Equestrian Fanfiction

by Lise

Reunion Contest Results

And here we are at the first contest easing event :) After a lot of negotiating I managed to convince LyraHands to let the judges say a few words about the facts that didn’t medal but deserve a honorable mention. (Also the top 3 fics will have readings, not only the winner.)

Other than that... wow, there’s such a crowd here! The whole of Ponyville has gathered plus scores of others from all over Equestria! We have dragons, griffins, changelings... the whole Wonderbolt team is here (with the exception of AwesomePony, who PMed me she’s sick :( Get well soon, @AwesomePony!)

And, of course, we have the rarest creature of all: DarkSparkle’s coltfriend! :P

And now, I’ll leave the judges talk about their favorites!

PaintDrop

@all: What PaintDrop said. Also, the judges will only comment on the stories they thought had enough potential to medal, not all the stories that made an impression. Please don’t PM them asking why your story wasn’t there. They got over a hundred stories to judge!

Medaling stories will be analyzed by @PrinceEric.

Now have fun! :P

LyraHands

Hello,

I must say that there have been quite a few stories that have caught my attention. In part this is due to the judges, I’m am sure, but also it seems that the tight deadline caused a lot of the new authors to skip the contest out of fear they “had no chance to begin with”. Being here from the beginning of the site and seeing the development of Candle, I can say that the only way to ensure that you don’t have a chance is not to participate. Persistence and determination are key to learning and contests, regardless of your skill level, are an essential driving force.

That said, here’s a story I’d like to mention:

Dream Mapmaker by JustAHuman
This is a clever story, that is also a tribute to Simile (as one could tell by the title and contents) in which an art student ends up in Equestria and end up going to one of Simile’s performances. Intrigued he offers her to open a business in which he maps the dreams of ponies, based on the journeys Simile and Princess Luna have in the pony’s dream.

It’s a magnificent story and very well written, sadly has no main MC characters present (which was the requirement). While it is true that Golden Scales Art Academy is present in several chapters, no characters from there are have more than a few lines of description. Had this been different, the story might as well have been among the winners.

I strongly recommend you all read the story, and hope the author continues working on it.

Thank you,

The TechNightling

I could tell that a lot of the stories were specifically aimed at impressing the judges. Out of 116 stories 98 had a male as a main character. Just for reference, stories that involve a misunderstood mare ending up on Earth (in pony or human form) compose about 85% of the total stories on the site. That said, I do have a number of personal favorites.

Magitech Inventor by DaBoss is a humorous and clever story... which utterly fails at the execution. If it didn’t it would be among ten top 3 for certain. This is the only story written by DaBoss so far, and I for one wish she would keep writing.

The premise is simple: Eric does to Equestria to get away from it all, and is recruited (almost forcefully) by “Doctor Whooves” to help with scientific experiments. During the course of their interaction Eric makes suggestions that help the stallion get his weird devices to function, so they start a business.

Short, sweet, and written like a chariot that ploughed through a field after losing two wheels.

---

Professional Earscratcher by SweetStuff & Quarters

This is the only collaboration in the contest, and it's only the lack of time that kept it from earring spot in the top 3. The stories has a wonderful cute idea, flows rather well, then abruptly stops in the middle of nowhere. I really hope the authors don’t let it die after the contest.

The story starts with Brush (ha, ha) fretting that the pets under her care aren’t getting enough attention, thus writing a job ad asking for assistants. To her surprise Molly responds to tech add and drags in Bellucio. From there on the trio create an Earscratching Service in which the humans’ job initially is to scratch the ears of animals, quickly moving to ponies. And then the story ends :/

I could probably go on a rant how annoyed I was about that, but since the other judges have heard it already, I’ll stop.

Jade

Okay, here are my honorable pics.

Salt Courier by InflatableHands

A funny story of Bellucio needing additional income (again) so he opens a salt transport service with Berry Punch (since he can be relied on not consuming the salt on the way). A nice simple and sweet slice of life with a few funny scenes.

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The High Hooves Society by Grace

(This story actually medaled, but the author requested it be removed from the placing.)

