A pony calling Dash “Blue Fast” doesn’t quite feel right. It’d be like if somepony called Fluttershy “Yellowquiet” or Twilight “Purplesmart.”

By the end of this, I found myself scrolling down to read the comments. Then I realized I hadn’t really formed an opinion on the story itself. I don’t know if my mental defenses went up at some juncture, but the tale just had no impact on me. It just left me indifferent, which is perhaps the worst possible reaction. I'm sorry to say that I’m really not sure how you could improve it.

>>CoffeeMinion
I'm pretty sure the shovel landed in the muck handle-first.

Okay, I think I get it. When reality first shattered, it stranded Lyra in a little curlicue of time independent from her worldline, and she’s basically trying to blast her personal loop back into the larger continuity. However, you made it about as clear as mud, especially since I expect some spacial effects to go with reality shattering along with the temporal ones.

You definitely need to clean up and clarify this. There might be a very cool concept here, but as is, no one’s going to be able to properly appreciate it.

You don’t need to explain the spell both in narration and in Moondancer’s dialogue, especially not in a format where you can’t afford to waste a single word.

It’s kind of appropriate for a story about time magic to have tense issues, but that doesn’t make them acceptable.

In all, this… really doesn’t make sense. The individual plot elements are straightforward enough, but the end result is the polar opposite of what Moondancer wanted, and yet Minuette seems satisfied with the outcome. The first part feels bloated, the rest rushed, and the whole thing doesn’t cohere. You may need to go back to the drawing board with this one.

Genre: Random comedy

Thoughts: This is brilliant and hilarious. Few cliches are left unskewered. My biggest complaint is that some of the middle chapters don't quite match the sheer insanity of the earliest and latest ones. I loved the first chapter's stated resolution that the sad character's sadness had abated, and I craved something like that in the chapters that didn't offer as clear of a wrap-up.

...so do I get my interludes now? :trollestia:

Tier: Top contender

Genre: Slice-of-life

Thoughts: Interesting; it's the MLP Kobiyashi Maru, as others have noted. That's a neat callback.

I think the concept has potential, but this doesn't fully realize that potential. I'm struggling to put my finger on the reason. Maybe it's that I don't fully understand what purpose the ending bit serves. It seems to dilute the value of the no-win scenario by suggesting that Alicorn!Twilight can do the impossible. And that would be fine, but then it suggests that Twilight can't let her one past defeat linger, even if it taught her something. That seems a bit petty of her, and the story doesn't include anything to help justify that pettiness.

Tier: Needs work

Octavia’s cells? This is either a fascinating organism she’s created or over-reliance on spellcheck. ;)

My snarking aside, this was enjoyably intense, though you could fold the characterization of the stallion into the piece. A few minor chords as he wordlessly scorns Octavia, something along those lines. Still, quite nicely done.

I find your lack of Oxford commas disturbing.
Seriously, I was twitching at times because of missing punctuation, some of it non-optional. Being an English teacher’s son can be hard at times.

That’s a nice sentiment, Cotton’s father, but the furrow is generally behind the plow, which is in turn behind the pony.

To answer the question: When he picked the site of his farm and his crop of choice. No one told him to try to grow corn on a mountainside lumber camp. More importantly, no one stopped him.

In all, this tries for quiet, poignant tragedy, and it almost gets there. But between the tight-knit family dynamics we’ve seen in Equestrian farming families and the counterpoint to that last line, it doesn’t quite get there. I agree with the general consensus; this will work great as original period fiction.

This was a delightful random crossover in every sense of the phrase, a hilarious blend of the game and the game show. Thank you for it.

This had a nice air of bittersweet grace to it, of ponies learning how to grow as people without necessarily being the best. Then you got to Trixie’s section and completely upended the mood, making it seem like Trixie has learned precisely diddly and squat. It also flies in the face of the pantribal aspirations of the introduction. If nothing else, I expected the editor to throw this draft back in her face. I suppose you were trying for comedy, but it isn’t funny, especially not the implications of that last endorsement.

Still, revise Trixie’s entry and there is definite potential here, with plenty of room for expansion. Twilight and/or Luna on Celestia. Scootaloo on Rainbow Dash. Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich on each other.

Oh. Oh wow. That is just a stab through the heart right there. Very well done indeed.

I was laughing a little bit, but I couldn't give a solid reason why. Maybe it was the OOC juxtapositioned next to the random, but it was a fair bit funny.

Well it tastes like a contrived set-up to tell us about your Equestrian astronomy headcanon and pull a few puns on names. But if we stick strictly to the general, accepted canon, then: either Celestia (and Luna) have always raised the Sun and the Moon and the disquisition here is nonsensical, or it raises another question, namely what happened to the celestial bodies for Celestia and Luna to have to take over?

Besides, it's not much of a story rather than a vignette. And I think that you could've pulled a stronger story if you'd started from the punchline and expanded on it, showing us how Twilight possibly tries to weasel out Spike’s question.

Remember, this has to be technically correct: Orion has three stars in his belt, not four.

Finally, if you base your headcanon on the actual Earth-Moon system, remember that:

The one exception was Earth's Moon, where the Sun wins the tug-of-war with a value of 0.46, which means that Earth's hold on the Moon is less than half that of the Sun's. Asimov included this with his other arguments that Earth and the Moon should be considered a binary planet.

We might look upon the Moon, then, as neither a true satellite of the Earth nor a captured one, but as a planet in its own right, moving about the Sun in careful step with the Earth. From within the Earth–Moon system, the simplest way of picturing the situation is to have the Moon revolve about the Earth; but if you were to draw a picture of the orbits of the Earth and Moon about the Sun exactly to scale, you would see that the Moon's orbit is everywhere concave toward the Sun. It is always "falling toward" the Sun. All the other satellites, without exception, "fall away" from the Sun through part of their orbits, caught as they are by the superior pull of their primary planets – but not the Moon.
— Isaac Asimov

Ooh, imagination time with the Cake twins. This should be fun.

