>>Zaid Val'Roa

I agree with >>Syeekoh (When did you drop the Majin?)

Funny story, actually.

My username was originally just Syeekoh, which is the time period when I made the writeoff account. The Majin was a later addition, and since writeoff scores are tied to usernames, creating a Majin Syeekoh handle using this account would start me off with a score of zero and I'm not really a fan of that idea.

Having not seen the episode or movie that this had a basis in, I found myself a bit taken out of this story. It felt very fast, with situations and emotions flipping like switches throughout the story. I also didn't feel like Celestia or Twilight acted much like their canon behaviors, though I'm not certain if this is actually supposed to be a precursor to FiM or an alternate universe. Overall it seems like an interesting concept with hazy execution.

The only complaint I can really make here about the hook is the length of that first sentence. Try breaking it down into shorter, more digestible chunks -- perhaps describe each struggle separately, and then constrast them as sentence three?

I'm a fan of the gloriously crackficcy idea here. I do think that it loses steam as it goes, though. You go from a high-octane magical-girl fight to a second scene that's basically all talking, and the resolution feels awfully anticlimactic. I mean, yes yes, Twilight Sparkle solves problems through friendship, but the opening promises so much momentum that it's a little disappointing to have it turn so subdued. I'm also not sure this entirely sticks the landing -- that final line was worth a smile, but it just seems so ... small. Kind of the same way that >>Posh points out you have "infinite Twilights" to work with, out of which we see four and extensively speak to only three.

Basically, this wraps at 750 words exactly, and feels awfully compressed to fit. I hope you saved the full original version for later expansion.

Tier: Almost There

nothing too surprising, but it does a good job showing how people start out reluctant but get hooked on boardgames. with minific limitations, it's understandable that it cuts straight to the ending, showing before and after. but at the end I don't feel like there was a long epic game full of twists and turns, because the characters seem to act about the same as when it started.

“Awesome! Gimme the rules, Twilight! I’ll explain them!” Without waiting for a response, Rainbow Dash pulled the book away from Twilight. “Okay, so to win, you just need to get 10 victory points—”

“Wait! Let me finish reading how you create the galaxy!”

heh. in my experience, Fantasy Flight Games have confusing rulebooks where everything seems to be out of order. they make so much more sense by having an experienced player teach the rules. probably not an intended joke in this story, but it made me think of that.

missing an important detail: the sun is setting when they finish the game, but there's nothing indicating what time of day they started! was it a quick 4 hour game? they started in the morning and played 12 hours straight? this isn't trivial, we need to know this because two characters were considering leaving early.

Why are their cutie marks switched? Wasn't that Magical Mystery Cure, not the Tirek episode? So is the implication that Twilight never fixed her friends, so she never became princess, so she didn't have the power to stop Tirek? That seems a bit convoluted to me.

You wouldn't normally consider the downfall of human civilization as a palate cleanser, but that's not the way winners think.

This was great, I had a goofy smile throughout most of the story. I'm assuming the events of Rainbow Rocks played out differently, Sirens took over, had an inevitable fight to the death, and Sonata was the sole survivor. Cue: bloodbath.

All I could say about the story really concerns the events that came before it, and I'm sure you'll love to hear the same line about how this fits into a larger story, and fleshing out that story would make this stand out more, but judging this entry solely on its merits and as a standalone scene, I think it's perfect.

Of course, by perfect I mean that I don't think this has anything that I would add or remove from it. It succeeds in what it sets out to do, show us a moment in the life of a character that shows that deep down they're just as human as anyone else in spite of other circumstances, all presented in a humourous way.

Kudos, and long live Tyrant King Sonata Dusk.

Okay, people, I've given you almost two full days and nobody has made a Danger Zone reference.

Honestly, I expected better from all of you.

>>SPark
Pretty much this.

You could've skipped the whole intro and just let the reader infer the setting from the dialogue and the actions. It doesn't add much to the story. You could call it... The Obsolete Intro.

...I'm sorry, that was uncalled. Anyway. I liked how Twilight managed to think of a plan to get back at Starlight, it was clever, and in-character for her, but then the story just kinda wraps up before we get to see how that pays off. So, bland intro, clever middle, and lackluster ending.

There's a good story in here, but it needs some work before it can show it.

Hook, set-up, development, punch-line. Cue laughter.

It's hard for me to criticise something that works so well in its simplicity. My only major complaints are entirely formal, and there's little point in bringing them up.

>>GroaningGreyAgony
The Treaty of Neighsailles of 608 already forced the Apples to abdicate their dominion over the fruit market and renounce apples, making them change their family name on top of that would have been downright cruel.

Dreaming about this fishy girl again? This creature with 'wings' who flies in the 'sky' with 'sun'," he laughs and helps me up, "I don't know where you get all these imaginative things from.

Hm... since when are Diamond Dogs unaware of the existence of the world above? Or is this an AU, or a far-future setting?

I also don't get the point of the entire "Ghoti"/"Fish" reference. Just why is the griffon named after a fish and referred to as a "fishy girl"? Is this all a setup for a rhyming pun in the final sentence?

Why are there Vortigaunts in Equestria? Why are they ponies? How do they know Twilight? What do they want from her?

Unfortunately, we never learn that, because apparently they can only speak in verbatim quotes from the game.

There's something of a tantalizing mystery here, but it never gets close to being answered and is just vaguely hinted at. This is another entry which feels like the beginning of a story rather than a complete story in itself. It even ends practically mid-scene.

...what?

Who is the narrator? Where is she? What's going on? Is this some sort of a dream or a vision or what? Why isn't she at all concerned about all the strange things going on? Why has she turned into Pinkie after wearing some boots and a saddle (accessories that the real Pinkie does not wear)? Why is Twilight's floor squeaking? What do the roots of the library have to do with all this?

I have no idea what's this all about. The only vague idea I have is that Twilight somehow turning regular ponies into copies of her friends for some reason, but that's just speculation on my part.

It wasn't until the end that I realized there were three astronauts and not two, that's how similar to each other they were.

Still, I like the premise. I like the concept of the encounter with the unknown.

However, some things were confusing.

"I wonder what it is?" John mused. Gene chose not to reply. Parts of his brain were volunteering answers to that question, but Barb and Theresa were 200,000 miles away, not sleeping next to him.

I don't understand that part... what would "Barb and Theresa" have to do with space music?

And why is the insulation burned off? What does this have to do with anything?

Gene tried his hardest not to think about what attempting to open the crew hatch in the command module would sound like.

