I liked this. It worked well, had a good premise and some good exchanges, and Tirek's response to Celestia's offer fit well.

>>Chris
Clearly they were writing for me. They were like "TD is back! I'm going to do horrible things to Fluttershy in his honor! Clearly this will get me all the points from him."

Admittedly I did like this story reasonably well, which just feels like playing to type. But the dragon doth protest too much, I suspect.

My biggest issue with this story is what >>Cold in Gardez said, namely that this is a story I've read before. Still, I did feel like it was a reasonably good execution thereof. I'm also not sure if Spike felt entirely right; I can imagine him being angry/frustrated, but I also would imagine there'd be a bit more understanding; he felt a bit one-note in that regard.

Let me start out by saying that I have plans to expand this, play with the characters a bit, and then eventually get it over to Fimfiction... eventually. And thank you all for your wonderful feedback!

>>GroaningGreyAgony
I wasn't really sure, I kinda left that open to the reader's interpretation. However, I have since then realized the mistake with doing so. Hopefully, it will be fixed when I expand this.

>>Light_Striker
I meant it to be Season 1 Twilight, the one who broke into the Canterlot Archives, thought Celestia was gonna banish her for missing one assignment, and wasn't quite that skilled yet. But I don't think I conveyed that very well. So, I'll try to fix when I expand this.

Also, I couldn't think of anything for "Fahrenheit" at the time, nor "Celsius," so I went with "Centigrade." Which of these would you have liked more and how would you have done them?

>>Fenton
I intend to!

>>Misternick
True. But again, I meant it to be a Season 1 TwiTwi, who wasn't that experienced yet. And I thought about putting in something about not believing in curses, but that didn't fit. Anyway, I shall definitely take your Trixie suggestion to heart!

>>Ceffyl_Dwr
I at least succeeded in getting one chuckle, so thanks. Will expand it soon.

>>JudgeDeadd
I have no clue! As said above, I left it open to the reader, one of my larger mistakes. And it will be expanded.

>>Xepher
Hopefully, this will be fixed when I expand.

>>AndrewRogue
To be honest, I have no clue what a Discworld book is. But hopefully, your complaints will be fixed when I expand upon the story.

>>The_Letter_J
And you would be wrong! You and FrontSevens are clearly better authors than me. And I will take your suggestions to heart.

>>Ranmilia
Yeah, previous commenters just about summed it up. And I've never even heard of the Convergent Series, so that it reminds you of it is interesting. In fact, this is one of the few stories I've written where it isn't based on something else.

I wonder if CiG and Aragon tried emulating each other's style, and the result was this and The Art of Lingering. :o

>>Posh

Nineteen-Neighty-Four

Heads up: I am going to plagiarize this so hard it'll make your tail spin.

>>georg
I think the "ponied" criticism is still valid, though. MLP isn't the only fantasy setting where ships could reasonably be sentient--switch out the "hooves" for "hands" and really, it's a generic fantasy-type setting, and a light fantasy setting at that, where a ship could be sentient perhaps without people having any way of knowing. There's not much here at all that ties it in with something unique to the characters or universe in MLP, despite the fact that a ship could be sentient (which, by the way, is not something suggested by the show so far).

It's great as a fiction piece, and I agree with other people here that it was enjoyable, but it's hard to tell it's "pony" from here.

>>Xepher >>Light_Striker >>JudgeDeadd >>Posh >>Ceffyl_Dwr >>Bachiavellian >>eusocialdragon >>AndrewRogue
You all pointed out the dialogue attribution problem, so thank you, I might not have realized this without feedback. :>

I was trying for a style with that. The feel I wanted to get for this is a mystery "interview" vibe, with someone going around and trying to find out what happened with Pinkie Pie. The "clues" to the mystery are the reasons she left (which didn't come through much at all x.x more on that later). Point is, I think the lack of said tags, while it makes for an "interview" style which I want to keep, were ultimately distracting. I'll fix this in the rewrite--adding said tags to remove confusion there.

Pinkie's parents talk and sound similar in the first place, so it's tough to differentiate them on dialogue alone... Plus, I kind of like them sounding similar--because it makes them sound like they're really on the same page in terms of how they feel about Pinkie Pie.

The mystery that I wanted to focus on was "why did Pinkie leave?", the answer to which is "she really didn't fit in there" (added to which that she ran away instead of moving out on good terms). It's kind of hinted at with the kids in the beginning (“Really? No wonder she’s all—hey, ow!” as well as the fact that she's only played with them once or twice), but I wanted more, like Pinkie's parents hinting that they believe something was wrong with her (which didn't come through at all--I even made it sound like they thought it was normal x_x) and Limestone thinking she was kind of weird and not funny (again, didn't really come through) but still hurt and feels abandoned because she left.

This is something I'll really work at in the rewrite--make her parents less understanding to how Pinkie is, make Limestone less angry (because I agree with you, >>Everyday, it seems uncharacteristically hostile, and that's a bad judgement call on my part), and I might even add a scene with a local parent who encourages her kids to stay away from Pinkie because [insert new reason or opinion].

Anyway, thank you all for your feedback again, I really appreciate it. :> I think it's pretty apparent this is going to need some more love and work, so on to editing I go!

Also >>The_Letter_J I was low on title ideas so I plagiarized the title of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest :x No real relation to the movie or the book, just a somewhat-ominous-but-still-not-too-heavy title that's still vague about exactly what's happening and still somewhat eye-catching. I think I'll be thinking of a new title. :P

I thought this was a cute piece, well-written and it does feel like the subject matter could have easily been from the show. I really like Minuette, and seeing her help out somepony else like that sounded like something she'd get involved in.

That said, I'm going to be a nitpicker and say that I'm not sure how the story follows the prompt. The main problem of the story is Minstrel losing her imaginary friend and, rather than ignoring the problem Minuette actively confronts the problem with her search.

Anyway, thanks for sharing!

>>eusocialdragon

If one ignores their imaginary friend, they will go away. That's what happened to Minstrel's.

>>Everyday
You're absolutely right, and thank you. I skimmed through the story again and found the reference to the imaginary friend being ignored, and therefore that the story is about the consequences of the prompt.

Now, if you'll all excuse me, I'll go bang my head against the nearest wall for a while. <:)

>>TitaniumDragon How about a story that's both preenfic and wingfic?

Not a bad piece and an interesting take on the prompt. It's solidly-written and has an interesting subject matter, and I thought the dialogue was well-done.

On the other hand, the story is a little on the flat side. I think maybe it would have had more impact if we'd learned more about Human!Sunset, like if she had any surviving family or friends (maybe Sunset had tried to visit them), or if there were any unsettling similarities between the two Sunsets. As is, Human!Sunset is just a cypher who's only impact is provided by the shock value of her being dead.

Anyway, a good read and thanks for sharing!

I finally figured this one out! The changeling *is* the bar. It sucks out the emotions of the ponies at it while getting the occasional drink of beer from spillage. That's why he's buying two beers at the end, one for him and one for the changeling pretending to be the bar.

It's really simple, once you think about it.

Figment is schizophrenic. He believes he may be a changeling, and Clockwork ignores the problem and doesn't try to help him until it's too late.

That is all. In retrospect, I should've reversed the characters' names.

Retrospective: Ditch Witch

It should've been a finger.

Well, this fic didn't perform too well, but after a night's rest, I didn't expect it to perform too well either. I'm on a boat, so power and internet are a bit sparse, but hopefully I can get some things addressed.

the need to ground the world in the first two-thirds meant that the narrative was forced down a more passive, telly road by the limitations of the round

>>Ceffyl_Dwr

I definitely agree with this. I wish that I had more time to write, and more to write with (length wise). Originally, I wanted to have this be the good 'ole HiE formula (Discord farted, Twilight mis-cast a spell, and the house blew up, etc). The note that I left myself at 4:00 AM the night before the prompt went live was "I found a pair of fingernail clippers in the bathroom I never told her that I clip my nails", followed 30 minutes later by "changeling taxes" (Which involved Mayor Mare torturing Scootaloo not for being a changeling, but for not filing taxes). I was hoping to have also done something with Rarity giving 'free' clothes, maybe along the lines of "Twilight gives the humus a gift of jeans, because Rarity had noticed that his duds were wearing out". It would've been a pair of 'hoofmade' jeans, except there would've been dots of thread where the tag had been cut off, and the rivets were machine-pressed.

Maybe things to do further if I have the time.

>>Fenton

Here the narrator is a blank slate that I almost fear to read Anon at some point. Moreover, the conflict is established too late in the story to be really relevant and we leave the story with a feeling of incompletion.

