Terms and Conditions

Clever fic. It has an interesting idea and an interesting way of presenting it. I have no doubt that it will turn some people off, but I hope it does well enough to get some thoughtful views.

My only complaint would be that Spike's account, the very first entry, is lacking a very important point – what the heck is actually going on. I get that the author wants to conceal that bit of knowledge, because just blurting it out would kind of kill the gradual reveal, but it's always frustrating as a reader to have information withheld from us for no valid reason. Yes, I get that Spike says he's just transcribing what Twilight is telling him, but he also pretty clearly deviates from that instruction at times. You'd think he'd deviate as well by just saying, at the start, "Twilight got sick and now she's speaking all crazy."

Still, I liked it. Especially by the end, when that complaint was mostly forgotten.

This was fun! At first I was unsure of the format, and it takes a bit to understand what's going on, but once you do, it's a very fun fic with an interesting idea.

The characterizations were very good, too, though I felt sometimes Spike's own entries used vocabulary he wouldn't exactly use. Of course, this is up to debate, so that's nothing wrong, more like a preference, I suppose. Dash was great, though, as was Twilight. Twilight's last entry was delightfully amusing, and I feel bad for laughing at her remark on Spike's "limited vocabulary".

Heh. It’s the logical counterpart to Explainer Horse. (I really do need to flesh that out at some point.)

This was fun, especially the others’ reactions to Twilight’s condition and the terms she was throwing around. That said, I actually have the opposite problem as Jupiter VII: I figured Spike’s vocabulary would actually be a bit larger than this if he’s been taking Twilight’s lab notes for a while. Of course, he might not have; this could just be a case of clashing headcanons. I also have to disagree with CiG in that I was able to figure out what was going fairly quickly.

Also, I’m really not seeing a connection to the prompt. Maybe if Twilight tried to say or write the word “Princess” or explicitly refused to bother the diarchs, it would be there, but as is, this feels almost totally unrelated. The closest connection is the title, which doesn’t work given its intended context.

His vocabulary marginally more limited than mine, so I don’t think there will be any problems communicating.

If she can manage “I” and “the”, she should be able to do “is” and “with”. Her elision of pronouns and articles should be consistent.

Other than that, I like this story, but I also can’t see the connection to the prompt.

That was a delightful story. I really don't have complaints to level at it, except that in an expanded and published version I think some of the words with which Spike had problems should be switched out with something slightly more obscure.

Rainbow Dash's report was splendid.

A smart and fun little comedy piece.

This was silly and I laughed.

I do feel like the phantasms were a bit of a red herring; they came up several times, but you never did anything with them. I also thought the notation headings were mostly pointless from the first and second, and nearly skipped the third; I'd try and make it clear that things are being shuffled in the second one, so that people are less likely to tune them out.

Oh, and while going to see Zecora was cute, it might be worth mentioning why they're going to Zecora, and not Ponyville General.

I'm guessing the connection to the prompt is that she can't actually say 'princess'?

Okay, this was clever and funny. All of the character were, well, in-character. And I especially loved Zecora's reaction.

Nicely done!

Cute, fun, funny, has a complete story arc, and pushes my vocabulary up to and past its breaking point. I can't ask for much more. Going to the top of the slate, most likely.

Tier: Top Contender

Terms And Conditions: Retrospective

Before we get into responses or what have you, I'd like to address the prompt connection. I use prompts as launch points - the final product doesn't necessarily relate to the prompt directly, but was thought of because of the prompt. There is always some connection to the prompt leftover after I finish writing and possibly rewrite - this one in particular was strenuous because I forgot to work the actual connection into the story. The reason this is related to the prompt is:

1) The title.
2) The fact that the word Include and the word Comprehend are synonyms.

This is... well, it's strenuous at best. I thought it was neat, in a self reflexive kind of way, but the end result was that no one knew the prompt connection and I probably got docked points.

Well, that's all for that. Feel free to tell me if you think that the above is unreasonable.



Thank you all for reviewing this story. I wasn't expecting it to do nearly as well as it did, especially after the prompt connection problem.

Responses!

>>Cold in Gardez
The thing is, he actually does say that. In fact, that's basically his first two lines:

Twilight is trying to get me to write stuff, but I’m having troubles understanding her. I'm pretty sure the Synoni-ymy Sickness is doing something to her speech.

I'm unsure what to do to fix it if that isn't obvious enough, since the sentence you gave as an example is a bit blatant. Yes, I can get away with a lot of tell in this format, but I try to avoid direct stuff like that. Suggestions?

>>Jupiter VII >>FanOfMostEverything
I definitely need to lock down Spike's vocabulary. Based on the pilot, he has trouble with words like precipice, but I'm pretty sure he would know the word sustenance. Either way, I need to expand or constrict his vocabulary, since it's erratic here.

>>GroaningGreyAgony
That was an editing error.

Thanks!

>>Orbiting_kettle>>TheCyanRecluse>>CoffeeMinion
Thank you!

>>Not_A_Hat
The phantasms were a red herring because I didn't really have a plan when I threw them in. I needed a symptom that Twilight would be able to see and recognize, but Spike and company wouldn't, since I wanted her to be making reports interspersed throughout. This was the most obvious choice. I need to either pick something else or give them real meaning, but in the intended context they were just there to let Twilight write the word phantasmagoria.

In terms of the headers, I realized after submission that the first two headers should have been different (Twilight is going through synonym sickness, after all.) I'll switch it up in an editing pass.

This is a magical malady - to Spike, the closest thing he's ever seen would most likely be poison joke. Zecora is the obvious choice to go to in this instance. On the other hand, I could make that much clearer, especially with more words.



Once again, thank you for all of your comments.