Fun fact, my mother and also my grandmother used to have a huge sprawling garden in the backyards of their houses, which they co-opted me into help tend, because nothing is better than free child labor. Weeds suck, and I hate them.

Neuroses regarding gardens aside, this is a strong, if quaint little story that I think is being a bit unfairly overlooked in this competition. The narrative voice has a ton of charm and character to it. He/she is perfectly unaware of the limitations and inadequacy of his/her skill but nonetheless is able to appreciate doing the task and have fun with it. By the end, she/he's accepted that while her/his results weren't even close to the goal he set, the result he achieved was acceptable. Not everyone has to be a landscaper to be proud of a garden.

>>Not_A_Hat

'it sucks to be bad at things, so just give up and try something else.'

I disagree with this read. My understanding of it is this: "Try new things, even if you're bad at it and you don't reach your goals. You can always try something else." I read it as not being discouraged by previous failures, rather than advocating giving up entirely.

Rating: Strong

I wouldn't necessarily call this an allegory. Most of this story I think is intended to be read at face value. To my understanding, an allegory sort of a moral fable for stand-ins for real life counterparts. This is more like an extended metaphor used to describe the relationship between two characters, where it is the narrator, not the narration, making the comparison. Sort of like "you're X compared to me, and I'm Y to you." So I guess I find it kinda strange that the biggest point of contention for this story is whether or not they were trees or the narrator doing tree lip things, because to me, it seems fairly obvious that the narrator is a person using the tree metaphors to compare himself with his friend/mentor. With some minor failings of word choice and perhaps unfitting imagery, I think this largely works. Others say solid, I say solid as well.

So the crux of this story I think is to express the emotions of envy, particularly when living in the shadow of someone else and how it can cause a slew of resentment to build over time. I'd call it sort of an ode to everyone who compared themselves negatively to their more successful friend.

It's powerful stuff in my opinion.

Rating: Strong

Not great, ho hum. This story I think gets lost in the pretensions of its own ideas so much so that it ceases to be a story. The author seems to be aware of this to some extent because when it comes for the ending line, we are given something of a parable's conclusion. Nonetheless, as a parable, this story fails to impress because it seems that the ending is more tacked on to the existing diatribe with little regard to how it fit with the musings of the protagonist. If the author wanted to go for a "Obsessing Over Greatness Prevents You From Living Life" moral, he/she should have actually established that quality in the narrator before heading towards the conclusion. As it stands, this is primarily a non-story.

Rating: Not so great

The core idea of this story I think is interesting but would need more information on how it could ever possibly function to be at all believable. With the current explanations in place, it just seems a bit nonsensical that this would not cause more problems than it was worth. On the other hand, I think even with added explanation, the provided details would only cause more questions than give a satisfactory answer—or in other words, I am not sure that you could ever convince me that this idea makes sense.

Rating: Doesn't make sense.

This is the sort of long-winded catharsis that would need an entire novel's worth of character development in order for the reader to have an empathetic understanding of what is going on. This story attempts to do this in the form of exceedingly dense and intrusive expository monologue and leaves the reader with no emotional connection to the protagonist as a result, which is essentially for any story dealing with a crisis of identity. This much a story trying to do far too much with far too little words.

The quotes in this story add a bizarre quality to this scene. I mean, am I to assume that the protagonist is just announcing his thoughts and feelings, along with his intentions to desert openly to world in the middle of war-zone? The protagonist openly going on a diatribe is perhaps the worst way to deliver this sort of emotion convincingly.

Rating: Misaimed.

I don't think that this is a bad idea or an idea incapable of being funny. In fact, I rather like this sort of premise of marketing the tediousness of everyday life as some sort of game (looking at you, MMORPGs), but this sort of execution with the immensely sarcastic narrative and obvious jokes that everyone familiar with gaming has heard many times over just fails to impress. I agree with >>horizon that the jokes are just too forced in this story. It feels like you wanted to jam-pack every sentence with some sort of funny line, but it suffocates the jokes that had potential to be actually funny. Good humor needs at least some space to breath. The construction of the prose here is also sub-par, and as many have stated, that opening paragraph goes on forever. Redrafting, cutting, and refining your jokes I think would greatly help, as currently this just resembles a rough outline.

