>>horizon
So, just as a follow-up to my enthusiastic pronouncements of entering this round … I, uh, kind of didn't. :( I got home Saturday night and sat down to finish my story and fell asleep at the keyboard. Now that I'm old my body is failing me D:

But! The silver lining of blowing past the deadline is that I got to spend Sunday expanding and polishing my TBD story for a straight-to-FIMFiction release. So I'd like to name-drop Three Letters, currently blazing through the featurebox, and wish everyone good luck with their entries!

(I'm not asking for reviews — especially since my story went well past minific size. I just wanted to offer some closure to the "Horizon's name isn't in the author guess list?" thing.)

>>Haze
Okay, thank you for the explanation. So this grants additional bonus points now that I get the double meaning.

AÏe gote euh goude lafe from dis ouane. So goude djob aussor. Saivingue your aksente from ze stèndeurdz iz very harde, so kipe tolkingue ouiz ioure aksente pipole, if iou donte ouante tou louse ite.
(I got a good laugh from this one. So good job author. Saving your accent from the standards is very hard, so keep talking with your accent people, if you don't want to lose it)

Someone has done his homework by watching DWK's Totaly Legit Recap, am I right? It feels like him, only with a PG rating. I would have called Majin if it weren't the case.

Also, I've never heard of the source >>The_Letter_J mentionned, but it didn't prevent the story from being funny, and optimistic. So it's a big yes for me. (Never thought I would see the day where I would actually enjoy a story with Anon both in the title and inside the story)

I like SoL stories, I like Pinkie Pie and you got these two well. But that's not all, we also have a good cake/friend comparison. The best are Twilight and Applejack. So top slater? Yes, for now.

However, it looks like you didn't have time to reread your entry. Be careful with typos.

(lots of horrible things about myself from insanity making me type redacted)

This is a nice slice-of-life story, and it's very well written.

I have one critique: "Grannysmith"-'s feelings toward the Mayor do a one-eighty in seven hundred fifty, and it feels pretty unrealistic to me. Having her come around just a little bit at the very end (maybe after the conversation even), while still holding resentment for Mare, would have made for a more convincing story that I could relate to emotionally. Here it seems like you're just playing for warm fuzzies and it undercuts the mood and message of the tale.

EDIT EVEN MOAR: This is well-written and compelling. My reaction below is/was flavored by my brain, which is not completely fair. I will probably end up voting on it after all. It's not a bad story, it just rubbed me the wrong way.

---

Hurray! It's great because the kid who died was presumably meaner than the other one! :yay: And it's even better because the other one is permanently crippled. Win/win.

No. Seriously, I don't get catharsis from this, I just feel awful. And I always feel awful, so when I feel more awful it takes some extra-special awful. This is well-written, but this is now the first fic I've ever intentionally abstained on (once I get around to voting).

As for help, two things. First:

Spitshine used to live on the ground, a fact he reminded everyone of regularly at Cloudsdale Flight Camp.

This actually confused me because I thought you were still be referring back to Windy with 'he', given the full context of the previous paragraph (even though the pronoun appears right after Spitshine, it didn't work for me). One easy solution would be to make Spitshine female by using 'she' there (which would also add color), but then from what I understand, it's perfectly fine to bash a small child's skull in with a rock, but only if they have a penis. So I guess that may not help.

Second, I'm not a huge fan of the small-sentence-bookending. I see this on a lot of the minifics that are well written in the Writeoff, and I don't know why the trope is so common among the better authors here. It always stands out to me as an attempt at boldface-type enforced poignancy. In this case it's not quite as bad, because the second sentence adds a new characterization (which is rather good). But still, why not rephrase the first sentence slightly the second time rather than parroting it exactly? You don't need to do that to make it stand out.

Also, take all this with a grain of salt because I am super messed-up psychologically at the moment and need to sleep. As I said, it's very well written.

EDIT: Is the kid Black? What's with the title?

EDIT EDIT: TBD? I guess I can see it, but I have to make guesses. I don't care though my prompt was stupid.

So, lemme get this out of the way right quick, which is that, at some level, having the song here at the end is disappointing. While it is certainly fair to pull in a musical inspiration like that, running it at the end kinda has a dampening effect on the fic, wherein some of the clever stuff is suddenly disappointing because you yourself didn't come up with it. This isn't to say there isn't artistry in taking and reshaping material (we're writing fanfiction here, afterall), it IS disappointing to be like "Oh, that paragraph is pretty cool" and it turns out to be mostly song reference.

Basically, manage expectations!

Anyhow, this is a nice, strange, folksy little tale. I kinda wish you managed to keep up the rhythm and sing-song nature a bit better all through. It is cute but I don't think it gels quite as well as it could. Still, a fun little romp.

I didn't write this, but I almost could have. Almost. It's just a bit out-of-socket* for me, so to speak.

This is one of those stories with whom my primary digression is the fact that I'd have done things differently, and that isn't a fair critique. At the very beginning, you bring up an issue about the 'verse in question that (I haven't read the stories but have gleaned this from contest entries related to them and lots of ponies telling me I should write them because it has 'me' written all over it etc. etc.) bothers me deeply and seems ripe for examination: the fact that the so-called paradise is completely isolated. I can't wrap my brain around that not being a terrible thing to exist within. Everything would seem fake if you know there is only one other intelligence directing things and the intelligence has no personal investment in conversations or activities.

So I was hoping it would go in that direction, and it became a dark comedy, which was cute but that also opened up more unexplored issues, including the morality of the protagonist, and also the issue >>Zaid Val'Roa mentions above (which also stood out to me as a safe and less interesting choice).

All that said, I think this was good for what it was, you just crossed over so many opportunities to make it much, much more interesting and message-oriented that I found it disappointing. I don't think you need to sacrifice the dark comedy aspect in order to be a little braver than this, even with the word limitation. But again, I'm saying this from a pretty high standard, and the story was still cute.

Just remember: making something cute does not remove the thought-provoking aspects of what you write, and that those implications will stick with your readers much longer—even if they were not your intent.

(* If you ever want what you say to make no sense, just make up a euphemism on the spot. :trollestia:)

She's got four anacondas, and they all want some, because she's got buns, hun.

So, I believe this is a reference to the seminal rap classic known as "Baby's Got Back" by the artist known as Sir Mix a Lot. My assertion is further supported by the repeat reference to the hindquarters of ponies as, in the rap, Sir Mix a Lot discusses the pros and cons of girls with "big butts," a fact which he cannot lie about. As horses are quite large animals (and ponies, despite being diminutive versions, are still quite large and thick -- or, as the modern vernacular has adapted, "thicc" -- in comparison to humans), I feel it is not unreasonable to consider that even the thinnest pony would indeed have quite a big butt, thus making for a reasonable point of comparison to the women that Sir Mix a Lot discusses.

Now, as the rap progresses, Sir Mix a Lot describes his distaste for girls without big butts by stating that, "My anaconda don't want none / Unless you've got buns, hon." Now, the wordplay here is difficult to parse for the layman, but allow me to attempt to explain. In this line, the "anaconda" is not actually a snake, but rather another (at least if Sir Mix a Lot is to be believed) large, generally cylindrical object: his penis.

See, in western culture, a large penis is generally seen as a status symbol, indicating not only virility and appeal to potential partners, but, in addition, an overwhelming masculinity. The importance of masculinity in western culture (particularly rap culture) is difficult to overstate, so it should come as no surprise that the largest snake in the world would be used as a point of comparison for one's own penis if they wished to assert, without question, that they were a true "alpha" example of their species.

Which brings me to my point.

WHY THE FUCK ARE WE INDICATING FLUTTERSHY HAS 4 DICKS?

Alternatively that Fluttershy has 4 acceptable ships and they are either all male or futanari, but the other answer is funnier.

More seriously, ehhhh. It's amusing, but I think it kinda undermines itself a bit by doing all the meta stuff (ironically).I dunno, so I get that being odd is apparently the form of Feghoots, but in this case I think it is actually a bit distracting and the story would be better served by staying more "in world" as it were?

Still, a solid punchline.

So, despite the title trying to properly prep me for it, I honestly thought this was an Equestria Girls fic for the vast majority of it. I'd recommend, in fic, signaling it isn't a bit earlier.

This is generally amusing, though the final penultimate joke doesn't really land well for me. It is really out of left field (I get what the connecting thread is, it just doesn't connect well IMO). Beyond that, there are a couple other nits that really jump out at me (if you saw her spending a bunch of money at sugarcube corner, that MIGHT BE WHERE HER MONEY WENT APPLEJACK), but still, it is a pleasantly breezy little read.

