>>Soaring
>>FanOfMostEverything
>>Trick_Question
>>GrandMoffPony
>>Calipony
>>CoffeeMinion
>>Winston

Honor, Duty, and Sacrfice: Author's Retrospective
Thank you to everyone who read and a special thanks to those who provided feedback! This was my first attempt at writing comedy, and I hope you enjoyed it, even though it clearly fell flat for many of you. There's some major confusion with the punchline and some problems with the build up that have been made much clearer thanks to your comments. Feel free to join me in this rambling explanation of where this story came from and what I planned to do with it.

First, a lot of the issues stem directly from the writing process. It went thusly:
- 2:00PM USA Eastern (24 hours to deadline): Well... horseapples. I've got nothing...
- 2:00AM/3:00AM DST USA Eastern (12 hours to deadline): Hey, that could work... but I'm really tired...
- 9:00AM USA Eastern (5 hours to deadline): And that would be a stupid ending if she just doesn't get mad at them.
- 10:00AM USA Eastern (4 hours to deadline): Unless someone else can take the fall for it! But everypony who might be able to take the fall and keep the perception of it being serious is gone in canon...
- 11:00AM USA Eastern (3 hours to deadline): Wait! Pre-wedding Shining Armor and Cadance! And I can have legitimate reason for Celestia not being disappointed! And... Holy cow I have an idea... I... think I'd better start writing...
- 1:00AM USA Eastern (1 hour to deadline): Ok, getting a bit long. Let's keep the ending short, but not too short or I'll write myself into a wall.
- 1:30AM USA Eastern (30 minutes to deadline): So, this wasn't exactly meant to be a punchline, but I'm out of time and words, and hey, comedy needs a punchline. And why not keep it vague? Surely there's some comedy analog for leaving threats up to the imagination, right?
- 1:35AM USA Eastern (25 minutes to deadline): Why is it still 850 words?!?!
- 1:40AM USA Eastern (20 minutes to deadline): *Weeping and gnashing of teeth, cutting explanatory content*
- 1:45AM USA Eastern (15 minutes to deadline): Ok, title... title... Hey, this fits. Submit!

And cue comments about not getting the punchline. And really, two slices of cake? How the... the first line of the story is about it being the last slice! I need to clear this up. You're probably looking for the TL;DR anyways, so here's what I was going for:

"Princess, I regret to inform you that an accident occurred in the hall." This was embarrassing. Reporting the guards' failiure as his own to Celestia was bad enough, but to do it in front of Cadance as well? Still, decorum was absolutely required. His position demanded no less. "Your slice of cake was the only casualty, but it was a total loss." This wasn't going to do him any favors. How the hay was he supposed to stay on her good side while dating her adopted niece and destroying her cake? "I take full responsibility." Shining Armor braced himself for his punishment.

"Oh, that's alright Shining," replied Celestia.

What?

She looked pensive. "I could - no, the symbolism is gone. But you can still..." Shining Armor stared at the princess incredulously as she cleared her throat. "I just realized I have several things to take care of anyway. Perhaps you could join Cadance for tea instead?" She rose from the table and walked brusquely for the door.

Shining Armor sputtered, "I - but the cake... and didn't you have orders?"

Princess Celestia paused and gave him a brilliant smile. "Take the day off, Lieutenant. Enjoy yourself!" With that, she walked out the door, leaving behind a confused stallion and a blushing pink princess.

Shining Armor blinked. "Wait, she set us up on a date?"

Cadance nodded. "I think she was trying to be subtle."

"Huh..." Shining grunted, "So the cake was for us to share..." He moved forward to join Cadance at the table, then paused. "What did she mean about symbolism?"

Cadance's blush deepened. "Well, would you prefer she threw rings at us and told us to get on with it?"

Oh.

Those guards were definitely getting latrine duty.

So you can see, probably not as punchy and requires a whole lot more exposition to get it right. This right here was the only reason I actually considered entering this idea for the Writeoff. I wanted to introduce the concept that a Celestia who really loves cake might gift a single slice to show approval, nay, to give her blessing to the happy couple. Otherwise it's just Celestia likes cake... And a couple of guards ruin it. As submitted, if one were to pick up on it, the significance of sharing the cake could mean a simple date, to marriage encouragement, to even innuendo, which is why I let it go and still hit submit.