Why do they assume it would "sound like" anything unusual? They're hearing some weird sounds from the outside, but their equipment isn't making any unusual sounds.

But he wouldn't believe it until he saw it.

This threw me for a loop for a moment -- didn't he just see it? -- and I had to check again to realize he'd saw it in a "blurry reflection". I'm having a hard time visualizing this though. Where exactly would a "blurry reflection" of the Moon (with discernible colours, even) be visible in the spaceship?

>>SPark
Yeah, once it mentioned shooting someone with a gun, I was jarred out of the story because I was wondering "wait, how would a pony shoot a gun anyway?"

Twilight's plan of brinksmanship..... or maybe not. why didn't she follow Starlight out? that's kind of a nasty feeling, that it was all just a suicidal revenge plot. the story does a great job portraying an evil Starlight Glimmer we want to hate, her uncaring attitude and smug gloating. the cannon at the wall thing seems odd, as well as Starlight choosing not to know about it, but I guess I can let that slide. what bothers me more is that I can't understand Twilight's decision to sacrifice herself instead of going for a risky escape.

...yeah, no. Sorry, but this feels like an entirely pointless story (and making fun of "nonsensical pretentious art" is really cliche at this point.) Spike's unnecessary cussing in the final sentence left a distaste in my mouth, too.

I really, really love the beginning of this story. Spike's anger and the dialogue felt very vivid and evocative, although Spike actually seemed a bit out-of-character (I can't really envision him complaining that he hates books without pictures... he's a librarian's assistant and a letter-writer, he shouldn't resent text so much.)


However, I can't say I understand the ending part. There's some truly powerful imagery there,

The black words spun into dark rings in the centre of the pale pages, two dark circles like eyes, like Twilight’s eyes, big eyes gawking up at Spike.

looking up at Twilight’s face—watching it slowly fold in on itself in dismay.

Other words fanned across a beige canvas behind her head, rapidly overwriting one another until they blotted each other out.

...but I can't say I fully understand what's going on here. Did Twilight just draw Spike into the book so that he'd be forced to appreciate her rushed gift? If anything, that's just ensure that Spike will loathe the book from now on; it's not fun to be forced to read something. It makes Twilight look like a jerk, actually, unwilling to admit her own error.

There's some powerful mood created in this story, but the characters' actions don't jibe with it. Spike and Twilight seem unnecessarily mean-spirited towards each other until the penultimate paragraph.

It’s random and silly, but… I don’t know. It feels really disjointed and more like a mishmash of randomly cobbled up sentences and reactions, meta or not. The backbone thread is too weak to seam all those elements together to form something coherent, if only after a fashion. Too draft-ish and scattershot to be enjoyable, at least to me.

Not enough Ace Attorney references, boo. :P

Anyway, this was a quite nice random comedy. I chuckled at some parts ("Twilight's dancing was so bad it hospitalized me from three countries away"), though some jokes felt really forced (the aforementioned dance nazis' coup).

>>Jordanis

Not really, the story stands out on its own without it, but it still annoys me a little (that's not make the story bad though).

>>Zaid Val'Roa

Trixie isn't the only one who speaks in third person.

Oooh. That's clearer now (the rain is gone dumdumdum). Still surprising coming from Lyra, I'm not used to see her written like that.

...This story can actually hang certain ebook readers if you try to read it in epub. Not sure if it's due to the code shenanigans or the Zalgo text.

I've got a Pocketbook Reader Basic 2. If I try to read the story in the reader's default AdobeViewer program, it simply freezes the device. Sometimes to the point where you'll have problems booting the device, because it'll try to resume from where it was last time... i.e. in the middle of the story that's frozen it.

This is especially a problem when trying to read the anthology in .epub, because, due to the presence of this story, the entire anthology file cannot be read in AdobeViewer.

(It does work normally, though, in the ebook reader's alternate program (fbreader).)

I have to agree with other commenters. This is an example of an author going way overboard.

I feared with the beginning that you would go for a gore fic but the next sentences got me wrong. It was pleasant to see going for a slice of life dialog between Sonata and the cashier.

The reason why Sonata doesn't immediately get rid of him is good but maybe you should have keep it more subtle and not tell everything with that line

I’ve either been treated as inferior by my sisters or, more recently, as sort of a, uh, evil goddess thingy by most people.” She smiled as him. “You’re the only person I’ve come across that treats me as an equal, warts and all.

A solid story, I like to see my expectations being contradicted, especially when the first impression is unpleasant.

After reading other stories and rereading this one, I finally know what to do whit this one.

It will rank high in my list because, as I've said, the writing is really neat but it will be below others which may have bigger flaws but have moved me. This one haven't and thus can't be place at the top (at least in my book).

Looks like a nice idea for a horror-like story, but the small technical imperfections kept jarring me out of it. I think you used up too many words to describe the decor in the first paragraph, and somehow the plot seems to linger rather than to drive the nail home.

To be honest, this looks like a first draft, words jotted down hastily to give substance to your idea. Will need work to be more effective.

There were some ways to keep this story legal, but they made it.... not fun. I wasn't interested in scoring anyway, so I accepted that it had to die.

I won't talk about details just yet, because a few people might still want to try it. and I want to see how far people get.

This story can actually hang certain ebook readers if you try to read it in epub.

Aw crap. I apologize.

EDIT: I changed my mind. I feel too guilty about it ruining people's machines. I'd rather it just be deleted so it doesn't harm anyone else. I can't decide

>>Syeekoh
Unleash the Majin... unleash the Majin! :-p

Celestia smiled with the corners of her mouth.

Same as Zaid. When you're obliged to write in such cramped a space, going for pleonasms isn't the brightest idea…

"Indeed, even you prefer the day." Luna looked away. "I wonder if I'm needed anymore. I haven't been needed since Discord."

"What good are the stars when they have no effect on ponies' lives?"

"They don't? Are you sure about that?"

Something's missing here. Either the two first lines must be joined, because it’s Luna's words in both, or you’re missing a reply. I understand why others have become lost. It’s the same two or three lines after.

Hmmm… I think Celestia is too unconcerned here. She wouldn’t design a surrogate for dealing in that matter.

In all, I don’t know what to think. The arc is pretty weak. The first scene barely adds anything to the story, which feels somewhat rushed. I think, much like FoME, that it’ll a major overhaul to be really effective.

Luna’s notably excluded from that welcome. I wonder if this will come back.