The bacronym’s pretty forced. Dropping the S might have helped.

In all, a fun read, though as I noted at the start, the reality’s pretty obvious from the beginning. Clean up some dubious word choices—you can’t lisp the word “nag,” for example—and this will be delightful.

As both characters note, there’s a much deeper story under the surface here. And yet, I keep getting tripped up by a relatively minor point. It’s not that the changeling’s named Kevin; I know where that comes from. No, it’s the cubicle. It just feels out of place in Canterlot. I know it seems trivial, but that made me stumble and I never quite found my stride afterwards.

Still, putting that aside, there are a lot of powerful emotions and deep societal ramifications here. I’d love to see this expanded into the saga of a country-wide effort to incorporate changelings into Equestria, with stumbling blocks and setbacks along the way. Even as is, it’s quite good.

The shift to present tense during the montage isn’t doing you any favors.

In all, it’s a neat idea, but poorly suited to the format. This is visibly straining at the word limit. It’s fun, but it will be lot more fun when given a chance to breathe.

As others have noted, this is good, but it isn’t a complete story. Cutting the introduction would’ve helped free up some verbiage, but the concept may be too big for the format. It’s a shame; I really like how alien ponies seem from the draconic perspective. Maybe if you set up something in an expansion so it's Ember asking Twilight questions...

Jet skis and crossbows. Gotta love getting smacked by schizo tech in the very first line.

I am deeply disappointed that you didn’t call it Davy Pone’s Locker.

There’s some great tension here, but the ambiguous ending just leaves me frustrated. When did Lyra die? Was she ever resuscitated? Was the hippocampus ex machina part of her dying delusion? Leaving matters open to interpretation can work, but this didn’t give me enough information to take a decent stab at it. Here’s hoping you build on this.

Another clever Galileo pun. I wasn’t even expecting one of those this round.

Still, this doesn’t really go anywhere. It’s a bit of science history tweaked to fit Equestria’s cosmology, followed by a weak punchline. This story needs more story.

Always remember the screen your protagonists for Inverse Chuck Cunningham Syndrome.

This was rather straightforward, but I’m afraid I spoiled myself on the twist before reading it. Still, it was rather amusing. I’m tempted to blame Starlight for Winking, but the former has enough trouble maintaining her own ontological integrity.

In summation, the setup dragged on a bit long for me, but this was still an enjoyable gag... though it does feel more like a response to "Flutter Brutter" than the prompt.

This is a lovely bit of Scootalove with a great ending, but something’s bothering me: Why wouldn’t Applejack know about the place? Even if the hollow’s only visible from the air—unlikely, given the shade—several trees growing together that form a hollow big enough for multiple ponies seem like a pretty memorable landmark, especially to a mare who names every tree.

Aside from that, cute and hilarious by turns.

Nice:

But too abrupt. I like the idea of Proto-Celestia being too full of hatred to embrace Harmony, but even Starlight Glimmer took longer than this to change her mind after confronted with similar evidence that the world would end if she kept doing what she was doing.

I'd recommend when expanding this, author, that you give Celestia some specific pony she's remembering as she struggles to reach the cave, some specific pony she has to stay strong for rather than "everypony else." Luna, maybe? Who had to stay behind to distract Discord while Proto-Celestia sought out Harmony? Make Proto-Celestia turn away from Harmony's offer but then decide that she has no choice: she will give up everything--even her entirely righteous anger--to save her sister. Something like that.

Mike

I’m with Trick. Granny’s definitely a fixture of the farm, but she’s hasn’t been the administrative head for a while. The Apples will mourn their grandmother, of course, but they aren’t going to scramble to reorganize everything with her gone. That torch was passed a while ago.

As such, and because I’ve never been one for prolonged heartstring tugging, this felt quite overwrought. Not at all my mug of cider.

A showdown ’twixt zebra and party mare seems
Like something right out of my widest dreams,
But your execution I cannot commend
For why would Zecora like cursing her friend?
The poetry battle itself is quite odd
For quite a few stanzas are praiseworthy nods
That go in the other combatant’s direction.
Such lines should be acid, not cheery confection!
And then there’s the meter. I must be insistent:
The syllable count always should be consistent.
If not through the piece, then at least in paired lines
(As per my own poetic efforts this time.)
In these competitions, it’s always a risk
To write up a poem and save it to disk.
In this case your efforts did not cut the mustard.
Don’t worry, you won’t get a spoon for your custard.

Fomey Shave

(And with that, I'm through. Didn't even realize this was my finale for this round.)

>>FanOfMostEverything
'grats FoME!
Great as usual! :)

I'm probably leaning more towards >>Haze with this. I didn't really see much of the prompt here, and the nods at various tropes didn't keep me all that engaged, although whether that's a matter of personal preference or quibbles with the narrative is probably out with the jury. It didn't do anything for me, but I can see I'm somewhat in the minority. Thanks for sharing your work with the community though.

I think there are a few occasions where the poetic style of the writing trips itself up, but I liked the sombre and reflective undercurrent to the narrative, as well as the alternating and returning themes between the pieces. It would have been better if Twilight's section was interwoven with Celestia or Spike's, rather than focusing on Dash (that bit didn't really go anywhere), and more tonally effective if the chronological order was played with, for example, but all that aside I enjoyed this. Thanks very much for sharing.

