@Roger
Bug report: One off error
Severity: Trivial to Minor
Environment: Main Discussion Thread

Not sure if it's a one off error or the server trying to serve data that's not yet available/synchronized, but at 900 posts, an empty page 10 has been created for me. Noticed this earlier but someone else posted again before I could double check what I was seeing.

>>horizon
>>FanOfMostEverything

A Deal to Die For Twice — Flim and Flam get a huge head start on their new business venture by signing an exlcusivity agreement with Sweetie Drops.

A Curious Case To Die For — They then go out of business as they realize the entire population of Ponyville has been made immortal.

Hmmmmm.. Interesting. I'm no sure what to think of this one. It's rather sad and depressing, but interesting at the same time. I find it a bit hard to believe that both characters have given up on trying to escape / survive... But we're not really given the details of their circumstances, or how long they've been trapped there. It may well be that they've tried everything they could, and that their deaths truly are inevitable.

Under the circumstances, the changes in behavior / apparent OOCness make some sense. Daring Do's apathetic behavior is not unreasonable for someone in a completely hopeless situation. And Ahuizotl's insistence on continuing to fight Daring in some fashion until the very end is rather amusing.

And after all those years of being thwarted by Daring, only to finally earn (minor) victory that no one will ever know of... Just before they're both killed... Rather amusingly ironic, really.

All in all, not bad!

Huh. Was this whole thing an excuse to reference past over write off prompts? O.o

This is.. Odd. And clever. I'm afraid I'm not a connoisseur of music, or at least not reviews of music. I just listen to what I like. But I like the way you've woven a bit of story into the review.. The death of Vinyl's wife (Was it Octavia, or Trixie? Obviously the cello music was from Octavia... But the title... )

I'm clearly missing bits and pieces of what this story is alluding to, but despite that fact it still paints a rather interesting picture. A very interesting and clever way to narrate a story...

Okay, first off, fan fics that include real people as the main character always come across as a bit, I don't know, creepy. At least to me. I know that I'D find it really disturbing if I ever became famous enough to warrant such a thing.

Following that up by making that real, live person a drug addict... Or at least experimenting with drugs... And being depressed... And acting erratically... It makes things really uncomfortable IMHO. It just kinda skieves me out, and trends away from fan fiction and into libel.

Now, looking past that aspect of things, it's certainly an interesting, if not particularly original idea. The creator and the created conversing. Only in this case, less the creator, and more the voice, but still. It was clever and, aside from the disturbing real life references, entertaining. The main thrust is actually pretty sweet and sentimental, and actually quite in character for Pinkie Pie too.

Now this is more or less what I expected from this prompt.

I don't e much to say about this one. I rather liked it. I was a bit confused as to which of the two was dying in the beginning... And I'm assuming that was intentional? Otherwise it's just poor attribution to dialogue.

I liked the way that both Study Guide and Songbird are more concerned about the other than themselves. They both want the funeral to be done right, because both of them consider it to be an event for their spouse.

In short, it's short but well done and I enjoyed it.

Huh. Well. That was a thing. I'm not quite sure what the thing was but it was definitely a thing!

My main problem with this is Bon Bon using changelings to fill in for her when she's off on secret missions... And Lyra never noticing. I mean, really? Sure, the 16 changelings may be able to communicate with each other, and so know exactly what's going on... But how can "Number One," the real Bon Bon, keep them abreast of what's happening in their lives and relationship?

Also, who would possibly think this is a good idea? "Well, I can't be at home all the time.. so I'll secretly replace myself with a changeling. Because the love of my life deserves to have me there all the time... Even if it's not really me and just a huge lie." That... would take a very strange mindset.

And if the changelings aren't feeding off of the love Lyra and Bon Bon have for each other.. where are they getting a meal from? Honestly, that bugs me a bit. I think a changeling swearing that "we didn't feed on you." would be offensive rather than positive. I'd expect something more like "We only nibbled on what leaked out. I mean, you two are just soooooo in love, and it's sooooo tasty!" And what happens to the poor changelings now, since they've almost certainly just lost their 'job?'

I hope all of that doesn't come across as too critical though. They're nitpicks that bugged me, but all in all it was a pretty good story, and I enjoyed it. :)

I don't feel that I have much of value to add to previous reviews. Never learning the motive of the villains and Fluttershy being backed by a grizzly as soon as their malicious intention became clear kinda took out most of the tension. Pacing got a bit slow at the climax. I don't the the significance of the tree, either.

Also, some writing mishaps.

A bewildered look escaped from the stallion's face. "Huh?"

This one especially made me wonder what kind of small animal or insect this 'bewildered look' is that hopped from the stallion's face.

I first thought they were ghosts... because sitting in a tree and all. How does a pony climb a tree? Seems pretty much impossible to me.

Turned out they're alive. And in love. And happy. Urgh. Call me cold-hearted, but the fluff in this one kinda pissed me off - I don't care about the characters to begin with and there was never any conflict, so there's no builtup that this could be payoff for.

The writing was fine and the idea of having a fake funeral for an alias that goes into retirement is okay I guess, but that didn't really save it for me.

Hmmm. A fairly serious topic for such a short little fic. Rainbow seems just a TAD denser than normal here.. But not horribly so. It's not badly written, or out of character or anything. It's just... It doesn't seem to go anywhere in particular. The final lines, with Twilight signing the paperwork, just doesn't carry much weight. I can't put y finger on it, but this story is lacking something... The conflict perhaps? There's no real debate here... Twilight explains what the paperwork means, Dash wants to live, and nothing is changed besides a bit of clarification.

I found Rainbow Dash's faith that Twilight would fix her interesting. I would have loved to see Twilight respond to that by explaining that she's not a doctor or medic. That there are ponies who, [i]right now[i], suffer from the fate that she's describing. And that if she had a spell that could fix that condition, she'd be out there right now saving ponies. Or at least teaching the spell to others.

And that if such a thing happened to Rainbow, she'd do her best to come up with a solution and fix her... But magic can't fix everything.

Still, there was nothing wrong with this story. It just seemed a little light is all. But not bad. :)

>>RampantArcana FWIW the entire thread of 900+ posts is being loaded in a single download. Seems a bit heavy - and I would guess temporary - but then I'm not a web dev. I imagine Roger just needs to tweak the page separator. </comments may be full of hot air>

I guess it was cute, but it didn't really 'click' with me in any meaningful way. I do think I'd rather have known who this was, directly. Or seen some resolution beyond a decision to resolve the 'what might happen?'

This was a good one. A people story told in ponies in a way that still feels very much pony.

I'm sorry to say this one didn't really do anything for me. The dialogue felt contrived rather than natural, and was pretty much an info dump besides. I'm fairly sentimental and enjoy well-written ships, but the sugary sweetness of much of this felt too saccharine. And having no conflict or tension to offset any of this really dragged it further down.

I think even a little minor conflict threaded through this and resolved at the end would help this story immensely, as would toning down the sweetness in the dialogue, bringing it more into the realm of "show" than "tell".

I really liked this one. It's an excellent character piece. At first, I found the idea of Rainbow Dash being a bully a bit unlikely... She's the element of loyalty, after all. But after a few moments reflection, it makes perfect sense. Loyalty just means you don't bully the people you're loyal to.