>>AndrewRogue
I think the joke is that Fluttershy takes care of animals
she literally owns 4 anaconda snakes.
ba dmm tshh.

this raises further funnier questions of what Dash thinks she's doing with her animals...

>>Haze
Actual snakes would have 0 interest in butts though. Like, as a species, they lack them.

>:|

Not a big fan of the swerve here. It feels really out of nowhere and, honestly, I feel doesn't add much to the story, and honestly kinda detracts from the real nice sense of camaraderie you'd been building up, which is a real shame. You had a real good build towards it. Thinking about it, it also kinda detracts a bit from the feeling of soft closure you had. This is the start of a story, not a story in and of itself.

That said, interactions were nice (though you might want to consider varying character personality from actor personality a bit - it is always a nice touch for some mixture there) and, like I said, you were building quite nicely to a real sense of friendship on the job, come what may.

Solid prose, but this leaves me with one big question: why isn't this a Luna story? Like, I'm not actually sure what Twilight being the primary protagonist here offers, especially considering the ends sets up that Luna is going to be the one to make all the difference. Basically, it feels like this is a first scene to set up the Luna v NMM story.

Beyond that, consider establishing faster that this is alternate timeline NMM, as I was deeply confused for quite a while (how did Luna end up as NMM again?), and I don't think the ambiguity regarding her identity adds anything.

Oof. I think the adherence to prompt weakened this. I mean, it sucks to lose your vision, but the very temporary nature of it kinda reduces the impact substantially and additionally makes it a bit weird that she's apparently adjusted super well to lacking vision in a rather short time. In addition, the prompt drop just feels really inappropriate given the overall tone of the story. It wouldn't matter so much outsides of the WO, but here... yeah.

Honestly, I'm kinda left with mixed feelings. I like the story I thought this was gonna be (adjusted to a problem and dealing with some conflict that came out of it - likely what the future held), but don't actually care much for what it ended up being. I mean, it is still sweet, but the stakes just drop out at the end.

If the viewpoint character gets to know their condition is temporary, don't fake us out with it! A fake out works when the character doesn't know because everyone reacts like it is a real problem, so the emotional stakes are still there. When it is only us left in the dark, we end up feeling like we were cheated, because the stakes we thought there weren't even fake there! If you do want to tell this story the way it ended up, establish the blindness as temporary earlier on so you set up proper expectations.

Now that is a solid build up to a great punchline that only a select audience will get. But hey, sometimes that's all you need when writing.

That legitimately made me laugh.

Cute little story, with a rather familiar shape. The biggest problem is this really feels like it is building towards a joke at the end since this is a somewhat common story and it really feels like they are setting up for an antixlimax, which reduces the emotional payoff just a bit by the time we reach it. Still, it functions.

Nitpicks... sure. I think the story goes on one paragraph too long (it ends cleanly if you end it on her line). Ordering enough doughnuts to feed a half dozen ponies is probably like, a dozen doughnuts, the standard measurement for doughnuts.

Formatting here is actually kind of hard to read because you are inconsistent with how you right align text, particularly with long text samples.

The punchline is also a bit weird. I suppose it could be construed that an "answering machine" is just a pun here, but the fact that he indicates like it is a normally functional answering machine makes that look out of place. If the former is the intent, I'd recommend leaning hard into it.

Otherwise... this is kind of the definition of cute but forgettable. There's some small, smile-worthy stuff here, but it doesn't really feel like any of it is going to stick. It's a popcorn fic.

Solid idea, but I think it is bogged down a bit by loading the actual point of the story into the very end and spending quite a few words on stuff that only tangentially connects to the core idea. Much like I advised in Normal Here, I think you need to focus in tight in a mini to get the most of it. Stick us directly into Spike's perspective and work the scene out from there, rather than the initial EMber materials.

Okay, I’m pitching in because this fic has no reviews yet. I won’t vote, so don’t worry.

This suffers from several flaws. First there is an egregious “falled” that sticks like a sore thumb. We also have fits of the purple alicorn syndrome: “the blue pegasus”, etc. Next, err… the story is fine, but a bit bland, and frankly, I’d rather see RD (sneakly) seek Twilight’s help on this rather than go ranting to Cheerilee.

And the last (meta) line was unnecessary.

So yeah, this lacks both in execution and prose, but thanks for writing! (And remember I don’t vote, so you need not fear.)

As I previously indicated, I’m just reviewing fics that still have 0 review(s).

Ok, first of all I must warn you I’m 110% unfamiliar with EqG, so Adagio’s rambling’s like Hebrew for me.

The prose here is clunky. Example: Twilight clung to a rock, the water flowing all around her… I mean yes, Twilight is drowning, right? So maybe telling us she’s in the water ain’t necessary :P. “Peal” for thunder? “peal” makes me think of bells. Etc.

We also don’t get why Twilight’s fallen into the river and how Adagio has been warned. But that might be me missing contextual info.

It’s a fairly straightforward story, with low stakes, and the execution doesn’t make it very interesting. Not bad, but lackadaisical. (However, I won’t vote so don’t be afraid.)

I’m not sure how this is going to be received by the other readers :P. It’s totally all over the place. Some parts are good (Twilight, Fluttershy), some are bland (Celestia, Pinkie Pie) and some are just gross without any visible justification for it.

Comes across as an example of 1970’s provocative British skit. Rollercoaster quality. Not very memorable, at the end.

I’m sure lot of people will simply abstain on this.

Anyways, that concludes my participation. Good luck to all!

Like >>AndrewRogue and >>sharpspark said, the reveal wasn't a surprise. However, I'll be more measured than them. I've seen the revelation coming from miles away and, even if it could be more punchy, it was good enough.

My main concern is with what >>sharpspark said. They can't draw the conclusion that ponies visited Earth hundreds years ago with these clues. Their knowledge of Sirius being a triple star isn't enough. Many ancient civilisations could pull some impressive feats, but that doesn't mean they got some help from an alien civilisation (unless you're the kind of people believing that the pyramids have been built by aliens).

So yeah, a solid structure a bit rough around the edges. Thank you for sharing.

PS: for anyone able to read French and willing to read more about Dogons, take a look at this book (https://www.babelio.com/livres/Konate-Lempreinte-du-renard/33182)

Well, okay, this is going to be highly controversial I think.

So you write smut, but your first paragraph is entirely devoted to play it down: don’t get mad at me please, I’m going to write icky stuff, but it’s all fictional, you know? So I’m not liable for it.

But are we going to be fooled by this lengthy apology?

Otherwise, beyond the crude, obvious shocking aspect of child rape, that you go great lengths to warn us is not real, what world is this? In other words, whose fantasy is this? The stallion or the filly? There’s a shift in PoV just after the scene break.

So yeah. If we ignore the provocative plot, there’s nothing much to chew on. That’s a bit skinny, no?

Okay, how do I stay calm and polite before this?

First, let's assume you didn't go for a trollfic like Cupcakes or Rainbow Factory. Reading about paedophilia isn't something I particularly mind, only if there is something behind the story. Same for reading about deviant characters. The thing needed behind the story is breaking the norms, showing that your character may be an awful person but he also has good sides. It's still highly disturbing, but at least, it gives me something to root for. You can take a look at Jethro Tull's song Aqualung or The Devil's Rejects by Rob Zombie. Those break the norms, they show how the world is from their POV, and that, sometimes, the rest of the world isn't better than these characters.

Here, I can't see any of these. I thought at first that this was the beginning of a joke, where the stallion was actually the filly's brother or father, sneaking on her to prank her, but no. This is just the story of an adult raping a child, the child enjoying it. What am I supposed to get from the story, aside that paedophilia is an awful thing? I already knew that.

Moreover, the fact that this is all a simulation was maybe a way for you to lessen the terrible thing happening, claiming that "Hey, it didn't really happened, so it's good, right?". No, it isn't. It's still an adult raping a child, and even bragging about how much he/she enjoyed it.

You probably meant this to be a controversial story. Being controversial is both easy and hard. Easy because you just need to do what you did and voilà, there will be people like me to rant on how much they dislike these kind of things. It's hard because controversy is supposed to make your audience think outside of their usual set of mind, taking a new perspective on things and realising that, after all, what they thought was the truth is in fact only a matter of view. I got none of this from the story. It says nothing about the world we live in, for me.

Maybe you just wanted your story to be a dark comedy. Once again, I have nothing against dark humor. In fact, I quite enjoy it. The problem here is that the setup for the joke is very serious and goes for too long before the punchline. I'm already disgusted by what's happening in front of me before even reaching the end of the first part. And when the revelation comes, I can't laugh, it's too late.

