>>Posh
Come, let the dream be reality. :-p

>>Morning Sun
This is like the weirdest/best Writeoff in a lot of ways. Must be the right mix of people and stories!

>>CoffeeMinion
Now THAT, Is good timing.

>>Bachiavellian

...this probably came up already, but what was this challenge again?

Also, look! Dreams do come true. :)

Genre: Paranormal mystery

Thoughts: I'll echo >>Morning Sun and >>Baal Bunny with my single biggest nitpick about this: The action gets confusing right during the climax, which limits the story's payoff. Having Magnet actually do something to dispel the spirit would make tons more sense thematically.

I do think the Author managed to pull things off in spite of that, though. My other nitpicks about this are mostly ephemeral: Starlight comes off as a bit haughty, and we don't have a good basis for what kind of "spirit" this is in Equestrian lore, which makes it seem more like a plot contrivance than a natural part of the world. Also, "Magnet" is kind of an odd name (and/or I can't stop thinking about Steven Magnet when I hear it); maybe consider "Lodestone" as an alternative?

Still, this was very well-executed IMO. It's a complete story with a solid arc. Fix up a couple things and this baby will shine.

Tier: Strong

>>Posh
That I'd do a slate of reviews and polish up one of my earlier entries to make up for a general lack of productivity. Details here :>>Bachiavellian.

I think I've decided to move forward with editing Celestiology, AKA my first Writeoff story that I consider an overall success. It's still pretty rough around the edges, and it definitely feels aged, but I think I can spit-shine it a little.

[b]Top of Georg’s second Round Micro Reviews for the new stories on my slate The Darkest Hour (None of which are How Many Princesses Does It Take, which would have fit the theme so well. Sigh.) 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.) Once again, I got a collection of good ones. When I was done reading, I didn’t think any of them had been a waste of my time. It only makes me appreciate our fandom writers more, although I worry that we have driven away some marginal writers with room for great improvement by our leet writezor skillz. :)

E - Pinkamena’s Wake — A+ — A certain Alice In Wonderland vibe here, mixed with more puns than I can pick out. You just have to float along in the current and enjoy the ride. It takes a master far greater than I to write this goofy, and I have a suspect.

E - Death by Dawn — A+ — A murder mystery, very interesting. You have my attention. And the corpse is the correct one too, according to fandom. And the killer unexpected to me (because I don’t get in-depth when reading these, just surfing along instead). I didn’t notice Baal’s as clauses, because I’m horribly guilty of the same, I suppose. I enjoyed this one.

The House Comes Calling — B++ — Discord is always a fun one to use in a story, or have him use you, and Zephyr Breeze makes a wonderful opposite end. Obviously, he left a bunch of extra commas in here and a typo or two. Tisk, tisk. Not quite as fascinating as I would hope, some problems associating dialogue with the various characters, but still very well done. Nice start, nice end, just a little draggy in places through the middle.

Cutie Unmarked — B+ — Very smooth and natural characters at the beginning. Progresses along at a reasonable rate. Good hook. Great Magnet/Bloom interactions. Story hangs together well. Magnet seems to be… odd. About the half-way mark, I started going through the checklist. Changelings. Memory spells. Discord.

Nice work voicing Zecora (I always have problems there) Got a Wizard of Oz sensation there for a minute. “Oh, great and powerful Zecora. We’ve come looking for Magnet’s cutie mark. Can you help us?” (snicker) Resolution of the missing mark seems a little clumsy and rushed, but still completes the circle.

Room — B — The context shifts between characters are done *extremely* well. It only takes a few words to change gears, which is remarkable. However, the transitions get rougher as the story progresses, which is most probably intentional. Plus, as much as we’re supposed to Show and not Tell, a good Reveal around the 9/10 mark about what is really going on would have been appreciated. Just a sentence or two, not vague generalities.

At The Break Of Dawn — B — An angst story. One of my weaknesses, having been known to go angst for extended periods myself. (I’m sorry about that, by the way.) It suffers from a lack of ‘there’ as the reader reads along, with neither start nor end, but a lot of middle in there. Still, it’s good middle. I appreciate a good angsty story, I just wish there was a story in it.

Zephyr Ruins Everything — B- — Odd, to have two Zephyr Breeze stories on my slate in a row. It wobbles a lot at the beginning while the reader is trying to figure out just what the story is about. Retelling the first two episodes? (pause) Oh, with the siblings of the original cast. Ding! (Took me a bit) Suffering from Fast Forward syndrome too. However, I do think the ending is divinely inspired.

Well haven't we been a productive bunch this past week.

Only one story has four comments: Return

And there are only two stories left with five comments: To Be Dazzling and Black Swan Song.

It'd be nice if all stories could have at least six comments by the time the prelims end. ^ ^

The Great

Very nice suspense and build up. The story presents a strong mystery right out the gates and builds well the conclusion.

You do a nice job voicing and rotating quickly between all six characters and presenting their various approaches to the situation.

You have some very clever scene transitions.

The Rough

While you ultimately solve the initial mystery and conflict, it leads into a much larger (and arguably more interesting) mystery, which ultimately leaves the story feeling incomplete and unsatisfying. While it is perfectly fine to leave questions unanswered or conflicts only partially resolved, you have to make sure they aren't the most interesting questions.

While you have several good direct transitions, I feel you need to pace them differently, as you're kind of erratic about how you use them. You either need to do it on every beat, or you need to slowly escalate (e.g. no direct -> action direct -> dialogue direct).

I feel like you cheat a little bit with scene structure (and character knowledge - I kinda feel you'd notice having wings or missing a horn) to conceal that they are in the same place. I also agree that while it is a pretty rad setup, it does feel -really- weird that they'd set things up like this. I'd have somebody sitting with that pony in a nice place until the spell or whatever took effect.

The Great

A nice, pleasant, little story with an interesting mystery and a clever resolution that builds nicely on the world mythos, as well as the nature of Cutie Marks.

While not unheard of, a story about rejecting one's own Cutie Mark is a seriously cool idea.

Apple Bloom is portrayed as pleasantly intelligent without being too overbearing. She balances being young with being clever.

The Rough

Apple Bloom's actual involvement is... surprisingly minimal. I don't know. As written, it really just doesn't have any real ties to Apple Bloom in particular. Like, it feels like you could slots any of the CMC in here and you'd more or less have the same story. Like, it's a cute little mystery for her and that's all. All told, as written, I feel like this'd be a more interesting story to hear from Magnet's point of view.

Could use a general round of polish. Word choice and phrasing could be tuned up.

>>Posh
Ditto.
I'm too heavily biased against Joyce to give a fair review or rating.
Although, credit where credit is due. I may not be a fan, but I still commend you for tackling such an endeavor, author.

I am extremely late to this party, author, so I hope you'll forgive me if my review doesn't cover as much ground as the others who have responded to Color Less. Fact is that my own issues with the story have already been sufficiently covered. Celestia's voice doesn't feel like it fits her character. It might suit Luna, or Twilight, but not Celestia.

I like the idea of a vulnerable Celestia having to rely on those closest to her during an extended convalescence, but I think there should be more awkwardness to her interplay with Twilight than there actually is. With Luna, I think Celestia being so nakedly emotionally available works just fine. They're sisters, and they're close, and there probably aren't that many walls between them. With Twilight, though, the dynamic is still very much that of a mentor and her student, even after everything Twilight has accomplished. The fact that their roles have been reversed, that Twilight is in a position of authority over her, should be brought up, and there should be a greater sense of of the awkwardness and the difficulty in that shift in dynamic. The strain it has on both of them. I understand that the story is about Celestia, but I would have liked to see some insight into Twilight's reaction. She's being thrust into the role of seeing-eye pone for someone she idolizes. That has to take some kind of a toll on her.

I'll echo:

Everybody above. The character voices are spot on, but redeeming the sirens needs more room than a short story'll give you, author, especially if you're gonna start from the end of Rainbow Rocks. I'd recommend starting with the moment Adagio grabs Sunset so you can have Adagio summarize what's happened to the trio to bring them here. Or even better, start with Aria and Sonata trying to talk Adagio out of going to the school to see Sunset. Show us in their interactions with each other how they've changed since the end of the movie, and that'll let you sum up the journey that's brought them to this point.

Oh, and I had a little trouble with the POV at the beginning--we seem to start out in Adagio's head, then hop over to Aria's, then hop back to Adagio. Still, a lotta good stuff here.

Mike

First of all, I have read The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest, but I haven't gotten to Death's End yet. I think that they are interesting books and I found them compelling enough to keep reading, but I didn't find them incredibly enjoyable. (Interestingly enough, that's basically how I feel about all the stories I've read this round too.) I am very conscious of the fact that my opinions on that series colored my opinions of this story, but I'll try to be objective. I do think that this story stands on its own well enough, though others would be better judges of that.

On the whole, I thought this story was pretty good. But there were a few problems that really hurt this story for me. To be fair, I suspect that some of them might be problems ported over from Death's End.

First, there's the message. It seems like it was almost designed to cause drama, especially since we later learn that Stranger has a way to just get around all the problems it causes. If the message had said "we have a way to save everything," then even Discord probably would have agreed, as we later see.
And then there's the fact that Twilight somehow perfectly translated to message, which isn't really explained.

Second, I feel like Equestria Girls kind of ruins this entire thing. The easiest explanation is just that Discord created both Equestria's planet and EqG's planet, whether in the same pocket universe or two different ones, and EqG's just never got mentioned in this story. The other explanation is that there are alternate dimensions out there, and I doubt that the ponies would be the only ones to discover them. And we know that every species in this universe is perfectly happy to destroy every other species in order to survive, so they should have no problems with just sucking matter out of an alternate dimension to save their universe.
I also kind of want to see a sequel where Sunset starts wondering why she hasn't heard from Twilight in a while, so she goes over to Equestria and finds everything frozen.

Third, what benefit does being saved in a mathematical constant even have? Clearly it didn't do much for that pi culture. This is a minor point, but it does lead to me wondering why this process of sending cultures forward in atoms hasn't been going on since infinity.

I do think this is one of the best stories I've read so far, and it will be at or near the top of my slate. It just didn't quite work for me.

One of the most common problems that all-OC stories have is that they often feel like obvious original stories with some hooves slapped on. But I have to give this one credit for not feeling that way to me.

On the whole, this seemed less like a story and more like a "thing that happened" to me. Maybe I felt that way because there's not much of a character or story arc? So even though this wasn't bad, I couldn't really get into it.

It also probably didn't help that I figured out the reveal pretty early on, and there's really not much else to the story.

A nice and sweet little story that I really don't have much to say about. I agree with whoever said that you could have done without the token appearances of the rest of the mane six, but beyond that, there isn't really anything I would change.