Cassandra spends a day in Canterlot the day of a Rarity fashion event and decides to do what she always wanted—become a fashion designer. After having a discussion with Rarity about it they open a business that exclusively focuses on human-pony fashion, namely high-heeled horseshoes.

---

Five-Fingered Crane by Brush

Omni goes to a Pinkie Pie party and has the glorious idea to take the job as a carnival crane: Omni stands in a middle of a pile of toys blindfolded and ponies have a minute to give him instructions to grab a toy and throw it at them.

Apart from the idea the story is nothing special, but sweet enough to be noticed.

Now for the top three.

number1

Hey, girls!

We just had the reading of the first fic (which is the one ranked third). Before I get along with my analysis I just want to say that Simile and HopHop are great :) They really brought the fic to life :)

The short story we saw is:

Thumbs Up Inc by Gravitas

To be honest I know nothing about Gravitas, but it turns out she has over 50 stories (all short comedies). This one in particular is about the CEO’s son getting fired and moving to Manehattan in search of work. Since he has no special skills (his magic and tech knowhow are really puny) he teams up with a member of the local city council and starts a support organization. I.e. ponies hire him for a set amount of time and whenever they say something they deep positive the human makes a thumbs up sign.

Initially he starts with school ponies, but soon word gets around and business owners and more influential figures hire him. At one point copycats appear (that create fake hands and try to dump the price of a thumbs up), but ultimately he manages to become successful to such an extent that he successfully trademarks the gesture.

At the end of the story, his father summons him back to Earth and asks his assistance for open of his board meetings, since the gesture has become so popular that other humans have no right to use it without Equestrian approval.

Definitely a weird and interesting concept and Simile made it magnificent in her dreamreading :)

PrinceEric

A small announcement on my part.

There is no glitch on the site. I have locked the thread to all but mods and a few other ponies in order not to cause mass levels of spam (which usually happens). You are welcome to open comment threads, but please don’t go overboard.

Thank you,

The TechNightling

I’ve missed this so much! One positive thing of DarkSparkle’s new boyfriend is that my family isn’t even concerned with my situation (well, that’s a lie, but I’m making progress :))

The only thing that’s different is that the wild crowd isn’t as wild as before. With half the class married or in serious relationships there’s no more fooling around. Well, other than PPI who seems determined to try malign every new type of pastry there is. Lots of “human cuisine” so to speak.

Most fun is that we have a lot of changelings, who keep on taking human form at whim (it’s really cool in a MC king of way :)) ManyFaces is Also here, of course, and from what she told me already booked for several months forward.

Oh and Flurry Heart is just adorable! She went straight to the cosplayer group to be with Brush (who is like the cutest Princess Jennifer there is.) InItForTheShipping doesn’t seem to approve much, but everypony can tell she appreciates the calm.

Also my brother is being a complete flirt with his Everprince costumes he intends to change between every reading. :P

That said, onto the number two!

PaintDrop

The second story is probably the darkest out there, but in a truly adventurous way. It’s very well written, which is no surprise since it’s written by one of my favorite authors:

Timberwolf Hunter by EndlessHearts

The story starts with Blazen going to Canterlot in the middle of the night. He uses his powers to sneak into Luna’s Tower, where it turns out she is expecting him. We then learn that since Luna’s banishment a lot of monsters still roam Equestria, and only someone familiar with dark powers could stop them. He is therefore hired by the princess to create a new secret agency responsible to find and capture beast that even Celestia doesn’t know about.

Blazen has full authority to recruit anyone he wishes, and recruits a bat pony (Moonlight Shadow) with whom he responds to signals of beasts and goes to hunt them. Sadly, due to the short length we only see the pair find and dispatch a Timberwolf Sire (thus the name of the fic).

I really, really, really wish there’s more to this story! (The dreamreading was spooky, and I think Simile enjoyed it too much.) still, it was good fun... now that it’s over :)

PrinceEric

Just a quick word from me. This may or may not become a thing, but don’t expect it to happen every month. Dreamreading is demanding and RRBB has agreed to do this one for free, but we can’t demand that she does that every time.