Putting all of this aside, your prose is solid enough to have a complete story arc with a resolution. The main problem is that I think your story can't really work (feelings put aside), because the 'deviant' character is the filly but the whole first part is set inside the stallion's POV. So the revelation at the end is jarring. Why did we follow the stallion if the pervert was the filly?

So it's not much of a surprise if I say that this is a big no for me. However, as surprising as it can sound, I still encourage you to write, even if it's about disturbing topics or fetishes. I may never be a part of your audience, but that shouldn't stop you from writing for it. Just don't expect me to keep quiet if you ever do this again.

I enjoyed it, more than I thought when I saw the second person narration at first.

If I got it right, this Flutterbat speaking to Rarity and how hard it is for her to rejoyce in their love, considering her 'condition'. Don't know if this is meant to be some sort of poetry like >>Not_A_Hat said, but the pace definitely plays in the story's favor.

Moreover, the ending is kinda heartwarming. We understand that their relatiobnship (romantic? just friends?) has a way to work. Accepting yourself is easier when you have someone to show you how wrong you are to assume that this part of yourself is bad/ugly/terrible etc...

Thank you for sharing, you'll end up in the very high mid-tier.

I'm on the same boat that the others. This is cute, enjoyable and heartwarming. I have nothing more to add, both for praises and critics.

High mid-tier.

Hm, what to say about this one? I'm just fresh off a viewing of the 1988 film Heathers, so I can't say the darkness or the content matter really bothers me, but I am nonetheless perturbed with the direction in which the story is presented. Previous commenters have been tossing around the words "dark comedy" but I see this more as an exploitation story that's framed with a bait-and-switch punchline to make it have a bit of levity.

I'll go on record and say that I have an unfair bias against twist endings in minific rounds (and fiction in general) in that I think that they largely suck. You're betting it all on one "joke" here, and if it doesn't land, as it didn't with me, you're in big trouble. Because all that remains of this story without that bit functioning is a very drawn out scene of a pedophile meticulously stalking and raping a child. The vehicle for this sort of humor should have been more integrated, not predicated on an end reveal, and to be honest, I don't think the punchline in general works within the context of the story. The joke is built on the subversion of the reader's expectations: we think we are witnessing a pedophile engage in a horrific rape because that's how CelestiaAI constructed his fantasy, but in reality, the person posing as a child is really a rape fetishist, and it is his paradise reality, not the pedophile's.

I mean it's worthy I suppose of a uneasy chuckle simply by how fast the mood is able to whiplash (reminds of a scene in Heathers where a cheerleader and friend of the protagonist is being date-raped in the background of a scene involving cow-tipping and the movie, nor the characters never comment on it once, and that is mildly humorous), but the punchline itself doesn't have any meat to it. I'm not drawing on anything more than "oh the situation wasn't what I thought it was" as the joke. It's the equivalent of a dark one-liner like, "What's worse than a worm in your apple? The Holocaust" except it's drawn out for 747 words and has a detailed account of child rape.

The format and presentation of this story I think is ill-conceived, with the added detriment of dealing with subject matters that a good number of people would find require fine precision to be palpable. I don't find it offensive or contemptible, but I do find it ugly, shoddy, and vacuous.

Your prose has good direction and progresses logically from one idea to the next, but lacks refinement particularly in its structure and verbiage. Ironically, you have the harder part of the process generally solid.

I hope you will continue to explore dark material in the future and express it on in a more nuanced and satisfying method that gives some depth and commentary in regards to the material itself.

Genre: Nope nope nope nope

Thoughts: Child rape that they're secretly into? Yeah, no, that one's firmly in my Hard Nope zone. IMO the swerve takes it over the cliff from dark but with the potential for some kind of poignancy out to just plain exploitative.

I should find a positive. Uhh, the prose is generally well constructed. Yes.

Tier: Abstain

This is a very funny story, but it hinges on the reader having read one of the specific stories from the previous contest. You probably knew when you wrote this that it had no chance to win, but it was a fun read for me.

I was hooked in the gullet on the first sentence of the fourth paragraph. That's too long for a minific, especially with such a great idea (I mean the idea presented in that sentence, not the idea the story ends upon). I would advise starting the fic with the previous sentence, "Even if friendship wasn't an exact science...", and toss the rest. That will give you more horse words to work with, and more importantly it will immediately engage the reader.

Although it's no surprise that Pinkie Pie would live for centuries, you might want to address that by leaving a subtle hint that readers can pick up on.

Spike can fit through the mirror portal twelve-hundred years from now? I can buy that, but I want to know what he looks like. Even though this is cute tongue-in-cheek comedy, Twilight would never do that to Spike—it's completely out of character for her, and that took me out of the story a little.

At the end of the story, I'm left curious about what happened next that we haven't seen yet. There's potential for more humor there, if you're creative.

Thank you for not making the protagonist the green-skinned question-mark-face racist from 4chan.

This is a touching slice-of-life with interesting ideas. The main problem I have is that it suffers from a large amount of telliness. Rather than show us any of the dialogue from the conflict, you narrate the dialogue with second-hoof dialogue about the dialogue. Using dialogue this way isn't usually a good idea, because it results in unrealistic dialogue. People don't usually talk about, "Hay, remember this? Do you want to say what happened out loud?", etc.

There are many different solutions to this, but they require ramping up the degree of difficulty. Probably the most straightforward approach would be to have tiny vignettes between scene breaks, where we can actually see what AJ has to say, how her facial expressions and body language convey her true feelings, etc. I really think this is the direction you need to push yourself toward as an author.

The second-person viewpoint and 'petting' references imply, in fanon, that this is probably an HiE story. But nothing in the story actually suggests that's who the reader is apart from the ultrasound, and that by itself is inconclusive given the large number of sapient races from the show. It seems very likely to me that the protagonist is actually Iron Will. If you want the reader to be human, I think you should give us a little more clue to go on.

I'm troubled by two things in the story itself. First, it seems like nopony opposed the relationship but they have a problem with the pregnancy, which is strange. Any problems with the pregnancy wouldn't be directed at the parents if the relationship were not opposed, they'd simply be concerns for the foal. Second, it's hard to believe that three of the Mane 6 would be offended by Fluttershy for the better part of a year over this, or that Twilight Sparkle (as Princess of Friendship) would allow that problem to continue for so long. You might be better served by choosing different characters than the Mane 6 for this story because the long duration and depth of antipathy here doesn't feel in character for them.

As a transgender woman, the term "gender reveal party" has always confused the hell out of me. :trollestia: But hopefully the baby will be a hermaphrodite, if only to drive Applejack insane. :ajbemused:

This is very well-written and compelling.

The only issue I have is that it isn't a minific. It's the beginning of a story, and it leaves me wanting more: not in a 'sequel' way, but in a 'I don't know what's going on yet' way. You could have supplied an ending, but the story you wanted to write doesn't fit into this format, so you started a story and left it there. I'm left uncertain whether there even is an ending to this story in your mind. Do you know who is responsible for this and what is happening? As a reader, I can't tell from what you've given me whether or not more actually exists beneath the surface of confusion-world.

It isn't clear why Cadance can remember when Twilight cannot, or why she is reluctant out of fear. It also doesn't make a lot of sense that if Derpy is a manifestation of Twilight's thoughts, why she can leave the prison when Twilight cannot. These are issues that could be tied up with a full story, but there isn't a full story here to support them.

Initially I was a bit nonplussed (in the American sense of the word) by the story because almost all of it seemed to be a retelling of Groundhog Day. This didn't change until the last section, because the penultimate section ended with, "What if I put things back together?", which is the main resolution of the book/movie. That statement also doesn't seem to coincide with what Twilight actually attempts to do (use a clever means to make contact with other bubbles).

You're an excellent and creative writer and you have the beginnings of a story here, but this isn't a minific.

Wow. This is amazingly good. I actually didn't fully see the analogy as complete until about halfway through the story (before the 'hoof' reference, but after a lot of text), despite the initial line. I might suggest dropping the 'friends' mention altogether from the initial part, because it's much more interesting for the reader to figure out the analogy without being hoofed it.

The one thing that kind of unsettles me is the one-sided nature of how Pinkie views relationships. She might be deciding which cake best suits her, but making a choice isn't that simple. It involves both parties involved. There's also some Rarijack going on here which seems to further callous Pinkie's thought processes. She isn't thinking at all about what the cakes want, and that's very out of character for who she is.

