Alright Writeoff, we're ticking down toward finals ... let's see if we can at least end prelims by giving every author at least five reviews!

Here are the stories which are currently short of that goal (by one apiece):

2 Miracle
4 The Trolls
6 Trade
7 Buried
11 The Locked Door
22 Natural Dreams
24 Applejack v. FBTwi

I'll do some of those later today (Buried and The Trolls are on my slate), but I just got called out to help a friend move, so I'll be AFK for a few hours.

(Also, anyone want to start up mashups while I'm gone?)

Alright, it's been awhile since I've participated in a contest, and contributed with my own gimmick, but without further adiue, it's time for Oroboro's Review Haiku.

Buried
Whatever it takes
You must keep the lights turned on
Money and madness

Thou Shalt Not Eat Of The Tree
The Forbidden Fruit
A curious mind damns Man.
A pony just sighs

Modern Farming Techniques of Earth Ponies
The soul of the farm
The soul of romance, unknown
The souls of the dead

Completely Safe in the Reference Section
The onus of books,
Alluring power calls
A storm of fashion

Twice Paid For a Lie
False Reality
Only death can set us free
To fight for our home


TrixGlam
The dynamic duo
Secret matchmaking brings horror
Quite a daring heist

Applejack v FBTwi
In laws and apples
A Princess reigns above both
Whatever it takes

Natural Dreams
Power in nature
A promise to protect it
Consumed by magic

Well, that's a slate plus one. Sadly, I'm crashing out and that's all I'll be able to do before finals start. Good luck to everyone.

... over five hours since prelims ended, and only a few review posts and no story chatter? Is it Writeoff chat sucking the life out of the discussion thread, or is it the move from FIMFiction? Either way, ಠ_ಠ.

Either way, congratulations to our fifteen finalists, viewable in the gallery, and to their authors:
Anonymous
Baal Bunny
Bachiavellian
Bremen
Cold in Gardez
Corejo
Everyday
KitsuneRisu
Lucky_Dreams
Morning Sun
The Cyan Recluse
Titanium Dragon
Winston
billymorph
georg

It's semi-traditional for those whose anonymity has just been broken (by not making finals) to use this time to talk a little about what they were trying to do with their stories and respond to their reviews. Which, I guess, means I have some writing to do. <.<

>>horizon

Personally, I'd like to see an elongated argument between horizon the reviewer and horizon the author.

>>Cassius
I second that.

>>Everyday >>Cassius
Feel free to write one. It would be funnier than mine.

Not So Sweet By Remedyfortheheart (STOP! Before you continue play this (\^w^/) Huggable EMOJI BUTTON! while you read on!)

SO! The reveal! Ooooo! Now’s the time for a round robin review over the comments and reviews to my story.

First off thank you very much to those of you who took the time to read my story. It was wonderful writing it. The thought of this idea came back to me about a couple months ago and only now was I able to write this story out. I do however wanna say it wasn’t what I fully intended for the story to become. In fact I had so many ideas planned for this one particular idea that it should have spanned about 12,000-15,000 words, for this chapter alone! This was suppose to be multiple chapters featuring Bon Bon and Sweetie Belle. In fact the following has been cut due to contest limitations.

Scene 1 - Lyra and Bon Bon argue over Bon Bon’s choice to go see Sweetie Belle. This was suppose to take part before the initial intro. Was cut out to make room.

Scene 4 & 5 - Silverlin and Bon Bon’s relationship interpreted to show their strong bond. These two scenes were suppose to show more of the agency’s work in the makings. Was cut to keep half of the content within contest bounds.

Real Ending - Bon Bon was suppose to have a sunset scene with Sweetie Belle asking her about her cutie mark problem and thus the two were suppose to have a nice chat about life. Cut to make room for an actual conflict.

