The ending seems to suggest 'Pinkie is actually depressed and hiding it' which, to be honest, is something I could buy. The problem is that you're not selling it hard enough in the opening. We have a lot of description of trees and snowflakes and things, but the only hint of melancholy is that fading smile, which is almost immediately offset by a rush of adrenaline and a wild grin.

I dunno. Maybe I'm mis-reading this? I kinda feel like it's trying to go a half-dozen directions all at once, and not really nailing any one of them.

Oh, also, that huge first paragraph put me off a little. If you revise, consider trying for a better hook.

The joke in this story is amusing, but unfortunately, it really only has one joke. Up to that point, everything else in the story is pretty straightforward, and there isn't a lot to drive the reader forward. 750 words is a lot of buildup for a modestly amusing punchline, and so this story didn't grab me.

I also was lost during this story. I sense it's supposed to be metaphorically conveying something, but I can't tell what.

This one felt super anti-climactic to me. The opening felt really dramatic, so I expected an equally dramatic reveal; first I thought Celestia might actually be Lilith then maybe that it was Twilight, then I got this whole 'as you know, Bob' paragraph that explains Lilith turned into whatever let's ponies dream.

Which... felt a bit less than satisfying to me.

After re-reading it a few times, I think the 'reveal' of who Lilith was covered up the 'reveal' that she didn't actually reform; she totally intended to curse the ponies but they turned out somewhat okay anyways, plus they can dream now. But... that doesn't seem like something that should have Celestia choking up, or something that she'd have serious trouble talking to Twilight about. Her motivations feel off, I guess is what I'm saying.

Anyways, it's pretty good? I feel like it's trying to be really ambitious but not quite carrying through on it though.

I need to +1 most of what NAH said. This story left me more confused than enticed, and as of the end of it, I'm still very unclear on what's going on.

>>Not_A_Hat

This feels more vignette than story to me, which is kinda odd, given that it does have a fairly clear arc; disappointment -> confusion -> excitement? The thing is, the ending was quite clear, so my mood never really changed from 'cringe' the entire time.

The Elements of Cringe!

But yes, while the execution here was technically competent, I didn't really see what the point of this story was. It made me vaguely uncomfortable, but it didn't seem to have much to say. Crazy people are crazy and lie to themselves, sure. But where is this going?

For the beginning, it was unclear what the tone was supposed to be. It felt lighthearted during Twilight’s introspection about Celestia, but when she noted that Rarity’s eyes told the truth, I wasn’t quite sure if it was a playful truth, or an angry truth, or what. It was ambiguous to me until Rarity’s older age came up.


Twilight’s inner voice is mature, but not jaded, which I find 100% believable. It’s definitely a step up from most fics I’ve read where she’s eternally neurotic and has the mind of a teenager stuck in the awkward phase of alicorn.

Rarity was a great choice for a conversation partner, since almost every other non-alicorn character (except maybe Fluttershy) has the social nuance of a chair. I don’t think the dancing around the subject would have worked with any other character.

This story had no real payoff -- it doesn't conclude so much as just end. That said, the journey was pretty funny! Rarity's antics are well realized, and Cadence's dull reaction to them is equally well portrayed by the narrator.

Good job!

Great start, but it got very telly at the end.

If Celestia talked to Luna without addressing Lilith directly, the information could have been sprinkled through back and forth dialogue instead of being dragged across the reader’s metaphorical face parts. The word limit would make that difficult to properly execute, though.

All in all: very neat premise, okay execution.

While the joke in this story is funny, again, there's really only one joke. I smiled in the beginning once I realized where this was going, and the thought of it was greatly amusing. But by the start of the third repetition, things had become a bit repetitive, and the feeling of joy had cooled. I think you need to either shorten this (strange as that sounds in a 750 word story), or add a bit more variation to each repetition.

This feels like the set up to an amazing story. It’s got everything needed to hook a reader in and make them want more. When voting ends, I highly encourage you to expand on this.

On its own, however, I can only give it 11/10 instead of the 13/10 I want to give.

The two perspective/scene structure does the job of getting across both sides of the problem, and the title gives a huge clue to our broken couple's identity, if it wasn't obvious. Also, nice implication that the aftermath of the Invasion left Shining fundamentally broken inside. That's the sort of thing that just talking about it might not fix.

But seriously, both of you dumb ponies should still just talk about your feelings..

I’m one of those for whom the humor missed the mark. This is standard RariJack denial, mixed with CMC escalation cringe humor. The author used skill to assemble it, but in the end there’s nothing here that’s surprising or shocking. I’m just a jaded old grump, I suppose,

I really enjoy the quiet, contemplative feel of this story. I love how understated the connection between Cheerilee and Snails is, and how Snails's own method of contemplating the universe mirrors Cheerilee's choice to stay at school well past the closing bell, the implication that the latter is her own equivalent of Snails's not-quite-fishing.

(It's also about Cheerilee, and we've well established that I have a soft spot for her)

That said, I have some qualms about the style and presentation -- the "if somepony had looked at Cheerilee, they would have seen _____, _____, and heard _____ mounting ______ in a reverse ______ fashion whilst playing the ______ and eating _____-flavored pizza rolls." It bogs down the prose, which already kinda suffers from being overwritten and wordy in some places. Case in point:

the only one but still favorite schoolteacher nonetheless,

I'm also not sure about Snails referring to himself as "retarded," which feels way too on-the-nose for my tender (dare I say, posh?) sensibilities.

I still think there's a lot of charm in this story, though. Middle-tier, and a pleasant read. :)

Wow, low turnout this time.

Roger, weird issue I've been having for a couple months now. When I log in, the browser just churns and churns and doesn't do anything, but if I click on any links, it does take me there and shows me as logged in. Or, understandably, if I hit the login button again to see if it just needs to try the process again, it takes me to an error message saying I'm already logged in. This only started one or two write-offs ago. I'm using Chrome on Windows. I don't think it happens on my Linux machine at work running Firefox.

Any of you folks planning to go to Bronycon this year? I'm curious to see who is, and it's relevant to my interests.

This reads less like a story, and more like the summary for a story. The Cliffnotes for a fanfic about Rarity having a bad day, trying to find and smooch Applejack.

There's not really much time (or space) for the story to wrap up, either.

>>Pascoite
Stop using Chrome. Chrome is evil.

I’m not going to BC, but I’m certain you don’t care! ;)

Very competently written, and touches on the difference between knowing and really understanding that your friends have different obligations as they get older. It's not something we see a whole lot of in the show proper, so it's a nice choice of topic. I agree with 2Merr in that Rarity is the best choice for this, as she's the only one who really gets how to dance around topics tactfully.

Very engaging piece. I like the way it explores the nuance of Applejack's experience at these events. I think that was a wise choice to focus on in a minific round, because that's where these tiny stories seem to shine - examining the little things to figure out why they're so important.

Still, I can't help thinking it might have been more true to Applejack's character for her claiming to have had a wonderful time to be the truth, though. It would avoid Applejack having to lie. Another advantage would be that it would heighten the intensity of Applejack's emotions for Rarity if Rarity having enjoyed herself was all it took for Applejack to honestly feel that it really was a wonderful evening.

But that's the author's call, not mine, and I enjoyed the execution either way. So good job.

