>>Monokeras

It's comments like this that made me quit the Writeoff, and why I find it hard not to get angry around this group of people.

There's nothing in what you said that really contributes to Horizon's criticism, or to the authors' understanding of their story, or something that anyone but you will notice. To quote the fantastically talented Ben Pearce on editing;

I find that less-experienced editors/proofreaders (sometimes even pre-readers) will default to nitpicking grammar/spelling instead of providing much feedback of real substance. The more obscure technical issues aren’t likely to even be picked up on by the average reader, whereas stylistic issues will be glaringly obvious in a lot of cases.

Basically, you've found the most pedantic nitpick possible to this story that a native speaker will never pick up -- which includes, in this case, both its intended audience and more importantly the character saying it -- so that you have something, literally anything, to say that you can feel secure about.

Don't worry about objectivity. Don't try to focus on specifics. Focus on your subjective opinions when you give feedback; This story made me feel X. I personally liked scene Y, and wish the story had more scenes like it. Overall, this story made my think it was really about Z, and I found it easy/difficult to relate to the protagonist.

You'll never be wrong when you talk about your feelings on a story, and that's useful information to the author, and to the comments section when they see how other people have a different emotional reaction to the same stimulus they can contrast their own to.

What you just did is not useful, interesting, helpful or kind.

EDIT: Sorry Author

Hey, author, your story had fantastic comedic timing. It was slow and a bit heavy handed at the start of the Shakespeare lesson; It took too long being such an obvious wink to the audience, lampshading it, that I started skimming a bit to see where that scene was going.

It went good places, and I did enjoy it, and if I was voting this round it'd go high on my slate.

Honestly, I'd say the best way to improve this story, rather than changing anything, is to try to make it about... 10% shorter. Wordcount is 3,000 right now right? I'd see if I couldn't get it down to 2,700. Just by doing that you'll not only make the story a lot snappier than it is now, but you'll figure out what moments and beats here really aren't as essential as you thought. It's really difficult to do, but you'll find that it's one of the lessons that, long term, causes the most improvement in your writing.

>>Xepher

The only problem I saw was that some of the ideas don't particularly lead naturally into themselves on the first read-through.

But your other criticisms are... I mean, they don't literally hum the words, that's what the italics are for. It's a common thing in writing to have sounds like that convey a meaning or expression that isn't explicitly verbal.

It's a hum with an intonation implies that implies 'welcome'. It is not the word 'welcome', hummed.

I think most of what's lost you here is on you, and not the author, as it came across fine and clearly to me even on one read-through. Blunt objects are also known for often being dense.

Sorry I can't comment more, author; Not familiar with the EQG setting at all, haven't seen any of the movies, so I'm afraid a lot of this is otherwise lost on me, but what I did understand -- and what was relevant to be understood -- came through clearly enough. And the idea of Twilight being a Soylent addict always does my heart good.

I have no criticisms to give to this.

Shorter paragraphs, simpler sentences, less navel-gazing. This is the epitome of writing that reads like writing; You're always aware you're seeing words on a page, something a person has written. Even when it's good words, it's not immersive. This paragraph was a chief offender to me;

I had never liked tea, but I poured a mug and gathered it up by my face, letting the steam radiate over my skin as I clutched the heated ceramic against my pasterns. A brown-tinted traitor stared back at me from the rippling surface, but not even that dark hue could tone down the icy blue of my eyes, a blizzard amid the swelter. “Thank you,” I muttered into the cup, ringing hollow.

This would be a great story at half the length.

Lampshading how little something makes sense or matters doesn't stop it being true.

Okay, so, this is a real good story and I'm frontloading to say I almost really liked it.

This starts off being too unsubtle; Everything until the subcon/con scrolls is laying the premise on too thick. It's beating the audience over the head with it being weird, but it doesn't meaningfully advance the audience's understanding of the weirdness until that point, which was honestly more frustrating than it was interesting.

The Flurry conversation is pretty perfectly paced and executed. Right amount of subtle hints to overt statements, good speed, neither too fast nor too slow. That point of the story is easily where it's strongest.

Then you go from too hot to too cold: The ending is too oblique and subtle. It feels like an obvious attempt to leave what happened up to the reader's interpretation but, honestly? I feel like that was the wrong move when you give so much explicit detail about what's happening. Worse still, it's done at the expense of a meaningful emotional payoff.

We don't know how bad or how meaningful Twilight's fuckup is outside of the dream bubble. It's just not quite enough for me to know that she's miserable in here if the alternative is... well, the end of the world. We don't really understand the circumstances -- or at least I don't -- that drove her to this in a lot of ways, which I find more interesting than the end result of it not working. The hints are good and interesting! The implications could be! But there's just not enough there, at the end, and I would have liked the situation with Discord to have been made a little more overt than it was.

