Mmmm. The concept has potential, but the execution here felt lackluster to me. So, Discord has made the sun and moon move correctly on their courses without the need for alicorn intervention? Isn't that good? Can't Celestia just take a vacation now?

SCORE-O-METER: 7/10 Good structure and some potential in concept, but it just didn't click for me.

>>GaPJaxie
Good Stallion GaPJaxie meme:

LEAVES REVIEWS
(insert image)
EVEN THOUGH HE MISSED DEADLINE

This is a good start to a story that promises to be interesting. But that's all it is, a start. Yes, I know, minific, but there isn't a complete story arc here.

I'd love to read a more complete version of this story!

>>Trick_Question He's on the guessing page, though...?

Did someone nick his nick?

>>Trick_Question

I think the author might not have wanted to do all this in what's essentially a short story. I'd love to see the ideas expanded on, but scratching the bare minimum already takes 739 words. Sacrifices have to be made sometimes, especially when space is so cramped. Worldbuilding belongs more in longer fics, but not really in a small SoL scene. You didn't ask yourself about all the intricacies of zebra culture and magic when Zecora was introduced, despite her being different being, well, a zebra.

As for the questions, I'd think Twilight would just accept Celestia's answers unless they contradict her own beliefs, since she thinks of her quite highly.

A very interesting premise! Twilight as the battery that keeps her other friends going, so they go out while she remains. She stays, while they fade away and are in time replaced. Strong parallels to Celestia. I would love to see a longer version of this story.

Sadly, I just don't feel it works at its present length. This is a story concept that needs time to flesh itself out, and here, the sudden ending feels painfully abrupt.

SCORE-O-METER: 7.5/10

The concept is amusing. I can see the jokes. And technically, I concede, the jokes are funny, but... mmm. I don't know. I'm sorry this isn't going to be the most helpful review, but I don't know how to phrase my criticism beyond: "I didn't laugh." Maybe it's because the jokes are a little too on-point, or maybe it's a matter of personal taste, but the humor here just didn't click for me.

SCORE-O-METER: 7.5/10

Reading this, I kept waiting for the twist, and was a little surprised and disappointed that there doesn't seem to be one. This mostly seems to be a retread of complaints against Luna and Celestia that other long-form fics have covered better. There wasn't much to get interested in or excited about. The technical construction was good, but it just didn't engage me.

SCORE-O-METER: 6.8/10

>>GaPJaxie
>>Not_A_Hat
I'm not sure. Here's the blog post where he says he isn't participating this time...

http://www.fimfiction.net/blog/667933/with-kung-fu-action

I agree with Pastoral. The concept is fun, the jokes made me smile, and you've got some definite potential here. But, this needs editing. There's a lot of points where it slightly belabors the point, or just barely misses the comedic timing, and that throws the whole things off. But, they aren't major flaws. I'd love to read a cleaned up version of this.

SCORE-O-METER: 7.7/10

This actually fell a bit flat for me. I like the concept -- love the concept, actually -- and the setup certainly works well for the length, but the entire pitch of this is that Nightmare Moon is a distinct person from Luna. That means you need to characterize her for this concept to work, and that's where this story really falls flat for me. Nightmare Moon feels generic, and that killed a lot of the interest.

SCORE-O-METER: 7/10. The execution needs work, but I'd love to see a more developed version of this idea. Lots of potential here.

Deliciously done; a prequel? I admire the well-chosen imagery and metrical precision.

I just pulled together my own personal spreadsheet* for tracking what I've read and/or reviewed,** and I'm amused to realize there are two stories titled "satisfaction guaranteed" whose titles differ only in their use of CAPS LOCK.




*Yes, I am nerd horse, you may mock and/or bow to me as per your preference.***

**I make no promises about reviewing all of them, but I'm hoping to do more than just my slate this time.***

***Roger, the size tag is availing me naught here. This is what I get for a paltry attempt at footnotes humor.

>>Trick_Question

I'm in this round, I just didn't get *all* my submissions in. I had 4 outlined, I only got one in before the deadline because the other 3 were going to go in Sunday.

I do like the Good Stallion Greg meme though. :D

I'm sorry to add that, in addition to the problems with tone, the story hasn't got much suspense. They need to find someone to replace Hurricane, and they do.

The difficulty in fixing this is that, if you built in what script writers call acts 2 and 3, the development of a crisis and its resolution, you'd hit 2000 words. I think you've bit off more plot than you can address in 750 words. Or maybe the problem is that you haven't got a clear vision of the one scene, the one moment, that you want the reader to remember.

I didn't like it the first time I read it, because it "didn't go anywhere". When I re-read it, not expecting it to go anywhere, I liked it a lot. :P

I think I'd like this better if the characters were humans shopping for pony plushies. Having non-MLP MLPish ponies shopping for MLP plushies confused me.

I also think this will score lower than it deserves.

>>Morning Sun Agree. The story exists to set up the last line, but only in terms of plot, not in any emotional payoff.

I've never felt bad about ranking a write-off story highly before. I'm ranking this above all the stories that failed on a more basic level, but--a story where Celestia acts pompous and sensitive, and fantasizes about getting attention, about humiliating or assassinating another pony--I can't figure out why anybody would want to read this. It's not got any insight into Celestia's character because it doesn't even connect with Celestia's character at any point. It would be better if it weren't Celestia, but it still wouldn't be good because this pony isn't an interesting character yet.

