Poniverse Hearts and Hooves Day Contest Winners!

[Batbrony 16,056]

 

Hello Poniverse, it's your friendly neighborhood Batbrony!  Wait... I think I might be mixing up superheroes.    Ah, no matter, guess what I have?  The results of the Poniverse Hearts and Hooves Day Contest!!!    Thankfully I was able to get through the remaining fics over my Spring Break, so I'm happy to be getting the results out a lot sooner than I was able to with the last contest.  Before we begin, as always, a gigantic shoutout to everypony who took the time to write a fic to enter into our contest!!!  We had a total of 10 entries this time, and believe me when I say that it was harder to judge this time around than with either of the previous contests, the quality of so many of our entries was that good!  Thank you all for doing a great job of getting us in the holiday spirit and providing a wide variety of sweet, funny, sometimes sad, and sometimes downright romantic fan fics.

 

Without further ado, here are the winners of the Poniverse Hearts and Hooves Day Contest!!!

 

Winners

 

First Place: Daring Do(esn't Need a Special Somepony) by Fahrenheit

 

There are so many words I could use to describe our first place winner.  Adorable, hilarious, exciting, sweet, stupendously written, these all easily apply to this fic.  Daring Do(esn't Need a Special Somepony) is that rare one-shot that just does everything right.  It masterfully utilizes the 1st person POV, it capture's Daring Do's character to a T, it features two supporting cast members who we rarely see but deserve to be explored more thoroughly in fan fiction.  It also has tons of laughs, adventure, some sweet, fluffy romance when you'd least expect it (despite this being a Hearts and Hooves Day fic  ), and just has a really great heart to it overall.  I don't want to give away too much since I'd rather readers who haven't checked it out yet do so without any spoilers, but suffice it to say that what starts out as a single-minded quest to retrieve some delectable sweets by everypony's favorite author/adventurer pony turns into so much more (after A LOT of insanity along the way).  Perfect's really the only way I can describe this fic in general, and you'll just have to check it out for yourself to see what I mean.

 

Congratulations on your winning entry, Fahrenheit, you most certainly earned it, and thank you so much for such an incredible read! 

 

Second Place: Hearts & Hooves Day for Dummies by yellowstripedflutterbat

 

Our second place winner won me over for a number of reasons.  For starters, it features Snips and Snails, two of the most (in my opinion) underappreciated supporting characters in the show.  Second, it's not really a romantic fanfiction, not in the traditional sense, at least.  I don't want to give too much away, but let's just say that this fic highlights a different kind of love, one which MLP itself has done a sound job at times highlighting, just normally with the main cast.  Finally, it gets these two characters' personalities down to a T, and the results are humorous, to say the least.  We're basically following the intrepid exploits of Ponyville's resident dunderheaded colt duo as they try to "score with the ladies" for Hearts and Hooves Day, and as you can imagine, it's pretty hilarious.  But it all ties things up at the end rather sweet, actually, in Snips and Snails own way of course, and just like with our last fic, this one has a lot of heart.  All these elements taken together most definitely earned this fic second place, and a big shoutout to yellowstripedflutterbat for the excellent entry!

 

Third Place: Little Filly Blue by Yoshi89

 

This fic is astounding for two big reasons.  First, it's told from the 2nd person POV.  That's right, the most loathed POVs in all of fanfiction!  Not only that, but it places the reader in the hooves of an adolescent colt who's supposed to develop a crush on Diamond Tiara.  Not only is DT one of the most loathed characters in MLP, BUT this could've backfired in so many ways, namely, given that most readers of this would probably be older, it could be quite uncomfortable if written incorrectly going through a fic where you yourself are being written as falling for an adolescent filly.  But you know what?  IT ALL WORKS!!!  I'm not even joking, and that's kind of incredible.  The POV works, the characters work, the shipping works, everything just works!  What we're given, instead of the train wreck it could've been, is a sweet fic that plays out almost like one of the CMC episodes would if told from a different POV.  It's nice seeing Diamond Tiara portrayed in a different light without necessarily being written out of character, plus, again, I simply cannot believe that the 2nd person POV worked here, but believe me, it does, and it is well worth checking out.  Congratulations on third place, Yoshi89, you most definitely earned it!

