Got at least one entry in for this one. Taking people's advice and continuing to publish. Let us see how it will fare.

The question that I'm going to attempt to answer as I do these reviews is: what was done with the idea at hand. In this particular case, the idea at hand is Twilight going into apprenticeship to learn chaos magic from Discord, and his teaching her what he knows.

The beginning doesn't provide a motivation for Twilight to want to learn chaos magic, and I think with the dialogue exchange between Twilight and Discord, it makes the story suffer. The fourth-wall joke about the montage is funny and Discord-esque, but the rest of the dialogue doesn't put the story onto any sort of track. Twilight doesn't justify her desire to learn something that would endanger all of Equestria, and Discord doesn't feign surprise that she wants to learn. I think my problem with it is that a decision like the two of them are making would have an established significance in the show, and without that establishment here, I just didn't root for them.

The montage is a pretty funny one, and I liked how varied the incidences were. Trying to teach Twilight the science and physical motions of chaos is an interesting and encompassing concept. The third one, admittedly, confused me, but it is overall a collection of fun tidbits.

The ending has perfect characterization, and it's a fitting and astounding conclusion to this story. I do think that this:

“Wait, we’re overcomplicating this aren’t we. We don’t need to show work. We just need to write an equation, even if it makes zero sense. 42. There. That’s the answer. We’re done.”

Could've been done better. It seems like Twilight has a false epiphany about what she's doing. I would've imagined her agonizing over changing "2+2=4" to "2+2=5" to show some progress, or rather Twilight's mane going all frizzy, and then her racked mind dispelling chaos, and Discord cheering all the while. The part here seems too contrived, like Twilight just wanted to get it over with.

Overall, I liked most of it. The montage worked, and the ending is brilliant. I just think the establishment isn't there for me to actually root for them, and the epiphany seemed weak.

But take my word for whatever it is. I'm not particularly smart, so please judge this on your own terms. Whatever happens, I wish you success wherever you go.

I think I hear someone knocking now.

I don’t think I’ll let them in.

And bugger it all if I'm going to check who it is first.

No, I kid. Paranormal stories are something I'm attracted to, and this one does it nicely, I believe. The word of warning is nice, the writing is good, the progression is pretty good, and it overall interested me. It's about as basic as it can be, with the Civilization game being a smart addition to personality, but it does its job. The ending(in the quotes above) is honestly weak. If this were a horror story with more atmosphere, I think it could work, to highlight his paranoia. As it is, I don't think it works here.

Also, why would you run away after this thing said "hello"? It's obviously trying to be friendly, you coward!*

*I don't actually think the narrator is a coward. Just that maybe that part could have been more menacing; the story in general could've been more menacing, if you were going for straight-up horror. As it is, though, it does its job.

Edit: How does one change the size of the font? What does one put in the quotation marks?

>>Orbiting_kettle
Save some for me! Joins Orbiting_kettle in a duvet

I will be tackling my review and/or critique a bit differently than what I'm used to doing. I've decided, since everyone's got a good handle of talking about conflict, characterization, and that sort of thing, to focus instead on the prose itself. In this critique, I will be attempting to examine how the word choice, sentence structure, order of events, and point of view influence the tone of the story, based on what it's trying to accomplish (from my perspective). Take this however you will.

For those looking for my general thoughts on this story, here it is: the conflict between Luna and the Nightmare spirit is contrastingly outstanding. It told enough about the world to show us the severity of her/their actions, and it displays each one's philosophy nicely. Criticisms from me include questionable word choices, and a few moments where I felt the point of view was confused. Overall, a great story throughout.

And author, whoever you may be, the criticisms I have aren't meant to be discouraging; they are merely my observations, and my attempts to extrapolate what I liked and didn't like, and why I felt it hurt the tone and events of the story. Take them for however you will, but please keep that in mind.



Firstly, I'll commend the point of view. The dueling personalities was delicious (for lack of a better word) to read, and the contrast between a forlorn, musing Luna and the bitter, vengeful Nightmare spirit made for a great internal conflict. The prose itself switched between calm introspection and vitriol; the word choice conveyed a lot of that, and the pacing switched each on a dime to create a nice suspense.

Was it my sister, who prevented us from fulfilling your true potential, or was it the vacuous populace who cannot appreciate the beauty of darkness!

