Third-person present tense is a fairly nonstandard choice for storytelling, as far as I know. The immediacy of present tense can work well in a story like this, boosting the dreamlikeness of what's happening, but it does tend to read a bit odd to some people, so be aware of that.

Also, be consistent with it. Once or twice here you slip into past tense, and that's just no good.

Like the others here:

I found myself with a lot of questions at the end, too. Fortunately, author, you'll have more room to expand on whether Silver's suspicions are true or not when getting this set up for posting at FimFiction. I hope to see it there!

Mike

>>horizon

Remember not to publish or discuss your story elsewhere until you are no longer anonymous!

Just to clarify for first-timers: "Elsewhere" includes on fimfiction and within the FIMFiction group horizon was discussion. Don't publish it there yet.

I wouldn't call this Frost-style, but a much older style. The liberties with grammar and elevated style are 19th-century, and if you want to match the rhyme scheme, Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" is more similar in voice than Frost, despite that one line.

It's excellent poetry, in sound, choice of words, clever word play, and the cleverness with which the Nightmare seduces Luna. The dramatic storyline makes it more interesting than the old love poetry it's imitating, and also gives it more material to work with, and so it is better poetry.

Two lines struck me as generic and boring:

All those who care will understand—
Your foes will end up terrified.

The rest of it is great.

Judging poetry compared to stories is very difficult, apples and oranges. I don't have to, since I can't vote on this now.

>>Not_A_Hat

But I'm not seeing arc or plot;
It's pretty, but it is not fraught
With tension, anger, or device,
To draw me in. My heart's uncaught.

I think it's unfair to compare a poem to a story in this way.
If you compare this to the older love poetry it's mostly modeled on, I think you'll find the old stuff is even less dramatic. Poetry is rooted in an older tradition than prose, a classical/medieval tradition in which there is no tension because every poem or story is just a re-working of tropes in a predictable fashion. This was broken by the metaphysical poets just after Shakespeare, for a few years--about 1600-1620--and then we had another 300 years of boring love poetry until things started changing around 1920. I think it's unfair to accuse "Only, only, only me" of being less than gripping in a world in which John Keats is still considered a great poet.

William Browne, early 17th century:
Underneath this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all verse:
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother,
Death, ere though has slain another
Fair and learn'd and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.

Robert Herrick (1591-1675):
When as in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.
Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free
O how that glittering taketh me!

John Keats
The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!
Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast,
Warm breath, light whisper, tender semi-tone,
Bright eyes, accomplish’d shape, and lang’rous waist!
Faded the flower and all its budded charms,
Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,
Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,
Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise –
Vanish’d unseasonably at shut of eve,
When the dusk holiday – or holinight
Of fragrant-curtain’d love begins to weave
The woof of darkness thick, for hid delight,
But, as I’ve read love’s missal through to-day,
He’ll let me sleep, seeing I fast and pray.

Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864):
Ah, what avails the sceptred race!
Ah, what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!
Rose Aylmer, all were thine.
Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see,
A night of memories and of sighs
I consecrate to thee.

See also Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe:

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
...

... or don't. These are all famous poems, and all less dramatic than "Only, Only, Only Me" above.

Beyond what everybody else mentioned, I've got problems with both Celestia's and Harshwhinny's motivation (or lack thereof,) that make this story unbelievable to me.
I'd need at least some pointers to what reason Harshwhinny could have for being so angry at the princesses, as well as to why Celestia could possibly focus so much on Harshwhinny. Have the two even met in the Equestria games episode? I don't remember. And if Celestia simply dislikes her for being a 'pompous, vacuous snit', then why single that mare out when she's got a city full of nobles surrounding her?

To me this story reads like the result of a writing process similar to mine during the last writeoff:
Being struck by an idea for a scene (Harshwhinny excluding the Princesses from the games / Celestia's bitching about it) and then writing that down without spending enough time thinking about what happened that led up to the scene.

>>Bad Horse

... or don't. These are all hugely famous poems, and all boring compared to "Only, Only, Only Me" above.

Well, I won't argue that. It's a very pretty poem, don't get me wrong.

One reason I tell people I don't know anything about poetry is precisely because of stuff like this. If you say:

I think it's unfair to compare a poem to a story in this way.

I have trouble putting together a solid argument. I mean, on the one hand, you're plainly correct. I can't say 'a poem should have everything a story does, plus rhyme and meter.' That's more than a little ridiculous; it's obvious rhyme and meter are - or, I guess, should be - chosen to suit a specific purpose, and bring strengths and restrictions along with. Claiming it can simply be added on top of a story dismisses both those strengths and the limitations inherent.

On the other hand, however, I don't know if I'm comfortable saying that 'a poem doesn't need to have anything a story needs', because when I get right down to it, I think the basics of what a story and a poem require to be 'good entertainment' are pretty similar. Depth of emotion and intricacy of meaning, characterization, economy of style and elegance of presentation; they may take different forms, but the aim really isn't too far off, is it?

Or maybe it is?

As I said in my hackish review, there's a good chance I'm simply not in the audience here. Perhaps I haven't read enough poetry to 'get' this. However... if 'getting' this requires reading a significant amount of poetry, then perhaps that's worth knowing in its own right? Or perhaps that's simply the state of poetry these days, and expected of a lay-person such as I.

So, I won't defend my review. If you claim that poetry doesn't require plot or emotional devices such as arc, I'll accept that I am, perhaps, wrong. However, I'm curious. What is it, in your opinion, that poetry should have in order to qualify as 'good'? Is evoking a single emotion enough? Is evoking a single emotion superior to the contrasting emotions an arc of some sort can evoke? I tend to dismiss stories without arc as 'one-note' and 'flat'. But is this the superior choice for a poem, or simply not a consideration?

I do agree that the limitations inherent in a poem should be balanced by the inherent strengths. There are some things that are just not possible inside of metered rhyme - and some things you simply can't do without it. But are they entirely different beasts? Or are the aims of each convergent, even if the routes used to reach there are tilted one way or the other? Perhaps they shouldn't be compared that way. Should I not be trying to compare them at all?