Genre: Shock comedy

Thoughts: I laughed! I genuinely laughed. It took a while for me to follow the swerve into horrifyingly violent absurdity, but once I got there, I giggled the rest of the way.

The opening paragraph deserves special mention. It's a great moment of something metaphorical doing a surprise reveal as something (basically) literal. It's surprising and unsettling, but fortunately Twilight's friend joke follows with excellent comic timing to help us get our bearings. That's a strong, risky, but ultimately well-executed bit of comedy that hits harder by tipping the audience off-balance first.

From there, it's the ridiculous adverbs that really make this. Well, that and the moment with Applejack's true confession. :rainbowlaugh: If anything is off, IMO it's the lack of screen time for the poison and its effects; what we get is just a taste of the hilarity that seems like it could be mined from that. Also I guess the last line is less than fully satisfying from a plot perspective, although it's basically consistent with the overall comedic tone of OTT massive-incompetence in the characters.

I think this just needs more word count to let things fully breathe, but unlike other situations where I've said that about minifics, I actually feel pretty satisfied with what's on offer here as-is.

I see I'm deviating from the consensus of my fellow reviewers. Alas.

Tier: Strong

>>CoffeeMinion
Here's a secret. Spring Purity isn't a child.

>>AndrewRogue

Ordering enough doughnuts to feed a half dozen ponies is probably like, a dozen doughnuts, the standard measurement for doughnuts.

isn't it 72?

oh. right! normal people only eat 2. that's also how many I eat, every day. only 2.

I have the best quote.

I like the plot and theme of this story.

I think >>AndrewRogue may have missed the switch to first-person coincided with how Trixie's voice shifts over the course of the show, but I think a larger point still holds. Jumping from one mindset to another to another in first-pony past tense is confusing. You'd do better to use present tense in this story, I think, because the cuts would indicate the passage of time so it doesn't seem like Trixie is reminiscing about reminiscing (which is the confusing thing she seems to be doing in this story).

The largest issue here for me is the telliness of the piece. I'd prefer to see snippets of Trixie at the moments of resolve and defeat, so we can see her make these decisions as they happen. This is much harder to do, but the payoff would be huge. Push yourself to show us things, even if what you're trying to show is what's going on in Trixie's head.

I can't see anything to recommend about this piece. I love every bit of it.

Wait, no, there is something. I really want to know about the other Mane characters you didn't mention, if only briefly and not by name (Goddesses of 'blank', 'blank', and 'blank'... where one can infer).

This is perfectly on-character.

For this to work for me, you need Twilight to surreptitiously cast a spell on Fluttershy that will numb her wings so she doesn't notice feathers being plucked. You don't just 'nibble it out', because feather-plucking is very noticeable. The level of extreme you're going for doesn't fit the reality well-enough to sit well with my overly-Twilighty mind.

Also, the extra-spacing at the end isn't needed. I try to avoid double-spacing that isn't section breaks these days, but the story flows well with it as a separate paragraph and nothing more. Right now it looks like an artificial attempt at boosting the emphasis of the resolution.

Cute story!

"The apple is metaphorical."

Despite this being totally un-AJ, I really laughed at this line.

Silversmith and Apple Bloom shared a glance. "Uh oh," they said, at the same time.

I didn't understand this at all.

The ending was fine given how random this fic was, but I think the plot was a little disjointed. I want more connection between the two parodies.

I also want more connection with the show. Why not have AJ borrow the sweater from Moondancer? That would be perfect.

This is an interesting slice of life with some neat ideas. It touches on some important details in the 'what is the rainbow-monkey universe really like' domain, which I appreciate. Unfortunately, I think it teases or opens up more issues than it answers, so I'm still left wondering how things work in that society.

A suggestion for the third paragraph. If you want to say there's emphasis on 'different', don't repeat the word twice. Italicize it the first time, then remove the second instance: the audience will see exactly what you mean. Also remove the ellipses, since the italics will do all the work.

She caught her eyes from narrowing defensively at the thought of some of those individuals.

It really sounds like Celestia is the one doing this (from context), in which case you're using third-pony universal mood. (Also, this aside is entirely non-sequitur to the story because it seems to have no affect on Celestia's thought process later on.) The way you're writing the internal bits makes it seem like you're jumping from character to character in a way that will likely be confusing to the reader. I think it would be better if you kept the reader's eyes to a single character's thoughts. To show the other character's(') thoughts, try to show them with body language and speech characteristics. Show is usually better than tell, anyway, and it's something this story (and most stories) could use more of. Even reasonably-showy statements like 'expertly guised horror' are better if you can convince the reader of that conclusion without being so direct.

The plot is very strange. I don't buy it that Sunset's friends couldn't help her, or that she couldn't become a ward of the state or something by now, no matter how different the rainbow-monkey universe is. Principal Celestia goes from shock to acceptance at the drop of a hat, and as a professional, I can't see Celestia being willing to entertain the idea of shacking up with Sunset even if she did like the idea. It's also kind of a bad sign that somepony as wise as I'd assume Celestia to be is considering living with a teenage girl because she needs a maid. That's not exactly the start of a healthy relationship.

Aside: the intransitive version of 'guise' as a verb is common only to Scottish English (I think?), but I don't think it's a problem because your meaning here is clear enough.

This is nice. The pacing here is perfect, and you set the mood very well. I don't have much to harp on plot-wise or in terms of organization.

You could use a little work on your composition, though this may just be the time limit, and it was mainly in the early part of the story where I noticed some issues. I'm only going to give two examples. First off, in the second sentence, the indefinite 'one' pronoun in the first clause doesn't match with 'her' in the second. You can do that if you break it into two sentences but not as a single thought. Secondly, in the second paragraph, it would be better to stick to metaphor or literalism than to mix the two in the same sentence. I would drop the 'swallowed her sip of whiskey'. Trust the reader to figure stuff like this out—you don't need to hold our hooves. I'm also not sure the microparagraphing is helping you here (i.e. I'd have combined the second and third paragraphs).

All that aside, I do like this story. It fits really well into the minific format, and extends the MLP setting in the best way that fanfiction can: adding color beyond where the show can go, while using familiar characters or ideas.

This was cute and easy to follow. I don't think you need to go overboard to squeeze the comedy from this stone, however, and I think it would be even funnier if it didn't get so wacky at the end. It's harder to do that with a minific, but that's not a problem to shy from.

I think there's a disconnect between the light randomness of the first part of the story (which I fully figured out) and the ridiculously heavy randomness afterwards. You had a good, cohesive story going, with legitimate drama. I think the story would be much better if you'd played the ending straight rather than going off the rails and out of character.

It's hard for me to accept that Cheerilee would act like this, even in a random setting. Toning her down just a little might help. It's not that I'm not a fan of random (although I'm not), it's that random played off the wall isn't interesting because there are no longer realistic expectations on the part of the reader. The world needs some rules, or you lose all suspense and immersion. Look at Admiral Biscuit's works to see good examples of the sublimely nutty.

Doing my tour of stories with low count reviews.

This one made me laugh a bit, but aside from that, there isn't any real bone to tie all this meat. All the parts feel disconnected. I'm sure with a more solid structure, or even a pretext for Triumph to go meet all of the main characters, this could have run smoothlier.

Even with absurd/meta/crack/joke fic, you need to give the reader something to hold onto as he dives into this world of madness.

Doing my tour of stories with low count reviews.

As >>sharpspark mentionned, there is a clash between the storybook tone and the stallion being a bit of pervert. Choose one and keep it through the whole story.
Aside from that, you have you structure, a complete arc with a resolution. What the story says, however, isn't that appealing. I mean it's okay I guess but nothing really memorable. I'm sure this can be improved with some time and more words.

Thank you for sharing.

Actually, yeah, to come back to this with just a couple of suggestions after talking with some people about this fic...

I think this could really work if you put in a subversion one way or another. Like the absurd would be Fluttershy revealing that she's gotta get rid of this dude because he's dealing Butterfly Dust on her turf and best not step if you don't wanna get rubbed out. Or the more show-tone would be for him to wind up in the cottage with Fluttershy serving tea and talking about 'Oh! I don't even know what Butterfly Dust does, does it make their wings sparklier??' while Angel and the bear are giving him death glares and he's scared stiff.

As it is, it ends but not quite with enough of a turn to really satisfy the reader. You're almost there though!

Doing my tour of stories with low count reviews.

I buy the first part. There are some flaws in it (I'll come back to it later), but the premise is definitely here.

I have a problem with the second part, especially with the first sentence.

One week later we had both fully transformed into magical talking pony creatures, just like in the show.