>>MCA
I'll try to be more specific, because my concerns aren't about the minific format or the depth of coverage of the subject matter. The problem I have with this story can be fixed without adding significant depth or horsewords, particularly if the scope is limited to a single scene rather than with flashbacks.

This is a story about sad feelings. The reader needs information that will allow them to experience those feelings naturally—without being explicitly told what to feel by the author. In this story, there isn't enough information provided to justify that the reader should feel sad for Celestia or Twilight. Thus the story falls short of its goal.

If the thing that's supposed to make me feel sad is the difference between Celestia's future and that of her non-alicorn friends, I need enough detail about that thing to convince me that I should feel sad. The mere fact that the characters are sad about something isn't enough to convey the emotion in a compelling way.

My criticism here is the most common critique in amateur fiction, because it's so hard to learn to do properly: show, don't tell. The author's job is very subtle: to trick the reader into thinking the ideas and emotions they experience are coming from their own mind. The author does this by laying the dominoes up very carefully, so the reader will end up coming to the conclusions the author wants them to have. Seeing characters act sad, or being told by the author that something is sad, is not nearly as compelling as reading a description that actually evokes sadness.

I'd have liked this story better if Maud hadn't figured it out, and the reader was allowed to figure it out only at the end of the story. As is, I was too involved with wondering why Maud reacted as she did to focus on the main point. Also, as is, Limestone had to get very defensive, which makes it too hard for you to write it as being at all sympathetic to Limestone. I think it would've been stronger if we could see Limestone as actually believing what she said, and being torn up about it. As is, it isn't believable, either that Limestone really would've killed her, or that Maud would let her get away with it.

The underlying story is fine, but I feel the shift between silly and serious is too stark to make this work as written. The characters act in over-the-top ways that makes the comedy seem a little forced. There's a lot of CAPS LOCK here, when a little subtlety would go a long way.

This is true even when the intent is to make the story seem silly. Without having subdued, rational, in-character moments be the norm, the CAPS LOCK and ovipositor references don't stand out. Horror frequently makes this mistake too: if the enemy can do anything at all, there's no suspense because the author isn't playing by the rules.

Try pulling back a little on the crazy and make the in-between spaces more realistic, and it will seem zanier when antics actually happen.

The sheer ridiculousness of this concept brought a big, dumb grin to my face. It was cute, the description and character of Draco were both well done and interesting, and I really enjoy the headcanon of Luna being the mother of these star-beasts, or whatever you wanna call them. It was also a rather unique interpretation of the prompt, and an extremely obvious one, in retrospect. My only real complaint would be that Twilight seemed a smidgen removed from her character, coming across as a bit too ornery overall, but that's a nitpick more than anything.

It's simple, succinct, and show-tone. I really enjoyed this one. Great job!

Wow.

Trick AND Bad Horse are back at the same time.

This is just great.

Folks, we missed you.

I support your right to retell the story of Nightmare Moon in a minific, just as I support your right to wear a striped tie with a plaid suit.

>>GaPJaxie Agree "the entire pitch of this is that Nightmare Moon is a distinct person from Luna." This is just a dump of one line of head-canon.

I'm gonna be rude and say how I might rewrite this: Make that point be not the point of the story--which it can't be, because it isn't powerful enough--but the setup for a plot twist. For instance:

The monster grinned. "Poor little Luna, still stuck up there in the moon.

"I'm... glad you told me," Celestia said between coughs.

"Really?" The dark mare bent her head forward. "Why?"

Celestia spat out a tooth and staggered to her feet. "I can stop holding back."

That's still not quite a story, but it's taken something that's just an informational point--Luna is still on the moon--and spun it into a character exposition--Celestia would accept her own death rather than kill Luna.

I'm in agreement with pretty much everything the others here have said. It's an interesting concept, to be sure, but the execution is what killed it for me. Neither Twilight nor Discord sound quite like themselves, and Twilight's general reaction and mannerisms didn't quite fit her character either. The visual gags were also a bit overboard—like, cutting a few of those in favour of elucidating some more appropriate character on Twilight's part would've done the story well.

At any rate, you've got points for concept and prompt use! Just gotta work on that execution to really drive it home.

This story is too perfect and holds too many legitimate feelings to justify the eye-rolling comedy you play around with in the beginning. There isn't even a need for cthulian references to tell this story, as you clearly have the ability to stand on your own originality.

You crapped on a gem. I'm very disappointed.

I need to stop reading fiction for a while.

I was getting ready to write an irritated post that "the minific competition is dead" and "750 words is too short" when I read this. This is beautiful. I hope it wins. I hope it beats my story.

It's fucking CiG again, isn't it? :P

>>Bad Horse

Uh, I was about to ding the story for this:

“Twilight,” she eventually said, “this isn’t just about getting to move the sun and moon around, is it?”

But if you want to give me the credit (and it really is a nice story), I'll take it :3

The problem with this for me is I am not sold on Celestia here at all. Why is she suddenly the opposite of show-self? Why is Harshwhinny (Who is shown as competent but strict) suddenly a complete doofus?

These things can work but for me at least, haven't met the bar of being believable yet.

I agree with the others. There are issues with inconsistent conjugation, too terse descriptions in one part and too overloaded descriptions elsewhere. I also think that in the last part we would benefit of not having us told directly what Luna thinks. An edit should fix almost everything.

Now, with the problems out of the way, onwards to the positive parts. The concept, while not overly original, is quite interesting as the doubts and fears Luna manifests are in line with the few things we know about here. The story could be either set before she fell or after her return, and it would make sense in either cases. What would change would be the framework we use to interprete the story. Is it the beginning of the fall or the lingering after-effects? A clue on when to place it would be nice.