Y'know:

The more I think about this, the less I can figure out what's going on with Sweetie Belle. I mean, if this is all a scam being run by Silver's father, how did he get Sweetie to go along with it? And if it's not a scam, why is Sweetie charging Silver for her birthday party? If you're giving a friend a birthday party, you give it to them; you don't sell it to them....

Mike Again

Simply. This was my favorite. Time isn't very abundant for me right now, but I felt this story deserved at least a comment from me.

Bias not included, this was easily one of the better ones in the competition. It was well-written, the prose was pretty, the story was nice and concise all the while having beautiful exchanges of dialogue encompassed by what I think to be the best description I've read for this round. I loved the premise, and the execution was smooth and managed to incorporate some well-placed, embellishing humor on this already spectacular minific.

"No such thing as perfect." Yeah, sure, but from a reader's perspective, I didn't have a single issue with the story, and I won't try to find any criticism to offer, because then I'd be devaluing what I believe to be the best fic (at least from the ones I've read) this Writeoff round. Know what the say: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Awesome Job! And I really wanna know who wrote this one, because I have a few questions for the author. Nice work, mate! Calling it right now, top five easy, and my bet for the top fic.

Man, I am sucking at getting through my slate here, much less any other stories.

This was simple, funny, and a complete story. The comic timing was good, as was the whole customer service situation. I feel it could still offer something more, some je ne sais quoi that would take it to the level of true greatness, but it's quite good as is.

Tier: Top Contender

With about twenty-five hours left in the preliminaries, let's take a look at which stories need more love.

An Alicorn Too Much. (#11) and A talk with Celestia (#62) each have only two comments.

Buyer Beware (#30), Paintbrush (#31), A trip to the store (#35), Royal Assent (#45), There's a Metaphor in Here Somewhere (also the Simpsons) (#46), Princessence (#56), and Princess Party (#57) each have only three comments.

Build-a-Pone Workshop (#6) and The Birthday Scam (#60) each have four comments from three different reviewers.

You all know what to do.

I enjoy the premise, here, but I'm not getting as much out of the execution. The entire first part has a different tone from the section under the break - and while it is interesting, it's also just not necessary. I would recommend either tying it into the second part more directly to make it match tone or just removing it all together (not that I want you to do that, because you portray the Royal Senate quite well).

Either way, I did enjoy it.

I'm with >>Trick_Question on basically all points here. However, I will say that there's a good setup and strong technical correctness here. I liked the idea of the joke about giving the bad guy the Evil Overlord list, but I feel like it could have been used more strongly; perhaps by referencing more entries from it, and/or a less obscure one?

Tier: Needs Work

...Egad, dat azz! :trollestia:

The quality of prose is unmistakable, but the format of the story conveys little actual story for me. It's more like a scene that would need expanding to overcome some of the telliness of the way the background information is presented. But I don't want to be discouraging; there's good potential here with a higher word count.

Tier: Needs Work

This one teeters on the brink of Misaimed for me, because it's a message-heavy piece whose message I don't really agree with. (I know, /outed as terrifying conservative.) But the thing is, this is so well-written, and believable, and it nails the character voices... I can't deny how incredibly well done this is, nor do I really want to, because the content here does far more than just put forward the message. It makes its case, and makes it well, and I respect the hell out of its approach, even if I'm not 100% on-board.

Tier: Top Contender

This is assuredly a beautiful piece, and I do like the concept. The biggest issue here is that there isn't really a story here as much as a pretty set of words, and there isn't enough oomph in the minific limit for me to really get into the narrative. It's fairly good as is, but needs some work and length.

If this had more words, this would be one of the best I've read. As is, there is tons of tantalizing background details that I want to hear more about, but it barely touches on each one. There just isn't enough space here.

Other than that, this is intriguing. Great job.

Nothing to say that hasn't already been said. This was funny, and you write the child's perspective phenomenally. Good job!

This is an okay idea, but you need to have the ramifications of the AU change to make this story really work. Not bad, but needs to dive deeper into the concept to pull it off properly.

Why does Chrysalis even care if the princesses find out?

Anyway, this was a nice bit of fun. Just add a bit of background information like FOME was suggesting and it will be easier to get into it. It took me a bit of being confused before I rolled with it.

Very nice:

I'll give the same suggestion that I gave to the original version of Corejo's poem, though, and it's doubly important here since this is a poem of seduction. Give us some concrete, sensual details: the gentle rasp of feather against feather as the Nightmare caresses Luna's wings; the tickle from the nebulous hairs of Luna's mane as the Nightmare leans forward to whisper in her ear; stuff like that.

I'll also say how much I love the specific way the meter falls apart at the poem's climax, losing the unaccented syllables and going all trochaic in the lines that begin with "Clench" and "Arch." I'd even suggest doing that in the italicized lines that follow just to emphasize the Nightmare's victory. But I'm a little less enamored of the similar metrical jiggery-pokery in the second stanza where the one syllable words "frail" and "pale" are stretched to fill a couple two syllable parts of the line. A few stanzas later as the seduction grows, I wouldn't mind it at all, but right at the beginning when things should be smooth as silk, it's too jarring.

Still, good stuff.

Mike

I'm going to try offering thoughts on the stories in >>FanOfMostEverything's list to equalize the reviews some.

Sort-of nitpick: I really don't understand what magma (molten rock) has to do with paradoxes. That line is twisting in the wind for me because it's implying that paradox is somehow going to affect Equestria physically rather than existentially, and since that's basically setting up your punchline I end the story with it gnawing at me. It's an easy fix though.

Overall I appreciated this. It had a fun prompt interpretation, and a lot of the jokes landed because everyone felt so in-character. Dinky's betrayal at Pinkie Pie saving a title but not her mother was a high point. Ink Slinger's bitterness added some interesting subtle depth, though on reflection I'm not sure I'm satisfied with that being lampshaded and then backgrounded. The idea of every female ascending and every male left behind has huge, huge implications that could easily carry a serious story and feels awkwardly off-tone for a comedy.

Tier: Strong

As others have said, the ending needs to make sense in the greater context. It just comes out of nowhere.

The idea here is solid, though. I think this just needed some extra development time and was constrained by the word limit.

I wasn't sure about this one until the final line. I think it ends up needing some proofreading, and I could use more explanation of Discord's status etc, but ultimately I'm happy with what this accomplished given its length and the scope of the situation it described.