Now this was pretty interesting! I think I grasped the particulars here, although there certainly was a lot of them cramped inside the small word limit, and as a result nothing felt explored to a degree that was satisfactory. But I liked it; quite a bit, in fact. If this was expanded then you'd definately be counting me among its readers. Nice work, and thanks for sharing it.

There's nothing to say here that hasn't already been said, except for one question that won't leave my head: if the rhyming is a curse, why didn't Zecora tell anyone ages ago? Was she just hoping someone like Pinkie would make that mistake?

...

I did not mean to rhyme when I wrote that first li— shutting up.

Hmm. I'm genuinely undecided about this one. On the one (ungilded) hoof it's an amusing premise, with lots of potential, and there are some neat little moments on offer (the sun drone being one such example, though I certainly hope all aspects of it are reduced by the same, if not greater, rate). On the other, the tense is all over the place, the reveal is partially revealed too early, and Luna only seems to be present to verbally acknowledge the prompt.

This did also feel more like the type of situation a filly 'I'm going through that phase where I believe everyone's hype about me, and I'm totally ready for that secret library' Twilight might have gotten herself involved in, but it was amusing nevertheless. Thanks for sharing.

When you use words like "merglimp", you tempt the reader into thinking they can decode what's being said. I think it works here because it's so far from English that it doesn't look possible, but that's still a potential pitfall.

I can buy the shipping (which is quite hot), but I'm not entirely sure why Twilight is behaving this way or is in need of caffeine for "late night studying". Does she still do that much studying? It's hard to imagine her leaving her castle to get a coffee, even though I think the situation is marginally believable. It's also unclear whether Twilight actually intends to be so forward or if she's sleepwalking rather than interacting, but I suspect that ambiguity is intentional.

I think the aggression of the kisses seems uncharacteristic for Twilight, even if she is a somnambulist here. This is the opposite end of the spectrum from how she acts in EQG, or even how she interacts with business-ponies on the show.

...he had stumbled into it by accident one morning when he was suffering a bout of insomnia...

This line of explanation gets confusing fast. Is he telling the story of that morning, I wonder at first? Was that the morning he found Twilight already waiting which you mention two paras later?

Also, early morning is not night. When you talk about opening the store at night, that's a totally different thing from opening it before dawn. I think there's something going on here with the time that I don't understand, but you need to make the time stuff a lot less confusing. Be straightforward rather than putting up a puzzle the reader must decode to figure out the basics of what's happening.

This is the second story to touch on heliocentrism so far, oddly enough. P(o|u)nifications are nice, but I would have liked more quasi-science geekery in the discussion.

The punchline is a bit cliche, and it contrasts with Spike's savvy in the initial part of the story. It also doesn't match Spike's stated goal of "spending more time with Twilight" if he's primarily there to ask a question.

...one with a history almost as fascinating as the science itself.

You mean "as science itself", maybe? The science of astronomy having a history almost as fascinating as the science of astronomy is a bit confusing.

I'm left entirely flummoxed on how the ponies agreed to this sport. The two teams have access to completely different abilities, so there isn't a way to know what a fair fight would be a priori—and it's very clear that the ponies know virtually nothing about how humans play. What are the stakes, and why are they playing? Without something to latch onto, I don't know what to expect from the action.

What FOME said about crossbows being too extreme. Paintball is fine, but I think this sounds a little too deadly as it is currently set up. Also, they'd need protective equipment for their eyes, certainly.

I fear I couldn't appreciate this fully because it's been years and years since I've seen the game show.

the guard patrols timings

This should be patrols', but it's awkward regardless.

We're told she has amazing countermeasures, but we're never shown them. This is a place where instead of telling us how awesome she is, you should be illustrating it.

I feel like you should have ponified her name. Carmen Saddlego?

Is "quartz" supposed to be a pun?

You saved my life!

No, that's ridiculous. Maybe "mane" or "face".

You need blank lines between your paragraphs if you don't indent.

This is cute, but it needs massaging to make it funny. Go for the ridiculous and sublime, and provide more examples.

Wow. This is one of the better reversal of expectations I've seen, Writer. There's so much emotional weight behind this piece (delicious emotions) and the characters' voices come through loud and clear. Painful and poignant. Well done indeed.

>>Rolo
I don't think it's that ponies want to be lied to, so much as they are suddenly confronted with an objective reality that doesn't quite line up with their expectations. Even if the Golden Matrix shows that their assumptions about the nature of their relationships with others is more or less correct, it would still be somewhat disturbing to have a constant reminder of bad breakups or soured friendships literally hanging over your head. While it may be a stretch to say that the spell serves nopony, I will readily agree that the spell would do far more harm than good.

a very clever idea with many fascinating possibilities to explore.

but what a cop-out. the characters summarize each of the possibilities, instead of showing any of them (except for the concluding lines). I feel like I read an outline instead of a minific.

I'll be first in line to read the full version on fimfic. but I can't rate this highly for the contest.

(I might be too nasty with my honesty here. but I only do this because this author is obviously talented.)

wat

TD was sad.

He was sad because he doesn’t really like random character destruction comedy, and this did not manage to bypass that barrier.

So he put the story at the bottom of his ballot.

He was still kind of sad, though.

More seriously, this really just didn't do it for me. The meta in the final section in particular just felt meh, but really, very little of the story did anything for me, and a lot of it felt a bit tired. Really, the only part that amused me was the Fluttershy bit, where the subversion actually... subverted things.

I'm not sure who did this. But I can definitely tell you have some sense of comedic timing.

Her niece isn't her descendant. I don't think Twilight would make that mistake in terminology.

It doesn't make sense for her to errata her own journal. It sounds like she's correcting what somepony else has written about her, not what she wrote about herself. I'm not sure where the source is that she's correcting.

