What stories have you read? What are your thoughts on them?

I've read a number of entries. Of the ones I have read, I most recommend the following:

Far From the Tree - Someone asked me ages ago if I had read Aquaman's entry yet.

I hadn't. I still hadn't when it got named to the top five.

That was a mistake. This is the best story in the contest.

It is an OC x main character story, in this case, an OC named Chip Shot x Apple Bloom. And it works beautifully. Applejack comes home early from her chores, feeling beat up after a long day's work, and goes upstairs to find... a teenaged Apple Bloom and Chip Shot rolling around in bed.

Whoops.

The rest of the story is Applejack dealing with it, and confronting... or more accurately, just talking... to Chip Shot, to see who this young colt was that stole her little sister's heart, as well as dealing with the fact that her little sister was growing up faster than she'd given her credit for, as well as doubts about her own life and what her little sister having a boyfriend meant for her.

It worked wonderfully, and was just an excellent story all around. Chip Shot was a likable character, and we got to see what we needed to see, and didn't what we didn't. We got a good idea of why Apple Bloom and Chip Shot were together, and the whole thing worked well and flowed excellently.

Definitely deserved to make the top five. And definitely deserves to win. It managed to make Equestria Daily, and it was rightfully featured there.

To Love the Sun - Told from the second-person perspective of a human-come-alicorn who fell in love with Celestia upon his arrival in Equestria, this is without a doubt the best five prompt entry in the contest, and I say that having read no other such story, simply because I doubt any of them are going to be this good. The summary pretty much summarizes the story, and yet the story as a whole still delivers and even manages to surprise the reader. It also is quite short, weighing in at only 2,600 words, and yet it doesn't feel rushed at all despite how much happens in it; we're being told a story, and the story is as long as it needs to be, and hits on all the points it has to, and it manages to use all the prompts in a very reasonable (if dark) manner.

The largest issue with this story is that Celestia is a bit out of character, here, though not for the reasons that she appears to be off at first glance. Even still, that is more of a quibble than an issue; it is certainly the case, but I felt like the story still worked.

I do have to admit that I was thinking for a bit in the middle of the story that the protagonist was going to turn out to be Discord, blind because he was a statue, broken and mad from the transformation, but that wasn't where it went.

For Whom We Are Hungry - Told from the perspective of a changeling, it was a good shot at the second person perspective, putting us in the mind of someone who was once part of the hivemind, and who now is alone; them using "you" feels relatively natural, and after the very beginning, it just becomes part of the flow of the story and doesn't distract at all despite the lack of agency.

The single largest flaw with this story lies within its pacing; it starts out strong, but then we get less and less tension as the story goes on, rather than more and more tension; indeed, the climax is pretty much at the end of the second chapter or the beginning of the third chapter, which is less than halfway through the story.

I also have one other quibble - it would have worked better in the first person perspective. It could have even used welI interchangeably, and it would have fit with the title of the story. The second person perspective, while it didn't hurt the story, didn't really add to it either, and probably served as a barrier to entry to some people as the point of view tends to be offputting. It hit the feature box when it was originally posted.

All Skin and Bones - A necromancer comes to Ponyville to regain the magic that the ponies took with them when they died long ago, but there are some things that man was not meant to play with and control.

I liked this story. It was short, dark, and to the point, and the human in Equestria felt totally natural and like he was a coherent part of the story. The tone worked, and the man's desperation worked, and even the alicorn worked, though they didn't end up with a whole lot of personality - they didn't need it, though, for their role.

I don't think I cared quite enough for his dog, though, which made the ending a bit weaker. Even still, it was a solid enough work.

Succession - Featuring an alicorn OC, it is set in the distant future and puts the alicorn in the uncomfortable position of having to deal with Queen Twilight Sparkle, who has apparently been ruling Equestria alone for a very long period of time without the aid of the other alicorns, something she seems to feel bad about. The OC is alright, and we get a vision into a new and very different Equestria where bad things happened and Twilight has had to stand alone, just as Celestia did.

Overall, it has no really big outstanding issues, and does a lot of world-building and hints at a larger story. That being said, it also feels like it is the start of a larger story, rather than a true short story; while I think that it stands as a short story, I think it really wanted to be a novella, and I feel like a few thousand more words might have helped make the conclusion feel like more of a conclusion, rather than the start of a larger tale.

As with For Whom We Are Hungry, it hit the feature box on release.

Faun - What to say about this one?

It is really hard to go into this story without spoiling the whole thing. So read on at your own risk.