Ah. Entertaining stuff, though it may be too metareferential for its own good, and the ending is quite abrupt. Still, well presented for the most part, and it definitely made me smile.

Kind of has a Western feel, except for not being set in a desert. Maybe it's not very MLP, but hey, the opening did get me pretty curious as to what would happen next! Three paragraphs in and already we've got a pile of bodies.

The payoff didn't impress me though. What is Spruce? A changeling, a were-timberwolf, or what? I guess it's an ironic ending for the murderer, but I couldn't figure out any logical way this was connected to what came before. Just random misfortune? Or he's the same wolf, stalking her and luring her into a trap? I'm not sure what I'm supposed to feel about it.

I'm not familiar with "Starlight's Tirekverse", so I'm not sure if I'd understand this story better if I were. (EDIT: Oh. I thought it was the name of some fanfic setting. Turns out, you referred to one of Starlight Glimmer's canon alternate timelines. Frankly, I don't think you even needed to name it specifically, seeing as Twilight's very first line establishes the setting.)

Anyway, this feels a bit... lacking. Ponies sit around and argue, and nothing really comes out of it. Their conversation is somewhat hard to follow, too; I felt like I was out of the loop, what with all the subtly different canon events. I'm also not sure what you meant by Twilight "taking Fluttershy away" from Discord.

Actually, the setting is the most interesting and potentially promising part of the story. Instead of having the characters angst aloud for the entire story, you could describe their lives in Tartarus, write about what's been happening in Equestria, describe their daily relationships with each other, etc.

Well, if was obvious from the start the permit would be denied, so the twist was totes expected. However, I must credit you for a grand Spike description here (though “milk-sodden” sounds strange at my ears).

Yeah, yeah, it’s sweet, but a bit on the gushy side for my taste.

The conclusion is illogical. Why in Equestria is Spike's presence required for Twilight to levitate precisely where her old balcony used to be? I don't understand that.

Anyway. I'd say about this what someone said about my former entry: “A cute middle-tier story”.

not enough gore in my opinion.

you can't tease me like that and leave me hanging!

I, too, think the atmosphere was strong. The choice of first person was also appropriate, and the intro did a good job of hooking me.

Sadly, that feeling started petering out the closer we got to the ending, which is a real shame considering how well executed the first half was. I can't help but wonder if it could have been streamlined a bit to reinforce the sense of despair and isolation of the ending.

A mostly well executed story that loses some of its strength with the ending.

God damn it, Applejack.

I liked the format. Without any descriptions, it still carried a lot of information. The first few lines were a little rough for me, with almost no clue as to who the interrogator is (or his/her intentions), but once I got into the story it seemed to nicely reflect how impersonal and lonely the situation must feel to Spike. The parts where he pauses and begs to see Twilight were a great addition. I feel for him, and he's just as lost as to what's happening as we are.

But I feel like the last section misuses that same cold impersonal style, and becomes too aloof, like "eh whatever". The clues about the moon are too subtle for me to catch whatever's being suggested. After all that wonderful buildup, I was expecting a twist ending or strange cliffhanger, but it abruptly stopped and delivered nothing.

Y'know, all things considered, an all-consuming magic field brought forth by a joy overload isn't such a bad way to go.

I always find myself short on ways to criticise comedies. Unless they're not funny, but that wasn't a problem with this story, but I'll try. Something that stands out to me is the same SPark mentioned, how does a random guard know Celestia's weak spot? Those kind of state secrets should be better protected.

But if that guards knows that from first-hand experience--in what I presume was a completely platonic and TV-Y appropriate way--then how comes Equestria wasn't destroyed then? Is it just the Power of the Pie at play? How much am I overthinking this?

Oh, and the ending. I didn't like the closing line all that much, it feels as though it hit the brakes on the momentum of the story. That doesn't mean you should have focused on reality's destruction by unleashed magic, but I feel a better ending would elevate this story.

The story is evocative, but feels like it is mostly mood and implication--whch isn't an inappropriate approach to the prompt--but it leaves me without anything to grasp onto. This is probably due to this one anchor sentence that stops just short of being concrete information:

How had she done it, when she'd been hiding the power of all the alicorns from Tirek?

The sentence tries at one time to place the story during the time of the battle with Tirek after the library was destroyed and to imply that the event of the story occurred afterwards. Between the first word and the last of the sentence lies unrealized possibilities.

The third paragraph third and fourth sentences should be get with "It" but begin with "I".

I think the apparent "I"/"It" typos are maximally jarring in this presentation, because they lead to an initial interpretation of narrator-as-actor that doesn't seem to be intended and isn't borne out by the rest. The comma before "when" does something similar: this isn't during the Tirek battle; she's trying to recall how she handled the sky then, in order to do it again.

My reconstruction is someone else nuked Canterlot, and Twilight's both trying to process the event (including the unprecedented energy source) and reflexively take over for a presumed-slagged Celestia and Luna.

I think this would benefit from making what's going on a bit clearer a bit sooner. As it is, we don't know who the MC is until we're a good third/half of the way in, which means we really don't sink our teeth into the conflict until we're nearly done, and then it's all over.

Switching from first to third person would be a way to facilitate that somewhat; using a name instead of 'I' would make it clear that this isn't Luna, as I originally thought it might have been.

I feel like that last line is reaching for some sort of resolution here, but I can't quite tell what it's supposed to be. As-is, this is interesting, but doesn't really seem to have much emotional profile; some stuff happens, but it doesn't really seem to change much? It's intriguing, but not deeply satisfying.

I agree with the others that the last line is jarring; it reads okay if it's not taken literally, though, as the nature of the energy wave isn't otherwise specified.

How did a rainbow fly out of Celestia's mouth? That's… hmm. o.O

The overall premise is worthy, though, and I loved the intro. The Pinkie Pie characterization is spot-on!

I think this is switching moods too far and too fast. The opening doesn't set the 'horror' up much, so when they're suddenly spooked, it seems odd. Then they switch to hilarity, which I think could work, except that it doesn't feel like I'm in on the joke, so it doesn't really seem justified.

Also, all I could think of when I got to Tom was this.

And where did John come from, anyways?

Well, I think the core of this story - astronauts encounter the Nightmare, fluctuations between horror and humor - are solid? It just doesn't work well for me here, because of some weirdness in how it's portrayed.

Wait, why are they rioting all of a sudden?

Like, the rest of this makes sense to me, even if it's a bit clunky word-wise. But I got to that last sentence, and it really threw me. What about this muffinsplosion caused a rebellion/riot? Was there something in there that I missed? It seems really non-sequitur.