Now see why Shining is assigning them latrine duty?

Regarding the build up, I'm a little unsure where to take it. Some of you have complimented the build up for its execution, but most of you have stated it overstays its welcome.

The length is tied into the title (which actually should be Duty, Honor and Sacrifice, but panic made me choose the word order that rolled off the tongue fastest). There's four parts to this story: The newbie guards show duty by clearing the area to deal with the crisis, they show honor by taking responsibility with little hesitation when confronted by a superior officer despite their panic, and Shining Armor rewards them by taking the blame is meant in a particularly messianic act that is supposed to raise his standing among his subordinates. This is all wrapped up by the turn where Celestia reveals it wasn't a big deal after all.

See, the humor was meant to be found mostly in ponies blowing a small mess out of proportion, exacerbated by how serious all the guards (including Shining) approach the situation. I wanted to present a universe similar to Princess Celestia Hates Tea where there is a perception that cake is really important to Celestia, but in reality, it's just one of her delights. The difference would be that instead of Equestria actually hinging on this delight, they all just think it's the end of the world, and Celestia just happens to really like cake. I had no intention of focusing on Cakelestia or giving any impression of malice behind this perception. Perhaps that could be retooled by switching the guards' worries from fearing Celestia's retribution to fearing what it will do to their standing, being newbies who just ruined Celestia's cake.

As for the length of this chunk, perhaps it could be addressed by proportion. As Winston suggests, it might play out better at an even pace with a longer word count.

So, that's what I wanted to say about this story. Maybe I'll get around to touching it up at some point. If you've read this far, thanks for joining me on my post-contest rambling!

>>horizon
>>FanOfMostEverything

A Deal to Die For Twice — Flim and Flam get a huge head start on their new business venture by signing an exlcusivity agreement with Sweetie Drops.

A Curious Case To Die For — They then go out of business as they realize the entire population of Ponyville has been made immortal.

@Roger
Bug report: One off error
Severity: Trivial to Minor
Environment: Main Discussion Thread

Not sure if it's a one off error or the server trying to serve data that's not yet available/synchronized, but at 900 posts, an empty page 10 has been created for me. Noticed this earlier but someone else posted again before I could double check what I was seeing.

A rather odd entry. I tend to avoid Anon on general principle and thus have not had much experience with those stories, but I decided to bear it when I saw the continuous stream of spoilered traffic.

For feedback, I agree with the others that this is quite vague, almost to the point of infuriatingly vexing, but holds just enough promise to make me want to comb through it and figure it out... There's an undercurrent of emotion here just begging to be free, but it's so hard to find out exactly what it is... Edit: It's distracting enough that I completely forgot to look for a way that the story ties to the prompt.

I think I'll take a shot at helping the interpretation along. Or else I'll just muck it up even further. Never know until we try!

The first thing I notice is how the moment Twilight comes into the picture there is an immediate change in tense and perspective. The story is no longer 2nd person Anon focus, and we switch from present to past tense. Also notice Pinkie's position before and after the switch. Before the switch, I see no indication that Pinkie ever got off off Anon's shoulders, and after, she is tumbling off a countertop. Both lead me to believe that Anon is imaginary. I would even hazard a guess that Pinkie is narrating the first two thirds of this story and the words we are reading are her internal narrative and she's coming up with a backstory for Anon as she plays along with her fantasy.

Next, I see Twilight directly acknowledges the emptiness of Sugarcube Corner and hopes Pinkey isn't lonely. Immediately after she leaves, the mess is cleaned up. This could all be symbolism for loneliness and how Pinkie deals with it.

But why name Anon? It only occurs once in the entire story, indicating it is significant. Anon is clearly human as pointed out by horizon's analysis of the anatomy referenced throughout the story. No matter which way I approach it, this seems like a very deliberate and potentially calculated decision.