Heh, I love it. No suggestions.

I suspect ponies will guess I wrote this one.

This was amusing and creative, but it was a little difficult to buy the transition to Derpy, Discord, and Twi playing cards. Maybe more foreshadowing would have helped make it seem less odd.

The "glass of lightning" and "three Wonderbolts" appearing together really confused me and I had to re-read it twice.

Who is Jumper? If you're going to use Derpy you should probably stick within at least fanon bounds.

Kitkats should be uppercased because they're a name brand. "Like a cookie" or "like a dried muffin" might be preferable.

I think it would be easier if it were more obvious from the start that Celestia was the one jailed. I can see what you're going for, but I'm not sure it's worth added confusion.

For some reason I read some of the examples as attempts to inject comedy in a way that undercuts the drama. I'm not sure why I'm reading any comedy into this piece, because it isn't there explicitly, so maybe I just looked at it in the wrong way. I think the drama and the message are very much on-point. I'll be surprised if this isn't you-know-who.

...scrubbed at her face.

I have no idea what is going on at this point. "Scrubbed" implies roughness, so exfoliation or washing. Do you mean she was rubbing her own face, perhaps...?

...that horrible argument between AJ and Dash over why she hadn’t broken up with Big Mac, despite the strand connecting them being so dull and lifeless...

I don't need to tell you how I interpreted this. :trollestia: I suspect that wasn't an intentional ambiguity, but... I'm not sure...

Maybe that was the comedy source?

I like this concept, but it feels like too much happened in this space for us to really enjoy it. I know there's a limit on words, but that felt like it would work much, much better if it even had twice as many words. Otherwise, it amounts to 'turn good.' 'okay.' There's very little substance for us to understand the struggle. I enjoyed the setup, but the resolution went back too fast for it to be impactful.

I'm confused by the ending of the story and its intent. Is Rainbow Dash showing she read the 'scope or something? Is that a non-sequitur involving her? Or is the message "The Cutie Map shows you what's in store and you don't normally think about it that way"? The story is fine, but I really can't tell what the message is.

Roan, not Roam.

I know I still blame you for it.

This is too important a thing to make this telly. The ideas and feelings here are all good ones, but you need to find a way to show us what Spike feels and thinks other than by telling us directly. That's the only real problem with this story, but it's a large (and consistent) one.

Well, it's better than "Bats"... :yay:

I think it's an interesting idea, and I like the execution. I'm just not drawn in enough at the end because Fluttershy doesn't seem to be particularly emotionally invested in the song, and it has no direct relevance to the world they're in. The connection between the universes here feels more haphazard than essential, which is frequently a problem in EQD stories.

This is cute but super-obvious, and the lack of interaction outside Celestia's head makes the novelty linger past the point where it's interesting.

There are many different potential fixes to this story. You're close to something adorable and humorous, but not quite there.

Hmm. This is interesting, but it's also much like a story we saw on the feature box for weeks ("Would It Matter If I Was" (sic)). That's fine, but it makes it harder to stand out.

The main problem here is that the changeling invasion is half the story and it really has nothing to do specifically with Fluttershy's reveal. Even though it prompts her reveal, it's largely non-sequitur.

It would be better to start off with the reveal and explore the ramifications. We get it at the end but that's really where the story is beginning, not where it should be ending. We want to know what Flutters' friends feel, and how she and they handle the situation, but we don't get to see it. So this becomes a prelude to a larger story, but not a self-contained minific.

It should be "thirty-two" (that hyphen isn't optional, I don't think).

I just now realized the changelings were back.

You just now discovered or noticed, rather. Realized means more that you put two and two together, which is not necessary in this case unless she's dumb as a rock and it takes time for her to realize the presence of changelings means that changelings have returned. Probably, "I didn't know the changelings had returned until this morning!" would work best.

Why would the CMC go to Canterlot and do this when they have a princess in their own city?

I think you have two stories here rather than just one, and they don't quite mesh together. I think it would be better to focus on one or the other than split the difference.

Definitely one of the best stories I've read so far. I didn't catch that Celestia was the one in jail on my first read, probably because the "her" in the reveal is a bit ambiguous.

>>Haze
While the minific rounds tend to be full stories that should have been much longer, I don't think that this is one of them. It certainly could have been expanded, but so could any other story. This one tells a basically complete story, and I think it stands alone perfectly well. It would be nice to see why there's such a strong strand between Celestia and the changeling queen, but that's not really essential to the actual point of the story.

I think you should break up the parts that take place at different times. Without any sort of break between them, it seemed like you were rushing through the whole thing, which I suppose might have been the point. Even if it was, it didn't really work for me.

The story seems straightforward enough, but the ending makes it seem like I'm missing something important. Why is Minuette so happy with what happened? Was she trying to teach Moondancer a lesson? Does she really hate Moondancer? I don't get it.

Genre: Meta comedy

Thoughts: Haze said it well. The quality of the prose is strong enough to give me pause as I place this in my lowest tier, but the humor needs to be much stronger for this to work.

Tier: Needs work

...and that's all of them!

Now I just have to rank every single one of them. :facehoof:

Once again, I don't think I'll be participating in author guessing now that who voted for which authors is open information. I'm concerned guessing somepony-or-other might be taken as an insult, and I really don't want that to happen. Maybe I'll change my mind, I dunno.

I have two stories in this time and I have no idea whether they'll make the cut or not. I'd be a little surprised if the slightly-more-well-reviewed one didn't make the cut, but that would be the only surprise. Tiny little things accidentally left in or left out of a story can become major flaws in review, and competition is always tough.