>>Pascoite
I just tested the site on my Chrome (v63.0.3239.132, Win7 Ultimate) and everything seems to be working fine. Maybe an addon or plugin interfering with the site script? Or perhaps it's in need of updating? Typing chrome://chrome in the address bar will take you right to the update button.

I use the Chrome OS and browser at work -_- Eight hundred odd machines, all Chrome all the time.

I am making every effort to attend BronyCon this year. Saving up for my not-getting-paid Summers is always rough even without travel, but progress so far is favorable.

A lot of the prose and dialogue in this one didn't really have a natural feel to me. Certain things just feel off or awkward about the phrasing, causing the sentences to trip on themselves. I think these stylistic issues were a factor in preventing me from really feeling the logic in the explanation Snails offers - the presentation doesn't feel intuitive and natural, which carries over into underlying feel of the characters and their expression.

I think the concept is there, but it's held back by the execution. Try to clean this up; make it flow with more natural prose and realistic dialogue and clarify how it uses the prompt, which was another point of weakness - the river element is there, but not much is significant in the way of lies.

Some points for Cheerilee counting primes, if only because I have a bit of a fetish for those, and more points for her having to deal with persistently annoying children. Kids are just, eww.

And a very nice subversion of our expectations about lying. Bughorse grabbing the report because it was "so full of love" was hilarious, too <3

I got a giggle out of this. Kids being kids, trying to jump to conclusions based on things they really don't understand yet, is almost always comedy gold, in my opinion. Scootaloo feeling left out of being a wed-in princess was a nice little emotional moment.

Could probably use a little more polish on the timing, but I can't point out exactly where I feel a mis-beat, so grains of salt and all that.

I believe you could resume why the whole story didn't work for me with a small part:

like that of a punchline waiting to--

"Because... as it says down here in an astoundingly small typeface, in dark-purple letters on a black background... this is, and I quote, 'a novelty item, not for official use. Flim-Flam Assn. Co. is not responsible for any consequences stemming from the attempt to use this as a legitimate document of any sort...'"

--punch.

That bold part is too long. We're waiting for something, a payoff or simply the next part, but we have more than 50 words before finally having the ending. That's too long for the payoff to be effective. I believe half of comedy is about timing and this one falls just short to use a good timing. There isn't much work to do aside from that, the setup and the joke it is supposed to tell sounds funny enough.

>>Pascoite
I would love to, though I'm thinking 2019 might be more feasible than 2018.

Meanwhile, you (and others!) should check out Ciderfest!! It's probably an order of magnitude smaller than BronyCon but it's tons of fun!

It's cool, in a self-sacrificing, false-flag-gone-right kind of way, but there's not a whole lot of narrative arc or emotion packed into it in spite of the stakes and cause. I feel like just a little taste of the tribal tension that forced Luna's hoof would spice up the beginning, too.

Seconding 2Merr here, in that there's a brilliant opening to something possibly grand here. But, Hat also has a valid point. I can't see any of the princesses, especially Twilight, let more than one guard get his brains scrambled before at least attempting some other prison method. Tartarus, just off the cuff.

Otherwise, wow..

"I'm drowning in a river of LIES!"

roll credits!

Applejack smiled. “What’s poppin’?”

I'm not sure that I ever thought I would hear Applejack say that string of words.

That intensely frustrating moment when you realize the Writeoff you intended to join passed by while you were blinking.

Very nice:

The only suggestion I could make would be to have Dash at the end acknowledge in her own mind that bringing a kid who can't fly up onto a high cloud and then falling asleep maybe isn't the best idea in the world. Give us a little more internal growth from Dash, a little waver of her suddenly thinking about what it means to be "the adult" in this situation whether she likes it or not. Good stuff, though.

Mike

I'll focus my comments:

On the voice. In the show, Igneous and Cloudy both use "thee" and "thou" when they speaks, and I can't imagine them using modern-sounding phrases like "screw up" or "get out of there before the waterworks start.." I like the sentiment of the story--that Igenous loves his daughter even though he doesn't understand the pony she's become--and using the character's archaic language, I think, will help convey that sentiment much more strongly.

Mike

I find the character exploration here very telly, because there's not much in the way of story that would provide an avenue for showing.

As a result, the examination of Celestia's character feels overwrought and forced. The idea that she suffers is being pushed, rather than being crafted behind the veil then allowing it to be discovered by the reader in the natural course of exploration. This pushing is about all the piece consists of, and as such becomes rather monotonous, even with the short wordcount.

Minor style nitpicks: I'm not a big fan of the sentence fragments that are heavily present here. They have their uses, especially sometimes as single-word expressions of a character's thoughts or perceptions (for example, in the first paragraph, "Awaken. Raise. Primp. Preen. Regalia. Smile, smile, smile. Words, smiles. Calm. Hope." was very effective), but my feeling is that it can be a bad habit to overuse them, especially when something really should be expressed as a full sentence. Often this can be fixed by just changing or adding one word (for example, "More and more hope gifted unto others." -> "More and more hope is gifted unto others.") and just makes the prose flow so much more naturally and with less stilt and disconnect.

What's good: not trying to fill all 750 words just to have 750 words. I know I said earlier that this piece gets monotonous, but at the same time, I don't feel that it's too long for what it's trying to accomplish. It gets there and knows when to stop, and the ending, I think, is just right with those last four words.

The ending, unfortunately, fell apart with:

There was an invisible, increasing tension in the air, like that of a punchline waiting to--

...

--punch.

This is way too on-the-nose. The reader shouldn't need to be told the punchline is coming, they should just get hit with it.

I also found it dissatisfying that the explanation is a simple and obvious scam. For one, Blueblood should be thoroughly enough aware of how property and resource rights work to know that such a sale is implausible and to perform the due diligence - actually, that research and Blueblood trying to use what he finds out to maneuver and rationalize and parley some sort of concession for himself out of the supposed "sale", even if it's legally muddy, could be a pretty interesting story. But we don't get to see any of that, and I really wanted there to be some clever reasoning going on here for Princess Celestia to grapple with.

But the bit of letdown with the ending aside, most of what's here leading up is pretty good. The technical aspect to the writing has a few very minor rough spots, but is mostly solid.

I... don't know how much the title is supposed to describe the story, because, and I apologise for my words, this is literrally a bad romance fic. I can almost see this image. And I think the reason is that more than half of the story is just recall of past events. Rarity has a bad day, and here are the reason why, blahblahblah, and then pouff, Applejack is here, and then they kiss.
The only things Rarity does before meeting Applejack is walking home and sighing.
As my esteemed colleague >>Not_A_Hat mentionned, it's not really satisfying. Not because she hasn't worked for her love, but because she almost didn't do anything to simply exist as a character.

My (probably bad) advice would be to take everything that happened in the past of the story and to make it happen in the present of the story. This way, you'll have your main character acting instead of enduring the story (even if the story is indeed about Rarity enduring suffering).

Even a headcannon story, I can buy it, you don't really have to sell it hard to me. Problem is that I don't know how Luna's sacrifice will help Equestria. And having the characters repeating that it's important, that there is no other way etc doesn't help either.

In fact:

“Will they buy it?” Celestia asked, softly sobbing.

“They will. They will see you as their savior. You will have rescued them from a peril so much greater than what they protest against now. Their cause will seem petty, vain. They will adore you, worship you like a goddess. Of course, they will hate me more, if that is possible. But then they will forget. Oblivion will shroud my figure in murk, and wipe the slate clean. After a thousand years, the time will be ripe for me to rise again.”

