Friday's Featured Fic: Of Angels · 5:13am Feb 28th, 2015
Author: PaulAsaran
Genre: Slice of Life
Word Count: 4k
Synopsis: All his life, Angel Bunny has been plagued by a single question. At long last, he has an answer, and he longs to reveal it. Doing so may be the single most important thing he's ever done, but Angel doesn't know how to deliver the message. After all, rabbits have no need of writing.
Angel needs to learn. Knowing this task is far too important to let his pride get the better of him, Angel does something he never thought he'd do: ask for help. There's only one pony for the job.
One of the most underutilized methods of storytelling in Fanfiction is the use of colored text. Not green text stories, mind, but stories that utilize colors as mechanics. Stories like The White Box and Therapist Visit, which utilize colors in order to do things that that would be otherwise impossible in the form of printed fiction. Heck, even the God Empress of Ponykind did with a little colored text, to great effect I might add.
In the electronic medium, where fiction isn't bound by the material constraints of publishing your work with physical ink and paper, color text allows for fiction to explore new ways of interacting with readers without any cost to the writer. Of Angels knows this, and takes full advantage if it.
Of Angels is a character piece, about Angel Bunny. Mechanically, it is very similar to Therapist Visit, in that there is no actual interaction between any of the characters beyond dialogue. Unlike Therapist Visit, however, the characters are not actually "talking" per say, but writing to each other via an enchanted journal. Through this unique form of correspondence, Twilight Sparkle is teaching Angel Bunny to write, so that he may write a letter to Fluttershy.
Angel Bunny is not the most . . . likable character in the show. And to the author's credit, this story does nothing to misconstrue him. Angel Bunny easily comes off as a very antagonistic personality through his interactions with the other characters. But he never seems to be downright cruel. Having a personality more reminiscent of a grouchy old man than a anti-hero.
But one thing that is readily apparent, is that Fluttershy is very important to him. This is made very clear early on in the story, and is the basis of Angel's character arc. As Angel's writing becomes steadily better, this becomes steadily more obvious that the entire reason he's doing this is because of Fluttershy. And this steadily transforms Angel Bunny into a very likable hero.
Because this story is literally four-thousand words of pure dialogue, it easily manages to say a lot more than many larger stories, and I was more than a little surprised at how much ground this story was able to cover with such a relatively small word count.
I read this story on a whim, and was glad I did. With any luck, you will too.
So glad you approved! I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting this to show up on your Friday Feature, so I'm pleasantly surprised.