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Cozy Glow Short Story Contest #5

Progress

Guidelines in development [X]
Submission period closed [X]
Story evaluation in progress [X]
Story evaluation complete [X]
Monetary base prizes purchased [X]
Winners announced [X]
Monetary base prizes awarded [X]
Non-monetary prizes awarded [X]


Contest #5 Results

Runner Up:

EGollylalia
Cozy has a sickness. A really, really weird one.
IGIBAB · 3.8k words  ·  133  0 · 1.3k views

Our runner-up entry starts things off right (and immediately) by presenting a name for a disease that fits perfectly with the language of the canon, and its spirit. Its use in the one-word title evokes a sense of tongue-in-cheek doom that whets one’s appetite for just such a flavor of comedy. And that is what Gollylalia delivers. While the story is streamlined in terms of pacing, it remains efficient in weaving light-hearted, funny dialogue, mental asides, and antics one could very easily see unfolding in a season 1 or 2 episode (despite the fact that Cozy is a central character) into the action. But there’s more than just laughs: there’s conflict, mystery, and a twist packed into this highly original 3800-word one-shot. Great work, IGIBAB!

3rd Place:

Subsumed by 2nd place tie.

2nd Place:

EGolden Age
Cozy Glow suffers a fate worse than Tartarus or petrification: banishment to G3.
AlwaysDressesInStyle · 5.9k words · 363 views

There are at least two layers to Golden Age. The first— the plot-level layer—works admirably well as an ironic comedy. Cozy is transported to an earlier time in Equestria’s history, in which her expectations of ponies’ behavior are spectacularly not met. Her typical motive of world domination is repeatedly confounded by the saccharine innocence, absent-mindedness, and occasional dopiness of the inhabitants of a bygone era. This defiance of expectations is nicely exemplified in certain residents of the antiquarian Ponyville. Rainbow Dash, for instance, rather than being the self-absorbed athlete that Cozy encountered at the School of Friendship, instead has the personality and mannerisms of modern Equestria’s Rarity (a situation of perhaps particular amusement to the author).

The other side of the irony is the one with which we’re more familiar. Cozy Glow herself should be what she initially pretended to be in the G4 canon: a pink, beribboned, curly-maned filly should exhibit the degree of innocence that’s more in line with that of the ancient culture, if looks are any indication of character. This mutual case of mistaken identity constitutes the backbone of the story arc: in order to conquer this (old) new land, Cozy must adapt to the customs and personalities she’s forced to deal with. As she gathers information and meets the succession of old Equestria’s bewildering residents, she realizes that the best way to achieve her goals might be to become the sweet filly she appears to be.

The second layer can be revealed by raising the question of why the generations that we, the viewers, have received over the past 40 years or so are so different. This is of course a reflection of the marketing schemes of one decade versus another. One of the main challenges with producing (commercial) art is matching the product to the dispositions and interests of the audience. It’s a spicy irony indeed when the hands fail to shake. It may have been this realization that inspired the watershed moment that was G4, and possibly this delightful story as well.

EChild of Equality
When the first generation falters, the second rises to carry the torch.
TheDriderPony · 6.2k words  ·  89  2 · 834 views

Fanfic writers have provided many backstories for Cozy, but there are few, in the reviewer’s experience, that both adhere to the canon and simultaneously use it to branch out into speculative worlds of possibility to as great an effect as TheDriderPony does in Child of Equality. Equally skillful is their characterization of Cozy, in regard to her status as a foil to the friendship philosophy of the Mane 6. With the addition of Starlight as an unwitting victim, we’re given a very believable and satisfying gap story set prior to the discovery of Cozy’s covert machinations in the crystal caverns below the School of Friendship.

Focusing on Starlight’s capture within the magical cage of Cozy’s draining spell, the story problematizes the concept of loyalty, going beyond warning against uncritical obedience to a cause regardless of the consequences, but dramatizing what happens when the cause is all someone knows. Given how early the reveal is made, I hope it’s no grievous spoiler to mention that the Cozy of this version of events was born into and raised within Starlight’s cult of equality. Exactly like a child brought up in an isolated, monotonic paradigm, she can’t fathom how the ponies around her could prefer unique identities, or lives steeped in variety. But more importantly, Starlight’s defeat and change of heart threaten Cozy’s reality. And like a cornered animal, the filly responds with violence. Starlight is the one trapped in a physical cage, but Cozy, behind her ideological bars, doesn’t recognize them as such, and seeks to maintain their familiar structure by any means necessary.

