Uhhhh... my prompt already has three votes. Is that normal?

>>007Ben
I think that can happen if you and two other people input the exact same prompt.

.... What the heck did you submit?

>>007Ben
>>Bachiavellian
No, mine apparently has a score of 3 already as well.
Must be a bug.

But I sure am psyched for this round, need a short story to jump start my writing here.

>>Bachiavellian
My prompt’s got three votes and it definitely is not the same as the rest.

>>Bachiavellian
>>Moosetasm
I mean, it's a moderately common two-word phrase, but it'd be off the charts crazy if another person submitted it, let alone two.

>>007Ben
>>Bachiavellian
>>Moosetasm
>>Anon Y Mous
I suspect this was caused by a new voting scheme that Roger is debuting as of this contest. Rather than the traditional "yes/no" voting on prompts, I believe the new scheme offers no less than four options: "bad/meh/good/great." I haven't looked at the actual code commit, but I would guess those options break down to something like 0/3/6/9 points per each. The default option is "meh," which appears to correspond to 3 points...? (Unless it's 0/1/2/3, and everyone by default votes theirs as "great.")

>>CoffeeMinion
Oh, yeah, totally forgot about the new prompt voting system. That's almost definitely what's going on.

>>CoffeeMinion
Yeah, that system is definitely debuting with us.

I love being a guinea pig; it means I can squeak and complain all I want! :D

Edit: I also just realized you can vote that your own prompt is garbage now.

I love the new prompt system. It's super cool and fancy and neato.

>>Moosetasm
You could actually do that before, it's just we never did.

>>MLPmatthewl419
Whoa! You getting in on this round, man?!

Pretty nifty prompt voting system this round. Much better than just a simple thumbs-up or thumbs-down.

>>CoffeeMinion
Ooohhh. I see. Neat!

>>CoffeeMinion
Probably not for the writing, but hopefully for the art if something cool happens. Idk, I'll see what I can do in regards to words.

Schoolwork piled up this weekend, so I won't be able to submit anything. I'll be sure to check out what the rest of you make though.

I'm out, too.

Mike

I may have something. We'll see how it goes.

Blah, it was down to the wire and I only had 500 words of a pretty bad idea. I need to get better at this.

>>Moosetasm
Alas. Sometimes 500 words of a bad idea is great to build on, though! :pinkiesmile:

That's a worldbuilding and a half.

It was a little hard to figure out what was going on at first mostly because I kept getting caught up on the names. Not that there's anything wrong with them, they are appropriately ancient-being, but because I didn't really have enough time to get used to them. Discord also seems really, really spiteful, and I'm not sure what to make of that.

All around, I do really like this concept. And it really leaves me wondering how Discord went from a cosmic force to what he is now. You know, wondering in a good way. Also, I think you did a great job following the flow of cosmic battle in such a short time.

So, final verdict? Pretty good, but would definitely benefit from later expansion just to give us more time to get into the world.

Huh.

I mean, this is a pretty damn heavy topic, and you didn't do too bad at it, just... I don't know what to say. I guess I just would have liked more time with the character. Yeah. A happier ending would have been nice too, but I get why you did what you did. Just give us more time is my advice.

I feel like Bachi might've written this one, maybe.

Something I liked:

In terms of writing action, this is not half bad. When I first read it I was confused by all the character names I didn't recognize, and what exactly was happening, but upon re-reading I realized that the context of the action is not important so much as Discord's recollection of it. This is a version of Discord that's less chaotic neutral (how he is by the end of the series) and more chaotic evil (how he was in season 2), and it's interesting to read about this now-tamed creature reminisce so fondly of a time when he caused so much destruction. Remember when this guy was a villain?

Something I didn't like:

What I found to be a road block initially is that there are so many words dedicated to the action and so few dedicated to Discord's own situation that it's easy to get the impression that we're supposed to care about the action itself, and I don't think that's supposed to be the case. Discord is in a really bad mood, he clearly doesn't enjoy being chaotic neutral (at least some of the time), but we're given so little insight into why he feels this way other than the things he's remembering. I also feel like replacing the coffee mare with Fluttershy, then expanding that last scene, would help.

Verdict: Very cluttered, seemingly on purpose, which I can get behind, but at the same time I want it to focus more on Discord himself.

Me too, Sunset, me too.

Something I liked:

As a moment-by-moment process showing someone who decides to commit a certain act, and then commits to it, I think this does so fairly effectively. If you've ever been seriously depressed, then you've thought about the exact same things Sunset thinks about here, and I would say it's almost too relatable if not for something I'll get into later. I don't have a lot of stuff to say that's both positive and constructive about this? It talks about a topic that hits close to home for me, and I'm assuming for the person who wrote this. Certainly a big mood with this one.

Something I didn't like:

Um... isn't it cliche for Sunset to be in this situation? There must be an army of "Sunset is suicidal" stories at this point, and this wouldn't be so noticeable if not for this honestly feeling like it could've been about anyone, not Sunset in particular. Like I never really got the impression that this should apply to Sunset and her character, and how she handles depression. Sure, she asks a lot of questions about it, but anyone can do that. It doesn't help that we're not really given context for why Sunset feels this way aside from a very general sense of impending doom, and again, that can apply to anyone.

Verdict: As a mood piece it's fine, but as a character piece I feel like it's a bit... empty?

Good news: After 1 7/8 days of nothing, I finally had an idea!

You can probably guess the bad news...

So, Sandbar's special talent is passivity? Cool.

The tone kinda fluctuates between whimsical and serious in a weird way, though. That's really the only problem I have with this. So if you ever reevaluate this piece, that's what I'd focus on.

This is a wonderfully original piece, though. And I really like the idea of foals getting cutie marks in their sleep; that some can't remember the dream is beautifully horrifying. I also think you did the ending really well, I love how it transitions into this peaceful image and doesn't leave us hanging nor try and be dramatic. It just is.

So overall? Other than the weird tone, this is a pretty cool story.


Ninja edit after Anon Y Mous's comment: it's not that I think you can't switch between tones, it's that the transitions felt abrupt and out of place in a piece this short. I actually also love the image of the dad picking him up like a football, but it just flipped a little to fast for me.

I disagree that the tone switches from comical to serious are bad. I love them and think they are a welcome addition to the piece which makes it wonderful in its own way.

I loved the idea and I love the image of his dad picking him up like a football and charging through everyone.

Gonna be honest here mate, this is good.

Like, I don't even have that much to complain about. The only thing is that the transition between scenes for some reason kept making me reread it. Might just be a me thing, though.

In terms of things I like, oh boy. Just the atmosphere of the piece is wonderful. It knows what it wants to be and it doesn't try to be anything else. I also really like how you worked in a moral in such a non-painful way. It just feels natural, and that's a hard thing to do. That the Kassandra isn't able to comprehend Lyra as anything other than Shatterhoof is also a nice touch.

So, basically, good job man. Def my fav as of halfway through reading these.

Hmm.

At first I thought this was going to be a 'younger generation doesn't appreciate the older ones and their traditions' piece, and everything in the story pointed to that. Until the grandpa was mentioned, and then it suddenly switched into a 'person stops what they're doing because of regret.' It was a really weird feeling when it switched, and if you go back to this, I'd say just pick one of those and rewrite the other section to match it. Also, there were a couple of small errors that a quick once over would fix right up.

Otherwise, this was well worth my time. I like the characters, especially. You did a great job making them feel real and likable. I also just plain liked how you approached the topics, they didn't feel too forced as they too often do.