Imperfect story with a solid core.

Nice slice of life. I like good slice of life, not sure when that happened but at least it means I'm happy with this story.

There's not much to say here, no criticism comes to mind and I agree with >>Baal Bunny on practically every point.

Nicely written story with a heart.

Oh, man, this was not a good last choice to read before bed. I'm so utterly confused.

I more or less managed to follow the story, and it seemed rather competently told. I'm not all that familiar with the Lovecraftian mythos, and I suppose I didn't need to be as these could've just as easily been some other eldritch abominations and not changed the story one iota from my perspective. At any rate, I can only echo the sentiments above—the transition from comedic to serious/melancholy was too quick for my tastes. I think if the story had wholly committed to either comedy or seriousness it would've been stronger. As it stands, it fails to adequately do both in such a short space.

Still, the story itself was touching in a bizarre sort of way, and I can't say I didn't enjoy reading it. It just feels like a bit more could've been done to ease the execution.

A beautiful bit of description porn… but that’s pretty much it. Don’t get me wrong, this is some exquisite language. The problem is there’s no actual story to it, no consequences. A tale full of sound and fury, signifying board games (though clearly not told by an idiot.) Everything worked out exactly as Twilight promised, and while this was a thrilling read, it was an anticlimactic one nonetheless.

This one toes the line between enjoyably absurd and just absurd. Some parts, like the party, work in their ludicrousness. Others, like Blueblood demanding a lawyer, don’t. Lampshading the silliness of the situation doesn’t do you any favors; it just underscores how this probably shouldn’t be happening.

There’s also the matter of the abrupt scene transition. Granted, you had few words left to work with by the time you were through—the choppiness of the rest of the story’s almost unavoidable, given the circumstances—but an hr tag between those first two sections would’ve really helped indicate the more significant shift in time and space.

As for that last line, you had more than enough words left to attribute the dialogue. As is, I can’t tell if that’s Blueblood preparing one last ace in the hole or Celestia swooping down to his rescue. “My little pony” isn’t the obvious indicator you think it is; it could be a confident bit of condescension coming from the prince, especially given the prompt.

This one will definitely benefit from a lack of word limit, giving you a chance to expand it out and justify some of the more ridiculous delays. I look forward to that.

Any party Rarity attends is terrific, huh? I think that first Grand Galloping Gala disproves that assertion.

This one was interesting. It took me a moment to realize that the narrative voice was third-person Rarity, especially given the moment of explicit internal monologue. At first, the voice seemed weirdly stilted or affected. Once I grasped that it was Rarity and understood how to properly emphasize it in my mind, it flowed a lot better. You may benefit from making this first-person to clarify that. Plus, once you don't have to worry about the word limit, you'll be able to set the scene better. I assume they're in Twilight's castle, but I'm not entirely sure.

This story was quite enjoyable once I properly wrapped my head around it. Very fun little character piece for both Rarity and Celestia.

This is certainly an interesting take on Silver Spoon. I actually like how she’s apparently forgotten that Twilight was just the wingless, crownless town librarian a few years ago. Status can blind all too easily.

However, I’m not sure what to think of the ending. Specifically, I’m having trouble sussing out the truth from the tangle of Sweetie’s good intentions, Silver’s preconceived notions, and what part if any her father actually played in the proceedings. Does he monitor Silver’s finances enough that he’d be aware of this investment, or does she just see his hoof in everything? Clear that up and this will be a very nice little slice of life.

As much as I like the alliteration, I find it hard to believe anyone would willingly name a committee “the Prestigiously Pretentious Panel of Pointless Parsimony.”

… Yeah, no. This does not mesh with Equestria as we know it. At all. It just feels pointlessly mean-spirited, and the very nearly all-dialogue format does it no favors. Sorry, but I can’t see any way to make this work for me. Of course, given the nature of the piece, I clearly wasn’t the intended audience.

Across the country, the reader prepared to give this piece a scathing review.

How prophetic.

Well, I wouldn’t call it scathing, but I didn’t much care for this one. Too metareferential even for my tastes, consisting mostly of the Bearers of Harmony yelling at each other and not actually accomplishing much in the way of anything. If there is a metaphor here, I’m not seeing it. Investing a decent chunk of the word count in an almost entirely unrelated punchline didn’t help matters.

That being said, Hans Moleman as Derpy’s great-uncle? Headcanon accepted.

But yeah, not really sure what you were hoping to accomplish here.

I enjoyed this non-sense. Despite it's errors (most of which I credit to a word count; I feel, I feel) I was able to get into this fic and found myself smiling stupidly and even laughed a little. It's not the funniest in the competition, but I do think it's a quality comedy fic. And I'm a sucker for those anyways, so that definitely will help you out as I continue to shuffle my list around and continue adding stories to my slate.

While this fic was rather ridiculous, it uses that ridiculousness to its advantage. Obviously, no one would execute Blueblood for something as small as playing Kanye West or Seth Macfarlene (take your pick). And then obviously from there on out... well, the events that ensued wouldn't have ensued. If someone's going to behead someone I doubt they're going to throw them a party. But that's my point. I really liked the wackiness about the fic, because despite it being mildly absurd I thought it still was tangible. Would it ever happen? No. But I could feel it happen. The dialogue is well done. The characterization is on point, so great job in that regard!

As for issues... abrupt scene changes. This a technical issue, not so much my personal issue. I understand the word count being a limiting factor, so I'm not going to beat you over the head with it, but I feel like--at the very least--you could have used a line break, a physical, horizontal line, streaking across the page. Just to clarify since you technically have weak line breaks.