Rating: Needs Work

Bap! Coming out of retirement to give some more ShortNSweet reviews to those that need it (and maybe some that don't).

So this story is unfortunately lobbed in with No Choice and The Postman for being stories essentially using the same idea of a looping narrative. Of the three, this story probably is the weakest in execution and substance. While the other two have some intrigue to their loops, (No Choice in the emotions of the character and The Postman in the novelty of its spin on the idea), this one leans heavily on its identity as a loop story to engage the reader, and a lot of the text is devoted to deliver exposition for why the two characters have been put in this situation. In terms of crafting of the prose, the story is functional but not particularly artistic, and the dialogue is a bit on the nose. It is a story I would say has no huge issues in construction but does not attempt to achieve great heights either. In the context of this competition, I feel it is about the same.

Rating: Okay

Oh hey, I feel like you must have seen Spirited Away. The Lady is very much Haku from Spirited Away and utilizes some of the same archetypes, but this tells a slightly different story.

With that out of the way, this was a pleasant read. I felt that it resembled a bit of a pastiche of the aforementioned spoiler, The Giving Tree, and perhaps a tinge of C.S Lewis. I find myself unable to lobby much critique at it only because the critique I would give would be against the spirit of the piece itself, which is to say, personally I would have enjoyed something a bit more substantial in the subtext, but ultimately that wasn't the intention of this story. Additionally, I do feel it may be a bit too derivative from the above if my suspicions in the aforementioned spoiler are correct.

This is very much in the vein of a traditional Disney adaptation of a fairy tale: a pleasant, inoffensive, and high quality production, but does not have much of an edge to it. In a slightly more reduced state, I could easily see this being a lovely children's book. I have no issues with this story's conclusion as presented in that sort of tone.

Verdict: strong, whimsical writing for a classic fairy tale, but may leave you wanting more underneath

I also am skeptical about the use of small-caps in this story, although I have a predisposition to believe that the story wouldn't have changed much without it.

I'm getting very Mass Effect vibes from this story. Perhaps it is just the Commander Jacobs bit.

I think if this story was tacked on to a longer story without using the in media res, the overall poignancy of the Commander's sacrifice would be felt more. As such it reads more along the lines of an ending scene to a longer story than an independent product, and the story itself strains itself to explain complicated areas of the sci-fi backstory by inorganically creating exposition and inserting a somewhat farcical reason for why the Commander can't get into the cryo-stasis area.

The bits with the AI and Commander interaction that deconstructs his hopes for some bit of humanity in "Sarah" or more likely, his attempts to project humanity onto her/it are interesting on their own, but practically scream to be developed further and more gradually. Brevity is probably this story's biggest weak spot, which causes the overall introduction of these relatively complex ideas to be introduced at a rather breakneck pace and without a lot of leeway to really dive deep into these thoughts and feelings.

Verdict: a good part of hopefully a bigger story with some minor plot factors detracting from the overall experience

Reviewing this story is being handed a puzzle of an essay on fatalism and being prompted to assemble it, then being tasked to write a paper on the author's intentions. Which is to say that, while it is easy enough to understand that it is a puzzle, it is much more difficult to unpack.

There seems to be three main themes: how terrible fatalism/predestination is, what is the limit of true love, and moving on. Because of the way this story is told, there are at lot of scattered syllogisms and small moments across the entire story that ultimately build the backbone of its conclusion. The interconnected nature of the scenes and second read-through bonus are very strong on this story, but it might lean on these factors too heavily in order to provide a coherent thesis by the end.