 

 

Honorable Mentions

 

As I said before, this was the stiffest competition we've had yet, so obviously there's a number of other fics that deserve brief mentioning here given that they were very well-written as well.  The Life She Never Received, by Silver Letter, T, the Tiniest Troll, Writes a Love Letter, by Piquo Pie, and Peachy Pie's Very Special Somepony, by VitalSpark.  The first was, without a doubt, the most improved entry from an author who has previously entered our other contests, and is a very sad but at the same time heartwarming tale of unreciprocated love that is definitely worth a read; the second is a very uniquely written one-shot, told as, well, a letter by a very interesting OC character, and again, definitely worth a quick read, especially given that it'll only take you 5 minutes tops; the third of these honorable mentions was actually very similar to Hearts & Hooves Day for Dummies in that it follows two seldom-seen characters (even more so than Snips and Snails) who also happen to be adolescents on the hunt for a special somepony for one of them for Hearts and Hooves Day.  While, again, none of these quite managed to get into the top 3, they were all still great reads, and if you get the chance, I'd highly recommend reading them.

 

Once again, I also want to thank everyone else who submitted entries as well.  I really enjoyed reading through every single one of these fics, even if some were undoubtedly written better than others.  It was a joy seeing people turning out to write their own fics, tell their own stories, and present their own interpretations of canon characters we know and love, or even make up their own!  I hope we'll see only more of this in the future, and hope that this contest has done a bit to bring our fan fiction community here on MLP Forums and in the greater Poniverse a little bit closer together.  Thank you all for your efforts, participation, and most of all, for the fun times I and many other readers have had reading through your work!   

 

[CloserToTheSun 732]

Congrats to all of the winners!

[CheeryFox 23,823]

Whoa... Congrats to the winners! 

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[Odyssey 5,718]

Congrats to the winners! You should be proud of the time and effort you put into your fanfics.

 

Also a special mention to the people who didn't win. Even if you didn't even get an Honourable Mention, you should be happy for participating as well as putting a lot of hard work into your own fanfics.

[Yoshi89 5,293]

Whoa, third place! Thank you so much and congrats to the rest of the winners! Well deserved!

[Namename. 275]

Whoa, third place! Thank you so much and congrats to the rest of the winners! Well deserved!

Great work, Yoshi. I don't even care I didn't win. I am just happy everybody else is happy. Well done, everybody who turned in their work. And happy, uh, late Hearts and Hooves Day!

[Rosemary Comet 76]

Whoa, third place! Thank you so much and congrats to the rest of the winners! Well deserved!

Congrats!! I'm so happy for you and all of the other winners. Like you said: Well deserved!

[Coco before Pommel 679]

OMC, second place??   I so wasn't expecting that! Thank you so much and big congrats to all the winners, everypony who entered and of course thanks to @Batbrony for running the contest!! It's been really  awesome participating with you all~ 

[Batbrony 16,056]

OMC, second place??   I so wasn't expecting that! Thank you so much and big congrats to all the winners, everypony who entered and of course thanks to @Batbrony for running the contest!! It's been really  awesome participating with you all~ 

 

Congratulations yourself, your fic was simply delightful! 

[CheeryFox 23,823]

Again...you guys did a beautiful job. It takes a lot of work to do a fanfic. Be proud, mates. 

[Light Diamond 950]

Congratulations to the winners.

 

Also, a special mention to the honorable mentions, and to those that entered for your efforts

[SteffieMusings 295]

Congratulations, winners. Those entries are wonderful and captured the feeling of Hearts & Hooves Day perfectly. I would also like to thank those who had entered as well; especially how you had poured your heart and soul into your entries too.

 

Once again, congrats

[Lightning Crasher 54]

Congrats guys! Nice reads, looking forward to next work.