That last line is the magic, though.

Tier: Good Stuff

Lol! This needs some minor cleanup, but it's absurd, ridiculous fun.

Tier: Good Stuff

Quiet an enjoyable read. Rarity and Twilight are well-defined, with witty repartee. I liked the emotions and nuance they exhibited. Overall I'm strongly reminded of Cold in Gardez's 'Shall I Compare Thee'.

The writing was clean; the only nit I recall was the 'she castled herself' line being ambiguous. Eminently forgivable in a writeoff. I liked the descriptions, in particular their transformations into Ailicorn forms was evocative.

I don't have much in the way of advice for this one; while not world-shattering plotwise, this was a solid romp, and I would totally play a game with that chess set.

>>Caliaponia
"Castling" in a move in chess in which the king and either rook may move several spaces towards each other, essentially swapping their positions. It is the only move in chess where you can move two pieces at once, and is only allowed as the first move of either piece. The idea behind castling is that it opens up your rook to move out offensively while shielding your king behind a row of pawns.

And since this comment inflated the review count, expect my thoughts in a minute.

I actually thought there was a decent emotional connection here, fueled largely by Pinkie's enthusiasm and AJ's desire to see her family. But of course others have mentioned the need for some cleanup, and have wished to see more to the story, and I'll echo those sentiments.

I was caught a bit off guard by the prompt drop, but I thought it was used effectively.

Tier: Needs Work

Cute! Really good concept. Some weird language in places, as others have noted. But if this is headcanon, it's headcanon that works for me in a big way.

Tier: Good Stuff

Author, you wound me. This flirts with several different genres, with strong toeholds in comedy, feels, etc. It's also very well-written and it feels believable as a purely historical piece. However, it doesn't quite settle into one or more genres consistently enough for me to put it in my upper tiers, however much I want to reward its good aspects. I think that could be fixed with some tweaking, and I hope this receives some.

Tier: Almost There

I'll give this credit for a non traditional interpretation of Celestia. I think it needs work to really shine, though. Others have commented in adequate detail about potential improvements.

The main thing that would have helped me would be to see H's suicide note, rather than spending much of the story dancing around its contents. Granted, if it's super long, that's not practical. But I think the length matters way less than its thrust, and right now we only have clues about that, and I dare say we have insufficient clues.

Tier: Needs Work

The prose is evocative, but I'm having trouble connecting with this one because there's not a whole lot of substance. The reason why chess games are such a common trope in fiction is because they can say a lot about the players through how they play. But this piece actually kinda does the opposite, by recasting Twilight and Rarity as dark versions of themselves.

In the end, we're not really learning anything about our characters or our setting. I find myself comparing this to stereotypical summer blockbuster films—definitely fun to behold, but without a lot of food for thought.

I'm having some fridge logic issues here. I mean, in my head Twilight was about CMC age when she met Celestia for the first time—and at the very least, she was old enough to know how to study for an exam. I really can't see a child that old failing to realize that Celestia is talking about death.

Age-related weirdness aside, this is definitely serviceable as a immortality blues fic. The thing is, for anyone like me who's been around since year two of the fandom, this is something we've seen a bunch of times before. If you had showed this to me four years ago, I think I'd be pretty touched. But as of now, the fact that I must have read scores of stories about this subject kinda takes the wind out of its sails.

I'd suggest expanding the story with a specific message in mind. Try to say something concrete and unique about the state of living forever, instead of simply pointing out a specific aspect where it would obviously be painful. Know your audience and what they'd expect, and try to give them something new.

>>Caliaponia
>>Bachiavellian

More technically, "castling" involves the king moving two squares toward a rook, and the rook moving to the square next to the king on the opposite side from where it began. The major stipulations are:

1) The king cannot be in check, move into check, or move through check when castling,
2) The king must be moved first (casual players rarely, if ever, enforce this rule... but if you pick up the rook first, then placing the rook is considered your move),
3) There cannot be any pieces between your king and rook,
4) Neither king nor rook may have been moved prior to castling,

and my personal favorite rule in chess...

5) Both king and rook must be on the same rank when castling.

I liked how the prompt was integrated, and I'll echo having laughed at Party Jail. The quality of prose was high. Description was minimal, but did the job, and I liked the body language used.

This is definitely an interesting encounter that makes for a fun exchange; I liked the creativity on display here with the subject and wordplay. I do end up wondering just why Ms. Teal is looking for the princesses.

This is an entertaining and well-crafted scene, but doesn't really feel complete as a story.

Nuts, I didn't realize they were fillies until close to the end. And here I thought we were getting a cracky comedy where Celestia and Luna are pretend fighting over abdication as a precursor to shenanigans... but alas, no, it's meant to be played straight. And the thing is that I just can't see that, even now that I go back and reread it knowing that. There just aren't enough clues to push me toward that conclusion as opposed to the sillier one.

Beyond that, this is really really well written.

Tier: Needs Work

Personally:

I find it difficult to believe that Twilight objected to taking a test. This is obviously some imposter or possibly an alternate universe or maybe even that most dreaded of combinations known as an imposternate universe.

Mike

Halfway through:

I thought Sunset had grabbed the book with Starswirl's incomplete spell in it, and my mind immediately raced ahead to conclude that she was going to trigger the "Magical Mystery Cure" episode and become a princess instead of Twilight. And I liked that idea a whole lot.

But then that turned out not to be the case, and I felt disappointed 'cause I liked what I thought was happening more than what actually happened.... :(

As it is, though, I agree with the folks above: more scene than story and all that.

Mike

Personally, I'm not a big fan of the whole one-sided-dialogue thing, just because it requires Rarity to start explaining things to Blueblood that he clearly already knows. This makes the narrative feel a little bit contrived, just because it sounds awfully telly.

I realize that you're trying to fit a whole lot of story into a short space, but I'm not sure this gimmick was the right way to do this. Having your reader hear about the conflict, climax, and resolution is a lot less satisfying than seeing it play out. IMHO, I think this might have worked a lot better if you dropped the gimmick and submitted it as a 4000 word-ish Short Story entry instead. At the very least, that would allow us to see Twilight's reactions and her emotions rather than getting it second hand from Rarity.