Pretty much, this story has a ridiculously high amount of potential, just work on what message you're trying to convey and expand on it a little to give us more time with Amp.

Genre: Rub-A-Dub-Dub

Thoughts: Well, that was massively depressing. D:

As a longtime fan of Soufriere, I’m definitely not opposed to some Sunset Shimmer sadfic. Taking it all the way out through an actual depiction of suicide is a really rough thing to spring on a reader, though. I mean, this does a solid job of executing on the depiction of a suicidally depressed Sunset ending herself, and I can’t really argue with this on the basis of the writing at all. The Ophelia reference could’ve been cheesy but it wasn’t, so props for that. Props as well for getting into the headspace as deeply as you’ve managed.

If I’m going to complain here, it would be more about the meta-problem of not having content warnings on Writeoff stories. I could have personally done without the super-dark head trip to the void. And granted, I could’ve stopped reading, but the big gap thing offered quite a bit of pull to see what happened after. That was another thing that could’ve easily been cheesy, but that ended up being very effective.

I think, in the end, this is a very strong story, albeit one that laser-focuses on walking a character down a short path that I personally didn’t want to go down. I don’t think that’s a basis for dinging the story, though; it hits hard with what it’s doing.

Tier: (All of the stories this round are good)

Genre: Monochromatic

Thoughts: Wow, there is some definite high-quality writing up in here! Solid gut-punch with the last two lines. This is not one of my ships—not even a little—but this sets it up well enough that even I can pick up on the emotional through-line that it’s going for. I almost don’t even know what to say here beyond that it does everything well. The character voicing is on-point, but the narration is the true gem. Maybe the only slightly cheesy thing is Twilight’s inner thought about wanting Rarity to call her “Sparky,” but I dunno.

I’m copping-out on trying to sort the entries into tiers this time, because we have relatively few stories and they’re all of relatively high quality. But this is my #3 pick right now, and in a more typical round, #3 would sound a bit stronger than “third out of 7” does.

Tier: (All of the stories this round are good)

Lyra forgot to mention that, much like Spider-Man, anyone can be Mistress Mare-Velous.

Something I liked:

While I do like the premise more than the execution itself, this is a pretty baller premise. From what I remember of Lyra's canon persona, this is pretty accurate. Accurate and cute. Bit of a ballsy move to introduce us to the OC before the character we recognize in advance, but Kassandra is surprisingly well-defined for someone who literally only exists within the confines of a four-issue comic. The whole thing is less a deconstruction of superhero origin stories and more of a playful jab, especially with the not-so-subtle joke about superheroes tending to be orphans or rich and or whatever.

Something I didn't like:

Now, I still have to wonder how exactly Lyra got into this situation. Or rather, how she's interacting with a comic book character. It's implied that she's role-playing as a character in her head? But the story reads as if she's been planted in like a virtual reality world, or, God forbid, an isekai scenario, and I'm never sure as to what the author is going for here. If this is Lyra just role-playing then there ought to be some solid indication of this, preferably something used for humor. The closest I can think of is Kassandra ignoring Lyra's fourth-wall-breaking remarks, like she's a video game NPC, but that's about it.

Verdict: This honestly reads better on a second go-around. Might creep up my slate, who knows?

So it turns out Sandbar's special talent is... slowcore. *starts blasting Earth 2*

Something I liked:

I feel as if I know Sandbar very well, even though I actually don't. My indifference toward the student six is well-documented, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to write a student six story that impresses me. This... yeah, this is fairly impressive. It borders on the existential, at least from the dad's end, in how it deals with a very peculiar issue that I didn't even consider with cutie marks. The show dedicated a few episodes to cutie marks and their quirks, but this story makes me wish they did something like this. The fact that Sandbar is content with how he's defined by what he doesn't do is weirdly sweet.

Something I didn't like:

I don't like how the two scenes sort of clash with each other, to put it simply. There seems to be some disagreement about the tonal shifts within the story, but I don't think this is a tonal issue. It never gets too serious and it never gets too humorous, in my opinion. The problem, for me, lies in how the transition between these scenes is almost unnecessary. I have to wonder if it would take much to merge the two scenes such that we don't need a transition, and in fact we could probably get away with all of the action taking place around the turtle exhibit. You don't need this much action.

Verdict: A character study of a character I never had any interest in that's still enthralling. Miller probably wrote it.

Nothing is ever really broken. Only transformed.

Something I liked:

If I were to judge these entries by how they hit me on a gut level, on a first reading, this would take top spot. It's kind of extraordinary in a way, because it deceives the reader into thinking it'll be a comedy. There are a lot of jokes made, especially in the narration, but the point the story is making is as real as a heart attack. Tempest may have been reformed, but she still has nothing, and Starlight has to convince that she can turn that nothing into something. The final few sentences hit so hard for me because they remind me that you might be weird, but you're not broken.

Something I didn't like:

Unfortunately, the humor doesn't work as well for me upon re-examination. I think it's because some of Starlight's internal remarks come off as too human-like. For instance, at one point she says "oh god," and that took me right out of what was an immersive experience up to that point. The comedy threatens to invade what turns out to be a very heartfelt exchange between these characters, and I honestly wish there was a more concrete separation between the humor and the seriousness. There's also the occasional odd phrase that seems almost like a typo, but that's a minor point.

Verdict: Still one of my favorites. The fact that I'm the first to review this entry is a travesty.

Well, both my grandfathers died before I could even remember them. Isn't that swell?

Something I liked:

Author, if I'm being perfectly honest, this is my least favorite of the bunch. But it's not because you didn't try. You did something ballsy and wrote something with all OC's, and that doesn't happen often. Personally I wouldn't recommend it, but I do appreciate how well-defined the grandson and grandma are. It's a very honest portrait of grief from a child's perspective. We've all had that grandparent who was our favorite when we were growing up. I remember when my maternal grandma died a few years ago, and it messed up my sister for a while because those two were particularly close. It's relatable.

Something I didn't like:

Now, given that we know these aren't characters we go into the story already knowing, I have to wonder why this is a horse fic. You, the author, have to ask yourself what can be gained by setting this story specifically in the MLP universe. It's a very universal, kind of humanist story, and it wouldn't take much to turn the ponies into humans. It seems like a petty thing to bring up, because when taken in a vacuum it's a perfectly fine story, but keep in mind that we're judging these entries in the context of fanfiction, not original fiction. It's a nice story. You really don't have to change it that much.

Verdict: Like I said, I can't muster much enthusiasm for this entry, but it's by no means bad.

Feelings unspoken are unforgettable.

Something I liked:

Unlike my other favorite entries, which prefer concept over execution, this one takes a very simple premise and executes it near-perfectly. It's so simple, in fact, that nothing really happens on a physical level. We literally just get a conversation between Twilight and Rarity, but we also get an internal dialogue with Twilight's thought process. It's all very vivid, and honestly the strong point of this entry is how it combines a lot of little details to make something out of nothing. There's a strong sense of decay, and monotony, and a crush that remains unseen and unrequited. A big mood for sure.

Something I didn't like:

If I had a bone to pick with this entry, and admittedly it's a small bone, it's that I do wish Twilight's yearning for Rarity's company was better articulated. Specifically the passage about her wanting Rarity to call her by a pet name could be more smoothly integrated into the rest of the text. It's a mild shame, because the idea of Twilight wanting Rarity to treat her in that way is unbearably bittersweet, but it threatens to be both a little too cheesy and a little too abrupt when put in the context of a story like this where everything happens pretty gradually and pretty subtly.

