Hello all, and welcome to the first story showcase! I'm happy to receive you all as we take a closer look at the first of many awesome stories produced by our community here.

Today's primary criteria: Word count.

To kick things off, we decided there is hardly anything better than to look at the biggest of them all; the story with the most words! Which one would that be? Let's find out!

EaW: From Front to Front

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Paige and Cyril are a bit of an odd pair. She's a Riverlands pegasus traveling to Equestria. He's a griffon soldier in the Reichsarmee trying to live up to the family name. But when they meet, it seems like they might be able to move past those differences and make it work. Except this is the year 1007 ALB, the year of great change in the world. And the only way these two are going to stay anywhere near in contact is through their letters for the next ten years, through multiple wars, occupation, POW camps and the insanity of the world itself. Join them on this incredible journey through their pens, as the faith of talking to someone a world away is the only thing keeping these two together.

Story rating: Mature

Story tags: Alternate Universe, Adventure, Dark, Romance, Profanity, Death, Violence

Character tags: OC

Basic premise: From Front to Front begins in the year 1007 ALB, the very year in which the mod itself begins to take place. It follows two primary protagonists: Paige, a riverlander pegasus, and Cyril, a griffon soldier in the army of the empire. As a result, their relationship is, rather obviously, strained by circumstance. Distance and geopolitics keep them apart, and the two need to communicate through alternative means instead. Namely: letters.

This is what makes Front to Front a peculiar and unique take on this 'war story' kind of trope in my eyes. There are sections of the story which are told to us from the normal, third-person narrative perspective, usually used to describe and introduce major developments in the worlds of either or both of the characters. This is done both to move the world forward, as well as to allow us to follow along as Paige and Cyril send letters to one another. These are told to us in the first-person from whichever of the two is composing the letter, and tells us about their views and thoughts and just about anything else they're thinking at that time. The other side usually replies, and we can clearly see the time move on via the timestamps present on each of those letters, too. It creates a very vivid, alive world with a unique way to tell a personal story for two creatures that find themselves in an unlikely situation as the world darkens around them.

Final words: From Front to Front has been referred to countless times by other writers and community members both here, on the discord and on the reddit. It is, in of itself, a monument of sorts by which we can see just how dedicated this community can really be when it comes to writing. Starting in September 2019, it is still going with 226k words down for the count.

I highly recommend giving this one a go, even if you don't like novel-length stories. The chapters may look to be rather long individually but are actually neatly sub-divided usually, especially the chapters which deal with the letter traffic between Paige and Cyril. This means that even if you don't have much time to read on a daily basis, you can still sneak a look and progress along nicely and you won't feel as though you wasted your time. If you enjoy 'war stories' or 'war diaries' and stories that relate to those two, then I'm very certain you will enjoy this read, also.

That's all for today! Thank you for joining me and reading along for our first showcase ever! I'll see you all in two weeks, on the 11th, when we will be taking a look at another story, with the primary criteria being release date. Until then!

Useful links:
Reddit Crosspost
Reddit Informative Post
Fimfiction Informative Post

From Front to Front is one of the rare long-runners in the Equestria at War catalog that hasn't fallen to major update hiatus, which is no mean feat!

Definitely worth a read.