All in , I thought it captured the characters pretty well, and I liked it. If you want more insightful reviews, you'll have to read all of the ones above mine I'm afraid. :>

This overuses s-s-stammering and ... , which is generally a bad place to go for a story. Now the stammering stops after the first bit, but it still feels forced.

Other than that? The whole motif of 'Spike went to war and died' feels tacked on to Equestria, as-is. I mean, this is the land of magical demigoddess ponies and Twilight & Friends, Blasters of Rainbows. If you are going to do a war out of the blue you need something to sell it, which isn't done here. That weighs down everything else. My suggestion? Swap 'war' for something like 'Monster Hunter' or some much more plausible Equestrian thing. If Spike was off serving as the equivalent of the Coast Guard or a Firefighter or whatever and died in an accident? That actually fits, but 'Died in misery after being stabbed a bunch'...not so much.

Lastly, the all-dialogue is daring. That part doesn't really detract as much, other than the things previous commenters have pointed out.

I didn't mind this, but >>horizon raises a bunch of points making me curious whether this was written in the final 15, or merely made to seem like it. If it was done in the last stretch, good on you, if there was more time for this, it could have been polished more.

>>Trick_Question
I definitely agree with the bit on the ending here. With this? Ambiguity probably serves better, and it's a bit much to cram into 750 words.

That said, for me the biggest issue was the wild mood swing Twilight has, or appears to have in

“It means when your brain gets turned to mush and you can’t ever really wake up!” Twilight pounded her hoof on the table.

Like, everything is low-key, then she's suddenly flaring up and we have no leading indicator for that. She snaps too abruptly. This is where more words would really help, to allow the sense of building frustration to come through prior to her going off.

This is an okay one. I mean, the 'accidental' funeral theme comes on a bit strong. There's nothing flat-out bad in it, it's entertaining enough, it just isn't...stellar? Definitely agreeing with other commenters that it feels middle of the pack.

I do like this one, but the biggest issue is there isn't any pony in it. I mean, it's already been noted, but I want to re-stress it; there's nothing grounding this in Equestria at all, which means it'd function better in an OF round. Still, despite that it's a relatively strong piece, just...arguably dragged down by trying to set it in Equestria when it would shine stronger with ordinary humans.

Predictions:

Maybe eighteen stories(?) will make the cut.

Two of my three stand an excellent chance of being among them, but that's a tight squeeze so probably not both, statistically speaking. So I'm hoping for two, banking on one.

Third story will probably just miss the top half so it'll be another negative points story for me. :raritydespair:

Ok, THAT was out of left field! Here I am, mentally condemning Celestia for making such a callous, heartless decision... Seriously, faking your own death for a bit of time off? Wasting tons of taxpayer money? Forcing her sister into an incredibly awkward position.. And probably damaging her reputation when the citizens take note of her odd behavior upon the death of her sister (like the memories of Nightmare Moon weren't enough to put her in a bad light...)

And then you go and do that! You terrible, magnificent bastard! Oh, Celestia will never live that down! That wasn't a curve ball... It more or less took a sharp 90 degree turn!

I really don't think there's anything more to say besides kudos. ;>

>>TheCyanRecluse
Actually, based on the description, I was interpreting it as more like a 30 degree incline rather than just 90 degrees straight up. :trollestia:

Additional mashups because reasons:

I'm Discord, I've Got Cactuses — Discord and Fluttershy go a teensy bit overboard in their attempts to spice up their relationship.

Timely Casket Beats — Sunset has a terrible recurring dream where Rainbow keeps jumping off a roof and plunging to her death. Then it actually happens...

Fibrous Nuggets OF Rx — Five or six metafics could be lethal to the Writeoff. Ten or more, no question.

The Power of Yalta — In Communist Equestria, changeling gets drained by YOU!

>>Trick_Question
The number of finalists is fixed based on a wordcount threshold collectively reached by the finalists. According to the site FAQ, if there is a finals round we should see approximately 35 finalist stories.

>>RogerDodger
Come to think of it, the FAQ should probably be linked in the navbar somewhere, along with the formatting guide. Perhaps a Help menu?

Other than the song itself seeming to lack magic, which the rest of the story implies it should, this was a very well done piece. Hints of how the song should work would be good here. Now, the sirens themselves? Splendid. Write more of them in this fashion. It's an intriguing take that is a delight to read.

>>Orbiting_kettle
This makes it make a bunch more sense. Establish this hook more, author - as is it's not quite clear enough.

>>horizon
35 of 65?! Yeesh. Maybe I do have a chance at getting all three in. :V

Probably not. I'm betting on two now, though.

>>Trick_Question
The Googling I did suggested 'half meter long spider' which would seem to suggest otherwise. Now, what subspecies did he bring back, if not another Crystal Pony? Glass pony?

Huh. Didn't think it was that bad. I'll have a retrospective up soon.

In any case, most of the stories I particularly liked made it through, including all of my top ten. Congratulations to the finalists, and good luck in this next round.

>>Morning Sun I interpreted the subspecies to be a baby windigo.

Edit: I also looked up the attercopus and couldn't find any reference to it's possible size, but many critters in that age were very large owing to the much higher level of atmospheric oxygen that existed back then. Since many such creatures did not have muscular breathing mechanisms, their breathing was passive. The greater percentage of O2 allowed for larger critters. My point being that it's not out of the realm of possibility for attercopus to have been much larger than a common house spider. Plus it makes that part of the story that much more hilarious.

Welp, shut out again. Kinda expected it, though the fact that I ranked lower than two metatroll fics has me wonering if I should just focus on short story rounds instead. :/

Time to read the finalists! :)

I'm Soaring's alias.

Oh, and Soaring wrote this.

There will be an expanded version of this story out on Fimfiction with detailed analysis by me when it comes out. But safe to say, no this isn't a trollfic.

It was just based off a second prompt that sounds troll-ish. :D

>>New Alias
<3 <3 <3

... And this is the point of the competition at which I'm forced to awkwardly reveal that I failed to not enter this round twice.

>>Trick_Question
You are totally allowed to revise the "We're cool" bit now. :V But this was NOT intended as an attack on any individual authors, and DEFINITELY not >>Calipony. The French was just written for the bilingual sight-gag, because Discord does things like that.

As I noted above, the majority of the annoyances above are writing choices that do not necessarily lead to poor stories, they're just associated with writing that tends to frustrate general audiences. I'm guilty myself of at least half of them, in one Writeoff or another.

Maybe more later if I decide this is worth a retrospective.

My frist minific finals, yay!

*wYvern starts his happy dance*
*remembers wYvern has no legs*
*flops to the ground*
*wriggles happily*

>>TheCyanRecluse
>>CoffeeMinion
I'm thinking 60 degrees. Rear legs and chest pressed together for maximum Moby Dick effect.