Verdict: Not getting points for creativity, but the writing itself is top-notch. Makes me feel something I can't quite describe.

Genre: Power Ponies, Assemble!

Thoughts: Who’d have guessed we’d get a fresh take on the Power Ponies (or at least one of them) in 2019?

This is actually a very strong concept. Similar to the S4 episode, it seems like Lyra has been dropped into the PP world via an enchanted comic, and her release is contingent on completing her mission. It’s slightly weird, though, because it’s not made clear until the end that Lyra has a mission, or that she’s trying to work out a way to escape. I think it fits her personality to have her geek out and start punching rocks with the tools that are suddenly dropped into her lap, but I feel like there’s a wasted opportunity to establish the stakes on her end about what she wants/needs to accomplish. Along those same lines, I feel like the scene break isn’t hitting with the kind of impact that it seems to be going for. Yes, it at least presents who Lyra is, sets up who Kassandra is supposed to become, and establishes that we’re in the Power Ponies world. But I almost think that connecting it to what comes after without the break would make for a more natural opportunity to establish the details of the situation.

Beyond that, though, this is tight. I find it surprising but cool how this manages to turn into almost a slice-of-life despite being a superhero’s origin story. I also think it’s neat how “Kassandra” gets developed as an OC before the reveal that she’s actually a canon character (at least relative to Mistress M. being canon to the Power Ponies comic in the MLP-verse), just at an earlier point in her life. I usually try to give bonus points for OCs, but this is like the best of both worlds.

Tier: (All of the stories this round are good)

Genre: Boss Fight

Thoughts: As of right now, this is at the top of my voting slate. I like how ambitiously overwrought the narration is, and I think it does an excellent job with the style and the substance of it. This is a great depiction of Discord struggling with what it would mean to be both a nigh-Cosmic Concept and a nigh-tame nigh-mortal. It’d be nice to know more about whether he’s just having a bad day, or whether he’s harboring a secret temptation to atomize Fluttershy for giggles; right now he’s got the Biggest Mood, but it’s not clear what the sound and fury ultimately signifies.

What sound and fury it is, though. I enjoy how the prose of this is poetic, and almost musical. If anything, it reminds me of the latter-day Writeoff classic Pinkamena’s Wake.

In fact, come to think of it...

Tier: (All of the stories this round are good)

I agree with >>No_Raisin:

The story's message is lovely, but the tonal swings really knock it off balance. Having Starlight quietly panicking while Tempest regards her from the other side of the desk is fine, but I'd say the story would work better with maybe half as much of it of it as it has now. I'd also like an actual resolution: does Starlight admit Tempest as a student? Personally, I'd say Starlight should hire her as a phys. ed. coach and aim her toward making friends with the other faculty members since Starlight and Trixie and Sunburst are closer to Tempest's age and all, but that would likely need a multi-chapter story to explore. Good stuff here, though.

Mike

Coming back here after reading all seven entries, I can safely say that this is definitely the entry that offers the most grandiose presentation of prose in this current batch. The overall pacing and cadence of the sentences really helped elevate it from good to great for me, especially when we see them being interplayed with the scene with our nameless pony (I assume Fluttershy) after the break.

I really have to commend the juxtaposition here. With how stark the contrast of these two scenes are presented to us here, made evident right away from my first glance at the entry's structure not only from the density of the paragraphs but the proportion as well — I'm pretty sure only 7% of the scene was dedicated to the humdrum part — it really helps highlight the strengths of each individual scene without dampening the effect of the other. All this plus the fact that this is actually the shortest story out of the batch just goes to show how clear and concise everything was executed here.

I did initially share the sentiments of my fellow reviewers >>No_Raisin and >>CoffeeMinion about questioning how Discord came to have this line of thinking, but after a bit of ruminating, I'm inclined to believe that we don't need to know the 'how' and 'why' for this story to work better. In fact, I'd argue that if the entry did answer those questions, it would actually be to the story's detriment in a sense that it would pile upon what's already a dense read and take away from the spectacle that is the collision of these two scenes. That, and this is all from the perspective of Discord himself. I'm not saying that I excuse an entry's lack of purpose when it comes to certain characters being in the spotlight; I simply believe, when I consider how everything else in this story has been achieved elegantly in spite of its complexity, that the story played all the cards it needed to play.

Personally, I view this whole thing as just a passing train of thought from our enigmatic Lord of Chaos as he has a bit of tea with his dearest friend. The sensationally-prosed battle may in fact not mean anything in the grander scheme of things and honestly, that's okay. If anything, it just builds upon the contrast that the story had set out for, which, unintentional or not, it's something I want to highlight because reading this entry with that thought in mind made my experience with this story all the better for it.

Really great stuff, dear Author. Hopefully, there's a way you can fit this into FimFic's word limit without taking away the effect of what you already have here. I would love to see this up there.

Thanks for writing, and good luck!

This one almost, almost hits the mark that I so desperately wanted it to hit, though I should say it's definitely not for want of trying from you, dear Author. Were it going up against any other batch of entries, it might just crack the top of my list. Of course, with all the entries here being good to some degree, it just means my level of criticism for every entry in this particular round had shifted to a higher standard than usual.

Before I get into it, I just wanna say that I don't mind how the story went down. I don't mind that it's Sunset Shimmer either, though that may be in part because I had written and published something similar to this on FimFic so it would be hypocritical of me to say that we shouldn't add to the site's swollen supply of suicidal Sunset stories. I just think that at a fundamental level, the prose and overall structure lacked the focus or refinement it needed to truly convince me that this ending was the conclusion the narrative was going for from the start.

I agree with >>No_Raisin that the moment-to-moment process building up towards the suicide conveyed Sunset's depression rather effectively, up to a certain extent. Overall, I think Sunset's train of thought as it went along meandered a little, taking a few extra swerves when it really should've just been a straight line. It's something I'm willing to overlook as just Sunset having a stream of consciousness, especially since she had just woken up when the story started. In that case, I would wish the structure and cadence of the story reflected that a little more.

It's really when she starts thinking about death and about committing the act of suicide itself that I think the story starts to lose its grip. I feel like all these jumbled thoughts about how she would enact her suicide should've been something that Sunset thought about over a long period of time instead of it all just surging in like an epiphany when all the other options should've been tossed into the bin months ago. There's also a big dramatic shift between hoping your life would end and actually ending your life that I think the story skimped out on. To be clear, I don't need to know or be hinted about what triggered her to commit suicide. I just feel like, with the story's phrasing and cursory lack of narrative focus, I'm not buying that such a train of thought would lead her to choose suicide as a means of escape.

I think it's nice that you've stuck with the water imagery throughout, dear Author. It's the one thing that I can say you were definitely gunning for from the start. I think maybe expanding upon it into more aspects surrounding Sunset might definitely help out with driving the story home altogether. After all, if Sunset thought her end to be poetic, why not show it from her eyes? If I may be so bold, sell us the idea that drowning oneself in a bathtub is a beautiful thing.

Overall, despite its subject matter, I like the story for what it's trying to do, though I think the story's focus incapacitated the poetic end it was going for. A change here and there, you might just have something that'll elevate this story from good to great for me.

Thanks for writing, and good luck!

Genre: Possibly-teenage, likely-not-mutant, definitely-not-ninja

Thoughts: Sandbar is chillest pony, and for the brief span of this fic, we get to chill out along with him.

A’ight.