Another thing I noticed is this fic was dialogue centric, and I'm not sure how much that's going to work for you or against you, because with it being a dialogue centric fic you snubbed your writing quality. I thought this one wasn't written near as well as some of the others out there, and that's--in my opinion--this fic's downfall. The writing just isn't very strong, or at least not in comparison to the other stories on here. I mean... there are some better written fics that will do worse than this one, yeah, but it feels like by choosing to write a dialogue heavy scene (not so much story, but yes a series of scenes, which personally, I thought it was smart to do so), you line yourself up against some of the most magnificent writing and your story just doesn't look that impressive. As a standalone--if this was on FIMFiction--I would upvote it. But say you gave me my current slate and I was limited to seven upvotes. I probably wouldn't upvote this one. Definitely wouldn't downvote it, but to put it simply, by choosing to write just dialogue--and while it's good dialogue, it's not the best--you elect to not showcase your writing ability to the fullest. Versus those who mixed dialogue and description, and put their whole toolbelt on display, in the limelight, up for everyone to see it, whatever expression you choose. And because you didn't put all your cards on the table this fic cannot shine like other ones in the competition. Then again, this is just my opinion. I'm sure some may disagree with me, but it was my one major gripe with it, because I really like these kind of stories, and it kills me because I know this could be better. Once again, dammit word count!

Lastly, FanofMostEverything mentioned this, but I too, was onfused by the final line of the scene: "Are you sure about that my little pony?" At first thought, I assumed it was Celestia arriving to save him, but honestly I also thought it could have been ignorant cockiness from the village idiot. And in the next scene Rubble would just go: "'Yes,'" and the guilotine chopped his head off, Yayyyy~~ But anyhow, I don't know how many words you had to spare, but I'm sure you could have squeezed in some indicator. And if you couldn't, eh, I was in the same position so yet again, I feel. I completely know where you're coming from.

All in all this was good. Not great, not bad (definitely not bad), but it was just good. I expect this one to shake up around the middle of the pack. Or it could get snubbed and fall a bit. But I don't see this one finishing very high. That's the one posssibility that would blindside me, but it could happen, you never know. I enjoyed the read and can't wait to see this on FIMfiction!

Ah, the election cycle induced sense of alienation. A great classic, which speaks to almost everyone, even if he has never been in the USA.

While Sunset felt right as a character, the story lacks meat. It is a bit on the telly side, and considering the tyranny of the word count and that almost everyone has at least a passing familiarity with the argument that Sunset is exploring it would probably benefit from focusing on the MC's reaction.

The ending, while not surprising, worked well.

Enjoyable but needs focus or content.

Boy, this is rough. Lots of grammar errors. I think Death here is, ah, blandly casual; his voice is more colloquial than what I would have expected, which is fine in theory, but it just ends up being boring, like he's some random guy and not, you know, Death.

And like the other comments said, the story's kinda just...there. The ending happens, but the build-up to it isn't enough to make it particularly meaningful.

I quite liked this one.

I was surprised by this nihilistic cosmic horror story, and appreciate the effort even if there are a couple of problems with the writing itself. The disconnect between the first part and the ending worked well as a way to represent the randomness of the cosmos. It was unexpected and lacked fore shadowing, and in this context that seemed about right. I liked the starting discussion, the seriousness and melancholy was a nice contrast with what comes later. The collectors lines on the other hand were stiff, unnatural and a transparent way to give context. Practically an infodump. Unicorn chess and the different ways in which magic works were a nice bonus.

Interesting but with a bit of an obscure key to its interpretation.

>>Cold in Gardez Ding on what basis?

Genre: Cute slice of life with a headcanon-y twist

Thoughts: The opening section's cuteness was effective at getting me to lower my guard before the headcanon started. The quality of prose remained strong throughout. I did like the tragic/romantic undertones that showed up towards the end. Really, most things I could point at here worked pretty well.

But there's a big but, and like Sir Mix-A-Lot, I find myself unable to lie about it: I didn't buy the headcanon that underpinned the story's premise. Part of that's bound to be personal and subjective, but IMO Cadance's speech wasn't effective at selling me on the headcanon. I also have to question how in-character I think Twilight's sudden decision at the end is; surely our beloved bookhorse would think to challenge or research this new discovery?

Still, overall, this had good writing, and the opening was pure d'aww.

Tier: Almost there

Oh, my. Disagree with >>GaPJaxie. This doesn't need to be any longer. It could be longer, but it has a lot of punch in a few words. I'm reading it as the tree reminding Twilight that her friends will all soon die.

I don't think the title should be in quotes? Just a matter of taste.

Quite fun slice of life, even if Rarity seems to be a bit trapped in her season one vision of high society. I usually think that she matured a bit in the meanwhile, but then that may be more my own head-canon of the character than reality.

The chat with Celestia was delightful and felt right. The third person narration worked fine in my opinion, and will work even better when you have enough space to set the scene.

Nice story that will benefit from an expanded word-count.

A hilarious and endearing slice of life. There needs to be more stories in this vein, especially if the two Twilights ever get caught up in the same adorkable fixation at the same time.

My only complaint is that there’s no clear connection to the prompt. Aside from that? Fantastic.

>>Bad Horse

It's just a little blatant. I mean, is the reader so stupid that he needs Celestia to drive the plot forward with an obvious question like that?

