I can't pin down how old Flurry is here. The age of "my relatives are the ultimate embarrassment" is usually well after the age of "will you carry me," so I'm not sure if I'm looking at a tweener or a little younger. A few editing problems bouncing around.

If I can ignore the age thing, you do have a cute story, though the kid embarrassed by parents isn't exactly a new angle. There's kind of a weak point being made—that Flurry does still love Twilight and value their friendship—but that's pretty much what I'd expect anyway. So what point do you want the story to make beyond that?

At least that's the question you should be asking if you want something more hard-hitting. Somewhat pointless fluff does have its audience, and I certainly find myself at times wanting a quick read that's uncomplicated and cute, but a point I come back to with minifics is that they should surprise the reader somehow. That's how they get remembered. And everything here plays out just as I would have expected it to after the first couple of paragraphs. Maybe if we had a Twilight struggling to maintain a connection to her niece, or a Flurry who's feeling angsty but sees Twilight as an anchor (either the good or bad connotation of that, and possibly both) there'd be something to chew on, but as it is, it's just kind of an "oh, that happened" story. That is, there wasn't any character growth, and the conflict was very low-key.

Genre: Time Loop?

Thoughts: Count me with >>Pascoite; I wasn't sure what era the various scenes were supposed to be set in. I also felt like there was a lot of repetition in the first three scenes, to the point where I seriously wondered if some kind of time travel/looping shenanigans were going on. I think maybe that's also coming from the exploration of how not much has changed in 1000 years, but in such a short story it's easy to mis-guess whether something like that showing up like this did is supposed to be more of a thematic element or a plot twist.

I rather liked a couple of the bits near the end. The moment where Luna thinks about compelling ponies to love the night does a great job of grabbing my interest. Also, I think the moment with Twilight sticks the landing. But right now I feel like they're held back by the apparent repetition toward the beginning. If there was more to distinguish each moment from the others, I think this would carry more weight.

Tier: Keep Developing

Genre: Aging

Thoughts: Well I for one have no idea what the title's referencing. :derpytongue2: Seems like others do, so whatevs. Although, I will say it doesn't hurt to aim toward making references stand on their own in case your audience isn't familiar with the source material. It's one thing if your story's predicated on that knowledge and advertises as such (e.g., crossovers); it's another when le random reader walks in after seeing birthdays and wine advertised but finds neither birthdays nor wine on offer (except inasmuch as being older = more birthdays). I mean, yeah, metaphor and symbolism are other things that a title can shelter in, but here I don't feel like the story is doing that.

All right, time to take off my Quibble Pants and get to it. Once we're past the title thing, this turns into a really nice little series of vignettes. We slowly get the sense that Dashie is making her friends' lives better by her presence. (All but Rarity, of course, darling). Then it just kinda ends.

The feeling I get is like I'm looking at a pile of building materials and a set of blueprints and waiting for a house to pop out of them. Right now the prose is lovely, the character interactions are all solid, etc. But especially the tone of the last scene raises questions for me about what this was. Probably neither a shipfic nor a comedy, yet we end with a squabble that could veer either toward humor or potential romance. I'm all for ending strong but I think right now it confuses itself a bit. And yet, this does a fair bit right.

Tier: Almost There

>>CoffeeMinion
Look up a song by The Beatles called "When I'm 64."

>>Pascoite
See what the smart guy said? That's more or less what I think (rather more than less). Your characters' voices are solid (“A might bit empty without you in there taking up space.”), their interaction are interesting, and you chose the best right pony for the situation.
And as >>Pascoite said, get rid of that first scene, start with AJ already meeting Rockhoof outside, and don't rush things. As you established it, Rockhoof has almost lost everything and we can imagine how hard and long it will be for him to rebuild his life. That's AJ's role, showing him that from her experience (losing her parents, leaving the farm to live in Manehattan), there is a way for healing.
And that he already has six/seven/eight new friends to start with.

There's a lot of unnecessary stuff in here, and the tone goes all over the place. The word crafting is rather nice, so I know you're a capable writer, but what you've got is very unfocused.

We start out with a seemingly omniscient narrator, but it quickly takes on Apple Bloom's personality. There are certainly stories that make that transition, but you do it fairly abruptly and go to a very deep perspective immediately. We also start out having this be about Apple Bloom succumbing to old age and disease, but then it's about automation taking over everything, but then it's not, because it was Apple Bloom who came up with the automation, but it doesn't cover everything, since she still needs live workers to supplement them, and then it's about all races feeling included, plus some shipping thrown in there that at least fits that last theme but is at best tangential to the plot, and after all that, I'm feeling exhausted.

You're trying to do too much, and you end up only being able to handle each of those points in a very superficial manner. What does it matter that she has these drones? What does it matter that all these races are living together peacefully? In high concept, we have some answers to those, but not on a personal level, and that's where we need to connect: with the characters themselves, not some broad sense that everyone gets along together.

I found this to be rather good writing that was turned loose without a target.

This is another entry that suffers from inconsistent tone. It's mostly serious, but a couple of weak stabs at humor undercut it. There are some persistent editing errors, like how to capitalize and punctuate dialogue transitions.

Really, I wonder why this didn't come to a head long ago. Twilight's already got replacements in training, she realizes her friends aren't as capable anymore, and she should have known this wasn't a good idea and had a plan in place already. It's not like Twilight to be without a plan.

I don't even get the sentiment. What's so special about needing one last chance to fight evil with the girls again? It's not like she doesn't have the opportunity to interact with them at all, so why does she specifically need it to be a fight?

>>TitaniumDragon is right that the story introduces this theme of Twilight aging while the others don't, yet doesn't go anywhere with it. It's just stated as a reason why they can't keep up with her and thus this has to be the title drop, but how does Twilight actually feel about this? How do the rest of them feel? You've put the spotlight on it, so make a point about it.

For that matter, you leave the villain rather generic. That really depends on how you want the story to go. As a short piece focused on these other themes, you don't have the space to, so you might even need to cut back on his involvement. But given the chance to expand the story and post a longer version to FiMFic, he deserves getting some more character development so that we care what happens to him.

>>Pascoite
Ahh, ok, I guess a reference to something as culturally ubiquitous as the Beatles can stand a bit more on its own too. It's my own fault for not being super familiar with their work.

Hmmmmmm. The writing here is good. This is not a beginner, and yet it makes several beginner mistakes. First off, you devote the entire first half of the story to exposition. That's not a good way to get the reader engaged with your characters or events. I'm reading a history lesson, and I don't have any particular reason to care about it. Then we get to the romance, and it doesn't really give me the background for that, either.

In a minific, you certainly don't have the space to build that much of a relationship from the ground up. It's a tricky business trying to do good shipping in 750 words, but it can be done. So at least you skip all the usual "getting to know you" stuff and try diving into when they have a more established relationship. This is also a completely viable way to handle shipping. There doesn't have to be a process of discovery, and indeed, in this word count, avoiding that will save you plenty of words. But you still do have to show me they're in love. What is it that they like about each other? What does each see about the other that makes them seem like good relationship material? It's all about give and take. For a relationship to work, they need to see each other as equals, more or less.

So aside from the standard "Rainbow had liked her ever since X event," I don't know why Dash likes her. We do see some gestures, like Rarity going out of her way to make clothes that suit (heh) Dash well, but then she does that for all her friends. We get Dash making a nice gesture of buying flowers and even getting up early to do so. But through all that, there aren't the kind of personal details that these two in particular belong together. Like I said about Rarity making clothes for any of her friends--show me that this specific case is somehow different from all those, and that she'd only go to these lengths for Dash. And beyond a physical attraction, I have no idea why Dash considers Rarity a good match for her.

And a side note of that suit: I'd like a little more description of it. It became more obvious when you said it was masculine, but that still doesn't clear up the ambiguity. At first, I was envisioning something like a Wonderbolts suit, and I didn't know you meant something closer to a business suit. Mentioning a few elements of it would take care of that.

So in the end, this is just kind of shipping that the reader has to accept, not because the story justifies it, and with quite a bit of dry exposition on the front end. The writing talent is there. I think this will turn out to be a good, experienced writer who just didn't care to flesh it out that much or one of those who is on the hump of taking the next step up in their writing.