Of course, a lot of the plot here depends on getting the reader to accept the novel and headcanon-y concept that receiving one’s cutie mark in one’s sleep is a dire and well-known Bad Thing. I find myself struggling with the tonal clash of Sandbar’s irrepressible urge to chillax set against this looming sword-of-as-you-know-icles, but I feel it’s in large part because the story succeeds at presenting the Very Bad Thing nature of Sandbar’s circumstances.

I’ve spent a while trying to write my way around this without getting personal, and I keep deleting my attempts, so I’m just going to rip the bandaid off: I myself am a parent, and I’ve encountered some Very Bad Things with my own kids. Fortunately they’ve made it through without being too much worse for wear, but it gets visceral for me when I think about a parent looking at an evidently well-established Bad Thing involving their kid and trying to figure out what to do with it. Consider that this isn’t presented as a sociocultural issue or a philosophical disagreement (except perhaps obliquely)—this is presented as Very Objectively Bad, kind of like how a life-threatening medical issue would be Very Objectively Bad.

Yes, for Sandbar, this is no big deal; and yes, there’s clearly a disagreement between him and his dad about whether it’s a big deal. But the thought that it is a big deal is reinforced by their interactions with the security guard. For me, that takes it out of the realm of “Ugh my dad doesn’t understand me” and into the realm of Sandbar needing to explain himself in order for me to keep following. And since it turns out that he actually does remember the dream in the end, I feel like a lot of the conflict here could’ve been shortcutted with that kind of conversation.

Still, this is of undeniable writing quality. It does a good job of building up Sandbar’s perspective as sympathetic. It paints clear pictures of the kids assailing the poor critters in the touch pool, and of the big ol’ turtle that features at the end. Even the things I called out above didn’t really bug me until I made a few attempts to bring a critical eye to this. It’s the kind of fic where I want to say it lands in the upper quarter of my slate somewhere, except that with only seven stories, I basically can’t. D:

Tier: (All of the stories this round are good)

Genre: Balls To The Wall

Thoughts: I’m of two minds with this fic. Though it’s all one scene, it breaks down into two logical segments that give me different feelings: the part with the ball of steel, and the part before.

The part before is rough and unfocused right now, IMO. Now, it’s not without its moments; I have to say that I love the little touches like shark infested waters, and the emotional support plant. But the fic spends a good while beating around the bush before Starlight gets into a groove with what she wants to do with Tempest. The cow joke in particular was a miss for me, and feels representative of the not-quite-on-point prose. I didn’t used to be as much of a stickler for crisp openers, but it’s hard to go back after coming to believe how effective they can be at hooking the reader, establishing the world and characters, et cetera.

Fortunately, right around the midpoint of this fic, Starlight takes out a ball that recasts the entire thing in brilliance. Line by line, beat by beat, everything past that point is perfect. It puts forward a creative concept and uses it to be emotionally affecting, but it never descends into being maudlin. It gives us an incredibly touching moment that would propel this to the top of my slate if it wasn’t saddled with the clunkier beginning.

In the end, I find myself actively debating how to rank this against everything else. When it’s on, it’s on. And really, it’s on for a solid half or more of the story. Maybe I’m letting the beginning bug me too much. Either way, this is some powerful material that would be even stronger with a bit more polishing.

Tier: (All of the stories this round are good)

Genre: Wheel of Time

Thoughts: My number one thought is that I got some serious whiplash from the first few paragraphs pulling my focus in different directions. I actually really like the opening paragraph itself; it has a certain moodiness and musicality to it (with apologies to Aragòn) that I really wanted to set the tone for what came after. And granted, the story did come back to the water wheel eventually, but the way the focus shifts in the first few paragraphs makes it feel like an almost random aside. There’s a brilliant moment with a water wheel, but then we get several paragraphs of an OC being moody and lamenting how he doesn’t have anything to say?

That’s a rough shift.

After that, though, I like how descriptive everything becomes. There’s a strong feeling of deliberateness in the descriptions on offer. I’d like the flashbacks to the race to feel more naturally integrated, though; it’s the sort of thing where some earlier hints or references to it having just happened would raise fewer questions about whether I as a reader failed to pick up on something that seems like a surprise.

I really like how the various threads of running, the grandfather, and the water wheel, all come together in the end. The story ties a pretty good bow on itself. What it delivers is ultimately just a small, quiet moment between a couple of characters who we still don’t know well, but props to you Author for making it resonate emotionally.

Tier: (All of the stories this round are good)

I'm being a lot more finicky than I usually am with this batch of reviews because every one of you that entered this time around is just so offensively good, so a lot of the things that bothered me this time around are things that I'd simply discard on a whim in most other rounds. With this particular entry, fellow Author, I really dig what this entry is going for in concept. I also believe this entry managed to achieve it with its execution as well. I do think, however, that there are some aspects that you may have overlooked when slotting them into the larger picture. Again, not that it really messes with my general experience with the story right away; this is all just me being extra nitpicky.

Onto the good stuff first, I really like this rather literal deconstruction of a character's Cutie Mark and characterization we're being presented with here. Bar the occasional OC, it's not something that I usually see really diving into beyond the realm of the comical. I agree with >>CoffeeMinion that Sandbar's perspective is really sold well here on the same points. It's a juxtaposition akin to that of Tempest with its collision of ideas, albeit one that's less convoluted to immerse and digest due to having a narrower scope, so that's all good.

My main gripe with this story might intertwine with >>MLPmatthewl419's issues with the tone as well as expound upon >>CoffeeMinion's issues with the conversation between Sandbar and his dad, in that I feel like the way the first scene is structured is really only to hit all the threads that stick out in the second. Put it another way, I feel like the second scene was written before the first, or at least was thought out first, and that the story had to find a way to get to it without making it seem like it's just a single moment snipped out from a grander scene.

Honestly, if I think really hard about it, I find that the first scene structurally is a bit sloppy. The whole rule about there being a problem for a foal to get their Cutie Mark in their sleep is particularly a haphazard idea in of itself, especially if I frame it in the context of the show's canon, and for it to have to be told in exposition by Sandbar's dad kinda drives home about how forced it is. I definitely believe there's a better way to get Sandbar to come and view this adult turtle after being plagued by the frenzy of the rest of the world. I think it's a missed opportunity also to not get his dad to come around to his resolution. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I question: why even use his dad at all?

Again, I like what this is going for, I really do. I just think it needs a bit of tweaking here and there to really hit home the theme driving through this entry. I'd say a narrower perspective would help this story out. If not, maybe a reframing of the first scene, or at least have Sandbar's father act beyond his throes of desperation.

Thanks for writing, and good luck!

I really like the whole low-stakes, cozy feeling of this story. It's a really cute idea to give Twi a low-keyu mid-life crisis. As a whole, your dialogue reads very smoothly and interestingly, drawing the reader's attention neatly through connecting threads towards the ending. It feels crisp and effective.

In terms of complaints, I think my only significant-ish one is that I kind of don't understand why Twilight doesn't just tell Rarity that she wants to make the smootchies with her. The only reason I see in the text is that she wants to be more like Celestia and Luna, or maybe she's afraid of Rarity's aging. Both of these aren't really presented as very important, though, so it really makes me wonder why this conflict hasn't resolved itself by this point already. Since Twi doesn't seem to have a very strong (or a very emotional) reason not to ask Rarity out, it kind of gives the impression that she doesn't really want to date Rarity very much. Which runs counter to the focus of the story.

