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Rao
All you need is boop
Gold medal
Returned From Sabbatical
FiM Minific
1st
100%
221
Fear and Rust
Bronze medal
The Last Minute
Original Minific
3rd
94%
221
Sixty Seconds to the End
Ribbon
Keep Pretending
FiM Minific
6th
90%
216
3, 2, 1...
Ribbon
Rising From the Ashes
FiM Short Story
11th
52%
214
A Spark of Hope
Mortarboard
The Twilight Zone
FiM Minific
7th
90%
214
Crazy Talk
Bronze medal
Ship It
FiM Minific
3rd
88%
198
Laissez-Fate
Ribbon
* Princess Not Included
FiM Minific
12th
83%
194
Castle For Rent
Ribbon
Lie Me a River
FiM Minific
5th
85%
185
The Price She Paid
Ribbon
And at the End, You Shall Remain Alone
FiM Minific
8th
67%
128
Afterword
Ribbon
It Could Have Gone Better
FiM Minific
15th
63%
122
A Little Shortcut
#12110 · 7
· on One Day · >>Dubs_Rewatcher
I can see this being something Scoots doodled and tacked up on a dream board. Which makes it really sad, despite the ostensibly cheery nature of the piece.
#20072 · 7
·
>>Monokeras
It'll be high time for non-Americans! It's your time to shine!
#15189 · 6
· · >>Fenton
>>2Merr
We're all feeling the slow march to death speeding up just a little as the Winter season sheathes us in grey days and long nights.
#22320 · 6
· on Contingency · >>Flashgen
I was saving all my commenting for later, but this struck a close enough chord that I had to chime in now with a personal anecdote.

For a number of months, years ago, I worked for the last local remnant of a large computer manufacturer/assembler. Specifically, in the Power Supply department upstairs where I didn't have to wear the itchy anti-static gear because, really, if your PSU can't handle a sock-generated static shock you already have bigger problems. Anyway, the senior employee and ring leader of our 5-man department was older than Jesus and frankly didn't give a shit anymore. The only project we ever had come through that made him sweat was a PSU order that was going into the goddamned International Space Station. I wasn't even allowed to look at the guy building that one.

Anyway, he had a routine where, anytime something fell, clanged, broke, burned (we had a burn-in station to pre-treat high-temp PSUs), or exploded, he'd yell "SHIP IT" and the rest of the team would echo behind him, and the entire floor knew somebody fucked up.

So, good work bringing that exact memory to the fore and letting me relive one of the only jobs I didn't hate until they moved me downstairs with the plebs.
#6773 · 5
· on Three Unicorn Tail Hairs · >>Trick_Question
>>Trick_Question
I'm with CoffeeMinion. Based on the line:
“Shut up.” Raindolph crept around to the back side of the bed and inspected the coiled tail, but a few quick magical gestures made his heart sink.

It really seems like the purity check was done via magic. Less invasive, but certainly no less rude.
#10140 · 5
·
You know, even if it's about 50,000 words short of "properly fleshed out," it feels really nice to finish things on time.
#14016 · 5
· on The Pink Beneath the Gray · >>AndrewRogue
I think it's worth mentioning that we see a somewhat more mature Pinkie here. Back in the Cranky Doodle days, she'd probably just keep hounding Mayor until she yielded. Here instead, we see her actually pause for a moment when her usual cheering up tactics don't work to consider if there might be another solution. Indeed, she even goes beyond "pony sad, must make happy" and digs to the root of the Mayor Mare's pervasive sadness and finds a solution that is well beneath her usual levels of exuberance, yet far more effective.

Good job.
#17273 · 5
· · >>Anon Y Mous
"This is the most ham-fisted bullshit I have ever written." - Me, like 10 minutes ago.
"The Godfather Part III of my career." - Also me.

>>The_24th_Pegasus
Welcome to the party. Don't mind all the existential dread lingering around. It gets a little thick near the deadline, but usually clears up by morning.

>>Flashgen
Glad to have you back, Wonder Red.
#17314 · 5
· on Why a Duck? · >>Baal Bunny
Everypoultry

I'm dead.

Cute and funny, with a thread of nonsensical really keeping things together. Pinkie, Cheese, and Flutters all feel very much in character, and their subversion of possibly apocalyptic events is equally fitting. The setup runs a little long early on, but it's not an unpleasant push.
#17351 · 5
· on Just A Different Shade
>>DuskPhoenix
The Hawkeye thing was kind of a last second pull, honestly. I realized I hadn't given the doctor a name and that felt really inappropriate, so I reached into my brain for a list of doctors and Hawkeye is usually the first one that comes to mind. I do really love MASH, so I'm glad the reference didn't go over everyone's head.

Though I didn't intend it to be literally Hawkeye from the Korean war, like Icenrose thought, so I might have to change it up a bit.

>>HiTime
Regarding "reality ensues" moments: I'm glad that those few moments came across well. The original idea I had was "Sunset goes back to Equestria for a bit because the random, senseless violence of the human world is getting to her." But that sucked and didn't work for two days, so I went with an inversion where Twilight is suddenly exposed to the consequences of mundane (re: non-magical) violence. That a shooting feels un-EqG like is exactly the point, though I could have shaped the entire experience much better.

Thank you, again, for deciding to comment. Every little bit helps.

>>Icenrose
I'll work on that perspective shift. Stuff like that always gets away from me when I'm not explicitly writing in 1st Person. And, like I touched on above, I didn't originally intend Hawkeye to be quite so actually Hawkeye. But that's where I ended up, and I will definitely rethink that going forward. I already have some backup names in my mental queue to make his presence less egregious.

>>Bachiavellian
I agree that the premise is under utilized, and basically everything else you said. In the early stages of writing I had Princess Twilight casually asking why they just didn't get rid of things that were so dangerous, but at the time I couldn't come up with anything that didn't feel like rehashing the 200+ pages of gun control/school shooting threads I've read on other forums over the last few months.

You're absolutely right in that I don't have a solid takeaway. That's partly because the narrative itself is incomplete, and partly because I didn't want to moralize too hard at the audience. Like you said: we all already agree that school shootings are bad. I need to go deeper to really touch anything important. Now that I have time to breathe that'll probably be easier.

I knew this was a risky idea going in and I'm glad that, at the very worst, I didn't butcher it, and that we got some interesting discussion going. The subject matter is near and dear to me, on account of working at a school and not wanting children to get shot (even when they're being total assholes and destroying my machines).