I was actually hoping to touch something like Anon, with possibly a scene where he's drinking and he meets an unfamiliar pony who calls him 'Alex' (But his name's Jonathan and he goes by John). Sort of the whole 'I'm not the first one here, but I'm told I am' etc.
>>Light_Striker

foreshadowed by anything

'Eh' is kinda right. I need to develop more PUNCH! Maybe Twilight's forays through the mirror means that her desires for hotdogs have turned into a desire for human flesh? :P

>>Haze

. Sometimes the Human is overjoyed or pissed off, but this one doesn't care. It's the common trope of Anon only hanging around, doing physical chores for the neighbors to be helpful, la la la. Just a forgettable nice guy. or girl.

Yep, I wanted to hit that with him not really having anything 'official' to do (as in not having a job and seeking to do things to fill his time). But on the other hand, I used a couple of sentences that didn't really go anywhere. I could've optimized my story by cutting some and filling out other parts, but ran out of time.

>>Monokeras

the guy (I suppose) is way too unconcerned and ready to accept the situation while he should freak out. Sapient ponies, marooned, etc.

I really regret not expanding on something like this, but it was all too easy to save the words (and effort) by dropping in a 'These things happen.' and focusing on other areas of the story.

>>JudgeDeadd
Yeah, he's meant to be country. I agree that there's no kick to make this spicy. Nothing much happens, which is something that needs to be fixed.

>>Trick_Question
Of your many points (all valid which reveal the quite large problems with the story), I'll focus on one:

(You learn something new everyday. Today, I learned it's spelled "dopp kit", not "daub kit". Had no idea. What's a dopp, anyway?)

Dopp is the brand name for a hygiene tote. My dad calls his a 'doc' kit for some reason.
>>Ranmilia

I can't find a reason for the narrator not to talk to SOMEONE about their suspicions. If not Twilight, then Celestia, or Applejack.

I wouldn't agree that he should talk to Twilight, because reasons, but it's definitely a flaw in the story (and one I might address) that he doesn't have anyone to talk this over with.

Also, spice is good. This story definitely needs some.

>>Xepher

He just "makes friends" and helps out around town, all in the first few days of showing up on a completely alien planet.

This story definitely needs a but more, and it is lacking a LOT in most parts. Something to fix in the future.

---

That concludes my personal boat-Writeoff. Sorry that I couldn't make the time to comment and review on the other fics, maybe next time. Thanks to everyone who commented. Maybe this will end up on the 'ole FimFic.

I'll echo what others have already said; the piece is enjoyable but, with the exception of the earplugs line, the middle fell flat. That being said, the ending is gold, and that alone kicked it up to top few entries on my slate.

Thanks for the laugh, author.

I really enjoyed this; as-is, it's sitting at the top of my slate. A solid execution of the prompt, with some nice worldbuilding, and a good use of available space. It also served as a nice study in communicating emotional depth with very few words; I especially liked:

Tirek’s heart paused. Carefully, he asked, “Am I still well-remembered in Equestria?”

Thank you for writing, author.

My only quibble, which I'm sure you've already noticed:

Finally, picked up the book.

:|

In a way, this is basically Just Ignore It except executed a bit better (just all around tighter dialogue and a better absurd joke, I think). That said, this doesn't hugely appeal to me either, for all that the last line is actually quite a good punchline. It just takes a while to get there.

Interesting take on the idea and solid writing, but yeah, I have to join the echo of voices who don't quite manage the emotional connection here. I could see getting a bit weirded out by it, and I've certainly been upset about odd things before, but to have this much of a reaction to it just strikes me as hard to understand and connect to, making it feel incredibly overwrought.

This is... satisfactory. Solid enough voicing, solid enough idea, but doesn't really dig in enough anywhere for me. If you want to get in deep on crushing and all that, you should go all the way. I just don't quite buy AJ's conflict here.

Cute. I think the actual prose could use a little punching up (it's pretty basic). I'm also a bit curious why you went with Minuette here.

Yeah yeah, fair enough. Not bad, but the last joke didn't land for me. There's too much rambling between Sonata's demise and the crashing of the tooth. It's almost like you wrote that everything had cleared out and then suddenly a last projectile crops up from nowhere just for the needs of the punchline. Can't buy it.

It's a bit too campy and caricatural to me. I think I would've appreciated it better if, for example, you had concluded with a panting Twilight Sparkle hobbling to BonBon and saying “Next time, your job, pal!”

So this is going to end up mid-slate. Not bad, but nothing amazing either.

Characterisation is done well enough. There's little to take away apart from that, and I'm no sucker for ship fics, so while I definitely hand it to you this is good writing job and it'll wind up in the upper middle of my slate, it won't skyrocket either because I'm basically unconcerned by AJ's rambling.

PS: is AJ a synaesthete?

I have no intention of saying anything here that hasn't already been said, other than that I generally liked it. On that note...

“Arrggh.” The cry echoed in the quiet Ponyville morning.

You've earned my annoyance with the very first word. For starters, I can't stand people spelling out these sound effects. They look dumb and achieve less than what the reader can with their own imagination. It would be different if Twilight were intentionally sounding out the noise, as in sarcasm or whatnot, but to spell out her 'cry' is just not good reading. To add to the problem, you're describing this as a 'cry', which can generally be considered an exclamation of at least above-average volume and force, something backed up by the following descriptor that suggests the sound is heard all throughout Ponyville. So where's the exclamation mark?

Sorry if it seems nitpicky. The rest of the story was fine. Great, even! It deserves to be in the finals. But that first impression was a slap in the face I couldn't ignore.

A very well-done story that makes an interesting use of the writing prompt. I think other people have been more eloquent about this story's good point, so I'll just say that it was a great read for me.

One other thing: I noticed the discussion about it being almost impossible for Tirek to truly be forgotten in Equestria, and therefore the plot of the story is meaningless. Not necessarily. Celestia might very well know that her threat of Tirek's annihilation is just a bluff, but Tirek has no way of knowing that, stuck in his cell as he is. She might have just told him all of that, and then she just plans to let him stew for however long he continues to stay down there. (There's also the added benefit that if he ever does come back he'll believe he has to quickly make himself well-known, which will make him much easier to locate and apprehend.)

Anyway, thanks for sharing!

Well, this one has been about done to death, and I have nothing to add except that it is indeed a good tale.

But one thing: if those in Tartarus cease to exist when the world has forgotten them... what about Celestia? Luna? Cadance? Especially Twilight. If they continue to remember that there was a being named Tirek, and only they remember, is that alone enough to keep him lingering, frail and near-death, for centuries and millennia?

Would that be a fate worse than death?

Hmmm… On the one hand I like Gummy’s stream of consciousness. I’m not sure I like him as a super genius because I can’t bring myself to think why he sticks with Pinkie, given that all she does is interfere with his thoughts. Why doesn’t he leave?

I’m also reluctant to condone your weird reasoning about star distance. I know it’s absurd of course, but I’m not sold on that concept. I mean, I don’t see the point of bringing Celestia into the formula. It doesn’t come across as very funny to me.

All in all, reasonably well written and I salute the reversal in point of view (though it has been done before) but not much else besides.

I wrote such a short comment earlier >>Haze because I didn't think this would get into the finals. It didn't seem like anyone enjoyed it! It's very unlikely I'll change anyone's opinion at this point, but I thought I should try to explain my reaction.

I find it funny that people are divided on the flaws here, in multiple ways. It's only a comedy or only a serious piece. It's one inconsistent story, or two stories glued together. The story works so well for me because I see it as all of the above. Like one of those optical illusions where you either see a face or two vases. or is that the other way around? is Luna wise, or mad, or a little of both?

this interpretation is probably grounds for everyone to dismiss me as being just as mad as Luna. everyone cringe!

rather than a serious buildup leading to a cringey punchline, I found that this worked as two sides of the same coin. two stories that do work on their own, but when put together you have to look at it a little differently.

the only problem I have with it is that the two proverbs are a bit difficult to interpret because of the grammar used. "there is wisdom that is madness"... it almost seems like the first section is the serious wisdom part, but does that turn into madness when the woe (Luna's empathy) is taken out? or is it meant to seem like Madness on the surface, which reveals itself to be wisdom when looked at soberly? it's a little too vague, and makes both proverbs seem just about the same at the end, rather than a clever inversion.

This isn't a bad story, well-written and has a good idea behind it. There are a couple of points, though, were I think it could be improved if it were lengthened and allowed to breathe a little more.

First, I think there should be more depth in the scenes where Silver Spoon is being rejected by her peer. Talking about a 'pit' is nice for a minific, but what might be better is a description within each scene of how that feeling affects her actions and the way she interacts with her environment and others after she's been shut out. And make the effect cumulative across the different scenes: each scene things get worse and worse and the slaps in the face just start piling up in her mannerisms and ways of thinking.

Second, Diamond Tiara's advice comes way too late in the narrative; as is, it feels like the story's connection to the prompt was only just tacked on at the end. Have Diamond give her advice and then have a scene or two where Silver uses said advice and finds that it actually works. Then have Silver go back to Diamond and have them start becoming the twosome they are in canon.