So I think for me, the only thing I'd tweak is maybe giving a little more focus on the exact emotional hang-ups Twilight is having with the concept of dating, or the concept of dating Rarity in particular. That would raise the stakes of her internal struggle a little bit, and help make her crush feel stronger as well.

Thanks for submitting!

This is a really creative idea. Like, as soon as I figured out what was going on, I actually laughed out loud at the whole zaniness of it all. Picking Lyra was a great character choice; she fits well here, both in her canon and fanon archetypes, and she really lends the piece a lot of energy.

As much as the story really came together for me when I figured out the premise, though, I think it's worth mentioning that I did struggle with the opening scene in my first read-through. It's very long—almost a third of your wordcount—and the premise of the story is only revealed at the very end of it. That's a long time for the reader to wonder about some really basic questions, like who the story is about and where/when is it set, even before they can think about the conflict and arc. I went from thinking that this is an HIE, to a Fallout Equestria spin-off fic, to a pre-Hearth's Warming story, before I finally got to the reveal. I'm not saying that I'm the most attentive reader, but shifting my gears so many times did take a toll on my ability to pay attention to the story.

During the second scene, there's a similar quirk of pacing, in which not much happens until the very end. We get Kassandra and Lyra playing tug-of-war with the "train me" and "I can't train you" back and forth for a few rounds. While this never gets bad enough that it feels like we're going in circles, I definitely felt that it may have been padded out a bit too much, especially on my second and third reads. And then, without Lyra seemingly having done much at all, Kassandra completes her epiphany/arc, and the conflict is quickly resolved. This makes the pacing feel kinda back-heavy, if you know what I mean.

So overall, I think that this piece has a great heart/core in it, with maybe a little work needed to sort out the logistics. Having a very tight control over the flow of the story is absolutely essential in the 750 minific rounds, and I think a lot of that still carries over to these slightly longer contests. So I think that taking extra effort to plan out when and where you want to use your limited supply of words will really help improve pieces like this.

Thank you for writing!

In all honesty, author:

If I had just come across this story on Fimfiction or somewhere, I would've stopped reading halfway through the first paragraph and moved on to something else. To me, it's nothing but a scramble of words with nothing in it for me to grab hold of.

I seem to be in the minority on this, though, so feel free to disregard the following suggestion: give me an opening sentence where something like a flicker of a sunbeam across the top of Discord's tea strikes his eye and carries him into the reminiscence. That way, I've got an anchor before I'm tumbled headlong into the storm.

Mike

The stakes here:

Are so low as to be non-existent, and that really hurt the story for me, author. I'd like something to be on the line--he's been offered an athletic scholarship to the cross-country team at the Friendship School or something and he's decided to turn it down because he think his grandpa would've wanted him to stay in town. His grandma's talk then helps him realize something, and he's able to make a better decision one way or the other. The stakes don't have to be world-shattering, but there should be some reason why the events of the story make a real difference to the characters.

Mike

I'll agree:

With >>No_Raisin and >>Bachiavellian that a little more exploration of why exactly Twilight has never said anything to Rarity about all this would help. And if that explanation were to somehow involve a list or two, that would be even better...though that could maybe just be me.

Mike

This piece is a bold/risky play in more ways than one, so I'm definitely tipping my hat to your ambition. I also really like the stylistic choice in the first half of having so many sentences in a row start with "She". It gives the piece a feeling of uneasy repetition, and kind of drives home the inescapeability of Sunset's mood. Overall, some really well-crafted stuff.

Now, I will have to say that the ending didn't quite land for me. For a subject like suicide, it's really hard to have it consistently play out strongly with a lot of readers, because some readers are going to see a character death and immediately think that this is a play at the heartstrings. For me, I've probably read more than my share of "be sad because X character dies" stories, and while this piece is certainly a distinctly higher caliber than those stories, they do have similar flavors to me, personally.

For instance, I'm having a little bit of trouble with the transition from "Sunset is depressed" to "Sunset is ready to take her own life". This might be a pacing thing, but just when I was ready to learn more about the ways and the reasons behind Sunset's depression, she's filling the bathtub. It's not quite going from 0 to 60, but it might be something like a 25ish to 60. I find myself agreeing with >>WritingSpirit that it didn't feel like something Sunset has been thinking about for a long time.

So overall, while I definitely think that the first half of this story is solidly constructed, I just wasn't quite there for the ending and payoff. You still have quite a bit of your word count left, so I do wish that it was used to foreshadow or ease into the ending a little more.

Thank you for entering!

So this one's prose definitely has the most style and ambition out of all this event's entries. Really well done on that; I can't overstate it. The second scene really wouldn't work half as well if the first scene didn't set such a grandiose stage for the fic as a whole.

Now, I think that personally I had some reading difficulties regarding the pacing and high-level structure. >>Baal Bunny touches on a point that I wanted to make, which is that on first reading, the first scene really seems to have nothing to do with the world of MLP. THis is kind of a problem that the piece has throughout the story, to me, which is that it's trying to cram a lot of capital-W Worldbuilding into its scale, but it's having trouble making this Worldbuilding feel like it's related to what we see on the show. The little call out to Syvarth sitting below Tartarus was a nice touch, but that's really as far as we ever get to making the events on the first half relevant to how the universe of Equestria operates.

So despite this being our shortest entry, it felt like a really long read to me my first time through. I was struggling to remember names and sides and roles, which mostly all turned out to be not all that important by the end of the story. So while the first scene in a lot of ways is your strongest, it's also by far the most costly part of the story.

I can't help but to kind of compare this story to Bad Horse's The Gathering, which plays a similar premise of an immortal thinking about cosmic scale events while trying to focus on mundane life. What I liked about The Gathering is that it integrated the grand-scale musings into the text of the day-to-day, which gave the whole piece a greater sense of immediacy and relevance. I think this one kind of struggles to justify how top-heavy it is, with so much weight in the first half of the story.

Overall, like I said, I did enjoy the prose, especially on my subsequent readings. And I really am a sucker for the whole "powerful entity trying their hardest to live in a fragile world" concept. I just wish that it didn't tax me for my attention so hard before it had the chance to pay itself off.

Thanks for submitting!

I'm in. All in.

It’s mashups time again, kids!

The Meaning of Tempest: In adulthood, Sandbar decides to study psychiatry in the hopes of bringing greater chillness to his fellow creatures. Unfortunately, part of Discord’s court-ordered treatment program (after atomizing Fluttershy) is to see a psychiatrist. Can Sandbar stay sane (and stave off being atomized) long enough to decipher Discord’s nonsense? Thanks to the timely intervention of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the answer is yes.

Sink or Sparky: It’s the season’s wackiest black comedy, where Twilight literally cannot stop trying to drown herself over her unrequited love, but also can’t die because she’s immortal! ...Wait, no, that not a comedy, that’s awful.

Shatterhooves-On Lesson: After failing to connect with the martially-minded Tempest through traditional means, Starlight decides to share the magic of friendship by getting herself and Tempest Isekai’d into a Power Ponies comic in the hopes that they can punch villains together. Things get awkward when the comic casts Tempest as a gardening-shears-themed anti-hero and Starlight as a sapient do-gooding plant that can only communicate by saying, “I am Phyllis.”

Hearth and the Meaning of Lessons: Amplitude wants to become a champion swimmer like his grandpa was. Starlight wants him to spend time making friends with Tempest instead, so that Starlight can make her monthly quota of students converted to the goodness of friendship. In the end, a giant turtle visits her in a dream and tells her to stop being such a tool.