That being said, I do find the ending strong and interesting, but it needed perhaps a scene more to prepare the reader for Jo's ultimate transition from the person willing to let horrific things happen in order to save her lover to someone who has let that love transform into malice and resentment. Jo's unwillingness to accept things the way there are and efforts to change them result in the conflict, and the story seems not be endorsing her for it, but not condemning her either. Even her last moment is just a refusal to fix things, rather than an active sabotage. . It is the logical extension of the dinner conversation they had, which is: "How many people would you be willing to sacrifice for one person, if you really loved them?" It's a sick hypothetical, and I don't believe there is necessarily a right answer, but how each character goes about addressing it is interesting and understandable. Jo is an absolutist, where she reasons that the act of killing ten or a million is essentially irrelevant, as these things don't have a price, where Matt is a relativist that stresses the importance of that sort of "magic number."

The weird style helps and hinders, the hardest sell being the strange take on perspective the story uses. The author is breaking a lot of rules knowingly, so I'm willing to give him/her some benefit of the doubt, but nonetheless, I find myself questioning some of the techniques utilized.

That being said, this was a strong entry. Some of the dialogue in certain scenes was a little off, particularly in the "confrontation" scene, but otherwise the character voices were strong and consistent throughout. Some great scene construction, decent prose, and very intriguing subtext makes it high on my list.

Verdict: A strange tale with some questionable moments, but very rewarding and fun the more you invest in it.

Hm, a story of a lost blond girl lost in life being picked up by a more authoritative figure that helps her figure out her place in life. I feel I have read this story before...

At the price of having this comment thread be echo-chamber of the same opinion, I found that the relatively contained conflict and resolution of this story was more a hindrance, not because of the plot itself, but because of how it is executed. A small scale story like this doesn't have to overtly dramatic—it's very obviously a slice of life in sort of more optimistic interpretation of realism—but there does have to be a bit more stakes involved in the narrative and there does need to be a bit more room for these characters to emote if this primarily aimed at being a character piece. As Bachiavellian rightly puts, Rudy and Scarlet are more archetypes of the person they are supposed to represent in the narrative rather than legitimate characters in their own right.

Rudy's got a bit more going than Scarlet with his sort of salt-of-the-earth persona, but never Rudy or Scarlet are really challenged by each other or given reason to expose anything more than surface level details to one another. Both are in a relatively challenging position, or at least Scarlet is, but there is really no suspense in the narrative suggesting that whatever Rudy has in mind won't work out. When Zaid said that this feels like an 80s feelgood movie, I think he was right, and that comes with the negatives and problems associated with that kind of genre as well.

A minor critique I feel the need to levy is that Rudy, although certainly experienced and wise in his rustic ways, occasionally feels far too reaching in his ability to accurately discern other people's situations to a pinpoint accuracy that makes it seem he read ahead in the story rather than ascertaining this information organically.

Overall scene construction is good, prose while not standout, reads easy and doesn't intrude on the reader, and narrative voice is strong. Obviously you're experienced.

Verdict: Slice of life that is perhaps a bit too fluffy and predestined towards being a feelgood story, solid overall construction, one or two tension-adding scenes would highly elevate this.

>>ShortNSweet


This wasn't ShortNSweet at all. I feel like a liar.

Strong story, although I feel I disagree with Scramblers and Shadows on one main point: the relative weight of the original Marina Abramović performance relative to the story. I do not mean any insult to the author by saying this, but I feel that The Performance itself is overshadowed by the material that it takes its inspiration from and offers a less poignant commentary on human empathy, cruelty, and the corrupting influence of authority by comparison.

For those who are not in the know, Rhythm 0, the Abramović performance that this story takes its premise from, involved the performer standing in the middle of the art patrons with a table of 72 items which stated that the patrons could do whatever they want to her.

The exact text used was:

Instructions.
There are 72 objects on the table that one can use on me as desired.
Performance.
I am the object.
During this period I take full responsibility.
Duration: 6 hours (8 pm – 2 am)

Ultimately, as the performance progressed, the audience became progressively more deplorable in their actions. They cut the clothes from her body using razor blades, cut her body, cut at her throat so one audience member could drink her blood, and a loaded gun was pressed against her forehead. Luckily, there was a protective element of the audience that prevented the trigger from being pulled. What is interesting about this performance is not only was there morbid acts done to the performer when denied her humanity, but also that there was a line drawn when considering what was appropriate. It provides interesting and fresh ideas into what defines mob mentality and what a modicum of power can do to a person.