If jarring could be illustrated, this would do greatly. You setup a mystery and in a blink of an eye, BAM, they are now ponies. Okay, I guess? But then, the story ends with the characters trying to figure out a way to alter cutie marks. That's not what you set up your story for. Like I said, you set up your story like a mystery and ending on such a plain things is also jarring; and it deveives what I (and maybe other readers) was expecting.

I'm seeing that you poked some fun at the fandom but this felt too light. I would advise to emphasize on this more or completely remove it.

Now let's go back to the first part. Like I said, the beginning was good and solid. We have some nice interaction between the two characters, like this one:

"Isn't the rainbow dude the main character?"
"No, more like the worst pony on the show. I like Pinkie Pie so much better."
"Good job, you can't even get yourself the right pony tattoo."

However, I have two problems. The first one is that, unless the tattos are not permanent, I can't buy the character not getting mad at having her butt tattooed with the something she finds at best silly. Even if I like the show and the fandom, if I woke up with a cutie mark on my butt, I swear I would kill my friend. Or at least be very angry.
The secone one is tied to the first. Overall, the characters react pretty casually to tattoos appearing on their butt and becoming ponies. Since it is not to be a common thing in the universe you created (unless I missed something), they can't just be like "okay, I got a tattoo now. Okay, I'm a pony now."

Anyway, I would suggest to focus on the first part and expand from it. You can have a nice mystery fic with the characters trying to solve what all this means while they are slowly changing, both physcally and mentally.

Thank you for sharing.

I never got into the story this piece satirizes, but I've read the first couple of chapters so I got the references. As a consequence, I snickered quite a bit reading this entry.

The limited space was used efficiently, the dialog flowed well, and the idea itself was fun and the right match for the story length.

That said, I'm not sure how well it would work for somebody not familiar with the original source material. I'm well aware that such is the curse of parodies, but if and when you'll decide to expand it and publish it somewhere, I would recommend adding a bit more context to it all.

Still, entertaining and competently written, which is quite an achievement in 24 hours. Thank you for the submission.

I am unfamiliar with the source material so the ending left me with nothing.

The rest of the story is quite good, as we slowly see absurdity unwrapping before Twi's (and our) eyes. But the ending, I just don't get it. I'm sure it is funny when you know it.

for this type of joke (feghoot), this story works well because there's so much misdirection going on. when nothing makes sense, you try to latch on to anything that provides an explanation, and there's lots of hooks here that almost seem grounded. for example, Luna appears, so maybe this is all a weird dream? or when Twilight talks about toxic fumes, implying all this was a bad hallucination. then the punchline hits you out of nowhere, and it's all the more surprising because you were looking the wrong way. (whether this is actually funny or not is subjective taste)

it's not easy to build this kind of joke, and I've failed at attempting similar ones before. this is a good example to study if you want to try one yourself.

The characters are well-voiced here, and the story is straightforward comedy without being rude or unnecessarily subversive.

One character issue: I can't imagine Twilight putting up with this for thirty minutes, or Discord doing anything for thirty minutes. Also, why is Twilight allowing Spike to watch disturbing sexual activity for thirty minutes in her study? Why would Spike even want to be there?

The payoff is a little predictable, which lessens its humor. Adding more to the ending could help.

I got confused a lot as I read this. The following is a series of story segments that baffled me until I reread them at least two more times.

Discord asked, his tone wounded as he wrapped his lover in a passionate embrace. "Are you that disgusted with our love?"

This made it sound like Discord was in love with Twilight, and it confused the Tartarus out of me. It also disappointed me because what a great story that could be, with Twilight frustrated but still in love. Either way, you can't say 'his lover ... embrace' if you've only introduced one other character and it isn't the one who is the lover, or you'll confuse your readers.

"On my quills."

And here I thought the author thought that Spike's spikes are similar to porcupine quills.

"I mean it!"

With no italic or single-quote for 'it', this sentence reads completely differently. I thought that Twilight was suddenly ranting about something else, and the "augh" was because Discord just did something terrible to her.

He seemed to take Twilight's enraged silence as acceptance.

Twilight can be enraged, but can her silence be enraged? Only now, and Zen.

Genre: Raaaaaagh-inducing

Thoughts: Author, you wound me. I became engrossed by the beautiful descriptions and quality world building of the omni-paragraph. I was all ready to score this highly while urging you to inject some newlines.

Then the ending made me groan. It's brash enough that it almost pulls off the to-be-continued that you leave us with. But make no mistake, it utterly denies us any kind of resolution for all the cool descriptiveness that's come before.

Tier: Needs Work

Doing my tour of stories with low count reviews.

Good and cute, but the last line is a bit off. It doesn't really is announced by the kind of story you're telling, especially because you show that the first half is in fact a silly fanfic written by Muffins. So I was expecting the story to stay in that field, not going back to the absurdity it starts with. I don't know if that can appeal to others.

Anyway, a solid prose with funny moment with Derpy. Aside from the ending, I quite enjoyed it. My take on this would be to either go full in absurd comedy, or keeping your swtich back to normal things.

Thank you for sharing.

Doing my tour of stories with low count reviews.

A SCP entry. We already had one (maybe several) before, but this one stands out and I quite liked it. It's easier to actually find the story hidden inside the report than in most SPCs reports, and I think it's a good idea. This way, you don't throw an oblivous audience out of your story.

However, there are several little things that I think should have been erased, or have been erased differently.

They begin to search out information about the show ███ ███

There are two erased words where there should be only one. Having two parts gives some clue to guess what it's about (even if MLP is actually 3 words)

How did he even make a app

I think the 'he' should have been erased. Giving his genre isn't something that should appear in a SCP report.
And last, the dates you give are too much for a super secret report. We can understand that this is MLP you're talking about, so there is no need to have the dates almost fully displayed.

Anyway, I'm nitpicking and I'm not really a SCP specialist. Overall, it's good non-story where it's actually pretty easy to find the hidden story. Maybe a bit too easy for some people, but like I said, I'd rather see this way in a Writeoff round, in order to not lose any reader not familiar with SCP's reports.

Thank you for sharing.

Doing my tour of stories with low count reviews.

I understand both what you aimed for, author, and >>AndrewRogue's main concern. It's hard, when you reshape a song and its feeling into a story, to not have the audience knows about said song. You want them to feel the same thing it gave you. Either you left it vague, hoping that someone would link the reference to the others, or bluntly give the link at the end of your fic.
Since you went for the second option, I will agree with >>AndrewRogue when he says that it can ruin the story. However, after listening to the song and carefully reading the lyrics, I will disagree about revealing the source material ruining this story in particular.

The story the song tells is quite a generic one, there is nothing really new or original, so keeping the tone and the overall story isn't that much of a problem for me. Moreover, the changes you made made it fit pretty nicely into the MLP universe. They felt quite clever, and I enjoyed following Gnee and Rosemary's journey, trying to provide all the gloves for the client.

So overall, it's a nice and cute story I enjoyed reading. The story structure, while not original, manages to deliver a premise, stakes, events and a resolution (Unfortunately, this one is not on my slate. I hope you'll make it to the finals)

Thank you for sharing.

I agree that this is simple and straightforward, fits the mini format, has a good structure, and reads well. Good stuff on all that!

The content doesn't really move beyond bare bones, though. I felt like I had already read the whole story just from seeing the title and knowing what Freaky Friday is about. So... not a lot more to say there. Most of the body gives me the feeling that this was more of an excuse to write Flim and Flam and play around with their voice and some formatting tricks... which does seem very fun, I get the appeal.

Overall, we're firmly hitting baseline competence here, though not rising much above it. Good practice and fun stuff. Thanks for writing!

Doing my tour of stories with low count reviews.

Okay, first time I try to review poetry. So indulge me and don't take everything I'll say like if I was the best judge.

Anyway, I can't really much say anything about the metric. I'm still not comfortable enough with English to properly judge that but as I was voicing the poem out loud, I didn't hear anything jarring (except for some rhymes, but that probably comes from the habit of French poetry)

Like >>Not_A_Hat mentionned, overall every paragraph is more or less the same feeling described by Spike. I won't fault you for that, since I do like when something takes its time to explore all of its subtlety, instead of just relying on a few words. Still, I think it needs a progression at some point, and there is some in it, but it felt a bit messed up.
If I follow your division:
-The first part (4 stanzas) is Spike using metaphors to show how he wished his reltionship with Rarity would be, ending on a glance on how it really is.
-The second part (3 stanzas) is Spike comparing Rarity with celestial body to show how much she means to him.
-The third part (3stanzas) is Spike explaining is distress of not being worthy of her, even according to his own standards.
-The fourth part (3 stanzas) has two ideas. The first one is Spike showing he would be ready to leave everything behind to be able to live his love, and the second one is Spike explaining that he is hiding his love and that it's painful.
-The fifth part (3 stanzas) shows that Spike is ready to be nothing more than a hoof sweeper, if only it gives him a chance to be noticed by Rarity.

