Genre: You Get Mooned

Thoughts: This piece is remarkable to me for how well it works in spite of choosing second person HiE. Not that I want to fly the flag of scorn for second person HiE, but I feel like that introduces some challenges that the story needs to overcome in order to truly reach me.

Odd as it sounds, I think the Star Wars reference is the moment that gets me there. It's a rare moment among the few second person stories I've read where I actually can feel a connection to the “me” I keep reading about.

Also, nice Quiet Boy And Moon Horse ref.

Beyond that, the story is effective at capturing the imagination and drawing us along through its adventure. But with that said, I think the format does hold this back a bit. I generally feel like we suffer from a disconnect from the perspective of “ourselves” in the narrative because we can't actually see (and might struggle to imagine without more help) the fantastical events ostensibly taking place around us. The Star Wars moment does this right; other moments are hit-or-miss. The story tries to compensate for this by injecting more descriptions without being obtrusive, but at moments I find myself dearly missing the simplicity of third person to get descriptions of action across.

But there's something to be said for tackling an ambitious story concept, and this definitely does that. Additional clarity would only make it better.

Tier: Almost There

...Jesus.

I'll review this later; I need a... I need a drink after reading that.

I'm gonna break from the other two reviewers here, while conceding that their criticism of this story is perfectly legitimate. Setting those aside, I think this succeeds on the merits of its structure alone, as it kept me engaged in spite of the flaws detailed above just by moving its narrative forward. It's actually pretty well paced.

And while I could say that the resolution feels awfully convenient... it did, at least, have a set-up early in the story. I think if you nail down the specifics, the hows and the whys of, say, how the dragons were able to track the company of ponies all the way to Castleneighnia. you should have a pretty solid story on your hands.

As I mentioned earlier, I've only read the three stories that used my picture as a prompt.
Of the three, this is by far the worst.

First of all, I don't see how this connects to either of the pictures it uses as prompts. I could almost see this using Protector as a prompt, since it at least includes Spike and his love life, but I don't see how these two relate. Unless it's because this is a trollfic and you think those pictures were submitted as trolls. I can't speak for Super Trampoline, but at least some people (and by that I mean Dubs) seem to think that Tall was a serious and excellent entry, and I didn't intend mine to be a troll either.

Now the story itself is...nonexistent. It's a few sentences about someone reading a letter surrounding several paragraphs of spam mail. That spam doesn't say anything interesting, and I found myself immediately bored and skimming through it. So I guess you get points for writing realistic spam, but that's not something to be proud of. And while some of the characters' reactions to the spam were at least slightly interesting, it doesn't really matter because you immediately cut to the next boring letter. I didn't even have any real reaction to Spike's letter because I had been bored and disengaged with the story for so long by that point. What surprised me the most was that you just end with two empty sections at the end. But as far as I can tell, those are probably just there because you just stopped when you hit 2000 words and forgot to clean up after yourself.

And there's nothing to tie it all together either. If you had ended the story with a short scene about how these letters were all part of the CMC's latest plan to get their cutie marks, or Flim and Flam's latest scheme to earn some bits, or Discord doing some particularly unimaginative trolling, then there would have at least been a story. It probably wouldn't have been a great story, since you would have had to come up with something extraordinary to justify 2000 words of empty spam, but it would have at least been a story then.
Or you could just listen to >>AndrewRogue and spend more time on the characters' reactions to the letters and less time on the letters themselves. That would work too. After all, we've all seen spam before. We know what it looks like. You only need to give us a few sentences and we'll all be perfectly capable of inferring the rest of it. And then you could spend more time showing us the characters' reactions which really were the most interesting part of this.

I'm sorry I'm being so harsh, but I think the fact that you used my story as a prompt just made this feel more personal to me. But luckily for you, I doubt that I'll be reading any stories not based on my art, so you don't have to worry about me putting this at the bottom of my ballot. (As it happens, the other two stories are on my initial slate, so I might still rank them (if the site will let me rank only two stories), but this one isn't.)

0/10 for making Amethyst a pony instead of bottle of body wash. Of course Amethyst is a pony. What was I thinking?

The biggest problem with this story is that it ends just as it's getting started, but I'm sure you're aware of that. Since you're about 3000 words short of the limit, I'm guessing that you just ran out of time.

While the "Twilight tries to find out about something Celestia is hiding from her" and "Twilight ruins everything because she won't leave well enough alone" cliches are hardly new, they're not as overdone as something like "Alicorn is sad because immortality," and this story was interesting enough to keep me engaged the whole way through.

I was glad to see you address the "Why don't you just go talk to Celestia?" and "You know this is a terrible idea, why are you still doing this?" problems that most stories like this seem to ignore or provide unsatisfying answers to. While I still found myself saying "Come on, Twilight, you know this can't end well," I do think her actions were justified and in-character.

I also enjoyed seeing Twilight bring in Starlight and Moondancer to help her. Why write a story about Twilight being Twilight when you can write a story about three Twilights being Twilight? All you need now is a way to add Sunset and SciTwi. Oh, and Zecora is always a nice touch too.
The one thing I would change about all that is that it seems a bit odd that Starlight and Moondancer don't know each other yet. I may have been mistaken about this, but I was under the impression that this story takes place a few years into the future, so they should have had plenty of time to meet, especially since you have Twilight say that she wants them to meet. And that line was basically a throwaway, so there's no reason you couldn't change it, unless you were setting up for a scene later on where they do meet for the first time. Either way, I recommend you adjust that line a bit or make the timeframe of this story a bit more clear. But of course, this is really just a nitpick.

Like I said at the beginning, the biggest problem with this story is that it's missing its second half. Once you write that part, I'm sure it will be a great story. And while this didn't end up being my favorite of the three stories based on my picture, it was a very close second.

And as a final note, because the nonsense word "Quifons" is so important to this story, I was honestly expecting it to end by somehow working "Quifons" into a feghoot. And I must admit that I was slightly disappointed that it didn't.

This is a story that I would have absolutely loved if I had read it several years ago. But while I still love crackships and appreciate some cute romance, it takes a bit more than that for me to love a story these days. So instead, I'll have to settle for really liking this story. :p
I think a large part of the reason why I like this story is because it does feel a lot like the stories that I did read and love back then. And those feelings might be hitting me in the nostalgia a bit.

Now frankly, I'm not entirely sure what else to say about this story yet. It does a good job of satisfying my emotions, but my mind has some problems with it. Let's see if I can talk them out with myself here.

I think the big one to start with is the climax. Obviously, we all know that this is going to end with Amethyst and Sunset hooking up. The fun comes from seeing how they get there. And you do a decent enough job with the buildup, though the firebird dahlia basically gave away the climax to me. And that climax was fairly lackluster. It's just Sunset saying "okay, let's kiss," and Amethyst saying "oh, this is kinda nice" before she has a chance to remember that that wasn't what (she thought) she wanted. Most stories would have had Amethyst freak out and run away so she could process what had happened and realize and come to terms with the fact that she does like Sunset like that. And while that is pretty cliche, the reason stories do that sort of thing is because they need conflict. And this story is completely lacking in any sort of drama or conflict. There's not even any tension that something will go wrong with the wedding. Even the fact that Sunset had a concussion is easily brushed away.
The biggest source of possible drama that you do keep bringing up is whatever happened during Sunset's visit to Equestria. But nothing comes of it, so that doesn't count.
Now writing a light, fluffy, conflictless story is certainly an option, but I think it also makes the story less interesting. So I think you should consider adding some sort of conflict that either drives Sunset and Amethyst together or temporarily splits them apart.
Of course, part of the problem might be that you ran up against the word limit and didn't have the space to do anything else. But it's something to keep in mind if/when you expand this.
(And if anyone disagrees with what I'm saying here, please let me know. I'm mostly just typing whatever comes to mind, and I'm perfectly happy to be convinced that I'm wrong about this.)

The other problem with the climax is that it's all based on a misunderstanding. Now while I appreciate the subversion of the misunderstanding bringing them together instead of driving them apart, it's not very satisfying. Even if Amethyst was subconsciously trying to impress Sunset the entire time, the fact remains that most of what she did to impress Sunset was completely unintentional, and we know it. The climax isn't very climatic if Amethyst doesn't work for it at all.

I'm also disappointed that Sunset's mind reading powers didn't come into play at all. The dream sequence reminded us all that their powers are a thing and seemed like some decent foreshadowing, especially since there had already been plenty of touching by that point. But we never get any sign that Sunset has read Amethyst's mind, intentionally or not.
In fact, that could have made the climax interesting: Sunset accidentally reads Amethyst's mind, realizes she hasn't been hitting on her this entire time, and starts acting disappointed and hurt. This confuses Amethyst, who tries her best to cheer up Sunset, and eventually it all leads to a confrontation and/or Amethyst realizing that she does like Sunset.
Or you could even just use it to have Sunset prove that Amethyst does like her, even though she doesn't realize it yet.

There's also the old "everyone is lesbians and hooking up with each other" cliche that ponyfics love so much, but that mostly just got eye rolls from me.

While I am very aware that some high school students do drink, it just seems wrong to me that any of these kids would. These are supposed to be the good kids who in a a world right next door to the one made out of sunshine and rainbows. It just doesn't fit right with the tone of the story to me. (Now that I go back and check, I can only find the one reference to Flash drinking, but I thought there were more. Still, I think my point stands.) But maybe you're from one of those places where it's legal to drink at 18, and I shouldn't assume American laws/standards.

But by far the biggest problem with this story is that Sunset doesn't appreciate how great that bone joke was.

In summary, I did enjoy this story a lot. It's definitely not perfect, but I think it's about 80-90% of the way to being great. And I don't think it will be difficult to push it the rest of the way there once you're not limited by the constraints of the writeoff. I look forward to eventually reading the remastered version.

Also, before I figured out what type of story this was at the beginning, I was honestly expecting/hoping that Amethyst and Sunset would stumble through the portal together and somehow get merged together into a bottle of body wash. I don't know where such an idea could have come from.

We don't see a whole lot of Troubleshoes, so bumping into him here, and being so well done, is a pleasant surprise. I, like Novel above, missed an important clue as to who our ditzy school teacher is, though upon re-reading it should have been plain as day, so don't fault yourself for not being clear enough, dear author.

I wish I had a big "WORLD BUILDING" stamp I could lay on stories like this. We're presented with some very cool things here, and following Clyde around as he tells the story of him piecing things together earns points for structure.

I didn't catch that our target/fiend extraordinaire was Blueblood until reading the other comments, but like the other identity I missed, it's plain on rereading. It just so happens that he occupies a very small memory space, so I don't think of him often. Anyway. His implied crimes are just as heinous as I'd expect, and I'm not at all disappointed with the conclusion to the hunt.

Good job all around using a rare character in an interesting AU to tell a troubled tale.

You have the makings of a solid adventure/survival story here, but I kinda disagree with the above about what the biggest issue is (except formatting, do check that).

Simply put, Celestia and Luna feel like they should trivialize most issues here. Setting aside minor nags like the celestial canon seeming to be that magic is needed for the sun and moon to move, the ambiguous nature of MLP magic and power of Alicorns, I have trouble buying the danger.

Communication? You have the dreamwalker and the ability to move the sun and moon. Shelter? Laser blast a cave out or set up a magic bubble. Need distance from the vamponies? Fly or teleport. Need to beat the vamponies? Get a good mile or two from the cave, let night happen, then raise the sun when they attack and wipe them out. Etc.

Basically, having both princesses at full power struggle with this basically requires they barely know how to use their magic for this level of threat to be dangerous. Basically, I would recommend losing them or otherwise incapacitation them.

Beyond that, the team could use some punched up characterization as, right now, they still pretty much qualify as red shirts.

There's some confusion in the conversation that Celestia and Luna have up on the peak. Given how it plays out, and the location, I feel like we jumped to the Princess sisters having this chat. Then there's the bit with Celestia running a finger through her hair, which could either mean they're conversing in dream, or there was a slip up during writing.

Building off >>Dubs_Rewatcher's comment, I don't feel like there's a Pony AU thing going on. Would have been awfully hard for Sunny or Twi to be Princess Celestia's student if she was AWOL. I think Princess Luna is referring to human Celestia's overseas romp as a form of largely self-imposed exile. Which is a delightful historical parallel to their royal selves, and I love everything about that idea. But, a little more clarity if we're actually jumping perspectives would be nice.