This was my script for this 1st chapter, but I never got around to placing it into my entry. After seeing the ridiculous amount I had typed out of mere enjoyment for writing it. I had to cut and slice off bits and pieces of the real thing to make sure it wasn’t automatically disqualified for overbearing amounts of content. There was even certain descriptions and long sentences that had to be cut, just to make sure this happened. So this would explain why it feels choppy or doesn’t explain much. Much cutting much doge! For me it was an error that pains my readers. The cutting was just a necessity to play the game. Shall we move on to individual comments?

>>ZaidValRoa

I’m so glad you enjoyed the ride! Tickets will continue to be available at your nearest heart stand! I could curtsy or bow in gratitude, but I prefer to continue writing for the purpose of entertaining you! I enjoy sharing the love, so thank you so much for sharing it back! Hugs for you!

>>Bremen

I so wished I could have shown you what I deleted and, sadly, didn’t save! I had easily more content to sway your decision and I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy it like I intended it for you. The typos are small and thank you for looking pass it. An open mind means an open heart!

>>Dafaddah

Wow! So your comment scared me! Made me regret cutting everything I had and not saving the original. I had cut so much that it made certain explanations unclear. This made me sad and thus! Remy did his own review to clear that up! I hope you read it…

>>Remedyfortheheart

Stay sexy you!

>>Everyday

Editing got it! But everyone could use some editing. Let’s be honest here. My opening turned to be a fail since the original opening was cut. Adding content for both of Sweetie Drops’s relationships IE Silver Lining and Sweetie Belle put together with the conflict of Chief, would have dragged the story much longer than its limit was allowed to. I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to confuse you, sir. *Whimper* I’ll do better next time. Overall! I’m glad you loved it! I meant it to be impactful while still skimming on the sugar!

>>Horizon

Sir! In my belief, writing should be a precision tool meant to cut at the emotions and mindset of its readers! I wasn’t trying to force you to like it. Instead, of course, I was trying to get you to understand the story through its desired effect with what was left over. It feels like you were conflicted because it was choppy. Also my bad on the code play. I usually never implement it.It was something new for me to play with at the time. I just didn’t agree with you, that I was missing a core to my story. When in reality I had skinned it right down to its core. So badly in fact, that it didn’t hold well. From my standpoint, it didn’t make sense that my story became “bottom slate” for you. Not when there are other entries that actually have more trouble with these very same problems. Overall, your review just read like you enjoyed the story more so why vote it at the bottom of your list. I’ve seen some entries. So unless you got some godly ones that was handed to you for reading and voting, I didn’t really think it deserved that. Don’t get me wrong, your review made every bit of sense. It’s reasons and judgements just didn’t seem to abide by it. So I’m hoping you didn’t do the same thing I did when I cleaned my slate and went +1 over. So in that regards if it is true, that our competitive natures match. You honor me to the fullest!

So that’s four out of four readers who liked my story. Getting through the minor errors to just get a good read in, was my entire goal in this round. So my story did as I wanted it to through and through. Though it’s not in the state I currently want it to be. It needs to be bigger, better, and even more alluring! Like moi! Besides the point! Thank you all for reading it and I do hope I can get more reviews. So far I haven’t picked up on much to improve this round. I only gained insight on how the rounds work in accordance with its writers and rules. So please! If you’re reading this! Take my story for a spin, please! I’m begging you! Show me something to improve on.

>>Remedyfortheheart
Can you make sure that when you're leaving a review (or a retrospective), you're posting it from the story's page rather than the general discussion thread? It's not clear which story this review is meant for.

>>horizon
I'm the author for Not so Sweet.

Might as well add this since I wanted to post it. I've gotten some heavily good feedback. About 7-8 likes and that's almost a 100%. Of course I'm just being over confident. But, hey! Ya gotta give me something after being eliminated yeah?

Love you Horizon. Just telling you that I already know the problems. Your opinions are greatly appreciated. Just trying to be honest.