And I'll agree with >>TitaniumDragon and >>Fenton that the voice sounds a bit off for Dash.

>>TitaniumDragon
Ideally, you'd like both. In this one, the fact that the spring imagery just felt samey, such that you could interchange any two of them without altering what made sense chronologically, made the whole thing feel scattershot rather than organized.

I like this quite a lot!! I think it benefits from a different angle than the average stories about aging, looking at recognizing a figure you looked up to is human as well (well.... pony I guess), but then getting across that it doesn't make them any less important. There's a dignity in this that's very nice.

I don't know if it's systemic or just an issue when you end dialogue in a question mark, but you're capitalizing some dialogue tags that follow.

Well, another immortality angst story. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, and it's not your fault.

And the big problem here is that everything's so vague. Something happened to Dash, and something about it really got to Twilight, and they're all going to do something about it, and just because they finally confronted her, Twilight immediately changes her mind without putting up much of a fight. If I don't understand what happened or why it's such a big deal to Twilight (especially since it's not nearly as big a deal to everyone else), then I lack the emotional context to understand why I should be as upset as Twilight. And that's the goal: you want the reader to identify with her, feel bad for her, and imagine feeling just as bad in the same situation.

Yes, there's the default sadness that comes from the death of a friend, but every story that writes about the subject gets that same amount. You have to reach for more than that, personalize the scenario so it's powerful and unique to your story. It's just really underdeveloped, and I'm trying to find what it is that horizon sees as top contender material, but I'm not coming up with anything. It's your standard "Twilight's sad because one of her friends died" story, and skipping the critical part of the emotional arc isn't a minor quibble. Now, standard isn't bad, and neither is this story. You have a higher level of competition here than you would on, say, FiMFiction, so what might be serviceable over there is probably going to sit mid-tier or lower here. And for me, it's just lost in the group of other stories in this write-off that don't do anything different with a well-used premise.

>>Fenton
Angel's not dead, he's a changeling. All the animals are, which is why one of the birds talks and why the raccoon changes into a bear.

This was good, but I think the beginning of the story is confusing in a way that's problematic, but hard to put a finger on exactly. I think Pascoite is probably right in terms of the arc of this story works a lot better if the last twist is a subversion rather than an explanation. The hints of something being 'off' are totally fine (Raccoon->Bear is the ideal amount of '...huh?'), but there's too much off, because there's really no clear sense of why Fluttershy would be doing any of this or what's going on.

I almost feel like this would work better if the stuff about how long it had been didn't come until you see Twilight herself. It's really hard to explain exactly how to pace something like this, and I don't want to just push in to say 'write it how I'd write it!' But rather than having a lot of mystery all swirling around at the very top, I think it'd help to slowly introduce it to people as it goes. Not to necessarily explain each part or have it railroaded into a misunderstanding that you expect from the reader. But just to get them acclimated a bit at a time. Okay, it's a picnic and Fluttershy is worried about things - why? Because it's for Twilight's birthday. But things are behaving weird - or are they? It's small enough that you don't quite feel like it requires an explanation. But then Twilight show's up and she's old. Huh? Oh wait, this explains things....... the reader thinks for one moment, until they realize it totally doesn't. And then you drop something like the bird saying 'Your highness' to really do one last totally disorienting thing to hammer it in, before pulling the curtain up for the reveal.

I'm perhaps being overly picky here, but it's because I think there's a lot that I like in this story. It just feels a little out of sorts, and if you can tweak some of it, it'd really come together. But writing something like this is very much an art and not a science so... apologies if I've overstepped my bounds in talking through it.

This was beautiful in a way, but in a bigger way, it did nothing but confuse me. Is this Twilight's dad? If so, why does it matter that it's him? I don't see any connection to his character.

To a degree, this requires the reader to know or be able to figure out British bingo slang, though most of them are explained (or have no explanation). I did like that he imagines the numbers to be little pictures, though I couldn't always visualize what they meant. 40, in particular, I can see a bit in an academic sense where the "crooked" comes in, but I still don't see the whole picture.

Anyway, what's his deal? Is this an aged version of Twilight's dad who's playing bingo, like old folks'll do, and not remembering much about his life? And I can't fathom what he's afraid of the numbers (and presumably ponies) bothering him about. The 23 I guess might be him remembering Twilight, but the remembrance has no effect on him.

Now, my best effort is that this actually is Twilight's dad, and his wife has been gone for some time. He's senile, and whether his wife's death caused that is an open question. But then I'm left wondering who 88 is, and it's curious that there's no reference to Twilight. Sure, he could have forgotten her, but I'm getting more notes of him repressing something rather than going senile and having this fantasy unintentionally. For that matter, I'm guessing there isn't actually a bingo game gong on at all, though that doesn't change anything important about the story. And the bit about the mathematician and university seemed like a throwaway thing. It does involve the numbers, but in a way that implies a lot of past that never gets developed, then ends up not meaning anything either.

Full disclosure: I probably wouldn't have come up with all that if I hadn't read >>TitaniumDragon but then I'm not someone who reads between the lines too well. This'll be a tough one to rank. I appreciate the craft that went into it, but understanding a story is kind of important in deciding how it stacks up to the rest.

Poetry is always tough to judge when you don't know the author's intent. And I'm not just talking about what it means. Here, I'm talking about structural decisions.

You have 8 syllables per line (allowing that "hour" can be stretched into 2, that is), but there isn't a consistent stress pattern. Maybe you didn't try to have one. Who knows? Well, the 9th line only has 7 syllables, and there are a few others.

Long poems are even harder, when you have a rhyme scheme. There are only so many good ones to fit the story, and then you risk getting repetitive or really stretching for some. And stretch you did. The meter and the rhymes both show strain the longer the poem goes on, and a one-day writing period is very restrictive in allowing for the kind of fine-tuning this desperately needs.

So, that's all structural stuff, the added layer of difficulty that comes with a poem. How about the story? This is a story contest, after all.

One strength of poetry is that it can take a simple story and make it sound more elegant. At its core, this is a rather simple story. We see what appears to be a recap of Nightmare Moon's battle with Celestia from a thousand years ago, and then we get the "it was all a dream!" ending. However, there is a time and place for such an ending, and this is an instance where it actually works. The problem with most dream reveals is that it makes the entire story inconsequential. Interesting as it may have been to read, you did essentially waste your time reading something that didn't matter. In this case, it did, because Luna is emotionally affected by her dream. However, not much is made of that. There's just this tiny denouement of Luna realizing that wasn't actually happening, then taking comfort in her sister. But it's a quick and easy comfort, something she didn't have to work for at all, so it lacks tension, and there's not an emotional arc to her recovery. She merely feels better in an instant.

Yes, poetry is hard mode, but it was your choice to use it, so when I get bogged down in the odd rhythms and rhymes and get taken out of the story by that, that's the risk you take.

I...

I can't tell if there's a story here. It kind of is, but every time I think I've latched onto one, it throws some randomness in my path and insists I'm supposed to find this darkly funny. I guess you just wanted to do an acid-trip version of that poem? One that has bad connotations for me, I'm afraid (not your fault, but it brings to mind an instance of blatant plagiarism I caught someone doing).

I will say this for it: what it tries to do, it does well. It's just that what it tries to do is rarely something that's interesting on more than an academic level. So I don't see the point of it, and maybe that is the point, but that doesn't mean the story connected with me in any way.

If there's one thing I do appreciate, it's having this be the one story that seems to pop up all the time where it uses the prompt, word for word, as the title. That always makes me inwardly groan.

It’s rare that I see Discord this well voiced in a story, so definite points for that, Writer. The problem is, there’s not much here other than an origin story for the universe, as told by the least reliable narrator in all of Equestria.

I feel like this might be improved with some additional context as to why Twilight asked Discord about it in the first place, rather than just setup for a dig at the unknown nature of the origin of everything. The section after the scene break doesn’t add much to the story without that.

As I read this piece, little familiar turns of phrase kept popping out at me. I finally caved and Googled “slouch towards Bethlehem” when I got to it.

In fairness, it’s been well over a decade since I last read any Yeats.