Yes, I wanted them to see how darkness, by merely existing, enhances the appreciation of what little light there is, be it a candle or the Moon gleaming off of a pond. After all, what is the night without the day to complement it?

Rapture.

These, in particular, were moments I felt stand out. The interruptions really help the conflict, showing how little say Luna has since she infused herself with the Nightmare spirit. That single "Rapture" all by itself was very poignant, a slight break from what came before that makes it all the more menacing. Fantastic job! If I were being nitpicky (which I will be, by just saying this), I would question why Celestia prevented them from achieving her true potential, instead of either preventing herfrom achieving her true potential, or preventing them from achieving their true potential. To me, it doesn't make sense from the Nightmare's perspective; why simultaneously force them together (us) and separate them (your)? I would also nitpick that I don't see the descriptive value of "darkness, by merely existing" when something like "constant darkness," "overwheming darkness," "vast darkness," or "prolonged darkness" would've driven the enhancement of light a clearer picture.

But those nitpicks could just be me. The point of view is carried through very well in the majority of the story, and their dueling personalities, peppered with the cajoling from the Nightmare spirit ("Accept me into your heart, and we as one can accomplish astonishing acts.") made for an incredible dynamic.

With that being said, there was one place that In felt like the Nightmare spirit said something odd.

I felt that ponies could not treasure the inherent duality in our existence. Looking upon the Earth now, soaked in both day and night simultaneously, I cannot help but think that the entirety of it is my birthright.

I don't know if birthrights are applicable to this mindset. She wanted appreciation and equality, I would think. Even if it is the Nightmare Spirit that wants the Earth by birthright, how would it convince Luna to accept that? Wouldn't it be Celestia's birthright, since she's older? What birthright does the Nightmare Spirit possess? I apologize if I missed something, but I felt that not only was that confusing, but it muddled up the point of view; I don't know if the Nightmare Spirit said this to Luna, or if it was talking to itself.

I would like to get as much value out of my comment as possible, so I'm going to add this nitpick that you are totally free to ignore:

… I want my life back. I want my respect back. I want my sister back. Synthesizing with the sticky sluice of the incubus was a grave error. The morning after my banishment concludes―

In the show, we know that Princess Luna didn't feel appreciated enough, and that she was being completely overshadowed by Celestia. With any other character, I could understand wanting respect back, but given what happens in the show, it would make more sense that she would want respect, period. Unless... there were ponies that respected her before, but just not enough to make her feel equal or important; or maybe her importance was acknowledged, but not appreciated like her sister's and—GAH! Okay, take the above whinging for whatever it's worth.

Sentence structure next. I appreciate how the sentences are paced, switching from philosophical musing that's bound to occur from being on the Moon, to quick bursts of emotion that help give the conflict its passion.

As I witness the Earth rise from my Lunar prison-throne, I cannot help but muse just exactly what we aimed to subjugate.

Was it my sister, who prevented us from fulfilling your true potential,

After all, what is the night without the day to complement it?

Rapture.

There will be no morning after the banishment concludes.

…

…

…

What have I done?

I think this greatly helps the tone and tension, since the reflection that Luna so desperately needs to do, wants to do for herself and everyone else, is constantly interrupted by the violent Nightmare spirit and her own emotions. It gives the story a liveliness, a dynamic struggle to steer us along, a conflict to get through without succumbing to the hatred. I don't have any complaints about sentence structuring.

I think the progression the story goes through is natural, and presents each moment in a significant manner. It begins with musing about herself, and then about the world around her, and then the world below her, and her future. It moves from the past to present to future, presenting the weight of each piece nicely. Luna's able to look back mournfully while the Nightmare spirit lingers in anger at being defeated so. In the present, Luna's able to attempt to calm her mind, while the Nightmare spirit takes the opportunity to get Luna to join in her anger. At future thoughts, Luna yearns for better times, while the Nightmare spirits wants vengeance. This also lends to the dynamic conflict the two entities are going through, so very nice job!

The last thing I'd like to talk about is the word choice. I like the simplistic, and yet poetic, words you gave Luna and the Nightmare spirit. Luna's words are calm and allow for deep thought, while the Nightmare spirit's Rapture, perfection, vacuous, birthright (even though it doesn't fit in the story, I don't think) and accept (yes, I went out of order. I'm sorry) are all striking words that fight to gain momentum towards revenge.