Thanks for sharing!

Yeah, as it's been said before, I've read this exact same story a thousand times already. And the writing is serviceable, but it's just so full of filler. More than half the words in here are either too telly or completely unnecessary.

I get that it's about character, but I really don't think it's the best way to do it. Like:

The smile strained her cheeks, but Twilight bore it as best she could when the juvenile dragon landed on the balcony of her private study. “Spike! It feels like ages since you last came to visit.”

Now standing head and shoulders taller than her, Spike offered no response. His emerald eyes gleamed with the inner fire she’d long grown accustomed to, but today there was something else in his gaze. He wielded it like a sword, piercing her with a hard expression before advancing his study to the rooms behind her. She felt her heart sink at his behavior, but dared to say nothing for fear of—

His once childlike voice now had the auditory resemblance of crunching gravel. “You have the letter.”

All this can be easily done with just:

It hurt a bit to smile, but she did it anyway. "Spike! It feels like ages since you last came to visit!"

"You have the letter."

Spike didn't smile back at her.

That hurt a bit more.

Half the words, same effect.

I'm not saying the writing is bad, but it feels overly fluffy. 90% of it or so feels superfluous. I get why people say it's well-written, but I also think it could be so, so much better.

First of all, thank you to those who left feedback! ^^

>>The_Letter_J
>>Xepher
>>Trick_Question
>>Ceffyl_Dwr
>>AndrewRogue
>>Light_Striker
>>JudgeDeadd
>>Caliaponia
>>Southpaw

This story started with a truly kick-awesome piece of art based on the recent Rock Solid Friendship episode. I contacted the artist right after seeing that and asked if I could do a story for it. Why you ask? Well, this isn't the first time I've mixed Pie sisters with heavy metal, so I may as well just resign myself to sounding like a commercial and be done with it: if you liked the Maud you see here, she's basically a ponified and greatly distilled version of the Maud who shows up in a recent story of mine that stars Limestone and is set in the Equestria Girls world.

In that story I write Maud as struggling against very deep-seated anxiety, and I thought it would be interesting to try to riff on that again and get inside her head a bit more than that story allowed me to. I also thought it would be interesting to explore her anthropomorphization of Boulder, and of rocks in general. Consider the moment at the end of Rock Solid Friendship where Pinkie visits her in Ghastly Gorge and asks if she's made any friends, and Maud says yes, then Pinkie asks if the friend is a rock--and Maud pauses for a beat, and then says yes again. That moment fascinates me. It also echoes the moment earlier in the episode where Maud says quietly--even for Maud--that making a friend would be nice. So I wanted to take those traits and spin them into something beyond mere peculiarity, and into something a little sadder, and maybe even a little darker. I also tried to play up the unsettling elements; one thing nobody noticed (which is admittedly cheesy but seemed to fit the mood) was the word count--666. Note that this wasn't so much intentional as an opportunistic thing that came about when the original word count ended up at 664.

As it turns out, one thing I learned here is that the way I write Maud doesn't jive as well with canon as I might've hoped; notably, my interpretation doesn't line up with her doing standup and/or heckling Discord. It's something I can probably get away with more in the Equestria Girls world because we just haven't seen as much of her there, but not as much in the prime-verse. The other interesting thing was peoples' comments about her voice being off... and not that I want to disagree with feedback, but I don't see it.

But hey, any chance to write something and put it out there is bound to be educational and fun. And if anyone wants to have a hand in editing as this gets expanded out to 1k+ words for posting on FF, let me know!

Not my personal Discord headcanon (though I respect the idea that Fluttershy is the only thread keeping Discord from flying off the deep end), but evocative and creepy regardless. A thoroughly compelling piece that rocketed to the top of my slate as soon as finals rolled around.

Yeah, I'm definitely in this story's corner. It's another weird, unconventional headcanon that's packaged and sold masterfully. But I think it makes two missteps.

The first is the revelation that Discord is actually Celestia's tulpa gone mad. From that comes the other: the implication that Pinkie Pie sprang from the mind of one of her siblings (probably Marble or Maud). Discord as Celestia's thoughtform might work. Maybe. She's all cosmic and mysterious 'n shit, and while I can't say I love the idea of her accidentally willing into being an incarnation of entropy whose power outstrips her own, I can see it working out if framed well.

Suggesting that Maud or Marble (probably Marble, since they're twins) could spawn Pinkie Pie in the same manner strains credibility, though.

>>The_Letter_J I think we all know that there's only one acceptable Trenderhoof ship.

Being a peddler of slice-of-life sappiness, myself, I can appreciate this, even if the ship isn't to my taste. Applejack's captured well enough that I want to give her a hug and buy her a tub of ice cream to help her get over Rarity, (and I do enjoy her process of self-rationalization, as well as the irony that she's being dishonest toward herself) and a well-written Rarity is always a delight.

Dude, you guys. You guys. This is a parody. It's a parody of alicorn-sibs-immortality-angstfic. The subject matter is ostensibly serious, but it's treated in a comic light. Luna's being melodramatic about something which Celestia has long ago coped with, and Celestia is completely exasperated by it. It's brilliant. And hilarious.

...Or that's how I read it, anyway.

We've got preenfic parody and immortalityfic parody; all we need is a wingfic parody and the trifecta will be complete.

I echo the sentiments of everybody confused by what the hell is happening in this story... but I think I have a (vague) idea of what the author's going for: These characters are living out Starlight Glimmer's attempts at changing reality. And they remember it every time the universe changes.

...

I think. And there's a lot of detail (the "broken sky" for instance) that I'm having trouble reconciling with that interpretation. Author, you'll have to let me know if I'm on the right track with that.

...And since I can't let the prelims pass without doing this...

Mash-Ups: Preliminary Edition

A Fire in Room 101: When Figment voluntarily commits himself to a psychiatric institute, after struggling with symptoms of schizophrenia, Pinkie Pie and Minuette attempt to treat him the only way they know how: a brutal mindfuck party.

Needless to say, Figment's symptoms worsen, and Pinkie and Minuette are no longer allowed near the mentally ill, by decree of every Princess. Including Flurry Heart. They wanted a quorum, to leave no room for ambiguity.

The Story of Spike and the Flight Camp: Spike corners a nettlesome fly, but is moved when the fly delivers an impassioned, emotional speech about his lifelong desire to become a Wonderbolt.

Then Twilight kills it.

Ditch Witch Who Dis?: While searching for clues about this hypothetical "other human" who visited Equestria before him, Anon discovers the journal that allows Twilight to communicate with Sunset Shimmer. The two talk, and it's revealed that the nail clippings belonged to Sunset. Twilight brought back a sack full of them after her last visit to the human world, and scattered them around the bathroom like rose petals. Apparently, that's her thing.

Relieved, yet profoundly disturbed, Anon asks if he can stay with Sunset for a while, and she agrees, cryptically saying that it's not like he'd be the first extradimensional visitor to crash at her place...

Like No Equines Else: Maud Pie gets a job as a copywriter for an advertising firm that represents a popular Equestrian beer. Drawing primarily on her own experiences, and the experiences of her sister, she creates a wildly successful ad campaign, only to draw Limestone's ire (and a lawsuit) at the mere suggestion that somepony might be allowed to touch Holder's Bolder.

One Flew Over the Girl Talk: Everyone in the Pie family is pregnant, including Pinkie's dad, but damned if an airborne Twilight Sparkle can tell who's who just by listening to their voices.

Except for Maud, obviously.

FYI: now that I'm back from EFNW and have access to an actual keyboard again, I hope to respond to more of these posts over the next few days.

Also, I'm a little stunned that I managed to final with my first entry! I doubt I'll rank highly in that, given some of the other contenders, but I guess we'll see. Best of luck to all.

It’s “a millennium”, not “a millennia”. Millennia is plural.

The end joke is a bit trite, neigh? I was expecting it from the get-go. I’d much preferred you mixed “elephant in the room” with “skeleton in the closet” and got something inbetween. Like an elephant skeleton in a closet-room.

Otherwise, this is absurd enough, kind of humour I do like, so I cannot really pan this one too much, albeit I agree with TD that the middle portion drags a bit to pack the final punch (which fizzled out). Don't feel obliged to use up the 750 words you're allowed to!

A bit too much namby-pamby for my taste. This sounds like a child story (The Ghost who Wanted to Befriend Me) to me. Really, it’s an idea that has been tackled many times and this particular version, while being cute, doesn’t add anything really specific besides being set in MLP backdrop. Not bad, but too run-of-the-mill to stand out.

>>Cold in Gardez
I concur with Cold here. I wouldn’t go so far as to call the story “vapid”, but it came across as telly rambling to me. Blah-blah. Sorry, author, but I decently cannot rank this very high, though I respect the work and energy you put into this piece.