But, having both “The Second Coming” and “Just Like Old Times” fresh in my mind, I have to say this feels like little more than a classic short poem slathered with a thick coat of pastel paint. There’s plenty of interesting imagery, and I liked it quite a bit for what it was, but it doesn’t feel like there’s anything more to it than imagery, when there easily could have been.

I get your arc! I actually don't see this as incomplete, but the problem and solution are pretty subtle, and also, I don't know anything about recent pony episodes so the school/EEA stuff threw me off too. Strangely, you also have the "problem" of actually having the scene with the pegaspy being really good. I like her, immediately! Which is good, but which makes me want to actually see the sleepover, and sort of pulls attention away from Twilight's arc and final realization.

And to some extent, that shift in Twilight is a little odd, contextually. Basically, shouldn't the opportunity of the school already give her the kind of friendship-fulfillment or problem-solving-needs that she wants? Since she's a princess and everything, doesn't she have a higher-order of responsibilities? But I think these are just problems with the show and universe as much as with your actual story, and again, I haven't watched since season 5, so.

A novel conceit, with the bit of synesthesia-like images intertwined with numbers. Unfortunately, it felt like it distanced me from Night Light, rather than making me empathize, so the story felt a bit flat for me. The idea could definitely be expounded upon and would probably come off stronger if given a longer form (a la "A Beautiful Mind.")

Not a fan of capitalizing so many Important Words. "Paramaredics" was also a pun too far. I appreciate what the story is trying to do, but "Immortal Twilight watches her friends succumb to age" has been done a lot, and this didn't really bring anything new to that table. Having all six there was too many characters to juggle in the length. For example, having Fluttershy just say "Yay" so she's "participating" in the conversation tells me nothing new about Fluttershy and is also a waste of precious word count. I will say Pinkie's line at the end kinda made me chuckle though but would've been better in a longer piece where I'd had time to actually feel some emotion first.

The whole time I kept wanting to call out a canon/timeline problem, before the story itself corrected. Then that reveal at the end... Okay, yeah, weird. And a bit of a fridge horror if I stop to really think about it. But regardless, one of the more unique concepts and certainly a twist I didn't see coming. Nicely done.

Disclaimer: Any poetry more refined than the limerick is usually not to my taste (and lost on me), but I try to be objective.

Luna's monologue bit seems too long, and has a different tone than the narrative person. Rhyming "wither" with "critter" felt off, as did "critter" itself among all the more flowery Shakespearean English. "Magic" and "Trick" also don't rhyme. (Several other rhymes stood out amiss as well, but less glaringly so.) At the overall level of story, I felt that, despite the lush linguistics, this came across as only a very simplistic retelling of the basic Celestia/Nightmare fight we've seen in canon, without adding anything new to either characters view.

Literally my first thought on the absolute first line is. "Oh great, Twilight's got a Demon Core" and by line two was "No, she's just Marie Curie stand in... which explains the title." (EDIT: So it's not Twilight, but an actual "Curey" pony.) Celestia just immediately recognizes the dangers of a radioactive material AND has suggestions to mitigate it, when this pony, who's been studying it for years, is completely dismissive of the danger? Wait, "Curey"? Is there some ponification/joke as to why the name is spelled that way instead of Curie? I don't get the joke if there is. This second part, with the Sisters talking seems completely unrelated, but I suspect I know where it's going. Yeah, Equestria is post apocalyptic earth.

Okay, this isn't a bad idea (Seriously, you're hitting all my favorite things here, high science, the fermi paradox, equestria origins, etc.) but as written it tries to cram too much into too little space. The use of Marie Curie instead of Einstein or Oppenheimer, or... that soviet guy that refused to launch... That's the only new take I see on what's become a classic trope in the fandom. It needs a lot more focus on one aspect or another. Show us Curie's wonder at this new "magic" or show us the Sisters fear at repeating the past and furthering the "scorched earth" Fermi solution. Bouncing between both really shows me nothing.

I was struggling a bit to see how the first scene connected to the second, but the story managed to finally stitch them together in the last couple of lines. I would've liked to see a stronger connection with more emotion, but... given the word limit, "Twilight needs a problem to solve, and therefore makes a mountain out of a molehill" is actually a pretty solid attempt, IMHO, and completely in character.

The logical part of me wants to know where Luna (and Cadance, and Flurry Heart, and all the other alicorns sure to have ascended by the end of the show) are in all this, as well as how far in the future this is supposed to be. Ignoring that, my first take is this is a good scene showing a bit of warmth. But as I read closer... it's missing a lot of things. How/what/why did Twilight stop considering individual ponies as important as her calendar of meetings? That's literally the OPPOSITE of her character arc in the show, where she's gone from introverted bookworm obsessed with lists and schedules, to the princess of friendship. This feels like an outright inversion of that, doing a stronger character reset on her than the show writers do every time they still make Fluttershy run and hide.

Now, I'm not saying this is bad, I'm saying that, as shown, I don't know or understand this Twilight, so having this story be ABOUT Twilight feels the wrong choice. If this was a future Flurry Heart or some other less established character, it might not set off my Uncanny Valley senses so much.

Relatively generic concept, but mostly executed with decent heart. I'm not sure about the ending though. Why does Dash seem to have matured so much in her interactions with the other friends and found some comfortable stride, yet with Rarity, her "nagging gets old?" That seems the opposite. It's a weird downer of a note in a story otherwise warm about getting old.

>>CoffeeMinion
Don't feel bad. I vaguely knew it, but only because I'd heard Coultan's mashup. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqXtMKCAudI I swear, most famous pop music I know more from Weird Al's parodies of it than from the originals.

Okay, that opening scene is so perfectly non-sequitur that I just have to applaud. Now, can the rest of this story live up to that opening?

Crap... I think it did.

Very few stories can make me go from an outright laugh to liquid pride in 750 words. You pulled it off. Not that the story is flawless (there's a lot of symbolism in kites that could be better utilized, and never mind why Twilight sent the bear to Starlight instead of, you know, Fluttershy, who literally has an entire sanctuary for animals!) But... In 750 words, a funny opening, and an emotional lesson/moral at the ending. Nicely done!

>>Xepher
I think it was because Rainbow Dash is specifically in denial about getting old, so while her interactions with everyone else are positive, when she goes in to get her mane done by Rarity she feels old, and thus it gets associated with Rarity.

I'm only at the title, but I can't NOT hear the opening "Ya. Da da da. Da da da. Da da dada da da." of the P1K song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOz_o6q-Zu4 Hoping this doesn't disappoint.

Nevermind... just an amateurish attempt at sexual double entendres, followed by an anti-climax (Ha! See, I can do it too!)

So, in fairness, not completely amateurish, but still not funny, at least to me.

A beautiful character piece here. Celestia both recognizes the use of the machine, yet hates what it represents. Luna, the same it seems, yet both joke about old times (completely on prompt.) That a rock found its way into the gearbox... Now that, that made me smile.

I'm reminded oh so much of my own love for physical books. I've collected hundreds, and read them all, since I was in my teens, all mass market paperback (the most practical) and had built custom shelves sized just for them, envisioning one day that I'd have a massive library in my house, filled wall to wall with books I'd read... of lives I'd lived. But then came the Kindle, and the eBook, and all the great digital stuff. And I gave in. I used to fill half my luggage with books on a vacation, now I can fit a thousand books on a tablet and not even notice. But I miss the smell, and the touch. I miss the old ways, even as I love having room for things like actual clothes on a trip. I hate eBooks, but I could also never go back, save for a dalliance, say with a final Game of Thrones novel. :-)

Twilight's way too over the top and oblivious in the opening, which could work if this was played for laughs, but it's not. On top of that, Flurry's reactions and dialog seem far too mature for the implied age of a pony-back ride and ice cream still solving all by the end. The idea of the story could work, but it needs a lot of polish to make things feel less generic and real give depth to the characters here.

An old pony missing, as shining looks for him and a joke about playing bingo instead. We have another story, about an old pony actually playing bingo, and remembering shining armor. Either this prompt just hit the Zeitgeist or we've got an author overlap. (And as Haze points out, that refers to 88.)

As to the story itself... As others have pointed out, it's a bit scattered, unsure if it's funny or sad, or something else. We have too many PoVs, reducing the overall impact of what happens. On the surface level, it's an amusing, scene, and if it were in a season highlight reel, it could be a great moment, but we'd have to see the full moment first, not just this glimpse.