>>Trick_Question
Glad to have reached someone with this story. ^_^ <3

>>horizon Considering the source (Discord), were you thinking of this with the "Au contraire..." line? It certainly fits.

https://youtu.be/Ke_AkJC92IA

Happy Deathday to You

All right. So. My first idea was rather similar to "Memento Merry," in the sense that it was Pinkie's plans for her own funeral. (Yeah, kind of hypocritical given my criticism of that one.) The problem was that it was only Pinkie's plans for her own funeral, in the form of a letter to her friends. A significant portion was a bulleted list. That didn't seem like it would make the cut.

However, Pinkie did seem to be the right track. Dark isn't usually my thing, so the equine manifestation of levity would do a lot to keep some sweet along with the bitter. So, why not have her extend that "celebrate everything" attitude to one of the possible instances of death on the show, that is, Twilight's carbonization?

Granted, that could've just been a teleport or a plane shift, but the scorch mark (seen here) seemed a bit much, especially since someone managed to clean it off in time for Season 4. Logically, as Pinkie pointed out, that meant it was something burnt onto the wood rather than burnt into it, and that meant that it used to be something else, like a certain lavender unicorn.

I should probably note at this point that I tried and failed to ponify "ship of Theseus." I also considered Washington's axe, but... Shoot! I could've used Hurricane's spear or something. :facehoof: In any case, the talk of interrupted physical continuity brought the teleport death stories to mind, so I threw in the joke as a fond nod to them.

In the end, while this had some interesting ideas, the writing clearly killed it. I cranked it out in a few hours shortly before the deadline and didn't have the time to look at it cold, so there are a number of points where the phrasing only makes sense to me because I know the bits that didn't quite make it to the page. The fact that most people don't rewatch old episodes to make trading cards out of them didn't help either. Still, there's clearly promise here. I just need to think more about where I want to go with it and give the ideas the space they deserve. Thanks to everyone who read it.

Wait, I actually made finals? Wasn't expecting it as my story needed a fair bit of work I didn't have the time to give it.

Oh well. Guess I'll try and devote some energy to reading/reviewing the finalists (though I'm going to be pretty busy for the rest of the month).

>>horizon
I totally guessed you! :pinkiehappy: You made it too obvious with the wording in your response to apologize to Calipony (not that I wouldn't have done the same, mind you). You are too sweet to have done otherwise, even though I think it was obvious you were not targeting anypony or actually attempting to insult any specific writers. But what clinched it was the follow-up on another story (that wasn't yours) where you made the same joke, suggesting you were trying to mask that this one actually was your story. :trollestia:

Plus, the writing is superb, as we have all come to expect from you. :twilightsmile:

I didn't care for the story, but sometimes stories are like movies: if you go into them with certain expectations, you might hate something you'd otherwise have loved. I suspect this is one of those situations where I had mood bias trotting into the text. I can see myself in an AU ranking this story in the top third.

>>Soaring
>>FanOfMostEverything
>>Trick_Question
>>GrandMoffPony
>>Calipony
>>CoffeeMinion
>>Winston

Honor, Duty, and Sacrfice: Author's Retrospective
Thank you to everyone who read and a special thanks to those who provided feedback! This was my first attempt at writing comedy, and I hope you enjoyed it, even though it clearly fell flat for many of you. There's some major confusion with the punchline and some problems with the build up that have been made much clearer thanks to your comments. Feel free to join me in this rambling explanation of where this story came from and what I planned to do with it.

First, a lot of the issues stem directly from the writing process. It went thusly:
- 2:00PM USA Eastern (24 hours to deadline): Well... horseapples. I've got nothing...
- 2:00AM/3:00AM DST USA Eastern (12 hours to deadline): Hey, that could work... but I'm really tired...
- 9:00AM USA Eastern (5 hours to deadline): And that would be a stupid ending if she just doesn't get mad at them.
- 10:00AM USA Eastern (4 hours to deadline): Unless someone else can take the fall for it! But everypony who might be able to take the fall and keep the perception of it being serious is gone in canon...
- 11:00AM USA Eastern (3 hours to deadline): Wait! Pre-wedding Shining Armor and Cadance! And I can have legitimate reason for Celestia not being disappointed! And... Holy cow I have an idea... I... think I'd better start writing...
- 1:00AM USA Eastern (1 hour to deadline): Ok, getting a bit long. Let's keep the ending short, but not too short or I'll write myself into a wall.
- 1:30AM USA Eastern (30 minutes to deadline): So, this wasn't exactly meant to be a punchline, but I'm out of time and words, and hey, comedy needs a punchline. And why not keep it vague? Surely there's some comedy analog for leaving threats up to the imagination, right?
- 1:35AM USA Eastern (25 minutes to deadline): Why is it still 850 words?!?!
- 1:40AM USA Eastern (20 minutes to deadline): *Weeping and gnashing of teeth, cutting explanatory content*
- 1:45AM USA Eastern (15 minutes to deadline): Ok, title... title... Hey, this fits. Submit!

And cue comments about not getting the punchline. And really, two slices of cake? How the... the first line of the story is about it being the last slice! I need to clear this up. You're probably looking for the TL;DR anyways, so here's what I was going for:

"Princess, I regret to inform you that an accident occurred in the hall." This was embarrassing. Reporting the guards' failiure as his own to Celestia was bad enough, but to do it in front of Cadance as well? Still, decorum was absolutely required. His position demanded no less. "Your slice of cake was the only casualty, but it was a total loss." This wasn't going to do him any favors. How the hay was he supposed to stay on her good side while dating her adopted niece and destroying her cake? "I take full responsibility." Shining Armor braced himself for his punishment.

"Oh, that's alright Shining," replied Celestia.

What?

She looked pensive. "I could - no, the symbolism is gone. But you can still..." Shining Armor stared at the princess incredulously as she cleared her throat. "I just realized I have several things to take care of anyway. Perhaps you could join Cadance for tea instead?" She rose from the table and walked brusquely for the door.

Shining Armor sputtered, "I - but the cake... and didn't you have orders?"

Princess Celestia paused and gave him a brilliant smile. "Take the day off, Lieutenant. Enjoy yourself!" With that, she walked out the door, leaving behind a confused stallion and a blushing pink princess.

Shining Armor blinked. "Wait, she set us up on a date?"

Cadance nodded. "I think she was trying to be subtle."

"Huh..." Shining grunted, "So the cake was for us to share..." He moved forward to join Cadance at the table, then paused. "What did she mean about symbolism?"

Cadance's blush deepened. "Well, would you prefer she threw rings at us and told us to get on with it?"

Oh.

Those guards were definitely getting latrine duty.

So you can see, probably not as punchy and requires a whole lot more exposition to get it right. This right here was the only reason I actually considered entering this idea for the Writeoff. I wanted to introduce the concept that a Celestia who really loves cake might gift a single slice to show approval, nay, to give her blessing to the happy couple. Otherwise it's just Celestia likes cake... And a couple of guards ruin it. As submitted, if one were to pick up on it, the significance of sharing the cake could mean a simple date, to marriage encouragement, to even innuendo, which is why I let it go and still hit submit.

Now see why Shining is assigning them latrine duty?

Regarding the build up, I'm a little unsure where to take it. Some of you have complimented the build up for its execution, but most of you have stated it overstays its welcome.