Not sure if this is still a thing (it was when I last participated, many moons ago), but with a little over 24 hours left the stories with the fewest comments are currently:

Sunrise (7)
Changing of the Guard (8)
Tomorrow (8)
Ticks and Tocks (8)
The Art of Lingering (9)
Structural Faults (9)

All other stories are into double digits. Nice work, everyone.

Deep in the bowels of Tartarus, the frail centaur stirred. Mmmpf.
There's some awkward phrasing here and there, but fair enough.

This reminds me much of Carabas’s The King in the Mountain. More or less the same plot, but Carabas's is arguably more imaginative. Having read Carabas’s piece, I have little to say. This seems to be a redacted copy of it, with Tirek filling in for Astralus. I'm sorry I can't really appreciate this fully.

I’m usually not a sucker for Discord, but I hand it to you this one was well written and all. An interesting PoV on the conflict unfolding in Discord’s mind. I wish you had introduced some other elements in it, like the memory of his former life or defeat. But that stream of conciousness was fine as is, and, as usual, we get a glimpse at Fluttershy's proverbial kindness.

The issue I have with this story (typos aside) is that I can't relate to the problem. If I were in Rarity's shoes, I'd be thinking a lot more about the benefits than the negatives. Okay, so she'll be gone from her friends for a year. They'll live (Equestria might not, but that's an entirely different debate). And she's certainly going to have things to offer once she gets back; direct knowledge of foreign cultures to aid Twilight as a princess, first-hoof accounts of rare foreign creatures for Fluttershy, and delicious new sweets recipes for Pinkie, just to name a few things.

Rarity's choice of focus feels very off to me, and as such the entire story left me scratching my head. She's been given a glorious new opportunity, and she's going to spend the rest of her life regretting potentially vast benefits for all involved because she can't spend that time with her friends? Sorry, author, but I'm not buying it. Especially considering this is Rarity, who has proven herself more than willing to take risks and build upon opportunities given.

>>Misternick

You can't nitpick plots to death in a 750 word story. If you do, all you'll end up with are most basic and unassailable stories and a lot of bored readers.

The last line here is great.

I won't be adding to the arguments that already exist. I'll just state that I support the 'this is not a joke fic' side of the argument.

And on that note, I liked it a lot.

I liked this piece; I thought the characters were well written, and it makes good use of the prompt with Applejack trying to ignore her feeling for Rarity while not actually trying to force them down. Those sections are very evocative and emotional, and I think they're well-dispersed throughout the story.

I'll agree, though, that it feels a little flat. I think the reason for this is that, while Applejack is pining over Rarity, the two of them aren't actually doing anything; they're just standing around making plans. May I suggest that, instead of planning the cider-tasting, have the two of them actually setting the whole thing up at Sweet Apple Acres. While Applejack is intellectually considering her feelings, it's contrasted with her and Rarity putting up lights and tables in the fields, figuring out what vintages of cider to use in the tasting and what kind of vessels to drink out of (I can imagine and argument between Rarity wanting silver or crystal goblets and Applejack thinking simple wooden steins would do...). This might add more energy to the narrative and allow you to show more of contrast in tastes (no pun intended :) between the two characters.

Just a suggestion, and thanks for sharing!

I hope I'm not ganging up when I concur with >>Cold in Gardez, >>Trick_Question, and >>Monokeras on the nature of this story. It's technically well-written, and very good at painting a picture and it does follow the prompt. The problem is that there's not too much under the hood; Rarity's standing around considering things, but not really making much of a decision and not really doing much of anything.

>>PaulAsaran also has a point that the situation is kind of OOC for Rarity; she'd hardly pass up a bold new business opportunity or new contacts. I think the problem is that there's no counter-weight, no 'bad side' to the deal, so why shouldn't Rarity take it on?

Perhaps you could have the scene play out at the ball itself, and with her friends talking positively (or trying to) about her impending trip and all the benefits it will bring. But instead of it being Fancy Pants making the offer, what if the trip is an ambassadorial junket led by Prince Blueblood? Now Rarity has to decide: are all the connections, knowledge and experiences of the trip worth spending an entire year in Blueblood's entourage?

Anyway, it's just a suggestion, take it as you will. And thanks for sharing!

I don't think I have much else to say on this that hasn't been said by others. It's a good, simple read and a fun story idea that follows the prompt. My only big suggestion is that you'll want to provide more description in the middle parts of Twilight's 'scavenger hunt'. There's also the possibility that, at the end, Rainbow has to leave Twilight alone long enough for the latter to actually mix and drink down the resultant formula (with Celestia-only-knows what side-effects... :).

Thanks for sharing!

So. This piece. I found this one very difficult to critique, and kept second guessing how I felt about it and what I wanted to say about it, and couldn't figure out why until a few hours ago. The cause was simple, once I realized it: this reads very close to my own writing style. The strengths I saw in it were similar to my own (perceived, citation needed) strengths , which I tend to take for granted ("well, of course it does intricate metaphorical emotional filigree and body language framing, that's simple stuff!") and similarly, some of the weaknesses I spotted were ones I often catch in my own work and tear my hair out going "AGH, NO, BAD, STOP THAT!" Not that this is very useful information to anyone else, but try and bear it in mind for the following if it sounds overly harsh.

“Gilda, are you in here? I’m ready—”

Moon Dancer froze in the doorway of the empty room, her lower lip pressed between her teeth. “You’re... not ready.”

Gilda turned away from her marefriend’s crestfallen expression. Her nostrils stung and her feathers felt tight and heavy; Gilda guessed that it wasn’t just from the wet paint clinging to her.

On my first read through this intro, I felt lost. Couldn't tell what was going on for the life of me! There was a paragraph break after the first line, so that implies the speaker changed, right? So why is Gilda saying Moon Dancer isn't ready? What are they getting ready for? What's the subject of Gilda's guess, her feathers or the crestfallen expression? Who has paint on them and why? Skimming down a bit further, I see racial/native culture tensions invoked, so is this face/body paint on one or both of them in preparation for some event? Gilda wants to "get a study done:" is this a room she's painting, or an academic study related to the cultural stuff?

You get the idea. It turns out the actual context of the scene is Gilda painting a crack in the wall of a room, but that doesn't become clear until halfway through the piece, or the very end of it, depending on how much of the reader's attention is stolen by the emotional argument going on. Even now, I still don't know what celebration they're getting ready for, or how pony cultural/historical appropriation factors into anything here. Perhaps this is referencing an episode of the show I'm unfamiliar with (my FIM fandom power level is very low relative to most of the crowd here) but a clearer explanation in the text would be welcome regardless.

That ties into a few other issues I have with the piece. Perhaps the best way to sum it up would be to say that it's attempting to beat the wordcount limit by invoking multiple issues and events, rather than doing the work of evoking them in the actual text presented. Like a demoscene project that advertises a full first person shooter with amazing graphics, music and gameplay, all in only a 64 kb file!*
* Requires Adobe Silverlight, Visual Basic Runtime Environment, Unity 3D Player, three different versions of Microsoft .NET Framework, RPGMaker 2003 RTP, nVidia Experience and HP Printer Spool Service to all be installed; total downloads 6.9 GB

The celebration they're going to, the ponies telling griffons about their own history, Moon Dancer deciding she knows everything, these are all unadvertised additional downloads for this piece. It references a ton of past events, both explicitly and implicitly, and asks the reader to buy into all these things having taken place, in exactly this way and this tone, and will you pretty please accept that setup in order to create this particular emotional atmosphere?

This isn't an inherently bad thing. Some of it's unavoidable in mini form, you have to let the reader make some assumptions about the characters and their relationship. Arguably, it's even more realistic this way, in terms of conveying that the characters have a real relationship with years of history and interaction behind it.

But... the ratio of invoked emotion from the assumed backstory events, compared to the evoked emotion from what this argument right now, these events on the page here, are doing, is too high for my taste. This particular incident, this fight in the here and now, doesn't do much for me. They're upset because of things in their past, then they make up again because they remember in their past, and the present doesn't end up contributing.

Moon Dancer’s snort was half mirth, half frustration. But her eyes still looked as though they were desperately seeking safe harbour. A chill settled across Gilda’s feathers—all of that anger and malicious satisfaction pushed aside as Moon Dancer silently pressed her question. She wondered what those three years would count for if talking brought up things that couldn’t be resolved. Her marefriend’s heat and softness became suddenly intangible objects—things that could soon float away and never again found, leaving an empty room and the promise of what might have been.

This paragraph is the fulcrum of the piece, not just the crux but the entirety of the true present action. Distilled: Gilda gets scared that if she voices her true dissatisfactions, they'll be unresolvable, Moon Dancer will leave and she'll lose her three year investment in their relationship, so she decides to ignore it and hope it will go away.