First things first: Of the people who read my story, how many of you realized that it was based on the whole Apple v FBI case that was happening a little while ago? Clearly ZaidValRoa and horizon did, but I'm not so sure about the rest of you. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I think that the people who know about the case are more qualified to give me accurate reviews. But on the other hand, I would have liked this story to be able to explain what happened and why it was a big deal to people who didn't know about it. But since those people probably didn't realise that I was trying to tell them about real life events, I doubt it was able to do that anyway.

It's risky to assume that your audience will have foreknowledge of some sort in order to fully understand your story.

>>Cold in Gardez
I agree. Also using real time events from an economical standpoint? That involves business and terrorism? Interesting. I feel as if it just wouldn't fit in a world that cooperates more often than our own. Which is where it felt off. Like Cig you can't assume that audience is going to know. I'd love to share issues from my island pertaining to political aides and such, which we never get, but it'll end up being more confusing. Especially since half of us are actually not really residing in America.

>>Bremen
"I have to wonder, is this the first story that was written knowing it would probably be outdated before the judging even ended?"

>>Nicktendonick

"That's running on the assumption that the episode ends with the three of them not friends. My gut tells me that whatever problems do happen, Equestria's sugarbowl nature will win out and they're gonna patch it up and be friends or on good terms by episode's end."
----------------------
Woot, for once, I called it. (apologies for the gloat, I don't know when I'll ever get the chance to do this again.)

As the author of TrixGlam, I'm honestly quite delighted with my results. People actually enjoyed my story. I suppose it means I'm improving, or at least, I can be funny.

I actually spent the week going over it and nearly doubled it in size. You can take this link here to TrixGlam 2.0. (It'll be up soon, pass is TrixGlam)

I wonder what you guys think of it, and also I do wonder in the terms of what ifs, how this version would have done in the writeoff compared to how I did.

I've finished my way-too-late-to-compete Writeoff entry and published it on Fimfiction.

Enjoy!

---

Colors

A young Twilight Sparkle uncovers a secret from the distant past, and confronts Princess Celestia about it.

Well, we're closing in on the end of finals, and nobody's started up mashups — so it's time for me to bring back my favorite variant!

The rule here is simple: Add, subtract, or change one single letter in an entry's title (punctuation changes are free), and humorously reframe the story accordingly.

---

Writeoff-By-Ones: Not Letting This Thread Die Edition

Hot On The Outside: When Star Swirl assigns Clover the Clever to combat training, she instantly crushes on her smokin' babe of an instructor, Glowing Dawn — only to learn that falling in love with your cruel tyrant of a drill sergeant has worked out well for exactly zero ponies in the history of ever.

Burned: Green Leaf's career as a magical item procurer for Princess Twilight is abruptly cut short when his trip to steal a Dragonspark Gem runs afoul of its draconic owner.

The Sharklator: Twilight invents a machine that prints out a card whenever a brony decides MLP's latest episode "jumped the shark". A week later, Slice of Life airs, and Equestria drowns in a sea of paper.

The Otter Dark: A deranged Rarity reports on her investigation of Ponyville after it becomes a warped dimension of insanity due to one of her friends' twisted mad-science experiments. Rainbow Dash listens to her tale, and then gently suggests that maybe Fluttershy starting a mustelid breeding program wasn't that scary.

Only, Only, Only IOU: When the Nightmare is unable to claim Luna's soul after their return from a thousand years of banishment, the spirit of darkness gives up and dumps the whole matter in the hooves of a debt collector.

Tirade: Pinkie — who is unhappy with the Shopkeeper after she belatedly discovers that Twilight might have returned her affections after all — calls the corporate offices of Faust & Monkey's Paw, LLC and unleashes a rant that curls the ears of every customer service rep on the planet.

Thou Shalt Not Eat Of The T-Rex: Pony and Unicorn fail to convince Adam and Eve to follow God's rules in the Garden of Eden, and that's why dinosaurs are extinct.

>>horizon

Twice Paid, For a Tie: After realizing her bank account has been charged twice for a purchase at the GAP, Twilight Sparkle fakes her own death and goes off the grid to escape the corporate banking system, encouraging the rest of the main six to do the same.