This reads as toeing the line between having a definite, concrete idea of what it wants to have happened, and not wanting any one answer to be the truly correct one. Or, as 2merr said, of running out of time.

Plot's solid, writing's solid. Unfortunately it was a character piece, and there was very little done to differentiate the characters, give them unique voices or make them stand out from each other or be interesting.

Not nothing, I mean. Just not nearly enough to make this story engaging or make a lot of what happens clear or significant. I found it really hard to care a lot of the time when things happened to these people. The plot was a very archetypal, staid structure which is fine; That's not a criticism, that means you executed a solid framework to hang things off. The criticism is that by itself it's skeletal, when it needs more meat and flesh on the bones to be engaging.

At this point, I couldn't actually tell you any of the character's unique traits or characteristics. I'm sure I noticed them while I was reading, but I've forgotten them over the course of writing this comment.

The amphora was a very interesting Macguffin to center around though. It's a very strong concept to toy with, and I did like the concept of this.

>>TrumpetofDoom

seems to me

And it seems to have taken you exactly three words to miss my point.

Look.

The definition you're arguing is the second listed definition, which is to say it's both the less frequently used and not the only definition. A tragedy can just be a very bad sad thing. Like, say, Fluttershy dying during childbirth.

The author might have meant to use the second one and failed at it. I personally don't see it though.

but I'd still be hesitant about just taking the opposite as a given, either, which the quoted line from the text reads to me as doing.

Right. Which is to say, in the canon of this story Twilight is mortal. Because the author is allowed to take that stance. It's fine.

You're arguing in bad faith. You're arguing someone, somewhere might have issue with taking the stance that Twilight is a mortal for the purposes of this story, when you're the only one listing it as a problem.

You've set your story after Twilight's ascension, so you're implying that being an alicorn is not a sufficient condition for immortality. This is an uncommon position to take, and there's not really any evidence to support it (certainly less than the alternative).

As seen here.

It's an uncommon position, sure, but it's not a wrong one, and to judge the story harshly for it;

The line would work better in reference to Celestia and just about anypony else, even pre-ascension Twilight. As is, though, it's not a good justification for why Celestia won't reciprocate Twilight's desires. If you want Twilight to still be mortal after becoming an alicorn, make that clearer.

There's no reason for it if the author implicitly implies it and that meaning is conveyed. You understood the implication correctly; the author has done their job right. That's the core of show-don't-tell! The information is there, and the information doesn't contradict canon, so going this far out of your way to nitpick it shows to me that it upsets your personal headcanon -- or the idea of it violating another hypothetical person's headcanon -- which is again a horrible way to review.

I don't get it, I don't get the appeal. I understand what's here I just think... if the joke is that it's too dense to be meaningful and readable, then the punchline is severely undercut by how effective and straightfaced the performance is.

There needed to be more nods and moments of levity if this were a joke.

There needed to be more relatable ideas and much lighter prose if this were serious. Currently this is so purple it's in the ultra-violet spectrum.

>>TrumpetofDoom

Okay, this is meta-criticism, but it's a serious problem.

The first of these: You're trying to make this story a tragedy, but you haven't quite done the work to establish it. It's sad, but it's not tragic.

You're telling the author what you think they were doing -- you could be entirely wrong, and I have good reason to believe you are, since the only reason to genuinely think this is a tragedy is a throwaway in the first four lines which seems to mostly be there for poetic purposes -- but then explain why they're wrong at doing the thing you think they're doing.

it reads;

"I will tell the author what they're trying to do, and I will tell them how they failed at it"

When, really, it's very possible the reason they didn't actually succeed at being the thing you're telling them they are is that it's not what they were trying to be. Maybe the reason this story fails as a tragedy is that it's not a tragedy?

You make very concrete, definite assumptions about the author's intentions that I just don't see in the work itself, and your opinion seems to hinge on it. I would advise, in future; "IF the author were trying to accomplish this-"

Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what's wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.
Neil Gaiman

Also, Twilight being immortal isn't canon. Hell, Word of God might even contradict it; "Twilight won't outlive her friends" being the swing-both-ways phrase.

This story needs a latin title.

This was a story that felt far too infatuated with itself.

You tried to make a meal entirely of spices. Seasoning's good, but there's a reason it's meant to be an accent rather than a portion. There's more words here than ideas to sustain them, and worse, not enough reason behind them being written.

A sentence needs more intent behind it than the elegance of the sentence's own sake, and there are long stretches where it seems the intention was just to show off the author's ability to write pretty prose, without conveying anything meaningful with that prose.

