Monday, January 30, 2012

Attenuation

Hello, dear readers!

The sad fact of the matter is, at the moment, I am unable to keep up with a two-story-per-week post schedule. This is partly because I've run through a great deal of my stable of stories I knew I wanted to include before I started the Vault months ago and need to scout out new ones, partly because quite a few of the remaining queued fics are longer multi-chapter stories that take me a great deal more time to process for addition to the Vault, and partly because I haven't had as many responses from authors in the last week or two.

I do not add a story to the Vault without express written consent from its author, and obviously I do not fabricate interview responses either - so even if there's someone I'm desperate to include here, if they don't respond to my communiqués, there's little I can do but wait and hope. My personal all-time favorite fanfic isn't here yet for that very reason! Of late, I've had a lot more non-responders than usual, and many who did respond would love to participate but are currently too busy to complete an interview. (If you've never thought about it, do realize that apart from the serious time and effort put into the original story, I am essentially asking every author featured here to put in even more time and effort to thoughtfully respond to my questions.)

What this means is, for the time being the Vault will be updated once per week. I am happy to do so on either Monday or Friday, so I'm leaving it to you - please vote in the poll on the sidebar. Would you prefer to greet the start of your week with excellent ponyfic, or the start of your weekend? The poll will run until this weekend, with a simple majority deciding.

As always, if you know a story that is truly top-tier excellent stuff, please let me know. Especially if the story hasn't been posted to Equestria Daily or isn't highly rated at FIMFic, the PFA, et cetera, I'm likely to have missed it - I am not interested in a story's star rating if it is well-written and unique, but when there are tens of thousands of pony fanfics in existence, I have to narrow it down somehow when looking for new Vault additions. Several recent Vault entries are here because someone messaged me, stating I had to read this story... and I did, and now it's here, so hopefully you have read it too!

All the best,
RBDash47

11 comments :

  1. I don't know your policy on cloppy fics, but if that's not a category that's automatically excluded, I would highly recommend Romance Reports by SleeplessBrony. It is one of the best fics I've read, and I think it stands with the best in the fandom. The sex is secondary; the story is a thoughtful examination of the nature of love, and Sleepless' interpretations of the characters are so spot-on that the story may as well be an episode of the show, albeit a mysteriously adult one.

    Also anything by Jetfire, especially "It's a Dangerous Business, Going Out Your Door". That story was featured on EqD, but it was quite a long time ago. You've likely read that one, but if not, it's a Tolkienesque adventure story in which Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Rarity travel outside the borders of Equestria on a quest. It has a number of genuinely emotional moments, and some in-character badassery. Jetfire's versions of the characters don't ring entirely true, but they are excellent nonetheless.

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    1. Clop isn't automatically excluded, but Romance Reports is currently the only one on my list - and the only reason I'm waiting to contact Sleepless is he's mentioned he's working on a rewrite - when that's done, assuming he wants to be here, he will be.

      >anything by Jetfire
      >especially Dangerous Business
      >"My personal all-time favorite fanfic isn't here yet for that very reason!"
      > ;)

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    2. Haha, I thought about asking what your mentioned favorite was, but figured you didn't name it for a reason. That really is a great story.

      Oh, while I'm commenting again anyway, if you could rig up an RSS feed for the site, that would be fantastic for RSS-addicted folks like myself.

      And, now that I'm thinking about it, allow me to recommend Observatory Hill by Jeffrey C. Wells, the writing half of the team responsible for the webcomic Skin Horse. The story was featured on EqD in November, but I feel like it didn't get much traction, despite being very enjoyable. The story and a bit of info is mentioned here, which contains a link to the EqD entry: http://skin-horse.com/comics/01082012-2/

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    3. I added a subscription module to the sidebar; I am relatively unfamiliar with RSS feeds, never using them myself, but I think it does what you're looking for - let me know if it doesn't?

      And thank you for the suggestion! I've added it to my review queue.

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    4. The RSS widget works fine, thanks for the addition. : )

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    5. For the record, RSS has been working just fine, as I've been subscribed for a few weeks without the widget.

      /RSS hipster

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    6. Haha, color me envious. Does Blogger automatically generate an RSS feed for every blog?

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  2. Oh yeah, I forgot you took suggestions.
    In that case, I really must take the time to recommend "The Liar" by Chopper's Top Hat. It's a story I completely missed the first time around, only stumbling on it by pure luck. I think it was written before fanfics on EQD really took off, since it was posted shortly after the blog first started.

    But it's certainly the best Trixie story I've ever read, and one of those rare stories that made me angry purely because I didn't write it and it was just so good. It kind of breaks my heart it's not better known.

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    1. Hey, Patchwork! Thanks for the suggestion - I've got it in my review queue now.

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  3. I'm sorry that you're finding you have to cut back--this site has already directed me to several stories which I skipped over/failed to notice when they first appeared, and I've greatly enjoyed reading the author interviews. Still, you've got to go at a pace you can maintain, and I'll keep checking by every week (on Monday or Friday, doesn't matter which) to see what's new.

    Thanks for continuing on; I really love this project.

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    1. I appreciate your kind words! Your own project to be quite the undertaking; I've read a number of your reviews.

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