>>Trick_Question

I think it would be easier if it were more obvious from the start that ...

huh, I completely missed that. multiple times. I misunderstood that Twilight was the one connected to Chrysalis and thought it fit awkwardly. that part makes more sense now.

>>The_Letter_J
I'm convinced there's a complete story here, but I don't feel like I experienced it myself. it was told to me through recaps and a summarizing moral. yet there's the brilliant last few lines, which shook my soul.
I don't want minifics to be longer, I want them to be richer.

I think the opening of this story is the strongest part. It could still use a bit of work, but if there was going to be an episode that started with changelings invading Ponyville, I could imagine it being something like this, just with dialogue replacing the narration.

But the story rapidly goes downhill after that. You shouldn't include the theme song unless you're writing some sort of weird meta comedy story, which does not seem to be your intention. And then all of the characters start tossing around Idiot Balls, to the point where nothing in the story really makes any sense. If you want to write a story about changelings invading Ponyville and Fluttershy turning out to have been a changeling all along, that's fine. An idea like that can certainly work. But this is definitely not how you do it. As is usually the case with minifics, making it a much longer story would certainly help, but it's probably possible to do it in a minific too. You just need to find a way to construct one scene that will contain all the information and emotions that you need. Keep practicing, and you'll get it.

Well, little filly-Twilight always gets a smile from me. This is no exception.
There are a lot of nuanced things to appreciate here--little pieces of characterization that really enhance the story.
I really expected a greater significance to the "Yes, your highness" line. I thought he'd end up repeating the line to Flurry Heart. This would mean he's the type of father who would spoil his daughter, just like how he's apparently the type of brother to spoil his sister.
In any case, I enjoyed this. The writing flowed well, overall, though I feel like the beginning drags for a little too long. Like I said, my favorite parts are the little bits of characterization for Shining Armor and Twilight.

>>horizon
Update: Just read a blog post from bookplayer that takes a good run at my thoughts about the punchline. To wit:

A story needs to set up expectations for the audience and then pay off, preferably a way that both surprises and feels right. "Finish the story you began." If you're writing a comedy with what you think is a hilarious climax, you have to also write the rest of the comedy.

That's not necessarily true all the time — I mean, feghoots are a thing — but I think the best feghoots hit that sweet spot between expectations and surprise; the best/worst puns are the ones where it's instantly obvious that the story was building up to it the whole time, even though you never would have expected it from what you were reading.

Upon completion of Chapter One: "Uh, what?"
Chapter Two: "Okay, I think I understand what's going on here..."
Chapter Three: "Um, maybe not."
Well, I finished, and somehow I ended up more confused than before. I detect elements of irony and satire, but... what was the point of this?
I suppose if there's anything for me to say, it's that Pinkie Pie's chapter was the my favorite.

This story is too confusing for its own good. All I can figure out is that she's trapped in some sort of time loop. You mention reality shattering, and that idea is clearly important since you used it as the title, but you're not giving us any clues as to what that actually means. Or at least not any that I can decypher.

I like this a lot.
This story makes excellent use of the word-limit. It manages to emphasize a feeling of loneliness without overdoing it (which is very easy to do). There was a nice progression for our protagonist. And of course, the ending is crafted very well.
Nice work. Thank you for writing.

This story, unfortunately, seriously aggravated my inner pedant. In the abstract I like the concept here — a miscast spell affecting speech — but the spell has a flagrant lack of consistency that ruins the jokes for me:

I’m going to hay the hit

This is pretty much your establishing line, which means that it's a spell which creates … uh … whatever Spoonerisms are called when you swap whole words instead of initial letters. (Is there a term for that? There's got to be a term for that.)

a piece of doozy

But if you follow that rule, then Twilight's first verbal gaffe came from her trying to say "a doozy of piece", or "a doozy of a piece". Huh? TBH, I have absolutely no idea what she was *trying* to say here! "Doozy" stands alone there — "that was a doozy" — but no other gaffe adds or subtracts words, just shuffles them around, and I don't know where "piece" comes in.

“So whose idea was it to have breakfast at hayburger?”

Another word-spoonerism: hayburger[s] at breakfast.

“The re-shelving went as usual. Except for this one book that Spike found that I’d never seen before,” Twilight said. “None of you dropped any books off, did you?”

And she goes an entire paragraph without any slips.

So the bullet bit me

This threw me hard. This isn't a word inversion, it's a subject/object inversion. Turning "I" into "me" means that the speech disruption is context-sensitive and grammatically correct. D:

I was really midnighting the burnt oil

And here, a noun is verbed and a verb is nouned. "Hay the hit" works because it's just an ordering switch; this is getting syntactically tangled. And you didn't even need to overcomplicate it! "I really midnight the burned oil" works equally well and is a simple transposition!

I think I chewed more bit than I could last night.

The colloquialism is "bit off more than I could chew", so you're losing words here too, and this is less a word switch than running the sentence through a blender.

Look, maybe this is just editor OCD coming to the fore, but this doesn't read like magic to me. Magic has rules. You change one thing, and that one thing changes. Maybe the premise doesn't make sense, but it's self-consistent. Poison Joke makes Applejack tiny, and it makes Twilight's horn floppy — but we never see Twilight shrink, and we never see AJ's hooves wilt.

Maybe, maybe, I could accept this as-is if it were explicitly, in-story lampshaded as a prank by Discord — because he has a way of making consistency go out the window. But it would be so much more satisfying if you worked out the rule of your spell ahead of time — "the magic switches two adjacent or nearly-adjacent words in each sentence, with no other textual changes" — and then crafted your dialogue to take full advantage of your basis for comedy.

tl;dr: There are long stretches without changes that are crying out for further wordplay, and the ones that you've got are place over the all. Please, please, up this clean and premise with the run — because I think the premise has spades in potential.