The length is tied into the title (which actually should be Duty, Honor and Sacrifice, but panic made me choose the word order that rolled off the tongue fastest). There's four parts to this story: The newbie guards show duty by clearing the area to deal with the crisis, they show honor by taking responsibility with little hesitation when confronted by a superior officer despite their panic, and Shining Armor rewards them by taking the blame is meant in a particularly messianic act that is supposed to raise his standing among his subordinates. This is all wrapped up by the turn where Celestia reveals it wasn't a big deal after all.

See, the humor was meant to be found mostly in ponies blowing a small mess out of proportion, exacerbated by how serious all the guards (including Shining) approach the situation. I wanted to present a universe similar to Princess Celestia Hates Tea where there is a perception that cake is really important to Celestia, but in reality, it's just one of her delights. The difference would be that instead of Equestria actually hinging on this delight, they all just think it's the end of the world, and Celestia just happens to really like cake. I had no intention of focusing on Cakelestia or giving any impression of malice behind this perception. Perhaps that could be retooled by switching the guards' worries from fearing Celestia's retribution to fearing what it will do to their standing, being newbies who just ruined Celestia's cake.

As for the length of this chunk, perhaps it could be addressed by proportion. As Winston suggests, it might play out better at an even pace with a longer word count.

So, that's what I wanted to say about this story. Maybe I'll get around to touching it up at some point. If you've read this far, thanks for joining me on my post-contest rambling!

More like a centimeter. Somepony greatly exaggerated in the media because it's difficult to find the actual size in the journal article, and close-up they look scary. Here:

[img]http://www.pnas.org/content/105/52/20781/F3.medium.gif[/img]

That's the actual fossil. The black bar in B (the black-and white drawing) is one millimeter.

>>Morning Sun
>>Trick_Question
Actually, wait. That's an image of a paleozoic comparison to Attercopus. I might be wrong, I'm checking.

>>Morning Sun
>>Trick_Question
Nope, I was correct. Attercopus is comparable to the spider in the image.

If you can find a journal article that says otherwise, let me know!

>>Orbiting_kettle >>Trick_Question >>TitaniumDragon >>FanOfMostEverything >>Not_A_Hat >>CoffeeMinion >>wYvern
Heh, I didn't think anyone would predict it. You're right, CoffeeMinion. That bad case of LUS was actually intentional. And I would've gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling kids and your stupid dog. Minus the dog.

>>JaketheGinger
You despise Fluttershy? I didn't think that was possible for anyone to do.

Anyways, thanks for the reviews everyone.

Huh, I got all my stories into the final. Awesome, that's a new best for me. Usually I struggle to get even one good story together for the minific rounds.

My Little Dashie: the Prequel: the Backstory: the Author's Notes

I don't think My Little Dashie is a bad story. not a great one either, but I felt like it was trying to be genuine instead of manipulative. Considering all the fanart and animations and songs based on it, I think the fandom was more attracted to the general concept than the fic itself. It's less of a famous story, and more of a genre or archetype that everyone wanted to be a part of. I found a fimfiction group with almost a hundred stories based on it.

That's why I wasn't trying for anything very "meta" here, I assumed I was merely writing a silly parody on something so prolific. What if baby Dashie were adopted by a horrifying alien creature instead of a human?

But I didn't want to repeat the original's plot that closely, and it would've been too big for a minific anyway. So I thought the idea of Dash being passed from one host to the next as a prequel would be more convenient, and more amusing because of the grimness of it all. And along the way, I unexpectedly developed a nice moral out of it all: even terrifying dimension-hopping monsters deserve a little happiness from cute ponies too.

I just wanted it to be entertaining, absurd yet disturbing, but I guess it wasn't everyone's cup of tea. I'm glad some readers recognized the MLD idea early on, but it was still maybe too confusing and alien in the format it was written.

>>Trick_Question >>Icenrose
none of it's based on anything, I just improvised some weird creatures based on what I think is creepy & cool.

casual plane-hopping is inspired by Planescape, but it's not unique to that. "The Abyss" is a common name in these types of things, but I should've used another name to avoid confusion. I did borrow "Luxor" from a very obscure videogame just because I needed an exotic-sounding proper noun, but it has no relation to the source either. I possibly would have used Lovecraft mythology as an homage, but I know almost nothing about his 'verse. luckily, nobody inferred that the "tentacle" meant the main character was Cthulhu, I would've cringed at that.

>>Trick_Question
Thanks Trick. And really, you're right, this story must be expanded.
But, as for telly-ness, you do read plays every so often I hope?

>>Bremen
>>The_Letter_J
>>FanOfMostEverything
Could you please be more specific on the grammar and vocabulary flubs? Thanks, it'd help me do better next time. I got the forgotten 'a' before thousand, and I know I forgot a ‘had’ in ‘have had it' and messed up recall instead of remind. ‘At a pinch’ is British for ‘in a pinch’. Anything else? Thanks so much!

And thanks to all for not hating this story too much.

>>Trick_Question
>>GrandMoffPony
I probably should have used the idea in a short-fic, considering I already cut a lot down here to fit it in the word-limit. Telly language seems to be one of the many problems my writing has that I'm still struggling with.

>>CoffeeMinion
>>FanOfMostEverything
>>Bugle
I had really not planed anything longer, considering this piece came out just for the Write-off after a good night of sleep. But thanks for the encouraging words, I may have some ideas on how to expand this and make it a complete story instead of what amounts to a scene (once I kind of finish with the other stuff I have in my queue).

>>Jake R
>>QuillScratch
Glad you enjoyed it, it means it accomplished something

>>Calipony
Sarcophagus is a perfectly valid word:P
And yeah, as said previously I should probably have compressed the story differently to make it tighter.
.

>>Waterpear >>Trick_Question >>TitaniumDragon >>FanOfMostEverything >>Calipony >>CoffeeMinion >>GrandMoffPony >>TheCyanRecluse
The reception this story got was a bit more positive than expected, which is fine I suppose.

From the technical point of view, I'm aware that it was a bit of a mess. It was the second entry for this Write-off, and I wrote it more on a hunch than with any extensive planing in mind, which can probably be seen in the not exactly clean structure. I'll have to make that passage from the description of the party to the dialogue between Pinkie and the spirit smoother, and I'll also have to clean up the description of the party itself.

>>Calipony
I think that the idea of Pinkie's funeral being a party is something that quite obviously derives from what we know of her:)

Thank you all for the feedback, it's always useful.

>>CoffeeMinion
>>FanOfMostEverything
>>Trick_Question
>>georg
>>horizon
>>GrandMoffPony
>>Morning Sun
>>Not_A_Hat
>>Haze
Christ, so many people commented on that one? Sorry guys, I failed you and I apologise. I thought it was somehow clever and smart to hide the identities of both ponies and let you guess though the dialogue. Well, turns out it didn't amuse anybody. Sorry again.

That story was more or less meant as a gift to our chat Russian Oblomov. The idea was that in exchange for her helping in activating the transdimensional mirror, Sunset brings back communist works to Starlight who reads them as a source of inspiration for her utopia. I thought the concept of Starlight and Sunset knowing each other was fun. At least, you seemed to be not sold on the idea, but found it valuable.