It's pretty good, honestly, if the sheer size of this rambling commentary hasn't given it away! Strong use of the prompt. But that first part where Gilda's scared of bringing up issues that can't be resolved, that's a weakness. I'd like to see more there on what exactly can't be resolved and why. That's the part I can't bring myself to buy into - truly irreconcilable differences in their relationship aren't something that I can just accept exist from some vaguely referenced backstory.

Also, that line about pony/griffon race relations doesn't sit well with me. The reason I say that is because of the context of where we are and what we're doing. This is a minific contest pitched to FIM fans, who can be assumed to trend liberal and sensitive to cultural and social issues because that's how the show itself trends, and furthermore this contest has a clearly observable trend of pieces referencing social issues garnering high placements. So when I see that issue brought up in one line, and then dropped, in a piece that's already trying to get a lot of emotional affect via invocation shortcutting... it looks like this is another shortcut to get some more emotional affect.

#realtalk version: when I read that line, it doesn't come off as an issue being treated with sensitivity and gravity, it comes off to me as "Oh, the author tossed that in to get some easy upvotes. Ew." Note that I'm not saying that's actually the case, there's a high chance it isn't, but that's how the optics look because if someone was of a mind to try and make that play, that'd be exactly the way to do it.

It could be fixed in either direction: either cut the line, or expand on it a bit, show when and how it happens, and how it influences the characters. Good opportunity to illustrate some irreconcilable differences, too, just give us some example of Moon Dancer actually doing it. As it stands it's not even clear if Gilda is referring to her, or just angry about whatever celebration this is, or what.

Okay, this has gone on way too long and way too rambly, and I didn't even really speak much about the good parts. Sorry about that! They're there! Great use of language, great characterization, a structure that exists (although is somewhat lopsided and I think doesn't reallllly fit the mini format). Overall a fairly strong piece, but with a couple of, heh, structural issues. So editing in some takeaways:
- Clean up the setting and provide some more concrete detail so the reader can be firm in what's going on
- Shift more emphasis to the present action rather than the past
- Illustrate a few of the most important details rather than invoking a horde of them
- If you're gonna put in racism or other serious social issues, think very hard about what you're doing and do it seriously and properly or not at all

Thank you for writing, and for bearing with reading this terrible critique!

Fairly paint-by-numbers shipfic here. Character A (Rarity) does their general thing, Character B finds themselves out of normal character because they're swooning over Character A, B engages in self-doubt assuming their attraction is unrequited and it can't work and etc etc. Opting for the downer end is the less common outcome, but, like Applejack, far from a rarity.

The prose is fine. Hard for me to pay too much attention to it, because the content is so predictable and it doesn't go for any gimmicks or unusual touches, but not bad.

One slightly subtle thing that does stand out here is the choice of characters. Applejack is the element of Honesty, and when she says it's the honest truth, she means it. So... ouch.

Overall, the definition of a solid but not outstanding piece. Fits the format, does everything it aims for, and doesn't do anything particularly wrong... but it also doesn't aim very high or take any risks. It'll make a good over/under bar for arranging my finalist votes. Thanks for writing, author - have confidence in your skills, you deserve it!

This is a drama.

Its engaging and solidly written, but I do have a bit of an issue with the crux of the tragedy being that Celestia is literally just that fucking stupid. I mean, it kinda functions, but it is a really large thing to hang the entirety of the fic on.

This is a triumph.

Its a great success and solidly good for all of us (except the ones who are dead,) but I do have a bit of an issue with the crux of the test being that time Luna broke the widow's heart and killed her and tore her to pieces and threw every fucking piece into a fire. I mean, its kinda delicious and moist, but it is a really large lie to hang the entirety of the fic on.

I like the story, and thought it was well-written; I have a soft spot for fluffy pieces.

But I do agree that Twilight would be curious about a ghost as opposed to dismissive, and I think the story needs something more. How could there be a ghost in a castle that's only a few years old at most? Could Willow be a spirit that somehow got trapped in the Elements of Harmony long ago, and was only released when the Friendship Castle was created? Is she maybe the spirit of the Castle, or maybe the Cutie Map? Or maybe there's a legend about Willow in Ponyville, one requiring Starlight to canvas the town?

Just some ideas I thought I'd throw out. And thanks for sharing!

And this, finally, is the actual critique (with apologies to AndrewRogue). This piece is flipping weird. Is it a comedy? Is it a drama? Is it a parody? Yes to all of the above. Does it WORK? ... nnnnoooomaybekinda but mostly no. The mixed signals are just way too distracting for me. It's close to being a great comedy, but not quite. It's close to being a great drama, but not quite. It... no, it pretty much is an effective parody, I'll give it that. Never not be resisting the unending hordes of Sad Sunbutt. But in ye struggle, beware, lest ye find yeself to have become that which ye struggle against.

Also, watch out lest ye become Harry Potter fanfic instead. I noticed that with a few other fics this round, actually, though didn't point it out in any until now. This is reallllly channeling a certain other Luna, though.

The proverbs didn't work for me. The rest... agh. I know it's an experiment and I wish I could point to certain things that did or did not work, but really, the best I can say is the overall interlock of comedy and drama tangled up and got in each other's ways. I do like the characterizations, and I'd love to read a version of this that was... better. How to make it better at the comedy/drama blend, that's beyond my skill level. Maybe go through and work on better signaling on what the reader should be feeling, line by line?

Anyway, this at least is the sort of writeoff experiment I can get behind. Not going to score well on my slate, but Cave would approve. Thanks for writing!

I thought this piece was well-written, and thought characterization and atmosphere were really good. I enjoyed it myself, and I can see why it made it into the finals.

You know, considering that Rainbow is the Element of Loyalty, she may be acting this way because she's afraid of becoming too attached to Ponyville. She wants to be a Wonderbolt, but she knows herself well enough to understand that if she makes too many connections she may not want to leave, and then where will her life-long dream be? After all, the whole 'saving the world thing' is only going to be a one-off, isn't it? >:)

If you expand this, you also definitely have to bring in Rarity and Pinkie Pie's opinions on the matter as well.

Thanks for sharing!

I like this piece, and thought it was well-written (though it didn't have that solid a connection to the prompt, IMO). I'll agree, though, that the end point with the 'killer bunny rabbits' just didn't quite mesh with the rest of the story for me. Maybe have the rabbit become Twilight attendants at her library, or maybe her castle staff, and some of Fluttershy's other animal friends become guards? (I can definitely see Harry the Bear in armor, wielding a might weapon...)

Thanks for sharing!

Whew! I actually managed to place a comment on each and every one of the stories on my slate this time. Maybe they were good or maybe they were bad, I don't know; I'm still trying to figure out what works and what doesn't as far as being a critic as well as a writer, and hopefully I haven't crushed too many toes as I went along. I want to thank everyone here for letting me tag along this round, and wish everyone the best until the next contest!

This is very well written. As most of the other comments have said, it's creepy and truly evocative, in a way many other entries try to achieve and stumble at. Great imagery all over the place. Voicing is a little heavy handed and repetitious at times with the whole "gonna snap and kill them all someday" shtick, but if that's the goal it succeeds. Nice use of the prompt. Structure... again is slightly hurt by the repetition, it feels like some of this could be cut and distilled, and there isn't much in the way of movement. But it works and stays within the length limits.

Just one other little problem, though.

This is the most wildly out of character interpretation I think I've seen in any ponyfic.

The entire piece is Discord... being orderly. Showing discipline. Not just externally, but internally, deliberately suppressing himself while simultaneously musing about how his companion is a mystery and he doesn't understand ponies and she doesn't understand him and her kindness isn't really kind to him.

So... I don't buy it, at the most fundamental level. I would compare it to a piece about Twilight's internal monologue about how she doesn't really believe in friendship and secretly plots to murder everyone just so they'll shut up and leave her alone. Alternate interpretations can be interesting character exercises, but generally there should be a reason for doing that, and here, I don't see any such reason - or any indication that this is a parody or alternate take on the character at all. It reads like a 100% serious take on "this is how Discord might think," and for me, I just can't see it. This plays into the technical side as well, because the emotional effect of the characterization revolves around the creepy shock value of "Discord is always barely restraining himself from snapping and killing all ponykind."

Opinions on this will absolutely differ, I'm sure this won't be a popular viewpoint. But "based on FIM" is part of the criteria, and for me, personally, that includes keeping characters within a believable stone's throw of their canon characterizations unless they're being explicitly altered, and this Discord isn't believable to me. You can take a rock in a zen garden that's normally painted red, and you can make your own zen garden, with a similar or different arrangement, and paint the rock in that spot whatever color you want. But you can't tell me the original rock was actually blue all along.

As mentioned, though, good job on the prose. This concept is not something that works for me without some further elaboration or purpose, but no hard feelings, and thank you for writing!