Tier: Needs Work

Genre: Sad

Thoughts: I'm a sucker for abstract but emotionally evocative pieces, especially when they're powerful enough to compensate for their lack of clarity.

This moves me to sadness and joy when I read it. Having a clearer plot or narrative thrust would help it stand better as a story, rather than a series of vignettes.

Tier: Almost there

There's a lot going on here. A little too much for a minific, unfortunately.
Still, it was an intriguing read. I encourage you to expand this and explore the ideas here. I particularly like the idea of dream-espionage and measures taken to try and counter it. The idea of Moondancer being the group's "leader" also catches my interest.
So, again, expand on this. It definitely deserves it.

Well, at least the humans and ponies aren't actually going to war for no reason this time.

I don't know if I'd say this story was bad, but it certainly wasn't something I enjoyed. At the very least, I would have liked to know what the humans did to win. I get that you didn't tell us because the narrator doesn't know, but that doesn't make the story very satisfying.

And I don't know if it was inspiration or coincidence, but the ponies' weapons reminded me of this.

If this story was supposed to invoke any sort of emotional response in me, it failed miserably. And if it wasn't, then what was the point?

Yes, it's sad when loved ones die, but eventually you accept it and move on. Part of the problem is that this story gives us no indication of how long ago Granny died. I guess it was recently enough for them to still be in mourning, but at the same time, it feels like they should have moved on by now, possibly because of how AJ is acting. And their actions here don't seem all that believable to me, especially since this isn't exactly the first time the Apples have dealt with family members dying. Perhaps that's excusable for Apple Bloom, but Big Mac should be able to handle it as well as AJ.

And like others have said, it's not like Granny was doing a whole lot of work on the farm that the others have to pick up now. And any extra work she did leave should easily be compensated for by Apple Bloom growing up and being able to help out more.

"I hate Discord."
"You need to give up your hate to beat him."
"Okay."

That's not a particularly interesting character arc, and unfortunately, there's not much else to the story. I actually think you did a pretty good job of building up the fact that Celestia hated Discord, and it does naturally follow that that hatred would stop her from using Harmony. But the resolution just comes way too quickly.

And I can only assume that the cave this takes place in is the one where the Tree of Harmony lives, and that this scene will soon lead to Celestia turning Discord to stone. But if that is the case, then where's Luna?

And finally, those voices kind of come across as jerks. "You can't let go of your hate? Okay, we'll just let the world die then."

A fun little story that leaves me wanting more. Not because it feels like it should be a longer story, as is the case with many minifics, but because I just want to read more about these two's adventures together.

This started off as a pretty typical story about a musician getting lost in their music, but it ended up taking quite a turn. On the whole, I think it works fairly well. I agree with the others about working on the stallion's characterization, but I still think it's one of the better stories I've read so far.

Genre: War... war never changes...

Thoughts: Excellent use of the prompt. A great callback to the Season 5 finale. A strong finish to my slate.

I love how the viewpoint character is ostensibly as stoic as he suggests he should be, but upon further reflection, he's as full of emotions as anyone.

This is brought down a little by a few grammar issues, but I like the ideas and execution for the most part.

Tier: Top contender

On the whole, this is a very good story, but I do have a few minor complaints. Garble's presence seems unnecessary, and those words probably could have been better used elsewhere. It seems weird to have the Dragon Prince living with Celestia instead of in the Dragon Lands. And I find it a bit hard to believe that Twilight couldn't find a way to give Spike some wings, especially since she was able to give some to Rarity back in "Sonic Rainboom." Sure, those wings wouldn't exactly work for a dragon, but she's an alicorn now, so she could probably figure something out.

This is still one of my favorite stories so far though.

This doesn't actually make much sense if you think about it even a little bit, but it is a comedy, and it is pretty funny, so I can ignore that.

I have no other complaints.

>>FanOfMostEverything
Ah, OK, thank you.

...it's probably a bad sign that I actually did suspect that was the issue, but I was confused as to why that would be such a significant issue as to evoke the response Rainbow and AJ had.

I blame my children. I've seen things, man. You think of certain substances as things you'd never touch if you could possibly avoid it, but then suddenly they're everywhere courtesy of the little ones, and help is not coming. :-P

A fun story, and I thought it was very good overall. I agree with >>FanOfMostEverything that it probably would have been better if you had saved the contents of the decree until the end.

To paraphrase Scootaloo, "this story isn't the best, but it is pretty awesome."

Mostly agree with above commenters.

It's a good concept, I can believe it, but it's definitely held back by the word limit and seems very telly.

I haven't read many stories yet, but I suspect this will be in my upper half at least.

>>FanOfMostEverything, >>horizon, and >>AnyoneElseWhoWantsTheTune
It looks a lot like The Fray's "Over My Head (Cable Car)" to me, and comparing the two makes it pretty obvious that that is what the author was going for. As someone who has vastly overestimated the writeoff participants' knowledge of/ability to understand references and crossovers like this on multiple occasions, I sympathize with the author here. It probably would have been better to include a link to the song at some point.

As for the story itself, the first part is an interesting and unusual, in its presentation if nothing else, take on Flutterbat. The second part seems weaker to me, and based on the wordcount, I wouldn't be surprised if it was just thrown on to push the story over 400 words. Which is a shame, because it has the potential to be the most interesting part of the story.

The only thing this story is missing is a third scene where Scootaloo gives Rainbow a hoofbump for having sex with AJ and Rarity.

This one is very good. I especially like the irony when she says that she can't go back in time to change what she did, because she would have been able to if she had followed canon-Twilight's path.