Then I remembered the last five or so Writeoffs I've done, in which I end up ranting about how subtlety is the key to failure in these events. So, in that light, I absolutely don't blame the author for using a somewhat forceful touch.

This is enjoyably silly, but it needs a stronger foundation. You really need to explain Nightmare Moon’s continued existence, to say nothing of the villainesses being in Tartarus for some reason. Plus, given how mutable Tirek can be in shape, size, and power, it would be a good idea to establish either the setting or his current state earlier in the story.

Still, I have to appreciate any story with the line “I’m too busy applying makeup to worry about mortal concerns like humidity.”

Once the reader has a firmer grip on the situation going in, the story will work much better.

It was a particularly good book she was reading, however—some sort of treatise on magic or something, as is her wont—so she ignored the first knock. Well, 'ignored' isn't quite the word; she just hoped it was nothing and kept reading.

These opening sentences are so bad that they nearly wrecked the story for me. They led me to expect the story to be bad.

- "some sort of treatise on magic or something": The odd vagueness gives a tone of upper-class 1920s English whimsy not matched by anything after the first paragraph, and informs us that we don't have access to Twilight's thoughts, and that the narrator doesn't really respect Twilight.

- "as is her wont": Now the narrator is from 16th century England. Also, this phrase is useless.

- "so she ignored the first knock. Well, 'ignored' isn't quite the word; she just hoped it was nothing and kept reading.": Why doesn't this just say "so she kept reading"? Also, now we're in Twilight's POV, which we were definitely not in last sentence.

The rest of the story is better-written.

Rarity says "darling" 5 times here. She says "darling" 21 times in seasons 1-4. (I used grep, not memory.)

Given the prompt, those last three words may not have been necessary. Still, nicely tense. If you expand this, I recommend expanding the chase. There’s not enough room here for a properly paced pursuit spanning from start to finish, and I'd expect Dash to be able to keep up better, especially if she can keep an eye on Gilda from above. And that's saying nothing of Pinkie not bothering with any space between Points A and Z.

"Unconquered star," eh? Intriguing.

Oh. Well. Hmm. This is a downer. The problem with this sort of story is that it needs a lot more space to properly establish the uncertainty. This knocks it down almost as soon as it sets it up, and it feels like I’m back where I started. There’s definitely an intriguing idea here, but trying to cram it into a minific was not a wise decision.

>>ChappedPenguinLips If you'd written just 31 more words, your review would've been longer than the story.

Now I'm sad that you didn't. :(

Flim gasped, and his brother Flim did the same.

Okay, I know they’re hard to tell apart, but that’s a bit much. ;)

Eh. This one fell flat for me. Between the equine trafficking, the clumsy humor, and my personal distaste for Twilestia, there wasn’t a lot to make me positively inclined towards this story. Still, a lot of that is more on me than you, and if you don’t force the jokes as hard as you have, they should work better.

I don't know if this suffers from being so short. Maybe. It's still better than most of the stories I've read. This is a real story, with a plot, a character arc, and an emotional punch, and it's original, and "pony". I think those last 2 lines deserve reconsideration. They're good, but so sparse and literal... no connotations to set up expectations. The ending is so sudden. There might be a better way to lead up to it. But this is quite good.

Roger, the new voting system doesn't work well for me, because I read the stories on an e-reader. I want to download the stories on my slate to an e-reader, but I can't after I read my opening slate, because I have to vote on a story before I can get assigned another story. I'd like to be able to get another batch of stories to read and know that I'll be able to vote on them.

It would also be nice to be able to add stories that I've read to my voting slate, maybe by a button by its gallery entry. If I go out of my way to read a story, I don't think it biases the voting for me to add that to my slate, as long as I vote on my entire original slate.

I seem to have a soft spot for unprofessional governing councils, since I found this one quite amusing. However, I do have to agree with Kwirky about how it doesn’t really add much to the story as a whole, struggling as it does to match the solemnity of the other half and doing little more than offering an explanation for something that didn’t need one.

As for the portrait, I find myself wondering whether it’s Luna or their mother. Either seems like it could work.

There’s definite potential here. Indeed, seeing these continual attempts over the centuries could make for quite the story. But this isn’t quite there yet.

Interesting, certainly. I agree with Trick on how this probably would’ve worked better as a letter… though even then, the setup raises a question: If the pendants empathically linked the two, how could Blueblood manage to miss what the ball was doing to Twilight?

Still, there’s a good premise here. I recommend decompressing it; take the summary Rarity recites and use it as the outline of a much larger story. Follow the romance from the beginning to the terrible end. You’ve created a powerful tragedy here, but you freeze-dried it to make sure it fit in the word limit. I’d love to see the full version, especially since seeing Rarity stew in her suspicion and resentment for so long would make this version of her feel more justified.

This was pretty funny, but it doesn’t conclude. It just stops. Granted, you ran out of words, but fitting a full story in the word limit is part of the challenge of a minific contest. I’d love to see this finished, but as is, there’s just not enough here.

I’m not sure if I’m more surprised, disappointed, or relieved that only two people chose to put asterisks in their titles. Or one person who submitted two stories.

In any case, this was a quite fun study in juxtapositions. I quite like the lore about constellation creatures. And given the Tantabus, Luna does seem to have an unfortunate tendency to create consciousnesses without considering the consequences.

Argon makes a good point about Twilight seeming more peevish than usual. You can better justify that in the expansion. Maybe this is taking place in the middle of an unreasonably busy time for the Princess of Friendship. Whatever the case, I hope you do expand this.