>>Ranmilia

The entire piece is Discord... being orderly. Showing discipline. Not just externally, but internally, deliberately suppressing himself while simultaneously musing about how his companion is a mystery and he doesn't understand ponies and she doesn't understand him and her kindness isn't really kind to him.

But that is the point of this story, isn't it? For Discord to be orderly and out of character. As he is in the show nowadays, in fact.

It's canon he worries about Fluttershy and hangs out with her, and it's also canon that he's immortal -- or at least long-lived -- and used to be all about chaos. Still is, but now he's sorta tamed thanks to Shy. This story takes that as a conflict and joins both sides of the charater by showing that he's sorta both at the same time; he's fighting against his primal impulses.

I don't think this is OOC at all, really. It sorta flows rather well with canon, if you assume Discord was this chaotic from the get-go. Shows the reasoning behind his redemption and so on.

>>Ranmilia

This is the most wildly out of character interpretation I think I've seen in any ponyfic.

I’ll have to wildly disagree :p I mean, I guess I can't disagree based on what you've seen in a ponyfic, but based on the out of character bit.

The entire piece is Discord... being orderly. Showing discipline. Not just externally, but internally, deliberately suppressing himself while simultaneously musing about how his companion is a mystery and he doesn't understand ponies and she doesn't understand him and her kindness isn't really kind to him.

I think we can agree that Discord is the spirit of chaos, and it is “in character” for him to like chaotic things. He is not being orderly in this story, though. He is trying to be orderly, and there’s a key difference, I think.

This story is suggesting that he is making an active effort to suppress his chaotic urges, assumedly since his reformation. It’s also suggesting his chaotic tendencies are due to urges that are difficult to control. I also like the ticks and tocks bit—order in his view is annoying and boring, like the tick tock of a clock after a while.

It doesn’t contradict his character, but rather suggests an explanation to his character that the show has not offered yet. That’s the point of fanfiction, I think—filling in the blanks that the canon show leaves unfilled.

I do agree that the murderous traits are a stretch. Personally, I would’ve enjoyed this fic more if the murder was not a part of it. However, regarding the orderly-ness, I disagree that it’s out of character and directly contradicts his show persona.

beats in your head

QCF QCF PPP

Some good subtle jokes and character scenery here. Every comment is saying the same thing, though: "I have no idea what's going on with that ending, but there must be some cool link that went over my head!" Well... nah. The emperor has no clothes. The ending doesn't make sense, the entire narrative structure is not effective, and wouldn't be very effective to me even if there *was* an explicit link established. That's about all I got here, other than affirming that Pinkie's cute here and Xrd is better. Thanks for writing, though!

Oh, I see the proverb connection now, I think.

>>Ranmilia "listening for vibrations". Think about it. (But as above I do think the link is kind of weak in the text.)

Yeah, the penultimate joke is somewhat predictable but good job piling on another one which wasn't.

You like "flourish" eh? (Twice in the fic.)

Maybe you could've redacted the middle somewhat.

Otherwise it's a good idea, fairly aptly written and pleasant to read. Will go quite high in my slate.

>>Aragon
>>FrontSevens
Thank you, friends! I don't want to get bogged down in a big discussion this minute, because I want to review the rest of the finalists before I have to sleep, but I see I was not very clear and should try to be moreso. It is not Discord's external actions that bother me here, but rather his internal narration itself. The way in which he expresses his thoughts here is structured and orderly. Even when he's ranting about disliking order, and having to restrain his conscious behavior, his thoughts themselves are very structured.

Chaos doesn’t need love. Chaos doesn’t need friends. Chaos is perfect just the way it is.

Someday, I will grow tired to this pretending. Someday, I will realize that there’s no purpose to imitating their habits. ...Someday I will remember that I am chaos incarnate...

Repetition. Alliteration. Cadence. Rule of three. Sentence of narration, italicized sentence of thought, repeat. Patterns and order, ticks and tocks. This is the very voice of harmony! Fluttershy herself neither ticked, nor tocked, nor inserted those concepts into Discord's brain. He came up with them himself, he is the one thinking in terms of ticking and tocking in his own head. The only things that even approach chaos are some of the interjections, which themselves come at specific points in the piece, and contain themselves.

"I hate order and am restraining myself to behave orderly" is likely what the author was going for, I don't doubt that, but the orderly nature of the writing itself, especially Discord's voicing, undercuts it badly and turns it into an informed characteristic. To me, anyhow.

>>Light_Striker

"Uh, how about if we clap?" asked a pegasus colt.

Pinkie stopped and gasped. "That's brilliant! Why didn't I think of that? But don't clap yet, because it'll be too loud and you can't hear my next lesson, and then you'll probably be clapping forever if you can't hear me telling you to stop clapping."

And then that's dropped they never do clap. I'd expect this to be an unambiguous "yes please clap constantly, stamp your hooves, and practice hitting the walls!" to make that connection. Thinking about it makes it worse! (Though I agree that's probably what the author wanted to do - it's just not actually done.)

Read it.
After Ranmilla’s comment, I find myself unable to add anything interesting.

>>Ranmilia

Right, but that's just good writing. You can't expect the writer to write Discord's thoughts as a rambly unreadable mess just for the sake of it being "chaotic". I suppose you can see this as not immersive? but I would never say it's a bad call on the author's part to write the story in a way that makes it understandable and enjoyable prose-wise.

Rather, the opposite. If the story had been written in a worse style to make sure that it's 'chaotic', I'm 100% sure the story would've been far, far worse. This is a story first and foremost, and to be read is its purpose. Rule of three, repetitions, etc etc -- that's just technical writing, put in there to support the message. I really think you're approaching this in a completely misguided way, man.

Same as everyone else. The use of Twilight is sort of required to drive the curiosity angle, but then calls attention to the core problem of "why hasn't anyone figured this out already?"

I think this comes down to a missed balance between the serious and comedic aspects - it starts out looking like a serious inquiry that's going to end up at "AHHH WE'RE CARTOONS NOTHING'S REAL" or, later, some creepy or darkly cute body horror, but then just goes for some understated jokes that would have worked better with a lighter comedic start. Pick the creepy or the funny angle and run with one or the other, and this should clean up nicely.

Other than that, prose is fine, pretty standard "baffle Nerdy Twilight until she gets the answer" character fluff. Thanks for writing!

>>Ranmilia I tend to think of that as being "don't do it like that because that might bring the caves down around us, only I can't tell you that because everypony will get scared", though. Despite her normal silliness, Pinkie really has to focus on keeping control of the situation when it's this serious (and I now think the proverb is referring to her bringing out her rock-farming-family traits and having to combine them with her party-pony traits to make it all work). Anyway, I'm holding out to see whether a retrospective reveals what the authorial intent was here.

>>Aragon
Well, that's why I think Discord's a very hard character to write, yes. That is indeed what I expect from someone trying to write his thoughts... and I don't think it's impossible to do well, or readably, or that very structured technical writing is always "better."

Here is an example from the previous Writeoff round. Very readable, very entertaining - that piece didn't make finals, but I felt it faltered mostly on content rather than technical. I think something like that style in the thought sections, interspersed into contrasting, more orderly narration describing Discord's external actions, would have made a world of difference for this entry. So much so that, yes, the choice not to attempt something like that stands out as a flaw. (Though not the only one, the concept of order here runs deeper than that, pervading... everything.) Anyway though, we seem to have reached a point where we're disagreeing on fundamentals, so I think that's about all I can say for now.

I agree with most people here. This is mysterious and slightly spooky. I like the idea of ponies lost in a no pony’s land where each day is a replay of an other one with random elements added or removed. Could it be they lost against Discord? This sounds much like what a chaos god could do.

All in all, well written, solid and eerie like a Twilight Zone episode, enough to earn my slate top.

i can't believe fluttershy is bucking dead

... again. What IS it this round with everyone killing or wanting to kill her?

Anyway. Yep. What >>Cold in Gardez said.

"Spike threatens Twilight into performing a dubious act of friendship (thereby enabling a small author tract about how to do friendship) while also things are grim and dark because of mortality issues" - kind of overdone, and not very compelling to me in the first place.

Spike threatening Twilight to do the "mature" thing feels off (I see that argument about it being a natural growth of his character, but eehhh... don't buy it, not like this.) Twilight being "bad" at friendship feels off. The premise of the tract is... well, I strongly disagree, to say the least. I see others in the comments don't share that view, so sure, it's arguable... but I find it especially hard to swallow that Fluttershy, Element of Kindness, would agree with Spike either. MAYBE she might send a letter to let Twilight know she doesn't have long left, but no way she'd be okay with pressuring Twilight into doing something she explicitly says she doesn't want to do and that will cause her severe distress. Also, the whole situation has some unpleasant overtones of "allow me, a tough male self-insert into Spike, to tell you how to do friendship."