This is absolutely gorgeous! 10/10, Top Contender. This captures the motion of the moment so clearly that I keep expecting the water wheel to start turning.

Little late with these last couple of reviews, sorry about that. I was supposed to dole them out over the course of the afternoon but I had a couple of meetings and discussions to attend. Nevertheless, if you did tune in to our off-the-cuff Radio WriteOff earlier today or listened to the recording our dear friend Rao had set up, then you probably had a rough idea of how I feel about this story from my generally-rambly opinions on this particular story alongside all the others. Of course, as I was aware you weren't present when we had our discussion, I thought it'll be great to at least share here, in a cleaner and more concise yet somehow more in-depth format, what worked for me as well as what didn't.

First and foremost, I like the heart of this story. I like where it's coming from and the ideas that are at play here. It's rather charming to see the interaction between Amplitude and his grandmother, and the autumn environment gives it a layer of coziness and comfort just right beneath the surface. The prose for the descriptions here is very deliberate to that effect, though there are some parts where I felt that the cadence of the piece was sacrificed in favor of nailing down the minute details, which made some parts of my readthrough a lot more rigid than I would've liked. I think if the overall musicality of the piece reflected the atmosphere, it would definitely breathe more life into the world that was built here.

I do agree with the rest of the reviewers on their issues with this story, particularly >>No_Raisin's and >>Baal Bunny's which I think are very good points made. However, if you've listened to my criticism of this story in our recorded discussion, then you'd know that I think there's one issue that really was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I did not like the dialogue. Not one bit.

On my first read, I struggled with interpreting the characterizations of both Amplitude and his grandmother. I think the choice of words in the dialogue aren't distinct enough for me to really tell them apart. I'm not saying that it's not clear which pony spoke which line, but when I try to imagine the voices in my head, neither really had a sound that stood out to me, in my opinion.

Furthermore, the dialogue feels very, very manufactured to me. Having done some theatre work, I can attest that if I had a script that consisted of all the lines of dialogue from this entry, word for word, I can say that even the most experienced performer will have trouble trying to give it life. I feel like the same amount of deliberation for the setting and imagery was utilized in the dialogue as well, though in this case, it had the opposite effect. It's hard for me to follow the train of thought behind each line in the conversation, and with each time, I found myself wondering what both of them get out of this conversation. It's unfortunate because this was a story that mainly hinges on the dialogue to carry it forward, so for that to be the aspect of the story that frustrated me the most just soured my subsequent reads of the story for me.

I think this entry had some good ideas going into it but falters ultimately on the execution front due to a bunch of issues stacked together. Still, it's great to see this entry here, and with everyone else giving their own input about what worked and what doesn't, we might get to see a more polished version of this story in the near future. When I think about the potential that the core ideas possess and what they could culminate, it gives me a reason to believe that this story will not only be comforting and cozy, but memorable as well.

Thanks a bunch for writing!

>>CoffeeMinion

Sink or Sparky: It’s the season’s wackiest black comedy, where Twilight literally cannot stop trying to drown herself over her unrequited love, but also can’t die because she’s immortal! ...Wait, no, that not a comedy, that’s awful.

I'm tempted to make this a real story.

This is dark, fuzzy, and moody in a way that I feel matches very well with the story. It also looks like Sunset's pose mirrors Ophelia's, which I appreciate. Definitely a top contender. Thank you.

I really like the mood of this one. It's got all these depressing violets and purples, which contrasts with the electric-blue of the phone. The whole fuzzy painting style is really interesting, and although I had trouble immediately processing what I was looking at, this works to good effect with the sihouetted bathtub. Thank you for entering!

I'll be honest, I had a little bit of difficulty making heads and tails out of this one, which I mentioned in the podcast. Not exactly sure what's going on with the head area of the turtle, and I also had trouble interpreting the background until GGA suggested that it was probably water and sand. Overall, this was kind of a difficult piece for me to digest. I'm not the best with interpreting more abstract stuff, so I'm sure YMMV depending on the viewer. Thanks for arting!

I really like the dot matrix background. It really evokes the style of old classic comic book coloring, as does the obnoxiously highlighted stinger text. I did end up wondering a little why Lyra's eyes and Kassandra's eyes are drawn in such different styles, with Kassandra's being much closer to show-style, and with no separate pupils. I honestly think I prefer that to the more human-like eyes that Lyra has, but they do give her an additional layer of awkwardness that compliments the tone/mood. Thanks for submitting!

I really like Discord's expression here, with how you hid his mouth to give him a sense of thoughtfulness and contimplation. Your background monsters have really cool designs—I especially like the one I assume is Syvarth, on the left.Fluttershy likewise looks great, and as a whole this piece really does do a great job of capturing and reflecting upon the mood of the original story. Thanks for entering!

I like what you're doing with the edges/foreground here, which kind of evokes that sense of tunnel vision one associates with loss of consciousness. The tub itself looks a little basic, but it gets the job done, as does the shading on the water, although there might be a little bit of a streamer-like feel to the flow. Thank you for arting!

This one's really creative, piecing together an image of a pony out of the grain of marbled stone. I'd love to hear the story behind this; if you happened to see a particularly pony-shaped marble grain, or if you took a normal-looking picture and worked from scratch. Overall, really cool idea. Thanks for entering!

So you've automatically won all of the brownie points I have for drawing something based on my story. Thank you!!

I really love Starlight's expression here, which was pretty much 110% what I was imagining while I wrote a lot of her jokes. I'm glad Phylis also made it in. :D Overall, your linework is really effective despite its deceptive simplicity, and the handwritten text gives the whole thing much more character. Thank you so much for arting!!

This one just feels great. It's so chill, with the concentric circle thing you've got going on. I think I kinda ended up twisting my own tongue a little during the podcast trying to just express how *nice* this one feels overall. Everything just seems to fit together with everything else, like how the turtles are following the cirlces of the ripples.

Also, Sandbar is clearly stoned as hell. Nopony sober with their face underwater is that chill.

Thank you for submitting!

I really like the emphasis here on the difference in their silhouettes. Also, Rarity's hair and coat are so fucking cute that I want to squeeze her. I also love it when artists go for the whole classical unicorn look with the curved horns and the fetlocks and all. The abstract background is also cool, and I love how you gave Twilight the subtle classical halo (albeit square-shaped). Overall, a lovely piece and one of my favorites from this round. Thank you for arting!

This is just really cozy. The fuzy, wide-style brushstrokes here really evokes a feeling of both quaintness and youth to me in a way that I can't really describe. Really good choice.This piece just feels like a home. Thank you for entering!

Hmmm.

I think I would like the composition of this if I could make it out better. Not sure if this is just rubbing my colorblindness the wrong way, but I'm having a hard time making out any details. I thought the glowy-thing on the right was a reflection on a tub rim until I viewed it on my laptop, but now the more likely tub-like object is in the mid-left...

I'd be keen to get an explanation of what's going on here. No, seriously, I'll probably be able to see it once someone points things out.

Madness. Somebody's turtle has gotten into the waccy tabaccy.

This is rough but expressionistic, and warm yet alien. Is it bad to say that the best thing about it is the caption? I understood that reference!

This is a fun piece. Excellent fic to do art for, as well! :trollestia:

The background is a curious choice, though. I disagree with >>Bachiavellian on the comic stylings of it; to me this is less Lichtenstein and more pegboard. But overall, I feel that close adherence to an old-school aesthetic isn't what this is really about (as evidenced by the alt text)--this is here to be silly and expressive.

That'll do, Artist.