Thanks for your comments and taking the time to read this pap.

>>Bugle
>>Calipony
>>Not_A_Hat
>>horizon
>>Trick_Question
>>CoffeeMinion
>>Morning Sun
(I'm not sure how helpful it really is to tag people in retrospectives when we don't get notifications anyway, but whatever.)

The biggest problem with this story is that I was extremely unmotivated while I was writing it, so it took way too long to write, so I was very sick of it by the time I was done. All of that adds up to me submitting a rather subpar story that didn't even manage to do what I wanted it to.

I was trying to set up a subverted punchline, where you would be expecting Pinkie to make a joke about a "fun"-eral (or "putting the 'fun' in 'funeral,' as people say), only to have her deliver a completely different pun instead. That's why I was so explicit about the comparisons to Tank dying. The title was also supposed to be a hint towards a fun-eral pun, and Rainbow's last two lines were supposed to be her basically saying "You're trying to set this up for an obvious fun-eral pun, aren't you?" I actually initially had Rainbow call her out on it instead, but I thought it would be better with at least a little bit of subtlety. But maybe not.

>>horizon
Don't worry Horizon. I know you wouldn't do that. And anyway, since you gave me a S tier to Sunday Ride, I can forgive anything. You're just my hero.

See you in two weeks, officially this time.

on Minific rounds, I've gotten pretty consistent at aiming low on wordcount. no need to edit down, I can instead use the extra space to add in flavor. however, this fic was the only one I wrote this round that actually crept over the limit. only by about 50 words, didn't eat up too much time to trim it down. but I usually take it as a sign of a story that wants to grow much bigger and not be constrained.

well, it was the first one I completed, and I was getting pretty tired, decided to go to sleep and write all my other entries in the morning. at least it was a good warmup. though now I feel really uninspired about the whole thing, it should've been much grander to express such a message. not a good candidate for a minific. but eh, it was done. might as well upload it.

honestly, I feel really guilty for putting Lily through this. it was cruel! she deserves a happier story!

I guess I don't have much to say about it. I'll salvage it for something else more interesting.

A fan of the show creates Luna and Celestia. His friends find this cute and all, until one morning, Celestia raises the Sun.

It doesn't seem so cute anymore after that.

The core of this story was what >>horizon was getting at - the people were freaking out because what Celestia did was supposed to be impossible, and yet she'd done it. The idea (which I guess didn't come through strongly enough for some people) was that the humans didn't have magic, and so when Tom created them, and Celestia ended up with magic, it was pretty out of the blue. Their silence at the start was meant to be stunned silence (as well as them trying not to freak out in front of a little kid). It probably could have been done better, and probably needed more at the beginning to properly communicate what was going on.

It is, of course, physically implausible, as >>FanOfMostEverything points out, though I'll note that if they were simply moving the Earth instead of the Sun, then there wouldn't be any light-speed delay - you'd see the Sun moving in real time. But the story is supposed to be mixing fantasy and reality, and the fact that it is impossible is kind of the point - Celestia's abilities are not supposed to be plausible.

>>CoffeeMinion , the reason Philip was freaking out was because Celestia was falling into line with the character from the show, and there aren't any humans on the show. What Tom was pointing out here:

Tom shook his head from his seat on the couch. “What if going after them is what dooms us all? You can’t do anything. Think about it.”

Was that Philip had no choices here. If things really are going to set up the show, then going after them with a gun wouldn't work - they would survive, and indeed, trying to kill them might be what sets them against humanity in the first place. And of course, if they aren't in line with the show, there's no point in doing it in the first place. Either fate exists, and they're helpless, or it doesn't, and they shouldn't go after them because they did nothing wrong.

The central conflict here was Philip trying to figure out how to fight fate, and his recognition that things might already be out of his grasp. He needed more focus, I think, and more of an explanation of his thought process - the reason he was contemplating something so evil was because he was trying to think about the big picture, even though he was only thinking about it in his upset state.

Anyway, I don't write many human fics, and I'm glad at least some of you found this one interesting. I don't know if I'm going to expand it for FIMFiction or not, but the fact that some folks found it interesting (plus the fact that it would let me use the elusive Human tag) makes me want to.

>>Morning Sun
Why would the dilemma be any stronger with people than ponies?

It seems like it is equally workable as either. It doesn't really seem to require anything pony, but it doesn't really require anything human, either.

>>horizon
I don't think that the airship was coming down in Ponyville, but outside of it; the story made that pretty clear, I thought, with:

It will crash just outside of Ponyville.

I do have to echo your (and >>Lucky_Dreams 's ) feeling that Twilight, as a capital-H-Hero, seems like the sort who would save more than just one pony, and would regret that she failed to.

Two young pegasi are on a wild cloud. One of them – Cirrus – doesn’t care that it is dangerous. His sister, Alto, wants him to stop messing around with something so dangerous. But he wants to experience it from the inside.

My biggest problem here is that Cirrus just seems to be being a kind of generic bratty kid here – he wants to fly to the center of the wild storm just because. His reason seems to be pretty arbitrary, and while people do perform dangerous acts for no good reason (“Why did you climb Mount Everest?” “Because it’s there.”) it has never really been something which resounds with me. I didn’t quite get enough fear out of Alto, here, either – I’m not sure if wild storms really are dangerous, or if their danger is exaggerated. Are they dangerous like sharks, or dangerous like mosquitoes?

>>TitaniumDragon
I think it actually works better as a pony story. it's just about "background pony from Ponyville" and "doctor pony", two caricatures living in a happy fantasy land. they can talk candidly about this serious subject matter because they're just cartoons. nothing too complicated going on in their lives, so they can make these big decisions within 750 words.

I'm imagining replacing them with humans, and I immediately get too distracted by the messengers to receive the message. I'd wonder what Lily's backstory is, and what her current life is like. does she have friends or family to spend her last days with? what's the doctor's backstory, and why did she decide on her career? what's her political views? what are the real-life ethical laws that apply here? whew, too much for me.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders speculate about their own funeral after a rocket-powered sled accident.

This was one of those “CMC get into comical mischief” stories, but it made me smile. The three of them making excuses for why none of them had to be the first to tell their sisters they survived was amusing (as were their individual excuses for why someone else had to go first – especially Apple Bloom’s), but the whole back and forthing throughout the piece, combined with their speculation, was certainly amusing.

Applejack really is going to tan Apple Bloom’s hide, though.

>>TitaniumDragon
I think she means that adding ponies to the story just makes it more confusing and audience-selective, as well as bringing in drama to a show that's normally not this dramatic so it feels like it's plunked into the wrong genre with nothing else tying it in.

I didn't see that initially, but she's right. It's a good story, but apart from using Lily (in a rather out of character manner) it doesn't have any connection to the show.

A pony sentenced to death for stealing from a griffon king comes to the three Sirens to beseech them for aid. He has no intention of dying, and offers to steal magic from the Princesses of Equestria in order to have them save him on the morrow.

I’m a bit confused by this story; I’m not sure if Magnus is actually Starswirl the Bearded in disguise, setting up their banishment, or if the story is legit. I’m not sure what he is offering to steal from the Princesses – that seemed pretty vague. Is this a setup for those amulets that the sirens have?