However, I do think that a lot of words used weren't used well. The word choice in many places is the biggest thing I would criticize about this particular story. Luna wanted appreciation and equality, and believes herself just; why would she ask who she wanted to subjugate? Why would she say that she worked through a pure act of will when working by force would've been more applicable to what happened? If the Nightmare spirit tried to help Luna accept her, why would it claim that it was superlative to her (I could see that, at least, if it's implied that it doesn't really care about her), and that she had to negotiate perfection? Why, if the Nightmare spirit is so focused on getting revenge and obliterating daylight, does it tell Luna that they can merely do astonishing acts together (this is less word-usage, admittedly, and more weakly applicable to the moment)?

There were a few other wording issues/nitpicks I had (that may or may not be valid). I didn't like the words "singular drive"; singular sounds too proper and not very emotional, while drive doesn't exactly fit with what she's feeling (I think; I'll admit that the connotation of "drive" isn't completely clear to me), and I think "single desire" would've worked better. "Prison-throne" sounds like you tried including two concepts, one of entrapment and one of dominance, and as it's written it sounds odd (perhaps putting throne in bolded italics would've helped?). I don't like how you use "vantage point"; it sounds too remote and technical. I don't like how you added "calmly" to "conversed", like you were trying to offer up an obvious solution, thus blunting the confusion and struggle. "Treachery" has the same issue, making her thoughts too black-and-white for what happened here (unless it's to signal that she's recognized the evil of the nightmare for what it truly is; in which case, good job).

That's it for my nitpicks. They may not be applicable to the story or your writing style; those were just my observations on how words were used. They're individual cases, however, in a bulk that does work. The poetic nature of the words used in introspection, pondering, and lashing out works most of the time, and the word choice was really good. The above were just places where I thought the tone was thrown off, and the overall message was muddled.

One last criticism/nitpick/gargling:

I cannot help but dream of my ascendancy over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.

I don't know if it's just because Nightmare Moon was associated with ponies, and the story focused on the night and the ponies' perception of it, but this stuck out to me as something that didn't fit. It's poetic, nearly biblical in the way it was written, but it doesn't fit here, IMHO.

Overall, I do think this was a great story throughout. The dueling personalities trying to simultaneously merge and separate is a great conflict, each voice is distinct, each point of view sharply defined, the tragedy and danger of it all really nice, and the wording consistent. There were those places where I felt the word choice was off, and the characters weren't being true to the situation, but I won't say they detract from the overall story. Overall, I would give this a high recommendation.

And once again, please don't be discouraged if you're prone to being so. These are merely my observations, take them with a grain of salt.

I will be tackling my review and/or critique a bit differently than what I'm used to doing. I've decided, since everyone's got a good handle of talking about conflict, characterization, and that sort of thing, to focus instead on the prose itself. In this critique, I will be attempting to examine how the word choice, sentence structure, order of events, and point of view influence the tone of the story, based on what it's trying to accomplish (from my perspective). Take this however you will.

For those looking for my general thoughts on this story, here it is: I thought it presented the conflict with a good amount of heart and a decent amount of pacing, but I feel like it didn't use the power of tears well enough to draw from it the full importance of it. The epistolary style is probably the right choice, but I think the story's actually too much written as a standard story to get the full effect of it.

And author, whoever you may be, the criticisms I have aren't meant to be discouraging; they are merely my observations, and my attempts to extrapolate what I liked and didn't like, and why I felt it hurt the tone and events of the story. Take them for however you will, but please keep that in mind.



Firstly, I will confess that I review epistolary stories far more harshly than I do regular stories. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's because people don't really get the full weight of someone's letters or journal entries, the weight that can't be conveyed in regular storytelling; or it may be because people often confuse writing letters/journal entries with stream-of-consciousness, and the two have a different significance to each of them. That could be the pretentious critic in me, though, but keep that in mind when I say that the epistolary form isn't done complete justice. In this story's case, it comes close to being a great epistolary, but there are word and punctuation choices that make me feel like I'm reading a story trying to be an epistolary.