CPL makes a good point about how compressed this feels, especially the resolution. Plus, Shining’s reassurance only underscores the unpalatable absurdity of the central premise. Who in their right mind bullies the child of the nation’s ruler, who herself is essentially a physical demigod? One who is literally named after the time she almost froze everyone in the city-state to death by way of a temper tantrum? There’s jealousy and then there are latent suicidal tendencies.

Yeah, as much as I appreciate good character moments, especially ones for underutilized characters like Shining Armor, I couldn’t quite suspend my disbelief with this one.

>>Bad Horse
I've asked about this as well, for the same reason. I think I understand the rationale behind not letting us do it, but it'd be useful for those of us who've proven we're going to read the entire slate.

This felt excessively wordy at times, which is actually something of an accomplishment in an minific. Still, it feels like the narrative lingered on the setup just a bit too much. After that, it did a great job of building up anticipation and desperation. I’d question how disclaimer could be blocked by a mail order form on a presumably two-dimensional advertisement, but these are the Flimflams we’re talking about.

Tone down the opening grandiosity a little and this will be quite enjoyable.

You're trying to tell the story you want to tell and shoehorn the characters into the roles you want them to play, and it doesn't feel like you're being true to the characters as a result.

Flam held up a hoof, about ready to smack that feature into their product

Holy shit. This goes way beyond what Flim and Flam are capable of, even if you make the show less kid-friendly.

Why would they try to sell a slave to the Princess of Friendship, of all ponies? That doesn't make sense, especially considering all the schemes they could pull off with a changeling.

I really don't buy Twilight shifting from a tense situation where she's trying to save somepony's life immediately to her being horny and asking for something inappropriate in public. That felt weird and forced. When you're in a tense situation you don't just suddenly see a kink opening and become horny. There are too many other competing emotions to allow sex to come to the fore.

Just trust me on that one.

Fun:

But I of course have suggestions, author... :)

One of the best things about fanfiction, I've found, is that I don't have to introduce a story's characters to the reader. So trimming the opening here would make the whole thing flow better: instead of three paragraphs, just give us a sentence or two to show us we're dealing with a pre-reformation Sunset, and you can launch right into the meat of the story.

I'd also suggest to start with Sunset deciding that she's done with Equestria--she's cut those apron strings and is setting her sights on taking over Humania. Her studies, then, have decide she'd rather return and take over Equestria. That way, the story becomes more than a cute joke. It becomes a "turning point" moment for Sunset: after reading about our electoral system, a hypnotized army of teenagers suddenly seems like a viable politcal alternative.

Mike

I don't think Maud skipping half the funeral was in character, even if you were using it as foreshadowing.

It's difficult for me to imagine somepony Limestone's age committing murder. It's true she has a sense of responsibility toward the farm, but as a pre-mark filly?

In the end this feels like sadbad for the sake of sadbad, and while it is compelling and realistic, it isn't my cup of tea. I'm left without much of a message other than "everything is terrible", a-la True Detective Season 2. Literature needs to make me think, not just make me feel bad and helpless.

If you worked something into it like Bad Horse suggested >>Bad Horse it would make this worth reading. Although on my part it isn't the believability that bothers me, but "what are you actually trying to say".

Roughness and grammatical errors aside, I concur with the previous comments, it lacks an emotional connection. Limiting it to a minific and having six characters means that you really have at most two sentences for each one to establish them having made peace with their situation. Not an easy task. Managing the scarce space you have is usually the key in this kind of rounds.

The basic idea is interesting, and I can see it becoming something quite good if you Polish it.

Potentially interesting premise with flawed execution.

They were ponies of power, wealth, and influence.

Try showing us this rather than telling us. I know it's a challenge in a minific, but push yourself.

I actually don't buy Fancy Pants as a power player. He's a socialite, and they want to be associated with royalty. His power stems from his connections, so laying the alicorns low would reduce his status. Being an alicorn automatically elevates one's status, and alicorns have a personal stake in acting as high status ponies.

No pension lacks a cap, because you don't want to encourage workers to continue working long past retirement age. Lifetime warranties aren't guaranteed for the life of the owner, but for the calculated life of the product. Also, even if a cost is infinite in the long run, it can be financed with finite capital because time-value of money has an exponential drop-off...

Ah, crap. I just nerded out all my enjoyment from this story. :facehoof:

I don't have much to add beyond what FanOfMostEverything had already said. I liked the descriptions, the visuals were striking, and I'd love to see this concept attached to an actual story, but as it stands, there isn't much here.

SCORE-O-METER: 7.3/10

That was cute. This story set out to tell a joke in 750 words or less, and the joke is fairly funny. There isn't much substance here, but I smiled, and that's well done for the length.

SCORE-O-METER: 7.5/10

This is great. I don't think I can offer anything to make it better.

I'm assuming from context that the pendants were just a mirror? That whatever Twilight sends gets sent back, and so she was never really feeling Blueblood's emotions at all. But as other reviewers have said, that is not at all clear in this version, and the current execution leaves me with some significant unanswered questions.

Seriously, do FanOfMostEverything and I share the same slate? Whenever I come to review a story, he's already there. Discovered it, settled it, put the flag up, built a coffee shop.

All I can really do is echo the previous two reviews. This was fine, but not much happens, and the premise is a bit hard to handle. Who bullies a god?

SCORE-O-METER: 7/10

This is a fine slice-of-life story, but I'd like it more if it went a little deeper, pun not intended.

"We don’t, don’t we?"