Stories that deal with intensely emotional cores like this one need space to breathe, so I'm afraid this one isn't being done justice by the 750 word limit.

>>Chris
Aw, they need to repeal that rule. Vertical castling is the best thing I've heard of in months.

Anyways, it's good to see you around here again. :D

There's a hell of an interesting concept here, but I'm not a fan of its execution. After the first paragraph, things get into talking heads territory really fast. There's a lot of back and forth that I feel could have been condensed to fewer, more specific statements from both parties. A minific really needs to maintain momentum, and you're losing a lot of it every time Cadance needs to go back and clarify a point she made earlier. The result is that the emotions feel muted since we're dealing so much with the content of their dialogue rather than its emotional ramifications.

I'd suggest trimming the fat and then using the extra word count to explore the central topic more. Right now, it feels confusing and muddled, especially beneath all of those layers of dialogue.

>>Not_A_Hat First, horizon and Baal Bunny know more about poetry than I do.

Second,

What is it, in your opinion, that poetry should have in order to qualify as 'good'? Is evoking a single emotion enough? Is evoking a single emotion superior to the contrasting emotions an arc of some sort can evoke? I tend to dismiss stories without arc as 'one-note' and 'flat'. But is this the superior choice for a poem, or simply not a consideration?

I wrote about the different standards for stories & poetry in "Completeness in stories, poems, & songs".

Is evoking a single emotion enough for a poem? Yes, if it really evokes it, rather than just invoking it. I don't base this on argument, but on noting what people like and what I like in poems and songs.

Is evoking a single emotion superior to the contrasting emotions an arc of some sort can evoke? I don't think that has an answer. I can compare 2 instances, e.g., one story to one poem. I can't compare stories to poems in general because I can't (ever) sample the space of possible poems or possible stories in a sufficiently unbiased manner to do a statistical comparison. The terms "poem" and "story" aren't defined solidly enough to do so.

Another part of the issue is that I don't want to answer the question "What is it, in your opinion, that poetry should have in order to qualify as 'good'?" I would rather compare the consensuses of societies. My previous comment noted that, in the opinions of people of the 18th & 19th centuries, love poetry doesn't need to have an interesting story to be good. I think they preferred it to be completely conventional and predictable. I, personally, don't like that poetry, but I can't point to any extensive love poetry tradition that I think did it better.

The New Critics, circa 1930-1950, and particularly Cleanth Brooks, built a system for evaluating poetry. Use the term "New Critics" with a mental asterisk, because they weren't as unified as people say they were, and they didn't say most of the things people now say they did. But I can at least say that Cleanth Brooks thought the essential ingredient of poetry was tension between two contradictory beliefs or conclusions, and that poetry was the appropriate form for such subjects because it can conclude without resolving the tension, instead leaving the reader feeling convinced of both points of view simultaneously. Given this theory, the metaphysical poets and Robert Frost should perhaps be called the greatest poets.

The weakness of the New Critics was that they looked for tension in logical terms, and ignored whether the poem could move someone emotionally or not. So, for instance, Brooks loved Milton's L'Allegro and Il Penseroso because they have a dual logical structure, and overlooked how dreadfully stale, pretentious, and boring they are.

I can't give any specific answer other than that if you mark poetry down for not having things you're used to having in stories, also mark it up for having things you don't usually get in stories.

Well, I have to agree with Baal and the others... I can just about make out a link to the prompt, if I squint right.

That is, more or less, my sole objection to this fic. It's a thoughtful, well written little slice of life. Well done!

Wow, the second story I'm reading, and it's even better than the first!

I love your headcanon of the Unicorns practicing controlling the sun and moon once a year... My only problem with it is that it makes too much sense for Equestria, a land full of sealed, forgotten evils with Chaos Gods kept as lawn ornaments...

Twilight and Celestia's dialogue felt believable and organic to me, and I liked your explanation for Twilight's unhappiness... All in all, very well done!

That pool little filly.. Her hopes and dreams smashed... :sadfluttershy:

I really did not see that twist ending coming. Very nicely done!

Unlike others, I do no harp on proofreading, spelling, or typos! I am above such things! (That, and people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. And should probably take showers in their basements...)

Anyway, this was.. Strange. And amussing. Gloup Gloup? Does this have a meaning that is passing over my head? Still, it made me laugh several times. As far as crack-fics, this one was pretty good. I love Twilight's displeasure at being left out... Though I wasn't clear if she was upset because she felt this meant that ponies don't see her as a real princess, or if they're upset because she felt this meant ponies see her as 'As worryingly crazy as Luna.'

And Luna... Here at least, she is clearly Best Princess. Cherish those memories of simpler times, Luna. Cherish them. ;>

Hmmmmm... Another silly crackfic. It wasn't bad, and it definitely got a few laughs out of me, but... It's lacking something, and I can't quite put my finger on it.

Maybe it's because this Blueblood is, for all appearances, not the arrogant, pompous, moronic incompetent that I would have expected him to be in such an absurd setting? He actually comes across as fairly clever. And everyone else comes across as absolute idiots. And I do mean eveyrone else, since it seems like the entire population of Canterlot came out to witness the execution, and they're all cool with it...

I don't know. Something about it just didn't quite click for me, and I'm not quite sure why. Not the most useful of reviews I'm afraid. Sorry! :)

Okay, that was ridiculous, and cute. And a perfectly logical endpoint to the whole alicornification thing...

But surely Dinky isn't the last single tribe pony (or single tribe mare?) on the planet? That would be mortifying! And you thought the teasing for being a blank flank was bad!

Regardless, this was a clever and amusing interpretation of the prompt. Good job!

The third person present tense doesn't really work here. At least not for me. Are there places where it can work? Sure, I guess. But I'm hard pressed to think of any. For me, it just messed up my immersion in the story.

I also have to agree with FOME. The prose is a tad purple. The bit with the 'horizontal pit' in particular struck me as a metaphorical bridge too far.

I'm afraid that, for me, the tense and language usage rather overshadowed the actual plot of the story, to it's detriment.