That being said, every part ends on a repetition of Spike regretting that love between dragons and ponies is forbidden. This adds a nice pace to the poem, even if it's somehow expected to have this kind of things.
However, every main idea in each part could be stronger. We have other ideas melting into each part. Spike hiding his love, for example, is located in the first, the second, the fourth and the fifth part.
Moreover, I would switched the first and the second part. Starting with how Spike fantasize his relationship and following with how much Rarity means to him is a bit jarring. I think it's better to start with what Rarity means to Spike before actually having Spike imagining their love.

I'm realising that I'm making more critics than praises, and this doesn't equal the pleasure I had to read it. It's quite solid as a poem. My advice would be to focus more on one idea for each part, and to have an even more refined structure (like not having 4 stanzas in one part, but keep each one at 3). You have a really great thing here. Rework it and I'm sure you'll have something magical.

Thank you for sharing, I hope you'll make it to the finals.

That was a complete story. This is your review. It is being typed by an insane werewolf.










This is, believe it or not, actually well-trodden territory for comedy. It's not hard to drag it out this long for a minific, but I'd like to feel a little more than I'm getting here. The characters need to be more well-developed beyond simple stereotypes. Something has to change the characters, to make them interesting, so that I can identify with them on some front other than 'gee I hate the author/narrator'. You're not quite there yet. Keep pushing!

I'm with the other comments so far in finding this one "okay, but not great." It has a twist setup without much of a twist, making the setup feel like it didn't go anywhere. You could cut almost everything above the break and have the same story, so it ends up feeling confused between whether it's multi-character slice of life fluff, or a single threaded narrative about the mystery of Joe.

One easy fix would be to just end it on this line:

She giggled, as Joe trotted over to erase the Specials board and write in 'Strawberry-Maple.'

Let it go there, having answered the basic question of what Joe and TBD are about. While I'm not normally a fan of ambiguous endings, I think it could work as a conclusion here to cap off the multi-thread variation of the piece.

If you'd prefer to angle for the single-thread version, then I think the earlier sections could use some revisions to form a shape where Joe having a daughter feels foreshadowed, or at least natural. Add a bit more about the old flame (presumably her mother? I thought the pony who showed up was the flame, until the reveal), let up on the ghost angle a bit (or go nuts and actually do it, as it stands it feels like the ghost bits are hinting at a more interesting reveal than the one we actually get), and see about working in a reason why Joe keeps it private from everyone.

Good use of the prompt, too. Given the circumstances of this particular prompt, I haven't been holding people to using it as I normally would, but you still earn some bonus points for that take. Thanks for writing!

Doing my tour of stories with low count reviews.

Adagio trying to redeem herself by saving Sci-Twi from drowning? I can buy that. What's harder to buy is what >>Monokeras mentionned. We don't know how Twilight fell into the river. Maybe it's because of the fight Adagio mentionned but it's very vague. Why would they fight over the medaillons?
There are also several sentences that I don't get

But you still owe Twilight for that thing with Rutherford!”

“All right, we're coming. Stupid LARP...stupid lucky arrow shot...”

It's over. You're done, you've failed. Just like you've failed to protect her from those bullies and that school's principal...

I understand it's supposed to hint at what happened between the Dazzlings and Sci-Twi but I don't get what happened.

As for the rest, even if there are some awkward sentences, the structure and the prose is solid enough for me to enjoy the story. The complete arc of Adagio pestering about her bad luck was quite good.

Thank you for sharing.

This is very good. I disagree with >>Zaid Val'Roa and >>AndrewRogue about this not being a full story. It has an excellent build, climax, and denouement.

One area that seems like it might use improvement (to me) is that the purple parts are also a little too telly. You don't need to insert that many value judgments from the protagonist, even though the story is about their point of view. Give the reader some of that responsibility, at least.

This is funny! It's also sad. Both are done well.

However, the abrupt shift is jarring to the reader and feels unrealistic to me. That's the big problem here. I don't think you can go this high on the comedy, then shift one-eighty to sad drama when the two aren't thematically related in the story (the relationship is 'narrative' in nature, but not key to the source of the drama—if anything, Starlight should be having moments in this story just like the one Twilight is reminiscing about, so I'd expect this to be funny rather than sad for her). It's too quick of a shift between unrelated elements, without a special gimmick to make it work. In a longer fiction this could be pulled off, though.

On a side note, Rarity would be among Pinkie's favorite 'cornies long before Glimglam. That's unrealistic and also an opportunity missed because it feeds the very drama you're trying to express. "Two of my favorite" would be much more believable here, or even "not counting Rarity and Sweetie Belle" or something else with delicious, hot-sauce-flavored foreshadowing.

Make one change to this and you have a strong contender.

Also either ham it up a bit more at the end (and include a bit more of the song) or a bit less at the start. Not much else to say, this is a laser focus piece doing exactly one thing. Not bad, but needs that one change. Thanks for writing!

Hot damn, this is funny. Obvious, but funny. And I'm a fan of "noodle incident" stories, so I'm not really bothered by the fact that I have no clue how vesting greater power in the bureaucracy leads to the utter annihilation of the universe's natural order.

This'll probably stay close to the top of my slate for a while.

High-concept. Not really much of a story. Not really much to say. Triumph's pretty funny in here, I guess, and a couple of the scenes subvert expectations, so it's got that going for it.

But, again. It's not really much of a story. It's just a few unrelated scenes strung together by the same concept. So, while it did make me smile, I can't see this rising very high on my ballot.

Sorry, author. :/

I didn't like this at all. Circles always spell trouble.

Actually, they just spell OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Wait, so, Derpy wrote a fanfic about her friends staging an intervention for her, which was then read aloud to her by her friends at an intervention... for writing fan fiction.

Too much inception. Brain hurts.

(Kinda cute? Funny? Didn't leave that great an impression, but Derpy's always good for a smile.)

Mmm. I'm torn on this one. On the one hand, it does, technically, have an arc with Twilight getting huffy about explaining teleportation and reenacting the beginning of That Video Game. On the other hand, we never do learn why any of it happened, and most of the text is random comedy one-liners.

I think I'm going to have to be the jaded one again and say that the piece is lacking an overall comedic theme. Are we supposed to laugh at Twilight, or at the (very telegraphed if you know the game) ending, or what? What is the spring where all the jokes flow from and connect to?

It's also very ambitious to take on the full mane cast in a minific, and, well, this piece is a good illustration of why. Just not enough room to do an ensemble effectively along with an external conceit about teleportation and Celestia. Good effort, though, and I appreciate that you aimed high. Thanks for writing!

>>AndrewRogue
This is where I'm at. If you get the punchline, this is fantastic. I'm very, very tempted to just slap it to the top of my slate. Perfect delivery, I didn't see the swerve coming at all until it happened, and while it's just one punchline, that's a very fair aim in the mini format.

But if you didn't read Villainy in the previous Writeoff round, then this piece is going to fall completely flat.

So what to do, what to do.

Well... I just told another similar entry not to explain the joke. And I think I stand by that. So for me, this will indeed go to the top, for the time being. For those who don't get it I suspect it will go closer to the bottom. And by the combination of the two, the piece will achieve its earned rank. Thanks for writing!

>>Trick_Question
This, exactly and completely. Not bad, but it's not a mini, and being jammed into the format pervasively cripples most aspects of the piece. I don't think this can be or wants to be a mini, either. Good idea, but take it back to shorts or longer and put it up on FIMFic. Thanks for writing though!

... is what I would say. Except. Except. I smell a rat, and that rat is named "Companion Pieces."

You're not allowed to write entries based on your own past entries. But as far as I can see in the rules, there's nothing against collaboration in a current round, in the sense of a single author submitting multiple linked entries, or a group of authors getting together and agreeing to write stories about roughly the same idea (as long as they don't vote on each other's.)

And the titles give away the game. I'll be on the lookout for more.

>>Ranmilia
Huh... That's pretty clever. Split your story in two and make each stand on its own.

So, there is something to be said for the fact that the Writeoff is a bit unfair to stories that are more subtle and require nuance, simply because of the nature of the Writeoff. Minimum I'm reading 16 stories and commenting on them, so if I'm busy, even as minis, that's not necessarily a lot of time for each story. It gets worse when you're doing something like trying to clear the whole board before finals, as that really puts the time crunch on, even if I am spending my evenings on this.