I must admit this story surprised me in a pleasant way. I know I have a history of projecting, but this time I'm almost certain of my interpretation.

As I first read it, it left me a bit baffled. It seemed just a half-random jumbling together of elements and references to R&B Alicorns (by the way, we need a Rhythm & Blues Alicorns genre, but I digress).

What we have here is an interesting metaphor for the write-off itself. The fear you messed up your entry, the reviewers reading something completely alien to your intentions in the story, the sudden awareness that, oh god, everybody is reading my public shame.

I also liked the different reviewers we have here, even if I'm fairly certain that nobody has been mocked for a failure. Success, on the other hand, is something we don't forget.

All in all, this was interesting, and the ending gives me hope that the author isn't bitter about it, considering that I saw it as Thunderlane being so deep into his own paranoia that he couldn't recognize that there was somepony that would appreciate him anyway.

The writing is a bit rough IMHO, but nothing a bit of editing can't fix. Considering all the subtext here, I'm not sure how well this could fare outside the write-off.

Nice entry there, thank you for it.

This may be my favorite among the stories I've been allotted. Whereas a lot of stories of this length fall apart (or at least crack) at the end, here the last sentence ties the whole thing together. The moral that one should know when to disobey is one I am all for, and it is unfortunately a rare one.

I have always liked the idea behind the "what-if" stories of Luna, or even Nightmare Moon, having won the power struggle, and the future ramifications. I like this one in particular because it doesn't overreach itself, as these epic AUs tend to. I also find no bones in the narrative or character voices.

Therefore, I am reduced to picking nits. The interrobang (?!) is used in comic books, but is a poor fit for prose writing, and I always recommend avoiding it altogether. I also see a few cases of ellipsis-itis--that is, overuse of the ellipsis as a crutch. Different phrasing, or alternate punctuation marks, tend to make for stronger prose.

A big yes, a bigger yes and a small no.

The comedy is really good and I smiled the entire time. The story go straight to the point and I think it's really suits comedy stories. Moreover, the assassination attempt scene was really great.

The small no goes for the second co-ruler Celestia presents to Twilight. Flurry Heart? I expected another member of the aristocracy, like Fancy Pants or Trender Hoof, not the creepiest baby in Equestria.

>>SPark

Also, I don't get this at all.

“Yes, I know you’re immoral. I’ve seen your mane."

Immoral? I get he's being so stupid he doesn't know what immortal means, but why is Twilight's mane "immoral"? It's a really weird thing to say. The whole story feels random, but that bit in particular bothered me a ton because I feel like it was trying to make a very specific joke but failed.

The joke here is that Blueblood find that Twilight's mane is a crime against fashion, she doesn't have any standards regarding how to comb her mane. Thus the immoral, and the pun with immortal. A good pun in my book.

I cannot say anything that has not already been said, except this: I'll eat my hat if I haven't already guessed the author.

I'll be with the others, that was hilarious and Spike's sarcasm was gold.

This story definitely goes to the top tier. I might be wrong but I have a pretty good idea who wrote this one.

This is a nice piece of satisfying introspection and a good use of the prompt.

As for SPark's "beggers" point, the cliche is regional. Both "beggers the question" and "beggers the imagination" are used, but it does point out the danger of using a cliche unless the cliche serves something in the story like providing dialect or characterization--especially one as short as this one. It did not throw me out of the story, but I am also renowned for fracturing and misusing them so I can only pass on what I've learned.

I'll disagree with others on this one, the characters didn't feel OoC for me. Their actions felt more like this is what they would do if we just consider them as a bit more mature than in the show.

However, it feels indeed a bit rushed (because of the word-count I guess) and the story feels very dense.

"prescribed implements", you probably mean.

Other than that… huh! I'm still a little dubious about stories using Twilight Sparkle as the prompt connection, but this was really neat.

It is really hard to sell me on slice-of-life stories, but this one pulls it off. Not much happens, but there is a theme and a moral, and just enough warm fuzzies to be sweet without being saccharine. Plus, the length restriction doesn't seem to affect the quality of the prose, which is impressive on its own.

The only real issue I find is an advanced stylistic one: overuse of adverbs. Adverbs are not necessarily bad, but too many words ending in "-ly" can weaken the emotional strength of the piece, as they are not terribly evocative. Try to explore a few alternatives for description, and see what you can come up with.

My comments are more or less the same than >>Orbiting_kettle's for both the good things and the rest, so I won't repeat them.

Still, I think the comedy could be better if you would have emphasize more on the last lines.

By the time they left, Twilight had sentenced them both to weekly appointments at her castle.

Celestia the teacher being lectured by her student is a fun thing to imagine but here it is resolved with only one sentence. Too bad, I guess the word-count was, once again, what has caused this.

First, some specifics, because I like to give some sort of concrete feedback.

You switch from past to present tense and back several times. It doesn't seem like you're using that for a specific effect, so be careful about it in the future; it can really throw people off.

I love using semicolons, but they're tricky to get right. IIRC, they're properly used to attached two complete sentences together, or to make lists of things that already have commas in them. This:

As I stop; I see the

doesn't really seem to count for either. A simple comma should work, though.


Some of your capitalization is a bit weird to me.

white Unicorn mare

We usually only capitalize proper nouns and words derived from them. So Terran is capitalized because of Terra, but human isn't, because it's not the name of a specific person or place, or a word derived from one. Some people may argue about this, especially with Pegasi, because in some myths Pegasus was a proper name. And then Earth is a place (although it's also a mass noun) but maybe 'Earth pony'... and then if you're capitalizing two, maybe they all should be? :P Anyways, this is a bit more subjective, but capitalization really draws the eye and it threw me.

welcome, Darling!”

This is another odd one. I wouldn't capitalize 'darling', because I consider it an adjective. It's being used somewhat like a noun here, even somewhat like a proper noun, but I think what's really going on is that it's an adjective with an implied noun? (This may not really be a thing; if I'm totally off here, I apologize.) But if it read 'welcome, my darling Pinkie!' it would obviously be un-capitalized, right? I read these words (things like dear, honey, other generic pet names) more like that, so this seemed odd to me.

As for story, there seem to be three parts. Seeing Twilight from a distance, meeting Rarity, then becoming Pinkie and seeing Twilight from close up. They all follow each other, but they don't really seem to tie together much at all; I'm not seeing causal links showing one leads to another logically. This story has a dreamlike quality to it which is interesting, but it kept me from feeling it was meaningful or emotionally powerful.