So, yeah, can't say I'm a fan of this one. It has to twist too many things to function at all, and the paths it trods have long since been worn into ruts. The execution of the prose is okay, there's some nice imagery... but geez, even the imagery references things like swords and emeralds, not exactly positive symbols in FIM.

Well. Sorry for all the gloom. Thanks for writing - hope to see you back next time, maybe come back for an original round!

>>Cold in Gardez

I think this is harsh on the author. I wouldn't say that the passage says absolutely nothing.

I think this story is trying to capture something human with words, but isn't going about in the most engaging way. Trick has pointed out there's a lack of atmospheric detail in the narration, things happening around Rarity, instead of introspection. And I like the use of lights in the distance to add a visual to Rarity's dilemma.

I agree that it's wordy. I would agree that there's too much introspection and not enough scene-setting or plot. But to say there's absolutely nothing is an exaggeration, I think.

>>Aragon

I don't think it's necessary to cut description altogether. I see your point that it's a more concise way of getting emotion across, but I think it's not the only way to do it.

Description is good for setting mood, adding visual descriptions to make the story more vivid, and more. I would agree that some of it is superfluous and unnecessary, but the edited passage that you offered is very... dry, and devoid of atmosphere. Full of emotion in so little words, but... not much vividness to it, I think.

I think it's helpful to point out something in a story that you think hurts the effect the story can have, and I agree that some of the description is a bit superfluous and unnecessary, but I disagree that it's 90% superfluous, and I disagree that the solution you provided is the only better way to do it.

As the last couple comments have said, this takes 749 words to tell one joke and a couple of one-off sub-punchlines. And the main joke is just "ha ha, what if this popular idiom was literally true?!" It wore out its welcome within the first few lines, and I expected it to move on to some other jokes... and it didn't. (Well, it did, but only briefly, and "have your oats and eat them too" is less effective of a substitution when we know Equestria does have very good cake.)

Writing's serviceable, though mostly just back and forth dialogue.

Not much more to say here. It's not awful or anything, just very threadbare. Look at some of the other high ranking comedy entries in this and past rounds, and try to layer in more and more varied jokes in your space. Don't be afraid to cut short, either. Brevity IS the soul of wit, and timing is everything. You have some good single lines here - now try and develop a sense for how long you can stay on comedy content, and when you need to move to a new scene. Thanks for writing!

i can't believe sunset shimmer is bucking dead

Gonna cut to the chase on this one. People, friends, everyone: please stop killing kids to buy Writeoff sympathy votes. It's less common in pony rounds than original rounds, thankfully, but still a trend that runs rampant. This is, to me, a very egregious example.

Human Shimmer is dead: so? Why do we care? She's demonstrably not connected to Pony Shimmer. There's no followup, nobody thinks about, for example, trying to connect with the human Shimmer family. The whole scene after the reveal is Dash hanging a lampshade on this and saying "I shouldn't care, so why do I?" Well, yeah, why DO you?

The last few comments covered all this, and why it makes for a weak piece for anyone who doesn't buy into being sad about a dead kid by default. What they didn't cover is the actual reason, which is that this is a piece of fiction written for a competition and manifestly trying to elicit an emotional reaction from its readers. Nothing in a story happens without a reason. Sunset died because you, the author, decided she was dead. You murdered her, and then you gave Rainbow Dash and Pony Shimmer magical depression about it, in order to try and make us readers feel the same sort of pain and react to your story.

... okay okay, no, come back, stop crying, I'm not completely serious. That's obviously a hyperbolic and extremely uncharitable interpretation, and there's nothing wrong with killing characters in stories, and to this particular author, apologies, nothing against you in particular, this is admittedly a tame example in terms of content, you're just in the right spot to be the object lesson for me soapboxing a little here.

Because: have you read the slates in other writeoff rounds? There is SO MUCH child death (and general death, and alzheimer's/identity death, and suicide, and...). Last round, a schoolteacher shot one of her students in the face, for the sake of a "Mist ending." Last pony round, Flurry Heart had her volition magically cut off and was doomed to probably eternity as a dessicated, immobile but still living and presumably conscious alicorn filly skeleton. It is out of hand, and vastly, orders of magnitude more common here than any other fiction community I have seen anywhere ever.

And when I ask myself why it's so common here, well. There's a pretty obvious answer. Shock value and dramatic subjects get votes. Check out the first couple of comments on this entry, compared to the later ones. Not that those people are wrong to like this piece. There are no criteria for voting, certainly nobody's wrong for being affected by reading something dramatic. It's also hard to point to any individual entry and say "author did this to get votes" instead of "author just happened to have this idea and felt it would make a good story." They aren't even mutually exclusive. But look at the bigger picture, in aggregate, and the trend is pretty clear.

So. Yeah. Shock value exploits are actively negative (imaginary, metaphorical) points to me now. They're overdone, they're relatively lazy writing in terms of the impact they garner vs execution, and in aggregate their prevalence has a tangible negative impact on my enjoyment of writeoff rounds.

This particular piece is not that bad on the shock content side. It's not really important that human Sunset died young. It is important that she's dead, though, instead of never existing or any other outcome. The distilled essence of the piece is still "someone is dead; therefore be sad," and there's very little else to it. That is why I say it's egregious on the "death in general for audience sympathy" respect.

ANYWAY, ALL THAT ASIDE... it's certainly not an unreasonable outcome if we consider the question of "what happened to human Sunset" in a vacuum. The execution's really quite good. I love the presentation of the gravestone, and Sunset's note, and the character voices in the first half. The second half suffers some in comparison - I think it's simply too long, with not enough going on. Overall a pacing flaw, the pre-reveal section should be longer, the post-reveal shorter. Though not too short! Ending the piece on the reveal would be even worse, to me; there should definitely be a conversation about it afterwards, but it probably doesn't need to be very long, and ideally would have some more engaging content than "Hm, I am sad about this, but don't really know why."

This is actually heading for a rather high place on my voting slate, third place at the moment with only a few left to review. Thank you for writing, author, the piece's pretty good, and I dearly hope you will take no personal slight from my use of this piece to talk about a sitewide issue.

But seriously, everyone: next time you're considering writing something shocking for your entry here, take a moment and think honestly about why that idea is calling to you and if it truly is the best writing you can do. Try and test yourself with "I think this will be a good Writeoff idea, because ______ and the people reading it will think/feel/see _______." Sometimes it will turn out to be a great idea! Sometimes you might find something better.

Holy crap, are finals almost over already?! That's what I get for crashing and burning in prelims I guess. Time for short reviews.

---

Genre: Petunia? Fam, that's +1000 reader appeal right out the gate is what that is.

Thoughts: Minstrel strikes me as a weird name, but in every other way I find this to be a very cute story with a neat twist.

Tier: Strong

Genre: Limestone Helps The Children Through Attempted Violence

Thoughts: Lucky, lucky, lucky me - Petunia followed immediately by 3/4 Pie sisters. The finals are good to me.

But hey, in all seriousness, the sting at the end is what really makes this great again for me. At first I found it jarring and non-sequitur, but then it started to sink in: Pinkie is a wonderful, brave pony here. I could wish for more clues about the situation, though, as it really just comes out of left field. Also the intro text felt a little dry, like a capoeira commercial rather than a Pinkie sales pitch. But there's a big gem of a story here that just needs some polishing-up.

Tier: Almost There

>>Ranmilia

Last pony round, Flurry Heart had her volition magically cut off and was doomed to probably eternity as a dessicated, immobile but still living and presumably conscious alicorn filly skeleton.

Which story are you referring to? Last ponyfic round was Rising from Ashes, and I don't remember a story about Bony Heart in that one. Unless you're referencing the last pony minific round... because I didn't actually read all the entries from that one...

I did murder Spike in the last ponyfic round, though, and I suddenly feel very bad about it.

>>Ranmilia "please stop killing kids to buy Writeoff sympathy votes...."

Can we just wing them a little. Just a few tendons, and perhaps a minor limb? Let loose Scootaloo with a Red Ryder BB gun, maybe?

"Ow!"

"Oh, sheesh! Rainbow Dash, I'm sorry! Are you okay?"

"Yeah, good thing I had my sunglasses on, or you could have put out an eye."

Scoring this one an A, even though I had to read it twice due to preconceived plot notions. (Seriously, I thought Sunset had killed her mirror twin by running her over with a car or something. My bad.) The choice of RD for emotional idea bouncing is epic, because few characters could hit that note with less grace. A road well trod but still leaving behind a nice drive. Well done.

I'm in agreement with the bulk of the comments. There are a lot of words here, but none of them are very revealing. Rarity's thoughts are thoughts anyone could have... and almost everyone in her situation would, so I feel like I haven't read anything that wasn't obvious. For example, if the story was a single paragraph from Twilight's perspective, having heard about the job offer and noticing Rarity lost in thought on the balcony, I could still infer pretty much everything Rarity's thinking here and get all the same effect.