>>TitaniumDragon
I phrased that poorly. I get the association, as Rarity is the one dying her hair and thus seeing her true age, grey hairs, etc. I meant, rather, why has the author chosen to end on that down note with Rarity? Specifically that last line of negativity: that Dash finds the nagging itself gets old. It conflicts with the rest of the story to me, where Dash finds the positive things in all her relationships. I think it weakens the message the story otherwise seemed to be going for.

The second scene is (obviously) a repetition of the first. That's a dangerous game to play with such a short word count. The next continues the trend, adding very little. The last... Fall into Nightmare, we get it. Then... friend? Weird.

So, these scenes feel VERY disjunct. None of them show us anything really new about Luna's story, and the ending, with Twilight being a "friend" and complementing the moon feels unearned and unrelated to the rest of the story.

I'm not sure what to suggest, other than this needs to be far longer and more fleshed out.

This is strangely dark and... "appropriately" practical. I feels real, in the way the scene plays out. At the same time, it's not much of a story. It's a question with no answer, which... maybe that's enough. I think it'd be stronger though with more focus on family OR on friendship. AJ alone in her room debating with herself, OR Granny maybe showing how many ponies are nearby that obviously do care. Straddling that line feels like a weaker—though perhaps more realistic—take.

Okay, great job on the slow reveal. Fluttershy would know every animals name (not just "the raccoon" or "the bear") and I was about to call this out on it, but suspected it was intentional, which it was.

The down side is this story is really a one note wonder because of that. Sensing someone was "faking" Fluttershy is the only point of interest here, and while the story does that well enough, it leaves so many bigger questions unanswered (like what happened to Fluttershy? Why wouldn't Twilight consider this whole thing horribly macabre and freak out? etc.)

I guess I would've liked to see more of Thorax's reasons/emotions, rather than merely the practical arrangements and preparations.

This has some well written visualizations at the start, but it kind of gets incoherent in the middle, as >>TitaniumDragon
points out. That kind of works later, as "Granny" is literally having memory problems and gets distracted by a single word and its spelling. But while having a story's structure match its content can be intriguing (and I'm sure there's a big word for that somewhere), it's a bit confusing here, intentional or not. I also think there's some potentially strong symbolism in connecting the farm automation/modernization with the "obsoletion" of AB herself that's hinted at here, but doesn't really come across like it should. Basically, like with most minific stories, too much is crammed into too little space.

That said, by the end, I still feel a decent emotional connection with this story: An elderly Apple Bloom, facing death, wonders whether she's really made the best choices in her life, whether she's lived up to the family legacy and done right by the farm, but ultimately, it's too late for her to change anything, and she's simply led off to bed. A bit trite and cliche, but with some polish, could be made a lot stronger.

This is a one-trick-pony of a story. Discord's voice is clear and works here. Retelling bible stories in the Discordian way (Hail Eris!) is a great reference too. But this "story" unfortunately offers nothing more clever than that. So yeah, high fives all around for deep nerd culture references, but... Well, a true Discordian wouldn't expect to win anyway, would they? :-)

Yeah yeah, Dash is a tomboy, we get it. Sorry, that sounds overly harsh. It's just this has been the obvious trope since season one, so you're on an uphill battle here. That said, Rarity realizing Dash needs a suit and not a dress is a great moment of character growth for Rarity. But that leads to the obvious question: why isn't this story about Rarity? From Dash's PoV things "just happen" and it's all wonderful at the end. That's a weak story. Rarity, meanwhile, had to have come to this realization somehow. This story should be about that journey, not Dash's mere "Heh, guess I'm off the hook" non-eventful day. So, kudos for the concept, but reframe it and show us how and why Rarity grows, and it'll be much stronger.

Story title is exactly the prompt title? Author has chosen "Hard mode!"

Super meta references to canon story choices? "Expert mode, unlocked!"

References to obscure Yeats poems? Bad puns about programmed spiders? Seriously, author, are you just TRYING to bait me on this?

References to Yeats poems becoming more obvious.

Sorry, author, if I feel that I'd need a dose of LSD and a nine-year B.A. in poetry to make sense of your ramblings, you lose the game, and I confess I see this as nothing more than drunk/high stream-of-consciousness rambling.

Also, a better referential use of this poem already won The Twilight at last year's Scribblefest.

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/366340/slouching-towards-canterlot

Ahhh... Mead. Or more generally, alcohol. "The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems." (EDIT: Damnit, I see >>TitaniumDragon literally did the same opening line in his comment!)

This is a nifty little character scene. It fits the characters, and it's a great gesture on AJ's part, as mead takes a fair bit of time and effort to get right. But overall, there's not much more to it than that. A simple lament, and a new friend. It's well done for that flavor of simplicity, and on the upper part of my slate for it, but doesn't stand out quite enough to make the top.

What a title... and seeing this is, in fact, poetry. "Author has selected HARD MODE!!!"

"Five-syllable yawn!" That's cheating. "Welcome back, Ms. Goose!" is only four syllabyles. Discord's verse having 4 lines is a good, intentional break with form.

Ultimately this series of haikus doesn't do much for me. None really stand out as great, and taken in a block of 30, all with a similar theme, it feels redundant and, frankly, a bit lazy.

Having said that, I'm sure I'll read the comments or author's reply later and find I missed some super-convoluted hidden message or meaning where if you read first word of each line upside down on a tuesday in the mirror while its raining there's some impossibly clever structure. But that's not a story. As a story, this is just some vaguely warm feelings, though (with one exception) well constructed ones.

A little confusing, visually: I thought AJ was on the travois at first.

“I brought cupcakes!” Pinkie Pie added, pulling a box from her saddlebags...

That's the saddest line I've read in an entire contest full of aging, grey-maned ponies.

Overall though, I'm with >>Pascoite on this. The vagueness really becomes a problem. So much is implied, rather than shown. That'd be fine, if the implications weren't themselves far more interesting than the story itself. Something epic and tragic happened to Dash, but all we get in this story is a group hug. It's sweet, and does well enough, but as a reader I'm left much more interested in what happened before this than what's happening now.

And I'm done! All the stories in one sitting! And with 24 hours to spare! Now, why can't I do the same with the writing part of this write off thing? :-P

Because I like to make bets and try to guess my own outcomes (as well as honestly rate my own self), I state here that I would vote my own story 7th (or maybe 6th) place this round. There were several better entries for sure.

That said, I also think I liked my story better than others for a change (I'm usually my own worst critic), and predict it will finish a fair bit lower even than that, at 12th or less.

Good luck to all going into the next round! I'm hosting a huge party on in 13 hours, and expect to be hung over well into Saturday. I'll check back then!

>>Xepher
It's the punchline to the story. Rainbow Dash spends the whole story talking about how she feels young, and how to make others feel young, and then at the end, she herself feels old.

>>Xepher
And this one would be the blatant plagiarism I referred to earlier. I'm disappointed that none of the judges caught that. Or if they did realize it, that they didn't do anything about it. I mean, if I wholesale copied a scene from a movie with minor substitution jutsu, I wouldn't expect to win anything for it.

Alright, rant over.

There's an error early on that I commonly see, which is using "that's" in a past-tense narration. It only stands for "that is" or "that has," not "that was."

I've said this about several stories lately (quite possibly in this write-off), but it's hard to write someone being bored. The tendency is to make the narration sound bland to create that mood in the reader, but (surprise, surprise), this tends to bore the reader. You've actually done very well with that. The narration is spirited and interesting to read, and this is (almost) always the better way to handle bored character.

Moving on.

Now I'm hitting a few pretty obvious editing errors.

Okay, we're getting into a lot of eye-rolling innuendo. That's going to be a niche audience, like back in my "fibrous nuggets" days. If you just want to get a laugh, fine, but these aren't the kinds of stories that do well in voting.

And I don't understand what happened. Suddenly Starlight's there, and I don't know why. Did she give the amulet to Twist? Was Starlight whom Twilight was trying to find? These answers and more, on the next episode of random humor.