Here's how much I disliked this; I got to the point where Octavia's colleagues -- who are indistinguishable from each other, because they aren't actually real characters -- are talking about the 'stock' of her fiance, the lowered standing, etc. and I worked out everything that was going to happen. And I was so confident that I stopped reading. I am going to make my prediction here, then scroll up and see how close I got by skimming through. I want to emphasize I have only read up to the line:

The ice in her voice caused Parish to blanch, but, to his – or the wine’s – credit, he persevered. “You must understand, Octavia. You being so closely associated with a… with the… you getting married to a pony so... far outside our social standing would lower the stock of the quartet in Canterlot’s eyes.”

Octavia quits, because they can't accept her love is more important. It's very dramatic because nobody has ever before conceived that love could be more important than a career or social status. This will be treated as far-out and inconceivable in universe, as if it's a profound statement. Obviously, her family doesn't approve. Octavia sticks to her guns and gets married and gazes off into the sunset with the ruthless determination of the rightness of her decision, as if there were any actual conflict to it.

Alright, I'm going to finish reading now...

...

Man, the only thing I got wrong was I didn't think to include "Octavia realizes the transparency of high society, even though there's no nuance to its awfulness". If I hit that one, I'd have got bingo.

Final note:

Swan laughed again. “Oh, don’t pretend you’re above all of this, Octavia. Of course you care. You’re one of us. One of Equestria’s movers and shakers. The ponies with a direct line to the princesses. Your family alone owns… what, a third of northern Equestria?”

“Forty percent,” she corrected, entirely on reflex.

This is absurd. It's an absurdly big number and an absurdly big in-universe implication. This is like saying her family owns everything from Washington state to Wisconsin in the US.

I'm writing this really shorthand, because the comments above cover most of it.

I liked this story[1], but it needs an edit.

Obviously unfinished, as Horizon says. The characters are... misaligned? Not enough to be unreasonable to the canon, but enough to be jarring and abrasive to read. The start/introduction needs to be refined and made more interesting; when the story got into swing, it was a series of fantastic one-liners and ideas, but everything before "Prince Aragonite" needs to be tightened with a spanner.

General notes; Rarity needs to complain about Twilight's fame -- and her own -- less. It needs to be a punctuating remark, not a constant source of lament. If you say it once, you understand where the character's coming from. If you keep repeating it as you do, it reads as an unhealthy obsession. That would be fine if you weren't also playing up Rarity's "bitchiness" for the story. As a one-two punch, it makes her too unlikable to be sympathetic, which you kind of need her to be.

[1] Actually, it's the best I've read so far.

Oh hey, I came second. Neat.

There isn't more of a story here because it was just meant to be a quick, snappy piece whose sole purpose was to entertain. Adding more to it might have made it a better story but it also was far more likely to weigh the piece down, in my opinion. Pretty happy with the final balance.

There's a scene in my head where Luke goes in to Dave's room and there's just a live goat, bleating in pain and misery, its entrails organized into a complex pentagram.

"Dave! I'm trying to study!"

"Sorry man. Check it out though; Totally retro, just like gramma used to make."

"You can do the same thing with a laser pointer and three glass prisms, and a bag of donor blood."

"Correction: I can do the same thing with a laser pointer and two glass prisms. You see, I optimized-"

"For fuck's sake, Dave, can you please put this thing out of my misery?"

"But if I kill it, I'll lose all kinds of fidelity. Besides, then it'll start to stink, and trash pickup isn't for another three days. Don't you just have noise cancelling headphones?"

"Eugh. Yeah, fine. What are you using it for, anyway?"

"Literally -- literally -- the only way I could get us off AT&T and back onto Comcast."

"Oh. Shit, yeah, man, I'll get it some water then. Does it eat carrots?"

Sorry, author, I couldn't finish this one. I think I managed to get halfway through before giving up.

Your pacing was way too plodding, and the main character was arbitrarily awful. Like, you just kept trying to hammer in repeatedly how awful they were, which is a problem when it's time taken away from advancing the plot. There wasn't nuance to it, there was just about a thousand words of "This is an awful person who is awful and will deserve the bad things that happen to him".

Cutting most of the introduction out of this story, and large parts of the dialogue -- especially the italicized internal monlogue, on the whole, it didn't add anything for me and pulled me out of the story repeatedly -- would make this much snappier, as well as shortening the length of paragraphs.

If you take the screenwriters' philosophy that any paragraph longer than 5 lines won't be read;

“Yes, yes, I know you do not like that name, you have said.” Brandt dismissively flicked his hand as he spoke, before dropping his tone, speaking in a silkier voice, one that reminded Beaumont of how the Jew had spoken upon entering the room. “It is what your sister used to call you, is it not?” Beaumont was speechless, and slightly pale at his words. “How long ago was it? Thirty years? You were eight, she was ten, and the whole family was staying at the quaint little lodge in Louisiana. Hmm, that rolls off the tongue doesn’t it? ‘Little lodge in Lousiana’. But anyway, yes, it was her favourite moniker for you then, wasn’t it? And you two got along like a house on fire, didn’t you? I mean of course, you would argue, but going away to the lodge was always your chance to bond, was it not? But then, the accident happened. Devastation, despair... Your family, quite rightly so, never visited the lodge again!” Brandt paused for a moment, studying Beaumont, in stark contrast to the usual happenings in Beaumont’s office. Beaumont looked sombre, his eyes were trained on Brandt, and he was unflinching in his mien. “You must miss her terribly.” Brandt added, his head momentarily bowed in what one might assume was an attempt at respect.

