Shit. I want to be in this one but no prompts were submitted. Could we get a random prompt? Maybe "No Prompt Here"? I didn't realize this was likely.

I was about to make my first FF post in a year to promote the Writeoff.

Why yes, I am amused the moment I'm like time to try my hand at this there's no prompts submitted.

I'm going with 'No Prompt Here' as my prompt until further notice.~

>>Dream
I'm not sure the event will run. I'm pretty sure we will need Roger's intervention or we won't be able to submit.

Dammit.

>>Trick_Question
The event will run. It'll just go up as another TBD.
I usually in these circumstances select a title phrase with the initials TBD and run with that

>>Dream
>>Trick_Question
Try Bold Daydreams!
Tired of Bilateral Dimorphism? Take up Balanced Dancing.
Tasting Bitter Dregs? Take Better Drinks!
Trust Barnyard Dogs To Bark Daily.
Time Beats Differently when Testing Broken Drums.
Truth Brings Dissent.
Tales Benefit Demiurges.

>>GroaningGreyAgony
Yay!!! Thank you thank you thank you! I'll promote it tonight.

After ten thousand years, I return!

How's everyone been?

Hang on, let's actually use the account I left here.

>>FanOfMostEverything

Alas:

I haven't had time to put anything together for this contest, but it's nice to see folks here again!

Mike

Managed one this time. Had to go find my password again.

I do love the euphemism of the dynamic disassembly processes, though when it's intentional, it is merited. In all, these are some delightful scenes, though they don't really cohere into a complete story. Don't get me wrong, this a great sample of Luna joining the Apollo program (whether they like it or not,) but it doesn't stand on its own. There's also the question of how it ties into the prompt, but that's a pretty loose consideration with this one. Still, thoroughly enjoyable read. Thank you for it.

(Also, I love the idea of Flurry Heart as a pop star to rival the Beatles. The Crystal Counterinvasion, anyone?)

Some considerable fun with acronyms in the title, I see.

In all, this has a strong foundation, but it needs more time in the oven, if you'll pardon the mixed metaphor. I do like playing with this innocuous part of the princessipals' character design and the implications of the diarchs' abdication, but the story never really has a chance to develop before it transitions to the Celestias talking it out. There are definitely good ideas here, but it needs a bit to figure out what it wants to be.

Still, definitely leave in the flashback montage. Poor Sunset. XD

This is certainly an important issue, but too often, it feels like you're presenting arguments through the ponies rather than considering their voices, especially some of the debates between Starlight and Cheerilee. There's a good message here, but it's delivered with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. (Still, sometimes that's necessary.) Twilight noting how bribable Spoiled is was funny, though.

(And speaking from experience, those in the trans person's corner slipping on their pronouns is very true to life.)

This is an interesting one. The "very special episode" character voicing cut into the suspension of disbelief, but I can't help but feel like the impact of the story would be diluted if you cut back on it. It'll take some fine adjustment to make it feel more genuine while delivering the same message. I wish I could offer more constructive criticism there beyond the equivalent of a contractor sucking a breath through his teeth as he looks at something expensive.

I'm going to do my reviews tomorrow. Thanks to FoME for contributing to the reviews—it's always a pleasure to hear your thoughts.

>>Trick_Question
Better make that one more day. I'm really enjoying these and want to do the reviews justice.

I don't have much to say here. This is beautifully written, well-researched, and nicely showy. horizon himself could have written this, which suggests pretty strongly that I didn't.

My only two issues are small (for me, at least). The first is I don't see any tie-in with the TBD prompt, but I may have missed it. One of the purposes of the prompt is to help ensure a submitted story is newly written and authors here will frequently ding a story in the rankings if the prompt drop isn't clear.

The second issue is this reads like the first two chapters of an incomplete piece. This is fine, but generally it's better to tack on a temporary denouement if you're planning to expand. Right now it ends at the most interesting part of the plot development where we finally see where this story is headed, so it doesn't feel complete.

But amazing writing, and I just love the creative worldbuilding. Definitely a top three contender.

EDIT: Oops! I didn't read FoME's review before writing my own, and I see he already hit the two salient points.

I really enjoyed this story as well. There isn't much I'd change apart from good old spit and polish.

I really loved the mythos, and this story does a fabulous job of fixficing one of the largest open questions in the show, though I would have preferred if it had kept to canon on Luna's banishment in the official EQG universe since it would be very easy to do here, but I'm a sucker for working within canon.

On the polish (lowercase P) front, I think clarity is the biggest thing that has rough edges. Once or twice I didn't immediately understand which character was talking, I'm uncertain why the Lunas would need to converse in private when they have the same questions, and I didn't understand why Sunset had to immediately return to class the first time Celestia called her—wasn't the damage already done? There are also some Sunset questions this raises, but almost any apehoers story has those. And honestly I don't expect polish on a contest story so none of that affected my read much.

I'm also a little unclear as to why Celestia asked if she would recommend retiring, rather than ask her 'does something bad happen if I don't retire' since that's more along the lines of what she actually wants to know. That's splitting crown hairs, though. Great job: I'd say I'm a fan, and this is a shoo-in for top three.

Up front: I tend to aggressively critique, so apologies if I seem to be strongly opinionated here. I'm only doing this because I think this story has potential, and I do like the underlying message (or at least, the message I think you're aiming for).