Nice quiet character piece. I really liked this. It feels like a departure from canon. Yes, they did eventually stop writing to each other, but the "mostly talks about herself" bit seems to be leading up to how she behaved as The Countess, yet in the episode, that change in her personality caught Applejack completely by surprise. It could use a tweak to get around that, and honestly, I'm not sure how you'd go about doing it. It might just end up having to be one of those smallish AU moments that you can get away with in stories at times.

I don't have a lot to say about this one. It's not that ambitious, but you don't have to write a blockbuster to generate a poignant moment, and this one does. It's rightly low-key, showing how the characters cope with what shouldn't be a low-key thing, at least not internally, but of course real people try to keep their composure. I like Granny's last line as a way to illustrate that, but I do think it could be tweaked some, as it makes her sound kind of callous. I mean, this is her son she's being dismissive of.

I expect this will finish pretty high from the quality and realism, but suffer a bit from it not being dramatic. As for me, I think you made the right choice, and despite its understatedness, I think it's memorable. It spent too long at the beginning for my taste, saying the same thing about Apple Bloom a couple of times. I do like this juxtaposition of what children versus adults are concerned about in this situation, and I'm going to agree with >>Fenton that using Granny as the perspective character is fine. It depends on whose conflict you want to show. Applejack's is a little more straightforward, and it's unresolved, which is what >>TitaniumDragon said, but saying you should have used AJ's perspective but complaining that her arc is incomplete... well, I think that right there justifies the use of Granny's viewpoint. Her arc is resolved even though the outcome isn't. She has to keep on keeping on, for everyone else's sake, while AJ gets the luxury of worrying about a distant friend.

This was fun, but ultimately, what did it mean? The description gets repetitive with the same kinds of events happening over and over, and with Discord's own verbal tics getting reused several times each. So that's all to say that the first scene probably dragged on longer than it should have, or it could have been cleaned up some.

You've got an unfortunate missing comma in the last paragraph. As it is, Twilight's lying. She does know Spike.

So, kind of an inconsequential joke, but a fun enough character moment. Though Discord's description was kind of generic; these are exactly the beats I'd expect a creation story to hit, which isn't what I'd expect of Discord.

A simple story that mostly hits its mark but doesn't leave a lasting impression. Pretty good.

So 88 refers to radium, right?

Why is it glowing, though? Radium doesn't, though its emissions can cause radiofluorescence in other materials. If they had some of those present, fine, but the metal itself wouldn't.

I'm not sure what the issue is. We get hints that there is a back story, but no hints as to what any of it is, so whatever is concerning the princesses, I'm not privy to it, and thus I'm not concerned with them. Radioactive materials can be dangerous, yes, but again, I have no idea what they're referring to. Just the danger of radiation? Their fear seems to go beyond that, since just telling ponies to stay away from it would suffice. Are they referring to past nuclear wars or something? I just don't know, and I don't even have the beginnings of something to start speculating. I just kind of get that this is a historical re-enactment of Marie Curie, but with a second scene tacked on that suggests the princess know about the danger, but not why or what they intend to do about it. Really, this feels like the beginning of a story that stops just when the takes are established.

Eh, this was just weird for me. Not that it's a bad idea, but I don't even know what motivated them to want to do this. Is it necessary? If so, that doesn't speak well of their marriage. It also seems like an extreme and potentially dangerous thing to do. I mean... okay, gender roles and all, but when they do the reverse, and the point is to seduce her on a first date... that just doesn't sit right with me. But that won't be everyone.

Still, it's kind of an interesting idea, but it just presents that idea and lets it generate its own interest instead of doing something with it. In the end, it makes it another one of those "okay, that happened" concept-based stories that doesn't explore what the consequences of that idea are. Sorry I don't have more to say, but I'm just not really the audience for this, and my only advice for improving it is in developing what all this means, what changes it's caused in their relationship, what point you want the story to make.

Wait, actual fur rugs? They skin animals?

A few minor editing things, but really, this reminds me a lot of Apple Asunder, where there's a quiet interpersonal character moment that belies all the larger implications of what caused it. And Celestia is one of the few ponies Twilight would be willing to give up her schedule for.

I don't have much to say about this—it's just a heartfelt piece, but like the story I already mentioned, it's not dramatic, so I don't know how well it's going to resonate with most readers, but I liked it. I do wonder where Luna is. If Celestia was capable of handling both the sun and moon, presumably Luna is as well, and she's younger. She also has a longer-standing relationship with Celestia than Twilight does, so I would have expected her to be the first choice, particularly since Twilight's coming here spontaneously and of her own volition. Had this been a standing appointment, that's one thing, but it's presented more as someone extemporaneously coming to her aid, so that evokes "where was Luna?" for me more than it being Twilight's sole responsibility.

So quite good, but Luna was curious for her absence.

Why's Spike hacking when he doesn't know the message yet? Are you implying he coughs up messages from ponies other than Celestia now, or is there just some unexplained source of surprise here?

And the remark about incinerating stuff in Our Town... They were very forgiving of her, and she never reacted as if anything bad has happened. Not that you can't come up with a way to make it work, but you have to give me that explanation, not just ask me to buy the end state.

Okay, you had me until that last scene. I don't get the ending at all. So if you've done bad things in your life, you're not allowed to get mad at other people for doing bad things? I can't imagine what Twilight thought would happen. Why does the bear need to go there specifically? And Starlight didn't actually take care of it as asked. It even appears she teleported it away, and I don't know whether that solved the bear's problem or swept it under the rug. How'd she know where to send it? Fluttershy couldn't even tell her what its problem is. If Twilight has a good explanation, sure, then Starlight can decide to forgive her. Twilight wouldn't necessarily see her room at all, so she might not know, if Starlight just doesn't let her see it. If that's her decision, of course. But this one's just made me feel like Starlight's been cowed into letting Twilight be an asshole.

I think making the motive for all this so specific and concrete was a mistake. Now I'm all focused on what's happening with the bear, and the story spends so much time on that, so of course I'm going to. Having Fluttershy there barely changed anything. I think you'd do far better to leave Twilight's infraction completely vague, just that she's done something that inadvertently affected Starlight in a bad way, and now Starlight has to deal with the aftermath. Unless, of course, you want to expand this quite a bit and flesh out what the bear's deal is.

But even then, I think vaguer is the better choice, because that frames Starlight's dilemma better. If she's a victim of assholery, then she's just continuing to be a victim. And, y'know, that might be a valid point for a story to make, but I don't think it's the one you want. It's enough that she feels slighted, and then decides not to make an issue of it for the sake of her friend, particularly in a case where Twilight didn't intend any harm and indeed might not have realized any harm was done, furthermore in a way that's not likely to happen again so that Starlight doesn't need to worry about heading off a repeat performance. To me, at least, that's a far more powerful statement. You do lose the humor that way, and some readers wouldn't like that. So, different strokes for different folks, but there are still ways to inject humor into a vaguer treatment of the situation while delivering a more heartfelt and consistent message.

Well done, though. I like the sentiment, even if some of the implications felt creepy to me.

All done!

I didn't hit many strong stories until late in my ballot. There just wasn't much that wowed me this time. I think it's rather telling that 2 of my top 5 were stories I didn't understand.

Alas, I have failed my country and my people this time on getting through my slate. I largely blame the double whammy of moving house and attending Whinny City Pony Con this weekend. Excuses aside, though, I will try to do better with my finalist slate.

>>Pascoite
So I was a judge there, and recognized the poetry reference, but as the story borrowed only its title from Yeat's "The Second Coming" I'd hardly call that "blatant plagiarism." "The Second Coming" is 164 words. "Slouching Towards Canterlot" is over 6,000 words. I don't see how it can be plagiarism when it's 37 times longer the the original. If anything, I felt it borrowed a lot from Bladerunner. Was it something else you're saying the story ripped off?

>>TitaniumDragon
>>Pascoite
>>Xepher
Corejo and Quill kept telling me I should write poetry, so here it is. I put no effort into writing a story. I just picked up whatever was at hand and tried to squeeze it into rhymes. Period. Frankly, if Roger permitted it, I would have published that out of the official contest. The goal here wasn’t to compete, but rather to know what was wrong and why.