But as I've mentioned before, even though I could tell that this story was very good, my personal enjoyment of it didn't match its quality. But there's nothing you can do about that, author, and this wills till end up rather high on my ballot.

Hmm. This may be a bit premature, but I still feel like doing it. Mashup time!

Twilight Sparkle Lays the Lamia Egg: After doing the impossible, Twilight has to deal not only with the responsibilities of motherhood, but those that come with a daughter who hungers for horseflesh.

Time Enough to Be Dazzling: No one's entirely sure how the sirens found their way back to Equestria, much less Manehattan, but it's all Vinyl can do to keep things civil between them and Starswirl.

The House Ruins Everything: After Nightmare Moon establishes her harsh but fair regime, Strong Arm, now a valued member of the monarchial bureaucracy, comes to collect on 720 Entertainment's startup loan. Zephyr's sister—who can totally get him out of this, he swears—is nowhere to be found. Pinkie and Maud co-host the farewell party.

This is another one that seems less like a story and more like just something that happened. You made Celestia blind, but you didn't actually do much of anything with that idea. You could have replaced Celestia with anypony else and the story would have been almost exactly the same, you'd just have to take out the parts about healing from the other injuries and the use of pegasus and/or unicorn magic.

Actually, the story might have been more interesting if it was about someone like Rarity going blind. Blindness would be a bigger obstacle for her, and while you probably couldn't end the story with the hope of one day being healed, you could end it with her overcoming the challenges of going blind and still making beautiful dresses, which could easily be more uplifting. And then you wouldn't have us all wondering why Celestia's eyes were the only things that didn't heal.

I wasn’t quite sure what I was expecting from the title, but what I got from it was a satisfyingly mind-tripping story.

I liked the transitions to each member of the Mane 6, and they flowed surprisingly well. The way this tied in to the story itself was also very intriguing.

Perhaps a bit more detail in the later parts would be helpful to establish that each of the characters are still in the same place. I had the impression that there were six rooms instead of one, but this might just be me.

A solid entry overall.

>>FanOfMostEverything

Twilight Sparkle Lays the Lamia Egg: After doing the impossible, Twilight has to deal not only with the responsibilities of motherhood, but those that come with a daughter who hungers for horseflesh.

Isn't that basically the plot to Past Sins?

The House Sends Only Zephyr, Ruining Everything: During a drunken night of gambling in Las Pegasus, Discord puts up both his status as creator-god of the Equestrian pocket universe and Zephyr Breeze as collateral. He loses both. When the call goes out for all matter to be returned, that the universe might create itself anew, Strong Arm declines to end Equestria's existence, and sends Zephyr Breeze instead, considering him entirely expendable. Thus, the universe ends, along with all possibility of new life.

At the Death by Dawn: Blueblood attempts to coerce Starlight Glimmer into sex. She casts a mind control spell on him, has him bludgeon himself to death, then feels really really bad about it.

Music After Sleep's Denotative Embrace: A frustrated Vinyl is inspired to write a new album after being cuddled in her dreams by Princess Luna as part of a new campaign to help rehabilitate the image of darkness.

I know I probably shouldn't be too harsh on typos and the like in writeoffs. especially since I also didn't have any time to edit my story before submitting it. But all the autocorrect errors in this story are really distracting.

Problems with autocorrect aside, I really liked this one. Unlike others, I didn't mind that Rarity has been awake for an unrealistic amount of time. It's necessary for the story to work, and it seems like the sort of thing that could be possible in Equestria to me. Especially since the story explicitly justified it with magic. It was pretty obvious from early on how it was going to end, but the ending was still satisfying. My only regret was that this didn't turn into a full-on romance between Rarity and Sleep, because that is exactly the type of shipfic I want to read. Seriously, if you write a sequel where Rarity starts staying up for weeks again just to get Sleep to visit her, I will definitely read it.

>>Posh

Also, I'm not sure why Sweetie Belle is living with Rarity.

Come on, that's already practically canon.

Fine, I won't nitpick the story, even though it really doesn't make sense. Even as a fairy tale, it doesn't feel like it quite works for me, though I'm not sure why.

Clearly Luna was supposed to tell the foals a scary story, and that one definitely wasn't. Luna, you can't do whatever you want just because this is technically your holiday.

I found this story surprisingly unenjoyable, but I've been having a difficult time figuring out why. I think that >>CoffeeMinion might be onto something though. I did enjoy the comedy parts at the beginning, but they all just disappeared about halfway through. Perhaps I was subconsciously looking for anything funny to happen in the second half, and I just got more and more disappointed as it never happened.
And there's the whole "we all know that Bessie is doing illegal things, but we're not going to do anything about it as long as it doesn't bother us."
And I'm probably biased because you used what are probably the two ponies I hate the most as main characters.

Basically, I know that this story is technically quite good, but I just didn't like it at all. Sorry, author.

Kind of an oddball story. The focus seems to bounce between Discord and Fluttershy, which is odd because really Discord's only role in this story is...

Hm...

Okay, I'm not really sure what his role is. At first he seems to be acting as a foil, then a deus ex machina, then an impotent prop. Maybe just flavor? There's a lot of jokes in this story that revolve around Discord, and when you remove him, half of the story's comedy simply goes away. In fact, looking more closely, almost all of the comedy simply vanishes.

I'm going to have to agree with Coffee that Fluttershy's actions in this story are rather... hard to interpret. She loves her brother, yes, and we would do anything for our families, but the tonal whiplash is rather amazing. We go from wacky hijinks to Breaking Bad in just a few paragraphs.

And what does Fluttershy threaten? Another deux ex machina, because the first one didn't work. Her thinking, I assume, is that if Discord can't magic the problem away, then surely Twilight Sparkle will be able to.

And, in the end, that's what happens. The problem just... goes away. Not through any particular act of Zephyr's. Not because of anything Fluttershy does or sacrifices, unless you consider a few hours of negotiations to be a sacrifice. Instead we get this:

1. Zephyr has a problem.
2. Zephyr's problem is Fluttershy's problem.
3. Fluttershy uses her relationship with Twilight Sparkle to make the problem go away.
4. Problem goes away.

Sorry, author, but this one doesn't do much for me. The comedy elements are interesting but they're entirely separate from the story -- you could remove them completely, including the character responsible for them, and it wouldn't change the broad outlines of this story one iota. As for the remaining story, it's rather absent any of the things I consider to be critical elements of a story -- deux ex machina endings are out of style these days.

As I was reading I prepared a long list of what I consider to be this story's shortcomings. It was getting to be kind of long, but Posh hits them all above, so I won't pile on.

And yet. And yet. This story still gets a spot in the middle of the slate from me. Because it tried something that few other stories try -- a locked room mystery, which is one of the most fiendishly difficult stories to craft.

Was it perfect? No. Did it have some holes? Yes, tons. But considering that it was written in the space of three days, it's still a pretty good attempt, and I always make it my policy to reward ambition.

Great story, but I'm going to echo GGA's critique -- if you're going to reincarnate someone from the distant past, why let them wake up in a locked, dingy cell? Is that the best accommodations they have in the future?

Still, this was an original story with a daring idea, well written. Enough for my top score this prelim round.

The Great

Discord is characterized super well. Not overstated, not overwhelming, not understated, not unimpressive, etc. Just really nailed it. Same goes for Zephyr, really.

Story is just neat and smooth. Nice clean arc. Writing is pretty solid too.

Tasteful cross property reference, though I think you could have done without italicizing "loft."

The Rough

I can't put my finger on it, but Fluttershy doesn't quite feel IC through the early potion of the story.

The resolution is... kind of unsatisfying, particularly in that they continue to use "Garbage Pony" to refer to Zephyr, as it gives the impression that Strong Arm and co. are going to continue to abuse him. Basically, while Zephyr is technically in the wrong, Strong Arm is -really- in the wrong. The fact that they reach a "fair" compromise is bothersome as a result. Zephyr should be punished, but Strong Arm deserves a massive smackdown, and the fact that Fluttershy just kinda lets her keep being a monstrous gangster feels wrong, particularly given the relative power and connections of the Mane 6. Basically, they aren't really bound by the American legal system, so putting a reasonable fear of God into an individual who is doing bad things and exploiting desperate ponies would be right, IMO.

The opening scene goes on a little long. It gives the impression that this is very much going to be a Discord/Fluttershy story, when it really isn't. Similarly, the Discord/Zephyr/Taime scene is... awkward. It's good. It's fun. But it really doesn't fit, if that makes sense. Discord has no real stake in the events and the pony who does (Zephyr) is sidelined.

Fluttershy... wins a little too easily, I think.

>>The_Letter_J

Come on, that's already practically canon.

Not after Sisterhooves Social, it ain't.

It is, however, canon that Mommity and Daddity pawn Sweetie off on Rarity at random, so maybe that's what's going on.

>>Posh
And after For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils, it is again.
I'm still not entirely sure what to make of Rarity leaving Sweetie home alone while she goes to Canterlot though.

>>The_Letter_J Funny how the popular fandom theory is that Scootaloo's parents are either negligent or dead when Sweetie Belle's guardians just toss her back and forth in a game of hot pone-tato.

The Great

At a technical level, this is probably near the best in my slate. Not to say it is perfect, but you executed very well, particularly given the short duration of the competition.

A very solid arc all through. Well paced.

The Rough

Let's get the big issue out of the way. I guessed the culprit by scene 1, and was sure by scene 5. Unsure if it was unintentional, but the title is -too- cute and immediately puts the idea in your mind, particularly when combined with having Celestia be part of the crew to discover it. You don't really establish any decent alternates and the logic you create with the magic basically assures it has to be Celestia.

Rampart is bizarrely antagonistic throughout most of the story. Like, I realize the show downplays it, but seriously: Twilight is divine royalty who has saved Equestria multiple times and personal friends with Celestia. He is actively choosing career suicide for no good reason. His attitude needs to be reigned in.

Finally, this story gets really dark really fast and in a very jarring way. Like, I get that we are a little out of standard MLP territory from moment 1, but we go from Law and Order to Law and Order SVU in the space of an instant, and we go HARD. Probably too hard. If you're gonna trot out immense sexual assault, you kinda need to establish things are that dark from the start. And yeah, see the above stuff with the implied assault on Rarity.

>>AndrewRogue

we go from Law and Order to Law and Order SVU in the space of an instant, and we go HARD.

Yeah, but I read on Kotaku that this story's even better than Civ V with the Brave New Worlds expansion set.

Whew. And that is my slate. I will continue to comment on the remainder of the stories as we head forward, including those that do not make it into the final, so please be patient as I slowly make my way through!

>>Posh
I feel like I'm missing a reference here. >_>

>>AndrewRogue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ygKd5oxoSU

>>Posh
I feel enlightened, but I regret it.

>>Posh
You just know this was written by writers.