I think you mean, "We don't, do we?" If you make it end with "don't we", it sounds like Rarity is not agreeing with Applejack on the topic, and is requesting clarification on whether she actually believes what she said.

"Sometimes it feels like I only have these little soirees with Twilight or Fluttershy."

This would be great foreshadowing for Rarity having Alzhinny disease, but alas.

"More excited to be turning 16, I think."

If this weren't a Writeoff, I'd expect porn to follow in about three paragraphs.

(continues reading)

Oh, wait. That sort of happened.

All that said, I think the age drop is cliche and bad. I'd try something like "it's been several years since she got her mark" or something instead, because I find age-baiting stuff to be super distasteful.

The story could use a twist. I was under the strong impression that the condom was for Sweetie's horn, and that would have been perfect. Again: alas.

Also, where is the prompt? The fact that Twilight wasn't at a meeting between two of her friends? That's pretty weaksauce, but I don't bother rating the prompt usage anymore.

>>GaPJaxie
FoME usually goes out of his way to review every story in each write-off before preliminaries end.

Latin. Okay. Aster Invictus as the Sun?

Frankly, I don't know what to make of this. I suppose it's metaphoric because it takes place in the mind of a crazy pony — it can't be in the past since it mentions the four princesses. So this must be some sort of interior monologue — or dialogue, assuming the pony is schizophrenic.

So… I’m a bit lost, all the more that the final line is not a real resolution, on the contrary, it ushers a completely different interpretation. Well written and stuff, but too outlandish for me.

I guess that's Celestia at the end?

This is a cute idea, but to me it kinda felt like the same joke over and over again. Maybe it's just me? There are some awkward sentences here; that line with the clock seems confused, and in the first line you're using 'crowed' as a saidism, which I don't really like. I think this might be a lot better with a coat of polish, but as it is... it's just kinda alright to me.

The idea is interesting, though it defeats almost all canon, especially the whole Luna redeeming arc, Tantabus and all that stuff.
I agree with the others that there’s hardly a story here, just a scene that you've crafted to showcase your idea. And it leaves a lot unexplained, in the first place how Luna, the genuine one, was sent to the Moon, and whence does NM stem.

The concept is fine, but this needs to be plunged into a bigger story to shine.

I think you've managed to capture the 'child at a birthday party' very well here. That first paragraph confused me a moment, the way it has two actors; I don't know if I can say you're actually breaking a rule there, but for a better first impression I'd suggest re-working it. There's not much here besides a joke; but it's a well-told joke, and couched in original ideas and solid prose. Good work!

A bit too maudlin for me. The story of an immortal loving a mortal and renouncing their immortality to share the same fate as their lover is — well, I wouldn't say threadbare – but I can, for example, think of Arwen and Aragon in the Lord of the Rings, with exactly the same argument/reasoning, and probably other older stories.

So, yeah, this is fluffy, and, paradoxically as it can be, long-winded for the core concept it is built on. But the Twilight interacting with the baby part is certainly cute.

Is this from an earlier generation of ponies?

There's some nice descriptive and character work here, but I don't really think this counts as a whole story. It's a pretty good opening though.

Uh...

What just happened there?

Alright, I mean, I think I get it, but still. This just makes no sense at all, in any way I consider logical. It's like, the story starts out with a seemingly meaningful discussion between Cadence and Twilight, but then slews wildly into crack? I don't even know.

Um, on a technical note, the information on how Twilight plays chess adds nothing to the story and is a really dry note to open on. The info on how Cadence plays chess is at least humorous, but other than that adds nothing to the story. The whole first section feels like padding to reach the ridiculousness at the end, because it means nothing to the ending. If your point is nihilism something, that might work, but I think stories should have a meaning of some sort; being meaningless, to me, is not the same as being thematically nihilistic, because you're not demonstrating how life is meaningless when your story just lacks meaning. ...or something like that. Anyways, despite some cute turns of phrase, this one is just too pointless overall for me to enjoy it much.

Well… The first scene is all right I guess.

I'm of two minds w/r to the second one. I mean, I don't get your intention. Does SA purposefully skirt the issue? He doesn't really answer Flurry, he just dismisses the point as meaningless, something that will not help her daughter overcome the humiliation. If it's the case, it does not transpire clearly from the end.

But yeah, in any case, it's very unlikely Flurry goes to a normal school. Not with the powers she's endowed with from the get-go.

On the whole, I like it. It reminds me of the opening cinematic to Age of Empires II. I’d like to see where things go from this point. Twilight says it’s just a game, but did it just add extra pennants to Carousel Boutique? Will Rarity’s fortune start to change from playing this game, if only from what it does to her mind?

I'm partly with Trick here. One of Pinkie's sisters committing murder just because Pinkie ceased to work at the farm seems improbable, bordering to completely impossible. Besides, if a young Maud is smart enough to reason out the real death of Pinkie, I don't see how her parents did not the same.

Would Limestome also confess all the story in a diary her parents are likely to find sooner or later?

I like dark stories, so I cannot pan this one completely. But the premises it is built on are too flimsy for me to enjoy it completely.

Hmm, hmm... this is very efficient, and it's got an actual story arc. I'm having trouble extracting your theme from it, though I do feel like you've got one.

Don't listen to the voices in your head?

Look before you leap?

Doing hard things is hard?

I dunno. I wish that was clearer. Otherwise, my pattern-matching brain wanted to connect the baker to Pinkie and the farmer to Applejack, but the constable threw me. I'd suggest changing at least the first one to avoid that and make your schism from the show clearer sooner.

...oh, and what happened to Flurry Heart?