Or I'm reading it wrong. Always possible. Regardless, a damned fine piece and a top contender.

>>Posh Ah, fair enough. I'd forgotten that particular detail of cannon. That makes the ship a little more believable.

I'm largely with Posh on this. Cute and fun, written well enough, but lacking a deeper pull. I'm also not as familiar with the Crystal Prep gals as I ought to be, and that may be coloring my experience.

Meant to get my story reviews started yesterday, but got derailed by work projects and then a Search & Rescue callout. ;_;

First of all, this is currently sitting atop my slate, so thank you for an engaging read! I'm certainly partial to stories about best princesses, but this has an awful lot going for it that has nothing to do with best ponies — the intriguing headcanon, the family drama (and headcanon about the sisters' early lives), a strong core conflict between family and duty, great and believable character work. The writing flows well and I was engaged throughout; the first scene in particular was an excellent introduction to establish the character interplay and the core setup without leaning on exposition.

I do encourage you to take a close editing pass through the story before final publication. It's littered with typos and minor grammar goofs — e.g. "the mannor", "whitters" (for withers), "intent of her hooves" — but those are easily fixable and the core of the story is solid.

One minor suggestion:

“Told you it would be fun,” Celestia said, nudging Luna with an elbow. “You should trust your big sister more. And get a little more exercise, you’re getting flabby.”

Luna huffed. “Not all of us have magical stamina.”

“If you know what I mean,” Celestia interjected, waggling her eyebrows and the pair burst into peals of laughter.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“And you’re a pony.” Celestia stuck her tongue out, as they both giggled.

I can't help but feel like that last line should have been a bad joke about Luna being incorriged.

And one more significant complaint:

“Go with my blessing,” he boomed. “Little Sun and little Moon. Be well for the rest of your lives.”

This seems to me like a missed opportunity to turn the sisters into alicorns (unless you plan to continue the story and do it later on). The emotional tenor of the scene really felt like that was what it was building up to. (He commends her choice, which in fables is usually a signal that the wisher's humility is about to reap additional rewards.)

More problematically, that second sentence is rather odd considering that the Roe King knows how important they're going to be. That, and the nicknames, are a strong implication he has future knowledge; but if he knows who they're going to become, then he's lying — being banished for a thousand years is NOT "well for the rest of your lives".

I think the nature of that boon needs to either be significantly reworked, or the nature of his knowledge needs to be dramatically scaled back.

Regardless, a fine story here.

Tier: Top Contender

Last story with only one review, so I thought I'd leap into this one.

Cliff-notes, I really liked this one. Its in an odd place for me, I'm not a huge fan of the elaboration style fic. While it can be fun to pencil in the details its not something I'll seak out. Still, this one does a very good job of telling Sunset's 'fall' and Celestia's reaction to it, and it's Celestia's reaction that really sells this fic. It just goes to show as long as you hit those key structural beats then the story will always come together well, good job.

There's a few quibbles. The story is kind of struggling with a few too many PoV's, or maybe not properly defining its PoV's. I'm not sure if that the Celestia reveal precludes just spelling it out, but I didn't feel the mystery mare question really added much to the core of the story so I'd focus on keeping the viewpoint strong. There's also something to be said for avoiding some of the Sunset cliches, I know her story is well set by canon, but mixing up motivations or throwing in some new goals might have made it more fresh.

Anyway, a strong entry. Best of luck.

Do you see >>Rao and >>horizon's review? Mix them up and you got mine. Voilà!
More seriously, I won't add much, I'll just emphasize some of the things that has already been said.

Like >>horizon, I was expecting the ending to be the sisters becoming alicorns. Everything seemed to lead to that point. If you do want to keep it that way and turn them into alicorns in a sequel, I would suggest to add more drama to that scene. By more drama, I mean that you focus even more on the tragedy at stakes, Celestia dying. Also, see >>horizon for what he said about Roe King's knowledge of the future.

That being said, this is a very compelling story. It felt a bit like headcannon all over my face but since we do have a great story among it all, I can't really blame you.

Thank you for your work.

>>The_Letter_J
I realize you felt frustrated reading this story, but I urge you to remember there's an author on the other side of the screen that's silently enduring these reviews. Phrases like "This is by far the worst" are unlikely to be helpful. I know I winced when I read that; I can't imagine how the author feels.

Yes, it's incomplete (if the blank templates are any indication). It ends at a strange place. To me that says that the author was trying to do justice to an idea right at the deadline, ended up staring at the clock with 30 seconds left to go, and faced the choice between either submitting what they had or losing the opportunity.

We've all been there, I think. And frankly, author, I'm glad you decided to take a chance on this. I've repeatedly said that I am a fan of experimentation in the Writeoffs -- this is nothing if not experimental, with an unusual format and focus. I don't think the experiment lands, for many of the reasons described above, but that doesn't invalidate it as a piece of writing, and I don't want to see you (or the rest of us!) scared away from trying to push boundaries.

So, author: Regardless of quality, regardless of voting results -- thank you for submitting. I actually was intrigued reading through -- I was definitely hoping for more resolution or a stronger story-framework around the spam (or perhaps a little more explicitly Equestrian worldbuilding, see below), but this was a daring choice and those tend to catch my attention.

... That said.

This seems to share some common issues with "THAUMIC FIRES", in that it seems fairly tightly bound to a source text, and appears to be more "found art" than original writing. That's not a deal-breaker for me -- for much the same reason that images consisting of elements Photoshopped together can still be considered art -- but it does mean that I have to judge it in the context of what the author has contributed to the work above and beyond the source material.

I googled a phrase from the Rainbow Dash letter, and found this. Comparing and contrasting, a great deal of the wording is identical, or else has some word-replacement modifications (to make the letter about cloud products rather than metal products). There are one or two entirely new paragraphs, enough for me to feel comfortable this isn't merely a copy-and-paste job, but it still does end up feeling awfully derivative. Author, I encourage you -- if you're going to pursue this style of writing in future entries -- to take much more significant liberties with the source text and make the piece truly your own. The tiny scraps of pony-specific material that we get are engaging despite their brevity; I have a lot of confidence that with a little more time and focus you could make an idea like this shine.

Tier: Flawed but Fun

Thank you for the grins, author. Someone clearly took >>Posh as a challenge, and completed it successfully. This also seems like it's taking some meta jabs and/or homages -- i.e. what >>Rao cited, as well as the scene with Twilight walking in on Luna hotboxing feeling like a nod to Up in Smoke (aka "Special" Delivery), which makes me chuffed.

Unfortunately, like prior reviewers, I found it a little bit difficult to appreciate the story as a whole, despite each individual part of it being written with both a strong command of prose and some funny concepts. There's a certain disjointed quality to it -- that first scene, for example, strongly implies some sort of setup where food poisoning is leading to Celestia's behavior, except it turns out to be a giant red herring which is never mentioned again, and suddenly it's a story about drug abuse. Even then there's no real sense of consistency: Luna isn't affected similarly, she just goes comatose. And that final section seems designed for the sole purpose of working a "Tall" pic connection into the fic, which strikes me as completely unnecessary given that it's using two other pics as inspiration already.

So, yes, author: agreed with above wrt more focus. You've got a lot of material in here that is good material in the abstract, but it's good material for a different story than the core one you want to tell, and there's some fairly advanced judgment involved in realizing that that good material is actually holding you back because it's forcing you to dilute your focus too much. Trying to frame this more tightly (e.g. slimming it down to just the drug/horse-talk material, which is your meatiest core) will make for some good editing experience.

Tier: Needs Work

Tickled as I am that someone wrote my idea, as >>horizon noted, I can't say that this landed with me. It's riotously funny, worthy of many lols, and even a lmao, but it doesn't come together all the way. And I don't like that it simply stops, rather than properly ends.

That said, it's going to #1 on my slate just because it fluffed up my ego nice 'n big, like a stack of smiley fruit-pancakes.

So... overall, I'm mostly with >>billymorph here in being left thoroughly confused. I'm not an encyclopedic pony superfan in the first place, and Equestria Girls-exclusive material is even further out of my sphere, so if this is supposed to be some subtle AU-of-an-AU worldbuilding project (as other comments imply) I'm afraid all of that flies straight over my head.

But that's fine! I get that it's EQG, I know who the characters are, and I can recognize a cross-eyed grey-skinned character at a hundred paces. That's not too confusing, although having her be a schoolteacher did make me question myself. Identifying another character by their cutie mark, now that's another story, I wouldn't have known who that was if the comments didn't tell me. But that's fine, too, because his identity doesn't seem vital to the story, just more of a bonus for those who recognize it. ... I think.

What confuses me is the main plot. I can't get emotionally invested in the story, because I can't follow it at a basic level. What did Blueblood do? Why is the Empire looking for him? I thought at first that he was involved with some sort of magical catastrophe? Is that different from what he did to Derpy? How did he end up dead in some cave out of nowhere? How is it that the entire town seems to know about this, but nobody will just explain to Clyde what happened, and none of them seem concerned with the fact that Clyde is not acting on his own but as a government representative? What role does Sunset play in all this, does she not care about the Empire? Is she going to kill Clyde?! Why?!

I just don't understand what's going on here at all. And not for lack of trying - the story intentionally withholds all these character names and plot points. And what little information it does care to share is not presented clearly or emphasized, but instead randomly dropped in blink-and-you'll-miss-it lines, like the one sentence that clearly describes Derpy (which all three previous commenters missed on their first read.)

And then, on top of that, it's very easy to blink and miss things, 'cause th' writin's habit'o makin' th' accent's thick's possible an' choppin' letters out'a just 'bout ev'ry single word makes it harder'n'a hootenanny hollerer t'actually read close and fig'r out, don'tcha see? Some paragraphs average more than two apostrophied words per sentence - it's way too much. For a while I even wondered if it had been accomplished via search and replace for the letter g followed by a space.

These are mostly simple fixes, though. The core issue that went wrong here is a very common one: thinking that a story will be improved by withholding information from the reader to create mystery. It's a tempting thought, especially because a lot of fiction (even professionally published) falls into the trap. But it's not true. Withholding information is a trap. Do your best to break yourself of the habit of mystery, and you'll see a drastic improvement in your overall writing skill, I promise! (Because then, instead of relying on the fixed interest value of the reader wondering what's going on, you'll start looking for ways to make what's going on interesting on its own merits!)

The skeleton of the story here seems fine, there's a lot of nice description and characterization once it can be deciphered. This is far from a trainwreck, probably a serviceable mid-tier entry. I'm likely sounding way more negative on it than I feel, because it's hard to praise the prose through the accent and it's hard to praise the content through the problem of obscurity. But it really is just those two issues. What I can see of the fundamentals behind them is very promising. Clean up the accents, make sure even casual readers can clearly follow what's going on, and I bet your next entry will be on pace for top tier. Thanks for writing!

I think the major problem in this story is that you're trying to tell a love story that takes place over the course of at least several days, with the passage of time condensed into a few, very telly paragraphs, and the actual romance interspaced in between. That's a serious flaw in a story that's trying to do as much at once as this one is, with an A plot and a B plot. I commend you, author, for at least choosing to keep the focus on the A-plot, but I'm left wondering why the wedding subplot is even here.

Which just doesn't feel believable at this stage. Sunset and Amethyst have some cute interactions, true, and they're at least well-written strongly constructed and conveyed via written language, but I don't get a sense that there's an actual romance developing here. It just seems like two teenagers wanting to hump each other's brains out, but not actually doing it because... er... it'd be wrong to take advantage of Sunset while she has a concussion?

I mean, when Sunset blurted that part at the end about "just ask me to the wedding already," I was like, huh? Is that what was going on?

Incidentally, the justification for keeping Sunnybuns at Amethyst's house seems flimsy, especially since Amethyst keeps pestering her to go see a doctor. Like, isn't the whole reason you're keeping Sunset hostage in your gilded cage that you're afraid of what might show up on a test if you take her to see a doctor?