>>Cold in Gardez
The more I think about this story--and Author, to your credit, I have been--the more I think the easiest fix would be to have Fluttershy threaten to have Discord mess with the randomness of the casino games. Like, everyone rolls sevens all the time, or whatever. That's an even bigger threat than an audit, if you think about it. She could start with the general threat of turning Discord loose, then settle on that as the specific threat. That would at least follow the general Principle of Conservation of Story Characters, rather than having Twilight randomly get injected; it's still kind of a Deus Ex Machina, but again, you did at least lampshade it, so we can't complain too much. Then maybe make the ending a little funnier and less tense, and that should do it.

/unhelpful suggestion mode

>>CoffeeMinion

It's still definitely a deus ex machina -- Zephyr comes to Fluttershy to solve his problems, and she solves them by appealing to the all-powerful beings she knows. Just a different all-powerful being.

What frustrates me about this story is that it's has probably the best writing of any on my slate, but the story it tells is just completely devoid of any significance. It's only a comedy because of Jar Jar Binks Discord's "zany antics," but he's completely extraneous to the story's plot. Like, literally, you could delete every mention of him, replace him with a coat rack, and the story itself would still be exactly the same. It just wouldn't have as many sight gags.

>>AndrewRogue

See, I find that odd. My reaction when reading was that Rampart was being a complete pushover. If anything, he didn't do enough to stand up to the princess.

He doesn't work for her – he works for Celestia. She has no experience whatsoever with criminal investigations, is clearly compromised by her close relationship with Rarity, is compromised again because she's concluded before she even starts 'helping' that Rarity must be innocent. She threatens him, which should have immediately raised his hackles.

Honestly, if I'd been in his position, I'd have immediately gone to Celestia. And if Celestia is worth her salt as a regent, she'd have agreed and kindly asked Twilight to let the professionals do their job.

>>Cold in Gardez

Honestly, if I'd been in his position, I'd have immediately gone to Celestia. And if Celestia is worth her salt as a regent, she'd have agreed and kindly asked Twilight to let the professionals do their job.

I don't know if this version of Celestia's worth her salt. After all, she let a serial rapist get away with serial rape, and didn't take action until his crimes affected someone she was close to (Rarity) and got someone killed (what's-her-face the maid).

>>FanOfMostEverything
>>Posh
Time for some more sweet mashuppy goodness:

Time Enough For Lamias: It's the exact same story as TEFW (except maybe Octavia got eaten instead of them breaking up), but then you add one final line: "And then they ****ed and she ate him, the end."

Pinkamena's Chamber: Daring Do makes the mistake of listening to a James Joyce book-on-tape while descending down a narrow passageway. Behold, the chronicle of her hallucinations.

The House Comes Dazzling: Strong Arm's always looking for new enforcers, and the more down-on-their-luck, the better. Meanwhile, the rest of us finally get the Sirens v. Discord fic we've all been waiting for.

Sleep and Consternation: Y'know, the other thing Luna could try is removing all the little foals' and fillies' need to sleep. That might work, at least until their poor parents band together with a personified version of sleep itself to seek revenge...

>>Cold in Gardez

See, I find that odd. My reaction when reading was that Rampart was being a complete pushover. If anything, he didn't do enough to stand up to the princess.

Well, the issue is not that he opposes her involvement or his objectivity, it's that he's pissy about it.

The pale blue unicorn detached himself from his circle of guards and trotted forward, scowling. "Day Guard Captain Rampart," he said stiffly, "Princess."

Twilight scowled back. "Rarity didn't kill him. Let her go."

Rampart took a step forward, nose to Twilight's. "We'll determine that," he said with quiet menace.

Like, I can buy that Twilight's intro into that scene is irritating, but, again. He is talking to royalty, divinity, personal protege of your boss, and the literal multi-time savior of the land who has banished several threats capable of ending Equestria. A little tact is advisable.

Moreover, Twilight only really threatens him long after he's been openly hostile and she pretty effectively smashed his case apart, which makes his arrogance and condescension look worse. If they had a much more airtight case, it might at least be a bit more earned for him to be annoyed by her, but there are gaping holes in his case, especially considering the target is ANOTHER multi-time savior of Equestria.

>>Posh

Yeah, that's another issue with this story. Everyone's acting out of character.

Dammit, I'm trying to maintain my enthusiasm for a daring stab at something new here, but people keep poking holes in it and I'm rapidly taking on water.

I'm off at a gaming convention this weekend and getting solid Internet time for the first time in about 48 hours. I'm glad to see >>FanOfMostEverything and >>Posh (edit: and >>CoffeeMinion) kick-starting mashups. ^.^ In lieu of the reviews I don't have time to write, maybe I can at least chip in on those!

Mashups, Obvious Matchups Edition

Twilight Sparkle Lays A Wake - Sleep-slapeing jinxed a-japing; or, Pronky Pie pranks a Twi unto unsomnia by egging her with rotten puns until the sunny slides up.

Send Only Swan Song - The Stranger goes to ask Equestria to return matter to the universe and prevent its ultimate heat death. Instead, he accidentally unleashes grey-goo nanites that eat everything.

Time Enough After Midnight - Vinyl is suffering from creative block, so Star Swirl teleports into the future to fix history and restore the wubs. When he realizes Octavia is already helping comfort her, he shrugs, and all three of them make out.

Cutie Unmarked By Dawn - The Cutie Mark Crusaders enlist Twilight Sparkle to discover how Magnet lost her Cutie Mark in a locked room, only to discover the unspeakable truth of how her dad Blueblood was involved.

Kintsamia - A stallion-eating monster falls off the wagon after trying to reform, and rips out Time Turner's throat. Pinkie Pie and Spike glue him back together before Twilight finds out.

Magic is Dazzling [Part #1] - Luna gets sick of Twilight's bullshit and banishes her to the sun, so in order to save the Winter Moon celebration, she shrugs and hires a bunch of redemption-seeking ex-sirens, and everything works out more or less by accident.

Pinkamena's Wub - Horizon's authorship reaches critical mass and breaks both narrative and temporal structure with the weight of a billion author guesses.

>>horizon

Twilight Sparkle Lays A Wake - Sleep-slapeing jinxed a-japing; or, Pronky Pie pranks a Twi unto unsomnia by egging her with rotten puns until the sunny slides up.

horizon was a mistake

mash-ups were a mistake

someone stop the hurting

someone take the pain away

I was over. This was done.

...

uh, I mean. *ahem*

Death By Dazzling: Blueblood seeks redemption for his lascivious ways, so Sunset Shimmer takes him to band practice to befriend the girls. Unfortunately, Rainbow Dash's rockin' power chords cause his head to cave in on itself. They decide to frame Principal Celestia for the murder.

Pinkamina's Room: ...I can't. I can't do this, I just...

I just can't. I need to

lie down

for a while

someone take the pain away

Dear Author: Oh my God. Seriously. Just shut up and take my Top Contender tier ranking thingie. Welcome to the top of my voting slate.

Oh my God.

So... nitpicks? Uhh... the part toward the end where Celestia started talking kind of laid out the plot a little too smoothly. Like before that moment, we had an in-depth investigation; and after it, we had the rocket ride to Hell that followed. Thing is, you managed that transition more deftly than the one in House Comes Calling, which I mention only because it's the most direct comparison I've seen in this Writeoff. It's probably in all the subtle clues you left in Rarity's behavior early on; when things suddenly got all the way bad, it was easier to make the mental and emotional leap.

In the end, this is less of a procedural murder mystery, and more of a study of a series of characters, with the noted addition of STABBING ME IN THE HEART WITH A BROKEN BOTTLE there at the end. This was audacious, ambitious, and utterly successful.

Tier: Top Contender

>>Cold in Gardez
I dunno, I thought everyone was quite in-character...

>>CoffeeMinion

...did we read the same story?

Blueblood is a rapist and a murderer. Celestia enables him for years, then when he finally goes just a bit too far, she decides to solve the problem by killing him and framing it as a murder. After she's done this, and Rarity is accidentally implicated, Celestia then just lets the wheels of justice play out, with Rarity as the prime suspect?

I appreciate that the author tried to demonstrate a crime and an investigation, but there were so many holes in how this played out that it just doesn't hold water. The interaction between the lead investigator and Twilight simply beggars belief.

Tell me, why does Rarity remain silent when she's accused of murder? Why not, you know, try and explain why she was there? Does it really seem like the Rarity you know to choose death by false implication of murder over life with a struggling business?

I mean, you're entitled to put whatever story you want on the top of your slate, and I'm always happy to reward an ambitious writer, but... well, wow.

>>Cold in Gardez
I think the deeper issue is that having the story hinge on Zephyr appealing to Fluttershy for help already kind of makes it a Deus Ex Machina--with Fluttershy as the Deus. Whatever Machina she chooses to help her get from point A to point B is ultimately more of a detail, because the characterization of Zeph is left as a hapless fool without much agency.

That's not a dig; that's pretty much what the show left us with.

So if there's not much story to be derived from Zeph's lameness and flatness, then what's left is seeing what kinds of character moments we can get as our Deuses (Deusi?) go about solving his problem for him. I think the story does pretty well by letting us see Fluttershy reaffirm her assertiveness in a big way, and even a bit by showing Discord being irritating but restraining himself because she asked him to.

But seeing Fluttershy and Discord interact isn't the focus of this story now. While it's not imperative to satisfy my shippy heart by making it so, I think it would be a good way to tie together what's here. Because you're right; as it is, Discord's antics are ultimately a sideshow to the big conversation that Fluttershy leads, and that's a shame.

Finding a way for both scenes to be relevant would be awesome. I think the teacup might have been an attempt to do it, but I don't see it working as-is.

>>CoffeeMinion

Discord restrained himself because the author needed him to – if he hadn't it would've been a shorter and even less satisfying story.

Every story says something, whether it means to or not. When the story deliberately sets out to teach a lesson, we call it the story's moral. In our modern age with post-modern, post-Romantic storytelling, that moral often simply is "life is random and unfair, and sometimes bad things happen to good people."

Fair enough. So what is this story trying to say?

>>CoffeeMinion
I gotta agree with >>Cold in Gardez in that I feel like we read completely different stories. The locked room part? That was cool. Liked it a lot. But characterization? I think the only character in the entire story whose continually on point is Twilight. Twilight IS a nerd who would totally try to get to the bottom of this including shoving her nose in the investigation.

Rarity is not a pony who'd let someone like Blueblood simply repeatedly assault/blackmail her.

Celestia & Luna are not ponies who would allow a rapist to simply wander free for political expediency and 'Hope he can be better'.