Just as the scope of Cozy’s understanding is limited by the milieu into which she was born, the reader is reminded that they, too, are thrown into a limited POV environment (so to speak) by life. Cozy’s unwavering bitterness highlights the choice we have: whether to enforce a particular perspective on reality, or explore others.

1st Place:

EA single, white rose...
Cozy Glow recieves a white rose.
Mellow Mare · 4k words  ·  49  1 · 496 views

Our first place entry deals with one of the Big Topics, but one that tends to go underrepresented as a primary theme across literary tiers – that is, levels of ascribed seriousness. Motherhood, it goes without saying, is fundamental to just about everything, but is largely ignored in storytelling. While there are many potential reasons for this, one limiting factor is how pervasive and poetic it is intrinsically. The sky is everywhere, but too big to see at all once; without it, life wouldn’t be possible, but can one effectively sing the praises of something the importance of which is so obvious?

Mellow Mare responds, “of course you can”. Appropriately, the scenario they use, like motherhood, is nothing new. Cozy is imprisoned in her statue, ruminating on her near success and ultimate failure, and on the revenge she’ll exact on Twilight when she escapes. Her irate meditations are interrupted, however, by a mysterious visitor who begins leaving roses at the foot of the statue as one would leave flowers by a gravestone. And this is where the emotional momentum that drives the story begins to build.

The statement that’s being made is about the nature of our first relationship with another person, and going a step further, why we came to be. This relationship can be deeply flawed. Personalities, needs, moral dispositions, and ambitions all may fail to match, leading to misunderstanding, resentment, and as in Cozy’s case, lack of ability to grasp the nature of the bonds that enable friendships of all types. The individual leaving the roses acknowledges that they have failed Cozy, that they weren’t able to provide what she needed. Parenthood, it’s quietly conveyed, is an invitation to misery as much as it is decision full of hope.

Yet, when love is the motivation for starting that journey, one is more persistent than the challenges encountered in bridging the interpersonal chasms. One will gift roses to the dead, for years, until the message is received. Thank you, Mellow Mare, for allowing us to feel something.


Cozy Glow Group membership count rank: top 3.1% of all groups. Go Cozy!!


Comments ( 76 )
  • Viewing 57 - 76 of 76

Golly! a whole group for little old me? :twilightblush: I'm flattered!

Oh cozy
I think of her as Really evil but anyone can be reformed with enough time

446238

Apologies for the delay - had to bust out some fiction of my own (I only have a modest amount of brainpower left and can have but one thing going at a time, nowadays). I'm rereading yours at the moment, and plan to have both done by the holidays.

Poke poke.

No reviews for the 2nd and 1st place entries yet, eh? I understand. December is a busy time of year.

Still, I do hope they get written and posted relatively soon. Like Cozy herself, I'm a grubby little glutton for attention.

OOF I didn't win or get runner-up. Oh well, everyone else did a great job and the competition was too strong with this one. XD

445745

It's a wonderful day to be Cozy.

One hour left to go for Annual Contest #3! Lots of submissions this year.

It must warm a little filly's heart to have so many dedicated storytelling friends.

439687

Sure - that would count as an AU story.

Hello I have a question and it's tearing me up. Can I make two separate stories about Cozy being born to a unicorn family with Luster dawn as her sister if every character in the stories do entirely different things?

For one story it's the main focus and the other It's more in the background with a different Protagonist.

Comment posted by Sane Marbles deleted Sep 2nd, 2020

438471
Gollygollygolly

436984
Okay, thanks.

436983

Feel free to make a post in the forum! :pinkiesmile:

436966

You mean like, ask someone to write a story that you have an idea for?

Question: Is it possible to request a story?

  • Viewing 57 - 76 of 76