I have two theories that are as strong as a house of cards:

1) Anon is real, but not there. He's somewhere else, being cared for by Twilight Sparkle. He has gravitated toward her due to their similar backgrounds and interests. However, he has not noticed Pinkie Pie's extra attentions and she fantasizes about him a bit. I don't think this is correct since it doesn't match up as well with the idea of loneliness and the disappearing cake batter.

2) Anon is not real, but perhaps the fact that Anon is named such is meant to steer the story towards commentary on Anon stories and the authors that write about Anon. I was going to ramble some about how Pinkie acts around Anon and her attachment to him, but I'm very disappointed with how superfluous that makes Twilight's visit and ignores the fact that the cake is for a non-specific "he."

I'm flummoxed. Maybe the secret is in AJ's hay bales...

Edit: You're not the only one getting ninja'd, Trick.

That's where I know this from! The 1995 movie Tom and Huck had a similar scene. Took me a while because all my Google searches kept returning the older renditions or the books. Watched that as a little kid... I think I liked this better than the movie.

This was enjoyable and made me smile more than the nostalgia it brought up. Good job I say.

I think I find this mildly enjoyable, and I am struggling to explain why it doesn't go further than that. It's a well written scene, it expands on the canon just enough to add a tiny bit of depth, and the characters are well written. I think that its failing for me is that though the scene adds depth, it's not enough depth or transformative enough to cause me to truly care about it. Not sure if that's just me or if I'm not the ideal audience. I may revisit this to expand a bit more on my thoughts.

Conclusion: Upper middle road due to good writing.

Odd. The reply button for post #337 is not showing for me (also missing on #302). Roger, may need to investigate when you get a chance. Not game breaking, just annoying. Attempting manual override:

>>GrandMoffPony

Funny you should say that just as I was opening tabs for commenting/reviewing those exact stories for that exact reason. You can expect at least some disparity. Depending on the reader, they may or may not leave a comment/review immediately and the review slates may just have fallen that the overactive users happened to get the same stories.

Some stories may either merit deeper discussion or future reviewers find items worth commenting on in other people's reviews. This can lead to conversations that may or may not artificially bloat a story's exposure. I'd say it's natural, but much easier to see on this forum rather than the old spreadsheet that only tracked reviews.

That said, there's some dedicated and awesome people out there that tend to intentionally leave some form of review on stories with less activity, especially when it's pointed out. Granted, that doesn't always happen on the first day of reviewing, but it tends to happen. This group seems to be very serious about getting at least some sort of feedback to every story out there.

I like this. I like this a lot. You perfectly captured the solemn nature of the event and the weight of each action. Despite its natural slowness, I never found myself bored. I think the traditions that you put forth here would live extremely well in canon, were we to ever see such an event. I think the emotional pacing of this piece is where it really shines.

Non-spoilery conclusion: Top Contender

Wonderful implementation of the bait and switch. I'm quite accustomed to the switch being incredibly abrupt, instantaneously changing the entire meaning of the feel of the story. Here, I was treated to a quiet somberness that tempered the switch such that I only felt mild confusion as to whose funeral we truly were attending. It slowly became a rise of something akin to what Pinkie must have been feeling before reaching a triumphant plateau of realization that this is a story about how the Pies celebrate a coming of age.

The idea that they would have a funeral for their given name and choose a name for themselves is wonderful in my opinion. It also adds to the idea of Pinkie being the odd one for not following the rest of the family's naming convention of picking rock related names (though there might be a bit of a hole with Maud's name unless I'm missing a pun). The addition of Maurina Alice as Marble Pie helps serve as a hint to what's going on and adds an additional layer of consistency to the premise.

A job well done in my opinion!

Quick note: Looks like comments/reviews on stories are correctly being reposted in the main discussion thread, but don't yet have any reference back to where they came from.

Edit: Aaaaand nevermind. Refresh made it add the reference.

The Equestrian Candidate

It took me about 10 seconds to realize what was happening with this fic, a couple minutes to read it, and another to recognize how this fits the prompt.

Wow author, this really is your funeral. Good luck.

Praise unto thee, last minute muse. May thy inspiration guide us unto writing fics worthy of thy gifts.