Celestia isn't just going to go from 'Welp, I want him to be better' to a hideously overcomplicated murder-suicide plot in order to justify giving aid to a different murder victim's family when she can just like, write a check. I mean her whole purpose here is to...ruin Blueblood's reputation? Why? He's dead. It doesn't matter to him any longer. So it's only her who benefits from this, and maybe his victims except uh, it'd be better if she simply /didn't let him keep raping ponies in the first place/.

The mystery here is great, but yeesh. These characters belong in an Agatha Christie novel, instead of having MLP skins pasted over them.

I promised I'd come back and write something a little more detailed about this one, and unfortunately I've been called into work every day since so I'm only getting around to catching up with that now. Sorry for the delay, author!

I want to start by talking a little about the style of prose this is written in. Finnegans Wake (sometimes known as the "nightbook" to see it as an alternative work to Ulysses, the "daybook") is essentially a dream sequence, and the style and language Joyce pioneered for that book is designed to mimic the "language" of dreams, in which everything has a double-meaning and nothing is really concrete. In this style, words are often fused together into portmanteaus, and the general idea is to treat each word as if it means all the meanings of the words it's made up from. I like to think of this as a bit like Lyra reading the alethiometer in Northern Lights:

“And how do you know where these meanings are?”

“I kind of see ’em. Or feel ’em rather, like climbing down a ladder at night, you put your foot down and there’s another rung. Well, I put my mind down and there’s another meaning, and I kind of sense what it is. Then I put ’em all together. There’s a trick in it like focusing your eyes.”

—Northern Lights, Philip Pullman

Just like how Lyra sees different layers of meaning, and then tries to see them "all together", so too must we imagine all the different meanings of each word in this prose together at once to see the true meaning of the piece. It's not an easy task—Joyce famously claimed that anyone who read Finnegans Wake in less time than it took him to write it (seventeen years!) was simply lying. And frankly, even with the few hours I've set aside for it, I don't think I can claim I've fully read Pinkamena's Wake yet, either: there's still so many words I haven't figured out all the meanings of!

Now, Pinkamena's Wake has done a very good job of emulating Joyce's style. Like Joyce's prose, it seems to revel in references (particularly to Greek mythology, though don't think I didn't spot that Gulliver's Travels reference!) and adds more to the layers of meaning by making allusions to other texts and stories. It also does a fantastic job of adapting that style to match Pinkie's rather unique narrative voice, though at times it did feel like a rather rough transition between pure Joycean prose and pure Pinkie stream of consciousness—I'd have much rather seen the whole piece united in a single voice, but that's certainly something that can be tidied up with further editing. On a technical level, this story is simply superb, and the actual story you're telling is engaging and very well characterised.

But I really, really need to ask an important question: why is this piece written in the style of Finnegans Wake? Don't get me wrong, writing in that style for the sake of giving it a go is a worthy achievement, and I thoroughly approve of trying it just as a writing exercise, but I can't really find any in-story justification for using this style. After all, Finnegans Wake is intended to be read as a dream, so far as I understand it; I can't see anything in this story that makes much use of anything dream-like, and no real indication that this is meant to be a dream aside from the style, and that leaves me a little confused. If your intent had been to treat Pinkie's experience of being dead as dreamlike, why use this style before she is dead? If your intent had been to capture the stream-of-consciousness that is Pinkie's thoughts during the day, surely adopting one of the many styles from Ulysses would have been more appropriate (in fact, I'm working on something like that myself at the moment, so I can state for certain that it is very appropriately Pinkie).

This for me is where Pinkamena's Wake falls apart—though it tells a lovely story, and does an excellent job of mimicking Joyce's prose, there doesn't seem to be any real reason to tell this story in this style. To me, the suggestion that this entire story is just a dream adds absolutely nothing to the story—in fact, it quite possibly takes away from it, so I'd much rather try to find some kind of justification for this style that doesn't fall back on that. Unfortunately, I can't.

Don't get me wrong, author: I have enjoyed this a lot, and I suspect I will continue to enjoy it a lot as I dig through it and try to make sure I understand (almost) every word. It's been an absolute pleasure to read, and there are some fantastic gems hidden in there (>>CoffeeMinion pointed out one of my favourites, though I should probably also put forward "from town our alabestest elegarity and precision" as a contender for best quote. Also, "her evening mourning me" was delightful.) I am impressed and delighted with this entry. Don't take my criticism of your choice to write this story in this style too harshly, because there's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't—I merely mean to point it out as food for thought, something to maybe think on as you tidy this up (as I truly hope you do!)

Thank you, author, for writing this. It takes a brave soul to write Joycean prose for a writing contest, and it's been a blast; I'm only sorry I've not had too many specific complaints here. (If you'd like something a little less deep to think about: I don't think you need the mid-word capitals in "my imminent disPinkering and reHydration". It comes across a little heavy-handed, to me.)

>>Cold in Gardez
I suspect we may end up disagreeing, but I'll share my thoughts.

Celestia characterized her situation as not enabling Blueblood, but being unable to stop him due to political constraints. I guess I was willing to assume for the purposes of this story that that could be plausible. Her choice of what to do about the investigation could have been presented better, but she did say that letting it run its course was part of her plan to bury Blueblood's reputation with him. It seemed like the depth of Rarity's involvement was a complication she hadn't accounted for, and which she tried to solve as best she could without just coming clean about the plan. This leaves us with a lot more darkness for Celestia than we see in the show, but the story addressed that darkness too. I don't find it too off-putting considering the rest of the darkness in the story.

Rarity in the show has been an increasingly successful businesspony in seasons 5 and 6, but I've seen a number of stories with darker portrayals of both her character and her success. The story seemed to lean in that direction, and I saw little reason not to go along with it, given that I've seen that kind of Rarity pop up occasionally. I don't think it's the one true reading of her character, but it's one I can accept if the story is interesting enough. There were implications that she had some shady business dealings going on, and that having them revealed would torpedo her reputation. Again, having Rarity be excessively focused on her reputation isn't the only or best way to portray her; it just amplifies an aspect of her character that I'd say is already present to a lesser degree.

The thing I guess I really don't have a basis for is the investigator. I wasn't sure what Twilight's interactions with him are supposed to look like, so I took the cue that she was butting in and he didn't like it, and Celestia later helped fix things.

To summarize: I think I took a lot of what was happening at face value (in part because the story was well written and took pains to lay things out), and that helped get me invested enough to make the leaps (in terms of character behavior) asked of me. I don't think they're huge leaps, but I can see if others might.

>>Morning Sun
Alas, I see no way to not end up looking dumb here, but the story worked for me big time. It laid out a scenario that presented something dark and different but (IMO) compelling. The ambition level was high. I think it worked. Others don't. Maybe we can all agree that the real blame should go to the Author? :-p

>>CoffeeMinion

Political constraints were enough to prevent Celestia from stopping Blueblood from raping his way through the palace staff, but political constraints weren't enough to stop her from straight-up murdering him?

Sorry, I can't reconcile that. And yes, it is enabling when you know someone is doing something terrible, you have the power to stop them, but you choose not to because the politics of it would look bad. That makes Celestia a terrible leader and indirectly responsible for the horrors Blueblood committed.

I don't know where you're getting the impression that these characters are in any way shape or form authentic, absent some completely alternate universe where everypony is the bizzaro version of themselves.

I agree this story was ambitious, and despite all these criticisms I still give it credit for that. But it was an ambitious story that fell flat on its face in execution.

Good luck to all finalists, and apologies for not reviewing this time. I got caught up by real life, same reason that I had no time to complete this fiction.

Not sure anyone cares but:

>>FanOfMostEverything
>>AndrewRogue
>>Posh
>>JudgeDeadd
>>Zaid Val'Roa
>>GroaningGreyAgony
>>Morning Sun

First of all, I’d like to thank Pasco warmheartedly for his help during the edit phase. He caught scads of tiny glitches, one or two grammar flubs, and made a lot of useful comments. So Pasco, thanks a lot again.

So, what? I wanted to write something, because I skipped last round and was feeling pretty bad about it. At the same time, I had no precise idea how to deal with the prompt — something a bit surprising since I’ve always had a knack for dark prompts — so I wound up with that project of recasting episode #1 into a zany version, something I’ve been thinking of since Callipony’s Stereopony . I had no plan, no outline, no real idea on the way I could pervert the characters. I just sat down in front of my computer and let it flow freely, typing along outright what came out of my mind. Matter of fact, it gave birth to a strange mix with some inconsistencies, as one can figure out any spontaneous writing might. But Real Life™ interfered and I had no time to finish. I wondered what to do. At the end, I decided to submit the incomplete version rather than chuck it altogether. I think I should've asked Roger to put it in a special 'sidelines' category.

However I enjoyed writing it, especially the dialogues. Making Twilight a jerk was fun.

I injected a dose of French humour in it, especially in twisting the characters into being somewhat lewd, and depicting Twilight as a bit cocky (which she seems to be in the beginning of episode #1 anyway). To answer FoME question, Plummy Tart, whose name is obviously a pun, is not employed in a two-faced business. She “sunlights”, which is the equivalent of “moonlighting” in this Luna world. During the night (which is when ponies are awake), she works at the pastry and during the day, she completes her income with her second “job”. (There was also a complex pun here involving “plummy”, “tart”, “fruity’s” and “every mare is lesbian”.)

I’m glad at least Morning Sun found it acceptable, for the others I apologise, comedies are not that easy to pull off, and what seems funny to me need not be funny to all. Besides, there might also be cultural interference, as well as other factors, to take into account.

In any case, I’m rather happy the execution flowed well. I was also pleased that the fic was lashed not because of the English, but because of the contents. That might be paradoxical, but 80% of my self-satisfaction derives from writing good English, so on that particular point, it’s rather a win.

Now, I’m not sure I’ll participate in future pony short stories round. I find myself lacking ideas, and I won’t be able to harp on about perverted/crotchety characters too long. So maybe if I have a good idea waiting to be harvested. But otherwise, I think I’ll skip. But I'll be still participating in every other round, pony minific included. So no, you won't get rid of me that easy! :P

See you next round folkies!

Huh. Nine of the finalists were in my personal top ten, and one of the others is the one I wrote. Neat. I am sorry to see Music After Midnight didn't make it.

>>CoffeeMinion

Pinkamena's Chamber: Daring Do makes the mistake of listening to a James Joyce book-on-tape while descending down a narrow passageway. Behold, the chronicle of her hallucinations.

For the record, I would happily read this.

>>horizon

Twilight Sparkle Lays A Wake - Sleep-slapeing jinxed a-japing; or, Pronky Pie pranks a Twi unto unsomnia by egging her with rotten puns until the sunny slides up.

Tell us again how you didn't write Pinkamena's Wake.

I'd like to give special shout-outs to Send Only Memories and Music After Midnight, which I'm sorry to see did not make the cut.

Death By Pinkamina's Wake: Blueblood attempts to read Pinkie Pie's latest novel, only to suffer an aneurysm that collapses the upper right hemisphere of his brain.