Those are awesome lines on one hand, but on the other hand, they feel completely stupid. It's like Luna is hammering the idea in her sister's mind, instead of giving an explanation. Thus, her action seems pointless and stupid. I almost expected a line towards the end explaining that Luna has lied and that she planned the whole thing in order to enjoy a long vacation away from all her responsibilities.

And I understand that explaining a political situation that ends up in a civil war where the only choice the princesses have is for Luna to be banished to the Moon is something hard to fit in 750 words (I'm even wondering if this is possible), but, unfortunately, without that explanation, the story can't work for me.

This jumped to the top of my current slate very quickly. It's fast paced and short, yet I feel like AJ's frustration and subsequent joy from the party comes across crystal clear and perfectly believably. There's just a hint of minty shipping to make it all go down smooth.

Well played.

>>Rao
So it is. I whitelisted this site on adblock, and it works now. Strange that it only started recently causing problems.

>>CoffeeMinion
BC is the only con I attend because I can get in free for doing a panel and it's close enough to commute. Basically, it's not worth it to me to spend much money to go to a con. Three days of gas money and meals is fine, but a hotel room or long-distance travel isn't.

So, we start off with the ceaseless teacher leaving late and bumping into a student doing some wee baby child soul searching. 100% on board. Snails then absolutely backhands my immersion out of the story and into the stratosphere:

I’m retarded so there are a lot of things I don’t get

It's incredibly abrupt, and it feels really unnecessary to justify his general confusion and being contemplative in an unusual fashion. He's a kid. They do weird shit almost by definition, and coming to terms with death is a rite of passage every kid has to go through.

Maybe I'm over sensitive because I work with kids, including special needs classes. At any rate, that authorial choice notwithstanding, Snails and Cheerilee interact well. Sometimes all an adult can do is be a comfort while a kid figures things out on their own. The opening and ending "if someone walked by [...]" make for almost fable-esque bookends, though I agree that they could be a little cleaner.

>>Winston
The fishing pole is kind of a lie to the fish. Maybe to the universe, too?

I'm having a little trouble buying this particular dynamic from this particular couple. I can get past that, but the lack of an actual narrative (as opposed to these two segments of introspection) make it difficult for me to invest anything in the piece itself. The prose is lovely, and the feelings genuinely moving, but as there's no story to contextualize it, it's just so many pretty words. Know what I'm saying?

I hate to play the comparison game, but I read this back-to-back with Changed. They're similar, conceptually, in that they're mostly romantic introspection, but this one uses a narrative, a story, a sequence of events, to contextualize the protagonist's emotional journey.

And that's really what I'm looking for in a piece that's primarily about a character (or characters') internal development.

The fact that it's damn lovely helps, too.

Pinkie Pie's homesick? Depressed? The tree symbolizes her childhood, or... something she's lost/left behind? It'd be easier to parse the intended message here if the dialogue carried even a hint of a double meaning.

It's a pretty piece, however. Middle-tier. A greater sense of clarity regarding the message/theme of the piece'd help.

Structured well. I like Iggy's emotional journey over the course of the piece. Ends in a nice place, and a nice way, too. Iggy comes across as a bit of a heel, given that his stance on the subject hasn't changed at all, but he's biting back that part of himself for Pinkie's sake. That kind of internal conflict is something that I can at least appreciate.

Some of the specifics of the story seem awkward to me, though. In conflict with themselves. Apparently, the entire Pie family visited Pinkie, one by one, but none of them said anything to her...?

I also think the last paragraph is unnecessarily wordy, relative to what it's trying to convey.

As much as I like this (though it manifests an issue that I critiqued another story for: the lack of narrative to frame the protagonist's introspection on), I'm going to have to abstain on it. I'm certain enough of the author's identity that my objectivity is compromised.

Hmmm. I get that this is supposed to be in crackfic territory, but I didn't really lock with it. Maybe it's just that 750 words is a bit too short of a ramp-up to create the needed buy-in about how a character would rationalize to themselves what an objective observer realizes is lunacy. Maybe it's just that this is Twilight, and it's too hard to see her easily becoming this kind of politician.

The comedy is there and it works fine, but the premise doesn't lend the narrative support it needs to really be golden through and through.

Depressed Pinkie is depressed. Why? We don't know, and that's a problem for me. You see, because Pinkie isn't described as a depressed pony/human (it's quite the contrary), I need to know why her personnality is now the opposite of what I'm used to see. The only reason I can't really say that she is OoC is because it's something I've seen many times, so I'm starting to get used to it.

That's too bad because the rest is quite solid, and pretty great. The first half especially has this slow pace that helps describing Pinkie's feelings, but like I said, without a reason for her to be depressed, I can't really connect with her. And the second half feels a bit disconnected with the first.
If the focus of your story was supposed to be the people that smile despite their anxiety, I don't really see the point of the first part.

Whatever it is, there is only a bit of work to do here, because the core of the story is here.

>>GaPJaxie

Just echoing Hat and Jaxie here. Well written and executed, but not very ambitious. It set a low bar and cleared it easily.

That probably sounds a bit like a back-handed insult, but there are plenty of stories on my slate that set high or low bars and failed to clear them either way.

Regardless of not being the kind of stories I often enjoy, I feel there is a huge pacing problem within your very first paragraph. You start with very short sentences ("Sunrise. Sunset.[...] Awaken. Raise. Primp. Preen."), with some of them a bit longer ("Days and days and days in which cycle is maintained." ; "More and more hope gifted unto others."), which is good, because it prevents the beginning from being boring and 'predictable'.

But then we have that huge sentence to end your first paragraph ("Happiness springing forth from the well of myself and washing forth to the rest of Equestria, a font of life and smiles and friendship and more, rebounding upon itself and growing ever more potent, sweeping pony after pony into Harmony's ever-deepening sea.").
This last sentence completely breaks the pace you've just settled earlier. I would have probably not minded if this sentence was detached from the others, standing as its own paragraph, but since it is attached to the others, it is supposed to form something coherent visually, and that break in the pace destroy that consistency.

>>Pascoite
Well, I guess that's a difference then; my family and I love doing the con thing. :-) Maybe we'd do it differently for cons that came near us, but we're (sometimes figuratively / sometimes literally) stuck in the middle of a huge frickin' corn field.

Genre: Waiting For Ponot

Thoughts: This is entirely functional as a scene. As a story, though, I find myself wanting more conflict, change, or background. Why do these people believe the guy? What have they gone through as part of this? Surely there's some measure of doubt or dissent--even in the guy's own head?

Again, this is extremely functional as a recounting of stuff happening. It's just not as fully-fleshed as it could be.

Tier: Keep Developing

Genre: Awww

Thoughts: Hm-hmm, it seems there is some damning with faint praise going on here. I can see that, I guess; this is a simple little scene that hits some strong emotional notes but then largely backs away from the deeper things that it begins to evoke. There's both strength and hesitation on display here, though I think the slightly haunting element at the end helps it considerably.

Tier: Almost There

>>Not_A_Hat I think you're being just harsh enough. This is eerie, with some sharp dialogue and a wonderfully written Chryssi, but the specifics of this scenario just aren't fleshed out very well. Twilight, in general, seems to treat Chryssi more like an unwelcome roommate than an imprisoned archvillain, and I'm not too sure what to make of Chryssi's "half-truth" here.