The only thing I can think of that might be worth changing is possibly saying that the candle was instead or additionally for Tirek, since Twilight clearly regrets killing him so much.

Like I said on "The Apprentice," this story doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you think about it too hard, but that's excusable because it's funny.

>>PinoyPony
>>FanOfMostEverything
I don't really want to talk about "Worst Episode Ever," but it does suggest that Fluttershy's solution would be to convince the pigeons to stay (or at least poop) in just one section of the town. And that doesn't seem like an ideal solution either. Maybe if she was feeling particularly nice, she'd ask them to move to Whitetail Woods, but the fact that they chose Ponyville instead does suggest that there's some reason they're not living there.

Actually, I can definitely imagine Fluttershy trying to potty train the pigeons. I'm not sure how I feel about this.

When I heard this story read in the chat a few days ago, I wasn't particularly impressed. I think my biggest problem with it is that it seemed a lot more like a summary of a potentially interesting story than an actual story.

But having just reread it, I found it much more enjoyable for some reason. Maybe it helped that I knew it wasn't going to end with the seapony eating him this time, but I don't know.

I do still wonder why the previous lighthouse keeper told him to watch out for the seaponies. We don't have any indication of why they might be considered a bad thing.

I still would rather have read the full version of this, but it will probably end up higher on my slate than it might have if I had ranked it a few days ago.

The concept of this was somewhat obvious, but I appreciated, and was surprised by, the use of a different device/prop in its execution; I genuinely thought it was another of those fics concerning a game of chess. I tip my hat.

I don't mind that the focus is almost entirely on Celestia's thoughts so much as Celestia herself never giving the impression she's responding to anything in particular. It would be helpful for her thoughts to be anchored to the actions of Luna ; like, actually have Celestia detailing what her foe is doing as part of her inner monologue.

There's a good line in tension, even if it is almost bleached by the suggestive undercurrent of humour in the narrative, and I quite liked the character of Celestia here. Pretty cute, and not too shabby. Thanks for sharing.

But... But... the story! :trixieneedsmoreplot(andnotinthatwaythankyouverymuch):

I liked the set-up, and the descriptions and sense of place are excellent, and would serve an expansion of this fic well. There is a strong and interesting idea here, but I need to see more of Winter's actual character, rather than just her regrets, for it to work. Particularly in relation to the prompt. Both would have been served better if more time had been spent on why Winter did what she did, rather than simply ruminating on the fact that she did. Maybe if she was some aging/ex Wonderbolt, out of her depth teaching and desperate to connect with the/her youth, this would have given the piece the depth it needed.

As a part of a larger story, this works. I'm not sure it works as a minific though. Thanks for sharing, and I hope we see an expanded version of this in the future.

Ooh, little late to the party here; all of the good food has been eaten comments have been made.

Oh, wait—the punchline. It would work much for effectively if you approached it as part of some (implied) cumulative 'There was an old lady who swallowed a fly' narrative. Link in the pigeon invasion as a result of the ponies having kept a few to get rid of some other pest, and you've got a much stronger premise on your hooves. It was also explain the set-up a little bit more. Do it cleanly enough and you could even ramp up the punchline further. 'Dragons had invaded Ponyville'.

But yeah, pretty fun, but needs some work. Thanks for sharing.

Phew. Halfway there.

Ticks a lot of my boxes, this. I read an article once on how you can get away with unwieldy/misappropriated word combinations for descriptions, so long as the end result is evocative. Sometimes you nail it here, but sometimes it doesn't quite work out—at least, not for me.

Oh yeah, and the above points, too.

I liked this, though, and it brought a smile to my face at the end. Would love to see it expanded on. Thanks for sharing.

I don't have too much to say that hasn't already been said. Octchavia was a neat surprise, and a subversion that really worked for me. I've actually just come out the other end of an Irvine Welsh marathon, and so the general sense of unpleasantness here didn't bother me too much either. On the contrary, it almost felt romantic. :trollestia: It was all a bit too one-dimensional to really hold my interest though.

Thanks for sharing your work!

Nicely done, Writer. I think the format of the minific works against you somewhat, forcing some of the hints into being more noticeable than they would be within a longer story, but you handle your available resources very well. I agree with >>Icenrose that I didn't get too much of a sense of the stakes at play, but again, word economy probably prevented this more than it being an unconsidered element.

I'm also probably in the camp that would have welcomed an even more ambiguous ending, if I'm being honest. I think it would have suited the tone of the narrative better.

I enjoyed this; thanks for sharing your work. If it is ever expanded on then you'll find me among its readers.

I think I would have preferred a little more story to anchor the comedy moments. This kinda felt like a montage sequence in narrative form, without a wider context to really give it any meaning. To be honest, I didn't particularly find it all that funny, either, but that might very well be a matter of personal preferences rather than the fault of the story.

Further thoughts upon reread: Great opening line.

And:

The first panel had the barrel with a pump drawn on, with an arrow pointed at the pump. “Pull back here.” The second had the trigger, “Pull here.” Lastly, simply the words “BOOM!” with smiley face.

Applejack couldn’t make heads or tails of this claptrap.

That worked for me. Bit of a character assassination, I grant you, but it did make me smile a lot.

Thanks for sharing your work with the community!

For me, this nearly managed to do the important thing: not completely alienate readers who don't really know what Carmen Sandiego is (which I don't.) The mystery of the fake suns plays out well and kept me interested. It was well-written, carried a lot of information in only a few words, especially by not using too many dialogue tags and instead using actions to tell the reader who's talking, and it's a complete narrative, to be sure.

I just didn't... take much joy in it? And it felt like it was supposed to make me smile. And as TD suggested might be the case,a lot of it still went over my head. What frustrates me about it is that it nearly landed, before the ending was full of stuff I didn't get.