Also be sure to thank her and her team for the dreamreadings! :)

LyraHands

Whoa! Princess Celestia just arrived to see the winning story. That created a lot of commotion, especially with a quarter of the Nightlings being from the military. (Oh and there was some drama between her and LightSparkle.)

On a really cool note, the Princess came with AwesomePony who looks much better, by the way (apart from the baggy eyes). I managed to have a chat with her and she really seemed exhausted.

ManyFaces changed into Princess Jennifer to the joy of Flurry Heart and a few other foals (I keep thinking that in 5-10 that will be the next generation of Nightlings... Scary :P)

And now onto the winner!

PaintDrop

The winner (by far from what I understood from Tech) is...

The Human Advice Agency by PlayedPiece

As most of PlayedPiece’s stories, this too is a weird comedy, starring Blazen (again), Euryala, and Loki who have decided to get away from it all and open a Marriage Consultancy in Equestria.

The concept is weird in itself, but it quickly gets even more bizarre, with them choosing PPI for their business partner. Then they proceed to give the worst relationship advice to anypony who goes to visit. However! However, the advice is so bad it actually works out for all their clients :)

(Just a small note. They don’t give bad advice deliberately. They both try to give good advice, but human advice is so different that it’s bad advice. A quick example: They tell a shy stallion to take the initiative and ask a mare he likes to dinner. The stallion does, resulting in a disastrous date, but as a result he attracts the attention of a dozen other mares because he’s so outgoing, and ultimately hooks up with a longtime friend who never raised the subject because she feared he’d take it the wrong way.)

So, we have a few cases, after which Bellucio drops by to see what they are doing. And of course he starts helping out as well. Molly soon follows, then Eric... Caprice joins the pony side, as do Berry Punch, TrueSparkle, Spike, and even InItForTheShipping.

(Yes, the story is 25 000 words :P)

And just when we think that everything has settled down, the Felina Corp open rival agency (marking the end of the story).

I’d tempted to ask for a sequel, but am also terrified of what might happen there :P

In any event well done, PlayedPiece! :) I can't wait for the next contest! It was so much fun! And dreamreading is the best prize!

PrinceEric

Something that PrinceEric forgot to mention was that one of the clients was Spitfire, who went to ask advice from Bellucio on how to fix her love life. Hmmm -.-

Joking aside, all judges agree that this was the best story by far. PlayedPiece, there’s so much insanity in your comedies I don’t know where to begin! Keep it up. :)

number1

Well, I suppose that marks the end of the reunion contest. I’d only like to add that seeing everyone here like this, makes me think of why I created the site in the first place. Back then I never imagined it would grow so much or that there’d be ponies making a living out of MC.

I remember when MixaMax, CodeFilly, and I celebrated our 100th member privately. Today, we get ten times more in a day. It’s truly been an incredibly journey and you’ve all helped get us there—from my dearest friends with whom I started this to the starry-eyed fan that joined a week ago.

Thank you all for making the incredible! Thank you for making MC alive! It’s thanks to of you that dreams have found a place in our small corner of the aethernet.

We made this all together, but it was mostly you ;)

LyraHands

Author's Note:

5 chapters...

Comments

[jothki]

It isn't like this is the first meetup that DarkSparkle's coltfriend has attended.

[Lise]

8631323
Of course :) Feel free to use anything of mine that inspires you :)

8631367
That was harsh :P

[Nyperold]

Out of 116 stories 98 had a male as a male character.

Sounds like a significant amount of R63 going on.

[meerkat8472]

Poor Dashie, I hope she comes to realize that there is always hope for finding someone to love.

Also, is Rarity even trying to keep her identity a secret at this point? I bet Sweetie is going to confront her about it again.

[Lise]

8631770
Mostly trying to impress the judges :P

8632031
Time will tell :D As for Rarity... she can be caught posting on EqF and still convince everyone it’s nit what they think :)

[Amneiger]

Thumbs Up Inc

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