Iambic tetrameter with rhyming couplets is copied from Tolkien’s Lay of Leithian, which is 4,200 verses long. Good luck reading it TD! :P

Of course, I have two main obstacles to overcome with English poetry. First is iambs. French has no tonic accent, so French poetry is entirely built on syllables (no iambs). Figuring that out is quite hard and explains the uneven rhythm in places. Next thing is that I pronounce some words wrong. For instance, Cassius had to explain me that rebels was pronounced more like, say, /ray-bulls/ and not /ree-bells/ as I thought (that explains the slanty rebels/bells rhyme). Or that “hour”, despite being pronounced /a-were/ with a hiatus, is considered one syllable formed by a triphthong. (‘Magic’ and ‘trick’ don’t rhyme? How so? I don’t hear the difference and my dictionary gives the same phonetic ending.) Etc.

You could say I could get help from online rhyming dictionaries or other resources. Sure, but I find them really inconsistent. For example, howmanysyllables.com indicates /hour/ is monosyllabic, but suggests it rhymes with sour (OK), but also tour (!) and dour, which is likely more debatable.

The short of it being that this was not written as a true entry, but rather as an exercice. And it was also evidence that both Corejo and Quill are wrong: I should NOT write poetry. Well, okay, I should write poetry out of the WriteOff and get better at it! :P Still, if one of you around there has the time and courage to give me a detailed insight of what was wrong, I’d be really grateful.

Good luck to the finalists, and thanks everyone!

>>TitaniumDragon
>>Fenton
>>Pascoite
>>Haze
>>Xepher

Sad trombone. I guess that'll teach me to try and do too many things in 750 words.

Now, I'm not usually one for correcting reader interpretation but... >>Icenrose... It was Celestia... I guess I should have had Shining say, "I have friends in high places"?

Thanks for the input and good luck to the finalists!

I wasn't terribly happy with either of my stories in this round, but I was just happy to have written anything, as I haven't entered anything into the writeoff in ages. Ironically, I thought this was the stronger of the two, as I felt like it had a stronger idea, but I guess the quality of writing in the other won out over the idea of this one.

This story has a lot of problems. I don't think this is the proper approach to the story for a 750 word version of it, and honestly, I think that it is probably too big of a story for 750 words to begin with, so trying to shove it into 750 words was a mistake.

I've been trying to bounce around ideas for a story because I think that there's a lot of potential in the idea of "civilization is doomed to destroy itself" and survivors of a past catastrophe trying to avert a repeat, while not trying to cling to an idea like technological stasis, seems very interesting to me. I don't really know if this is the right point to start it, even, but I like the idea of the sisters finally being forced to bring Cadance and Twilight in on the "conspiracy" so to speak.

The real issue, I think, is properly portraying the villain (so to speak) - impersonal villains are always hard to depict properly, and "the general shape of society" is a tough problem to depict in an interesting manner. It's sort of like a force of nature as an antagonist (like a volcanic eruption or asteroid), but it is much more vague to depict a proper struggle against such in an interesting manner.

>>Monokeras
Don't worry too much, I can't write poetry in my native English, much less in another language. I didn't even suspect that you were doing this in a second language, so it was good enough to my non-poetic ears on that count.

As to the specific rhyme..

magic is "ma-jik", two syllables
"trick" is "trik", one syllable. The "ik" at the end is the same, but the rest of the last syllable ("tr" vs. "j") is not the same. Whereas a word like "tragic" ("tra-jik") would rhyme, as it has the same "jik" phonetic for the ENTIRE final syllable.

>>Xepher
Fair enough for “magic”. I was really concerned I was pronouncing the final “ik” the wrong way.

I’m pretty pleased of what I did for a first time ever. It’s the foundation I have to build upon now. :)

Thanks for commenting! Take care.

>>Monokeras
I find that rhymezone is a pretty good resource as far as rhyming dictionaries go. Of course, you always have to sanity check things.

As for mispronouncing words... how could that ever be?

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

http://ncf.idallen.com/english.html

>>TitaniumDragon
This poem was written by a dutchman by the way. Shall that suggest that English experts are to be found exclusively outside the native English-speaking pool? :)

>>TitaniumDragon
>>Pascoite

So this was meant to a rather direct parallel between the farm and AB's personal life.

Automation was a new, non traditional direction for the farm.
AB chose a non traditional mate in Gabby.

The drones buzz around in all directions.
AB's thoughts are confused (by the chemo) and going in all directions.

AB wonders if she let the farm down by automating things.
AB wonders if she let the family down by not having kids.

And so on.

Ultimately, the message was meant to be that there is no right answer. If I'd been more direct with the title, it maybe should've been "the more things change, the more they stay the same." But I like the line from The Talking Heads more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IsSpAOD6K8

So, the drones are everywhere, but there are still ponies/others putting in old fashioned sweat
AB didn't have her own children, but she's still "granny" to everyone
The farm, and the family, will go on without her, (despite all the changes) "same as it ever was" in all the ways that matter.

It's okay to go to bed now.
It's okay to die now.


I was worried I was being too direct with my comparisons, and thus it'd be too superficial of a story, so I tried to weave the themes in more subtly, and... well obviously that was the wrong direction, at least for the two of you. :-) I'll have to rework things and go back to more anvilicious contrasts.

Thank you for the feedback!

I basically wrote this to ask the question: what if Rainbow Dash was a boy?

Maybe I’ll write more at some point in a format that allows me to explore the idea with enough space. It’s my own fault... in writing I realized that I’d need about 2500 words to actually do it. And I didn’t have that, but I submitted what I could cram into 750 regardless. Most people saw this as shipping, which makes sense, but that element was meant to be part of the setting. Which is why it’s just established in narration rather than built to. Thanks for reading, anyways!

I don’t know what happened here, don’t ask me. I wrote this at 2AM and it turned into... something.

>>Xepher
It ripped off far too much from "Blade Runner." The whole idea of replicants, what the replicants want, how to test for them, what the tests consist of, the setting... I could buy that as part of the universe if this had been written as a crossover, but it isn't labeled as one, so that bulk copying of elements just doesn't sit right with me, like it's the author trying to say he came up with that stuff rather than he borrowed it. Credit where credit's due, after all. (Of the 3 reviews listed in the BMRL for this story, two were by people who haven't seen that movie; the third called it far closer to a Blade Runner fanfic than an MLP one.) What pushed it over the line for me is that the second chapter is almost a direct copy of the movie's scene in the corporate office. The characters, what happens, where the conversation goes, even the words of the dialogue itself—it hews very close to a shot-for-shot redo up until the detective leaves. Like I said, to that point, I was happy calling it generous borrowing, maybe uncomfortably so, but I got such an uncanny sense from chapter 2 that I could visualize the movie from it. It caught me off guard how intense that feeling was. I asked Cassius to read it so I could get his impression as well, and he agreed. We had some other thoughts about it, too, but how close it is to "Blade Runner" is the only one germane to this.

Just now looked over who made finals. There are three stories I voted in my top 12 that didn't make the overall top 12. In no order, "Same as it Ever Was," "Walking on Eggshells," and "I've Come to Talk with You Again." I had them ranked 8th, 10th, and 12th.

>>sharpspark
I'm really surprised that this didn't make finals. I thought this was well-done, and I put it at the top of my slate. Not that one vote guarantees anything, but dang.

I had 4 in my top 12 that didn't make it. "First Date," (3rd) "Along The Way," (4th) "Walking on Eggshells," (8th) and "88" (9th.)

>>Pascoite
Ah, okay, if you're saying it was too close to Bladerunner, then that we definitely did see. We discussed that a fair bit too, but the decision was that, while clearly being from the Bladerunner universe, we felt that the author was NOT trying to claim those ideas as original (the cover art alone is so clearly an homage to the movie as well.) Disqualifying something is a big step we don't want to take lightly, so the proof has to be pretty strong. And we have no rule against a reusing/rewriting scenes from pop-culture any more than we have a rule against rewriting canon MLP scenes. Thus, we decided the story was on the "fan fiction" side of the plagiarism line.

Argh s:yay:t I'm doing terrible at getting reviews out this time. I swear, every time I say something up front about my intentions to review X number of stories I end up jinxing myself, versus if I just make like Shee-ya La-Beef and Just Do It (TM).