Author, I can tell you poured a lot into this, and I hate to sound discouraging, but in its current form I think it falls well short of where you're aiming. If you take this and stretch out the B-plot, and add some more substance to the love story you're trying to portray, this could probably be a solid, multi-chapter romance. But right now, it doesn't land with me.

Shakesdeere, huh. Nice.

So I was just about ready to rip into this one and say that it should have kept its form, used iambic pentameter all the way through instead of just in dialogue, and cleaned up the language to be consistent and readable. Then the first scene ended and it turns out the play was, in fact, the thing. Got me good!

It's still kind of a problem, though, because that first scene as it stands feels very different and superfluous to the story that comes afterwards. Like... I get it, you did the play scene just to do the play scene and have it be fun to read. It's fanservice. Okay. Nothing wrong with some fanservice! But it might be better if it wasn't so transparently fanservice. Try and work in some more of the play's specifics later, to make it more important in the following story, or change the play scene a bit to include some groundwork for the later story.

Speaking of which... what is the later story? Luna talks to Pom (which I can't not read as Porn), and they reach an agreement to... do what? Alter the script or presentation somehow? Just write a whole new play about her redemption? Rereading now, I guess it's the latter, but on my first pass I wasn't sure. Too distracted by Luna's dream sequence. "Her Majesty suggests, while invading your dream, that you consider a new production that paints her more positively..." I can see that the author was going for a positive spin, but what's actually written pings me as highly uncomfortable, authoritarian, and directly threatening. The dissonance between that scene and its resolution in the waking world bugs me.

One way to resolve all this, albeit a difficult one, might be to cut the second half completely. Expand the play, make it the entire story, and use Luna's reaction at the ovation as a powerful ending. That moment already feels like the climax of the story, and is definitely the peak of emotional intensity, so why not own it? Everything that follows was already implied fairly well by Luna's disappointment and Pomade's reciprocity when he notices her, maybe we don't even need all that written out. The more I think about it, the more I think that would be the ideal form of this story.

Aside from that? Everything's great. Strong prose, great turns of phrase, great characterizations for the OCs. The piece is wonderfully descriptive and immersive, reads fantastically and draws me in. Absolutely stunning. A front runner on my slate as is, and a front page feature for FIMFic with some more top-level tinkering. Thanks for writing!

Oof. Sad Sunbutt in literal Snow. What to say here.

When dealing with anonymous entries, it's always hard to tell how much experience the author has, or how much they are or are not aware of the larger context surrounding them - other entries at this site, past rounds, and pony fanfiction in general. So, author, if you are not aware: "done to death" is an understatement for how common this subject matter (Celestia's broken relationships) and its particular emotional beats are. Seems like there's one or more in every Writeoff round. I, and likely most other readers, feel like I've seen this a thousand times before, and consequently it's very difficult to stand out when writing this type of story.

Unfortunately, this does not make many unique choices in its execution, so it's hard for me to rank it highly. It's true that the tarot reading is unusual in and of itself, but because it comes directly from the art prompt, it's hard for me to credit the writing with originality there. I would have liked to see the reading be used in the story in some original way, but alas, it isn't; Celestia doesn't seem to have a particular reason for getting a reading, and doesn't seem to get much out of it beyond stereotypical "recognized the error of her ways and will do things differently now" WAFF.

Hiding Celestia under the cloak, in particular, did not do much for me. I'm not sure what it was supposed to add as a positive feature, except mystery for mystery's sake. There are only a couple of characters it could possibly be from the start, and the quickly established fact that it's a pony and not a human means it isn't going to be Sunset. Celestia is the most obvious choice, and, well, when the story makes the most obvious choices at every other intersection...

So - content could use some work here. The execution is fine, though. We do see a competent flashback structure, and a clear progression of events with strong pacing. It's stereotypical, but it's the stereotype because it works: we get rising action, a climax, and falling action with an emotional resolution. This is a strong story skeleton. Take what you've learned from putting these pieces together, try to move on and paint your own picture, and you have a recipe for future success. Thanks for writing!

Well written (very well written!), but kind of lacking heart, I feel. Ultimately there isn't really much conflict, tension, or even much of an arc here for me to really sink my teeth into. Roughly speaking, Luna makes an oblique request and Pomade agrees. And that's kind of it. It doesn't feel like there were any real obstacles to this, and I don't really come away feeling like the characters really learned anything or changed in any way.

Basically, the meat here just doesn't satisfy. The stuff with Bloom? That was engaging and interesting. The conversation with Luna? Eeeeeeh.

I will disagree a bit with the others on this one. While the overall story is pretty nice, the first half wasn't that engaging. Most of it is one character doing an action, and then saying one line or two, or vice versa, before jumping to another character. That doesn't feel like a writing story but more than dialog sketches for an episode. The animators know what they need to do, and same for the voice actors. However, the dialogs are pretty good and there is an interesting dynamic between the three.

The second half's flow felt much smoother. The dynamic you've started keeps going on with the same quality and it was still pleasant to watch them interacting.

I'm a bit more concerned by what the story tells. I mean, what is at stakes didn't feel important for the characters (and thus for me). I'm not saying that you should have aimed for bigger stakes — after all, Slice of Life stories don't rely on high stakes, that's kinda the core of this genre — what I'm saying is that I feel you aimed for Lemon Zest realising who really is Sugar Coat and that she doesn't mean any harm, but it felt like a consequence of your story, not the main focus.

Since I don't really know well Crystal Preps students (we don't see them much), I can't really say if their voice are spot-on or not. However, this line felt a bit too harsh for Sugarcoat:

“Anyway,” Sugarcoat said, “there’s no such thing as ghosts and you’re retarded for thinking there is.”

From what I saw, Sugar Coat is simply blunt. Using "retarded" is too offensive for her character.


Now bear with me if you want to see a longer explanation with the help of linguistic, or just skip to the last part (beware that I may be completely wrong in my next claims, since I'm not a native)
Adjectives can be divided in several categories. The two main ones are the objective and subjective adjectives. The first category gathers the adjectives we use to describes things in the most neutral way possible, adjectives like "big, tall, small, blue, cold etc". The second category gathers the adjectives we use to describe things that are more personnal, that are more linked to subjectivity, and can be subdivided between the emotionnal and evaluative adjectives. I won't go any further than that for these, that's besides the point I'm trying to make.
I'm almost sure "retarded" falls in the second category and that's a bit OoC for Sugarcoat, IMO. All of her lines we hear in the movie and the EQG specials state facts. She simply describes the "objective truth", without sugarcoating her speech.You avoided to be completely OoC thanks to the "for thinking there is".
Indeed, there is a difference when you say:

It's stupid to think ghosts exist.

And

You are stupid if you think ghosts exist.

The first one claims that the idea of ghost existing is stupid in itself, while the second claims that the person is stupid, and by saying she thinks ghosts exists, she has just shown she is a stupid person.
The difference is subtle but in this case, it is important somehow. But anyway, I'll stop here for now.


So overall, it's a nice Slice of Life story. I suggest to rework the first-half to make it flows smoother, and also emphasize what is at stakes in your story. Thank you for sharing.

That's it? Err, I mean, you've built up something huge and it ends just like that without really resolving anything, and that was quite anticlimatic. It won't score very high for me because of this, I judge entries during the rounds as stand-alones. However, the beginning you have is really great. You have connected a lot of things together, making reappear some characters and concept from the show, things we haven't seen for a while. I've been engaged the whole time and it made it worse to see it ending so suddenly.
I'm alsot certain you lacked time to properly resolve this. So please, expand from this start and you'll surely end with something magical, because I want to know what happens next.

As a nitpick,

Even her memories of the room would be just as fortified against magic as the actual room, but Twilight quickly remembered that Zecora's potion worked using the magic of Friendship. That made all the difference.

First part is a good addition to what you've explained earlier, the place being magic-proof. However, how can Zecora's poition be made of the magic of Friendship? I mean, we do see Twilight (both in the show and in this story) using some kind of dark magic.

Thank you for sharing.

PS: >>The_Letter_J

Why write a story about Twilight being Twilight when you can write a story about three Twilights being Twilight?

Do you really want >>bloons3 to write a sequel? You'll have to leave with the consequences. :p

I'm really sorry I haven't had time to read and review this round, guys. Life stuff has been in the way recently.

>>Trick_Question
💚

Immediate points for doing something clever with the chosen art prompt. Structurally sound, as well, as Fenton noted. A flashback for each card was an apt choice, as it sets up a promise and then delivers with appropriate tension each time.

I admit I was a bit curious who was under the cloak at first (I'm a big fan of wandering cloaked princesses), but as has been mentioned, I'm not sure it really added to the intrigue at all. The Witch's powers of card based observation seem reliable enough, so Celestia hiding her identity seems moot.

This hits a lot of predictable notes, but hits them relatively well. The fortune telling seems inconsistent to me though; some cards are meant for Sunset, yet it ends with cards for Celestia directly. Overall, this felt like it was retelling a story I've heard too many times already, without adding much new, other than the framing of a fortune tellers. The ending moral/lesson wraps things up nicely though.

So I'm firmly in the "not a story" camp here, so this isn't getting a good ranking from me to start with. This is also just too meta without being funny. I mean, there are a couple of clever lines here or there, but there's no coherent joke or payoff for the thing as a whole. It's just a collection of independent show events set up as "spaces" on a board we can't see. Another problem is that all the special unicode characters didn't make it into the epub version, which meant when reading this on a plane, I couldn't even tell what was being shown. Why not just (20) instead of using special characters?

Another problem was the copious amount of spelling and grammar mistakes. It was enough that I suspected there was going to be some payoff or gag about it being a problem of inter-dimensional translation or something, but... nope.

So yeah, bottom line is that the humor is far too little and unconnected for this to feel rewarding as a read, regardless of whether or not one considers it even a story. Sorry.

Okay, so let me start by saying this really hooked me in by the 2/3 mark, and I was genuinely curious, but... then it just stops. I get this could be "chapter 1" of something more, but... the challenge of a short story contest is to write a short story, not an intro to a novel, so it's not gonna rank high for me because of that. That said, I'd still like to give my reactions to what is here:

Right at the start, something felt off about Twilight's attitude toward Sunny and it kinda put a bad taste in my mouth. First, assuming the "she" thing was fine, and slightly amusing when Celestia corrects her that Sunny is a colt. But then it becomes weirdly specifc misandry in just assuming "He might not be able to reach apotheosis" and saying so right in front of the colt. And then classism too? "You chose a colt and a Ponyville pony from the working class?" This feels weird and wrong coming from Twilight, especially this older, now-well-learned Twilight. Suggesting Moondancer as a "friend" for him is also weird. She's far older than this colt.

There's a lot of strangely italicized or capitalized words: "become," "saddeth," "The Decision," etc. A few add mystery, but piling them on in rapid succession is a bit confusing, especially when none of them are explained at all through the rest of the piece.

"We can't trust books" was an amusing bit of comic relief. Having Twilight react as she does though felt unrealistic again. She's seriously never found a book with "intentional falsehoods" in it before?

"It's useless to theorize when we haven't had time to brainstorm" Umm... aren't those kind of the same thing?


Overall, the basic premise, of a "source" or "fountain" where souls (and possibly) magic come from or cycle through is a pretty common mythos, but not one I've seen much explored in Pony, so I really wanted to see what the answers were. The other stuff the Sisters talked about, of restricting communication, blocking specific knowledge fields, etc... I wanted to see how that all tied together, but it just doesn't in the length of this piece, so instead of enjoying a story, I'm instead frustrated by "cliffhangers" that may never be resolved.

waitaminute, I just realized something.

>>AndrewRogue

excavating ot the castle

ot the castle

ot

j'accuse!

:-p

>>Trick_Question There's life outside of ponies?!

>>Posh
Bullshit

>>Posh
>>Syeekoh
Not that I can recall. Which is not saying much, given the drugs and electroconvulsive therapy.

I am both bewildered that someone thought to ship this and impressed that it works as well as it does. Although Billy does raise some valid criticism on the "but why" front. Still very cute though.

So, big fan of everything happening here. Human Pie family, actual mines to work on, austere Amish-style living. Marble being the source of the problem is a fantastic way to not only humanize the monster issue (my first guess was Banshee, honestly), but bring to light the struggles of being overly shy and/or sheltered. Limestone is appropriately cheeky and low-key homicidal.