Maybe it's super deep and I'm missing the point, but I couldn't make heads or tails of what you're getting at here.

Having read through this, I have to disagree with a lot of the comments here. This story really feels copy and paste to me. The fact that the probe is based on Twilight's personality is purely coincidental to the story as a whole. There's nothing offered as to why it would need to specifically be Twilight's personality the probe's AI is modeled after and the parts where it's not musing on its existence and purpose are just technobabble. In fact, you could easily change the personality basis for Celestia or Sunset Shimmer and it'd have zero impact on the plot of this story.

There's literally one line here that tries to have the audience build a connection to the probe by feeling sorry for it and that line is it just telling us that it has Twilight's memories, hopes, and fears. That's not really me feeling bad for the probe though, that's more me imagining Twilight in isolation than relating to what this particular space probe is going through. Honestly, the story comes off as a feels grab and I think it feel flat for me for that reason.

I can't really see the connection to the prompt here, either. The Twilight Zone show has some science fiction elements, but it lacks the tone for that. If we're going for the more colloquial definition of where something ends and another begins, but we're really stretching for that one.

While an interesting idea in theory, the whole implanting memories and personality into an AI and learning how it would cope with that, I can't say this does a good job at conveying its premise in its short word count. I guess just some food for thought, ask why Twilight is the basis for this AI, and what that is uniquely offering to this story.

I really like the story; it made me chuckle. Oddly, it suffered from some writing issues and it still worked.

The first is a tense error in the first sentence where it should read "Pinkie Pie had just heard..." (Other lines also left me uncomfortably working to parse their meanings.) The second thing that stopped me was the identity of the narrator. The second and third sentences with compounds convinced me to think Pinkie Pie was narrating, but then the narrator also uses words like seminal, rehabilitating, and magnum opuses and seems to be thinking over the situation in an analytic style than Pinkie would use; it felt like Twilight was narrating. Twilight narrating fits more with the last line as manifestly Pinkie Pie at the very least could not be narrating.

Despite those things that threw me out of the story, I found it entertaining.

Last however, I am struggling to see how it fits the prompt.

Very good story about how people react differently to the same events for their own reasons. The sequence bracketing, “You’re the only person I’ve come across that treats me as an equal, warts and all,” is close to perfect.

You made me think, and I consider that high praise.

>>Not_A_Hat

From earlier:

Twilight gestures back to the crowd of villagers, confirming her goal to reveal Starlight's talent to the masses.

It's implied that an adequate exertion of magic to unlock the door would somehow reveal that Starlight never actually lost her cutie mark, though I don't think it's clear why. Something of a world hole.

I think this kinda falls into a fanfiction trap?

See, as far as I can tell, the core of this story is 'Twilight is mourning Celestia and Luna's death'. Some explosion happened, she's trying to move the sun/moon, there's a tragic reveal, alright, that's all very well.

The thing is, the emotional core here - Celestia and Luna are dead and Twilight mourns them - is good, but it's entirely taken on faith, on the strength of the fannon/cannon that surrounds their relationship.

Which... kinda works? But to me, it ends up feeling rather un-earned. I want deep, strong emotions in my stories. As it is, this depends entirely on what's in reader's mind from other stories, and doesn't do anything to re-enforce why the reveal is tragic.

So although this story isn't specifically bad, I've got to say there's a lot of room for it to be stronger. The reveal here isn't bad, but I'd like to see more focus on upping the emotional weight it carries, instead of simply taking it for granted on the strength of this being fanfiction.

Oh… dear.

>>Light_Striker ...huh. Okay, I can buy that. I'm not sure it's a convincing reason, but it is a reason. Thanks for explaining. :)

>>scifipony

The first is a tense error in the first sentence where it should read "Pinkie Pie had just heard..." (Other lines also left me uncomfortably working to parse their meanings.)

WEE-WOO-WEE-WOO

So we had a pretty big discussion over this in the write-off chat. While it certainly may sound a bit odd to some people, the current formatting of that opening sentence is correctly written in the simple past. In the greater context of the story itself, the line becomes somewhat problematic because the second paragraph transitions into perfect past tense, which is a bit disorienting for the reader because the narration introduces a concept, then jumps backwards in time into the perfect past briefly to explain the origins of the concept in the second paragraph, and then by the third paragraph we are back in simple past. To say nothing of the organizational merits of writing a story this way, it is not objectively incorrect in terms of using the verb tenses to do this.

>>Haze
I inserted the data into my riddle-solving application and came up with this image (I should have been able to figure that one out myself, honestly) which contains an easy link to a bad ending, but can also be used as a spell for the good ending(?).

I'm not sure if that's as deep as the rabbit hole goes – it's a pretty satisfying story so far, but all the zalgo text is currently meaningless and seems like a weird red herring; and I'm pretty suspicious of the specific cadence of tags in the "ignore" and if there's any meaning in that.

I kind of think this would have worked better if the first layer was visible in the fic itself instead of the bbcode – it might have actually qualified for the word limit that way? It probably still wouldn't have done well, but I think you could have left enough clues to that there was something to look for, and it would have been more directly engaging by putting us in Starlight's place before we broke out of conventional story-reading.

Heh, this is a nice bit of ridiculousness. I think it works as well as it does because it contrasts Spike (who's normally seen as fairly useless in the show) against ponies who are obviously trying very hard to match up to him, and the dissonance is delicious.

I think the opening was a bit long. Condensing some of what's going on there might give you a bit more room to expand on the acolyte's reactions, which might amplify the comedic effect? Also, there's kinda two reveals here - that they're working for Twilight, and that they look up to Spike. I think if they were closer together, it would make things hit a bit harder. As-is, they're sorta at opposite ends of the story, but once one is revealed, it saps some of the impact from the other.

This story has everything I love. Cavalier attitude to murder, defenestrations, poisoning as a traditional form of interaction among nobles and phrenology applied to mane-styles.

And yet I feel like it is missing something.

My inability to articulate exactly what went wrong and didn't made it click for me is frustrating. The various pieces are entertaining and well written and should work better together.

I suppose it comes down to the transitions between the scenes. They make the story feel a bit disjointed, which damages the comedic timing. I'm really sorry I can't give you a better reason, but I will try to come up with something more coherent in the coming week.

This is a "random" comedy that succeeds, because it shattered my assumptions every step of the way. I imagined the council talking in Monty Python voices, which might be the best compliment I can give.

team cupcake

I agree with everyone else, this feels very rushed.