Genre: Big-In-JapanNeighpon Rockstar Trashing Their Hotel Room

Thoughts: This sets a very high bar in terms of writing quality, but I feel like it's somewhat ephemeral from a storytelling perspective. That is, it clearly shows us how Starlight has come to terms with her Past Sins (TM) and is now able to demonstrate all of her Personal Growth (TM). But like... that's kinda it. A random bear appears, Starlight suffers a minor loss but keeps it together... cool. But the overriding question I'm left with is why did Twilight do this?

I'm guessing that the Author has banked on that not mattering. I would wager that the thought is that it shouldn't matter, because this is meant to be much more Glimmer-focused, and we don't actually need T-Money to appear to be able to see that. But IMO, doing it this way leaves a huge dangling thread in terms of how Starlight would react when facing Twilight again. I mean it's one thing to get a glimpse into her thought process when coping with the loss, but I feel like it would make for a much stronger and more satisfying ending to actually see their conversation. Twilight must have a reason, but we don't get to see what Starlight makes of that reason. And the thing is, the high-bar writing here makes me feel like the Author would easily be able to deliver a stronger/more-satisfying ending out of that, which just makes me want it more.

Tier: Almost There

Genre: Applebuse

Thoughts: Agh, this is brutal. Poor Applejack. Like seriously Author, how can you kick a poor filly like this when she's down? You monster.

I kid, I kid. :-p Seriously though, this just drives a knife straight into the feels. I feel like the setup could be shorter, though... or maybe it's about as long as necessary to accomplish its goals, but in a minific contest, you don't really have the wordcount to burn on things like that. Also I think the ending could be more satisfying, though I'll defer to others for specific suggestions... but right now G-Smith pretty much just shrugs off this emotionally devastating little moment and gets on with things like nothing happened. I mean not quite but basically. It's not bad at all but I bet it could be tuned-up into something more satisfying.

Tier: Strong

Genre: Screw You, Technology!

Thoughts: This review brought to you in part by >>TitaniumDragon:

However, a larger issue here is the end is basically “Ha! We broke things so we aren’t useless anymore!” Which… is a bizarre thing to end on. Is that the message you want?

Right. This thing. This thing right here. The story is a beautifully written little piece that currently has (IMO) a near-miss with potential greatness by deciding not to tie together the various threads of the sisters' feelings, and the worldbuilding, and Progress (TM). Instead it does a left-turn at the end and has Luna show off a little bit of her troll side. Far be it from me to assert that she shouldn't have one, but right now it's like the story just abandons the clear potential for some kind of deeper meaning by letting that aspect of her take over.

Again, I can't fault the writing; my (La)beef is more with the storytelling seeming to punch the eject button right at the key moment.

Tier: Keep Developing

Genre: Embarrassing Relatives

Thoughts: Shucks and dangit, the other reviewers have scooped most of what I might otherwise want to say. Just to riff a little though, I think there's a good core idea here that is simple in scope but has decent potential. I agree that pinning-down Flurry's age would probably help this scan easier. And Twilight being a little more self-aware up front could be fun, too?

Tier: Keep Developing

Genre: Senility

Thoughts: I'm guessing the perspective character (and the number 40) is indeed an older Night Light. I would further guess that 88 is the Princesses, 17 is Shining Armor, 23 is a confused amalgamation of Twilight Sparkle and Cadance, and the caller is Twilight Velvet. These are Night Light's waning days, and his family is trying to reach out to him as best they can, but he's too far gone. (EDIT: I would further guess that there's some kind of occasion going on that brings the kids home to visit; likely Night Light's birthday, but possibly some other kind of holiday.)

That's sad, and the whole composition here is feelsy and just shy of poignant. I feel like it's all too much guesswork to really be sure what's going on, but it's awfully darn close to coming together.

Tier: Almost There

>>TitaniumDragon
>>Pascoite
>>Xepher

Yeah, unfortunately, “well thought out” wasn’t something that happened here. Honestly I was just trying to get something down since I’ve been missing far too many of these writeoff prompts. It certainly doesn’t help that it was all written from about 12:00am-3:00am.

My original idea was going to be a piece before the action, with Applejack as the focus character. I got caught up in the idea though that her putting on her hat and saying “one more time can’t hurt” just wouldn’t cut it.

I definitely realized that if this were to work, that it would need to be fleshed out a lot more, like at least triple current length, probably a lot more. I don’t think this story is going to make the transfer to FIMFiction, it really would need a complete rewrite and too much work for something I’m not sure would work.

It did, however, prompt me to think about other ideas, which is a big reason I do these contests.

Genre: Genesis

Thoughts: This has some excellently voiced Discord and some very cool worldbuilding. I'll echo the calls for more of a story, though. I think the thing at the end was an attempt to hang enough of a framing device around the central monologue to make a story out of it, but currently I don't feel like that part is consistent enough in tone or strong enough in terms of plot progress to outweigh the distraction it represents from the very good Discord on offer.

Basically I feel like this is a brilliant little seed of something, but it's not quite clear what direction it might want to go in just yet.

Tier: Keep Developing

Genre: Better Living Through Alcohol

Thoughts: Y'know what, this is a solid little story that hangs on a simple but well-executed character moment. I almost don't know what else to say here. It's a bit limited in its scope, which might tend to keep it out of my tippy-top tier. But it's very well-executed. Let me linger on one moment:

Applejack simply nodded, and the two of them stood in silence in the pleasantly cool autumn breeze. She considered the design of the runes, and thought they were pretty, in a simple kind of way.

I love this little pause. Anytime you do something like this during a Minific, it's a risk, because you can easily end up burning wordcount that you can't afford to lose. But this is great. It's pitch perfect for the moment it's trying to support.

Plus... *cough*... hashtag I ship it

Tier: Strong

Genre: Future Twilight

Thoughts: I'm going to piggyback on >>Pascoite who piggybacked on his own review of Apple Asunder. I think the comparison between the two stories is apt in the sense that there's a fair amount of establishing information leading up to a heartfelt moment of characters connecting over their vulnerabilities. This one feels a lot less self-contained, though. In Apple Asunder, we have enough information based on canon to fill in the blanks of what came before and what's likely to come after. Here though, there are indeed lots of questions about the other alicorns, and Twilight's current role, etc.

Mind you, that isn't a bad thing per se. But I feel like this suffers a bit from the length limitation coupled with the questions it raises. I find myself very much interested in reading more, though, so this is probably an excellent start to a story that'll do great with the longer length available on FimFiction.

Tier: Almost There

Genre: Impersonation

Thoughts: What an interesting story to end with. I thought the twist was very well-executed, even though the whole premise raises questions that would be helpful to have answered. Is this an Immortality Blues Twilight who's just lost Fluttershy in the past year? What does the Twilight-Thorax relationship look like to prompt him to do just this? Or Thorax-Fluttershy for that matter. Right now this scores tons of points with me on concept, ambition, and execution... the only "but" is really just with the logic and backstory side of the concept.

With a mild tuneup this could be my #1. As is, it's still probably top 3.

Tier: Strong

Huzzah, I have reviewed all the finalists. Including my own at some point, evidently. I'mma have to come back with some mashups when I get some time tonight, unless folks beat me to it...

*jedi mind trick gesture*

>>CoffeeMinion
ot.

>>Fenton
And lo, the circle is completed, in accordance with the prophecy. :-p

>>CoffeeMinion
A'ight, you guys didn't beat me to it, so lllllllllet's get ready to mashuuuuuuuuuuuup!!

My Gift To An Apple Asunder: Years before his formal break with the hive, a young but already Pony-empathetic Thorax discovers the Apple family in turmoil following a recent loss. He wants to help, and starts appearing to Applejack as her parents. Being young, though, he's not as careful about concealing his transformations as he should be, and a climactic encounter with Granny Smith almost leaves him on the wrong end of a can of Raid.

Divine Kites: A wild Rockhoof appears in Starlight's bedroom one day, and the two of them ignite a spark of passion over their shared interests in drinking and kite-flying. Soon, with inhibitions flying away like loosed kite-strings, Starlight finds herself only too willing to show Rockhoof the deepest and most exciting single-cell box kite in her private collection, and Rockhoof finds himself only too willing to show Starlight the full measure of steadiness and intensity that earned the word "rock" in his name. (Naturally, after a cut that seems like things are about to get more "adult" in nature, the two of them just end up on a hill flying kites together sedately--followed by Sweetie Belle popping up at random and shouting, "Oh come on!")