Points as well (not that I keep an actual tally for scoring) for coming up with a very creative bend on the chosen art piece.

Hmm, second person... *tries to withhold judgement* No wait, first-second person. First person, with in situ narrator talking to the reader directly.

Visual descriptions are very odd in this PoV. It makes no sense why Luna would keep describing things the reader is very obviously supposed to be seeing themself and it keeps throwing me out of the story. The odd language structure does a bit as well, it feels like Jabberwocky but without the whimsy.

Nevermind: "Calloo Callay" near the end. This is trying to be Jabberwocky.

I think this does a really good job with description, despite the PoV it's using. However, I think there's very little depth to it beyond that. Far too many words are spent showing very little happening. The reader is shown to stand and fight a nightmare alongside Luna, but... there's no sense of real danger, no sense of real victory. Luna just coddles the "protagonist" and urges them along in baby steps so small that it feels like she's coaching a toddler at t-ball, not a hero to fight nightmares. That's impressive to the baby, but as an adult, I don't feel any connection what-so-ever to the way the absolutely passive way the protagonist behaves here, so it just falls completely flat for me, despite a few nerdy easter eggs.

Overall, I have to congratulate the author for trying a format and subject as risky as they did, but it just doesn't engage my imagination or my emotion beyond a surface appreciation for the prose itself.

So this is a pretty high level entry. I expect we'll be seeing it past the cut for sure, and quite possibly top 3. I'm going to do something a bit unorthodox here that I would not do for most other stories, and give the bulk of my thoughts here in an unusual form.

The good ol' unedited chatlog, starring yours truly and AndrewRogue.

Mostly due to time and effort constraints. The quick takeaways:

- Very pretty, well written prose, lots of artistic flourishes.

- That scene at the end of part 3 flops, as other commentors noted. Not sure what the author was going for there, AU or suddenly shifting to pony sisters, or what, but whatever it was, it's confusing and doesn't work. (But it's also tangential, and its failure doesn't harm the piece as a whole much.)

- The first scene's resolution (Celestia deciding to be a principal instead of a dreamer and shield her poor muggle students) plays poorly, both in the general sense of telling the audience what to think, and the specific sense of "isn't that the exact opposite of the conclusions she comes to in the rest of the story?" Seems most likely to be a case of drift, where that section was written first and not revised when characterization went in a different direction later on.

- The whole story is Celestia angsting about her life... but her life is absurdly good by any reasonable standard, to the point of pushing believability when examined. Makes it hard to buy the emotional arc presented.

- It is really pretty, though.

Room for improvements: Keep a careful eye on storyboarding and the arc presented in character-driven work. Make sure the things the story wants to be true actually are true in the scenes presented. Think about the impact of flourishes: what does, for example, the numbered, sectional formatting add to the writing?

It is really pretty, though.

Thanks for writing!

Quite a few small technical mistakes/typos, and wrongly used words: "Aerostat" is a tethered/stationary balloon, typically for observation, so makes no sense for transportation. The place near Ponyville is "Ghastly Gorge" not "Ghostly," "griffons" not "griffins," etc. I suspect (and author, forgive me if I'm wrong) this may be from a non-native English speaker, as the errors all seem to be in strangely minor things and bizarre phrasing, while larger words and more complex sentence structures are handled correctly. That is, things more likely to have been studied or looked up are right, but "instinctual" things natives just pick up, pluralization in particular, are where most of the errors are. It's (mostly) all minor enough not enough to yank me out of the story though, which is good.

The narrator here talks to themself in an overly specific way, explaining the thoughts rather than just having them, and repeating a lot of the same thoughts over and over in only slightly varied ways. This could use a lot of trimming, as there are many possibilities to say the same things in much more interesting and concise ways.

Keratia (from keratin) is an interesting name for a unicorn place. Nice job with the word construction, author!

Using human dates is kind of odd. Not opposed to it, just noting that most fanfic makes up some form of Equestria-specific calendaring.

The technical problems get worse as the end of the story nears. I'm sure this was a rush for the deadline though.

So, finished now... let me say this: I feel there's a great core to this story that really resonates with the same heart that drew me to MLP in the first place. I actually teared up a bit as I read the last segment, as I could see what the author was going for as a message, and that message is spot on for what ponyfic can and should be. That said, the telling of the story needs a lot of work and polish to really shine.

Author: I can't rank this at the top of my slate, as you are up against some of the best writers in the fandom (that's always the case with write-offs) but I want to encourage you to keep writing. Practice and perseverance will absolutely improve the technical skill of your writing, and that's a journey you have to endure if you want to write, but you can't teach "heart," which this story has in abundance. Keep at it!!

I'm pretty much completely in agreement with >>Posh, except for the note about it being well-paced. That was my biggest issue with the story, honestly... once Sunset kisses Marble (without asking, which is pretty rude and just a bit creepy), it feels like the entire story gets resolved in about a minute. The scene after the dream sequence is especially egregious, with Marble breaking her silence just to give an sad monologue that allows Sunset to then monologue to her. Then everyone is happy and in love. Yay.

That said, the detail about Marble's comic was really cute.

Also, I'm 83.7% sure I know who wrote this.

>>Ranmilia

What confuses me is the main plot. I can't get emotionally invested in the story, because I can't follow it at a basic level. What did Blueblood do? Why is the Empire looking for him? I thought at first that he was involved with some sort of magical catastrophe? Is that different from what he did to Derpy? How did he end up dead in some cave out of nowhere? How is it that the entire town seems to know about this, but nobody will just explain to Clyde what happened, and none of them seem concerned with the fact that Clyde is not acting on his own but as a government representative? What role does Sunset play in all this, does she not care about the Empire? Is she going to kill Clyde?! Why?!

This. While I can track the events that take place with relative ease, I can't really track the story itself because it is more or less fully obfuscated by a character who both seems to know nothing and spell nothing out. There is nothing wrong with mystery, but the reader needs SOMETHING to hook onto.

Beyond that, while I am a big fan of organic world building, sometimes you need to be straightforward, and fanfiction is one of those times where establishing right out the gate that something is AU is important to avoid forcing a hard swerve. While I think that might be what you were trying to do at the beginning, I don't think it quite succeeds because it simply puts me in mind that we're in a different region of Amareica than EqG takes place in, and thus dealing with a slightly different sort of life. It takes a while for me to be sure about the AU thing, and I still don't really have a good picture of what the world we're dealing with is.

And yeah. While you do a good job with the voicing, it can make things harder to read in places as well. Consider reigning it in just a bit.

Well, I don't think you'll get a more accurate view of my takeaway than the chat log >>Ranmilia posted, but for the tl;dr version:

Very pretty prose, but I feel like the story drifted at some point, causing the emotional arc to not quite line up. Basically, I don't feel like the Celestia we are presented with at the story's open is the same Celestia that had the reuniting with Luna and the decision to get into the school and all that. Clean that up and you have a killer story, though.

Beyond that, at a personal level, I feel this treads into somewhat melodramatic territory (particularly given I'm not quite sure I buy how much Celestia feels she has to be ashamed of), btu YMMV.

I've been reviewing in a play-by-play way for other stories and just realized I should probably explain that... comments roughly in-sequence as I read for most of this.

Damn strong opening! Doubly so by the time I reached the "it's Saturday" line.

Car crash bit is weird and confusing.

Europa bit is weirder.

Angel iconography is in a weird opposition to the "ponified" place-names and other non-earth terms used. That is, the religion references are realistic but the rest of the world is equestrified, which feel at odds with each other.

Collect call is beautifully realistic.

Sunset's confession... dammit, it's just raining, right?

"Somebody Else's Problem" (SEP Field, subtle!)

"Every possible Celestia has to be better..." *grin*

"She thinks about Immortal Her while she's dying. [her hair]" I feel you, author (yes, I'm looking at you!) may have worked far too long to set up that perfect double entendre.

Fireworks explanation. *another grin*

Ending missive... Well damnit! I just lost this writeoff for sure, and I will duel singly or in pairs any who disagree!


Seriously... holy cow! THAT is how you do it! That's how you write an EqG fanfic! You captured the heart and SOUL of this/your version of Principal Celestia, wrapped it up in bi-universal consistency, and sold me on an idea of redemption I didn't even know I needed. Seriously, "Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter!"

Please don't ever try to start a religion. :-P

Oh, good, finally an easy one to write comments for.

Best thing I've seen on this site. Probably best piece of pony fiction I've read. (Though, in fairness, my reading of ponyfic is probably a fraction of most posters here.) Easy top slate. Amazing characterization. Fantastic prose. Stellar pacing and progression. I did think the early parts were a bit slow, and was worried there wouldn't be sufficient payoff, but there totally was. (The first few scenes could probably be sped up a little though.)

A very happy ending, too! I was dreading the downer end, but for once it was averted! >>Novel_Idea is slightly right in that it feels a bit unearned, though. Some clearer foreshadowing might have been in order. By my reading, the sun has nothing to do with it except inasmuch as Twilight has embraced it; the actual magical laser comes from the Harmony jazz, as it always does. Petrifying is a clear signal to me that this is the case, though it could have been set up a bit better.

Similarly, I would've liked to see a biiit more from other characters. I realize the piece is butting against the length limit as is, but maybe something like the love triangle could have dropped to make a bit of room for Celestia or another Mane Six friend to weigh in on things. That might have helped sell the willing transformation angle better. For me, again, it was no problem, because my general take on the setting is that ponies are inherently magical (expressed via cutie marks, everyone having the potential to become an alicorn, etc) and the events of the story simply freed these powers they already had. But I can see the complaints about it being hard to swallow for some folks, since the horror angle is played up hard, and Twilight's particular dream isn't explicitly positive.

These are just small blemishes on a gem though. Absolutely fantastic work. Reminds me a lot of one of my favorite works of media from the last few years. (On sale! Check it out if you enjoy surreal horrorish character drama!)

Thanks for writing!

Same as the other reviewers, except that where they see lack of focus, I see "author ran out of time/energy/wrote this as a second piece/something like that." I think there's a decent mystery/investigation setup here, with Luna, the food, and the new phoenix, and Twilight's fixing to go out and solve problems - but then the story just ends. It's not just missing a conclusion, it's barely starting the second act of a traditional three act structure.

So that's unfortunate, and the piece as it currently stands is not going to place too highly in my votes. I do like what *is* here, though, it's funny, well written, and pleasant to run through. A promising start, and I hope you do go back and revisit/finish this! Thanks for writing!

As with other story comments I've been doing, this is mostly a review-as-reaction, in sequence.

“True me, it’ll be fun.” Ouch! But I sympathize. Always painful to have a typo in the opening line.

"Earth pony" you say... interesting backstory we're going for it seems, before ascension of the diarchs.

Scrumping apples? Are we doing a Garden of Eden allegory?

"Galop" is a dance, "gallop" is horses running. "Ascent" is to climb, "assent" is to agree. Quite a few other typos are sneaking in as well. It's starting to become distracting.

I like the sisterly repertoire as they share an apple and talk about their father.

No idea what happened after "Next time..." with funny symbols and falling. Very confusing to visualize.

Grail is overly abrasive. That better be important to the story, not just "angry teacher" for nothing more than cliche. (Later, it seems it's not. Grail has nothing to do with the story.)

Interesting to see unicorns managing the sun in such an uncoordinated fashion.

The saying is "to and fro" not "to and throw."

Okay, I'll stop pointing out technical problems from here. There are a lot, and they've become very distracting, so no point in harping on them further.

We're halfway through the story or more, and I still have absolutely no idea what this story is about. There's been no hook or set up so far and I don't know if this is an adventure story, a drama, a tragedy, or a comedy. That's not good.

"The Roe King." There's a title drop if I've ever seen one. I had to stretch for "deer" in that meaning, since roe, in English, is mainly "fish eggs" with the specific deer species being secondary. It works, but... I kept smelling caviar. :-P

"I demand a boon" Where did this come from? There was talk of wishes before, but not boons. I get the call back, and know that "boon" is a "wish" in certain interpretation (more a favor or request though), but had to think too much to connect the two. Use the same phrase or the same word on callbacks or this sort of thing becomes weak, especially this much further on in the story.