I'm not sure there's enough context to effectively glean what's going on.

Genre: Daybreaker

Thoughts: Similarly to another story I reviewed, I feel like this is very functional as a brief glimpse into Celestia's inner struggles, but it doesn't quite resonate for me as a story. This feels much more like a journal entry, or a confession — and I think it would be interesting to see what might happen over a progression of those, or if one character or another became privy to those and tried to use them for good or ill. But on its own, as it stands right now… I feel like it just needs something more, though I'll apologize and say that I'm not quite sure what that is.

Tier: Keep Developing

>>GaPJaxie
>>2Merr
Funny, I feel it was pretty obvious who did it from Big Mac's story. I mean, it's more or less a retell of Three's a Crowd with Discord's motivations being different.
And it's a nice retelling. The only problem I have is with the ending, it lacks a bit of punch, and I don't know how to improve that.

This left me feeling “meh” more than anything. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good. The dialogue felt unnatural, especially Blueblood’s parts. He’s basically laying out his complete version of what he thinks happened with very little prompting. It might have been better if he had actually seen the changeling steal the cake, which would give him a solid reason for being so willing to spill his guts about the whole thing, causing Celestia to think he’s making up a crazy story to cover for himself again.


The lack of commas is a minor issue that can be fixed with a prereader or editor, so don’t stress about that too much.

I’m 90% sure this is intended to be a comedy, but it lacks one major thing: excess. When going for humor, go all out. Try to squeeze a funny out of every single letter. The descriptions for Cadance—and partly Blueblood—are wasted words that add neither humor nor plot.

Both Blueblood and Cadence were good foals generally speaking. They were both kind and inventive in their own ways. Cadence was very good at skipping rope, making friends and painting. Celestia thought the hoof print turkey she'd made was rather nice if messy.

Blueblood on the other hoof was her opposite. He was charming and usually reserved unless provoked.

Removing these sentences wouldn’t affect the story at all.


It’s decent conceptually, but the execution falls short.

The first part got a smile out of me, but it slowly faded as the rest of the story turned out to be nothing more than repetition. The punchline arrived with the first trophy, so every following one serves no purpose.

If the rest of the trophy stories were removed, I honestly don’t know how I could stretch the remainder out without resorting to repetition or just fluffing up sentences, so I don’t think it’s a problem of execution. The problem is the premise not being big enough for anything more than a couple paragraphs. This would almost be better served as a single scene in a different minific.


Basically: You did what you could with a weak premise, so I don’t think your skill as a writer is being showcased properly. With a broader scope (and a higher word limit), I doubt you would have any problems.

The ending is lackluster, but there’s quite a bit here that I like. I have an unhealthy attraction to mid-sentence flashbacks/memories. It’s a problem I developed at a young age, and I’ve been seeing a therapist for it. Along with that, present tense is a great choice here, one of the few times where it works better than past. The confusion came off as genuine, or about as genuine as a horse can be. Good stuff is for nerds, though. You’re here for critique.


The ending is clearly supposed to be associated with the dream about the bit (the horse kind) in the beginning. However, what’s not clear is why. The horse is smiling on her own, possibly for the first time, yet the imagery calls back to the pain of having no control at all. If the ending is suppose to be happy, then using the word “jerked” killed that idea. If it’s supposed to be a deep and philosophical type of thing, then I think you missed the mark. Or I’m just a dumb. There’s always that.

Also, I think this story could benefit from a few more horsewords sprinkled in (fearsmell, etc). They really help with reenforcing the identity of the narrator as being more primal or feral than ponies.

In that same vein, try using much simpler words to express the thoughts of the narrator. If she has trouble remembering what a town is called, her vocabulary should be likewise limited.

Very nice:

The only thing that left me a little leery was the narrative voice. It might just be because I'm a POV nut, but when we're sitting very firmly inside Applejack's head and phrases like "those bits of social shorthand that, under inspection, become nonsense" and "petty self-aggrandizement" keep popping up, it makes me itchy. Where are they coming from? Does AJ's inner voice talk with the Manehattan accent she adopted when she was living with the Oranges?

Like I said, it's probably just me...

Mike

I think this is an ambitious effort, but it's trying to be too epic for the amount of space it has in a minific. There's a lot hinted at, and a lot that's tantalizing, but it's really hard to develop any of it to a satisfying point inside these constraints.

But I can tell the author is really, really trying, so credit for that. This one could have worked better if the focus was narrowed to more fully explore just one small part of what's mentioned, because it does seem like there's interesting stuff underneath the whirlwind of so much rushing by in a short span.

Very well executed. I disagree with Not_A_Hat and GaPJaxie's evaluation - I don't think a serious treatment with an overwrought melodramatic reveal and reaction would fit how Cadence would really approach this. There's no particular reason for her to be dramatic; this is something she's already presumably known for many years. Flurry might have difficulty accepting it, but that would most likely manifest over time, rather than being some explosive fit of emotion right there on the spot. Getting into that would be a longer story than a minific has space for.

This story does well by knowing what it's focused on, and sticking to what feels real inside just that timeframe without trying to cram in excessive drama or serious it up too much. Not overextending while still capturing the important central essence of some theme enmeshed within a relevant piece of narrative is a key thing in minifics, and this one hits just the right balance for me.

Aside from what has been already said, with which I agree, there is one big problem wiith this.

we played Monopoly

we played Monopoly

we played Monopoly

I can't believe you wasted a chance to do an obvious, but refined, pun here (Molopony/Monopony). How could you? :(

Don't really have time for reviews this round, but at least can bring everything up to three.

>>2Merr makes an excellent point about excess: in comedy, excess is your friend. This one is on a slower burn right now, and while normally the descriptions and character-establishing are good things for your writing, in this story they drag you down two different ways. One, because of the lack of excess previously mentioned; and two, because you've only got 750 words total and every word spent establishing details the reader can be reasonably expected to bring into the story with them is wordcount that you can't use to reach your story/plot goals. Given that this is at the upper limit, the decision to cut a line isn't about "is the story better with this or not?" — it's about "Is there something more effective I could use that wordcount for?"

For instance, the end of the paragraph describing Blueblood: "In spite of her reservations she would try to reserve judgment as much as she could." Sixteen words just to tell us that Celestia finds his story about a graffiti-writing bugbear dubious, which is not just implied but nearly required by the circumstances. Instead, I would have loved for you to have sixteen words free at the end of the story to show us Celestia's reaction to Blueblood's "taste the mud" thing, because that was good but felt to me like it was setting up for an even greater punchline we didn't see.

(I would have loved for more words in general, here, because unlike previous commenters I think the changeling thing had potential. It just felt to me like not enough was made of it — we just have a story about a strange bug filly in the bushes and a sort-of punchline foreshadowing the Royal Wedding. There's not enough to it right now to reach some sort of subversion of expectations. Perhaps a final scene where Cadance finds a pollywog in her cereal and we see a smirking palace staffer in the background with mud on her hooves — or even just cutting away to a brief scene of the changeling eating cake for some sort of gag — would have tied a nice bow on the story, but 750 words is what it is and I'm just gonna gloss over my usual complaint about wanting minific rounds to go up to 1000 because 750's just too short to be satisfying. *ahem.* As is, the final line takes a weird sort of somber ironic tone — a callout to a very non-comic canon moment, and young Blueblood being punished for apparently telling the truth for once in his life — that stands at odds with the rest of the story.)