Let me point them out in order:

I write this letter, unsure if I will even send it. I think I just need to hear the scratch of a quill on paper to feel some sense of normalcy at the moment. I... I broke down in tears a moment ago, as my usual outlet for cathartic writing is my journal.

It's a pet peeve of mine whenever I see ellipses in a letter or journal entry. I don't see the value in pausing there, or in the narrator pausing there. She could've just hesitated before writing again, and we the readers could've wondered about her mindset as she was writing it. As it is, it makes that section sound like dialogue, rather than a privately written thought in a letter.

I know I'm lucky to have survived. More lucky still that my friends were spared as well. Lucky thrice over that only property and possessions—not lives—were lost when Tirek attacked. I confess I even felt a sort of "high" in my victory yesterday.

This is a bit worse. I can understand that that interruption with the em-dashes is proper, but it makes it sound a lot less personal. And putting the quotes around "high" really fetters the freedom that comes with writing a letter you're not sure you'll send. It's trying to be too story-like, and even if it is to show Twilight's personality in regards to that lingo, I personally find it distracting. To me, that signals that it's not Twilight that's writing it; it's you writing Twilight writing it.

How do you do it, Princess? I know you've been to battle—faced loss so many more times than I. Does it wear on you the same? Do you weep uncontrollably into your pillow, even as the brightness of day shines through the window? Do you hear the victory parade outside celebrating your success, yet find yourself hiding in the cellar? Is this what it's like to win?

This might be nitpicky, but I think you veered too much into poetic territory. It's not natural-sounding, and I don't think you're getting much value adding it here. She's talking about crying into her bed and crying uncontrollably; what does a cellar have to do with that thought?

So why doesn't it feel like it? Why can I think of nothing but how close I came to losing everything; to losing everypony!

You know, because of this particular sentence, I went and looked at the history of italics to see if it could actually work in handwriting (or hoofwriting or hornwriting or what-have-you). This is more because it personally bothers me to see italics in epistolary, and not because of any sort of rules. Short answer (for me, at least): italics were a specific way to print works back in the 16th century, and took on their meaning of emphasizing important words later on. So for me, italics in non-typed epistolary (like this one) doesn't work, but that's a very minor nitpick.

It's the pressure. It must be the pressure. How can so much depend on one awkward, nervous librarian! I'm nopony! I don't even known what I'm doing most of the time. I freak out about overdue books! I almost destroyed the timeline because of homework! How can so much possibly depend on me?!

Now here's where I think the epistolary is done well. The entire paragraph is a free, unfettered confession of her thoughts, still trying to maintain rationality while coming to grips with her inner thoughts. The underlined parts drive it home, and this is what I love about confession moments; you see things that have lingered on someone's mind for a while get wrapped within an internal conflict, adding to the despair the character's feeling. You probably could've done without the "it's the pressure. It must've been the pressure," and dived immediately into questioning herself; I feel the mention of pressure is an attempt on the author's part to rationalize it, fettering it unnecessarily.

I landed, there in the ashes of my old home. And I wept. Oh, how I wept. I cried so long I began to wonder if it was genuinely possible to run out of tears. Could a pony actually cry so hard that her tear ducts broke? Distracted by the question, I stood up, thinking to retrieve a biology book I shelved a few weeks ago. Then I remembered where I was and there was a catch in my throat as my hooves again felt unsteady beneath me. But curiosity overwhelmed sadness, and I began to dig in the ashes anyway.

A minor complaint, but I think using "sadness" here puts this moment a little bit in the observation point of view (her curiosity overwhelmed her sadness) and less on the immediate moment (my curiosity overwhelmed me). I'm not sure if I got that across well.

Nothing.

Will.

Break!!

I have to agree with >>FanOfMostEverything here: the double exclamation marks are distracting, and it does just seem like she wants to shout, shout, and let it all out. Well, these are the things I can do without. (tried adding a YouTube video here, but it didn't work. :()

I think that's everything about the style itself. It's small things like that that distract me from getting the full experience from your work. Epistolaries can be unfettered confessions of one's thoughts (in journal) or can express confidante (I don't mean confidence, even though that can also be expressed) and fear of saying too much (in letter). Writing this as a letter that may not be sent, in full confidence of their confidante, in place of a journal entry, and being so neat and observational in those places blunts the impact that the form can have.