The wishing... some deep and true stuff there. Well done!

Nice wrap-up in the ending.


Having finished the story, it feels odd to have the roles of Luna and Celestia (as primary/secondary) reversed. Nothing wrong with it, but it's unexplained and even unhinted how that reverses by the time we reach canon lore, where Celestia is the dour one, and Luna the younger, impish one.

I also think this has a problem of being far too long. We only first get a glimpse of the titular tomb in the old stallion's story about halfway through, and that's really where the story should start. The near-ending scene with Luna uses that callback fairly well, but... There are way, way too many words in this which don't actually contribute much to the tale. I really was halfway through the story without feeling "hooked" or interested in any way. This story meanders a lot, and while there's nothing directly wrong with that when intentional, I feel it really slows the pace of this particular tale. Short stories need to be effective and punchy, and that generally means little room for side-tracks, regardless of their world-building usefulness.

Overall I think this has a good story going, but... technical and pacing problems are a major impediment to getting that across. In other words: the imagination and ideas are there, but the manifestation and writing need a fair bit of work.

Disclaimer: Review-as-reaction for most of this.

Vinyl as a guard under an AU Princess Moon empire. Okay, "Show me what you got!"

Skywriting as a mute: Interesting. Vinyl Scratch as a mute: Less interesting and even tired cliche.

Night Glider, night apple, night (lunar) guard... There are hints, then there are themes, then there is this thing called "anvilicious." This is getting dangerously close to that last one.

"Captain-Commander" feels a needlessly long title.

"A string instrument played with fervor" ...and it's a Tavi/Scratch shipfic, right? If so, please make it worth my while.

Vinyl's red eyes, as a mark of Princess Moon, seem an interesting explanation. But... "without her crimson eyes, she wasn't Captain-Commander" what? Are the eyes permanent or not. I'm confused.

"Vinyl lifted her shades, letting her crimson eyes shine in the dim light of the bar" so they ARE permanent? I'm going to consider the previous one a mistake or typo. Red eyes have to be consistent or this just doesn't work, but error is a major distraction.

"The word burned brighter." Perfect!

And the ending... it works.

Okay, so, lots of nitpicks above as I went, but you've got a really solid core going here. An AU where Luna won, but... I really like that you made that only background to a more-or-less noir story of commoners in a highly stratified empire. Vinyl/Tavi shipfics run rampant, but... this is a new angle to me, and I have to applaud that as well. It's rather predictable though, and that's a pretty big weak point for a such an obvious ship. Still, I see a fair bit of originality, and while it won't hit the top of my slate, it's still in the upper tier.

I think the above comments cover this story pretty well, particularly >>Cold in Gardez regarding the lopsided show/tell ratio and the coincidences and >>AndrewRogue's points about the power of alicorn magic. The overall effect is that the plot feels contrived, rather than naturally arising.

Getting to the wreckage took more time than expected. Most of the way was covered in ankle-deep snow. When they were not slowed by snow, they had to go through steep and slippery passages. Those who could fly soon realized that the strong wind would quickly sap their energy. It was safer to proceed on hooves than getting exhausted. As for teleportation spells, the wreckage was too far to get there directly, but they proved useful for crossing huge gaps.

This paragraph here is a good example of both the contrivance problem (it's a large dump of excuses for why the terrain can't be easily overcome) and the show/tell problem (these scenes sound exciting, I wish we saw all this written out!).

There are also a lot of places where errors in formatting, spelling, grammar and the like break me out of the story, including the very title.

So - quite a few issues. I'm not sure I can point to any one of them as the most severe. The overall writing level here is just not as high as some of the other entries.

And that's great! Like >>Posh says, there is a good effort and story outline in this piece. The author might not have as much experience as some of the competition, but they're clearly trying and headed in the right direction, and I love seeing that. Thank you for writing and throwing your hat into the ring here! Take all the feedback into account, keep on writing and keep on learning!

Disclaimer: Review-as-reaction for most of this.

Three OCs (or unknown-to-me background ponies I can't remember) in the first seven exchanges of dialog. That's burning through reader attention at a high rate to start.

"There’s no such thing as ghosts and you’re retarded for thinking there is." *Sigh* There are totally going to be ghosts, aren't there? If not, then this is a red herring.

Hitting technical problems. "Is you mom a ghost hunter?" *cringe* There's a lot of focus on ghosts. The title is about ghosts. This really better be a ghost story or I'll be rather annoyed.

“It’s kind of funny that your mom’s an electrician because her name’s Solar Flare.” Why is this funny? Seriously, I feel I'm missing something (beyond "massive solar flares can cause electrical disturbances.")

Insert "my mom can beat up your mom" trope here.

What's with the toaster? The toaster better be important.

Switching between "Lemon" and "Zesty" to refer to the same character gets a tad confusing. Pick one.

The whole "poor person" thing feels overplayed. Knowing nothing about these characters, I can't tell if it's genuine animosity, or a friendly jibe among best buds.

Not knowing where a friend works (the supermarket)? This is strange.

"There’s clearly something wrong with Sour Sweet" Okay, this new character better be important to the plot. Still no idea who this now-fourth-new-pony/person is, but if she's being named dropped, it better be important.

"It is now!" and a bloody bat. Nice!

Giving pills after a potential head injury and fall? WTF? Is she plotting to kill her?


And... I have no idea what to make of this at the end. Three girls who may or may not love/hate each other fight a ghost that turns out to be a raccoon. They mention a fourth girl that is completely irrelevant, while one girl attempts to drug/kill the girl with the concussion that is only just now appearing friendly toward her. There are also three major red herrings. A toaster, a ghost, and a fourth girl, Sour Sweet. All of these are brought up, and none of them have anything what-so-ever to do with the story. Author, please see Chekov's Gun.

And yeah... I'm lost. The writing is decent on the surface, but I'm not finding the take-away message. It seems to be just a "description of some things that happened" for the most part, and a confusing ending at best. Unless it's trying to be dark.

Is Lemon Zest trying to kill Sugarcoat for revenge for former insults (like calling her a retard)? It seems so. She lures her into her house with a fake ghost story, sets her up with rickety attic "stairs" to fall down, and then, when Sugarcoat does fall (and it was only a planted/known raccoon) and hits her head with a possible concussion (where you should keep someone awake and alert), Lemon Zest gives her pills to make her fall asleep and finally finish her off.

I'm not convinced the author intended that, but... without that, the story just feels kind of bland, and a little too confusing to really hook me. Again, not badly written, but just drops too many new characters without enough focus to make me genuinely care for any of them in particular.

>>Xepher
I came back to backup the author. While several of your point are valid (and I agree with them), I think some aren't, since it seems you didn't see the Equestria Girls Movies (not really a fault on your part).
Sugarcoat, Sunny Flare and Lemon Zest are three secondary characters from the third movie, Equestria Girls: The Friendship Games (with a killer intro song). Their personnality mirrored those of the main 6, but slightly distorted. Sugarcoat (mirroring Applejack) is blunt, Lemon Zest (mirroring Pinkie Pie) is enthusiastic and is supposed to not respect personal space (but it's Pinkie Pie we're talking about, so it's hard to surpass best human/pony her), and Sunny Flare (mirroring Rarity) I don't quite remember what main character trait from Rarity she has.
See the links below for more details:
Lemon Zest
Sunny Flare
Sugarcoat

And that's it. I don't know if this will improve your judgement on the story or not, but I felt like you should know that these characters weren't OCs or obscure background characters, but actual characters from one of the spin-off movie (and the last EQG specials).

>>Fenton
Ah, okay, so they were canon in one of the EgQ movies, and I genuinely thank you for pointing that out. But... that's still "obscure background characters" to me. (Also, as a sidenote, I thought "Legend of Everfree" was the most recent EqG movie and it DEFINITELY had the best song intro!) I did see all the EqG movies, but only saw them once each, and these characters obviously weren't memorable enough to me to recall their names. I will admit Friendship Games was my least favorite of the EqG movies though, so take my opinion with a grain of salt if you feel otherwise.

But... Even if these characters had been front and center the entire movie, that'd give them maybe 90 minutes of screen time total vs. the 100+ hours of the mane 6, and the thousands of hours they and the other standard "fandom" faves have in fanfic. E.g. everyone knows Vinyl Scratch and Octavia, even without them having much canon screen time. "DJ PON-3" shows up on fimfic tagged in 3,154 stories. "Octavia" 3,300. Even "Photo Finish" is at 104. But "Lemon Zest" is 49, "Sugarcoat" 51, and Sunny Flare is only 28, and most of those overlap. I'm sorry, but I hope you can forgive me for considering them background.

That said, I'm not docking the author for the characters being original or not, and I admit my own knowledge may be be limited, simply by preference/exposure, but... relying solely on characters that were, at best, a vague blur in overall canon is a risk for exactly these reasons. Using them in an original short years after their only appearance in canon (and by "canon" I mean, a spin-off that even the show runners have publicly declared is not canon) makes it hard for me to keep track of which is which, and I certainly don't have a full mental build of who each of them is, what their motivations are, their attitudes, etc. as I do with "known" ponies/characters.

So, while I appreciate when authors use "background" material and characters rather than going full OC, I still feel that when they do so, they have to treat it more like original fiction, and explain things fully, rather than relying on the audience to completely understand all the details of a character like you can with a main cast member in normal fanfiction. Again, I'm not judging too harshly for this, but even as I read the wikia pages for these characters, pretty much all my opinions still feel valid. The additional knowledge doesn't help me close any gaps in what the main story is here, what the toaster is about, why Sour Sweet is mentioned, the ghost references, or why one of them is giving pills to another that's just had a head injury.

Again, no offense or insult is intended. This isn't a bad story, but it just doesn't click for me personally I guess. I don't know what the moral/message is, and even with new/reminded knowledge of these three girl's canon, I still don't feel strongly enough about any them to be hooked in by this tale I'm afraid.

Aw. That was nice.

In front of the mirror the next morning, she spends a long time staring at her wingless form, and then she sighs and pulls out the hair dye she uses to touch up her graying roots.

She thinks about Immortal Her while she's dying.

Favorite part. Raises a lot of questions about the whole EqG universe.

I think I'm going to land in the "not a story" camp as well. Not that I don't think meta-stories are a thing, or that this gimmick couldn't be a story if it were done differently, but this doesn't make the cut. A lot of the description and humor is based on retelling various jokes from the show, and once I saw we were going down a list of fifty-some squares, I started to tune out. Then we hit the disclaimer at the end, which was pretty clearly padding intended to get the story above the 2k word limit, and I ended up just skimming.

Only one day left in prelims, and this story only has two comments, somehow? Strange.

This is well written, but poorly paced. On the good side, the descriptions are evocative, the prose is clean, the narrative arc is strong and everything is clearly presented. On the bad side, well, it goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on, about everything, seemingly just for the sake of expanding itself, forever and ever.

I want to love the material, but sheer fatigue stops me from appreciating it as much as I should - and this is despite the story suddenly skipping past a big chunk of Ember's adventures! Crossing plains and jungles, asking directions from villages, that all sounds very exciting, and I wish we could have dropped a couple thousand words of Gründale and padded dialogue in exchange for some more adventure.

Because of these issues, I came out of the end of the story feeling like Ember barely did anything on her own and wasn't very important compared to her grandfather. The whole first half is a paen to how awesome Siegfried is/was, and Ember and Geir seem more concerned about his death than any other consequences of the coming ice age. Ember never does seem to get characterization other than "the one pony motivated to actually go and do a thing." (Yes, the last part sets her up as willing to sacrifice eternity. But since that was not set up in the story before then, I find myself skeptical, like Sol, of whether she actually understands and means what she's saying.)

The lack of Luna doesn't really bother me. Sol's existence alone is enough to establish this as an AU cosmology.

Moving back to the good, though, I really liked the initial reveal with the "broken" sundial. That was clever, and very effective! Bonding with Geir over rotgut was also quite nice. (Yes, it seems even my cold, black heart can be thawed.)

With cleaner pacing and a fond appreciation for the axe of editing, this story will be a real winner. Pick your best material, less is more! As is - still quite a fine piece, and in my high tier for the round. Thanks for writing!