Anyway, kudos on some descriptions that I think *were* both fresh and necessary: establishing young Blueblood as a milder sort of Calvin-from-Calvin-and-Hobbes figure, which is cool. "Taste the mud" was going good places. I think the second half of this feels much more solid on the pacing; it's just front-loaded with a lot of unnecessary material.

Bringing the last story up to three reviews.

The execution here, in the aggregate, is solid, and if this is on my slate (*checks*… yep, it is) it's gonna be fairly high in my prelim rankings. In particular, I love the way that Twilight self-consciously reflects about practicing Celestia's smile a paragraph before the subtle beat of us learning she's sitting there drinking tea. That said, I have some reservations about some of the details that make up the way this pushes toward its theme, so I'm going to talk about some of my nitpicks that are keeping this from crossing my Top Contender line.

On the whole, I think present tense was probably a better choice than past tense for this particular approach, but it did rather grind me to a halt in the opening. Present tense is about bringing immediacy to the story, showing us the thoughts of the narrator in real time — and yet the story starts with a spoken question and then two hundred words of introspection before the question is answered. If you're going to use present tense for its immediacy, be immediate.

"She’s too much a lady to let it linger uncomfortably" is very on point. Nice.

The table-flipping thing feels too on point, if that makes any sense. Like, it's a pretty strong statement about Twilight's feelings, and based on the title and the last line it's clear that you want her to be hiding feelings that strong, but I just feel like it isn't sufficiently established, especially as the single isolated example. The story spends 750 words inside Twilight's head, but she's just as cagey with the reader as she is with Rarity; why are her "princess duties" (that nobody understands) a sufficient thing to generate hatred? More importantly, given that she's the Princess of Literal Friendship, what happened to disconnect her from her friends? It's one thing to lean on the generic "she's an immortal princess now, she lives in a different world", but the specifics of the character don't really allow that to happen without some heavy lampshading.

Noting Rarity's advancing age is a good start to that, and (regardless of how well-trodden Immortality Angst fics are) a reasonable central core for that, but Twilight's sole moment of frustration isn't in noticing Rarity's crow's feet, it's in Rarity not understanding her princess obligations. Again, Twilight Sparkle. What has gone wrong that she can't talk to her friends about this? It's not inconceivable that something happened, but I can't connect those dots without some hint in the story.

...Oh, alright. Story, I officially like you. Playing around with Snips's and Snails's characterization from the show gets you points. Cheerilee's character feels like it's played a little straighter, though; I agree with >>Winston that this particular trope is a bit played out.

(Although Cheerilee is wonderful in any form, so that's more an observation than a criticism)

I feel like a bit more could've been done with Cheerilee and Steve, actually. If Snips's line at the end ("she loves it") is true, and Steve feeds off of love, then maybe you could do something with that. At the very least, give the line to Steve. Maybe have Snails, or someone, say that they're worried about pissing off Cheerilee too much, and then have Steve reply "nah, trust me, she loves it. :)"

With the actual smiley face, obviously.

>>GaPJaxie

But yes, while the execution here was technically competent, I didn't really see what the point of this story was. It made me vaguely uncomfortable, but it didn't seem to have much to say. Crazy people are crazy and lie to themselves, sure. But where is this going?

It's a satirical take on end-of-the-world cultism with MLP as the driving metaphor. It's pretty good for what it is. I don't know that it necessarily needs to go anywhere else; it feels pretty complete to me.

I guess if I had to criticize, I'd say that it doesn't feel very timely? All the big "end of the world" crazes kinda came and went a few years ago. Unless there's one I don't know about.

Funny how we got two stories with the same general premise this round. This and The Dog Ate My Homework are both about characters who tell highly improbable stories which turn out to be true. In "Dog," however, the reader is shown that the story is true, whereas in this'un, the reader is left to infer it, based on knowledge about the universe which we know, which the cast in-universe isn't privy to. And both stories involve changelings, to boot!

Points for dramatic irony, then. But the infodumpy part at the very beginning drags it down, and the whole "chocolate vs. mud" conundrum just makes Sunbutt look foolish.

Which is keeping with canon, come to think of it.

Wouldn't it be funny if the changeling in this one was also Thorax?

>>Winston

I also found it dissatisfying that the explanation is a simple and obvious scam. For one, Blueblood should be thoroughly enough aware of how property and resource rights work to know that such a sale is implausible and to perform the due diligence - actually, that research and Blueblood trying to use what he finds out to maneuver and rationalize and parley some sort of concession for himself out of the supposed "sale", even if it's legally muddy, could be a pretty interesting story. But we don't get to see any of that, and I really wanted there to be some clever reasoning going on here for Princess Celestia to grapple with.

This might be subjective, but I am personall A-okay with the concept of Blueblood being too stupid and ignorant to pay attention to things like this. Fits with his "Royals Who Don't Do Anything" persona.

I mean. Seven seasons, and all he's done is piss off Rarity. In one episode. Cadance saved the world in her first appearance. Who, then, do you suppose Celestia loves more?

Echoing the previous comments: I also thought that the "punchline" bit was the weak link in the story, which I otherwise found very amusing. Drawing out the old "and I have a bridge to sell you" bit the way that you did worked well for the purposes of the story.

This is hanging out pretty high up on my ballot, for the time being. I can't, of course, guarantee that it'll stay there.

>>Not_A_Hat's got the right idea here; I also find it odd that Flurry isn't more surprised than she is, given her age and the fact that her mother just toppled over a central pillar of alicorn identity in Flurry's mind. I figure she'd have more questions than this.

I can see this conversation being drawn out across a slightly longer story, with more of an emotional journey for Flurry as Cadance explains her decision to her. For what it is, it's quite nice; it's just lacking enough of a dramatic hook to make it more than that.

I think I should be completely honest here. On my first read, I thought this was about average, maybe even a bit below. I guess the humor just didn’t land for the most part. That may have been the product of my lack of coffee at the time, but I think I should bring it up anyway because why not. Read number two brought some very bright spots to my attention, though.



You did a good job with Rarity’s natural overacting, plus Cadance’s dialogue felt dead and sluggish (as it should in her state). You don’t stretch any of the jokes out, leaving just enough to make a funny before moving to the next bit. However, the thing that I absolutely love is the setup at the beginning. Cadance hears wails approaching while she laments her sleepless nights. The reader expects the wails to be Flurry, but those expectations are subverted when it turns out to be Rarity, who almost immediately asks about Flurry Heart. That was golden, in my opinion.

Aside from that, the whole river motif is forced, but gold star for making the attempt. Better to shoot and miss than to not shoot at all. Unless you hit a kid or something. Then it’s bad.

I like this story Out of all of the stuff that I've read thus far it stood out the most. It's unique and the only one I can remember without having to pull up the story again. I think whatever flaws it really has could be hashed out with a few more words and just some general editing.

All in all though, I had a good time reading it. Frankly, for me that's the main thing.

I read all of my ballot a couple of days ago so I'll be saying whether I could remember the story from the title alone in my reviews, simply because this round I can tell you that. I couldn't remember this one when I read the title. A major reason for that is that I think it's mistitled.

Considering the title is "Glass", there are too many other motifs. The water in the opening and the idea of waking up from a dream at the end get way more emphasis simply because they are at the start and the end. The image of glass receives a few mentions, sure, but only once we're halfway through, and to boot it's surrounded by other images (songs, nightmares). I don't mean that you have to push glass on me as a metaphor in every sentence to make it worthy of being the title, but I just don't think it's important enough as is.

