, by Foxy E
Romance
Through Glass, by Titanium Dragon
Comedy
Fridge Horror, by Aragon
Slice of Life
Veneer, by Pascoite
ACTION/ADVENTURE
There are a lot of relics, artifacts, and other ancient items of power strewn throughout the world. I should know; I've found safe homes for a lot of them, and even destroyed a few. A good rule of hoof is that the older it is, the more powerful it is. Not because it's old, but because it's survived that long, either because of its own toughness or the defenses its creators put around it.
The Weapon of the Ancients predates written language. Ahuizotl wants it for himself. I can't let that happen.
PR Recommendation: “This is a compact little adventure which has a nice, pulpy feel to it while still feeling suitably pony-ish. The various background characters in the setting, the nature of the seal on the weapon, and the nature of the weapon itself all feel like they fit well with a pony version of Indiana Jones, and I was left with a smile at the end.” —Titanium Dragon
DRAMA
Before she left, Twilight told Applejack not to open the door. But when leaving the door shut means compromising her values, how long can Applejack hold out?
PR Recommendation: “The Sunset Room sets its somber, haunting tone with its very first line, and never lets up. Something has gone very wrong on Sweet Apple Acres, and Applejack’s determination to set it right might just be her undoing. Even if you think you know how this one is going to end, the journey there is well worth taking.” —BlazzingInferno
ROMANCE
Rarity helps a beautiful mare pick out the perfect hat in her boutique.
PR Recommendation: “‘How much is real? That is the question. But I forget you don't expect an easy answer…’ That is, unless your question involves me pointing you at a reflective piece on the nature of Ponyville's most elegant fashionista and her internal struggles. In which case I say, ‘Make haste! Come hither and read Through Glass.’ They say that beauty is only surface deep, and yet this is deeper than you might expect.” —Cerulean Voice
COMEDY
Derpy was just trying to make a sandwich. Vinyl was there too.
Now the world is ending.
Really, it's all their fault.
PR Recommendation: “Do you like profanities, of either the verbal or eldritch variety? Do you like epic battles against good and evil, for the sake of causality itself? Do you like shacking up with your nemeses' parents and stabbing people in the street? If you answered yes to any of these questions, or even if you didn't, then please read Fridge Horror, because it's hilarious. (And if you answered yes to the third one, then seek professional help. What the hell is wrong with you?)” —R5h
SLICE OF LIFE
Aloe and Lotus love the looks on their customers' faces during a nice soak in the tub, a relaxing massage, a new pony greeting them in the mirror. But it wasn't always that way, and even now, the occasional difficult customer can prove trying.
PR Recommendation: “In my opinion, one of the best things that can be said about a work of fiction is that it's concise—it does a lot with a little. With that in mind, Veneer is spectacularly concise, painting a compelling (and even disturbing) picture of the last two ponies you'd expect to have a troubled past. Definitely worth a read.” —R5h
HUMAN
When Twilight Sparkle was just a kid, her best friend was a girl named Sunset Shimmer. Though their friendship had a bit of a rocky start, they quickly became inseparable, no matter how much everyone thought of them as ‘weird’. They were there for each other.
Were.
Years after the tragic accident that tore them apart, Twilight is determined to move on from her loss, and she sets off on an independent research project to investigate the strange happenings at Canterlot High. Little does she know that she will soon come face to face with what appears to be a literal ghost from her past.
PR Recommendation: “When I saw the synopsis for Fractured Sunlight, I wondered why it had taken so long for anybody to tackle such a concept. This story has been begging to be written for a long time; luckily, Oroboro shows that he is more than capable of doing it justice. The situation, characters, and emotions are real, believable, and given the respect they deserve. From its heartbreaking opening to its more subdued-yet-hopeful flow in later chapters, Fractured Sunlight is the story that nobody knew they wanted. Although currently incomplete, with guaranteed weekly updates on account of the story already being fully pre-written, what do you have to lose?” —Cerulean Voice
Addendums
If you guys have any questions about our sitepost policies, or our approval guidelines, feel free to browse the handy dandy Official Royal Guard Handbook, and if you still find yourself lacking answers, feel free to ask Prak so that he can find the right person to give you what you need.
See you guys next time!
Sitepost up! To all the people who end up finding a new story from this, I'm curious: which one did you like best?
Keep your submissions coming! Although a minority of stories make our final cut, that just makes it all so much more rewarding when we find a story we all agree on.
And please, for everyone's sake, consider submitting your best [Comedy], [Human], and [Romance] stories. I won't go into specifics or statistics here, but I will say that we came very close to not even having a [Comedy] story for you guys this time. It makes sense that you would naturally want to submit what you consider your best work, and for most people, these are grand adventures or deep thought-provoking character pieces. We understand that it takes a highly skilled writer to pull off a side-splitting [Comedy] or create a [Human] story that people will actually take seriously, and so you may not feel confident about these stories' chances. But at this point, it's about the numbers. These are the genres we're most deficient in.
While we primarily read through stories in order of submission, we've recently found ourselves having to prioritise these genres. If you think you have a story that can make our cut, show us what you've got!
EDIT: In hindsight, I probably should've posted this:
We can fics it. We have the tags.
3526763
Comedy is severely underrated on this site, aye. Most people think it's this kind of easy-weasy genre that anybody can do. REAL WRITERS write nothing but DRAMA, TRAGEDY, and many others TALES OF WOE.
Drama's neato, guys, but comedy is more or less exactly as hard. Two sides of the same coin, really -- once you get the hold on one, you get the hold on the other. And both teach you about the other, so try it out, yo.
Now, when it comes to the actual comment -- I mostly write comedy, so I'd love to send more of my stories to the Guard? But I already got two in here, and I don't want to be that guy. I'll talk with the comedy authors I know so they start doing this, though. Can't have under-representation in our field.
3527139
Don't worry. You've got a long way to go before you become that guy. We already have a few of those.
I welcome any good comedy writers you can entice to submit. Fridge Horror was bloody funny, fyi.
3527139
There are two people with 11 stories in the queue each, both of them having religiously submitted a story a week for months, so I wouldn't really worry about being "that guy".
That said, getting a broader variety of good comedy writers submitting would be nice, so feel free to give them a poke with your cattle prod.
Fic spotlights #00-#11 are sorted under site posts instead of fic spotlight, mind taking a few minutes to sort the old ones into the new spot?
Yo, official Drama tag hype!