Same as the rest for me here. A fine story that makes the point it wants to make, but a bit clumsily.

What happened to the immortal, all powerful alicorns, though? Or Discord? Or Spike, and other dragons and long-lived creatures? Those are parts of MLP as well, rather important ones at that. The part I struggle with most here is simply the idea that Equestrian civilization could have fallen into this dystopian turmoil from a canon-ish start. It's nice to see it restored at the end, but the cheery mood is undermined for me by the troubling questions of how Equestria fell apart, and whether it might fall again.

Good use of the journal within a journal, though. I liked that section the most by far, analyzing the restored entries and specuiating on the society Twilight lived in. I could thoroughly enjoy reading an entire story focused on that! Thanks for writing!

SPRING BREAK! WHOOO SPRING BREAK!!!!

Ok, looks like other people already did the giant wall of text commentary thing, so I'll be brief. This is way too long with not enough happening. There's a ton of repetition: practically the entire story is Amy freezing up, doing the "I can't believe it's actually Sunset Shimmer" act, and then taking an action that shouts "please kiss me Sunset" because she can't spit it out, and then this pattern repeats over and over and over until Sunset finally gets the hint.

The wordcount is pushing the 8k limit, but the amount of actual material here is more suited for 3-4k words. Either chop it down to something short and sweet, or change up some of the events and narration so that the story grows into an actual arc, as the other comments are recommending. Either way could dramatically improve the piece! But as it is, I grew bored less than halfway through and went into skim mode, almost rooting for some sort of twist ending where Sunset keeled over and almost died, and Amy had to Weekend at Bernie's for two worlds at once and figure out how to pop into Equestria and contact her equine self and/or Starlight Glimmer for a spell to set things right or... you know, something fun to happen, instead of just more shipfluff.

Otherwise, good fluff, good jokes, it was fun to read. Great use of language, no problems with the prose, just the pacing and plot. I do like the use of the prompt, that earned a good chuckle! This had to have been a lot of fun to produce, thanks for writing!

The triumphant return of Princess Moon had ushered in a new era and a new way of life so completely that the time before her conquest of Equestria might as well not have existed. Much like her past life, the sun was nothing but a faint and distant memory.

The transition hadn’t been easy on those who had not offered their service directly to Princess Moon, and even now… well. Ponies with value to Princess Moon and the Lunar Republic rose, and those without fell. It was just how things were.

Show, don't tell. Or rather, for the latter example, don't tell in the middle of your showing.

Stock TaviScratch with some gimmicks. The gimmicks are stylish, but ultimately underexplored and don't wind up relevant. Pretty much everything here is flavor text, while the meat of the story is a paint-by-numbers character hookup that might as well not even be MLP.

... Well, that's the harsh sounding way of putting it, along with everything the previous comments said. I can see what was going on here pretty well, though. The piece is specifically aiming for the flavor text, using a stock plot, and the author ran out of time for the end. The result is more of a pitch chapter than a story... but I think that was the goal in the first place, so on the whole this can be seen as a successful writing exercise. Flavor text, but good flavor text that draws interest. So thanks for writing!

Echoing the above, because that's what one does when a good story has already been commented on thoroughly: Inverting the typical tropes/roles for Vinyl and Octavia here works really well, especially given the inverted nature of the world/society they're living in now. I'd definitely read more of this, especially if we get some exposition on how Vinyl and Octavia ended up in their current positions during/after the power transition.

Detracting from the above: I'm not sure what >>Fenton means by "sci-fi" setting. I got pretty standard Equestrian vibes, though obviously dark. And opposite of >>Xepher, I got what you were going for with the bit about "without her eyes." They're an instantly identifiable mark of her rank and station, so hiding them lets her move about like a normal pony for a while. But, I get the impression all she does is work, drink, and sleep, so she's at a loss as to who she is anymore without her job. It's a nice question that, unfortunately, doesn't really get expanded on much.

Definitely a high ranking story here, I'd say.

... wait, so if her mother is Strawberry Cupcake, does that make her Luna Cup?

Great Disney movie stuff here. See >>horizon for the definitive take on most of the strengths and weaknesses. I agree with >>Xepher on the pacing issues, too. (Though I wasn't quite as bothered by them. Probably because I've been powering through reviews all night and just got through several entries that suffer from the same issue, but more pronounced.)

One thing I don't see anyone asking yet, though: where's the "inspired by FIM" angle here? The setting and all its details are very far removed from anything identifiable as Equestria, and neither Celestia nor Luna seem particularly in character. Not that they're out of character, exactly, they're somewhere within the possibility cloud of an origin story, but I don't see much of anything particularly flagging them as their future selves.

You could take this piece, change nothing but the specific pony terms and names, and submit it to an Original Fiction round. It works as generic fantasy about any pair of youths. There IS a theme of friendship, and that's not nothing, but I would have preferred to see some more concrete anchors or ties to MLP so that we could dig further into specific reinterpretations. This isn't a dealbreaker issue, though - more of a missed opportunity.

Solid stuff, anyhow. Tells a complete story, evocative, easy to follow, going fairly high on my voting. Thanks for writing!

...Sorry, author, but yeah. I don't really have much to say in defense of this story. It's just fandom references and Writeoff in-jokes. And they're kind of amusing, don't get me wrong, but they're not a story. There's no narrative here. As an unconventionally structured entry, it might've had potential, but the rulebook conceit is played too straight, and without experimentation.

I'm trying to find an angle here, and I got nothing.

What's especially unfortunate is that there could have been something to this story if it had a narrative of some kind. Any kind. It could be just as simple as the Mane Six gathered around the table trying to figure out the rules and structure of the game. Or just a bunch of random human putzes. Or Syeekoh and his eighteen mail-order bridezillas.

But there isn't. The rules, themselves, are the sole focus of the writing.

Rather than repeat the points made above, I wanna say that the ending feels the most off to me. The jump from "everything is terrible oh no" to "and now we are all The Best Of Friends again!" is abrupt, and feels like a flimsy pay-off to the drama behind all this world-building. Suppose the story ended with the protag (whose name I don't get; is it a play on "Heidegger?") realizing how awesome things used to be, bemoaning how far things have fallen, and then resolving to bring back the Equestria of yore?

This is a story that takes place entirely within the head of one character, because of its journal format. Capitalize on that; let's see his mindset and his beliefs change as he's exposed to this old world.

Not a bad effort at all, mind you, author. A pretty engaging read, actually.

A Celestia and Luna origin story. Hrmph.

...That avoids all the cliches implied by that premise, and takes the story in a unique, creative direction.

Oh. Okay. I withdraw my hrmph.

I agree with >>Ranmilia about how disconnected this feels from the source material, but I also don't consider that a bad thing. We're at an indeterminate point in the distant past, and I don't mind so much that the setting is so far removed from the FiM we know and love. The resemblance is there; the trappings of this world and the seeds of what comes about later in the show are plainly visible. So I ain't mad about that.

I think the story is strongest when the focus is on Celestia and Luna, palling around and being sisters. They have a sweet bond, and their scenes are the most heartwarming. The stuff in the middle, at Casa de Luna, feels a bit plodding, by contrast. The story flops around in Luna's home life for a while, after a fairly strong introduction.

The mythos is great; the reversal with the deer crown is also great. I understand fully the message of this story, and I approve.

What I don't understand (and this might be an unusual thing to nitpick) are the familial dynamics between Celestia and Luna.

So, okay. Luna is the bastard half-daughter of Duke Bitch-Ass and one of his household servants, Strawberry Shortcake. She has a half-sister, Celestia, who is the legitimate daughter of Straw and another maid (or guard? something?) named Daring Dan. Cool.

Who here is the elder sibling? If it's Celestia, as in the show, then that would imply that either Strawberry Shortcake cuckolded her husband by crawling into bed with the lord of the manor (which seems precluded by the affectionate relationship between Daring Dan and Woona), or Lord Bitch-Ass forced himself on Strawberry Shortcake, a la Roose Bolton. Neither possibility is all that appealing, or family friendly, and this is a very family friendly story.

Is Luna the elder sibling? Then... that would make it a bit less icky, but it's also a serious departure from the show, wouldn't you say?

You could probably solve some of the problems here by making Daring Dan the uncle, or grandfather, of Celestia, rather than her father.

...Am I the only one who found that part confusing? Am I alone in my confusion?

>>Posh
I thought it fairly clear. Strawberry and her husband, Radiance (one of Lord Comet's guards) had Celestia. Sometime not too long thereafter, Strawberry, likely through no fault of her own, caught Comet's eye. And in these ye olden fiefdom-type times, one does not make it a habit to say no to your patron when he comes calling, particularly if one is of the lowest most class. They make it pretty clear that Earth Ponies aren't worth a whole helluva lot on the social hierarchy, despite ostensibly being the reason nobody starves to death.

Radiance and Strawberry seem to be on very good terms still, so I can't believe Luna's conception was a matter of intentional or malicious infidelity. Radiance doesn't seem to harbor any ill will toward his lord, and is fond enough of Luna, so I can only assume that occasionally knocking up the maids is just a thing that happens in this time.

Other than feeling like we slip into some raw narration occasionally instead of the nice, flowing one-sided conversational tone we see for most of the piece, I really like what's going on here. Seeing Luna at work, making a strange new friend, getting a glimpse at the weird stuff going on with Dream Celestia, and a touch of world building with encroaching threats from a distant shadowy realm.

Solid work, would read again.

>>Rao Ah. Third option, then.

...That really clashes with the family-friendly tone that the story's trying to take.

>>Posh
I didn't really think it was going for a family-friendly type tone at all. I mean, there's the clearly implied breaking of the natural order by the deer forerunners. That's pretty grim. So is Radiance's story about his buddy being turned into a golden statue. It's not overtly violent until the end, but the overall tone, I'd say, is very open to the dramatic.

Second story this round that really played up the "Sunset likes to tease cute girls" bit. Not that I mind at all; just curious.

I had fun here, as I tend to do. This feels like a sequel to another story I've read, in regards to how Rarity and Twilight hook up, but I'll be buggered if I can remember exactly which one. Not that it counts against it, rather it just acts as a little nod. This story itself stands well on its own merits.

I'll detract from the above, in that I think Sunset sticking around for days is fine. She apparently had a rough time of it on the other side, and didn't have anything or anyone better to do/see anyway. Also: cute girls. Can't argue with that logic.

I keep sitting down to try to write this review and I keep getting pulled away, so out goes my normal format and I'll try to just rip through this.

(Is normal format good? No seriously, I'd be curious to know.)

First up, I should let the Author know that the resolution--despite being told as a telly and convenient quick-cut away from the action--moved me close to tears. Perhaps there's just something appealing about the thought that the power of friendship (as filtered through our favorite ponies’ experiences) could have such power to mend a deeply riven world. I want to believe. And IMO the story does well by making that its ultimate thrust. Good on you, Author; you have given us something to cheer for.

What holds this back for me is the lack of detail, especially about the world. There are bits and pieces about how things are… like I can recognize that the author was aiming at this with the little bits about the different Kinds hiding and such… but it never quite gels for me. The descriptions could be more… well, descriptive too. (I know, unhelpful critique is unhelpful, but it's what I got.)

I also have to poke at the quick-cut away before the end. I feel disconnected by the time jump and the new unexpected month name. Like I think it would be much stronger to show us the change as it's happening in the world.

Tier: Needs Work

Hmm, I'm not probably going to get back to this with a decent review before finals. Oh well. Pretty sure it's going to make finals. ^^ People have mentioned the one weird transition. It's still in my number one spot.

Radio Writeoff - Under the Sun - First Part

Radio Writeoff - Under the Sun - Second Part

We covered three stories:

The Archetypist
A Walk Beyond the Stars
And Not Pick One

This is a rough, basically unedited recording; I only chopped the beginning and end to length. We didn't have the energy or coordination for more, sorry. In the future, technology and energy permitting, we may do two releases; a quick and rough one, and a more polished one.

Due to technical difficulties, the recording is in two pieces.The first one is the first two stories, the second one is the last. The second part was graciously provided by Rao. My laptop wasn't cooperating nicely. Thanks Rao!

Let me know if these links aren't working, I'll try and fix them.

