The Switcheroo
By Avox

First off, let me say that I enjoyed this story quite a lot. There were a few patches that felt like nearly a slog to get through, and left me feeling a little uneasy about the pacing, but that in no way detracted from the way that this story entertained and told its tale.

Characterization

This bit didn't really have anyplace else to go but here, as it applies to all the characters. A little more direct interaction with the characters would allow the reader to more readily connect with them. Internal thoughts instead of questions within the narrative. Questions in the narrative feel like the author asking the reader to consider something, while internal dialogue denoted by italics or some other method of denoting that it's internal lets the reader connect with the character more personally.

This didn't necessarily break me out of the narrative, really, but in Celestia's handling of the Night Court, it would have been nice to have Celestia feel like she was talking with herself, instead of feeling like the narrator was talking to the reader.

Celestia
Aside from the above mentioned issues with Celestia's internal dialogue feeling more like a narrator telling the reader what questions she's asking, Celestia felt like herself throughout the story, except for the bit with the teenagers. That may have been intentional, however.

Luna
Luna, I felt, was a little too restrained with Blueblood during the restaurant scene. Not exactly out of character, but considering that she was trying to keep Celestia's relationship with Blueblood on the good side...

One other thing, that I'll mention in Lore too, is that it feels like, just below the surface of everything in the story is Luna's struggle with the monster that she was, and that the struggle is not over yet. On the other hand, perhaps that's Celestia viewing the relationship too closely and inferring things that aren't there. There's not really enough in the story about that to make a solid inference one way or the other.

Side characters:

The teenagers
Goodness. One would think that they were drunk. They feel a little dropped in, without a proper reason for being there to goad Luna. The dare was a nice piece, and does justify their presence somewhat, but I have a feeling that there should be some kind of royal guard presence in the throne room, even at night, that would object to teenagers carousing around.

Blueblood
Show perfect performance, perhaps a bit flanderized, but considering that the show treated him as a one-shot joke... I can understand. Spitting food all over Celestia was a bit much, though.

Starlight Dancer
The few lines of dialogue she had were very telly, and went into a bit about her cutie mark, not about her talent, as Celestia had asked. It felt a bit wooden, and the character custom-crafted for Luna.

Story

Pacing
The pacing in this story felt rather inconsistent. At times it was picture perfect, but at other times it felt bogged down by too much action/reaction and doing things that didn't advance the plot. Other times, it felt like the plot moved too quickly for me to follow. The spell got dropped in by butler just kinda outta nowhere, and a few other plot elements felt dropped in as well.

Plot
The plot is great! I love this take on Luna and Celestia taking each other's places for a day. Very Freaky Friday, and done very well. The resolution, especially had me tearing up. It was a very nice, and fitting resolution between them. It'd be interesting to see them have an 'on call' princess and trade off, while both of them share the day together.

Originality
Very Freaky Friday. This isn't a bad thing, but it's been done quite a few times before. Rarely intentionally, though. I like the intentional take on it, and that was a nice little twist to a common body swap storyline.

Lore

There are a lot of implications in the story, just below the surface, lending it a feeling of depth that not a lot of stories can manage.

That Nightmare Moon was a part of Luna all along being one of the ones that I, at least, inferred. She could return at any time, and leave the country in a shambles. The other is that the diarchy's powers are not so easily transferred, and once a duty has been given, it's harder to pull it back.

Technicals

Grammar/Word usage
Another run-over from a proofreader wouldn't hurt. There are a few errors here and there, but not enough to break me out of the story.

Structure
The structure was fine, throughout the story. I have no complaints.

Show/Tell balance
There's quite a bit of telling, mostly through the use of adverbs, but not enough to break the immersion. It just doesn't let me connect with Luna or Celestia as easily as showing would have.

Overall

I very much enjoyed this story. It held my interest throughout for the most part, and the few places that sagged didn't do enough to break me out of wanting to read the rest of the story to its conclusion.

I would recommend this for a good, light read about Celestia and Luna's relationship not long after Luna's return. A year in the life of an alicorn is not much, after all, but it still feels like a lot has happened.

3428370 Hah, I definitely didn't expect your first review to be of my story. Certainly a pleasant surprise, though! A lot of the things you mentioned match up with the feedback I got from The Royal Guard too (albeit said a little bit more nicely), so its cool to have what they said substantiated.

To be completely honest, I forgot that I even submitted this story way back when. Now I'm wondering if I should bother rewriting it, or if I should just move onto other bigger projects. Gah. I'm terrible at making decisions.

3428414

I got some advice once, about looking forward. I disregard it from time to time, because there's things that can be learned by going back over old works and fixing them back up. Perhaps not a complete re-write, but an expansion perhaps and splitting it up into multiple chapters wouldn't be a terrible idea, either.

The spell could be expanded upon a little. For example, why would a butler know of such a spell?

But, at the same time, keep looking forward, keep moving forward, but remember what you learned from your previous attempts and the feedback you get. What you've written can serve as a mile marker, showing how you've improved. But, if you go back and re-write everything, you'll never move onto other ideas. Fix up, if it is fixable in a relatively short amount of time, but don't worry about re-writing something when, or if, you have other projects on your mind.

3428467 I'll probably sweep it for easy-fixes and then leave it alone. I've got two unfinished fics that need me more.

Would you believe me if I told you I wrote the whole thing in a day? I've never been able to write that much at once since then. I sure wish that I could, though.

3428539

I actually do believe it. I haven't been able to sit and write like that in a while. Probably not since freshman year of college when I slammed out a meandering mess of a story close to 40k words long over the course of a caffeine fueled weekend.

It's long since been lost to the ravages of the delete button, and rightfully so.

The story was an absolute mess, and the plot was... No. Just no.

3428588 You wrote 40k in a weekend?! Must've been a lot of caffine, then. Was it a ponyfic?

3428607

Newp, not pony. This was back in 2001. And yes. There was caffeine involved. And no sleep. And quite possibly a forgotten paper that I was supposed to be writing instead... that I later BSed together from bits and pieces and still got a B on...

There was also the mother of all sleep deprivation crashes at the end. I'm pretty sure most of the story came from hallucinations. Was bad... Very bad.