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The Medal to Prove It
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Rainbow had to admit it sounded funny
You switch from dialogue to solid tell here when you could have stuck with dialogue. You do this shift from dialogue to tell in several places. I think maybe you tried to cram too many dialogue scenes into the word limit, and it led to telliness from attempted 'shortcuts' at conveying the dialogue.
Rainbow hadn’t noticed how small her trophy room had become
I think you mean cramped. This is sending me the opposite impression of what you're trying to say.
I'm not convinced by the resolution. Rainbow interprets AJ smiling as an indication she's changed as a pony? This doesn't make intuitive sense to me. Maybe if AJ said something meaningful, like, "the fact you're so concerned proves you have", it would be more believable for me.
I think a couple of soft scene breaks would help this story flow better - it was a little jarring for Rainbow Dash to suddenly be at the Junior Speedster Flight Camp right after talking to Applejack, and later, scene breaks would help reinforce the idea that a significant amount of time is passing.
That said, I think this is a neat idea, and a good way to frame a positive message about moving on from past mistakes. I’ll second what >>Trick_Question said regarding dialogue vs telling, but if you can address that, this will be a solid story.
That said, I think this is a neat idea, and a good way to frame a positive message about moving on from past mistakes. I’ll second what >>Trick_Question said regarding dialogue vs telling, but if you can address that, this will be a solid story.
This story takes place over a year? Rainbow Dash and Applejack have been going through this particular bit of personal life baggage for a year?
...I think that's too much of a stretch. And I think it's harder to see, or appreciate, the character growth that Dashie's supposed to be undergoing. As a long-form story, maybe Dashie trying to hunt down and apologize to the guy she cheated out of a medal could work, if we could see the contrast between her current self and the person she used to be, or if she changed appreciably over the course of the story.
We don't get that, though. We can't. Snippets of a larger search that takes place over a year (which is still bind-moggling to me) are just not enough to convey what you're trying to convey.
I like the way this is written. I like the characters. I like how you write the characters. I'm just not sure it all comes together, author, I'm sorry.
...I think that's too much of a stretch. And I think it's harder to see, or appreciate, the character growth that Dashie's supposed to be undergoing. As a long-form story, maybe Dashie trying to hunt down and apologize to the guy she cheated out of a medal could work, if we could see the contrast between her current self and the person she used to be, or if she changed appreciably over the course of the story.
We don't get that, though. We can't. Snippets of a larger search that takes place over a year (which is still bind-moggling to me) are just not enough to convey what you're trying to convey.
I like the way this is written. I like the characters. I like how you write the characters. I'm just not sure it all comes together, author, I'm sorry.