>>Bachiavellian

Personally, I think there's no greater honor than to be so far outside-the-box that your activity's governing body has to come up with a new rule specifically to stop you; this is why Sean Avery is my improbable hockey hero (just google up "Sean Avery Rule;" the tl;dr version is that he found a new, highly annoying way to screen the goalie, which the league deemed unsportsmanlike enough that they amended the sport's rules in the middle of a playoff series).

And it's nice to be around here again!

This is not a story.

This is the opening scene to what could very well be an excellent story!

So, in terms of this competition? You lose a bunch of points because there isn't enough story in your story. In terms of actual, you know, successful writing? You've got an excellent idea and good opening for something that probably wouldn't fit in the write-off format anyways. So, yay? :)

I can't give any specific answer other than that if you mark poetry down for not having things you're used to having in stories, also mark it up for having things you don't usually get in stories.

This, I think, is self evident, so I don't really have a problem agreeing with it. Rhyming poetry, at least, gets automatic marks from my simply because of the extra effort needed to compose it. And it can be very good at evoking emotion, used correctly, which is always worth something.

I was curious about what you said here, though:

I, personally, don't like that poetry, but I can't point to any extensive poetry tradition that I think did it better.

What do you mean by the word 'it' in this context? Did poetry better? Did criticism better? Neither of these make much sense to me from what you've said. I'm having trouble parsing the sentence or something, because I can't tell what you're pointing at.

I'm also curious about your indecision here. Are you unwilling to give a personal answer because you haven't formed one, or because you don't believe personal answers are worth giving in this context?

Thanks for the reply, you've given me some interesting things to think about. I guess one of these days I'll need to read and write a bunch of poetry so I'll have a better foundation for having opinions.

Hmmmm.. I get the feeling that somebody here has discovered Kerbal Space Program!

I agree that nine months is a bit of a ridiculously short time from to build a space craft... But then again, Equestria has always had quite a bit of schizotech...

It's a very interesting and original concept though. It works well enough in this minific, but it could definitely work as a full sized story. There's a lot of fascinating unanswered questions about this world that you've left wide open...

Hmmmm. I rather like this story. A nice bit of slice of life. I do have a few quibbles though... First off, Rarity seems a touch OOC... Just a bit too... I don't know? Conceited? Arrogant? Self absorbed? Every party she attends is wonderful? It's practically her gala? She'd grace the VIP section with her presence when she was good and ready? Princess Celestia says she'd like to give her position to someone else, and her response is, even jokingly, to accept? I'd expect Rarity to be a bit more, I don't know? Subtle? Coy? Self effacing? She wasn't horrible, or majorly OOC... But just enough to distract me from the story.

Secondly, I can't imagine Twilight Sparkle, Princess of CDO (It's like OCD, but alphabetized!) to mess up her mentor's invitation. Though I can hit the "I Believe" button on that without too much difficulty.

Princess Celestia, on the other hand, I can completely see acting just like that. My only quibble with her is that nopony else is swamping her when she shows up.

Don't take those criticisms as too harsh though, because over all I thought this story was quite good and enjoyable. :)

I have to agree with the previous reviewers. This was just kind of.. Bland. Sure, it's propaganda... But it's not even particularly inflammatory or untrue propaganda. It's like propaganda written by Joseph Goebbels.....'s younger, less talented brother. In the end, there just isn't much 'there' there.

I have to agree with the bit about having non-MLP ponies buying MLP merchandise is... weirdly confusing. I kept expecting someone to mention them being old legends or that somehow the princesses have 'sold out' or something.

The characters are well and uniquely voiced, and the philosophical is interesting.. But I'm afraid it's a bit wasted on me. You see, I'm one of those terrible people who pretty much never buy merchandise for anything. Despite being a fan, I don't own a single piece of MLP merchandise. Heck, I used to be a big fan of the show Gargoyles in my youth... And I think the only merchandise I own from that fandom is the season one and two DVDs. So in short, I am a marketers worst nightmare, and have never stared at a toy in the store, pondering the philisophical implications of purchasing it.

Still, an interesting idea and a well written story. :)

Okay, this was amusing. Sure, you cranked Twilight's OCD up to... Well, not eleven... Let's call it a solid nine.

The side conversations between the HuMane 6 were what really made this one though. Very in character and well done.

The connection to the prompt is a bit tenuous, but eh. That's a minor ding for me these days, because I can usually figure out some way it fits. (Thought it would have fit quite well if they'd been caught trying ti implement Rainbow's plan!)

All in all, not bad at all! :)

If there's one thing I've learned in my years of reading ponyfics, it's that having Pinkie break the fourth wall is never a good idea. (There is a possible exception for stories that are specifically about Pinkie and the fourth wall, but my point is that those jokes are never as funny as the author seems to think they are.)
Until that part, I was enjoying this story. It's an idea that was already covered in the Mare Do Well episode, but it's not like the show's writers have let Rainbow keep much character development either.
The ending scene was also funny, but I don't see how it connects.

Basically, this story almost works really well for me. But with comedy, there's not usually much room between "great" and "meh."

This is certainly and interesting idea... I wonder, if/when the Nightmare is defeated, will Luna be freed from the moon? Or will they have to mount a rescue mission to retrieve her? I wonder what the consequences would be in the Nightmare's defeat releases Celestia... Who has been beaten to a pulp? Or worse? It could have some interest, if unpleasant implications.

I have to agree that the opening was a bit slow and rather 'Telly.' I'd have cut down the opening a bit to add some more text at the end, showing just how horrified Celestia is, or having her show a bit more fire... Instead it seems like she has rather accepted her own death...

Well, I don't think there's anything for me to say that hasn't already been said. Excellent writing and vivid imagery... But in the end, it builds up to... nothing much. It's got too much excitement and energy to fit in as Slice of Life, but that's more or less what it is. Still entertaining though, and very well written!

“So, don't you think it was weird that, when we all switched our cutie marks with each other, Twilight kept hers?” said Rainbow Dash, with all the subtlety and gentleness of a brick thrown through a window.

That actually was a pretty subtle and gentle way to start this conversation.

I don't have much else to say that others haven't already said. This story doesn't quite come together for me.