Every once in a while, somepony submits a story that I have no doubt everypony will assume I wrote. This happens much more often than I expect it to, though. In one of the M-rated contests here somepony submitted a comedy (in the Greek sense) where a foal is (very bad thing here I will not say but you can easily guess). I seem to remember everypony in the competition guessed me for that story, despite it definitely not being a story I would write—which is one of the reasons I was later shocked by the explosive reaction to a story I did write that wasn't anywhere near as outre. (In retrospect, I probably should have taken the fact that every author immediately thought I wrote that particular tale as a warning sign regarding how other authors tend to read and interpret my art and view me as an author and human being. It's only years later that I've finally recognized that for the big red flag it was.)

Anyhoo, nopony is going to buy that I didn't write this one either, because it actually is something I could write. In fact, I've written two or three GlimTrix/trans!Trixie stories on Fimfiction because they are the OT diggity P.

That said, I appreciate the topic and the fact that it isn't presented in a completely one-sided fashion. I like a lot of the ideas here and I think there's potential for something very interesting. But it needs work, and I agree with FoME that this is a high degree of difficulty to pull off.

With respect to FoME's notes, I don't see GlimGlam's voice being off exactly, but Cheerilee and especially Spoiled Rich neé Milk are behaving as Simplicio-type foils for the argument (progressivist and traditionalist respectively), which makes it come off as a hamhoofed author tract. Cheerilee in particular seems to be holding the idiot ball, which is not at all how I envision her.

In general this is a telly piece, though it almost needs to be. To make this work better you need to spread it out more. More scenes can space out the ideas so they don't info dump on the reader all at once. For one option, I think having Starlight talk to her friends for advice would help explore different perspectives with a more nuanced and relaxed tone.

If you want Cheerilee to play this role, you need to establish her point of view better as a character and provide a strong reason why she has a blind spot here wrt parental rights. It's fine for her to not agree, but she literally doesn't understand what she's missing. A flashback where she experienced discrimination as a foal, or how she has dealt with these issues as an instructor, would help a lot. Why not show us her conversation with Snails, or how she introduces Shelly to the class? These events may not be directly germane to the argument, but would show where her point of view comes from more clearly. And I really want to see Shelly's experiences! Everypony is merely telling us what she feels and experiences. I want you to show us what happens to her. She's the character we get to hear from the least, despite being the entire motivating factor.

I do like the fact that you're trying to provide and explore a balanced perspective that stresses parental rights and individual expression on both sides of this issue while still being supportive of foals wrestling with gender dysphoria, but I'm not clear who your intended audience is for the message. I can see people both on the prog and the trad sides potentially finding some of the choices here off-putting and the characterizations a little insulting. You need to approach this in a way that doesn't alienate your target audience before they get to the good parts of the discussion.

Spoiled, in particular, is a rude prejudiced clown, which may be true to her character but you're portraying here too two-dimensionally and repulsive for my taste. (See my Fimfiction story "What Diamonds and Rubies Can't Buy" for an example of trying to give her awful character relatable depth.)

The comedy from her atrocious behavior right when she's introduced initially makes the story look like this is a progressivist lecture about "people with concerns about trans interaction in grade school = bad", and I was very relieved to read further and find that this was not the message you were aiming for. But putting Spoiled's argument up front in this way is likely to turn off traditionalist-slanted readers who would otherwise be receptive to what you want to say. I think you need to dial her back and make some of her concerns seem reasonable right at the outset.

Cheerilee is similar. She has more depth and is less of a cartoon (so to speak), but seems clueless, intransigent, and quick to judge, and her voice is pretty far off the mark as a result. I think you can probably improve this by slowing down the argument (also, try not to thrust complex examples like post-pubertal transition wrt trans sports inclusion without first exploring them—it's too much too quickly and many readers don't have a good understanding of the nuances of that discussion), and by tempering it (give all the characters more horse sense, especially Cheerilee).

This could be a really interesting exploration if you add more subtlety and more action to balance the arguments. But I suspect it will take at least twice as many horse words to do it properly.

One big issue I have is with describing Snails as "always seeming confused" in the beginning. It sounds like you're suggesting transgender children are always confused (as some on the trad side like to call any transgender expression 'gender confusion') and this is a really bad choice even if it's true to how Snails behaves in the show. It would be much more powerful to suggest that he seems less confused now than he used to. (I know a lady who transitioned in her 60's or 70's, who I later discovered stuttered her entire life and the moment she transitioned it stopped; these are common stories and even I have a couple.)

I also agree with FoME that people accidentally tripping up on pronouns and deadnames is very common and realistic, but I'm not sure if it helps here more than it makes the people supporting Shelly seem confused and the process seem silly. Just a thought.

I'm very interested in seeing what you come up with! I also agree with most of the balance you (eventually) try to offer, though I think more justification for your arguments is still needed. Despite these nitpicks (which I suspect you already understand, since this strikes me as suffering largely from time/space limitations) I enjoyed the ride, I look forward to seeing this expanded, and it's still definitely going in the top three.

>>FanOfMostEverything
>>georg
Thank you both for joining this week! I loved reading your stories, and it's nice to not automatically win first place. :V