This is a long way of saying that some stories need multiple reads to really appreciate, and a busy round like this (for me) is bad time for a complicated story as I don't really have the time or inclination to sit down and do multiple reads to try and parse stuff.

That said, I have tried that a bit here to do multiple reads and the ultimate conclusion I have is that I agree with the above assessments of the likely content and... otherwise don't really feel the value of trying to parse it further is there. Which is a bit of a problem. I mean, the story reads well and has a nice musical rhythm and you can get the sense of it, but the amount of work it feels like it takes to really get at what the story is (probably) about just doesn't feel quite worth it. You can get the general emotional beats fine, and getting past the curtain of obfuscation won't really add anything as near as I can see.

This is not to say don't do this sort of thing, but if you do want, I think you either need to super slam dunk the format (boo partial free verse! :P Nice prose, but I like my poetry rigorously formatted... or my music set to music) or have some really tight, intriguing mystery that I MUST solve.

I... kinda feel several characters are a bit out of character here, which is technically a bit of an odd thing to complain about in comedies. But honestly, Rainbow Dash being bothered about Twilight getting in the way of random work? Not being interested in talking about the new Daring Do book (or not being bothered by spoilers?). Like, it is a little thing, but it legit took me out of the story.

Also other tiny nitpick: Twilight responds to Spike despite him never addressing her in the opening scene.

All that said, there is some definitely cute and funny stuff in here, but it doesn't really feel like it gels into a singular, complete story. Good voicing, though.

What's a "Flutterbat?"

OK, I got someone to explain Flutterbat to me. ... I still don't get it. I'm not even sure if this is about Flutterbat, still. Who's the narrator? Reads kinda more like some things I've seen about Chrysalis and changelings.

Is this a songfic? Poetry?

Yeah, I'm sorry to be leaving a review like this, it feels a bit mean, but... it's just too vague and overwrought for me to get anything out of. This needs a much better hook to become legible. The extent to which I "get it" is that someone is killing someone else, ignoring their screams and pleas, while crooning Evanescence lyrics at them. If I understood what any of the imagery was referring to, it might be effective, but it's all over my head and thus reads as unintentional comedy.

Certainly creative, though. The effort to go semi-poetic is bold, it just doesn't pan out here. I look forward to the retrospective and finding out what this was about, it seems like a piece that could be good with some revisions! Thanks for writing!

I'm facing the same dissonance that >>Posh is here regarding whether this is pre-meditated or not. The ambiguity here is frustrating, because it feels like the story is cheating a bit to have it both ways, structuring itself with conflicting information such that it isn't really possible to reach a conclusion. The progression of thought and the very calm killing and no worries after kinda indicate the former, while the actual character actions (e.g. contemplating bursting up and out of the canopy) indicate otherwise.

That said, solid thriller piece otherwise, but yeah, that is a real frustrating thing.

I'm... honestly left a little confused about the actual thrust of this story. The why, as it were. I get the shape of it, but I'm not really sure why Fluttershy is apparently hardcore gangster here (as seems to be implied, at least) and why her reach apparently covers all of Ponyville. Alternate takes are fine, obviously, but you need to contextualize what's going on a bit. Like, even at teh end, we're left pretty in the dark.

The storybook framework is rather odd, particularly because it actually spoils the ending. This is not to say it is totally untelegraphed even without the opening, but it does assure that we know the punchline, 100%, is coming and the general shape of it. I'd suggest removing that framework or leaning way, way harder into it.

Er... maybe I'm just tired and my brain isn't working right, but the punchline seems confused here?

If she is trying to get rid of the Incredible Spork (which I'm fairly sure is the idea), then the joke (as presented) doesn't actually follow the lesson of the comic. You could argue she's telling Fork that plan so that they can THEN enact a divide and conquer, but you don't actually lead take us all the way there, leaving us with little impact.

If she is trying to get rid of Fork (which I'm fairly sure is not the idea), then the entire first half of the setup doesn't really prepare us for it.

Beyond that, this is just one of those things is so not for me. Goofy humor is something I can be picky about, and a LOT of spoon jokes isn't doing it for me. The comic angle is neat, as is arguably the character of Spoon what with her apparently being in this for her own fame and attention, but yeah, the overall package just doesn't gel for me.

Hm, hm, hm. Solid voicing all through with some decent jokes throughout, but the final punchline falls a bit flat to me, which feels unfair given how often I complain about humor not being quite absurd enough. C'est la vie, I suppose. Not much to say here beyond that.

This one has kind of a weird juxtaposition for me. The setting is obviously different, but the character voices are fairly similar. There's enough differences that I don't really know what to expect, but the piece is too short for me to really establish any expectations, so I just kind of followed it along.

It felt a little bit maid-butlery / infodumping for Twilight to just say what everyone is doing. That said, there were also amusing bits. I liked the 'post bail again this year' bit, particularly.

Also, if Twilight has access to a time machine, I don't see why piddly little things like schedules are such a big deal. Couldn't she basically come back before she left?

>>Ranmilia makes some great suggestions; the different urban legends surrounding Ponut (Dony?) Joe could each have a kernel of truth to them, which, taken together, would hint at the mystery guest at the story's end being his itinerant daughter.

I have no real complaints, though, to be honest. I think it could aspire to a little bit more, but it's fine for what it is, too.

...Is "Strawberry Maple" his daughter's name? Can it be his daughter's name?

Didn't I just ramble about the Writeoff being unfair to more complex pieces?

The prose reads super well and is fun to read at a visceral level, but when I compare to something like Pinkamena's Wake where I also got some immediate enjoyment out of the actual narrative, this feels lacking. Not to say that this doesn't necessarily have a compelling narrative, it just lacks a compelling narrative that is accessible to me in the period of time which I've allotted myself to deal with this particular fic at this time.

A great take on the changeling hive mind headcanon, told in a style that makes this eerie and unique. I'm a little unclear as to why Chryssi's thoughts suddenly untangle at the midpoint (did I miss something...?), but other than that, I'm cool with this.

This is not a POV I would have expected, or a take on that particular POV that I could ever have imagined working. But we've all seen how EQG!Pinkie's mind works, so I guess Pinkie Pie thinking of her friends in cake terms... makes sense. And there's a charm to the way she envisions all her friends functioning in this little metaphor she's put together.

Another great little slice of life... one which made me hungry when I was reading it. Thanks a lot, author.

What the others said. This is solid, and I'm a sucker for stories which feature archaeology (and ancient aliens, though something I consider to be hooey, can still be interesting if it's packaged right), and I particularly like the twist that it's ponies who visited humans, not t'other way 'round, as has been the case in previous writeoff entries.

But the point of it all is pretty obvious, don't you think? Straight from the get-go obvious. The only question I had was whether it'd go with "lost civilization" or "ancient aliens." And, well, that's not really much of a twist, if the reader can both see the twist, and the directions it could potentially go, coming from a mile away. Right?

I enjoyed the twist, though I was pretty suspicious going in. Why look for gamers if you're not after gaming. As >>sharpspark observed, though, more of the humor lay in it being menial gaming.

Outside of the plot, it did have some mechanical issues. For example the title would usually be Luna's, not Lunnas. It would benefit from a copy editor pass.

It also felt like it would've helped to have a stronger scene break between him opening the door and almost nodding off.

This is a really unconventional way of structuring a narrative.

And I love it. I love the recurring gags that come up, the bunnies, and the constant vacillation over whether or not the deer should be sapient. It's great stuff, easy to read, made me smile and laugh more than once. Especially that last sentence at the end.

Like, c'mon, you had to be smirking a little bit when you wrote that.

I didn't get this at all (though I certainly enjoyed reading it; it sits pretty high on my ballot atm), until I read >>Ranmilia's review. At this point, I feel a little cheated. It's hard for me to fully enjoy this story when the context I needed to enjoy it comes from a companion story which I may not have even gotten unless I was diligent enough to read and review every last entry.

To me, that hurts the story, and it might cause it to slip from its lofty place on my ballot. Sorry, author. It's pretty great, and I appreciate that you took a creative risk, but... it's alienated me, just a little bit.

I agree with Trick, I think this does have a complete arc.