I’m just not quite sure what is really going down here, and thus, it never quite came together for me.

Rarity has a crush on somepony (Rainbow Dash, perhaps, given the dress?) and wants to say something, but is trying to say it with the gift so that she doesn’t have to stick her neck out. Of course, by saying it with the gift, it is very easy for it not to be said at all.

Fluttershy knows, and points this out.

I think Fluttershy works decently well in this role, but the story felt a little bit generic; the use of Fluttershy as the pony being the encourager, with Rarity the encourage, was unusual, but in the end, I felt like I’d seen this story before, and it felt a little too straightforward. Not that it was bad, just that it didn’t really shine in any way.

>>Orbiting_kettle
I wanted it to be true, and an added layer of tragic tension would, I think, make the story stronger - Fluttershy could really work any leg of the love triangle, really. It would add more of a sense of added conflict, and also make Fluttershy’s advice all the sweeter.

Caskets

This idea is something I've been milling over for a while now. The basic concept of Twi realizing being brought to a realization of her friends' mortality vs. her own immortality provides a large portion of the primary subplot of the chapter fic I'm working on. Some version of this dream sequence may find a place in there somewhere.

Premise: Twilight has a distant awareness that her friends will grow old and die one day, but that's a long time from now. However, just prior to the events of this fic, Pinkie gets severely injured in a monster fight, and Twilight has a sudden epiphany that "a long time from now" may never come for some or all of her friends. (That allusion with Pinkie in the casket wasn't strong enough/wasn't expanded upon.) She goes to sleep with this on her mind, and wakes up abruptly from a night terror.

Cons:

>>Trick_Question >>Not_A_Hat >>CoffeeMinion >>fda_approved The knife: A subplot that never materialized within the word count. The idea was that since she is the Princess of Friendship, Twilight just wouldn't want to/be able to carry on after the loss, especially a traumatic loss, of the very thing she is supposed to be the Princess over. How would Celestia feel if the sun went supernova? (Ok, she wouldn't feel anything except an excruciating searing heat for a few seconds, but bear with me.) What would she be Princess over? There is no sun, there is no day, and ultimately, there is no purpose for a Princess of the Sun. That aside, in retrospect, I'm honestly not sure what place this has in the fic since it's in a dream. Is Twilight's subconscious really that good at predicting her future in that kind of detail? In the small amount of time I've given Twilight to seriously think about mortality vs. immortality as a conflict in the very near future, has she already come to this conclusion that suicide is the only way to escape?

>>Trick_Question >>fda_approved Twilight is out of character: I was going for a time period 60-80 years down the road, which I assumed was enough time to change a static character into a dynamic character. Twilight's perfectionism has driven her to become the best Princess she can be, and she's had a lifetime to do it. What better role models could she ask for than two sisters who have been Princesses for a thousand years? I purposely wrote a "Twilight line," a "Celestia line," and a "Luna line" for this purpose, but then never alluded to Twilight being a dynamic, not a static character. ("I'm sorry, what was that?" --Twilight "Yes, I am here..." --Celestia "I stand before you now, do I not?" --Luna)

>>Trick_Question >>Not_A_Hat >>TheCyanRecluse Twilight is oblivious: Not really sure what happened here. Possibly just lazy writing. Probably word count. Went back and fixed it anyhoo.

>>Not_A_Hat >>Morning Sun It's just a dream: The entire mood of the ending, and the entire message of the fic can be changed with three letters. That's all it would have taken. Remove the first three letters from "replied" in the last line.

"I'm fine. It was just a dream," lied the young alicorn.

That's it right there. This edited ending warns that it isn't just a dream, it's the reality of Twilight's future. And coming full circle to the first paragraph,

every one of [the caskets] served as a grim reminder that the inevitable end will come.

Pros:

>>CoffeeMinion The intro: I'm relieved that this delivered. Got a little worried it might sound too cliché after I submitted. Went back and substituted a few synonyms to give them more connotative meanings for sake of the mood, but didn't do much else. (big, small --> adult, foal)

>>FanOfMostEverything >>TheCyanRecluse Symbolism: Already touched on this above, but Twilight's friends are pieces of herself. (I'm pretty sure this was literally stated in the season 5 premier.) When they die, she dies a little bit, too. Their funeral is almost literally her own funeral.



Third writeoff, fourth entry total, and my only goal here is to grow as a writer. An improvement at this point would mean... *checks previous writeoff standings* anything above second-to-last... Well, that's simultaneously depressing and encouraging since it won't take much to outdo myself.

Well, I had a good time writing and reading this round, and I hope I did not detract from your experience. If you have any further comments or questions about the fic, feel free to voice them. I may or may not enter next round depending firstly on the prompt, and secondly on how much torture my professors dream up. Congrats and good luck to the finalists.



Side note: Big thanks to Roger for reworking the site so all the comments relating to one fic can be viewed on just one page.

Pinkie Pie talks about planning her own funeral.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen this idea before – heck, my own family has had wakes where people told funny stories about the dead person – so, you know, this isn’t anything all that particularly new. And that sort of leaves me with…

Well, not much other than the idea here, really, as it didn’t really develop any tension or conflict. I think this would have been stronger as a discussion between Pinkie Pie and one or two other ponies, so it could have been a more focused argument.

Fluttershy’s suicide is prevented by an accidental interruption by Rainbow Dash.

I think the word “eh” applies here. Her decision to kill herself wasn’t given enough space to really work into the reader, didn’t really have enough punch – it was just kind of a bit generic-feeling, and didn’t really end up touching me or feeling like it made good use of Fluttershy’s character. The end was obviously a glurgy feel-good thing, but really, I don’t think it made the story any stronger for it; I think it would have been better if Rainbow Dash had unwittingly said something about how she was glad she caught Fluttershy while she was still there or something, with some unintentional ironic double-meaning.

But really, I think the biggest thing this needs is to bring us low for Fluttershy’s despair here; without proper buildup, it just feels like Fluttershy was made to attempt suicide for drama.

This was a bit of a troll, but I liked it, and I liked the idea of it. Seems like something the overly-serious and pious Pie Family might do, plus I’ve always liked idea that ponies have children’s names, and then choose new names which suit them when they get older. Some of the younger names (Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Pipsqueak) feel generic enough that this is even plausible.

A lot of this story’s power comes from the subversion of events, but I thought that worked well, including the mention of Maurina Alice giving us a subtle hint which the audience is unlikely to catch onto.

That said, it is pretty clear in the show that her name is actually Pinkamena Diane Pie and Pinkie Pie is her nickname. Still, that's more of a minor quibble than anything meaningful or something which needs to be fixed.

Apple Bumpkin tells her cousin Applejack about her awesome new magitech apple harvester. Applejack finds out that there isn’t just one Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000, and that they are a mass-produced piece of magitech which farmers are starting to buy to speed up their harvesting, and that applebucking is now obsolete.

I liked this story; the final line was very good, and while I’m left wanting more, I’m not sure how much more I really want to see; this story seems to be about the shock of finding out she’s obsolete, rather than her dealing with it, and as such, I think it ends in either the right place, or close to it. Though I would love to read the latter story as well.