EDIT: I did not read Pinkamina's Wake out of very justified fears that the same would happen to me.

>>Monokeras
Before I forget again, I did want to add an addendum that I failed to put in the first post. I feel the funniest bits, by far, were the lampooning of the fandom and show world qualities. Things like the stuff is always falling in Ponyville and every mare is a lesbian got real chuckles out of me.

Sorry, it occurred to me like, the day after I made the first post and just kept forgetting to add it.

Speaking as one who never got past the first book of FW, but who loves puns and puzzles, I thoroughly enjoyed this story. It is nowhere near as dense with allusions and wordplay as its inspiration, and is much more accessible. Author, I’ll give you another seventeen years or so to see where you go with it. :twilightsnarkle:

I do detect other literary references of varying obscurity, but will leave what I found undescribed for others to discover. Well done, Author! And congratulations on having caused so much contention regarding your identity. :pinkiegrin:

[what do you mean contention we all know horizon totally did it]

I'll try my hand at a few mash-ups. They seem fun.

Death by Lamia: Princess Celestia grows tired of Blueblood's irreprehensible behaviour and incontrolable urges, and in an effort to give him a taste of his own medicine, he arranges him to seduce a mythical creature. Contains sensible material regarding murder, sexual abuse, and eating disorders.

At the Wake of Dawn: Starlight wakes up and can't make head or tails of her own thought process. Deeming these thoughts not fit to share with the rest of Equinity, she decides to exile herself. Monologues, regrets, divisive literary choices.

Cutiesugi: When a filly appears having lost her cutie mark, Pinkie Pie, Spike and Apple Bloom decide to paint her a new one. Mystery, Introspective analysis of the worth of the individual, Arts and Crafts tips.

Room Enough For Wub: Vinyl Scratch summons an echo of Starswirl's mind through an accident involving her turntable and a bottle of wine. They both bond and share happy times together. High-level magic, bogus tunes, questionable ethics, heart-warming romance.

Welcome to the world, little Omelete Wish, Princess of Hearty Breakfasts.

This story is very cute. I can easily imagine Twilight freaking out like this, it’s fun to see the other princesses collaborating on pranks (perhaps there is a tradition to prank new alicorns as a ‘welcome to the club’ rite) and I am pleased to see Spike not only being a full participant in the conversation, but standing up for himself with confidence in his assessment. This tale is going towards the top of my list.

>>AndrewRogue
Nice to know it got some chuckles out of you ;) All that time was not lost!

Genre: Averted horror

Thoughts: I'll largely echo what others have said: we go from tense and creepy to "only you can save Equestria" in a very short span. It's intriguing setup, but all the scary stuff turns out to be a big misunderstanding after the reveal, which is a shame; this was looking like some great horror for a while there (perhaps featuring a changeling being tortured for some reason? I dunno).

To take this story further, I would suggest either developing the horror side of it more fully, or doing more to foreshadow where you're really taking this (perhaps addressing some of the concerns that others have raised about having such a massively unfriendly waiting room). Or, use this as chapter 1 of a longer work, where there's space to let this be a hook that makes us want to read more about the dark future Equestria we find ourselves in.

Tier: Needs Work

I think this is the first story I've seen here with this many comments.

So, even if it comes to worse, know that you accomplished that, author. You've made quite the buzz.

Genre: Exploring the perils of underestimating Twilight Sparkle

Thoughts: Despite my running disagreement with >>Cold in Gardez about OOC-ness in Dead By Dawn, I have to agree that Celestia feels off here. I've never bought fully into the trollestia phenomenon, and having her prank Twilight about something like this just pushes it farther than I can go. (I'm somewhat more flexible about Luna, though she's a stretch for me here too.)

But if I let that go, I'm rewarded with a sweet and well-constructed slice of life (ish) story whose raison d'etre seems to be the reassertion of bookhorse's greatness as a character and a caretaker.

My only other quibble is that Spike seems to take things way too much in stride. He would be a great choice to call out how douchey the Princesses are being. And even if he's confident in both himself and Twilight, I think it would make sense to see him get a little more emotional.

Tier: Strong

Zephyr Ruins Everything Retrospective

Can you tell that I was a little rushed when I wrote this story? And by "a little rushed" I mean I wrote the entire thing in the last six hours before the deadline.

So let's go over all the problems that are purely a result of me not having enough time:
* The scenes where Shining meets Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom were cut.
* Zephyr's introduction scene didn't get much beyond the Parks and Rec reference.
* Zephyr generally did not get enough screentime to show off how terrible he is and make everypony hate him.
* Anything that might have happened between the welcome party and Nightmare Moon's return was cut.
* The scene where Nightmare Moon returns was turned into little more than a summary of what was cut from the previous point.
* The journey through the Everfree Forest and everything else between Nightmare Moon's return and the final showdown (which I suppose was most of the second episode) was cut.
* While it is part of the previous point, I want to give the Shadowbolt scene a special mention, because I really wanted to write about the Shadowbolts trying to tempt Maud away by pointing out that the moon is a rock.
* The final showdown turned into just a bit of summary and some "let's see what these Elements can do."
* I had no idea who to give which Elements to, so most of them were assigned randomly.
* Probably a few other things that are slipping my mind at the moment.

So does that cover all of the problems with this story? Probably not, but I think it at least hits all of the big ones.

Well, there is still what is, in my experience, the biggest problem with writing comedy: no one can agree about which parts are good and which parts aren't. So I'm forced to just ignore all the comments and do what I want. :p
But in all seriousness, I do appreciate all of the comments I received, even when they couldn't agree with each other.

>>FanOfMostEverything

Huh. More Zephyr Breeze. Didn’t expect him to show up so much this month.

I don't think anyone did. But I'm sure the fact that "The Darkest Hour" made more people think about Zephyr than Nightmare Moon must mean something.

“Again.” Implying Twilight tried to get a cutie mark in swordsponyship. There’s a story there.

I intended to leave that as a noodle incident, but I suppose it could be an entertaining story. I'll have to keep it in mind.

Certainly an entertaining take on the “alternate Bearers” subgenre. Though the title does spoil things. I definitely would’ve made use of how Magic only appeared during the pivotal moment, though. Have the team of five super-confident… up until either Maud or Nightmare Moon points out how there are actually six Elements.

Yeah, I couldn't think of a better title in the time that I had.
I did have something more like that in mind for the final scene, but I didn't think I had a good enough idea of how it would go to get it written in time, so I went with something quicker and easier, though admittedly not as good.

Still, quite entertaining.

Oh good. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

>>Posh

Okay, but I did legitimately laugh out loud when I read this part.

And here I was worried that opening with a joke about child abuse would be a bad idea. I'm glad you liked the story!

>>Morning Sun

It's funny because I was going to complain this leans a bit too heavily on Zephyr = Jean-Ralphio or however you spelled his name to the point of basically ripping the entire scene off with ponies subbed in. Use Entertainment 720 or whatever if you want, but I'd advise spinning the idea into your own version rather than straight up doing P&R wholesale.

I would have liked to do more with that scene, but with the deadline approaching much faster than I would have liked, I basically just stuck with the minimum I had to do to make the scene work.

One episode of Zephyr Breeze is all the Zephyr I need for like, forever. I won't hold that against you but it leaves me biased against the story.

I don't blame you. After all, the entire message of this story is basically "Zephyr is terrible."
And I noticed that you still liked the other Zephyr story. ;p

The ending line did get a chuckle though, even if I saw it coming. And the CMC were great.

Thanks. I'm glad that at least those parts worked for you.

>>Zaid Val'Roa

Well, I liked the tales of Shining Armor, the foalmancer. Also, kudos on the proper interrobang symbol.

Full disclosure here. I really like stories about different sets of Mane 6 taking over the roles of Element Bearers, they're a guilty pleasure of mine. And I've to say I didn't feel guilty about liking this story.

On the plus side, the CMC were great and had loveable interaction, Shining Armor fulfilled his role as the sane(r) pony, Maud was mauddeningly entertaining as always. And Zephyr was, well, Zephyr.

Looks like I've found my target audience. I'm glad you enjoyed all of that.

Now, on the other hand, I don't think you exploited this concept as far as you could've. Time constraing, writer's block, I don't know, but the sudden shift in narration from first person to "let's recount all the events as fast as possible so we can get to the showdown with Nightmare Moon" really is a heavy strike against the story.

Once again, I'm definitely blaming all of that on a lack of time. I realized it was a problem as I was writing it, but there wasn't much I could do about it.

I believe with a little more polishing and a little bit of expansion so every alternate bearer can get a better moment to shine, you can have a fun little AU fic that will probably spawn its own verse with throes of people making spin-off sequels to it by rewriting the show with the new M6.

Thanks! That's one of the oddest sweetest things anyone has ever said about something I've written. I don't know how I would feel about people writing spin-off stories of something I wrote. I suppose I would feel honored, but it would be weird. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before.
Besides, if I do ever polish this thing up and publish it, I'll probably be the one who gets to recreate all the other episodes.

>>AndrewRogue

The Great

There is some really funny dialogue and character interaction in there.

Opening is pretty solid tone setter.

Yup. Those sound like the good parts to me too.

The Rough

This just really didn't work for me.

:'(

The Parks and Rec nod bit is just way too on the nose. It's a good idea for a joke, but would be played better if you sort of took it in its own direction (or at least further obscured what you were doing). I have been rewatching the show recently, so it really stuck out. That said, it was a good riff on it. I just would much rather see the pull be more subtle if you really wanted to do it.

My experiences around here have taught me that writeoffs and subtlety do not get along very well. Yes, I would have liked to do a bit more with that scene, but I had other scenes to write instead, and it still worked for some people.

The story's arc is very weak. What makes the first episode of MLP tick is that it establishes the conflict right off the bat: Twilight is worried about Nightmare Moon, Celestia tells her to chill and prep for the festival. Immediate conflict. Twilight is worried about NMM, but also has to deal with the insanity of Ponyville, so everything kind of builds off that.

It promises something at the beginning (NMM is coming back!), builds tension by not giving Twilight the space to address it, then delivers with her arrival and the subsequent adventure to defeat her. This story doesn't really do that. The conflict, in narrative terms, emerges out of nowhere.

I hadn't thought about it like that. You make some good points, and I'll keep them in mind.
However, I think you might not be giving me quite enough credit. Because this is a retelling of a story we all already know, we all know that Nightmare Moon is going to show up soon, even if the characters don't. Ideally, the readers will see that Zephyr is obviously being set up to be one of the mane six, but also see that he is terrible and no one will ever like him. This will add tension for the readers, and it and Zephyr's general awfulness will add conflict. Yes, it gets meta, but I think it can work.
Admittedly, there wasn't actually enough time for most of that to happen, so I can understand your disatisfation with the story. But do you at least think that my idea has merit?