What I suppose what I am getting at is that beyond the transparent subtext and metaphors relating the performance itself to being a refugee trapped under the authority of outside, specifically immature and petty western influences, this story doesn't have as much bite too it. The author, for our sake and his own, I think, strayed from getting too dark with this story, and because it is done in third person limited with the two boys being the focal point, this is probably for the best, as it is, it is already fairly unbelievable that they would on their own would engage in such depravity. The interesting thing about mob mentality is that when someone is not reprimanded for doing something that would otherwise be considered inappropriate, another person again tests the boundaries of what they can get away with. As such, it is hard to make that sort of progressive dehumanization and cruelty seem natural from a story mainly centered around two people, and the idea that the Michael and Jeff would be so delusional as to not understand the reality of the situation and the harmfulness of their actions without that sort of force egging them on is a level of delusional beyond believably.

The ending falls very flat for me as a result.

The other issue I find is the two lead characters themselves. I understand their purpose in the overall metaphor, and their characterization as rather ignorant, frat-boy types makes sense from that standpoint, but they are severely lacking in personal humanity. Their stripping of Amira is fairly understandable within this context, but beyond that they have no motivation or factors pressuring them to further denigrate Amira—causing them to seem more like monsters than human. This would be fine, if the narrative lens wasn't so tightly on their perspective and instead was oriented around the entire room, but in the current format, they seem more like strawman, tools to make a polemic argument for the purposes of the narrative, rather than legitimate characters. Same goes for the one-line moment with Rachel. I think perhaps what you may be losing is that by making these characters ignorant, boorish, and in Rachel's case, unabashedly prejudiced, is the important message is that we, as westerners and as people, have the same capacity to be like them.

That was the power of the original Abramović performance.

Nonetheless, your command over the written word and method of detailing description is very impressive, and this read was very smooth. From a prose stand-point, this is easily one of the more solid entries.

Verdict: Powerful argument and construction, strong ideas, character execution could use some work, and the shadow of its inspiration lingers large over the product as a whole.

I appreciate the stylistically minimalist scene structure combined with quick, brief scene cuts in order to briskly pace the narrative while keeping things just vague enough to warrant further interest. It is certainly an interesting way to present a story, and sans some repetition of certain effects throughout the narrative, the story itself kept me engage. Unfortunately, I think this story's strength in its narration came back around and became a weakness when it came time for the story to resolve.

The ending scene takes the style of the rest of the narrative, but is unable to transform it into from what it is ultimately a rather maudlin scene into something more substantial. The subtlety and implied depth of the story largely fail to pay off in what I would consider to be a largely "Hollywood" esque ending, and the style of the story as a whole seems to clash with the ending content as a whole. This story has a very removed, almost clinical narration style and tone that does not befit this sort of unabashed display of emotion. Perhaps dialing back the scene, leaving it more to small character interactions and implications, which would leave the reasoning behind the main character's angst in the dark until the last couple lines, would be more fitting. Just some light tinkering with the scene to omit some rather ham-fisted phrases and dialogue from the narration would be enough to elevate this scene (ex. "It was... just so normal... or the dialogue about being a robot and seeing love).

I thought a lot of Avatar the Last Airbender's "Tales of Bah Sing Sae" episode when considering this story, and that's a good thing to be compared to, but I feel the emotional heart of your story needs to be more developed for the ending reveal.

Verdict: interesting style, content decent, tone and resolution a bit too inconsistent for my take.

Oh hey, another story I can make a comparison with the story I just read. Where The Day the God of Time Stopped by for Tea didn't seek to do much with the metaphor it presented, this story's set-up tries to fully examine the situations of the premise reflect the real world and detail how those cultural walls that separate us can be broken down. Perhaps I am reaching a bit here, but the latter half of this story seems to be a veiled commentary on the Middle East or at the very least, political isolationism and the clashing of two cultures, one that does not accept the other, which I think is interesting and effective.