I agree with the sentiment that framing this around an actual event would give it more impact. Since being joyful is the nice dream that Celestia keeps waking up from, why not show us Celestia in a dream that's nice but also increasingly filled with manifestations of how empty she finds it? She'd have something to react to, and we as readers could infer more.

Unlike Misternick all I could remember about this one was "Oh this one has a protagonist whose name is White something right?"

I guess I never got on board with the Cupcakes setting in the first place but mostly when I read this I have a hard time thinking of it as a pony story. Bud's Buds? TV adverts? Kebabs? Gotta agree with Posh's comment on that.

I would have been more sold on this though if the protagonist wasn't so inconsistent with her moods as well. If you're asking me to suspend my disbelief over this setting then please commit to the crazy! Don't smile internally, White Vase, grin like a mad pony! Struggle to contain yourself! Call the bloody sight glorious rather than grisly, or maybe gloriously grisly! Make me feel like you barely got away with it and you're giddy with it. I'd have much more fun with it that way.

I could remember this one from the title, so I agree with Posh on this: Blueblood seems like exactly this sort of pony. I liked seeing him act like a prat and then get his comeuppance, even if the "punchline" is too weak (long) to punch properly. I'll go ahead and educate myself about the real-life "selling the bridge" con, too, thanks to this story.

I'm lost on that last 'joke', actually, which is unfortunate, but overall I enjoyed this, and I definitely remembered it from the title. It reads like a comedy article, though, so I think you should get rid of those two opening sentences. This doesn't feel like a speech at all.

I also feel very strongly that this should have been a Mayor Mare story rather than a Twilight Sparkle story. Haze does make a good point about committing fully to the absurdity to bypass the fact that this doesn't gel with canon!Twilight characterisation, and that could work, but Mayor Mare just feels like a shoe-in for the story, without all that much tweaking needed either.

I liked the part where the CMC were hanging out and then 'defending' themselves to Applejack, but I think it fell apart when you had to justify why they needed to defend themselves in the first place. Then the premise becomes confusing. Ponies fishing leads to drinking and overspending and gas? And then AJ lies about something? What? Why? It feels like at that point the answer is 'because prompt', and I'm sorry I feel like that, but the more I think about it the more contrived it all seems.

This is strong, well-written, effective. Lovely execution. I guess I could try to criticise, but I feel like I'd be nitpicking pointlessly. I didn't find it too "safe", I enjoyed it a lot, and I remembered it clearly upon reading the title and knew I wanted to read it again. Thanks for writing it.

This story accelerates into "We didn't do the book things!" and lots of screeching very quickly rather than escalating, but I can't say that bothered me.

A note: the dialogue tags are overwritten for the majority of the fic, but... but, but, but. In this exchange:

“Do you know what this means?”

“Absolutely nothing!” insisted Rarity.

“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS WEDDING PLANNERS!”

“WEDDING?!” screeched Rarity.

“Oooh, when’s the date?” asked Sweetie Belle.

“There is no date!” shouted Rarity.

They really work for me here (comedy rule of three, maybe), although shouted should come before screeched for full escalation: insisted -> shouted -> screeched. They put a good, fun image of Rarity's despair into my head.

I, too, am confused.

The first scene describes her as a "young girl" on "her parents' rock farm", meaning that I'm mentally pegging her as not even in her teens. Her behavior seems to support this (although I suppose that, being Pinkie, she could just be acting like a kid). Then, in the second scene, she wakes up both knowing Rarity and having dinner reservations with her, which is a giant time skip forward. Yet it's the first scene in which the tree is described as "bringing forth fond memories". If first-scene Pinkie is that young, what's she remembering exactly? And if the present is in the second scene (which doesn't even call back to the first), why are we shown the first scene, making it about her remembering a time when she remembered things?

I guess I could see this trying to make the implication that Pinkie's depressed, but as others have noted, the details we're shown don't line up with that conclusion well. In the first scene, in order, Pinkie: smiles, frowns, sighs, wildly grins, sighs as she touches the tree, and smiles at its feeling of contentment. It's literally split down the middle between positive and negative emotions. The world is described as "a realm of shadows and darkness" and yet "A feeling of contentment resonated from the powerful life in the old tree". Half of those descriptions need to go.

I'll be curious to see where this one goes after editing for consistency. Unfortunately, right now, I can't even tell what it's trying to do.

Thank you for entering, regardless! The Writeoffs are a great place for experimentation — and sometimes that means you take a chance on writing things a certain way, and it bounces off the audience, and you learn from it and move on. A couple of my own experiments haven't worked lately, either, so I feel your pain. I'm grateful you took this chance and hope to see you try again!

>>Baal Bunny >>2Merr >>Astrarian
This one, on the other hoof — I think I understand what it's driving at.

Applejack notes that only pegasi eat fish. Scootaloo notes that the only pegasus AJ hangs out with is Rainbow Dash, and further notes that Dash spends all of her non-sleep time flying. The implication here is that AJ is with Dash when Dash is not flying; i.e. in bed. And then AJ gets super embarrassed at the implication and leaves. So this is stealth Appledashery, and the final joke is that the CMCs pick up on that.

As far as story review ... since I did catch that implication, points for the story meeting its goals. I'm not certain I buy the lampshading for why the CMCs are embarrassed to be caught fishing, which does make most of the story feel shaky. I do like the detail of Uncle Spinner, though.

Unfortunately, my big problem was just that nothing here really hooked me. (Um, no pun intended.) The back half is solid (though you may want to listen to the crowd and try to make your implications clearer), but the front half feels like it wanders. Middle-tier in my voting.

This story is good at establishing an unsettling atmosphere. As the reader, we know what's going on is benign, but it's continually juxtaposed by the reaction of the character. The ending felt similar to me - there's a smile, but no real sense of happiness. Overall, the story felt like it mostly played one note. It was an interesting note, but the whole thing didn't end up very complex overall for me.

I liked the premise & setting; it was inherently interesting, and sparked engaging interactions between the characters.

I'm having a similar problem to the others, though. If I'm interpreting this correctly, then for history to flow correctly (aka canon) requires the drugging of the M6 (or for them to be dumb, or asleep, or similar as a result of said drugging). I'm not as current on the show as I should be, but I don't recall an instance relating to Chrysalis when the 6 were drugged. So while this makes for an interesting scene, so I can't place it in context with events.

There are three major issues I have with this story. This first is Snails being distractingly verbose and all around OOC. I can’t imagine him ever using the word “coherent,” at least not correctly, or talking philosophically about being part of a whole. (If the intent is to make him seem smarter, why bother in a story where he doesn’t understand the concept of death yet?)

The second is the overuse of the whole “if someone looked, they would have seen x” stuff. That was covered above by Posh, so I’ll be brief. I think it would have worked much better if it were only used once in the opening and once in the ending. As it is right now, it sort of drags the story down by forcing the reader to view Cheerilee from a detached perspective the whole time instead of being at least partly inside her head.

The third (and most minor) is the format. If one character is speaking continuously without interruption, you will almost never need to make a new paragraph mid-dialogue. Doing so only confuses the reader as to who is speaking at the moment.