You have a cute idea here, but it doesn't really shine until the very end. You might actually consider -starting- there and building out from that point, instead. What are the consequences of this terrible Mane 6? How does the world change because of it? Basically, lead with the strongest element of your story. Using it as a punchline, while worth a chuckle, falls a bit flat because it is expected. Zephyr is established as a chump, so he chumps.

Instead using that as the groundwork for a story might provide richer material for you to work with.

I thought you liked the beginning, not the end. Can you explain why you think the end shines? Because I think it's pretty rushed and lackluster at the moment. Is it just that you're interested in knowing what the consequences will be? If so, that's probably a problem, since most of those consequences probably won't show up until any sequels that could hypothetically arise from this.

>>georg

Zephyr Ruins Everything — B- — Odd, to have two Zephyr Breeze stories on my slate in a row.

How do you think I felt when I wrote one of those stories and then found the other one on my slate?

It wobbles a lot at the beginning while the reader is trying to figure out just what the story is about. Retelling the first two episodes? (pause) Oh, with the siblings of the original cast. Ding! (Took me a bit)

I tried to make it obvious from the beginning that this was a retelling of the first two episodes. Hence Shining flying to Ponyville in a chariot pulled by two pegasi to supervise the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration. I didn't mind if it took some time to realize that all of the mane six were replaced by their siblings. In fact, I think it might be better that way, because the reader gets an aha moment and feels smart when they figure it out. Of course, that might work better if I gave all of them their own scenes in my version of the first episode, but there wasn't enough time.

Suffering from Fast Forward syndrome too. However, I do think the ending is divinely inspired.

Yes, it is. But again, there wasn't enough time. I'm glad, and a bit surprised, that you liked the ending so much though.

Once again, thank you to everyone who read or commented on this story. I'm thrilled that you all (mostly) liked it. However this ranks, I'm counting it as a personal victory.

Thank you everyone for giving me feedback on "Send Only Memories." I'll be putting this up on FimFiction soon.

However, I've made several changes based on people's suggestions.

If someone would look over the changes I've made, I'd appreciate it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/153QSZKBAcW0C5lFo-L7sxcUtiUB9hzXNaLQ21mqM624/edit

Changelog: Celestia's scene is now from Discord's perspective, which drops down the perspective switches from four characters to three. Discord has a lot more "character" for lack of a better term for it. And there's a lot more Stranger backstory. The Spike and Twilight parts are relatively untouched (except for mentioning that Twilight visits some of her friends on the way to Fluttershy's cottage).

The Rough

For being a copy writer, I'm a terrible first pass writer. I tend to be sloppy, drop sentences, and have weird phrasing because I bounce around, get distracted, and the like. >>Morning Sun caught a pretty good example of that. That sentence was a last minute change, and it shows. It was just supposed to be: "Tomorrow we can talk about you doing a few more chores around here in exchange for me loaning you some Bits." But I mashed two sentences together in my head and split the difference instead of actually, you know, writing a competent sentence.

There are two major story flaws, one that I was aware of, and one that one of my dear beta readers pointed out, but I lacked the time to fix either.

Mistake 1: The one I knew about. Basically, Vinyl's acceptance and turn is a little too fast and easy. Tavi and Vinyl both need to work a little bit more to sell the conclusion, particularly because this conclusion is intended as one of those awkward middle of the road, "realistic" answers: even if Vinyl never becomes the superstar she wants to be (a realistic potential), she has ponies who care and she has ponies who love and appreciate her music.

Mistake 2: The one my reader brought to my attention. The presence of the review really muddied the conflict, because it shifts the issue from a purely internally motivated question (am I good enough?) to a more external question for the reader (is Vinyl good enough?). The reader shouldn't be doubting that Vinyl is skilled, the reader should be asking the same question as Vinyl: is that skill enough? >>TrumpetofDoom kinda picked up that dissonance: it -is- weird that Vinyl could get this far without ever learning how to deal with negative criticism. It is absolutely the wrong question to focus on. It'd be much better for Vinyl to have amassed sales charts or something with her album being absolute middle of the road sales or something like that.

That said, thank you all for the super kind words and advice! Hopefully a revision or two and I'll have something a little more worthy. :p

Anyhow. Individual answers!

>>TrumpetofDoom Nailed the big issue that detracts from the story, I think.

>>Morning Sun Yep and agreed. Didn't quite get a smooth enough emotional arc going.

>>FanOfMostEverything *bows* Thank you. And yes, you are absolutely right that a clock mix is the

>>Zaid Val'Roa Reinforces my belief that I didn't quite get the conflict correct.

>>Posh Tough love. It is intended to be a sort of transition to kinda dull Octavia's perfect BFFness - she starts in a position of being both irritated and kinda tired of (implied) bullshit over the past few months, but softens once she realizes that yeah, Vinyl is seriously hurting and does need help.

>>AndrewRogue

Tough love. It is intended to be a sort of transition to kinda dull Octavia's perfect BFFness - she starts in a position of being both irritated and kinda tired of (implied) bullshit over the past few months, but softens once she realizes that yeah, Vinyl is seriously hurting and does need help.

Tavi's pretty empathetic toward Vinyl through most of the story. Someone with that sense of empathy probably would have figured out a while ago that this wasn't just a case of Vinyl being mopey for no good reason, and that the time for tough love would have passed a while ago.

You might consider toning it down, or at least giving a more playful bent to Octavia's early dialogue.

Thanks for everyone that commented! If more than one person thought something was a problem, I made a bigger effort to change that in the next draft.



>>Morning Sun

One nitpick : IMO you should have Twilight interpret the message in a paraphrased form; she has pictograms to go from after all, from what I see. And paraphrasing it would let you put a pony spin on it.

Yeah, I wanted to have some solid basis for the crossover. But you're right. It's changed in the next version.

story seems to imply he escaped multi-dimensional collapse but that Equestria may be a recreation of his civilization on a 3 dimensional scale. Would that be correct?

Yep! :D
Well... (I'm debating on this still), I was thinking of Equestria as a 2D universe. Discord does several tricks to make it feel like 3D, but it is actually 2D. (And the war that Discord initially tried to escape from led him to drop down Equestria into lower and lower dimensions, and not even a Black Domain completely protected them at certain times)

It's an interesting enough idea, although you could arguably posit that once the collapse hits a certain point Discord could retreat to pocket-Equestria and wait. Potentially, if done right, he could do that with everypony,

I kind of feel like this is a problem with Death's End. The story ends before this happens.
I added a bunch of backstory to Stranger to explain why this won't work.

Thank you SO MUCH for helping explain this story in the comments because I wasn't able to.

>>FanOfMostEverything

Again, I did enjoy it.

:D

>>Remedyfortheheart

This piece could have the very same effect on it’s readers without it’s ending being there by fading everything to black in a pony’s perspective of life. This can emphasize the termination of said life and show that the world was sacrifice and still keep that trait of curiosity intact.

See... the end the Three Body trilogy did that. I kind of have a berserk button when it comes to stories not ending happily. I demand a happy ending. And if there isn't one, I'll make it myself. And stories I write which don't have happy endings, end up with "pretend" happy endings, even though everything still sucks.
I understand where you're coming from though.

I really think you have the makings of creating a different piece and add that “creator of the universe” spin on it. I assure you you’d do remarkable on creating such a story.

I think you'd love—

This being MLP seems like it didn’t mix very well.

Oh. Yeah... I have that problem a lot.

I'm much more comfortable writing original fiction. But for some reason I only feel "motivated" when it's pony fiction :/

I do need to work on some original fiction... I have a lot of ideas on existence design, cosmology, eschatology, and the duration of eternity. I just need to uhh... do it.

In fact one of my biggest concerns is asking “why” Discord has been so calm in this story. ...I would have love getting to know Discord’s exact emotions rather than guessing it along with Fluttershy and Celestia. I wanted to feel bad for him, because he had to tear down all his hard work.

I think I did a much better job on this in the second draft.

I don’t really like it when two ideas collide, because it takes much more work making both of them sensible with each other.

That's understandable. Thank you so much for your thoughts!


>>horizon

Beyond that, this is surprising and thought-provoking

Thank you! Your thoughts mean a lot to me.


>>Posh

Then why wouldn't she take the time to say goodbye to Rarity? Or Rainbow Dash?

My original reasoning was that she wouldn't want to talk to them because she would have a hard time not letting them in on the secret. (And I really didn't want to write in any more characters than I had to).
But I did add a line in the new version suggesting she visited more of her friends.

These are vital details that should go into the next draft.

Pretty please.

Done.

>>Bachiavellian

Celestia's bits also seem like they're preparing her for an important role in the story, but she drops out entirely a few paragraphs later.

Thanks for the feedback. I was wondering whether or not to just axe that scene during my first draft. In the current draft that scene is from Discord's perspective, so there's less POV shifting.

which makes the piece as a whole feel less like a story more like a idea-bearing vehicle

This is one of my failings as an author. I think in terms of ideas rather than characters, and the idea is always my go-to starting point for stories.

>>The_Letter_J

First of all, I have read The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest, but I haven't gotten to Death's End yet.

What? Nooooo.... you're the one person that shouldn't have read it D:
Sorry.

If the message had said "we have a way to save everything," then even Discord probably would have agreed, as we later see.

Stranger gives some reasons why the message is the way it is in the 2nd draft.

Second, I feel like Equestria Girls kind of ruins this entire thing.

YEP! Not touching Equestria Girls with a ten foot pole.

Third, what benefit does being saved in a mathematical constant even have? Clearly it didn't do much for that pi culture. This is a minor point, but it does lead to me wondering why this process of sending cultures forward in atoms hasn't been going on since infinity.

While writing this thing, Stranger just said that line and I was all: "WWWHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
This is now part of Stranger's backstory.


And also, this is a really good starting point for a short story/novel. No really. Here me out. Imagine, if you will, artificial intelligence research gets pretty strong. One branch of the research (of many) is into calculating pi. The numbers actually act as code that will SQL inject into the Artificial Intelligence. The AI gets stuffed with an initial blast of a single member of this alien race, and then once the first AI gets infected, more members of race spread to more AIs as more digits of pi are calculated.

This is far fetched, because computer systems across species are different. BUT assuming that the next universe cycle will have trillions of possible intelligent life, and that this pi decimal SQL injection thing only needs to work ONCE, they have a pretty good shot of transferring over to the next universe cycle.


---

Also, no one commented on this. But I have to point it out as I laughed for three days straight after it happened:

“Spike, I’m going to start babbling what’ll most likely be random nonsense. Can you write it down?”

“I’ve been doing that for years.”