And of course, the idea that Flim and Flam were not actually the inventors of the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 fits nicely with their image as charlatans; trying to pass off some new bit of tech as something unique to them seems to fit well with their later chicanery.

Rainbow Dash comes to Twilight with papers to give her power of attorney over Rainbow Dash’s medical wishes in case something should happen to her during a Wonderbolts show or something and she’s unable to make medical decisions for herself.

I agree with Horizon’s view of this piece; this story is about Twilight’s conflict, not Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash knows what she wants, but Twilight is left carrying a heavy burden of responsibility for a pony who trusts her completely, totally, and implicitly, and who has pretty much just put the burden of “if I’m terribly injured, I know you’d magically heal me, right?” squarely on poor Twilight’s shoulders.

I liked this quite a bit, but I do agree with some other folks that this is a story I’d like to see expanded, so there’s more space for the emotional rollercoaster. That said, I do want to see it, and I was happy to see it here – I don’t really see these issues dealt with too much (the sadly apparently defunct Playing With My Heart being a rare exception) and I liked the idea here, as well as Rainbow Dash’s loyalty and trust putting a lot of unintentional strain on Twilight.

Whoops! That was the last story!

All in all, I was reasonably happy with this round of stories, as evinced by me getting through everything (well, not quite everything; missed a few prelim round stories). Glad that I did, as there were a fair number of interesting things mixed in here.

>>TitaniumDragon
Incidentally, author, was the title a reference to God Thinks by Voltaire?

Because calling earth ponies obsolete farm equipment is just a deliciously terrible racial slur.

this story probably makes a lot more sense if I reveal that it's inspired by this image edit. the original image is kinda cliche, but I found this edit to be almost profound.

I wrote this in the last 30 minutes before the deadline. rushed job. I had to make quick decisions. most apparent is whether I should say Anon or not mention any name at all. there were pros and cons of each, but in the end I decided - it's already a 2nd person Human in Equestria Shipfic, that's plenty of damnation. one more sin won't drag it down much further. I'd probably reverse that decision now. maybe.

okay, WORD OF GOD TIME, the basic story goes like this. Pinkie wants Twilight, but can't have her. she fantasizes about a human named Anon to replace her, thus his coincidental backstory (there's always a backstory in those stories about how "YOU" are some completely bland nerd with no social life, heh). he disappears when the scene shifts to 3rd person, but paradoxically he seems to have altered the environment anyway. like the subjectiveness of Calvin & Hobbes, I guess.

why can't she have Twilight? at first I was going to write in that she had died.... then decided that was awful. with the prompt, everyone was gonna predict some twist about funerals and death, and misread that Twilight is now a spooky ghost or something. I didn't want that. I came up with a better reason, but it would take way too long to explain Pinkie's perspective and it'd break the flow. so I just left it awfully vague instead and hoped I could imply that longingness.

I wanted it to still come across as charming, but I think all the subtle bits misfired and just caused more confusion and red herrings. the vibe I get is people were more creeped out by the strangeness. Ouch. I feel guilty every time this happens, people have to debate what's even going on in my stories because I lack clarity. I apologize.

Like others, not sure if I'm convinced of the headcanon going on here either, but I do like the idea of trying to explain how pony names seem to match up with their entire personalities. I'm reminded of the archaic Chinese tradition of courtesy names. that does seem more likely than every parent in Equestria having prescience of their children's future development.

Hum, let me see what I can spot. A lot of them may just be British spelling variants.

"Rising and lowering the moon" should be "Raising and lowering the moon"
"May I recall you" should be "May I remind you"

I liked the descriptions here: very nice work.

The main problem I have is with the characters, and I'll side with TD here that Cirrus seems too much of an ass. Likewise, the concerned older sibling is too clichee, too. Having her not follow him to save herself and let her manipulative "I wont be alone" jerk of a brother face the consequences of his irrational actions alone (there's that figurative sense of "It's your funeral" again) would've given it a nice twist, but as it stands, the ending disappointed me.

>>RampantArcana
>>FanOfMostEverything
>>John Cena
>>Trick_Question
>>Waterpear
>>Not_A_Hat
>>Haze
>>TitaniumDragon
>>horizon
>>Morning Sun

I've recently become aware of the concept of a Fail Bow. The idea is to step forward when you fail, openly admit you did so, and attempt to move on with the knowledge you gained by failing.

So with that said, it's time to admit that I wrote The Equestrian Candidate: *bows*

I don't usually dabble in political humor, so this was going to be a stretch for me, but I thought there might be an audience for it. "Making Equestria Great Again" was, after all, 1 vote shy of being our prompt this time. The only problem is, I failed to add the humor part. Many commenters pointed this out, but >>horizon nailed it with a comment that was, IMO, 10x as funny as anything I wrote in here:

This needs to show some teeth, basically. It's taking tiny nibbles of political humor and chewing politely.

This is one of my all-time favorite bits of criticism I've ever received. It's damnably true. But it also helps me see what I did wrong here and how I could do it better.

This was well written and, to plug into something brought up in previous reviews, I don't think any of the characters were superfluous. I probably wouldn't have gotten the whole time-loop thing without the other reviewers picking up on it, though.

I see this suffer from the word limit as well, but I have another point that I think is separate from that: it was an emotional roller coaster for me, since I didn't really pick up on what tone the story wanted to set. I went from feeling sorry for Trixie to feeling amused by her antics, to feeling sorry again, to amused again... like, 3 times I think. A bit too unpredictable for my tastes.

This started slow, but made up for it all with the ending. I have little to criticize that hasn't been said already. Just some expressions I found weird, so I'll point them out:

a look of frustration plastered across her muzzle.

When I hear plastered, I think of plaster, you know, as in construction. Or at least paint: something physical. Didn't work with 'a look' for me.

gentle grin

This may be nitpicky, but I think that's a contradiction, or if not that, at least utterly needless. The definition of grin is 'a broad smile'. A 'gentle grin' therefore would just be a smile.

On Luna's right flank stood Princess Twilight Sparkle, blushing furiously. On her left stood Princess Cadance, hiding her face in her hoof.

This had me imagine both Twlight and Cadance literally standing on Luna's flank. Like in some weird, inverse circus pyramid. It made for a funny picture, but I don't think it was what you had in mind. Why not just go with "To Luna's right stood..."

>>wYvern
I agree with 'plastered' and 'gentle' being overly-poetic, though I'm just as guilty with the prose I write.

The flank thing is legit, though. It's an equestrian term and I don't think anypony would read that literally. Maybe "to Luna's right flank" instead of "on" would be better, though.

>>Trick_Question
So is 'flank' an equestrian term for 'side'? Like 'Dark flank of the moon'? Oh, that actually kinda works. Nevermind.

>>wYvern
Yeah, equestrian and military (transitively).

>>TitaniumDragon
Fortunately, you missed mine.
Thanks a lot for skipping them TD! ;)

>>Bremen
Thanks. Yes, recall/remind Dubs R. spotted that.

Raising/rising was a typo but you've a keen eye, kudos.

Thanks so much! Really appreciated.