Now, I won't fault you for trying to retell a classic story with ponies. It can work well, and you really were onto something with this particular story. However, I feel that in trying to make it a 1:1 translation to pony, you watered down the potential the story had.

In general, I try not to suggest how a story could have been better beyond a few conceptual aspects--since this is your vision and not mine-- so feel free to ignore me, but there is one thing I hope you consider.

What would have happened if the entire story had just been a conversation between Twilight and Celestia, and all the hints to her reality-bending powers had happened in the background, with Celestia only noticing them in a passing glance as she keeps focused on the little filly?

I think streamlining it that way could have helped you tighten the narrative without losing the core of the original Twilight Zone story.

I guess this is based on Mad Libs, the game. I can't say for certain that the reason that the story didn't make sense to me is because I'm not familiar with Mad Libs at all, but I think it's likely, and I'm sorry to say Discord's brief explanation at the beginning didn't really help me understand.

Now that I've looked it up I like the idea more, especially for Discord, but I can't overlook the fact that I was baffled the first time (second and third times too, before I understood I really was missing something and literally typed "libs game" into Google) and still am somewhat. But I don't hold it against you, Author, and I'll abstain instead.

Someone - I think it was Orson Scott Card? - once wrote a thing on horror, terror, and dread, the three types of fear commonly used in writing. IIRC, he used dread as 'being afraid of something that's going to happen', terror as 'the fear as it reveals itself', and horror as 'the reaction to something that's happened'.

Whether or not this classification is really right or not, I think it's useful for this story. From the opening up to the 'she's a monster' line, your story would be working with dread. From that line until they end up in the blankness, it's terror, and anything after that would be horror.

Here, in my opinion, is part of what makes it seem so crunched.

Starts the dread too late, ends too soon - there's several paragraphs before the 'another birthday' line, which is where the 'something's off' feeling actually begins to build. And then it's cut off as it begins to escalate, when Twilight interrupts her dad. As my emotions began moving in one direction, a sudden shift cut them off.

Too much/too disconnected terror - because the dread wasn't built up enough, the terror that does come didn't connect to me as solidly as it could otherwise. As a result, the amount that's included seems too emphatic and not earned enough.

No room for horror - There's no examination of how her actions were tragic. It shifts quickly to 'everything's going to be better now' with barely a moment to breathe, a happy-ish ending stifling any following feelings before they can grow. Also, Twilight was convinced really quick, and with very little rationalization. If the import of her actions were given a moment to sink in, they could be used to justify the 180 her attitude makes.

Anyways, I think if you want to improve this, it needs to have its emotional profile re-factored. Well, even despite that, there's the consideration that it's basically a straight adaption of a Twilight Zone episode. /shrug. The idea is still as good as it was then, even if straight re-use makes it feel rather derivative.

Comedy is hard to do well, which is why this one scores major points in my book. Not that I'm an expert, but I know when I'm laughing. The concept of strange, subtle magical systems explaining the show's plot lines is reminiscent of Horizon's "Versebreakers" stories, and I would like to see people attempt this more often.

My only big quibble is with the ending. Endings to comedies must of course be punchlines, but this one's final line is a non sequitur. Adventure stories are my other favorite genre, and in no case is there ever a bard. Bardic adventurers were an invention of tabletop games, as far as I know.

Very cute. Well executed, too, though I am surprised Spike didn't actually manage to eat some of the gems. Oh, well.

Like Zaid, the last paragraph did not bother me but it did interrupt me enough that I thought about it. The POV at first seems to be Spike ("elation!" "misery!") before firmly becoming Night Light's. Were it immediately apparent that it was Night Light narrating, making the story about him dealing with being a parent, the story might feel a tad more mature and make the last paragraph more acceptable.

The usage of ponderous is technically correct. He is pondering. What I understood though was the "slow and clumsy because of great weight" definition when I first read it and was forced to reread the sentence.

I don't think any of the questions you ask in the opening are answered in the rest of the story. What's that opening even there for, actually?

This seems like a 'wouldn't it be neat?' story, the sort where the author thinks up something that's kinda cool and writes the entire story around it. In the end, that's what it leaves me with; a feeling of 'that's kinda cool' and nothing more. Which is a bit of a shame, because you're drawing on some of the best mythology in the world with the Lady of the Lake and the Once and Future King.

This one gets major points for originality and humor, but it is toward the end that it begins to show signs of strain from the word count limit. Some ideas simply need more space, and this is one of those. The TV could be introduced earlier, the stripped-down prose of the last scene could be more detailed, and so on. You could even include a few more jokes, provided they did not stretch the concept too thin.

I didn't honestly like this much, sorry. You've got an introspective stream-of-conscious ramble from a single narrator, and you need to own that a bit more than you do. A work like this is carried by its characterization and voicing, and I don't feel Twilight here. That's admittedly a little subjective, but to extend the point... if you asked me to put this character in a specific situation and write about her reaction, I don't think I could. You need to add some sharpness and uniqueness in here, some memorable beats that give the writing texture.

Ignoring all that – the underlying concept here is nice, of Twilight musing on her own name. It manages to be fairly comfortable despite not going anywhere or doing anything significant, which takes a certain amount of finesse in knowing what ideas you can include and which would be distracting.

"beggars the question" as noted is a little unusual – especially because I have no idea what she means in that context. There's two meanings to the phrase: the initial "secretly assumes a premise" and the modern "raises a question", and I can't tell what either of them would refer to in specific.

I'd also call out the phrasing of

waking in the late afternoon, it's literally painful to drag

– "is" is the verb of the first clause, and so it would flow more naturally if it weren't contracted.

'and it was all just a dream', huh?

I'm a bit torn on this one. On the one hand, it did what it set out to do, and it's fairly effective. On the other hand, it took some pondering for me to reach the same conclusion M1 did, and that uncertainty detracted from the impact. 'Everything you know is wrong' is a bit of a hard sell. Still, I'm not certain what would work better... if the before part was a little less all-encompassing? If there was some sort of weirdness that tied in between the dream/IRL more obviously? (Something about photosynthesis maybe,) or something like that?

Either way, this was pretty good. I just wish it was a little smoother at the very end.

Genre: Comedy/slice of meta

Thoughts: I fear I must take the minority opinion, as this didn't work for me. There was a key bit that sums it up:

“No stories about stories, Uncle Rod. You said those never end well.”
“There’s an exception now and again, but that’s true for the most part.”