Ohhh, dewd, this is good stuff. Drawing the undrawable vistas of primordial battlescapes is some top-shelf ambitious material. Extremely creative and fun.

Do you have tub mold? Sunset does...

I kid, I kid. Actually I like this very much for the most part. The pseudo-melting tub gives this an unsettling aspect that's backed up by the weirdly moldy surroundings. The tub itself is plain, but there's enough going on for it to be mostly inoffensive.

The one thing that bugs me is the edges of the flowing water. The central part of it looks fine. But at the edges, you can see the crudely wiggly lines that the rest is composed of.

Still, compositionally, this works.

This looks like watercolor, which is cool. I hated doing watercolors when I was young, but I've gained a lot of appreciation for what talented people can do with them. Here we get a strong ghost-like aspect that I think would be hard to communicate through a different medium. Very good!

What a great composition! Good jokes and details. Starlight's smile kind of rubs me the wrong way for reasons that I lack the artistic something to properly explain, but otherwise, yes!

Uh oh, the tank is melting again...

Good composition here. Captures both Sandbar and the turtles perfectly.

At first I thought it said "Might Have Beans," and I was envisioning Twilight struggling to confess that she ingested an excess of legumes, which would soon make things even more awkward between these two. :-p

I kid, of course. To me this absolutely screams cover art. Cleaning up a few of the lingering sketch lines would elevate this, but it is strong.

If anyone is still looking here.....

I wanted to say thank you to Coffee and Bachi for their comments on the art! It was very much appreciated. <<3 Ironically ‘To Grandmother’s House’ was the one I was dreading to do the most.

I only wanted to do one or two, but then I wanted to do three or four and by that time I knew that I had to do all of them.

I’ll address some concerns you guys may have had. I’m sorry to shatter hoof for having such a bad cover! I wanted to make it true to a comic, but the lines turned out soooooo bad. And I didn’t even get the font that I wanted. The text options didn’t have it :((

Also! For The Sink or Swim one I did reference the picture of Ophelia as Sunset. I’m glad Delusionalism caught it. In the back left is the tub which is concealed by a transparent curtain. Top right is a door opening, and in the front is the phone next to a towel on the sink.

My favorite one to do was the first one, Chill Vibes. Ahhh. So calming.

>>Anon Y Mous
Don't worry. I'm not quite finished here yet. I still got a retro to post after all.

This is on the spur of the moment, but I'd figure it'd be best to pop the question now. In the future, can I use To Grandmother's House We Go as cover art? Of course I got a lot of work ahead of me to polish it, so it'll be a while before you see any results. But first, I wanted to ask your permission since it is such a beautiful piece.

>>PinoyPony
Sure! Just credit me in the description, that’s all :P

>>MLPmatthewl419
>>Anon Y Mous
>>No_Raisin
>>CoffeeMinion
>>WritingSpirit
I sometimes hold back on writing retrospectives on the off chance I can shortly post the full story on fimfiction, and then link it right away in the comments.

But alas, that would require me to get my act together.

Thanks for reading and leaving your thoughts, everyone. I pretty much know what I have to do to improve on this one. With apologies to Coffee for my edits railroading him the wrong way, the point of the story was that the adults are overreacting. It may be a bad thing for some, to find your purpose in a dream, but for this colt it's clearly not. So just chill, fam. Deep breaths. Just think. And check out the turtle, innit neat?

This story was the result of a perfect storm of reading this analysis of Sandbar's character by my friend Semillon while listening to this song. Nice coincidence, right? No, I've just had that song on repeat for a while lately. And in the moment it felt very him.

Plus, a quick search on fimfiction yielded no results for sandbar's cutie mark origin??? I couldn't believe my luck.

Thanks again to anon and coffee for your arts! They were incredibly cool. And the feeling of having art drawn for your story is just... irreplaceable. Sincerely, thank you.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to the aquarium.

>>Anon Y Mous
Anon, thank you so much for doing art for all the stories! That is an awesome thing, and I know personally that it is a thrill to see my stories inspire something.

(Also, apologies for the late reply here -- I blame the holidaze)

.... Oh shit, I forgot to do a retro.

Really Late Retro: Hooves-On Lesson

I have absolutely no clue why the site decided to give me the gold, even though Coffee and I tied. But nevertheless, I'm really happy to have done so well in a round with so many other excellent entries. Thank you!

So I've had the idea for this one banging around in my head in some shape or form ever since Starlight Glimmer's redemption arc. My first attempt to put it down was for a minific contest that was probably two or three years ago at this point. It had the basic premise of a "Discordian" object being used to teach a lesson about fitting in, but instead of Tempest learning the lesson, it was Starlight, and instead of Starlight teaching the lesson, it was an odds-and-ends engineer OC. I only got about 400 words into that draft (which is probably still in my Drive somewhere, geez) before I realized I could never make it fit within 750 words. And then the idea went on ice.

Seeing the prompt kind of rekindled the thought, and then since by now I've fully developed my Tempest obsession, I of course had to make it about Tempest. Plus at this point, the show pretty much already wrapped up Starlight's self-doubt arc, so the role didn't really fit her anymore. But it was still nice to be able to pull her in and use her in the mentoring position instead.

Yeah, so a lot of people here and in the podcast mentioned how off-beat the first half of this felt, especially in regards to the humor. I have a really fucking dumb explanation for that.

Basically, I started writing this story about 10 minutes after the whole "Twirly Dick" conversation on the Discord channel. And I was still in a stupid mood.

.... Yeah, I apologize. :P

---

>>No_Raisin
I'm really glad that the overall payoff worked for you! I was actually really scared that it was coming across as cheesy towards the end, to the point that I had to have Starlight lampshade it a little. But it looks like it did it's job, which is a relief to me!

Yeah, I definitely did not do a great job with the whole humorous-internal-narration thing. I was really making things up as I went, and it didn't always come together. And in regards to typos, I know exactly what you mean. I cringed when I read this the day after submissions and saw "a wash with" instead of "awash with". Sometimes my brain just starts putting words together, you know?

Thanks for the review!

>>Baal Bunny
Happy you liked it! To answer your question, no I did not envision Tempest still enrolling after this conversation. And if I'm perfectly honest, I absolutely adore your phys ed teacher idea, and if this fic even has a 1% chance of making its way to Fimfiction I swear to Celestia I will steal the hell out of that idea. :P

Thanks for your feedback on what didn't work with the humor. Yeah, like I said earlier, I was in a dumb mood, and I freestyled with a lot of the first half of this story. I'm not all that surprised that it isn't exactly top-tier material, ha.

Thanks for leaving a review!

>>CoffeeMinion
You're totally right about the wackiness with pacing in the first half. But I'm glad that at least some of the jokes worked well for you!

Happy to hear that the resolution and main conflict felt strong to you. I have to agree with you that I'm also the kind of person who really cares about hooks/introductions, so I'll definitely have to do some surgery on the first bits of this story if it's ever going to see the light of day.

Thank you for leaving your thoughts!

---

Hearth and Home- Retrospective

Sorry for the late replies! I have a mixture of excuses, but I’d rather just get to the retro. (If you really want to see the excuses, they are in the last paragraph).

I hope I’m not overloading anyone by submitting more entries than usual. A piece of advice I was given is to try write prolifically. I’ve taken that piece of advice here. After all, the more I submit, the more advice I get, and the better my writing becomes. At least, that’s what I hope. In theory. Anyways, if any of you are bugged by my spamming of the entry button, please let me know.