However I think it's a bit slow and loses some effectiveness. it spends too much time in the middle, explaining how things went wrong in the past, and it could've used some of that space to make the ending feel bigger, more emotional. Toe Tapper's reaction at the end is the important moment to seal the deal, but it feels like so much of the story focuses on what didn't happen, so the characters feel too passive.

it seems like the pony world is even harsher than ours? not that I have experience with record companies, but I assume they'd still give you a listen even if you're not perfectly beautiful (unless of course you're trying to be a teen idol, where appearance is everything). there's some ugly professional musicians out there. the part where they were more interested in her association with Fluttershy, that I can see happening, and it adds a little depth to this story idea.

>>Caliaponia
Nice to have you back!!!

Poetry.

We're doing this, huh. All right, I'll put time into it.

I wish I could sweep you off you hooves,

Meter: 7-8-7-8, 9-6-8-7, 8-9-8-8, 8-7-8-8 || 9-9-7-8, 8-7-8-8, 8-9-8-8 || 8-7-9-7, 9-8-8-8, 8-9-8-8 || 9-6-7-8, 7-7-9-7, 9-7-9-8 || 9-6-8-9, 9-6-7-8, 8-7-8-8

The scansion is all over the place. Many lines are iambic tetrameter, and some could be forced to be if I assume rough pronunciation, but others are clearly not and I cannot find any set pattern to them. Some are trimeter, some are 7-syllable dactyls, some 9 syllables that I don't even know what to do with.

The first section is four quatrains, all the others are three. Sections are divided by a triple line break, which makes it difficult to parse them. Rhyme scheme is masculine end rhymes on 2 and 4, plus end on 1 and 3 in the final quatrain of each section (w/"forbidden"), except possibly 4th where the poet attempts to rhyme "didn't" and "forbidden."

See >>Fenton for good notes on content. As he and Not A Hat both note, there's little in the way of progression, and ideas blend into one another. After the first section, imagery fades into typical Spike concepts: heavenly bodies, dresses, gems (gem repeated twice). The main conceit of why their love is forbidden goes unexamined.

The standard for Writeoff is narrative prose fiction. That's what most people are familiar with, that's what most readers expect, that's what most authors are here to struggle with and learn about. Other forms aren't strictly forbidden, but I tend to frown on them because they skip out on the opportunities for learning, teaching and quality analysis and feedback - and those are the things I'm coming here for.

Most of the community here does not seem to be very familiar with reading, writing, or analyzing poetry. A few people are (I look forward to Quill Scratch chiming in on this!) but it's not the norm. Because of that, most of the reactions and feedback a piece like this is going to receive are going to be extremely basic and boosted by novelty value.

And so, because of all of that: if you bring poetry (or another unusual form) to Writeoff: my standards are high. I want to see your A-game, I want to see that you've researched the form you chose and know at least the basics of what you're doing, and I want to see the reason why you would choose to do this and submit it to a competition.

Form is the key element of poetry. It's the very thing that sets it apart from prose! So the key question that any poem has to answer is "how is this piece making use of its chosen form to communicate ideas? What does the arrangement of the words say beyond the words themselves?"

In this piece, I'm afraid I'm not seeing much of an answer. It's possible to read in and say it's free verse and this is all intentional to communicate that Spike is immature and something something... but it's possible to do that with any piece, so I'm not really buying that line. It looks to me like the author just didn't have a set form in mind or think about it much beyond wanting to do a Rarispike love poem for the sake of doing it, and winging a few things they had in their head that poems do.

So due to all that, this isn't going to score very well on my slate. I don't think it's a very strong poem. It could be improved by selecting a more consistent meter or form that plays into its themes (perhaps a series of sonnets, those are easily recognizable as love poems to modern audiences?), by stronger choices in diction, by better separation and arrangement of content, and by careful attention to detail (a 418 word poem absolutely cannot afford typos like the one quoted above).

It's possible that I'm missing something, I'm far from infallible or a master poet. And absolutely, my standards for Writeoff poems are my own and not anyone else's. Poet, please don't be sad because scary Ran is thrashing your piece, or think that I'm saying you shouldn't be creative. I know you only had a handful of hours to work on this, and potentially did the whole thing on a whim with no serious goals, and that's fine. Completion is its own reward. A sincere thanks to you for writing. Please do not turn away from poetry, and consider lobbying for a poetry-specific round if you think you'd enjoy Poetry-off! I'd be down!

the song lyrics suggest we're supposed to sympathize with Rainbow Dash. but I felt like the plot itself guides us into doing the opposite.

I liked the first section a lot, because it felt humorous. though why Scootaloo would think Rainbow Dash would be helpful at math problems takes some assumptions, it's not a huge deal. it felt like a funny subversion that Dash isn't too stupid for math, but is taking the question too literally. that's the kind of joke usually reserved for Twilight Sparkle or Applejack, so it's more surprising to see it here. luckily, I don't think it's too out of character for Dash, and I still want to see where this goes.

the second section is a complete 180, because it feels more sad than comedic. Dash brings up the pony cultural stuff, but Cheerilee sees through it as a diversion. it feels so weird because then it becomes a serious discussion on role models and overcoming difficulty. the way Cheerilee defends herself by turning it around to attack Rainbow Dash feels kinda mean, to be honest. I feel sorry for Dash, but am left with the impression that she's wrong and lying to herself and won't change.

the tone is uneven, if this was the intended goal of the story all along. I think it's an interesting question for a story to ask, but the execution here doesn't put me fully in the character's head to get follow along with the answer. when it comes to Dash admitting her feelings, how she can't deal with certain things because she feels stupid, it's very vague! I can't tie it to anything specific, besides her having trouble with Scootaloo's homework. I get that she wants to weasel her way out of it with excuses so she can still look cool, but if this is re-opening old scars from her past, I want to see that past so I can share in her pain. (e.g. the bullies in the Sonic Rainboom episode show up to remind her that she's always felt a lot of pressure to impress everyone, not just her friends)

this is all my guesswork on the intent of the fic. I think there's a good story at its core, but the writing needs to focus on that.

>>Monokeras
Thanks :)

Doing my tour of stories with low count reviews.

I'm with >>Ranmilia and >>Haze. For the whole duel thing, I was in, waiting to see how the tension would break. Would you go for a switch or will you just continue what you built the tension for?

You aimed for the switch and I don't get it. They name something, but is it related to what the other said before? Is it related to what's surrounding them? Or maybe something else? I can't figure it out, and unfortunately, it isn't a negligible part of your story. Thus, I couldn't quite enjoy it. Make it clearer and you'll probably end up with something great.

Doing my tour of stories with low count reviews.

Basically what >>Ranmilia said. A good twist of the overdone sad Celestia trope. While I was more surprised than amused, I must recognize that the execution is quite solid.

Now I wonder if this sentence was a clue for the twist:

What once had been loud gossip had faded to whispers, and then simply myth.

Because it felt so much like LotR.

I like this story a lot. Very creative and fun, and totes on-character voicing. A few points follow.

"...checking off a list of spells I could cast with Spike..."

Hello, dangling participle! (Which spells do you need Spike in order to cast?) :derpytongue2: Seriously, this isn't pedantic: I did read it that way, given the context of Spike being present during the Duel.

I don't think 'street-fighter' is a good backstory for rare-talent magery. That's like taking a gun to a knife-fight: you don't need to get good at it.

Now for the ending. I actually get it, but even for me it's very obtuse and took a little thinking, and this makes it less satisfying. Your audience will undoubtedly be confused unless they are Titanium Dragon, which accounts for the previous reviews. (And if you wrote this for Titanium Dragon you forgot to make Flutters weep. 'S-weep 's-weep 's-weep 's-weep.)

If you expand this story a little past the format, you'll have room to explain the 'calling' with a mental flashback or two. That could make it work, and I hope you do so because I really like the story! Just remember that too much cleverness becomes worthless when it goes over the heads of your readers.

Example here.

...And that's it?

I dunno, I kinda agree with Posh. This feels like a story that you came up with a bunch of neat ideas for and then just threw it all together without actually adding a plot.

The general mechanics are good here; the sentence/paragraph level stuff seems pretty solid, the characters mostly feel right, it reads fairly smooth, but in the end, it just kinda whiffs by.

What it's lacking, I think, is narrative. Which is a pretty simple idea, that basically boils down to something like: Event A causes Event B causes Event C. In this story, wanting cutie marks causes the CMC to get into "Adventure Capitol", which causes them to meet some investors, which causes... nothing? Two narrative events, with no real conflict, makes for a pretty weak plot.

Well, stories can get by without narrative if they have something else to lean on... jokes, pretty words, philosophy, a theme, but yeah. This feels to me like it's lacking narrative.

Also, being able to type again is wonderful, even if I do have to hover my hand awkwardly over the keyboard!