SAVAGE

>>Cold in Gardez
I'll take one more shot at trying to justify my high rating here. Hopefully this is at least coherent. If not, then beyond this point, it's probably safe to conclude that I'm a fool. :-p

---

Let's start by presenting the assertion is that Celestia is responsible for what Blueblood has done:

it is enabling when you know someone is doing something terrible, you have the power to stop them, but you choose not to because the politics of it would look bad. That makes Celestia a terrible leader and indirectly responsible for the horrors Blueblood committed.

I agree that the story needs to handle the setup of the situation with Blueblood carefully, because this criticism is a kiss of death. However, I would assert that the story does some things to establish that Celestia isn't fully in control and can't just swoop in and make everything right. The story primes us early for such a view of limitations on Celestia's power, with her first line reading as follows:

It's tough for everypony right now, Starblade. And I do wish I could do more about rents, but ponies have a painfully exaggerated view of my control over the nobility.

Let's go further and look at Celestia's words and (words about past) actions regarding what Blueblood has done. I think it's clear that she doesn't condone them, and has worked to take action to combat them:

Luna and I tried everything possible to rehabilitate him, or even rein him in, but he simply got craftier about his transgressions, threatening his victims into silence.

At this point I think we have to consider the plausibility of the situation. In real life, of course, the kinds of things Blueblood was doing can become frightfully well-entrenched in organizations, and it can be all kinds of difficult to uproot them even if you know they're there. Granted, we don't have a sun-goddess monarch ala Celestia to help with the uprooting. But again, Celestia herself tells us that it may not be as simple as just calling Blueblood out:

he destroyed and befouled too much evidence for the murder charge to stick, and he's long been the favored son of the Canterlot nobility that would have comprised his jury

I'll take this moment to pause and clarify that this kind of stuff is maddening and disgusing in real life, but it can happen. That doesn't make it any less maddening and disgusting when it shows up in Pony. But if Pony can be used to hold up a reflection to real life, then ought it not be expected to have the occasional maddening and disgusting thing turn up in that reflection?

Now on the flip-side, I get it that there's still tension and unease about Celestia choosing to let the above in any way limit her when Blueblood is doing unconscionable things. She could drop the frickin' sun on anyone who cried foul, after all. But she takes a moment to address this, too:

But if I only ever listen to my own judgment, there's nothing stopping me from becoming the monster that he was

And it wouldn't be Celesita if she didn't care about that. I think she's trying to persuade us that she's done her due diligence as an Equestrian citizen and leader, which demands a very high standard. We see all kinds of reformation efforts being extended to all kinds of characters on the show, and to some extent I think it would make sense that Celestia might have been willing to suppress the growing knot of hate for Blueblood in her gut as she continued trying to bring him back into the light.

But in the end, we see the servant's death represent Celestia's point of no return. If Blueblood won't change, and the larger situation prevents justice from being served, then Celestia is willing to compromise herself and her own values to at least make things stop.

There's no going back from that, Twilight; he had to be dealt with. But turning him over to the law would have caused a scandal that would have ruined us all for a mere slap on the wrist

In that line, though, is one of the harder things the story presents us with: a recurring theme of reputation. Everyone from Celestia, to Rarity, to the investigator, to Blueblood himself, are all deeply concerned about their reputations:

or I would release to the public every last indiscretion we could document, and while it would ruin our own reputations for a generation or more, his name would go down in history as a curse word for villainy

But maybe this is the sticking point for people: Why wouldn't Celestia just go public with the information that she has on Blueblood, and see what kind of justice might come as everyone's reputations go up in flames? It would be the no-kill way of resolving the situation, unless of course the people killed Blueblood themselves. But then, given how much of the story revolves around giving us a view of the Equestrian justice system and hints about how the rest of the nobility view things, I have to wonder if that wouldn't have just resulted in a libel case that Blueblood might have been able to walk away from.

---

Look, bottom line: I'm not trying to defend Celestia's decisions per se; I'm trying to show that the story provides a reasonably well-thought-through foundation for why its events run the course that they do. It tackles subjects that are uncomfortable at best, but it doesn't do so flippantly; there's depth and heaviness to its treatment of them, and of the moral grey areas Celestia gets herself into as a result of them.

Of course, my view is that all of the above was deliberately put in place by the Author, and my praise for the work comes in part because I see all that embedded in there.

>>CoffeeMinion

Just so we're clear, the 'scandal' that turning Blueblood over to the authorities would cause is the fact that Celestia and Luna covered for him for so many years.

Sorry. I agree that this story does some things well, but it has flaws that simply defy the suspension of disbelief. The fact that no one is acting in character is one of the lesser flaws.

>>Cold in Gardez
For what it's worth, I hope I haven't reached the threshold of being a pain in the butt here. ^^

I don't buy that Celestia's primary motivation was to avoid a scandal, though. I broke up the line about that above because I thought it helped illuminate two different points, but here's the complete thing:

turning him over to the law would have caused a scandal that would have ruined us all for a mere slap on the wrist—he destroyed and befouled too much evidence for the murder charge to stick, and he's long been the favored son of the Canterlot nobility that would have comprised his jury.

The scandal is mentioned, but I take the larger point here that just turning Blueblood over to the justice system wouldn't have stopped him. I can also read into this that the nobility might already know about his proclivities and not care. That takes a dim view of both the nobles and the justice system, of course; and it puts Celestia a hairbreadth away from vigilantism. But it's consistent with the other tidbits we get about the limitations on Celestia's power.

Hmm. Vigilante Celestia. One of these Writeoffs, we need to see some of that. :-p

Fun, fun, fun:

A few suggestions, though, because that's apparently what I do. "comfortuitous equanity": maybe "comfortuitous equinimity"? And maybe "shades of Hades" could be "shadies of Hades" just for those of us who pronouces "Hades" all properly disyllabic? "But I have promises to bake and friends to keep": would something about "smiles to go before I sleep" be too obvious? "spit out before him, not an obol, but a cupcake, freshwarmyum from my soulstove": maybe try for a Pinkie Promise reference? A "cupcake from my eye" or some such? After all, she's been sticking those cupcakes in there for all these years: she's gotta take 'em out sometime!

Also, you've got quotation marks around Pinkie's pronouncement at the end, author, while you use the Joycean dashes for the spoken lines at the beginning of the piece. Other than that, though, I hurtled along with it quite nicely.

Mike

I'll echo:

The comments above, author, about the opening and the closing. Maybe move the description of her standing at the window right up to the top so we can have a good, solid anchor in physical reality before plunging into the interior. It might be helpful to end with her back in reality again, too, and actually stepping out of her room. Other than that, though, I got nothing.

Mike

Genre: Slice of heartwarming

Thoughts: This is a simple and straightforward story that does exactly what it sets out to do: warm the reader's heart, just as Pinkie warms Spike's heart.

Others have mentioned that the cameos at the end were less effective, and I agree; they intrude into what's otherwise a great few moments between Spike and Pinkie. They also distract from the imagery of the gold-veined figurine, which could use more time in the spotlight to achieve maximum effectiveness.

Tier: Strong (geez, how many Strong ratings have I given out this Writeoff?! Must be a good batch!)

And with that, I've reviewed all the finalists.

Including my own, evidently.

:trollestia:

All right, okay, I get it, I need a better ending for this. Message received, and I've already started working on it. (The story may be renamed by the time I'm done, but it will still be recognizably descended from what's here.)

Honestly, part of the reason the ending is what it is is that it was midnight-thirty and I just wanted to throw something onto the end of it so I could go to sleep. Writing a better one would have taken more time than I was willing to spend that night, and it might have devolved into incoherence anyway.

"Literal total darkness" was the seed of the idea for this story; I don't think I actively decided to also go for the metaphorical meaning of "darkest hour" so much as I discovered a ways into writing that this idea could also fit the figurative version and decided to go with it.

>>GroaningGreyAgony

(I laughed aloud at Random Walk).

A Glimpse Into The Process:

What's the most embarrassing situation I can think of to have this character get lost in?

How about in a city where the street names are numbers and letters?

...No, I can do better than that. "Literally a numbered grid" would be even worse.

...There's really only one thing I can name this character, isn't there.

Don't worry, it was only a 2D grid, so he did eventually get back to where he started. ;-)

>>Zaid Val'Roa

I'd love to see a more fleshed out version of this story, where we get to actually see the chambers.

I hope the final version, when I get around to completing it, meets your expectations.

>>CoffeeMinion

I also like that the part at the end pulled us deeper into her world, as we got to see some of the support apparatus that surrounds her adventures.

I'd have to rewrite that scene more or less from scratch, but I do intend to have something like it in the final product.

>>Posh

Also, I don't see why someone like Daring Do, meticulous and methodical lass that she is, wouldn't bring extra batteries on a trip. I like the idea that she literally has no room to maneuver enough to swap them out, and in total darkness, probably wouldn't be able to do so effectively anyway. But let her have them, fer the love of Mike.

My thought was that they were back at the campsite, where they still ought to have been reasonably accessible (but weren't, because she couldn't go back and get them). If that's still unsatisfying, I can certainly go back and change it - it's not like being able to swap them out would have even fixed the problem of a burnt-out lightbulb anyway.

One more thing: I think you go overboard with the pony puns. And this is coming from someone who put "Nägermeister" in a story.

The words "time-honored tradition" spring to mind. I do not apologize for those.

(Actually, I was going to have "Chineighse water torture" until I discovered that there's no evidence that "Chinese water torture" is really from China. That one, I might have been sorry for.)

I feel like most of my complaints have been mentioned by others, but I think my biggest problem here was pacing You're spending a lot of time in the beginning with (ostensibly) each character, in which they're all doing basically exactly the same thing, in their own way, for a really large part of the story. While it does, to some extent, work, I think it's taking rather too long and not doing nearly enough with the amount of words you've used. I'd suggest condensing those openings somewhat, or even more than somewhat, because I was starting to get bored by the time something finally happened.

Otherwise, the details; all these ponies are different colors. And some of them have wings while others don't? Wouldn't, say, Applejack notice the wings that Dash is supposedly using, or that her coat would be a different color or something? If not - if there's some sort of shapeshifting going on - then why does handing them a mirror work? Moreover, while I actually jumped to the idea that 'these ponies are overlapping somehow' pretty quickly (so good work with that) I actually discarded the idea pretty fast as well, because although you do flow their actions one into the other fairly well, it seemed to me that the descriptions each of them gave of the cell didn't really match. Dash's just had a door; Applejack's had a hole, Rarity's had pipes, and Pinkie's had all that plus bars?

I feel like this is a pretty strong idea. However, I think it needs a bit of re-focusing. It's got too much energy spent on them all spending time in the cell, and not enough on what that means in the way of conflict/resolution.