RPG, and especially D&D, are made to carry away their players into a fancy world. What we get here is a sort of D&D-Equestria counterpart but played in Equestria. That doesn't stack up.

I had an idea for a story like this, with Lyra playing a human, and some sort of other fancy races around, like a centaur "half-human". The fact that you don't project the players outside their world made the whole fic a bit meh for me.

I had trouble staying engaged through this, because it mostly seems to be a re-hash of things I've already seen. I watched all these episodes and know what happened in them. Perhaps being even more outrageous would have helped, because on the whole, these accusations seemed fairly tame and logical to me. Let's hear about Celestia conspiring with Twilight and Tirek to cause property damage so she could drive property prices up, Twilight growing the Crystal Castle so she could re-zone Ponyville and steal ponies farms, how Philomena cashes in on life insurance whenever she molts, or how Cadence is secretly mind-controlling everyone with her love magic or something, I dunno. Take it farther, because this isn't nearly crazy enough to hold my attention as it is right now.

Oh, and on '6 civilians'; numerals should usually be written out when storytelling, unless they're longer than three digits not counting zeros at the end. I think. Find a more complete guide here: http://theeditorsblog.net/2013/01/13/numbers-in-fiction/

So, uh, I was onboard until:

Fluttershy frowned. "I thought I was the leader."

...and then you lost me.

Not only does this sound wildly out of character for Fluttershy, but nothing after that pulls the story back on track. Neither the meta stuff or the the scene with the Rainbooms seem to have a point.

The first bit of this was genuinely interesting and funny. However, it seemed to choke really hard about halfway through.

This was surprisingly effective to me.

I don't feel like complaining much about the transition, honestly; I think the outward transition, from them being abominations to being ponies, paired with the transition of the text, from being silly to being fairly serious, worked well enough together that it didn't throw me too hard? That being said, the whole 'let's translate the speech of the old ones' thing seemed like a really poor choice to make in such a limited format, although you did drag a few good jokes out of it.

Perhaps this would have been better if a bit more focus had been given to the internal changes. We get about one scene before the clincher to set it up, and although it worked alright for me, it might be smoother with a bit more.

Oh, and although I haven't read much Lovecraft, I was under the impression that the Lovecraftian abominations aren't really out to defile things. Aren't they mostly just inscrutable and dangerous to be around or something? I realize that doesn't work with what you're doing here, but it did seem a bit odd to me. Can a Lovecraftian abomination be out-of-character? Am I severely misunderstanding Lovecraft, or have I simply not read enough?

It was off to a bit of a rocky start, and that had me worried—especially given the lack of proper title case. That said, as it went on it became better and better, and the twist at the end really threw me for a loop. Certainly one of the more literal interpretations of the prompt, and no worse for it! In the end, it was a cute little story that I enjoyed more than I initially anticipated. Good job!

>>FanOfMostEverything

Wait, I thought it was Discord who was talking? At least, that was my interpretation for how someone could threaten and hurt Blueblood and get away with it.

Why does Windy Seed have an orange coat, bringing to mind Scootaloo?

Aside from that, no major complaints

Rarity caught on really fast here, faster than me, which was a bit of a problem. I'm not certain I quite grasped what RD was saying, or the point she was trying to make. Is she claiming Twilight is thoughtless? That Celestia is malignant? That they should do something? (They probably should do something, even if it's just as Celestia for a stipend too. Or extra days off.) Anyways, my being unsure makes this not really hit very hard for me. Not to mention that whole bit with the alicorns seemed to skew from what I was seeing before even.

Oh, and breaking paragraphs in the middle of speech is perfectly acceptable, but it takes special punctuation rules. No quote at the end of the internal paragraphs, but still open with one on the new paragraph. Close at the end as usual. That way we can tell the speaker is the same, and not an un-attributed back-and-forth dialogue.

Well, the ending got a snort out of me. :P

Um, the makeover thing... didn't seem to do much at all for the story. Honestly, they could have been sitting around and roasting marshmallows or just about anything. That's a bit of a missed opportunity, I think; you don't really use it to further your plot or your characters by much (although Tirek's reaction to it is used, so there's that.)

I'm also not sure where to place this chronologically. I originally thought that it was more recent. However, Tirek being weak/escaping suggests it's earlier... but Chrysalis' inclusion doesn't make sense to me then? I dunno. This kinda confused me that way.

There's some good jokes in here, and the characterization is fairly solid. In other ways, though, it's kinda confusing and strange.

>>Trick_Question
It is satire on the whole concept of drinking alcohol from what I get and the effects you get from it which, when pointed out by a Flim Flam brother who are known scallywags out to pillage your pocket, sinks the point in even further. The prompt IS a bit off though. Maybe if the sixth paragraph had somehow merged in with the second to last it would make the connection with the prompt far stronger. As an avid non-alcohol drinker I quite see the anti-pitch done here.

This didn't do much for me in part because the characters failed to stand out. If you're going to have established characters roleplaying, we should be able to see aspects of those characters in the in-game characters they're playing. That's a huge missed opportunity. All we have here are some names with zero development.

As a gamemaster with a couple of decades of experience, Pinkie's misinterpretation of "making a game hard" isn't particularly humorous. There's probably a more amusing way to approach this than obscurantism on Pinkie's part.

So, this has a complete arc, which is nice. It's an old trope, which is less exciting, but it's fairly well done. I think it might have worked better for me with a bit stronger hint at what's going on here? It didn't all really come together for me until after the end, robbing that last line of some of its impact.