So that's the main advice for improvement I'd give here. What makes this situation unique and interesting? How is Rarity in particular responding to it?

As for how to tell it mechanically better, see Trick & co., add more varied physical details and watch the economy on introspection and adjectives. I've not much to add that hasn't been covered.

Also: the way this is set up? I want to know what she decides. Some pieces fit better with ambiguous endings, some need closure. I want closure here, I want a payoff to all the introspection. Without knowing her choice, I feel like not only is there too much introspection, it was all for nothing because she ends right where she began.

Decent effort, though. It's not great right now, but it's a lot closer to being great than our comments are making it sound. Just missing a couple layers of revision and cleanup to really be what it's trying to be. Try working on this some more and hit up some friends/FIMficcers/Discord people/whoever you know for further thoughts! Thanks for writing!

>>Cold in Gardez Ditto on the last line. Frequently, the first and last lines of a story make the whole thing, and it certainly does here. "Tis' better to reign in Hell..." Very high on my slate and with a certain A+.

>>Posh
This one, from Rising from the Ashes.

The individual callouts are just more examples though. Nothing particular against those either, they were just ones that came to mind immediately.

>>Ranmilia ...Oh! Oh, that one! Sorry, I didn't really make the connection going just by your description...

Mm. This was okay, but on the boring side to me, never really hooking my interest or caring about what Tirek would do with the book.

Tirek and Celestia are in character, that's for sure... but maybe a little too much so. Celestia's good to a fault, Tirek's evil to a fault, and I feel like I've seen those archetypes play out this exact way plenty of times. "Dumbledore talks to Voldemort at the ghostly train station." "Michael visits Lucifer in hell." Any scene in DC comics where Batman visits a villain in Arkham. The final Hunger scene in Persona 4. I don't mind the plot not making much sense, but I do wish the story did something a little more spicy with either of the characters. Show some variation, more personal history, banter beyond Celestia expositioning, something.

Admittedly, some large part of that is due to my intense personal apathy towards Tirek. Never found him interesting in the slightest, and while I await the day some awesome fic will make me change my mind on him, this one doesn't budge me. I guess he's a unique figure for ponyfic because he's the only character who's Capital E Evil By Choice but also intelligent?

Execution seems okay, but again tied to the hook. The etymology of Tartarus and the not-so-veiled literary references, well... I can see how they would be cool for a reader who's into the scene, but for me they just reinforced the feeling of "yep this is an archetype scene referencing similar works, I've read this before."

So it's a miss for me, but judging by the other comments, I'm in the minority for being so un-hooked, and that's fair enough. Thanks for writing!

Same as everyone else is saying. Very simple, called the end immediately, beginning made me think it was going to be furry porn.

I really liked the delivery and pacing in the fetchquest section, very good work there! The beginning and end could've been trimmed some, this is probably better around 500-600 than pushing the upper limit, but it doesn't bother me too much.

Uh... yeah, really not a lot else to say. Similar to a couple others this round, this piece fulfills what it aims for without major mistakes, but aims a bit low. The execution's a bright point here, enough to put it at the top of that pile, though it's not quite cracking my top tier. Thanks for writing, though! Definitely have confidence in yourself, I wish every entry was at least this good!

>>Xepher
I haven't even read those stories, but I've read other tulpa fics, and this is exactly what I was thinking when I finished this piece.

It's... fine, but it's just the basic concept presented on a bare plate. Mindblowing if you've never seen it before, but nothing of note for anyone who has. So Pinkie's a tulpa: so what? How does this affect anything or anyone, where does she come from, does this have any implications? Do something with the idea!

Some of the comments are saying the mini format prevents it from having the room to do something with the idea. I'm not sure I agree, because this is close to doing something. Very close, almost there, with bringing in Discord as another one and setting the stage for Pinkie's self-realization, but then doesn't quite make it. To me this reads not like a failure to execute, but a failure to think of something to do. This ends up as just another "I thought of a cool concept, here is the concept just existing" entry, but there are good enough chops on display that I believe the author could've executed on something more within the format. It's not the length limit, it's the time pressure making it hard to come up with polished ideas. Or, at least, that's my theory for what happened here.

As is, it's still written well enough to be a smooth, enjoyable read. Brainstorming phase for minis is really hard, though. Try switching your ideas around while brainstorming, think about telling them from different characters' perspectives, or tonal variations like "this idea as a horror piece, this idea as a romance, this idea as gritty noir..." That sort of exercise often that helps me develop ideas further and hit on their best, most interesting versions. Thanks for writing!

Last of the finalists, for me, huzzah!

This is... hm. The triple threat, three story categories I see very commonly here:
- "Here's a cool concept! But not a story about or around it. Just the concept, there, existing on display."
- "Here's a cool setting! But not a story in it. Just an infodump about the setting."
- "Here's a lot of dramatic emotional language! But not used in a story. Just feel the emotions and don't ask about anything else."

There's a lot of surface appeal here. Tons of stuff thrown at a wall, in the hopes some of it will stick, like it's trying to make me imagine the sorts of stories that might arise in this setting or with these tones. But this piece itself? Not a story. Threadbare characters, no movement, no plot, no action, no arc, not much structure. The first two sections are completely arbitrary. You could show only one of them, or zero, or add five or twenty more, and it wouldn't really make a difference to the overall nature of the piece.

The reason I'm harping on that a bit is the reason it disappoints me, because it could be a story. It's so close! Just give us some substance along with the style, run some actual continuity between the sections and give the characters goals, and we're there.

Don't be afraid to let your characters do things. Don't be afraid of your readers finding out What's Going On. This is a neat little thought as it is, don't be afraid to make it more. Thanks for writing!

>>Trick_Question

I didn't comment on this before, but I guess I'm commenting on it now :P

I did enjoy this story. It was well written, though the topic made me uncomfortable, and reading Trick's retrospective, it was very much meant to.

It kind of spoke to me as a guy that there are things I don't say, things that I won't really tell anyone, and I feel that sort of thing transcends genders. I'm sure that there are many things that women wouldn't dare to admit, even to their doctors.

It really made me think about who I am and what society says I am.

Thanks for writing this Trick. Penises are icky, and horse penises are icky-icky, but this story had a deeper meaning that I was able to identify with.

Way to take an absurd concept and play it straight long enough to be semi-plausible. Dialog occasionally didn't flow, but generally not an issue. Excellent use of the brick joke.

I kinda feel the first scene is a bit of a waste here, continuing what the story becomes. Like the change in diction is really extreme, and creates a rather different tone and feel.

Generally fun overall, though that last pun falls hard on its face, I feel, which is a really bad place to end.

I fall in line a little more with Ran here in that this mostly came across as competently executed, but doesn't particularly grab me. I also have a little trouble with the logic of him being forgotten, but I guess 500 years is a thing? But still, he did kinda successfully conquer Equestria for a period. Kinda shocked there aren't more legends of him.

I don't normally do this, but I'll kinda come out and admit to make a point. I more or less started skimming the remainder of this story after the first couple paragraphs. There is really no attempt to hook here, which is a risky proposition. Her concerns and thoughts and worries don't really engage me because they feel too detached.

I can enjoy naval gazing! I do it a lot! But this is the risk it carries, especially when it is the whole story.

Mmmm... this has the shape of correctly using a twist to recontextualize prior information, but I don't really gain that much out of it, and honestly, the really bizarre decision to make the focus on a pony martial art doesn't help. It's... really weird. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it tortures the twist a bit because it is a particularly weird thing to be distracting with.

Always good to take this look at ships. I should do it more myself.

Anyhow, for all that I like that idea and there is some solid wordplay here, I have a real fundamental issue in that I don't have that good a feeling for why they are actually mad at each other. You can potentially infer some elements, but personal experience causes some problems here, as a lot of Gilda's thoughts read to me as the same sort of irrational and unreasonable things that go through my head when I'm upset at my wife. Things that I know I don't mean, and things that I have to bit back because they are all just the result of me being hella snippy when I'm annoyed.

Which sort of undermines a lot of the story for me, because, frankly, Gilda sounds like she shouldn't be talking right now because she's more interested in lashing out than anything? Could there be legitimate issues that are breaking the relationship apart? Definitely. But that's not really the feeling I get here right now. I sorta see Gilda coming back from the party and realizing she was being unreasonable or the like.

You need to contextualize at the beginning of a story. :p It is almost half the story (320 words) before I realize when this is actually taking place, which actually changes the way those first line reads because my assumptions about the relationships of the characters are all wrong. You've got to avoid that!

No big comments besides that.

I like this and I want to like it more, but I feel it is slightly hindered by length. I know pony pacing isn't great all the time and we have quick friendships and quick redemptions and all that, but this one just goes a little too quick for tonally feeling like this ended in spectrophilia territory.

Consider me fully agreed with >>Xepher & >>Ranmilia.