Nonetheless, I feel we spend far too much time with the immensely hostile council and the longevity and intensity of their animosity is pounded into our brains that by the conclusion, it doesn't feel earned that Pinkie wins over Blade so easily.

The opening line had me rolling my eyes, but the depth of the prose and characterization of the Stratospheric pegasi was enough to sell my on the author's style. Nicely constructed prose and some subtle moments and oddly enough, the only point where the story seems to drag is when the Stratospheric Council is further concreting the nature of their fanatical racism.

Some minor issues about Twilight's immediate responses, the decision to take only Pinkie and Rainbow, the reasoning behind their inclusion, and straightforward exposition take away from the story, but not terribly in any regard.

Opinion: Above Average, with expansion and some cutting back on some redundancy, could be Excellent

>>MrNumbers
>>Bad Horse
>>wYvern


Again I find myself at odds with Bad Horse (nothing personal to you chap!). I think MrNumbers has the right perspective on how the motivation was explained within the narrative. But, I also somewhat agree with Bad Horse that the motivation (if formatted like a fairy tale) would essentially be irrelevant in the story as written regardless. If it is the author's intention for this story to be parabolic, the motivations shouldn't matter. But if a more fairy tale atmosphere was intended, it did not succeed.

The primary problem I have with this story is that it doesn't build to anything in particular, and as Wyvern describes, it seems to be a story solely about a wry (and wicked) businessman taking advantage of an innocent person. The metaphor I think of being in debt "time" rather than money is a fairly cut and dry parallel that is interestingly presented, but ultimately doesn't make any grand statement to it. In other words, I think the metaphor is squandered.

As MrNumbers has said, you have an interesting concept, but you haven't done anything particularly interesting with it or given the reader any definitive take away. What I am supposed to think of Fluttershy, the God of Time, or what transpired other than: well that was a bad thing that happened, what a bad man he is?

I disagree with anyone that is trying to say that the ending is a "twist" or somehow unfitting in the sense of plot progression. The whole ordeal from the beginning of taking out a loan communicates the idea of a "Monkey's Paw" to this whole arrangement with the God of Time that essentially drains the tension out of the conclusion, because as the reader is aware, taking on a series of increasingly outrageous deals only leads to a bad end. This is blatantly foreshadowed with the dying plants.

I do agree, however, that this is a bit of an inappropriate tonal shift given the nature of dialogue and previous characterization of the God of Time, who, prior to his long-winded villainous monologue, and a Flim-Flam-esque mischievousness, but not malicious con-man who made quick quips. His sudden descent into outright villainy is a bit inappropriate considering the nature of his dialogue.

Your knack for prose and narrative voice is well-noted, however. Strong piece in regards to presentation, just lacking as a story with a cohesive thesis.

Opinion: Above Average

Another technically accomplished story in terms of prose and presentation. Once again, however, I can make a clear comparison between the story I just read (Childhood's End) and the one I am currently reading. Whereas Childhood's End was a story that had a bit too much fat hanging off it, this story is thin to the point of being almost skeletal, which doesn't give much room to explain the idiosyncrasies of its plot.

>>Xepher
>>Bad Horse

I did not read the council members as particularly antagonist, more along the lines of simply dispassionately bureaucratic and concerned for their own positions. I think the main conflict with the story is between Celestia and herself of doing what is right for her in an emotional sense and not a practical one, but the set up doesn't facilitate that idea well enough to distinguish what the subtleties of these differences are and instead reads as a more polemic argument than likely the author intended. However, there is not enough content to support that tension, and for all the nice imagery used, the story is set-up to have a predetermined resolution in which the reader is already aware of the outcome.

I politely disagree with the majority of Bad Horse's assertions on the issues of the presentation, and I agree with Wyvern's assessment on the emotive element of the story as the place where the author should work at. Increasing the punch is necessary, but it needs to be subtle otherwise it will come across as melodramatic.