>>Calipony
You're welcome! :trollestia:

More seriously, yeah, I didn't get through every story during the prelim round. Sorry about that.

>>TitaniumDragon

There's no need to apologise since there's no obligation, eh!

I just found funny you missed both of my entries, that's all!

Good night!

>>Trick_Question
>>TitaniumDragon
>>FanOfMostEverything
>>pterrorgrine
>>QuillScratch
>>QuillScratch
>>CoffeeMinion
>>horizon
>>TheCyanRecluse

Damn, got really good feedback on this one, which I'm really grateful for. So thanks everyone for taking the time to put your critique to words!

First of all, that intro. Originally I had planned to show Sunset's dialogue with Twilight in the movie, where Sunset's basically shouting at Twilight for risking her friends' lives. Buuut... that would've take up way too many words. I think that's why the first paragraph seems a bit odd because I had trouble defining how to start this piece effectively without it.

I'll be expanding this entry though and I think I will include that movie scene. It'll allow me to explore Sunset's emotions better, writing in her rage and her fear and hopefully that'll make the conversation with Rainbow mean much more. Hopefully.

As for show don't tell... really good advice here. But aaaaaaargh! I'm always so paranoid about not falling into that trap but I fell into it anyway! Problem is it's really hard to find things to show because I run out of human actions to write, or I'm worried something might be too telly. It's really damn difficult for me to achieve.

On the positive, I'm glad people liked the SunDash interaction here. I actually do want to write a shipfic with them but I figured, baby steps first, let's establish the groundwork for what could be a romance between them. This is it, I suppose. The reason why I like pairing them is because I always feel that, in the EQG movies, Rainbow kinda shares leadership dynamics with Sunset. She is the head of the band, after all. I find it pretty interesting to explore and I love comparing Rainbow and Sunset, then putting them together. I dunno, it just works for me.

As for Rainbow's backstory, I'm glad people liked it! Being human 'n' all, I don't think there was probably a Flight Camp equivalent for EQG!Rainbow. Personally, I think that's a pretty big factor in deciding how her childhood was. Without any camp instructors or guidance, I think it's believable Rainbow would've grown up to be very competitive and in school, always wanted to be adored and cheered. For a kid, the connection between winning = popularity isn't a hard one to make, personally.

Anyway, gonna work on this soon. Things to add/fix:

-New opening with Sunset shouting at Twila
-More show, less tell
-Greater elaboration on Rainbow's backstory

>>Trick_Question
So are you ready Trick? :)

Regrets Retrospective:
Well, I wrote this one. And as you can probably tell from the "by Anonymous" thing, I wasn't particularly pleased with it. On the plus side, I did manage to cobble together a story with twelve minutes left on the clock (I did say less than fifteen minutes, didn't I?) which is arguably an achievement. That some people weren't sure if it was written that quickly is pretty much the only praise I'm willing to give this thing. Here, have some responses:

>>horizon
On weird timing aspects: if a time was mentioned in the story, it was because I'd just looked at the clock, which gives a nice countdown of how long I took to write different parts. But bear in mind the countdown is to the official deadline, not the grace period—this story was submitted four minutes post deadline, with exactly 60 seconds left on the clock. This explains why the last section seems to be written a lot faster than it was.

I like that attitude of "dissecting it in hopes that if gives Writeoff authors something in general to chew on", primarily because that's pretty much my approach to reviewing in general. So I'm glad it served some purpose for that.

>>FanOfMostEverything
Actually, I was originally going to have Twilight interrupt Rainbow, and try for elements of TwiDash, but decided that was dumb halfway through the second paragraph. Spike was a much more sensible choice. I probably could have added in something that directly questioned why Rainbow was in the library, but... time constraints? (This is starting to feel a lot more like an excuse than it should be.)

>>Icenrose
The fourth wall breaks served as an easy way to deal with writer's block—I couldn't afford to spend even a minute trying to figure out what was happening, so I just wrote words down and kept going. It's actually a really interesting exercise, as it turns out, 'cos it makes you realise just how much time you normally end up spending trying to figure out why the next sentence won't quite come out right.

>>Trick_Question
If only I had more time to spend making my story look more rushed ;D I'm honestly surprised that it's possible to make something look more like it was written in ~15 minutes than a story that was written in ~15 minutes. As for the prompt drop... eh, fifteen minutes is not enough time to come up with a better way to make it truly clear that the idea was even remotely relevant. I could probably have used a synonymous phrase, but... I decided it could be fun to lampshade this piece for doing things it doesn't actually do. I guess that didn't quite work out, but it was fun enough to toy around with.

>>CoffeeMinion
>>TitaniumDragon
I'll be honest, the tense joke remains the only bit of this I'm remotely proud of. I spent a good portion of my minute's allotted editing time trying to make that joke as effective as possible, so I'm glad it paid off (even at the expense of the rest of the piece).

>>Calipony
Yep! I figured since non-unicorn ponies write with their mouths, ink stains could be a good source of humour. This is probably a thing I'm going to re-use further down the line, because it was a reasonably cute idea.

I don't know why, but I always like the idea of a fireplace somewhere in that old library. Don't quite know where you'd put it, but then again fanfiction tends to make that place a lot bigger than it usually is.

>>Haze
Wacky surprise twists are hard! D:

But yeah, I wasn't really feeling Spike reading the entry as I wrote it—something about it just felt off, but it was the quickest way I could find to bring the conclusion in.

>>Morning Sun
Thanks, I guess? It was, in fact, written in the final fifteen minutes (if we're going by the official countdown, as the story itself does.) This is probably clear at this point, but I felt I could do with saying it again anyway.

Thanks, everyone! Sorry I couldn't contribute something more meaningful this round, but hey—fun was had, things were learned, and I actually entered a round that wasn't General Minific... so I guess that's something.

>>Calipony
???

>>Trick_Question
I was referring to this Trick:

Turn up the difficulty level, and we'll be here to help.

>>QuillScratch
Oh yes, you're right, I completely forgot this detail. You're right Quill, it's cute and I encourage you to use it again!

Fireplaces in libraries sound perilous. A single ember sputtered out of the fireplace and the whole place risks being set ablaze. Unless, of course, Twilight has protected them with a spell.

>>Calipony
Post Tirek, I'm pretty sure that's something she'd do.

Alternatively, maybe a sort of sitting room that's in the library building but contains no bookshelves?

I think the immaturity depicted here suits Rbdash well, but the whole funeral setup seems hopelessly contrived. I know it was to make the prompt come out, but actually showing the encounter might have worked better. Still, it's a thin premise for any sort of story, really.

>>wYvern
A sitting room is generally what I imagine, though sometimes with bookshelves that are a little further away (perhaps on a far wall?)

>>Calipony
We're always ready to help. :twilightsmile:

>>QuillScratch
Works for me... I'd say go for heavy parchment bound in leather if it weren't for the issue that animal skin is required for these, and I don't really see that happening in Equestria.

>>TitaniumDragon
Because there's nothing in here that makes ponies relevant. The layer of abstraction is unnecessary and I would argue detracts, whereas having people makes it more directly relevant. We are unlikely to ever be talking horses discussing end of life care, but with humans, that conversation happens all the time.