I kinda felt dumb when I reached the end of something this well-written without figuring out the central mystery, but it looks like I'm not alone in that regard. Don't have an awful lot to say, other than that I'm not exactly sure what the point of the story is. If we were supposed to figure it out, I think you made it a little too difficult. If the mystery is supposed to stay open-ended, it honestly feels a bit unsatisfying. The whole story revolves around the reveal (or, more specifically, the lack of one), so it's difficult for me to get the sense that I've read a complete story. If the focus had been on something else, like the characters or a bit of world-building, I think it'd go down a lot easier. As it is, though, this just doesn't give me enough to chew on.

I don't have much to say about this one, but since I seem to be in the minority here, I want to say that I did pick up on the fact that Luna and Celestia are fillies pretty quickly.

Okay, this is a story where you've put all your chips into the premise, but I'm really having trouble buying into some of the ideas here. I mean, Rainbow Dash implying that Twilight doesn't contribute much to their group/society really doesn't seem to hold water when you think about how many times Twilight has saved her friends/Ponyville/Equestria. Regarding the alicorn-spell reverse-engineering, I'm going to have to parrot what FoME said about expanding and explaining your headcanon. The show itself is very vague as to what the spell actually does and how Twilight ascended. The only concrete piece of information that we have is that she became an alicorn from her own merits. On a surface level, this seems to rule out the possibility of an alicorn creation spell, so you'll have to show us how this fits with your story.

In the end, this story did make me think (which was its goal, I suppose), but I'm still not really swayed by many of the points it's making.

I really don't have a lot to say, other than I had a lot of fun with this one. It's clever and funny, and it even manages to develop its characters pretty darn well over the course of a minific. This is definitely going towards the top of my slate.

I can't really say that the jokes landed for me. The premise isn't as much humorously ridiculous as it is simply unbelievable. And all of the characters are basically taking it in stride, aside from the one subdued outburst from Twi about pony-racism. It just doesn't set up a great environment for comedy, IMO.

Aaaaaaand, that's my slate. Feels good to have that done!

>>FanOfMostEverything

Flim gasped, and his brother Flim did the same.

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

Plot twist: There's more than one changeling in this story.

You know, I really, really like the concept of this story. "Blueblood accidentally starts the French Revolution" is a concept that has legs. Which makes me wish I'd thought of it first.

This said, I'm not sure if a flash-fic is the best form this story could've taken. If nothing else, some extra formatting (line breaks are your friend!) would go a long way in delineating one scene from another.

And, y'know, while Rabble Rouser certainly is a fitting name for a pony, I personally find it funnier if Blueblood just used the term 'Rabble' to (perhaps rightly) describe the angry mob, rather than it being an actual name. :)

"And that's how Equestria was made!"

...No, seriously. I enjoyed the reveal and I thought it was clever overall. What could have made it stronger would be to give the story more... I dunno, velocity? Stakes? Something like that. As it is, this is basically a creation myth, but told without the usual gravitas that comes with that kind of scenario, which would have been good even as a nod or reference or something. I suppose in the end I'm left wanting more, but not in the sense of wanting a sequel--I wish this had been a bit more fleshed out.

Tier: Almost There

Wow, I didn't know that other people would have such gripes over this story when I put it on the top of my list.

I, for one, adore the thought that Princess Celestia could have a bitchy side. For all of the little time she does appear on the show, us for the viewer only makes the inference that she's like she is all day every day, but the probability that she isn't really intrigues me.

Back in the episode where Cranky-Doodle Donkey asks Celestia about how she does that with her hair, she lets off a moan. The type of moan usually with the emphasis of "I don't want to be put through this right now". It was funny while it lasted, me having the thought that Princess Celestia could be a whole lot bitchier if she just vented for at least a little moment. It also makes you think of the kind of stuff she would normally go through in her everyday life as a princess, since being a ruler doesn't always mean top of the line enjoyments and leisure.

I don't really blame the author for wanting to expand on events such as that, where her true personality comes to shine in the light. Hell, I would encourage it. I love characters that are truly deceptively evil on the inside. The only thing you do need to note about what you write, author, is that writing about stuff like suicide and top-of-the-line bitchiness can really have a negative effect on your story in these types of contests, as you are writing for a specific kind of audience. Don't let that get to you, though, and find where you can really make your talents shine.

This is kind of a strange story. To explain that opinion I'll have to talk a little bit about theme and tone. Theme is what the story is about: not what happens in the plot, but the bigger concepts that those events explore. Tone is what the story evokes, the feelings you want readers to feel.

The theme I'm seeing here is a customer service nightmare. All the quibbling is just setting that up. It might be individual arguing lines that set up the piece's comedy but the overall effect is about the customer's intransigence.

The tone here … that's where this gets weird. It's mostly comic in the middle, but there's a long build that's not particularly funny, and the big finale is her being carried out by the paramedics. What am I supposed to feel? Am I supposed to laugh? I'm uncomfortable laughing at, well, what looks ultimately like mental illness followed by hospitalization. Am I supposed to be uncomfortable? The bits about the raccoon and the "obtuse" pun break the mood and make her a punch line. Mixing comedy and discomfort is … well, a very tricky combination. Discomfort requires that the story give us sympathic characters so that we can care about what happens to them. Comedy requires keeping us at an emotional remove from the characters. It's pulling different directions.

That's why I don't think this ultimately works, despite the funny parts being reasonably funny and the uncomfortable parts being pretty uncomfortable. It's trying to do two contradictory things at once. Think about which tone you want to set and rewrite this in one direction.

Tier: Almost There

Georg’s first Round Micro Reviews for the new stories on my slate Princess Not Included: Scores are letter grades for Plot, Technical Work, and Characterization mushed together, with an E for stories I find particularly Enjoyable. Ranked by how I like them, not necessarily how perfect they are on the score. (and posted all at once, from top to bottom so they line up on the chat.) I’m using the advice of Brandon Sanderson in listing positives(+) of a story before the negatives(-). Once again, I’m late. Sigh. Story of my life. I think I was a week late being born and I never caught up. Anyway…

Enjoy! — Ascension — A+ — First impression: Kerbal Space Program! Light the fuse! (+) Very well put together, technically correct (although I’ll leave the math to others) and building to the peak. (-) Too short :)

E! — Satisfaction Guaranteed — A+ — First impression: Trixie getting a wish. Uh-oh. (+) EXCELLENT hook. All characters have voices that match perfectly with personality. Trixie wants to be an alicorn in the worst possible way… and gets it. (-) A few comma splices and a wrong capital letter is about it.