Why does Twilight call them gumshoes or say V.I.L.E? What exactly is the honour Rainbow is performing? Why does Carmen just disappear? I didn't watch more than 10 seconds of the Youtube video because I don't like it when people put YouTube links in their stories, but I felt forced into clicking it because I didn't understand other aspects. I wouldn't have known the crossover without the outside influence of the comments and the YouTube link and I feel the story should be able to stand by itself.

It does also seem daft that Celestia assigned them to the case in the first place.

Those are just my thoughts, but I daresay I'm not the target reader. Like I said though, it's well-written, so it'll still get a decent ranking from me.

>>CoffeeMinion
Remember, Dash is a pegasus working with earth pony tools. That shovel is probably mouth-held.

I have several questions...

Really though, in all seriousness this has the look and feel of either the work of a developing writer, or the work of one who might have forgotten the existence of the restraint button during the editing phase. Everything feels excessive, but not in the way that lends shading and definition to the narrative. Give yourself some words to properly draw more interesting anchoring content from Spike and Starlight—that whole first section could be removed to allow you to do that.

Expresso for Miss Pinkie Pie - Extra caffeine

I much prefer the idea of Pinkie having to constantly be drinking water and milk in order to dilute her naturally produced caffeine levels, but that's an aside.

I don't mind the fact that it's a well-worn premise though, nor even that it doesn't bring anything new to the table. If it's cute and entertaining then I'd probably read (and enjoy) it. I think this has some way to go to get to that stage, but you've got the foundations in place to deliver on your premise.

Thanks for sharing your work.

Nitpick: some repetitions — lined the streets to witness the moment of activation, when the first modern – truly modern, as Callous defined the term – clock tower of the Crystal Empire would be activated; His prize, his dream, the design he’d longed to complete before even the rise of Sombra, gone. For the first time in his long life, Clockwork Callous felt the burn of tears. Perhaps those modern ponies had been right all along. That’s many “long” in a short while :P

Well done: you write about Cadence without ever writing her name, so nobody will relapse in that eternal Cadance/Cadence quibble. Wut? :P

I don‘t get what happened to C.C. Did he sleep for a millenium? Was he imprisoned in ice? Resurrected? That point is pretty obscure.

Otherwise, that’s a nice fiction, and the punchline is great. But, as Dubs mentioned on the chat, no clock is as precise as a broken one, since instead of giving always the wrong time, it gives the right one, twice per day.

I concur pretty much with what everyone has said up to this point. Derpy as a card sharp is a nice touch, though the use of muffins is somewhat tired now. I mean, that's what other people picked up: you shamelessly mix fanon with canon with headcanon, stir that, and that mixture turns out to be, well, puzzling, to say the least. You give too much information, and I agree this is somewhat distracting. Also, I find Derpy acting slightly OOC. I’d expect her to let drop a card or something of the same ilk.

Of course you had to use “deadpan” instead of “poker faced”.

On a lighter note, I regret you had not them playing strip poker, which would've been funnier still.
'Beg pardon Rarity, but we don't usually wear clothes.

Huzzah! Somepony is addressing one of the points that always irked me about Testing Testing 1, 2, 3. And this isn't too bad, to be honest. There's definitely an idea with potential here, although it needs just a little more shaping and refinement (and time, I'm guessing) to make it work. Dash's solution, and later comments, felt very true to her character, which I liked, and there's a lot of comic potential to be mined from the scenario. Hopefully I'll see a revised version of this in the future, but thanks for sharing this version too.

I don't have much to add here. As a scene it certainly grabbed my attention, but there isn't the slightest hint of a resolution to make this work as a minific. Still:

“Think you can turn me back? It's going to get hard to identify various rocks.”

That gets a hoof-bump from me. A great Maud moment right there. Thanks for sharing your work.

I daresay there's not much wrong with this in principle, aside from the accent issue previous commentators have raised, but to me, this kind of story really doesn't fit the MLP setting or characters. Blueblood being like this = yuck. Nor do I have any affection for Cockneytavia.

If it had been an original minific or a fanfic for a world where this kind of behaviour made more sense, though, I'd really like it.

Sorry that as an MLP fic this one doesn't tick any of my boxes.

The more I think about it, I think my single biggest quibble with this is the ending gag with the energy drinks. It's an attempt at humor, but it misfires badly IMO.

This. Was. Great.

Seriously, thank you for writing it.

>>The_Letter_J
Oh! Well, don't I feel like a silly? ^^;

Yeah, linking the source song would've been a very good idea.

I suppose my biggest quibble with this story is that it does such a grand job of masking the big reveal with other conflicts and subplots, that the reveal ends up being fairly dull in comparison. It just doesn't command enough focus when it ultimately arrives. That's not to say that there isn't a lot to enjoy here, just that the climax carries no greater presence than anything that's gone on before it.

As an aside, I didn't have any issues with you breaking from fanon tradition with with regard to Derpy's daughter. You highlight the particulars (kindergarten) well enough in my opinion and, yeah, it was refreshing to see. In fact, to be honest, I think your little nods to the wider world beyond this scene are all well-balanced. Has Discord ever called Rarity 'Rares' though? It just sounds off to me.

Anyway, a few issues present, but I enjoyed this. Thanks for sharing.

Real quick, if anyone finds this comment amidst the mess...

When it is appropriate to abstain your vote?
For instance, say (hypothetically) that you do not want to vote for a fic because you feel your bias would make it unfair for the author and the reviewers, therefore, is it justified to sit it out for sake of keeping things fair?

Or am I acting like a complete idiot and don't know the first things about abstaining?