Opinion: Above Average, with the understanding that it is mainly supported on the composition side of it but would otherwise be placed in "Okay."

Lovely on a technical aspect in terms of sentence structuring and formatting, but ultimately, I feel that the story is stretching itself thin with its long-winded scenes of mostly naked dialogue that don't really establish much beyond what we already know and mainly serves to advance the plot. What I think would most improve this story is the excise of filler content that ultimately serves to distract the reader from the overall story and concentrating on providing a cleaner, more coherent narrative on the theme of growing up and self-discovery. The scenes of the CMC, Twilight, and the griffon are all a bit gratuitously extended beyond the length required to grasp the idea what the author was going for, and a cleaner conclusion would improve my personal understanding of what was meant by the scrap-book greatly. Right now I feel I am merely speculating what its significance is specifically. Cut some of this story's fat and give us some more weight to the bones, and this would make an excellent story.

Opinion: Above Average

>>horizon

In accordance with horizon's assessment, the opening scene reads like the opening monologue for a television show that is played every episode before the credits, not an actual introduction. An introduction in writing needs to be written with a strong hook that cuts a swath into the reader's mind and instantly introduces them to the story in an exciting or compelling manner.

The technical aspects of this story's presentation are what need the most work. The prose and construction of this story need a lot of fine tuning to be more artful in order to make their contents intriguing. The majority of the prose is purely utilitarian, giving flat, on the nose descriptions and doesn't particularly engage in any sort of rich language or scene construction. The ideas behind the story are interesting enough, but the author's inexperience marred the execution. The issue with this is story is not the so much the "What" of what is being presented (although there are quite a few questionable beats in the story), but rather "How" it is presented to the reader, which unfortunately is a more difficult and intangible road to improve that comes with experience.

I apologize if this seems condescending author, and I think you had a fine idea for a story.

Opinion: Heavy Maintenance Required

Is it some sort of strange coincidence that a story that plagiarizes a cinematic trailer is immediately followed up by a story detailing the consequences of plagiarism?

As others have said, the issue of this story is mainly in the conceit of its premise, which, barring any potential explanation, reveal or understanding, comes as completely and inexplicably out of character for Twilight. The story also lacks any sort of tension, because the scene progression is essentially:

Celestia: I'm going to punish Twilight for plagiarism

Twilight: oh no I'm going to punished for plagiarism

Celestia: you are punished for plagiarism

Twilight: I've learned my lesson!

This could very well work in a longer form story that details how we got to Twilight plagiarizing some work and there being some fear built up over being found out, but not in its own story. A story that goes exactly as dialogue states it will go is not a story that has good grounds for dramatic tension.

Opinion: Heavy Maintenance Required

A story that spends roughly half its wordcount blithely spouting exposition for the reader to understand the world, ultimately to set-up for a written version of the Soldier: 76 trailer from Overwatch, with some dialogue being stripped word for word. I wonder if I missing some sort of in-joke with this story, especially with the ham-fisted inclusion of "All Lives Matter" and the boob-jokes, but ultimately if this was some sort of parody, it should have gone for a more irreverent tone and not directly copied lines of dialogue from the short.

Opinion: Heavy Maintenance Required

Five-Point Scale Explained:

*Excellent: the story excels at both in the story that it tells and its technical composition. Minor problems can be present, but they are more negligible and don't heavily impact the story.

*Above Average: the story suffers from some issues either with its presentation or internal logic that prevent it from being excellent, but displays clear skill in one or more areas that set it above other entries

*Okay: Stories that have clear problems that are counterbalanced by their competent writing, or stories that do not excel in any particular aspect, but are also not crippled in any particular aspect.

*Minor Fixes Necessary: A story that has at least one major issue that prevents it from a fully realized work, but can be fixed with some rearrangements or improvements that do not involve major reconstruction of the story.

*Heavy Maintenance Required: A story that is crippled from a technical or story-telling perspective that would require a major reconstructive effort in order to succeed.