>>horizon

Scootaloo notes that the only pegasus AJ hangs out with is Rainbow Dash

Can't believe Applejack just snubs Fluttershy like that.

Genre: Shenanigans

Thoughts: I liked this, bottom line and full stop. Anytime we get a complete story in a minific round we should all give a little applause (cough Roger please up the limit to 1000 cough). I thought this made effective use of both its space and its comedic aspects. The "punchline waiting to punch" thing was particularly funny for me.

With that said, I do think that there are a couple of relatively small things bogging this down. First is some minor grammatical stuff, with a primary focus on adverbs. I'm not one of those extreme-super-anti-adverb people but even I have a point where it (eventually!) gets to be too much, and this goes there. Second is the ending, which is effective and punchy on the one hoof, but which I feel could have much better comic timing if it had a little more room to breathe. Given that a decent amount of the story serves as the buildup to that moment, you want that to hit as hard as it possibly can.

Tier: Almost There

Genre: Not-Immortality Not-Blues

Thoughts: I like where this got to by the end. It ultimately ends up giving us a moment that feels sweet and on-point for these characters.

There is, however, a really big butt: I don't think Cadance's character voicing is on-point for any part of this until the end. Like I hate to just say that and walk away from it, but I straight-up can't envision her either saying half these lines or saying them the way she says them here. Maybe this is a matter of headcanon and/or opinion but I'm kinda stuck on it.

Tier: Keep Developing

I wish I'd read this before I got sick. The laughing made my cough worse. I might actually be dying now, so thanks for that. This is probably going to end up pretty high on my slate on the comedic value alone.

Nice. And okay yes they should be talking, but if the worst that can be said about this story is that the characters need a relationship counselor because otherwise the story wouldn't meet a difficult and limiting prompt, the problems are relatively minor.

One thing you might want to be aware of, author: the early point of

It's been this way ever since our wedding.

pretty much forces this to be either Chrysalis or Cadance, and the juxtaposition of it with

When we make love, there is no love to be found. I feel nothing from him.

got me thinking initially that the narrator was Chrysalis, because I associate the idea of a "love sense" with changelings (though admittedly it's also canonically a princess power). I mean, the scene doesn't really make sense if it's Chrysalis, unless this is going into some weird AU where she actually falls in love with him after conquering the world, but that cognitive dissonance still slowed me down and I would have loved even a tiny hint up front — "It's been this way ever since we fought off Chrysalis and got married", perhaps, which would also alleviate other readers' confusion.

It took me a while to figure out how to classify this story. On a second read, the comedy seems more solid, but on my first read it often felt like the comedy was interrupting a more serious tale (and the final ... punchline? ... didn't help). For example:

Two ponies sat across one another at a small, intimate table tucked away in the corner of a restaurant. It was the sort of place that required a tie to get in and maybe a well-greased hoof to get in that century. But nonetheless, the two ponies sat at their table, ivory white cloth draping down, two empty plates, five forks, three spoons, and exactly seven knives accompanied by a single small coffee cup between them. At tall, cream-colored candle stood at the center, splitting the image of one another’s face as the silky orange light spilled across their faces.

Your first paragraph — and, incidentally, 100 of your 750 words — is pure scene-setting with two things that might be jokes if I squint at them from the right angle. "And maybe a well-greased hoof to get in that century" is breezy in tone; the overly specific counting of the silverware is somewhat absurd. To be honest, the concrete detail my brain most solidly locked in on in that paragraph was the single coffee cup and empty plates — there's an implication there that maybe with the ridiculous price of the restaurant, they're too poor to do more than order a single cup of coffee to share, skipping their meal. But I had to throw that idea out when the story made a point of the stallion's generous tip.

So the first 15% of the story is spent in giving me the first impression that the characters and their setting are the focus. There are one or two mild seasonings of levity, but the fact that the text is focusing so heavily on lavish and very straight descriptions (like them staring at each other past the candle) tells me that you're trying to play it lavish and straight.

The first pony, a stallion with a brown coat and black, slicked back mane dressed in a black dress coat, white dress shirt, and a bowtie—

There's no verb here, incidentally. Then the rest of the paragraph derails from wherever you intended to go with that sentence after you closed the em dash phrase, and never returns to the original thought.

which caused some stir amongst the staff when they arrived for seating whether it counted as a tie, and ancient bylaws dating back decades were invoked to indeed say it did. After all, no one had worn such a ridiculous fashion statement since plaid was in style, and most, except lumberjacks, agreed that was a mistake.

Author, I urge you to reread this against the context of your first paragraph. You've made such a big deal of setting a serious scene that interrupting yourself four times in a row (the staff discussion, the bylaw invocation, the fashion judgment, the lumberjack aside) is making me question what sort of story you're trying to tell. If the core story is serious and the interruptions are comic, I don't know whether I'm supposed to care about the core story and be annoyed at the interruptions, or whether I'm supposed to treat the core of your story as a waste of time so that I can enjoy the digressions. Neither of those are good choices.

Taking the glass with a hoof—which, for some reason worked and no one ever questioned how one grips with hooves—he took a short sip.

This is doubling down on that same problem. You are literally breaking us out of the story to make a stage-comic-style observation on "Hooves, how do they work?" If I knew that I was just here to laugh, this would be fine. But this feels more like someone leaping up from the audience to interrupt a stage play with a joke about the theater.

Now, it is certainly possible to pull off a David S Pumpkins, and start with a serious setup that you subvert halfway through. However, what makes that work so well is that it becomes immediately clear once the subversion is started that that was the point in the first place. The first David Pumpkins appearance doesn't just fling some out-of-context humor in and return to the previous plot, it gets the characters reacting to him, trying to analyze his appearance to the point that they can no longer be scared by the non-Pumpkins exhibits because they're too busy doing comparative analysis. In this story, while there is some great banter (props for the kidney exchange), I never felt like the humor kicked out the legs from underneath the serious story in a way that let me relax and enjoy the jokes. In particular, the marriage proposal itself is played straight (except for the little digression of the waiter closing Honey's jaw), and her response — disclosing a difficulty that her partner presumably doesn't know about, potentially throwing a wrench in the works of a happy moment — verges on drama:

She shook her head. “I, too, am a stallion…” And with that, her ears folded back with her hoof falling to the table top.

The drama is immediately defused, but that's a very different thing from ending on a joke:

Her partner placed his hoof on hers, raising his eyebrow repeatedly. “I know.”

I just don't know what I'm supposed to feel here. (Never mind the trans-people-as-a-joke angle, there's just nothing particularly funny about him knowing, and I'm not even sure if he does know or whether this is part of the prompt-meeting lies.)

So, if the goal of this story is to be comic — and I think it is — go hard on the comedy throughout, especially at the beginning where you're setting reader expectations. Double down on that banter, which is the best thing about this. Find ways to integrate the comedy into the plot — like maybe have the characters comment on the hoof thing rather than the narrator breaking the fourth wall to point it out.

You did try an unusual delivery of humor here, which is an excellent experiment to do because you can't tell where the lines are without knowing what fails. I hope this helps you refine the delivery in the future, and thanks for submitting!

Easy top of prelim slate. Aims at an idea, sells it, and I'll be shocked if it isn't the most unique take on the prompt this round. Thank you, author.