Standards Rand Practices : A crossover with Atlas Shrugged that features Luna trying to convince Cadance of the virtues of overthrowing Celestia and starting a new objectivist utopia through a series of increasingly nonsensical dreams.

The Rolls : A race of trolls come to Equestria to invite its best cooks to challenge them on an episode of Iron Chef. Not to be outdone in the realm of televised cuisine, Prince Rutherford and his team of elite yak chefs decide to make the world's most delicious bread-roll.

Return to Gender : After a modelling spell goes haywire, Twilight Sparkle suddenly finds herself the most handsome stallion in Equestria. Suddenly, every mare in Equestria wants her and won't leave her alone. After learning the curse can't be dispelled, only transferred, Twilight sticks Cadance with it.

We Are Alf, Made From Silence : After Rainbow Dash has to go to the hospital for ingesting too many cats, Fluttershy attempts to explain to Scootaloo what it truly means to be an Alf cosplayer. Will Scootaloo fend off her evil inner-Alf and purify her Alf-cosplay before the upcoming convention?

Hm, if he hadn't already reviewed this story, I'd have been tempted to accuse Cynewulf of writing it. It reminds me in some ways of his Memento Mori.

I once again feel the urge to profusely apologize for my youthful scribblings.

And what this one is obviously yours. It has Twilight and also Rainbow. That's like being double Gardez

Finished reading all the finalists, and I think I'm done fiddling with my slate. For those of you who might be interested, my top scorers this month are:

Completely Safe in the Reference Section
Tell Her What She Means to You
Pinkie Pie Saves Equestria And/Or Bakes a Cake

Lotsa comedies at the top, which is new for me. :P

For the first time:

In a while, it doesn't look like I'll have time to even read and rank all the finalists let alone comment on them. I just had too much penguin juggling to do this week...

Mike

Results are in! (And I was a bad non-changeling who stayed up all night playing games to be awake for it ...)

Congratulations to Cold in Gardez, billymorph and Bachiavellian for their medals, to Corejo for our first-ever double Controversial winner, to Titanium Dragon for overtaking second place in the FIM scoreboard, and to everyone for another great round!

CiG finally ends his short-story gold-medal drought, and commandingly so. Completely Safe in the Reference Section joins our list of biggest gold-medal blowouts, not breaking Dubs' record of a 3.03x multiplier from second place, but settling in as a comfortable runner-up with 2.80x.

I'll be over here savoring my story's placement and taking some small and meaningless consolation in my best-guesser spyglass. (No analysis this time -- just good ol' style matching and some tactical voting of "Anonymous" given our author/story ratio.) Looking forward to the retrospectives, otherwise see y'all next time.

Got confused when submitting. "The Outer Dark" was me. Really, really surprised it wasn't obvious!

And it should feel like Memento, CiG, as it's basically a sequel to it.

Thanks, and it was fun.

Whhhhhhhhaaaaaaatttttt????

I thought I had another DAY before voting closed!!!

I didn't finish my voting or my reviews! At all!

I am a terrible person!

Where is the crying flutters icon when you need it?? ; (

Hum. Given that these threads seem to die immediately after a writeoff ends, and earlier in the thread people were using aliases to hide their identity while posting, would it be worthwhile to let an author respond to posts by using the alias system to remain anonymous?

I think a major benefit of the system is letting authors get advice and constructive criticism, but that's sharply limited when they can't actually respond to it and everyone disappears as soon as the anonymity is over.

I know in the past people have suggested using the Discord chat after the writeoff ends since people stop checking the thread, but I tried using the Discord chat and it's extremely busy but with very little actual writeoff discussion. Seemed like it got thousands of lines of chat a day, but with maybe a few dozen actually being about the writeoff, and with no easy way to search through it.

>>RogerDodger

I wasn't saying I was going to do it, just asking if it might be worth amending the anonymity rule since the system was in place anyways.

I guess we'll see how much reply notifications help.