Now, I don't want you thinking that I think it's all bad. Even though I think the form is flawed, the heart in the story is really strong. Your word choice and sentence order express a weariness from all of the sadness and anger she's felt, and it's consistently held up. I like the order it went through, from confessing that she's sad, to wondering how Celestia feels in the face of such pressure, to going off and facing her sadness. Each moment is drawn out and given enough time to develop Twilight's feelings.

How do you do it, Princess? I know you've been to battle—faced loss so many more times than I. Does it wear on you the same? Do you weep uncontrollably into your pillow, even as the brightness of day shines through the window? Do you hear the victory parade outside celebrating your success, yet find yourself hiding in the cellar? Is this what it's like to win?

I won. I know I did.

I won. Tirek is locked away.

I won! My friends are all safe.

I WON!!!!

So why doesn't it feel like it? Why can I think of nothing but how close I came to losing everything; to losing everypony! Tirek almost killed you, almost killed Luna, Cadance, my friends... He almost killed us all. He was this close to victory. Had I failed to dodge just one magic blast, one thrown boulder... one single mistake, and I would have died, and everything and everypony I cared about would likely have died with me.

It's the pressure. It must be the pressure. How can so much depend on one awkward, nervous librarian! I'm nopony! I don't even known what I'm doing most of the time. I freak out about overdue books! I almost destroyed the timeline because of homework! How can so much possibly depend on me?!

By the way, going back and bolding/litalicizing things when I cope-paste things is a right pain. XD

Anyway, I think this is a particularly good scene. Twilight incrementally attempts to convince herself that she was victorious, each moment using a greater weight and more frantic tactic, but in the end she confesses that she doesn't feel like it. She compares her suffering to Celestia's, simultaneously drawing her mentor closer to her in her mind while also implying that she perhaps shouldn't be so worked up about being victorious. The prose is a bit flowery for my tastes, and there are some odd word uses (all of which are bolded for you to consider). But this, in particular, uses the right words, the right moments of stress, and stays true to the epistolary form.

The major power behind the tone of this story is how weary everything sounds. Except for when it's fettered by odd word choices and punctuation, your word choice meanders from thought to thought while still moving at a brisk pace. The word choice is personal, not too complicated (most of the time), and, I think most importantly, encompasses Twilight's perception of the scope of her actions. From focusing on herself to focusing on everything, to once again allowing herself to focus on herself, was a nice sandwiching, and I appreciate that in this story, we got to feel the weight of what happened at every moment. You were on point in terms of emotion! :)

With that being said, I did feel that there were word choices (yes, again with that) that interfered with the above. I didn't bring it up before because these don't interfere with the form; they interfere with the message.

I... I broke down in tears a moment ago, as my usual outlet for cathartic writing is my journal. But as I rose from the bed in this cold and sterile new castle, I remembered my journal burned to ashes along with the rest of my home.

"Cold and sterile," especially sterile, seems like it's trying to force a negative view of the castle only so the old home can be seen positively. And this may be a nitpick, but using "as" as you did, it brings to light that Twilight's crying for catharsis WAY TOO EARLY. This is a big problem with your story in general, the biggest one as far as I'm concerned: it tries to show us the power of tears, but does it too spread out. The big moment is when she's faced with her destroyed home, and then cries for catharsis: doing it here, and then saying that it's for catharsis, weakens the moment.

At least in my opinion.

All the fear and doubt and rage and anger and sadness of the past few days feels like it just came flooding back all at once.

This has a nice cadence to it. :)

Is that how it's supposed to work? We bottle up those feelings when we can't afford to endure them, but have to pay for it later in tears?

I feel like "afford to" cheapens the confusion that Twilight is probably feeling; it makes it too clear that she couldn't afford to let herself be sad or angry in the heat of battle, and can be that way alone. That's true, but it interferes with her desire to feel victorious and glad that her friends and family and everything is safe. It takes attention away from that.

Is this what it's like to win?

I don't understand why she's asking this. She says later that she doesn't feel like she's winning; besides, Celestia's lost things and ponies before, and Twilight didn't. It can be written off as a heat-of-the-moment comment, and I can let that slide, but please consider this: Is Twilight's victory with no losses and with the possibility of losing really aptly comparable to Celestia's winning with losses? It may be, but I don't think so.