This paragraph, from around the point I stopped reading, is eleven lines long on my page. And Gods, here in isolation, can you see how it drags? It's an insurmountable wall of text for me when there's so many of these paragraphs in a row.

On the plus side, the voicing of characters is strong, your descriptions were very effective, this had some of the stronger mental imagery in my head of the finalists.

Comedy's good, pacing's quick and snappy, I also got a huge Laundry Files feeling from it -- it's a good thing, I love Stross' work -- but it's also... hrrm.

The biggest problem is that it's a bit shallow. There's a conflict and it's resolved, so there's a story, but there isn't a thesis, or a moral, though I'm not quite sure where one would fit, honestly. Still! Having read this after Hole, I feel like this story did what Hole should have: Instead of being a weird thing and everyone in-universe underreacting, this was played straight in-universe, with characters responding appropriately. It felt like a more refined effort for that.

This is a fine story.

It'd be a good, or a great, story if it was three quarters the size, maybe two-thirds. About that much is totally superfluous, doesn't go anywhere, doesn't build anything... as it was, it dragged, horribly. If this were a novel it'd be more forgivable, but as a self-contained work it's effectively self-sabotage.

Characters were fine, the vocabulary was interesting... honestly, just reminded me very much of a Waterworld take on Mortal Engines, in tone and character as much as everything else.

>>Not_A_Hat

Addendum: When you're frustrated or having a problem with something, it's been said that explaining your problem to a rubber duck helps you reach the correct answer, even though the duck itself isn't actually contributing.

Example comic.

I personally found the introduction too abrasive, without anything to really give an interesting hook to the protagonist. I didn't get a feel for their personality even by the end beyond 'archetypal gritty noir gumshoe' which is... fine? Fine, but a missed opportunity when he's the main authorial voice through the whole thing.

The writing seriously needs a proofreader to whip through it, as well, as others have said, and I found myself just skimming or outright skipping some of the denser paragraphs. The idea behind it is genuinely interesting, the setting, but I'm honestly wondering if there wouldn't be a better scene, better characters to explore it with.

As an idea, as a concept, this is very strong. As a story, none of the interesting information you present leads to anything or impacts anything, which undermines what interest I would have in it.

Basically, you've got a really strong What and Where here, but need to do a lot more with the Who and Why to improve this.

I'm going to side with Ranmilla here, but explicitly say that c) would be the correct route. As it is, it obviously tries to be that, but the execution is lacking.

The 'joke' dragged on too long, with too much repetition without developing on it -- too much reliance on the joke being that it keeps happening without advancing the problem or the character. At the same time, it was very... overtly lampshaded and meta in a way that made it hard for me to appreciate? Especially the Kafka jokes at the start. It made it very difficult to approach this as a story and not as a piece of writing. There's no immersion factor, because the story keeps hammering into you again, and again, and again that it's too self-aware.

Stories like this work a lot better when it strictly feels in-universe. The protagonist didn't react strongly enough, didn't protest enough, kind of just went with everything, which was pretty toxic to my interest - it made him feel like a puppet, and I was watching the strings. It also weakened the comedic potential; That kind of apathy doesn't work when the joke is everyone else is apathetic about a deeply improbable, unlikely thing happening to him. It removes actual conflict, which is where the humour should be coming from.

Erugh. It's an interesting idea, and I can absolutely see why this made the finals, but this story ultimately really frustrated me.

This story was based on the album Moon Colony Bloodbath which you can listen to in its entirety here.

The character, his past and his history? Those are all biographical accounts of the life of the singer, John Darnielle. This story references the songs -- honestly, just look at the Sunset Tree, Life of the World to Come and All Eternals Deck albums for a good place to start. Then throw in Transcendental Youth because why not, eh?

This story was written in the style of Darnielle's book, Wolf In White Van, possibly my favourite book of all time. Easily a contender. So to those saying it's a confusing style; Bug report noted, fic working as intended. Could tweak a lot of it, but since it didn't even make finals, I'm just going to hack it up into my favourite segments and never come back this way again.

Still ended up being in my top three favourites, like Reuben Night, I'm surprised to see both so low in the final results.

I'm glad Sit In got first to make up for it though. Congratulations on two in the time period.

I'm genuinely sad this didn't do better, it was easily in my top three that I read.