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm just an impatient reader. This took, like, an entire half-scene to clue me in to context, and I feel like that's a bit too long? Maybe it's not, though, and I'm just crazy. :/

This had some really good lines in it. It's an effective character piece, and I found it enjoyable once I had a little context on the situation and started to see where it was going (around the bit about the dragon rampage) and was hooked into something interesting going on (around the 'glue' line.) I'd suggest putting that 'glue' bit at the very top, and the dragon bit right after, and then the re-organizing scene, and then have her leave her room? But as I said, maybe I'm just an impatient reader and/or crazy.

Solid work, although I feel like the structure is a touch weaker than the line-by-line.

Hey, a three act structure! Marvelous!

Also, it's that one character from that one episode I haven't watched. Still, he's moderately entertaining when played off Discord.

Overall, I liked this one a lot. It moves quickly but keeps a fairly even pace, it's got some good characterization and some great jokes, and it's just pretty fun overall.

>>Cold in Gardez
>>CoffeeMinion

I wouldn't call this a deus ex machina, any more than I'd call any Chekov's gun story a deus ex machina. None of what happens in the ending is outside of either Fluttershy's ability as we know them or her character written. With the possible exception of her spine, although that's rationalized well enough for me in the conversation. My understanding of a deus ex solution, though, is that it's for things outside of the scope of possibility. Although that does differ from reader to reader, depending on what you consider 'possible' within the story-as-written, this much doesn't annoy me.

Honestly, though, I often find tropelike labels more annoying than useful. Mary Sue, Deus Ex, Show/Tell - each of these annoy me in their own way, since very rarely does a story rise/fall based on the inclusion of any one 'idea', no matter how 'bad' it may be considered.

Could the conclusion have been more satisfying? Possibly; Fluttershy's involvement isn't foreshadowed at all in the middle bit, which detaches her concern in the opening fairly strongly from her involvement in the climax. That's a bit of a problem, but changing it might be difficult.

But as for message? I think it's pretty clear; Fluttershy basically says it straight out.

Sometimes people out of their depth need a little grace. Perhaps not as much grace as they're asking for, but some.

Admittedly, it doesn't supply a reason to give people grace, more than just 'it's a nice/loving thing to do', but that's up to the individual reader, I think. Since it's something generally considered 'good', it's likely acceptable to most people as is - especially when it's applied to an easy target like family.

For a more implied answer, you could also try 'Don't make a threat so impressive it's incredible'. But the author probably didn't write that one in super intentionally. :P

Closed room mystery? Tough choice, author.

Unfortunately, this kinda fell down for me in a big way; Celestia is apparently closely connected with Rampart, and Rampart very quickly came off to me as either evil or an idiot with his attitude, and that was only intensified when Twilight started poking holes in his theories.

And I say evil, because he's breaking what we consider to be a basic human right: presumption of innocence. This evidence isn't questionable, it's downright ridiculous. Trying to convict someone on it isn't a small thing; he's trying to convict someone with murder, a crime that carries a death penalty. Not only that, it throws into question the laws and practices of Canterlot, which means...

If Celestia has someone like that working on something so important, that means she's either evil or an idiot, or having her hand forced - and since it didn't seem like she was being forced, it must have been one of the other two. I'm glad you didn't write her as an idiot, but the idea that she would allow Rarity to be falsely executed is, quite simply, not something I can buy into. It seems like you've addressed some of that with the poison pellet thing at the end. However, that brings its own problems; if the investigation is still ongoing, then Celestia could have talked her down with that, instead of letting her complicate things. And if it's not, that means the poison pellet wouldn't have been discovered and Celestia would have allowed one of the Elements to be executed to save her reputation.

Which, you know, has its own problems.

I dunno, author. As much as parts of this story annoyed me, it's really ambitious, and that's something I appreciate a lot. However, I'll say that if you're trying something like this again in the future, you need to iron out your details more meticulously. High-stakes is good. However, it also needs to be believable.

Very impressive, author.

Thorough and detailed as this character examination is, the attention to conserving the reader's attention is also very well done. The monologue structure is interesting, and you manage to make it work by both advancing the internal argument paragraph-by-paragraph, each one feeding back into the next, while also cycling back through the core emotion regularly enough that the evolution is marked and believable.

Very nice.

I do feel like there's a tonal shift at end... or perhaps a scope shift? The bit with the "A dog barks" etc, for whatever reason, seemed like a marked change in tone to me. I dunno if bringing the sun back in more often, so there's some grounding for the external shift, or making the external shift a bit slower would help?

Or maybe it's just fine as is.

Anaonthor, your brainscribbinglings are impressivario. Some kenknowings cut cleverclose; t'cake ponygranate, frinstance. Vocabulation layered like brainbows.

Still, pageagraphs latesome, howcome wordfun turns lumpsome? Perhapsome is/n't nonsensitum, or some misstoodunder on Not_My_Thinking_Cap's part. Or your timescome&wordsum?

Personalality, fiddlediddling meannuts from knotcabulary doesnut excittract me. Yet, I can compreken the clevercall some readudience mightyfeel unfiddling kennwrightly. Too time and tired, though.

Clearver as mud, amiwrite?

>>Not_A_Hat Why do all you people want me to suffer

>>Posh
Because your tears are delicious?

More seriously, I apologize for inflicting that on you. After reading the story, I wanted to try the style to see if it was as difficult as it looked.

It wasn't quite, (although my interpretation likely doesn't follow the style correctly either) but it's a bit of a trick to twist your mind around. I still don't think I'm interested in reading it much, but I do have a better appreciation of it after giving it a test drive.

I'll admit, I've only read about fifty pages of Joyce, and that was Ulysses. If Finnegans Wake is closer to this, I might enjoy it more. Part of what bothered me so much about Ulysses was that that there didn't seem to be any meaning in it at all, no matter how hard I tried to look below the surface. And it was scarce enough on the surface, too! It was like smoke and mirrors, but without even being interesting to look at. I remember finding one phrase that actually seemed like it might be meaningful, googling it, and discovering that Joyce had invented a nonsense 'riddle' and inserted it just to mess with people I guess. I dropped it in frustration after that.

I think my problems here are different from what annoys me about that sort of 'literary stuff'. While I think it's very easy to put style over substance, this almost goes the opposite direction, layering in variations of 'substance' so deeply as to make any attempts at stylization outside its word-salad nearly meaningless.

Instead of having lots of 'meaningful' things without any real meaning attached, dazzling the reader with chintz but refusing to back it up, there's so many references here to attach meaning to the brain just kinda collapses under the load. The effect is interesting, but not, I think, one I particularly enjoy for it's own sake, and definitely not enough to spend the time properly untangling it.

Which, I think, is the prerequisite to really get into this sort of thing; you've got to be willing to put in the time trying to crack at least the first layer of meaning. This story didn't bury it too deep, and I do at least think it has significant meaning layered further in - so if I spent time trying (unlike the hollow shell I judge Ulysses to be) I could probably uncover some interesting things. But... I'm just not interested in reading one book for seventeen years; I guarantee you the plot isn't good enough to keep me engaged that long, and I've never been a completionist.

I'll stick to the song.

Hmm.

Interesting. I think this is a great example of taking a crackfic idea and playing it pretty much straight? That's usually a strange effect, and it's about the same here. This doesn't give me... mood whiplash, exactly, but perhaps something close; it's moving from 'weird' to 'heartfelt', and I'm not certain it's going about it in ways that quite work smoothly for me.

For what it's worth, I didn't jump to the idea that it was a prank immediately. People have written strange things seriously in Writeoffs.

I'm not sure I can give you much in the way of useful advice here. I do think you're dragging the conclusion out a bit much; after Twilight makes her decision, it cuts to Spike and... almost starts another mini-narrative or something, with the prank and the bet, but... those do tie in, so...

I dunno. More space probably wouldn't hurt, but you might also want to consider interleaving what you've got a bit more, because although the brevity of your italic lines is interesting, bringing the narratives closer together (maybe mirroring them somehow?) might make the transition from ridiculous/heartfelt for Twilight work better as you show the transition from ridiculous/heartfelt for Celestia/Luna/Cadence/Spike.

>>Not_A_Hat

Yeah, I'd say:

Twenty-two hundred words of this with a discernible beginning, middle, and end is just about right. I've never been able to imagine a set of circumstances that would get me interested in reading Finnegan's Wake, but then I don't like doing crossword puzzles, either...

Mike

So the whole thing with Starlight was all just... a mistake?

Eh....

Hmm.

That kinda rubs me the wrong way, to have something that's built up as such a big plot-point just dropped and waved away. I do appreciate a romance with a bit more than just 'and now kiss', and the character interactions are interesting and developed, but the actual plot seems a bit weak outside of that.

You've done a pretty good job with pacing this; the bite-sized scenes keep things moving and change stuff up often enough that you're not spending too long in one place, but you put enough in each one that I felt comfortable with them.

I think the bottle, from the amount of use it gets, could use a bit more attention before the meaning of it being open is brought in?

Pretty interesting overall, and a fun read. I wish the plot held up the same way the character interaction does, but I definitely enjoyed it.

:Facehoof:

If this isn't Gardez, I'll eat my... whatever this thing is. I mean, alright, chances are I'm wrong, because I'm bad at guessing, but whatever.

Anyways; this was excellent work, all told. This is just pitch-perfect scene to scene, and a great mix of obvious and subtle in many ways. It kept me both cringing and laughing, but still reading and guessing for the most part, which is an impressive balance to strike so well and so consistently.

I do feel the outright statement of the message at the end was a bit overly-blatant; surely you could have found something clever to do with that, like you did with the most of the rest? It works, but it seems almost like an 'alright I'm done being subtle now' when it happens. This story manages to layer the subtlety under the obvious so well throughout, I can't help but think it could have done something more with the ending is all.

Still, one slightly underdone scene (in comparison to the rest) isn't going to sour this for me. Very well written.

I originally read the title as 'Detonation and Consternation' for some reason.

This is a very clever concept, and the writing is definitely serviceable; there are some good jokes in here, and dialogue is mostly on-point throughout.

I think my biggest problem with it is just how... soft the whole thing is? It's not diving particularly deep into any one emotion, it's not taking any huge risks. It's mildly funny, and the quality of the writing is nice, but it's just not got any one part that elevates it above 'pretty good' for me. And don't get me wrong, it is pretty good. But... it's not actually 'great' in my eyes.

Still, it's clever and original, and that's worth a lot.

This is fairly solid, and people seem to have covered most of it already.

I'll add, however, that the Twilight/Starlight scene doesn't seem to be pulling it's weight at all to me. Those characters don't do anything for the story besides crack a few jokes; if you can't find a way to pull them into the plot proper (maybe Starlight can give some advice on accepting cutie marks for what they are? That seems like a missed opportunity to rationalize Magnet's change of heart;) you'd be better off straight-up cutting it, because it's merely a sideshow diversion right now.