So far, with this experiment, I wasn’t expecting this caliber of positive feedback this round. I was sleep drunk while writing this piece, so I was expecting my writing to be more hitched and jagged. It was a surprise that it panned out the way that it did.

>>MLPmatthewl419

Along with the fear of my writing being jagged and scratchy, came another problem. When I was writing this piece, I hit the upper word limit. Hard. Then, the feelings of doubt settled in. Usually when one hits the word limit, the pacing is the first to suffer. I was surprised when it spawned an entirely different problem- two tones of the story that don’t exactly line up. Fortunately, that will be an easy tweak.

The fact that none of the interactions seemed forced was a good sign also. Again, this was a pleasant surprise.

Lastly, Potential is my middle name- Pinoy Potential Pony. I mean, at least I like the alliteration. Jokes aside, this has been the bane of my existence from the very first fiction. Always have a ton of potential, but cannot communicate it well enough- yet. We’ll see where this experiment takes me.

Thanks for your review!

>>No_Raisin

You guessed the fact that it took guts to post this one. When I was hitting the submit button, I was thinking: I hope I’m not clogging up the slate with an extra fic. Perhaps I should sit this one out. I had to hold back and say to myself ‘Chances are you’re gonna get roasted. However, if you want to improve, you need to put yourself out there and experiment for a little bit.”

Part of my inhibition is that I felt like picking the plotline of a grandchild losing their grandparent was cliché in nature and seemed like a cop-out. I was double surprised when one: I wasn’t roasted immediately, and two: no one seemed to find the plotline overdone and cliché.

But, in turn, you bring up a very great point- first of its kind that I encountered: This could’ve been submitted Original Fiction round, cut out the pony-isms. The only saving grace that this takes place in the MLP universe is the reference to the Running of the Leaves. Other than that, I realize that if I’m going to take the route of using OCs, I will have to make sure that it has sure grounding. of the universe (Ex. magic, trinkets, lore, monsters, etc.…). Hopefully I can learn how to fix that quickly. Ugh, I’m a slow learner.

Thanks for your review!

>>CoffeeMinion

There’s the huge drawback to hitting the word limit early: the clunkiness of thought sewn together. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough space to work out the fine-tuning, but I guess that’s experience. Just a question however, you mentioned Musicality and Aragon. I’m out of the loop, but for sake of continuity, can you tell me what you mean by that?

I do also agree on the fact that the flashback to the race was very out of place. For the time being, it serves its purpose, but needs a nicer nook and cranny to nestle into rather than a haphazard break that has stitched itself together like a patch on a tire.

After that, thank you for your kind remarks. I wasn’t expecting that the whole fiction wrap a bow over itself just like that. Call it a happy accident if you will, I don’t know how I pulled that one off (maybe my amateur-ish writing is wearing off, and I’m Improving!)

Thanks for your review!

>>Baal Bunny

I like it. Personally speaking, I don’t think the stakes are meant to be high on an emotional piece. Pardon my crude comparison, but I was aiming for something more slice-of-life-ish, almost touching the genre of hallmark movie or chick-flick. But, that’s not to throw your suggestion aside. By adding in the plotline of the scholarship and the friendship school, that adds another layer of grounding in the MLP universe as well as furthering the conflict. Thanks for your elaboration!

And as always, Thanks for reviewing!

>>WritingSpirit

Okay, let me get the question that has been weighing on my mind: Where is this recording? I want to listen to it. I think I spotted the commotion one night when there was a huge gathering in the ‘talk’ portion on Discord, but I was too shy to check out what the fuss was about. So, if you can get me access to the recording, that would be great.

Okay, sorry for the demanding nature of the first paragraph. Had to get that off my chest. Anyways, towards your review, I guess that will be the hardest thing to fix (it’s hard to fix something that you have no idea where to start or where to end). Most of my fixing either goes overboard or doesn’t meet criteria.

But, for the time being, I think I get the point that the dialogue is scratchy and rough. I need to add flavor, not just focusing on the topic at hand, or being deliberate at the purpose, but to add personality, life, color. These are individuals talking. They each have their own dreams and their own fears.

Thanks for your review!

[Verdict]

With finals week at school, and other projects that keep piling up on me, It’ll be a miracle if I get this fiction corrected and published this year. However, that is not to say that I have a good egg here and I don’t plan tossing it aside anytime soon.

>>PinoyPony
Was a bit busy these couple of weeks so I just saw your message. Here's the link to our discussion:

Radio WriteOff: 'Against The Current'

OMG I think this is the latest retro I’ve ever done. I blame the holiday. Oh, er, right, let me start with:



Actually, let me start by linking you to this glorious image. Then let me link you to this platform game of yore. And finally, let me present the concept that’s been sitting at the top of my idea document for at least a year now:

“Shatter Hoof”—she’s a supporting character/possible mentor type for a “year one”/origin story for one of the PPs (think like the Wolverine movie)—so maybe it’s set in Pony-Japan or something, and it tries to cast Lyra as the grizzled old mentor-veteran, which of course she isn’t either by experience or temperament

Don’t ask me why this clicked now versus in innumerable past Writeoffs where I’ve considered it. I got approval to use the picture forever ago, and I’d been toying with the idea even longer. But for whatever reason, this time I opened up my idea doc, looked at the top entry, said “Yep” aloud to no one, and started writing.

I know not everyone liked Power Ponies, but I loved it. The episode itself remains one of my favorites from the series. I’ve also enjoyed the various toys and comics that Hasbro released. I’ve also written two past stories that riffed on the Power Ponies world, one of which started in a past Writeoff, which I even commissioned a truly gonzo piece of art for.

...so you could say that I’m a teensy bit of a fan. ^^

I should also mention my antipathy for the Wolverine: Origins movie from forever ago. I’m far from the most critically-minded movie fan, and I figured that Wolverine: Origins would’ve been an easy home run for me. But it was bad enough to stick in my craw for a decade-plus with its awkward and boring take on an otherwise really fun character. I suppose the good news is that it helped inspire this, so I can’t complain too much!

Last-ish but not least-ish, let me give special thanks to Anon and GGA for their awesome art, and to Bachi for doing a live reading of this on Radio Writeoff! And of course, thanks to everyone who helped propel this to a silver medal!

Oh, and the name “Kassandra” was part of an attempt to connect Mistress Mare-Velous back to the Greekness of Wonder Woman, as WW seems to have inspired MM’s creation. I didn’t have any bright ideas about how to pick a Pony-ish name represent Pony-Greece, though, so I fell back to picking a real-ish Greek name that seemed minimally obtrusive.


>>MLPmatthewl419
Thanks much, man! ^^ And yeah, the break didn’t work as well as I was hoping. Alas; I will have to fix it in post.

>>No_Raisin
If I understand the term correctly, then yes, Power Ponies as a genre is one big Isekai scenario. Either way, there is definitely some weirdness with Kassandra not fully listening to Lyra. I’ll have to fix that in post, too...

>>Bachiavellian
I definitely fretted about the opening scene being so long, but in the end I decided to risk it. I wanted to set the scene and introduce Kassandra pretty much the way I ended up doing it, and I banked on the strength of that carrying the story even though it was “imbalanced” in its scene length.

Though you’re right in pointing out that the second scene isn’t quite firing on all cylinders yet either. It was a situation where I knew what I basically had to do, but it took a bit of goofing around with the text to make it work. But by the time I hit the end, I was very low on writing time & out of word count, so I had to let it ride.

Looks like I have some things to fix in post!! :-p