Then I remembered where I was and there was a catch in my throat as my hooves again felt unsteady beneath me.

I like this immediacy. :)

Against all odds, a few tomes survived, among them, "Salty Sea's Synopsis of the Sinuses." The outer pages were ruined with water damage, but the section I needed was still legible.

I really like the subtle symbolism here. With everything burned to ashes, the thing she needed was damaged... with water. It was still protected, presumably by water! What are the odds? It shows that water, be it regular water or tears, can be healing. There may be damage on the outside, but what is inside is still functional. The water just needs to be gotten past.

Super kudos to you!

If I were to offer up one final nitpick, I would recommend staying away from the multiple exclamation marks next to one another. I don't know if they can be effectively used together (even though I actually have mental rules for using multiple exclamation marks and the order of interrobangs, because I'm a weirdo), but it takes the intense moments of emotional expression and, in my eyes, makes them seem emo. It may be applicable in certain situations, but I couldn't tell you where. It doesn't work here, though.

And those are my thoughts and observations. The meat of the story is very nice, the consistency of sentences and time devoted to each moment is appreciative, and the catharsis is nice to read. The "flaws" in summary were impersonal, too-technical and passionless word and punctuation choices, some flowery phrases, and revealing the answer way too early, thus blunting the impact of the big moment (where she breaks down). Still, this doesn't completely ruin it. It's not the strongest or tightest story I've read here, but it still has a very good heart, and I would recommend an expansion of it, should you wish to do so.

And once again, please don't be discouraged if you're prone to being so. These are merely my observations, take them with a grain of salt.

I was sick the entire week, so I couldn't participate as much as I would've liked. Still, I got two reviews out (and to Xepher and Abhorrent Amalgamation's writer, I apologize for writing for so long. I was curious to observe what people did with their prose that worked and didn't, and that is how I directed my reviews. Perhaps it was pompous of me to go on and on like I did, but I hope that at least you got some value out of it.

Or, barring that, that I was at least polite about it.)

Anyway, my mind was not completely engaged in this event because of that. Looking over everything, I'm not sure how to interpret what happened. I'm glad some people enjoyed my stories, even the one that made its way into the final round. Looking back, though, this has to be one of the oddest Write-Offs ever. Maybe it was because my mind was altered from the illness (I don't know if that excuses anything), but everything just seemed off. I'm not sure how to describe it.

Anywho, I don't have a chance of medaling, and it seemed like people have pointed out the big issues with my story. There's also been a lot of negativity in my household, at work, and online, and I just feel stressed. I am considering revealing my finalist story just to get it out of voters' way, and then get some rest.

But enough of that, let's get to the retrospectives.



I'm very sorry you guys read this. I had this idea a while ago, before the Season 6 finale, I think even before the Season 4 finale, where I wanted to make a horror story based on Luna attacking Chrysalis in her dreams using the power of the sun, controlled by the sister that Chrysalis hurt during the wedding. In this particular instance, just so it would make sense, I had set it after the Season 6 finale; that's why Thorax is there and why she's alone at the end.

But the problems are apparent. I made the beginning too cheesy, putting flowery dialogue like a soap opera (how to fix it is beyond me). I chose the wrong character to do it, and the wrong medium (obliteration and devastation in MLP:FiM caused by a beloved, kind character wasn't a good choice of mine). My language was stilted (I actually don't know how to combat stilted language). My attempt was to provoke at least uneasiness in the reader, if not outright horror, but I failed,

Maybe it's the sickness, but I don't find much positive about this story, nor the experience of writing it. That's not my complaining about my being disqualified from the competition; I think I am just fatigued that I'm not finding the good out of it. I'm not even sure the premise is worth salvaging, now that the Season 6 finale happened.



Another attempt at being mature that ended up not working out. This one I thought would be better off; I tried really frickin' hard to hone my words to create a contrasting feeling of apathy and optimism. To hear that the language was confusing (that coffee detail was in there due to an editing slip), the premise was boring, the story went nowhere, really left me feeling down.

If I were being completely negative, then I would take this as a sign that I shouldn't be trying to write stories with maturity behind them; but I'm not going to do that. I will acknowledge, however, that I'm not good at writing them. I think the sickness, and everything happening in my home life, has caused me to look at this particular story with pessimism. I couldn't get a serious discussion between two Cherilees, one of whom was frustrated at being a teacher's assistant and the other coming in to offer her own advice and help herself out, to work.