This is clearly aiming at meta humor, but I didn't feel like it had much presence at the level of an actual *story*. I enjoyed the jokes, and I feel like this could be taken in any number of good directions, and there's a clear sense of wit on display here. But it's like there aren't any narrative bones to hang the whole thing on.

Tier: Needs Work

A few years ago, there was a Fimfiction contest called "The Most Dangerous Game," with the challenge of taking a concept that was really hard to pull off, and turning it into a good story. The most difficult of the prescribed concepts was second-person writing. This is because for it to work, there must be a reason. A couple of people managed to pull that off; for example, the story was told in the form of a letter or an accusation. But I think this story would be better suited for first- or third-person.

The other big issue is that a story with this much worldbuilding and violent action wants to be longer. I can practically watch this one strain against the world count limit. I've been there: You think you can get it in under the limit, but then you run out of time and space, and have to hand in what you've got.

On the plus side, this does show much promise, since it is certainly not boring, and fast-moving, evocative description such as this is important for this sort of story. Keep working on your skills, Grasshopper! I will be interested to see future improvements.

There are a few odd formatting decisions here — I'm not sure what's up with the <text> at the beginning of some of the paragraphs. Its use at the beginning implies that it sets off external narration, but then near the end it's used to set off a quote as well.

But the major advice I want to offer here is to echo the others and suggest working on your prose fundamentals. Here's a specific writing tip that will make a huge difference: Watch out for repetitions! Editing this story can give you a great opportunity to practice it.

Here's a sample paragraph that really stuck out for me:

After reaching the middle of the hallway, she looked up to see the door that led to the attic. Then she grabbed the string that held the door to the attic with her teeth and pulled the door open with a small brown step ladder that leads into the attic, Octavia walked towards the ladder and began to climb it.

When she reached the top of the ladder, she stepped inside the attic and scanned the room …

This repetition hurts you in two ways. First, it slows down the pace of the story and makes it more awkward to read. All the mentions of the attic draw a lot of attention to it, but it's not actually all that important (the story would basically go identically if they were out in her yard). Second, since the competition has a word limit, repeating that information prevents you from using those words for other purposes (description, characterization, more plot, etc).

There are very few hard and fast rules in storytelling, but avoiding repetitive description is a pretty reliable one. (There are times when you might want to deliberately repeat for effect, but you'll know them when you see them: when there's something you urgently want to call the reader's attention to.)

Anyway. Beyond that issue, basic grammar and typo-spotting would also help here. Individually, a lot of the errors are small — e.g. a few missing periods and commas; or in "an uptight yet strong willed female gray colored Earth Pony", strong-willed and gray-colored should be hyphenated to keep the adjectives together — but the cumulative effect is distracting.

I do have to say that I appreciate reading a Human in Equestria fic that subverts the trope so cleverly. I'm not seeing a lot of creativity in the adaptation of the Twilight Zone episode, and I agree with >>GroaningGreyAgony that it would be good to see Octavia's thought processes more (since the show's ponies are normally much more peaceful), but this was definitely a good choice of episodes to draw an ironic contrast with the show.

I've spent a lot of time pointing out the story's problems, but the good news is that the basic errors are also the easiest to iron out, and it'll be easy to edit this to get a big uptick of quality. Thank you for joining us!

Tier: Needs Work

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Anyways, this got some sniggers out of me despite the lolsorandom. I think it would be improved, though, if there was some totally nonsense justification for murdering Twilight. Like, it makes sense that Blueblood would try and poison her, and that feels like a mistake to me. Also, maybe Flurry Heart is more an arsenic pony...?

A fascinating concept, but as !Hat noted, the beginning and end feel detached from one another. I get a sense that you didn’t quite end up where you thought you would at the start. I enjoyed the journey, but I agree that spending some more time on it would be advisable. Give us a chance to appreciate just how much both Celestia and Equestria have both aged.

After seeing the episode mentionned by >>SPark, I now see how this story is connected to the Twilight Zone and why the last sentences annoyed me before.

Because without the episode, the story felt like this. You settle a place and a tension, then you partly resolve it with Luna's spell. But immediately after, what could have been a threat to Equestria is cut short and Luna is saved and they live happily ever after. Without the episode, that ending feels very rushed and even with the episode, the feelings remains. Where the episode has the time to install a nice tension, here you only have the beginning of it before ending it because of the word count.

Moreover, the goal of the episode was to convey some sort of moral or at least food for thought (I won't try to detail it here, it would be too long and approximate). Here I don't understand what you were aiming for, what kind of message you wanted to deliver and I have the feeling there is one but I just can't figure it out.

So the writting is good and solid but the story just confuses me.

Ironically, it’s actually a statue of Flurry Heart. :trollestia:

Fascinating stuff… though there’s one early detail that completely threw me off. By name dropping Yakyakistan when detailing the southern border, you made it sound like the exclusion zone was entirely north of the Crystal Empire. I couldn’t really appreciate the scope of the disaster until near the end. I suspected what you were going for, but that detail threw me off.

In any case, this is certainly atmospheric, though the narration’s a touch too personal for the optimum Lost Cities tone. It leads into questions of who precisely is speaking, and to whom. Still, for the most part, this was well-crafted.

You got the Twilight Zone thing in one smooth shot. Having potted those same two plants in at least two stories (none here), I can well appreciate the effort. Nice.

There are a couple of lovely turns of phrase in this and the atmosphere is great. I particularly like:

Her horn is raised to the heavens, and her wings—yes, wings too, for she had both—her wings are spread wide

It's the physical details that throw me, like you didn't quite iron out the internal logic of where the story's actually taking place. We know that Yakyakistan's north of Canterlot because it's stated in the episodes, so that places the centre (the depths) of the Zone north of Yakyakistan, but Canterlot is later described as "deep" within the Zone. If the world's been physically ripped apart in even weirder ways than is implied by the eternal twilight, then I need more clues to it.

[Edit: I should have just added my agreement to >>FanOfMostEverything, who makes the same point more concisely.]

Also, if the ponies are galloping east, wouldn't the ponies furthest to the east be near the front rather than the back? Maybe they should be galloping west.

There's some repetitive description that, despite its contribution to the atmosphere, I think is ultimately unnecessary (e.g almost imperceptibly, this crepuscular existence, World-Ender, and saying the ponies were congealed from flesh: while gross evocative, it's a complicated way of saying they were turned to stone, which I already knew).