Page Two — A+ — First impression: Wargames? (+) good tone for the characters, the setting was well-constructed, and the scenario fell into place as it should. Shocking end, but telegraphed enough not to be out of the blue. (-) The emotional impact of the end should have been greater by Luna’s reaction. Instead we have a gasp and a throwup. Fairly weak, considering the supposed impact.

Build-a-Pone — A — First impression: This will not end well (+) Wonderful give-and-take between customer and salesperson, building well, and (unlike others) I considered the punchline perfect. (-) Despite an all-dialogue story, still managed to convey emotion and humor, although I’ll have to look up a few words. (Poor AJ gets no respect)

Castle For Rent — A — First reaction: Princess Sparkle is sub-leasing. (+) Although ‘Twight Sparkle outlives her friends’ has been done before, that doesn’t mean it can’t be done again and well. This proves the saying.

Enjoyed — Royal Assent — A- — (but it’s a GOOD A-) First impression: a light and fluffy comedy about the nobility (+) Well, that went dark quickly. The timeframe and situation of the story became crystal clear fairly soon after the phrase ‘ABSENT PRINCESS’ showed up (-) which is both a plus and a minus, as the reader is expecting one thing and the carpet gets yanked up and another one laid down between steps. To be honest, everything before the first break could be nuked or at least revised to fit the seriousness of the plot. The sharp left turn is a fair trick to pull on a longer story, but to drop it on a minific blows away a lot of your impact. Looking forward to see if this gets expanded.

In The Sun’s Private Abode — A- — First impression: Futuristic Canterlot. Do they have flying carriages? (+) Very well knit together, and captures the general feel of a tour group, with the reveal coming at the perfect time and just odd enough to feel clever instead of forced. (-) The phrasing is a little awkward, particularly Celestia’s cake tray. Still, there’s not really a ‘there’ here, unless it’s in an odd Anne Frank kind of way with the alicorns hiding out from a revolution.

Tour Guide: The recreation experts spared no expense in making this perfect—
Celestia: Zzzzzzz
Tour Guide: —right down to a simulated snoring noise, just like the dolls in the gift shop downstairs.
Celestia: Mmm… Cake…
Tour Guide: Which is where we are going right now please proceed out the door in an orderly manner move it move it move it...

Fashion Inspiration — A — First impression: Nice mental images for the predominantly male readership (snerk) (+) It flows well, it has the characters on the dot and rolls along with Sunset’s emotions really well, getting right into her head (-) A little flat on the ending, with some “what?” on my part.

Princess Party —- A- —- First impression: Hey, Estee is in the writeoffs. It certainly sounds like his life experiences (+) By minimizing the characters involved, it allows more concentration on them, and the salespony does get a fairly good treatment (-) but the customer seems totally erratic and just out of left field. It may be intentional. It is disconcerting.

Am I? — B+ — First impressions: Magic kindergarten with Flurry Heart (+) Older Flurry is sweet, the rest of the characters fair, Shining Armor makes a pretty good dad (-) but there’s not really an underlying thread here to pull on. The kids in kindergarten have a line or two before vanishing, and Flurry is just… there. It might have worked better to have Flurry/Shining at the beginning and the kid-scenes in her own voice, giving a Father/Daughter thread all the way through (but with two daughters of my own, I may be biased)

The Great Makeover — B+ — First impressions: Oh, that’s adorable (+) Avon goes to Tartarus. I can imagine the sale commission here. Pretty good (and pretty too) with a good three-way (although mostly Chrysalis/Tirek) banter (-), but not quite the entertainment I was expecting. (Should I be meta and say Makeover needs a makeover? Naaa…)

I do love how the pledge becomes a 'daily loyalty oath' which it really is. Such wonderful little barbs here. Giggle-worthy

Princessence — B+ — First impressions: Dinky is a princess, yay! (+) fairly good treatment of the characters, and keeping the nose-count low makes it easier to control. The post-it pyramid and tramway is a very Equestrian touch. And Dinky makes a good Princess of Paradoxes. (-) It really didn’t take off and fly for me, but it wasn’t bad. The emotional hill that Dinky goes through, elated at the beginning, depressed at the middle, and up again at the end was a little flat.

The Believer Is Happy — B — First impression: Raridash? (+) The characters seem well within their boundaries and personalities, (-) but it stutters with the dialogue in places and some grammar hiccups.

No Reason At All — B — First impression: Let Horizon out of those chains! (+) Nice situational comedy that could have been so much better (-) Although it isn’t pulled off very well. The two way Flimflam/Twilight interaction was not nearly as smooth as it needed to be for humor. Also, technically, only one of the brothers has a mustache.

There’s a Metaphor — B — First impressions: Rainbow Dash bribes a newspaper. (+) It flows well, and has fairly good voice for each character. The humor of it strikes true. (-) Then it breaks right across the fourth wall and breaks the chain. Sigh. Leaving the tail end glued on like Eeyore's tail. Sigh again.

Aster Invictus — C — First impression: Well, not one of our Latin people (Invicta). (+) There seems to be a complicated plot beneath this futuristic story, or perhaps a mental illness. (-) I’m leaning to a mental illness, due to the way her thought processes yank around. There’s a *lot* of passive voice in here, forced in a lot of places.

Fancy Pants doesn't fit here. Make it Blueblood, or Filthy Rich - far more logical..

Otherwise, it was decent. Solid, I suppose. But yea, kinda what Trixie noted - my inner nerd is nitpicking too hard for this to slate-top for me.

The ending of this one just feels anticlimactic after all of the issues discussed. They're talking about nationwide financial ruin and complete social upheaval, and their big brilliant counterstroke is ... messing with warranties? And yes, I get that as deliberate anticlimax this is (in the abstract) a pretty good joke about both the pettiness and ineffectiveness of the conspiracy, but:

1) using the prompt drop as the punchline fails for me (the core of humor is about subverting expectations, and using the prompt is about the least unexpected thing you could possibly do); and

2) see my review a few comments up about tone, because this very much is not a comedy until the final line, and then suddenly it derails into a joke. (That's a known genre of story -- it's called a shaggy dog -- but a shaggy dog story stands or falls on its punchline, and I've already explained why that failed for me.)