But then again, as others have said, it was hurt by the word count. Whether I could get this to work or not with a longer word limit is something I don't know, and I'm hesitant on trying it out. Not because I doubt my skill; I know positively that I need a lot more practice. Rather, it's because I've only seen one EqG movie; I haven't seen the other three. I saw Cherilee reprimanding the CMC in the human world with such frustration, finality, and lack of optimism, and I thought that the contrast would be interesting. I tried to research how the other three movies would've affected Cherilee and the world, but the detail about people being less against believing in magical horses completely slipped my mind.

So once again, I apologize. I should've watched the other three movies before deciding whether or not to write this.

---

This is the first instance, I believe, where not making the cut didn't bother me at all, and I hope that's a sign that I'm maturing. The sickness and the home life have affected me negatively, and I'm not sure that excuses my lack of participation. I wasn't entirely in the right mind for the entirety of the prelims, but now that I'm better, perhaps In can contribute a little bit more.

My biggest problems with these Minifics are thus:

1. I don't know how to end stories. At all. At all. I don't know what to ask myself, or what to look for, or what readers want. This seems to be something a lot of Write-Off writers struggle with, so I think this should be my first place to study (even though I don't have a frickin' clue where to begin!).

2. I can't make sense of more mature moments. This is a personal thing that perhaps suggests that I'm dead inside.

3. I haven't yet learned how to muster words to instill the emotions that I want.

This may sound like I'm complaining, but I've recently watched Kung Fu Panda 3 (WATCH IT!), and something Shifu said sums up how I feel about all of this:

If You only do what you can, You will never be more than you are now.

This is optimistically looking up (after a week of enough negativity to keep me in a throbbing, aching, foggy haze) at what I've yet to do, and what I need to work on. And if this motivates someone who's currently down about their story's performance or criticisms, if that helps you out, then I will be happy.

With all of that said, have a good one, good luck to the finalists, best of luck to the ones that didn't make it, and here's hoping for the next Write-Off!

>>FanOfMostEverything

Please do not compromise your anonymity out of a feeling of inadequacy. Thinking you don't deserve to be a finalist just means you're a part of the Writeoff community. Almost all of us have some degree of impostor syndrome. :P The medals aren't the important part of this exercise. Sharing your work and growing as an author are.

I wasn't thinking about eliminating it out of inadequacy. I'm happy for the reaction it's having so far, as well as the criticisms it's received. It's more out of frustration for not having participated as much as I would've liked, due to sickness and stress. I'm not going to reveal it, do not worry about that.

I don't mind the medals, but it seems like others do; I think that's why I jumped on that particular thought. My apologies; this week has put me in a negative mindset for all of it, and now that I'm better, I see where I have erred.

I'll confess that I've been neglecting reading the masters; I will be getting back into that. Thank you for your words.

>>CoffeeMinion
I will probably expand this to include when they decide to go on a date, and the date itself. I have a few fun things I could do with it. As for the other stories, I don't know how I could make them work with the established canon, though I would like to give the Cherilee one a go someday. I'm not upset at how my stories placed, for the most part; I am just confused as to how the story I worked the hardest on did the worst.

But positive thoughts going forward! Thank you for your words.

>>Trick_Question
I'm not discouraged in the slightest! I'm not upset that it wasn't popular either. I am a little disappointed that I didn't accomplish what I set out to do (make a consistent tone), but win some, lose some, right? I think all three of my stories were worth writing, now that I don't have the depressing sickness hanging inside of me. Thank you for your kind words. :)

>>Kitcat36
I'm glad you got something out of my stories. :) I will see what I can say about Post Metamorphosis. I believe that I can get better from here on, if I focus on my weaknesses and defining myself as a writer and person. Thank you for your kind words.

>>Orbiting_kettle
I'm happy you enjoyed it! Experimentation does seem to be the thing I want to do in these Write-Offs. I'll take that to heart; I can learn what works and what doesn't, and perhaps when. Thank you for your kind words.

I guess I'll end this by saying that I'm feeling good moving forward. I plan on practicing more, not neglecting my reading, and hopefully be better for the next round.

I'll give this one a go.