I both want to like this and actually do like it, but I do have a fairly central point of hesitation. The implication here is that Luna signed the tribal edicts knowing that the tribes would overreact and then she could sacrifice herself to keep Celestia's reputation clean — but then if she turns herself into Nightmare Moon, the edicts will be rejected as the product of a madmare, and her sacrifice will be for nothing. Or else Celestia herself will have to go to the mat for them, which brings them back around to the original problem of dragging Celestia's reputation through the mud.

The premise, in short, doesn't work, which is a shame because I am all about the idea of the lunar banishment as a secret plot.

I think that might be fixable by spacing the events out by a few decades. It's a generational game of Good Cop, Bad Cop, and Luna signs the edicts knowing that ponies will be upset but not quite knowing how long the resentment would linger. So decades later, with her popularity still in the basement, she goes "evil" to give the now-united tribes a common enemy (and because her reputation has caught up with her to the point where she can no longer push ponies forward). After her defeat Celestia gets to point to the edicts and say "Ironically, she's the one who set up her own defeat by bringing you all together," and create Nightmare Night or something as a celebration of unity.

Regardless, top half of slate for me. Thanks for writing!

I enjoyed the style and tone of the piece overall, and it got some decent laughs.

It reminded me of the "Twinkle-Nebula-Frie-Neutron" reunion story, though it doesn't have quite the same punch, to me. Comparing the two, there one of the things that stood out to me is motivation. The reunion shenannigans are grounded in Twilights (related) follibles, so much of the humor is science related, and feels very much up Twilight's alley. This story is more generic 'corrupt politician' which, while amusing, does not ring quite as true. We never really get a reason for Twilight to want this dam, but the few mad-scientist-esque asides were some of the stronger points for me. The reunion was also just a little more over the top, although this story had some really great elements, such as the lethal letters at the beginning.

I hope this extended comparison did not give the wrong impression - I did quite enjoy this story. I got a good laugh about the approach and tone regardless. It just gave me a bit of a sense of familiarity when I did read it, and I tried to explore my thoughts on the matter.

That first big paragraph made the intro feel a little clunky when I first read it, though it wasn't so bad afterwards. The subtle details and turns of phrase are excellent; there are some insightful bits of prose, like talking about the eyes.

Though I agree with >>horizon for the most part, I have a different take on Twilight's upset. 'Princess duties' seemed like a clear excuse. Discounting that, it most feels like pure immortal angst. Though that would beg the question that if Rarity went to Ponyville, why couldn't Twilight also, which is a level of detail that the fic is cagey about.

Enjoyable premise; it had a nice balance between interesting anecdotes that the characters were relating, and those adding up to the larger picture. It felt like I came to the realization at about the same time as the characters, which was nice. As to the ending, I may be too indirect in my own stories, but I can't help but wonder if the ending would have landed better if they hadn't realized what Discord was up to.

The engagement value of the "oh, another trophy/cut to brief flashback" fades quickly, but for the concept itself I think you struck gold. AJ winning a storytelling competition by telling the raw, uncut truth is an untapped idea, I think. Sort of the opposite of the boy who cried wolf.

>>Posh
Nopony wants to hang out with yellow pone; nopony likes yellow pone.

>>Posh
>>Winston
>>Rao
>>2Merr

It's true that I tend to make long sentences, adding a lot of clauses to the main part, in order to add subtlety and also to establish a slow pace that is suppose to slowly burn, and in this entry, I decided to focus on this particular aspect, but I understand that this may not be everyone's likings, especially because, if not properly punctuated or even balanced, the whole structure collapses on its own weight, and you end up with something messy, sticky, and, in the end, not really readable for your audience, which you should always treat with great care.

Ayway, dully noted. I'll shorten my sentences from now on and stop trying to make complex structures. It seems I'm still far away from being able to do that.

>>Rao
I worked with kids for a few years and the sentence "I’m retarded so there are a lot of things I don’t get" is true, I've heard it from one of the kids. It was in French so maybe "retarded" isn't the exact translation, but it wasn't a nice word or a circumlocution. I swear you don't know what to answer to that.

>>2Merr

If one character is speaking continuously without interruption, you will almost never need to make a new paragraph mid-dialogue. Doing so only confuses the reader as to who is speaking at the moment.

Indeed, it's not something you often see, but it exists, and if I only take my time in the Writeoff round, I've already seen it several times, mainly to show that the speaker took a brief pause, like taking his breath. Moreover, I made Snails repeating the sentence in order to clear any doubts as for who is speaking.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll use some of it when reworking it before publishing.

Time to bring back an old tradition:

Writeoff Mash-Ups: Preliminary Edition

the rhyme was almost certainly unintentional

I Did Not Have Sexual Relations in the Candelight: The CMCs spy on Applejack's and Rarity's romantic, candlelit dinner, and accidentally see Applejack's dick.

Of course, this being Equestria, none of them really care about that. The point is, they were right about the two of them doing "book things." They promptly break in to celebrate, causing quite a stir among Ponyville's more well-to-do.

Staying on Romance: All Chrysalis wanted was to give Celestia some tea and confess her feelings for her, and she ended up negotiating the timestream and trying to prevent her people from becoming sparkly, neon imitations of themselves. Again! Thrill to the twists and turns in this cosmic, romantic comedy of errors.

First Lies: "Now, I'm sure all y'all have heard 'bout them disappearances 'round Manehattan, rumors 'bout some cannibal lurin' unsuspectin' ponies inna her basement an' cookin' 'em up right 'n tasty-like. Well, I'm here t'tell y'all, today, that they ain't jus' rumors. I'm Applejack, Equestrian cannibal, and this here's mah confession."

Her relatives laughed riotously at this latest lie, as Applejack, smirking deviously, dug around in her bag for another slice of pegasus pizza.

The Missing Piece... of Glass: Celestia listens to her niece and nephew try to shift the blame for yet another cake-related mishap onto one another, and she's honestly just... she's just so tired of it all...

Fishy Fish! Looking up from her line, Cheerilee saw Applejack seated on the opposite end of the riverbank, a fishing pole between her hooves.

Applejack met her eyes, waved, and reached into her bag for a piece of pizza. "Hungry?"

A cold feeling settled over Cheerilee. "Snails, I think we're done fishing for the day."

>>Not_A_Hat
>>Astrarian
>>Misternick
>>Fenton
>>Posh
>>dragon discord
Thank you all for reading my first fic ever! I really appreciate all of this feedback!!

>>dragon discord
>>Not_A_Hat
Thank you! I did this all on my phone, so that is why I think there is a few uncapitalized "i"s in there. :'/

I think I might upload a longer version of this fic, without the chicken part and without the basement scene in the end. Just to keep you vaguely unsure of what actually happened.

>>Posh

carnivorous diets are commonplace enough that the cop doesn't even bat an eyelash at the revelation that Cupcakes is eating chicken...

You're so right about that rip.

Also,,, you don't eat pizza from bags? Do you have leftovers? xd

>>Fenton
I-I'm so sorry sir. Please,, can you forgive me?

>>Misternick
Thank you so much! I'm glad you really liked this :D

>>Astrarian

Make me feel like you barely got away with it and you're giddy with it. I'd have much more fun with it that way.

Don't worry ;) its gonna be a lot more suspenseful when I edit this.

>>Anon Y Mous

Also,,, you don't eat pizza from bags? Do you have leftovers? xd

I eat my leftover pizza from the garbage can like a proper opossum.

>>horizon

Ditto. While the ending could use a small tweak or two, this is ace.