This was a fun adventure, but I couldn't shake the feeling that they mostly succeeded here due to luck, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I like my heroes to really earn their triumphs, instead of simply stumbling into them. I'd like to have seen some of the interpersonal conflicts (Luna's poor relationship with her father, Celestia's foolhardiness) addressed and dealt with, but it all just seemed kinda swept aside at the end, and I found that somewhat unsatisfying. For most of this, I kinda wanted to knock some sense into little Celly, because she really was being kinda a jerk to Luna and dragging her into stupid, dangerous schemes.

Other than that, the character work was top-notch, the worldbuilding was fun, and the pacing was pretty good.

In some areas this was quite strong, but I ultimately found it less satisfying than I'd have liked.

This is sweet and super slicey. I like it for what it is - but what it is, is pretty fluffy without much weight to it. I think the middle is the weakest part... it kinda drags, because it's sort of the same thing several times over, and Amethyst doesn't really have a challenge to overcome besides just getting kissed.

Well, I'll give it points for not doing a drama of confusion and miscommunication, though. Those always make me cringe.

Sure, it's sweet and fluff, but hey, it's pretty darn pleasant.

Since Sunset's situation is clearly elaborated on in the show, I was hoping for some sort of subversion. This doesn't really do that, but it does carry through to a better wrap-up with Twilight, instead of simply ending at Sunset's running away, which was good.

I'm a little annoyed by Celestia's attitude here; it's maybe a headcannon thing, and I realize people can be very blind with the relationships of those their close to, but I have a hard time picturing her as quite this... I dunno. Unyielding isn't quite the right word. Foolish, maybe? With how she treats Sunset. I'd expect someone as old as her to have some idea on how to better deal with ponies.

On the other hand, I guess Sunset's situation really did happen in the show, so maybe that feeling is wrong, I dunno.

As others have said, this feels somewhat formulaic. It's not by any means bad, but it doesn't feel particularly fresh or compelling to me. Good work, but you're up against some stiff competition this round.

>>libertydude, >>horizon, >>Super_Trampoline, >>Trick_Question, >>The_Letter_J

Her Eye Forever Gazes Down

Thanks for the mostly positive comments! This was my “C” idea for this round and was crudely polished on the last day, with most of my effort going to finishing Palanquin. I scanned the pencil sketch to Photoshop, and as I played with the contrast, I discovered the vertical stripes that were introduced by the texture of the paper I’d used and decided I liked the effect. I colorized the picture, aiming for a desert efffect, but did err a bit on the green side.

I intended a similarity of the background to the final illustration in The Little Prince, and at least one other person seems to have caught it.

If you squint a bit, this can be thought of as a distant ‘sequel’ to No More Fires From Here.

I think this is trying to hang too much on its in-media-res opening, and not doing enough to hold attention in the middle or really sell the ending. (What happened in the past? What's going to happen now?) Plus, the accent is a bit much, and some of the world-building seemed unnecessarily confusing. I won't say you totally lost me, but I definitely skimmed a bit in the middle.

On the other hand, I really do like the idea of Troubleshoes X Derpy, and both of them are just kinda... wonderfully bumbling through the whole story here. This has some great elements and some not-so-great elements, but on the whole I think I like it.

>>Super_Trampoline, >>Dubs_Rewatcher, >>The_Letter_J, >>horizon

Bearers of the Celestial Palanquin

This was what I considered my “B” idea for this round. (The “A” idea proved too troublesome to execute and I have put the concept aside for now.) I scribbled a little planning sketch while at work, and ‘inked’ it in Adobe Illustrator.

I know her mark looks weird, as Horizon points out, but I was trying to make the sun symbol look fat. How can one make a round symbol look fatter? I chose to do it by thickening the solar prominences.

Thanks for the mostly positive comments!

Once again, I largely agree with Ran here on both the good and the bad.

For an adventure story there was surprisingly little adventure to be had. I was expecting a full on travelogue adventure and it was mostly just hanging out with sirens for actual events.

A vague recommendation I have is maybe skip straight to her leaving. The stuff with her grandpa is nice, but I think we don't need to see it directly. If we kick in directly with the knowledge that the sun is going away and it killed Ember's grandpa, I think that's a better hook (and also does away with the slight confusion that it seems erratic as to what groups know the sun is going away).

And for a totally petty point, fishing ponies are weird to me.

Anyhow, you've got a solid adventure outline and a decent lead and some good events. I think you just need to punch it up a little bit.

Honestly, I feel like I just read Equestria Girls meets Clueless or something.

Like Xepher, I'm totally blanking on the Crystal Prep kids (which is awkward since this didn't seem consistent with what I thought I recalled of Lemon Zest).

I feel like this piece totally hinges on how you respond to the characters and the humor. I came in not liking the characters, and thus didn't really end up enjoying this overmuch.

Sorry, not really a ton to say on this one. Mostly just a "not for me" story.

I'm gonna be blunt here. I was technical writer once. I hated the shit I wrote because I found it boring. Only job I've been fired from.

I couldn't bring myself to complete this one. As near as I can tell, it is pretty straight-faced. There are some attempts at humor here and there, but it really isn't enough for me to plow through (admittedly tuned well to be in universe) technical writing.

>>AndrewRogue Deep Posh lore: During the year I was out of teaching, I looked at technical writing as a career.

It never worked out for me because no one ever hired me I thought I'd be bored.

>>Xepher
Basically this. An intriguing experiment, very risky, but for me it didn't pan out as a success. I'm afraid I could barely even get through the whole thing. The second person, all dialogue, no quotation marks, rambling style just doesn't flow for me. My eyes and my mind need breaks, and better markers for which parts I need to read closely to keep track of what's going on among the Calloo Callays.

Better dynamic formatting and a more active protagonist might go a long way towards making this piece easier to follow In its current state, it comes off monotone all the way through. I don't get a good sense of rising action/climax/falling action, either in individual scenes or across the full story, and I think that's the big thing preventing me from getting into this.

Nice descriptive work, though. Clearly a lot of imagination here, and a good learning exercise. Attempting an unusual format and not completely trainwrecking is certainly worthy of some commendation! I'll have to think a bit about where to place this, probably somewhere in the mid tiers. Thanks for writing!

I'm... struggling a bit to cogently sum up my thoughts on this one, so for now, please consider me as echoing >>Xepher.

Mmph. Same as the rest here. I don't care much about whether they're OCs or not, but otherwise share the reactions of >>Xepher and >>AndrewRogue. These kids are not very nice, and I'm forced to concentrate on their abrasive banter because there isn't much going on in the story otherwise.

Mind you, they are clearly intentionally abrasive, so that's a complement to the writing! I do think it tries a little too hard, though, especially the repeated harping on "poor people" and the use of "retarded" (which, at least to me, is a word that has definitely fallen entirely out of polite English conversation and into the category of being a slur.) It might have been nice to show more of the girls' friendlier sides to contrast and contextualize their insults.

Lemon Zest returned with two pills and a bandage in one hand and a glass of water in another. “Here, Sugarcoat, sit up and take these while I bandage your ankle.”

Sugarcoat grabbed the pills and the glass, then examined the pills that Lemon Zest had handed her. “Are these store brand―ow!”

Lemon looked at Sugarcoat with a smile. “Have to disinfect the wound before I wrap it up.”

Sugarcoat hummed, then shrugged and swallowed the pills. “I am in a transcendent amount of pain right now.”

“You did just fall down poor people stairs,” Lemon said as she finished bandaging Sugarcoat’s ankle.

Sugarcoat chortled. “I can’t imagine they’d hurt any more than my stairs.” Lemon chortled as well.

“Okay,” Sunny said, “someone will be here shortly. I also told them to send animal control on account of there now being a dead raccoon in the attic.”

It's rare for writing to need more adjectives, but I think the above sequence is a good case for needing some of them. How are the characters saying and doing all these things? What are the tones I'm supposed to take away as a reader? That sort of flavor is the biggest missing element here, especially for such a character-focused piece.

This probably slots in lower-mid tier to me, but it's a decent effort, the prose is solid and it could rise quite a ways with a relatively small amount of further polish on the plot and characterization. Thanks for writing!

Bah, I'm sleepy and wrapped up in a bloated manuscript, so as much as I'd like to finish my reviews tonight, I'm afraid I probably won't be able to. I'll give a mini-review to each of the stories that didn't make finals, and give more detailed feedback on the finalists, starting tomorrow.

I did read through everyone's entries, though. We had a good batch this time around. Not that mediocrity is the norm, but the overall quality of the stories I read this round seemed a bit... sharper.

Other comments have already pointed out the abrupt ending and lack of resolution at length, I agree, etc etc etc. A couple of unique things that stood out to me, though:

- Practically every sentence in the piece shares the same structure: "Subject verbed object." Check out the first paragraph:

A scintillating cascade of color and light filtered in through the windows of the vaulted room.
Twilight Sparkle discourteously trotted through an abstract, colorful shadow of herself.
The image that briefly refracted upon her hooves illustrated one of the many times she and her companions had saved Equestria through the magic of friendship.

This keeps up throughout the piece, and the lack of change or structural complexity makes the prose feel much more boring than it ought to be. Watch out for this while writing, and try to branch out and vary your forms a little more! Like many technical aspects, this will come more easily with practice.

- An effective story shows rather than tells, and breaking style to directly narrate at the reader is about as telly as can be. The last several paragraphs are particularly troublesome here. Not only do they tell rather than show, they're telling the reader what value judgments they ought to make. That's dangerous ground, and often a surefire way to lose the attention of any reader who doesn't already agree with the conclusions presented.

There are some lofty goals here, though. Thank you for writing, author, you clearly gave this a lot of effort! Keep at it!

>>horizon
Seconding everything here. There's not much else to say about this one, except that I could see the blank boxes being a formatting error rather than an indication of unfinished business.

It's not really a story as it stands, but it does make me interested in reading stories based on some of the entries. Pen pal romance with Maud Pie sounds amusing, Sweetie Belle's opens the door for a nice character piece, and Filthy Rich's is... I think one of the most positive and immediately interesting portrayals I've seen of him, even with just a few sentences?

I can't really rank it above the entries that do tell stories, but that's fine, I did genuinely enjoy reading this. Thanks for writing!

>>Ranmilia I'm no linguist, and I barely qualify as a grammarian, but I think you mean "subject verbed object." "Object verbed subject" suggests a much different linguistic construction that I don't see reflected in the examples you gave.

Or maybe I'm just playing pedantic semantics. :pinkiecrazy:

>>Posh said it all. A bit uneven, but I was getting into this piece pretty well, until the not-very-consensual mindscape entry and romance elements came in out of left field.

Cute, but a little creepy, and the juggling act doesn't quiiite keep all the balls in the air. Still a decent effort, high-mid seems about right. Thanks for writing!

>>Posh
Nah you're right, I just mixed them up. Oops!

Amusing, but not a story. See >>AndrewRogue for some solid critique on the game rules and copywriting. This could go in a few directions to improve, either writing a story around it, or just expanding the rules into a real game. I suggest the latter, and getting people on Discord to play it. Thanks for writing!

I was wondering what people were on about with all the talk about "not a story" entries this round. Turns out the vote form just gave them all to me at the very end. Well then. Uh. Yeah. Not a story, and my critique method would not be of much help here. I see some effort at making jokes, but not enough to draw me into wanting to read the whole thing, especially upon learning the basic structure is a crib. Thank you for writing, anyhow!

I like the PoV that's half reaction and half more proper narration. It starts to drag a little bit though, as she's recounting things too specifically to feel natural as thoughts, and thus sounds like obvious exposition.

The sexual tension feels a bit off. Curious to see if it plays into the plot later though.

Amy talks in a a lot of italics.

The flirty remarks are getting repetitive.

“You do know I survived getting shot in the face with a magical rainbow laser comprised of happiness, friendship and harmony, right? After being turned into a raging she-demon bent on interplanetary conquest?” One overly-literal reminder of rediculousness like that in a story can be amusing, but 1/4 of the way through, and this is already full of them.

“She also happens to be a magical talking unicorn from another dimension.” There we go again.

Matter of practicallity: Amy is concerned Sunset has a concussion, yet she let's her go to sleep? That's exactly what you should NOT do.