Bingo Greetings, Bottle Of Wine: Night Light always feels so young when the different numbers come to visit his assisted living home. He feels like a sporting young colt again when 17 drops by to shoot the breeze. Sometimes when 23 drops by she's lavender and makes him think, while sometimes 23 is pink and so pretty that he can't help but blush a little. Every so often 42 drops by and raises questions that he can't answer. His favorite, though, has got to be a slinky grey-and-purple number that's one shy of 70; sometimes she's just warm and supportive, but every so often she does things that make him feel young in ways that none of the others do.

This was my "warm-up" story; I just kind of got the idea of how silly it would be for Discord to tell a creation story in my head, because the idea of him telling a Genesis-like tale seemed amusing. I guess folks agreed.

People also wondered what the point was... and so did I, ultimately. It was pretty much just a spur of the moment thing, as well as an excuse to include jokes about Eris, who obviously would be Discord's mom. I didn't really have any greater purpose here than to momentarily amuse, and the end was pretty much just kind of there to give it some sort of ending instead of just... you know, not.

I was kind of surprised that this did better than 88, but this one had strong voicing and was at least mildly amusing, which was enough to carry it into the finals.

Congratz to the winners!

So...... about 10 different people wrote this story. I will leave the exact authors ambiguous for those who may or may not want to claim appropriate responsibility and/or condemnation.

It began with the idea of doing an exquisite corpse, which in this case meant each author only got the first sentence of the previous paragraph. Then, along the way we broke every rule, basically. I ended up writing 2 sections in confusion whether we were going to do a 2nd round with the original 4 people or bring new people in. One author wrote 2 paragraphs instead of 1, kind of. Once I gave someone two sentences because I was worried it wouldn't work otherwise. And one final author saw the entire thing and had to try and wrap it up in ~36 words. And then a different person gave us the title, based on the closing line to an alternate director's cut ending that wasn't even used.

For a disaster, I feel like this is surprisingly legible.

>>TitaniumDragon
>>Fenton
>>Pascoite
>>Xepher
>>CoffeeMinion

And the prize for Missing The Big Point goes to… almost all of you. Except for Xepher.

Here we have Celestia, gazing on the machine that has replaced her greater role in the world. She hates it with a passion, but refuses to admit that to anyone but her sister, because Twilight made it for her. Have you ever gotten a sweater that you really want to burn, but it came from a grandma/aunt/insert relative here who you respect so much that you wear it anyway and smile when asked about it? That’s what we have here. She can see all the advantages of the Infernal Machine, but misses the heavy task it lifted off her shoulders, an opinion that Luna shares.

After all, Celestia can’t just go to Twilight and *tell* her. That would hurt Twilight.

So when Little Sister gently chucks a pebble into the finely crafted gift, she understands. The machine will be repaired, but until then, the Royal Sisters are once again masters of the world’s sky. And this is a good thing, rather than a discordant and worse, disrespectful act.

Critiques:
Yes, I needed to sand down the tonal dissonances, but the ending lines switching from Third Person Celestia to Third Person Abstract is *intentional* because we’re fading out, the curtain is coming down, the end is upon us, and the camera pans back up into the sky to show two sisters sitting side by side.

The POV choice (and shift, from the beginning to the middle to the end) was deliberate. By starting abstract and hammering the effort put into the machine it builds the readers comprehension of the situation, then putting the reader in Celestia’s golden shoes, it personalizes the emotions, the conflict, the hatred/love of the machine. Then the fade-out as above. Think of it as the camera starting with a long shot, zooming into Celestia for the action, then zooming out at the end. (which is how it would be done if this were a video)

>>sharpspark
I wrote the 2nd paragraph, and I'm proud of it. I was hoping to derail the entire story with bad humor right from the start. It kinda backfired when the rest of the story made too much sense.

>>sharpspark
I wrote paragraph three, which surprisingly didn't wind up being the shortest paragraph. I am mildly disappointed while simultaneously greatly pleased that absolutely nothing came of it.

The goal there was mostly just to give the next person in line something pretty out there to work with.

>>TitaniumDragon
>>Fenton
>>Pascoite
>>sharpspark
>>Xepher
>>CoffeeMinion

Wow, I never thought I would ever get first place! :D
Thank you very much!

I wanted to write something with Fluttershy, with a relaxing natural scene, and I had more or less the idea of remembrance as a gift for some time. It would have made sense that the changelings acted as the rest of the Mane Six, but it would have cluttered the fic with too many voices and characters. Instead, the changelings acted as animals.

As most of you pointed out, the story raises several questions. I left them unanswered on purpose. There's no right answer to what happened, what kind of relationship there is between Twilight, Fluttershy and Thorax etc. You can assume that Twilight and Thorax are immortal, as >>CoffeeMinion said. The way I wrote it, the background is not meant to be the focus of the story. Maybe in a longer format I could give more answers, though. Honestly, I didn't put much thought on it.

I realize there are some things that can be improved. As >>Fenton pointed out, it was hard to make the voice sound like Fluttershy's to mislead the reader while keeping it believable as Thorax's (for instance, not calling the animals with their names was intentional, but calling Angel "white bunny" would have been too odd and revealing). I also agree with >>sharpspark that the pace should slowly reveal the oddities and "clues" in the right order, but I also wanted to set up some kind of conflict (Fluttershy is worried) early on.

Anyway, thank you for reading and commenting this. I'm glad you liked it!

This idea started as a story idea joke I made in the writeoff chat maybe 1 or 2 years ago. Rainbow Dash gets old, but instead of losing her athletic ability, what she really cares about is losing her namesake hair colors. She's always gotta look cool! It was the first thing I thought of with this prompt, and I wondered if I could actually turn that joke into a serious idea. Though still keeping the punchline to balance it out.

I'm tired of (im)mortality-angst fanfics (and RD always seems to be the first to burn-out in those), but instead of just subverting that, I thought of real people I've known who simply refused to grow old, at least in spirit. That optimism better fits the magical world of Equestria, instead of just worrying about the far future being depressing and bleak.

This minific was written in 5 parts, and the ones with Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rarity were clearly formed in my head at the start. I still think they're pretty great. I admit Pinkie and Twilight's sections aren't nearly as good, they're more abstract and vague, because I was getting tired. It's one of those things where you gotta sleep on it and come up with something better the next day, but you don't get the time to do that in this contest. I hoped the strong beginning and end would make up for them, and the subtle links connecting one section to the next might prevent it from getting boring (never do «lists»)

On wordcount: from the start I estimated needing around 500 words for this, even though it's a big concept involving 6 characters. The Rarity section was too much fun to write, so that got an extra 50-75 perhaps. and it went up a bit more from some excessive prose in the weaker sections, stuff that could've been edited out to make them tighter. To me, 624 words is bloated and over-budget. But since it's not anywhere near 750, I can leave in the fat (was gonna use the extra time to write a second entry, but that one didn't work out). I recommend this approach instead of trying to trim down a 1000 word story, because that step is equally time-consuming as the actual writing but completely un-fun.

The title: I'm bad at improvising titles. and that Beatles song was stuck in my head as I was finishing this. It's hard to think of any other pop culture looking at aging in that kind of whimsical romantic way, isn't it? Maybe just titling this "When I'm Sixty Four" would've fit better, without the misleading imagery.... but at least this one was weird enough to be memorable, I think.

>>georg
When 4 of 5 readers Miss the Big Point, usually we call that Author Not Getting the Point Across. But YMMV :B

>>georg
If you want to convey it being a gift from Twilight that Celestia isn't happy with, I'd recommend choosing something other than something which replaces her role.

You seem to be trying to have your cake and eat it too, judging by your description; the automation angle is the one that looms largest, and it also seems to be why Celestia isn't happy with it, so it is hardly surprising that that overshadowed the whole "Twilight gave me a bad sweater" angle.

>>Pascoite Heh. Normally, the reviewers find points that even I didn't think I had in there, like a porcupine where I thought there was a hamster.