Now that most of the EoY talk is over, I can finally say what I had on my mind for the past weeks.
Hot damn. "Eyes on You" is "Of Mares and Magic" but better in nearly every way.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/43012752/chapters/108078585Of Mares and Magic is an even older story published between June and August of 2011. It has Trixie coming to Ponyville to challenge Twilight to a duel to regain her honour. Long story short, but in this Equestria, every graduate from Celestia's school has a title bestowed upon them. Twilight's is "The Magnificent" which is the adorablest thing. Some time ago, a unicorn called Paragon got the title of "Great and Powerful", a title that Trixie later won in a duel. She's technically lost the rights to it and now wants it back.
I don't want to spoil things, because the story is actually pretty good. I actually wrote a detailed review of this story some years ago, if you want to read that (
www.fimfiction.net/blog/797173/) but back to what I said about EoY being a better version of this story, we have:
>Trixie coming to Ponyville motivated by settling a grudge.>Twilight being in love with Trixie because lol.>The "Duel" between Twilight and Trixie being several events.>The story being split in two with the latter arc being different to the first one.>A tournament where there's a final event to determin the winner.One thing that's different, though? Trixie is much, much better in this story. It's to be expected since she's mostly the POV character through all of it, but this story really dwells on her motivation and character in a way that's surprising for a fic this old. You can really come to understand why she thinks and acts the way she does. Why does the title of "Great and Powerful" means so much to her, and what she's willing to sacrifice to achieve her dreams.
However, unlike Eyes on You, Of Mares and Magic has something that really sets it apart and makes it belong to a small and distinct group of stories.
The epilogue is so fucking bad it retroactively makes the story as a whole less good.
You think it sucked when Bug on a Stick had an epilogue that leaped a long time and included stuff that had no business being included in the first place? Well, you're right. But that epilogue didn't retroactively made the previous half of the story be pointless.
To this day I cannot wrap my mind around how the author could go "lol, jk. Everything in the last chapter was irrelevant, I actually meant this. Ignore the complete character assassination, and dozens of plot holes and contradictions the epilogue causes."
Imagine if Eyes on You had ended with Flaire going "See you around, Trixie! Also, congrats on winning last year's Magic Display on your own." Or if after the tower, Celestia had gone to the competitors and told them "that was a great show! By the way, the safety measures were put in place specifically because we knew Trixie would fall." Or, fuck, imagine if the story had ended with Trixie and RD together.