Through breakfast pancakes now and I still don't know what this story is about. I'm not sure if something more is coming through the portal (hinted by the title) or Amy is going to Equestria, or a wedding is going to be ruined, or what. I really would've liked to see a hook of some kind by now.

Wait... all of the mane 6 are shipped... with each other in pairs? Seriously?

Okay, the repetitions are getting absurd. Amy has now recalled or restated ten times that she knocked Sunset out with a binder. We get it, we were there.

She's said "going to be perfect" about a wedding way, way too many times now too, and this from a character that literally started the story yelling at the universe that she didn't even say "what could go wrong?" It better go wrong.

Okay, they kissed. Pretty sure this is just a ship-fic at this point then.

"The wedding was perfect." It didn't go wrong. So what is the conflict going to be in this story?

Oh, that's the end. Okay...


So, overall, this is a ship-fic, which by itself isn't my cup of tea. I'm fine with "shipping" itself, but I want stories to have more happening than just "everything works out perfectly." Amy puts in like zero effort, and completely by accident gets "the most beautiful girl in the school." This is Mary Sue 9000.

That said, the writing itself is fairly competent, and flows well, though the continue repetition of nearly every piece of information really make it start to drag in the pacing department. There are definitely some cute bits in the flirting and stuff, but it really needs to be tightened up and find some core focus, rather than meandering all over. Conflict of some kind, and character growth, are both lacking. No one learns anything, no one changes, and nothing happens except an unearned/accidental relationship.

>>AndrewRogue
Sums it up best. I'll add my own reactions below though.

Some overly convoluted phrasing and sentence structure early on. "Horn lit, grabbed her glass of water, and quaffed to drown a coughing fit before it could manifest, banishing it back to the vile abyss wherein it belonged with other such maladies like heartburn and hiccups."

Another example: "With the amount of invasions and petty tyrants trying to declare war, and, worst of all, misplaced paperwork, that Equestria endured on a regular basis, one or more staff members wondering just how their lives had come to this was simply part of the ordinary work day."

Okay, NO idea what is going on with the court now. Licking? Okay, the mystery is set, but I wonder if it has anything at all to do with the intro scene (aside from the phoenix visit.)

Smoking phoenix dust? Oh no, I've seen this before...

"High horse"? Seriously? This was a just a feghoot? Grrr...



Okay, trying to ignore the feghoot aspect, this just doesn't work. The bad grammar in the form of needlessly convoluted sentences kept me from being able to just read through this smoothly, and the lack of any proper setup for the crisis leaves little to enjoy. There are elements here which, if put together soundly, could make for a funny story, but this isn't it.

As with others, review-as-reaction to start with during my tread through...


Some formatting problems with quotes, likely copy/paste problem from an editor.

Airship crash... Nice, I like in media res starts.

She counts "eight" at the start, but ten ponies are named. Uh oh. Also, that's a LOT of characters/names to drop at once. Hope we can keep track of them all.

Luna and Celestia teleported them out of the wreck. Why can't they teleport them home (or some village, etc.)? Oh wait, it says "the wreckage was too far to teleport" But how? Didn't they just teleport out at the last second before the wreck? Shouldn't it be the same distance back?

Hitting quite a few typos/misspellings/etc., but the pace and tension are staying good.

Vampire ponies? Okay, that's a lot of "telling" not "showing" in that reveal. Also, no threat, as Celestia can make day last as long as needed.

As a survival story, I'm not feeling any real sense of threat. We've seen magic in Equestria do just about anything, and this story has yet to set up enough reasons why this situation is special and truly dangerous.

Hallucinations started way too soon, just two days?

Okay, no rest because vampires. That at least puts the pressure on. But... Wait, Luna made them? Okay, interesting, but needs to tie to the story!

Windblow gets uppity that fast? Sorry, hard to buy. Two days in a survival scenario, and then one reveal about "dirty deeds" and he's refusing to work together? This needs more setup, he should've talked about his family getting taken by vampires or something to set this up.

Giant Fortress? Okay. The problem is that it seems like every thing that happens in this story is just pulled out of a hat, with no foreshadowing or setup of any kind.

Okay it hosts vampires in every alcove... then why a paragraph later, are they "expecting to find" vampires if they already know they are ACTUALLY there in every alcove?

Why can't Luna raise the sun the way Celestia raised the moon for a thousand years during her exile?

And... Dragon ex machina. That could've been a really awesome/epic thing, but it's just out of the blue, and deus ex machina is never satisfying. Ember also just explains everything without being prompted.


Overall, a good central idea, but it really needs work to sell me on the danger, and must really set up things before they happen to avoid the "random encounter" feel most of it has.

As with others, review-as-reaction to start with during my read through...

Intro is sufficiently "epic."

Uh oh, poetry sections.

Annnnnd we'e got a rap battle.

Okay, this is feeling like if Shakespeare directed a heavy metal video.

Oh god, what awful zebra curse is making everypony speak in rhyme?

"I have condemned her to oblivion,
And in so doing have myself been damn'd.
My heart is rent asunder, and you would name
This pain, this gaping wound, a victory?"
No, not heavy metal, an Evanescence video. Gag me!

Oh thank god, it's a play! Some respect for the author is returning.

Okay, getting real vibes of Birdman here... which is good.

"Bring champagne and orange juice, and we'll see. I'll need at least three mimosas in my system to stomach your touch that early." Nice line, definitely made me smirk.

Dream sequence... I hope. Working so far.

We know Luna dreamwalks, having her overly explain it to Pomade (while technically correct for him maybe) slows the story here.

"You were the mare in the audience!" this is also obvious to the reader.

Some nice visuals as they walk and talk.

"Luna cuffed Pomade across the ear," that feels way out of character for her.

Luna's explanation of coming to play is overly telling vs. showing.

""Why, Pomade," she tittered." and yeah, that's contrary to how she smacked him earlier. This has also gone on far too long just to say "show me in a better light, please."

The ending is a bit of a pointless wrap-up here.


Okay, overall, the opening was a BIG risk, at least to me. This really felt like overwrought blather, or self-important teenage goth poetry, which in this fandom, is something that happens more often than we probably want to admit. Had I been reading this on fimfic without other knowledge, I would've quit before the reveal that it was in a play, because the thought of enduring an entire story with that level of melodrama is a no-go for me.

That said, once I got going, this mostly worked for me. I think it's a little longer than it needs to be though, and I'd like to see a little less info dumping from Luna in the dream segment, and a little more of Pomade's character, especially his interactions with bloom, which were witty and charming on both sides.

As with others, review-as-reaction to start with during my read through...

Canterlot High but with an "empire" and this wild-west thing? Hmm, tough sell.

Accent is pretty good, not slowing me down to read it, which is what matters.

Still waiting for the hook.

Magic blast? Is this Fallout Equestria, or EqG? Or both? Need setting here, author! Just a description of the place as he came into town or something would help.

I'm calling this "Postapocalyptic Cowboy Noir."

“I don’t think we’ve had ten working cars in Canterlot since… you-know-what happened.” The "we don't talk about the incident" cliche is starting to wear thin.

Friendship Games... okay, at least that's an answer, if I remembered what the plot of that movie was. (It was my least favorite.)

Most of the way through this, and while I get that there is A mystery, I'm not engaged with it. I kinda want to know what happened to the world, but I'm not feeling any real interested in who Clyde is hunting for, as everything has just been him hitting dead ends and "I don't want to talk about it" which doesn't expose the reader to any real info. Even when "the teacher" comes to find Clyde, and says she's seen "that man" they still don't name him. I'm in the dark, author, and it's making this ride less fun.

And it's done...

Okay, I'm still lost. Like really. I have no idea who the schoolteacher is (it's not cheerilee I think), who's holding Clyde at the end (unless it's Sunset) who the murdered pony was he was tracking. or much of anything else. For the love of ***** why couldn't you just have characters uses names like a normal story? Seriously!

I say that because I absolutely loved the narration in general. The accent and attitude for Clyde is wonderful, and the world-building aspects, had they been background only, were fantastic as well. As I said, "Post-apocalyptic Cowboy Noir" and that's really something cool. But the central mystery is written to be so obtuse that, if you don't go memorize the MLP wikia and rewatch the EqG movie this is centered on, it's impossible to follow.

As with others, review-as-reaction to start with during my read through...

Archetypes... I sense meta, but maybe in a good way.

"...sometimes in fun, sometimes screaming in terror." Nice!

Pretty good interaction between Twilight and Discord for the first scene.

Rarity's voice at starbucks is pretty spot on as well.

“Best guess is that nothing happened.” Okay, sensical for Twilight, but no reader believes that after how long the story has focused on this so far.

Discord only does his thing with dreams this far in?

Only mentioning archetypes to Luna now, when it was literally the first line of the story? You've had my curiosity for half the story now, author, but the pacing is sluggish and straining it at this point.

The dress is a nice plot progression, but... it's been like the only one many screens worth of text.

"I was wrong about that, I later learned. He hadn’t given us a gift. He’d given us many." Seriously? Just like that? Page after page after page of "nothing is happening, discord can't affect dreams, etc." and then "oh, nevermind, I'm going to learn later that it is a really big deal." This is telling instead of showing in the worst way!

"No, no. She dreams of eating meat." Hey, that's my story! Flutters knows that's only natrual that some animals eat others! :-)

The oddity of Ponyville is a cool sight, and nicely surreal, but the timing of the reveal is just all wrong.

And... the final scene ruins the entire story for me. *sigh*



Okay, this was wonderfully well written throughout, but the pacing problems really drove me up the wall. There's a great hook early on, then pretty much nothing at all happens for the next 2/3 of the story. The very end gets interesting again, but the reveal is told to us before it's shown, lessening the impact. The final bit suddenly snaps to this weird horror, ruining the blissful surrealism that the rest of the story had built.

So, yeah, this is very artistic, and I absolutely love some of the elements on display here, but the pacing and horrorific ending just sap things.

I'm not sure what to make of this one. It's ponified spam, and try as I might, I can't find anything deeper. The blank messages at the end, and the one full of insulting and cussing just make me double-down on the "hate" I have for normal spam. Author, I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you were attempting, as I don't like reading spam in the real world, much less for fun in a fantasy world.

As with others, review-as-reaction to start with during my read through...

Pinkie sounds like Pinkie.

"And bring thy magic horse friend." :-)

“It all started three nights ago.” ... he says, now many pages into the story. Why didn't it start here?

"All in all, she was bored." Kinda feeling ya here, Sunset.

Lawnmower blade as weapon? Porch, hellish screaming, quiet girl... "Cabin in the Woods" with the "Hillbilly Murder Cult" option I think.

"It was a gem!" For a half second, I had this great hope of a Steven Universe crossover! Alas, no.

"Call me Pie"? I'm... ummm, okay. Definitely need to see where this goes.

"Please, kiss me." What? Where's that coming from? Repressed sexual tension of three girls on an amish rock farm/gem mine?

And the little "innocent" girl is coloring something. Yup.

"The little sister you’ve never even thought of..." but who she just kissed. Who's now looking at her chest and blushing. The underage thing here is squicky.



Overall, the core bit, with the monster, the repressed emotions, etc. all hang together really well. The story has far too much intro though which just delays the good parts, and as noted, the underage nature of Marble pie, and the way the kissing and such is portrayed just scream, as >>Posh said, "BAD TOUCH."

As with others, review-as-reaction to start with during my read through...

Tech manual format... okay author, it's your funeral.

Pretty dry stuff so far. No humor here, nor idea where the "story" is going.

Pictures that aren't actually pictures, but just ascii column images. Why?

Okay, was this a dare? As in, I dare you to write something that will be the driest thing possible to force every judge in the write-off to read it? Like that 23 hour long film of paint drying they made just to protest the RIAA censorship board by forcing them to watch and rate it?


This feels like cruelty to judges. I'm sorry, but at best, this is an exercise in writing jargon. As a prop lying on a desk in a video game or something, that'd be fine. As a "story" entry, it merely frustrates and annoys me to have to slog through this. Sorry author, but you're burning my goodwill by entering this as a story to start with. The hint at the end of "If you know where this is from, it's intentional" and a smiley face implying there's some bigger joke feels like straight up taunting and/or bragging about your own cleverness.