If this wasn't meant to be a shaggy dog story, it needs to be written with its theme (the problems of immortality — upon which this does a commendable job of focusing, and brings up some interesting points) and its tone in mind. If we're meant to laugh at the small-mindedness of the committee, which seems like a good goal here, then you really want to draw that out in your next draft. Tighten up a lot of the dry earlier stuff and leap as soon as possible into the debate about the problems (you could probably start with a line or two of context and then straight to Fancy Pants). Show us more like the noble's complaints about the lower-class princess: establish their pettiness early and often in among their legitimate complaints. Maybe throw in a ridiculous conspiracy theorist or two. The more firmly you establish before the break how sad and small-minded they are, the more satisfying the ending lands.

Tier: Needs Work

This one does suffer from lack of wordcount (And those not familiar with G1). It's funny because for me, the instant I saw 'Grandma Megs' and 'Guard it with your life' I knew instantly what was going to happen.

The main issue is - well, how is Sophie 'Megan' - or is that note just one Megan wrote ages ago and never got rid of? The latter would make sense but it's unclear as-is.

Honestly I'd like to see this as a full story. Cause, well, G1-G4 stuff is fun

Everything the three say ("They're tired" / "The horses?" / "back home") points me towards them all being from earth.
The name drop points towards her being from Equestria.

If I read this as her being from earth, the story would have made much more sense to me, and leave basically no questions, if that was any other name (e.g. Jack) instead.
If I believe the one piece of additional information that I can get from the name drop (her being an Equestrian) then the conversation those three had sounds wrong to me.

That is to say: even more wrong than it sounds to me already. Like FanOfMostEverything the subject matter of this piece made me want to think extra hard for some specific point I can dislike about it - which really was no easy task.

Dagnabbit, this smacked face-first into the word count, and the CAPS LOCK is a bit overplayed, and there are some little quibbles that I can't let go of. (E.g., it's Smart Cookie, not Sharp Cookie... and is this saying Cadance is like1000+ years old by the time of the show?)

But there are great moments of comedy in here. I love it that the door doesn't open; it EXPLODES! I love it that the council FREAKS OUT about ALICORN MITOSIS! Maybe it's personal preference talking... I mean, the OTT-ridiculous tone here is very much the kind of thing that I enjoy... but this delivers just enough of the goods to persuade me that there's underlying comedic potential. Also, while I don't think the ending quite succeeded at bringing things to a controlled halt, I can see how it tried, and I'll give it some credit for almost sticking that landing.

Tier: Almost There

With the end of prelims sneaking up on us, I think it's time to kick off the traditional goofiness! The Writeoffs often collectively start a mash-up thread, but with a minific round (in which the odds are low of a story you reference having been on someone's slate, and the odds are even worse when you mash two stories together), I'm going to go with a variant I've used in the past ...

---

The rule of Writeoff-By-Ones is simple: Add, remove, or change a SINGLE LETTER of an entry's title, and give a quick and whimsical summary of how the story would be rewritten for it. (Spacing and punctuation can be changed however you like.) For example:

Raster Invictus - A robot mare far in a postapocalyptic future thinks she hears the mental call of CelestAI, the Unconquered GPU, but it turns out she's just accidentally hit F1 to launch Clippy.

Castle Torrent - Celestia questions Twilight's plan to digitize the Friendship Castle and allow everypony to seed downloads of it. Twilight says she's crowdsourcing friendship so she can blow off moderation duties and travel the world.

The More Things Charge... - The Great And Powerful Trixie has magically swapped her body with CelestAI's, only to discover that the fantastic powers of a hyperintelligent pony-droid require plugging herself into a wall socket for 16 hours a day.

"AI...?" - Flurry Heart gets teased at school about not being an android.

Buy E.R. Bedware - Big Mac (who runs a hospital because reasons) commissions an artificial intelligence named CelestAI to schedule his in-patient ward, only to get scammed by a pair of programmers who ship him CLIPPY.EXE.

The Player And The MAME - Rarity meets Twilight for their weekly chess match, but Twilight has something a little different in mind ... playing it in emulation.



And heck, I've even got some non-computer-themed ones!

On Tractors - After construction worker Ground Surge questions their orders to build Princess Twilight's crystal castle-slash-playset, his boss Swift Deadline gets unnerved and orders them to bulldoze the thing and plow the rubble under.

Best-Laid Plants - It turns out the princesses are actually gibbering chthonic monstrosities ents! The story shows us how they decided to found Equestria ... veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery slooooooooooooowly.

Pro-Tectonism - A group of determined but petty conspirators squabble about how to fix their growing alicorn problem, and somehow pass a law requiring daily earthquakes.

Sarge Advice - WELCOME TO BASIC D&D TRAINING, MAGGOTS! YOU CHEETO-STAINED PUKES ARE NOT A FIGHTING FORCE YET, BUT IT IS MY JOB TO GET YOU TO SECOND LEVEL! NOW DROP AND GIVE ME 1d20!!

The Great Takeover - Chrysalis, Nightmare Moon and Tirek team up to bust out of Tartarus and take over Equestria. They succeed. Chrysalis and Nightmare Moon put makeup on Tirek anyway.

The Birthday Spam - Silver Spoon gets swindled into paying 100 bits for a tin of potted meat as a "royal" "birthday present". This unnerves her on multiple levels.

Damn - A would-be mayor gets a clever idea for a settlement out of the Princesses' control: move to Tartarus.

My one quibble here is the ending. I mean, it ends just so suddenly. Up to that? Rarity feels like Rarity, Celestia feels like Celestia, and I was enjoying everything quite well. As I say so often, I'd like another few thousand words set in this storyline, it's a fun one.

>>horizon

Lush Pony - Did you know the Berry Punch doll comes with a hidden flask holder?

Only, Only, Only Moe - When to my night the man did come / I thought my woes less burdensome / And rashly pledged to him my heart / No Stooge was I, but still quite dumb.

A Stalk with Celestia - Drawn together at the Gala by their common love of celery, Rarity and Celestia decide to take up big game hunting.