There are a lot of fun questions to ask from this story though, like whether there's a connection to Discord given all the statues, how history got so distorted that ponies know stories of Celestia and Luna ruling in Harmony and about Twilight but not about the stuff in the middle where Luna is banished etc, how the narrator knows any of this, and of course what exactly Twilight did or didn't do and why (and also why it makes her a Bastard of all things!).

So overall, for me this is a grand idea that's well-executed emotionally but falls a bit short when I think about it in depth. I think it'll be easy to clear up the details should you choose to spend a bit more time on it.

A sweet, thoughtful meditation on one’s changing role as time marches on. Even in Equestria, your life’s purpose is what you make of it. Even when “life” is being used loosely. (Though I do have to wonder whether Daring Do is still adventuring given the injuries she’d racked up before Dash was ever in the ‘Bolts.) Nice work.

That's a big yes for me.

>>horizon raised many good points but I disagree with many of them for your story.

I was hooked with the first sentences he quoted. Indeed, because any entry can take place in any time and any space, the first sentence tells us immediately where we are and somehow, when. The little description that follows let the reader breath to take in those two informations. And then, the 'dialog' that follows told us that there is a 'problem' with Twilight, a problem explained later in the fic in a really good way, not too subtle, not too straightforward.

And the message that the story delivers is really clear and is one I fully agree with. This is very subjective but it still makes it to the top tier.

Also, if you decide to rework it and post it on FimFic, I would like to read it.

I am really a sucker for stories that make the sometimes inconsistent narrative and world building of our favorite show make sense. Not only did you explain magic, but gave rules for the sometimes absurd events that make you put your mind in pretzels to explain it consistently as if it took place in a real world. I think you got the voice for both Moon Dancer and Lyra exactly right.

I liked it a lot.

I didn't get the reference in this sentence

“You do know I was once mind-controlled into kidnapping a princess, right?”

but I am guessing it is from one of the chapter books.

Ha! Twilight’s writing an SCP entry and Spike isn’t having any of it.

Hmm. Looks like Twilight takes over on writing the document after a bit.

In any case, like many SCP entries, this is a very interesting glimpse of a deeper story. Still, I’d rather see the story itself, especially given the amount of time ϴ32 apparently spent among the griffins. That or more entries from Twilight’s containment records.

In all, a promising start, but only a start. I’d love to see how you expand this.

A good and cute story, nothing extraordinary but nothing awful either.

Maybe except for those lines

"Even better!" Twilight's wings shook with excitement. "You know how the land where the library used to be has been a smoldering blast crater ever since Tirek came along?"

"I'd actually forgotten until you reminded me just now." Spike listlessly pushed his cereal away.

That's just plain exposition that could easily be better by just changing one thing or two (IMHO).

No, no, no! That’s a different show entirely! ;)

I admit, I had to recalibrate my expectations on this one. Between the prompt and all the far-future stuff I’ve already read, I thought for sure this was an aged and bitter Twilight. The reality was better than I could’ve ever expected. You could do some work to make it clearer earlier, but again, I suspect some of the confusion came from my uncleansed literary palate. All told, great job.

I'm capable of reading books wherever they are in the library, anyway.

Wow, how convenient of you to announce that for anyone who happened to be in the audience, Twilight!

They say it is so peaceful... and that all the things we've lost can be found there.

So it's like... under the sofa cushions in the basement? Does the afterlife also smell vaguely of mold?

Fourty-two.

j/k, but srsly. One of these days, someone's going to call me out on asking for themes in stories and then not liking any of the ones I find. :P As far as I can tell, Dash is asking something equivalent to: 'Why don't you just kill yourself, Twilight?' And Twilight's sorta non-answer is basically: 'Because I still enjoy being alive, so STFU.' Maybe dealing with depression has left me a little jaded, but I'd say it's plenty easy to find reasons for being alive as long as you're enjoying yourself.

I think I'd prefer a story about what gives someone hope when death genuinely seems like a better option.

Eh. This just kind of happens, and I feel like it wastes some of its word count on excessive description. Sorry, but it just didn’t do anything for me. Aside from tightening it up in places, I’m afraid that I’m not sure how to change that.

Hey hey, a comedy! Like, with multiple actual jokes!

Okay, it's a bit light on the story, but eh, I got some smiles out of it, and the characters are nice.

Light, but pleasant.

Oh, and it seems like these guys should have some sort of dark and troubled history where they're sorta-rivals to Horizon's Versebreakers.

I was kinda bored. There were no characters, not even the 2nd-person "role" I'm filling. SPark compared it to a videogame; to me it was like watching a videogame that I'm not allowed to play.

The first two paragraphs caught my attention for the hook and worldbuilding elements, but soon after that I felt too detached to share in the tension.

Some people will probably find this a readable 'here's a neat idea' story, but I'm not seeing much more than that. It doesn't even try to justify itself, or give us reasons why Celestia could be right.

Personally, I find the use of solipsism here somewhat... pointless. Bester's 'Disappearing Act' uses it to great effect, but it's often something that just drains my interest in a story. Maybe it's residual annoyance from 'Time Enough for Love'. I guess taking that out on you is unfair... unless you're actually Heinlein, right? :P

>>Not_A_Hat
In the writeoff, assume everyone is Heinlein.

>>Syeekoh We're all Cold in Shorts Skirts And... Heinlein.

Also as a comment on this story, it uses far too much real estate on the end of magical mystery cure, then drops an obscure metaphysical bomb on us near the end... which is apparently called solipsism in philosophical circles, but in a metaphysical sense, for those unaware, there's a concept where everyone is essentially part of a greater organism―in Judaism specifically, which I am intimately familiar with, the esoteric tradition holds that everything has a spark of the divine and we all came from the same metaphysical creature let's just say it gets super complicated okay?

But yeah it kind of drops this solipsistic/metaphysical bomb and... doesn't go anywhere with it. Like !Hat said, it introduces an idea without any real payoff, and from my experience a story needs a payoff, no matter how small the story.

I'll give you that it does end on a warm note, which is in line with what Twilight just learned.

Here, I certainly see a flair for the strange and uncanny. The trouble, as others have pointed out, is that a piece can be so mysterious as to be incomprehensible. Obviously one does not want to be too obvious either, so it can take some experimentation to find the happy medium.

Beware also of said-bookisms. You know--"exclaimed," "declared," "responded," etc. These are alright for juvenile-level readers and lower, but for adults they are usually redundant. Use them only when necessary.