The story starts out from the point of view of someone in the forest - a child, perhaps - alone and frightened and injured by the timber wolves. He longs for home, and for someone who loves him, and it isn't entirely clear who he is. He seems like he might be a human child - alone and perhaps misshapen, perhaps not, it is hard to tell - but he is hurt and he is scared and he wants someone to love him, but has no one at all, and all the ponies are too scared of him to let him near.

We then go to Lyra and Bonbon talking about having kids. Now, while I understand why this was included, there were a few things about this scene. The first is that, at the time, I was thinking this was going to result in them adopting the kid in the woods. The second is, after reading the story, this scene feels really awkward for some reason - and I don't mean awkward in a good way, I mean like "this scene feels like it is part of a different story". It isn't that the scene doesn't tell us anything, it is that it really feels like it has the wrong tone to it, somehow. It sets up the lead in to the scene with Twilight musing on the heightened fertility of ponies, and how they never have messed up babies or miscarry, which is vital towards the reveal.

Anyway, Fluttershy finds the injured child, who left the woods because he had to get help, and he is almost too horrible to look at, but Fluttershy tries to help him and get Twilight to help him. Twilight is likewise horrified, and he ends up running off into town and finding Lyra and Bonbon... who are also horrified, Lyra most of all. The reason?

The kid is her kid, a half-human, half-pony hybrid, the result of a coupling with Annan (who is, presumably, Anon) when she was 15 years old. He said it was impossible, but... well, obviously it wasn't. And of course, because ponies never miscarry, she had the baby, and it was... horrifying. It was wrong, a sort of twisted thing, and apparently so awful to look upon that most ponies cannot. She left it in the woods but went out to feed it at times... but eventually Bonbon had told her not to go into the woods alone, and she had stopped and had seemed to hope that the monsters would "take care of it". They didn't, needless to say.

The story ends with the freak of nature defending Fluttershy from timber wolves in the woods, and dying of his wounds, with Lyra and Bonbon on the rocks and Twilight pondering the implications, before finally writing Princess Celestia, who writes back about how the magic which prevented ponies from ever miscarrying or having messed-up foals apparently had terrible consequences she had not foreseen, and she wasn't sure if she could fix it.

All in all, I thought it was a pretty good story, but there's something that feels wrong with it. It isn't the fact that it is basically about how squicky a human/horse hybrid would be; rather, I think my problem is with Lyra and Bonbon. I think the basic backbone of the story works, but the bits with Lyra and Bonbon feel out of place, like they belong in another story, and like the characters don't quite fit in here - or at least, the scenes with them did not.

Home - This is a human in Equestria story which isn't a human in Equestria story at all. The protagonist is a jerk - an unsympathetic asshole who thinks he is better than everyone else, smarter than everyone else, that all his failings are because the world is against him, and that his dead-end job is the fault of the Man keeping him down.

Home is Equestria - but not really Equestria. No, it is an imaginary place in his head; him imagining himself amongst the ponies, talking to them, and he makes himself increasingly more important there as time goes on. It is all about the ego-stroking... but also, the ponies are the only ones who are allowed to criticize him at all. They are the voices in his head which tell him that something isn't right, that something is off.

But he doesn't listen to them. And over the course of the story, things go worse and worse for him as he increasingly rejects them and rejects the world in favor of himself.

In the end, he makes all the voices in his head agree with him, always. They're only there to support him, never contradict him. But he loses something important and vital, and withdraws from the world to live in the imaginary world in his head - not going crazy, just simply disregarding all else that is.

I liked this story overall, and there are altogether too many people like that. Not that, you know, this story is probably directed at any of them. That being said, I'm not sure if I really adored this story; the whole thing felt a little bit too... obvious to me?

Still, a solid entry.

Hit or miss

By The Power of Patriotism - I acted as the editor of this story; it features both a seventh element AND a human in Equestria - and it was George Washington, to boot!

It is an extremely silly story about George Washington, the Element of Patriotism, coming to Equestria and battling against Celestia so that he may join the other Elements of Harmony and be released from his burden of immortality. Celestia has been fighting him off for a very long time. But when things go wrong in their battle, he is forced to team up with Celestia and Twilight to save Equestria from destruction. It is a very absurd romp, and derives a lot of its humor from the silly situation; if the premise sounds good to you, you'll probably enjoy it. If the premise sounds bad to you, you will not.

The story is exactly as ridiculous as it sounds, which is either a good thing or a bad thing. Like Succession and For Whom We Are Hungry, it managed to hit the feature box.

In the Place the Wild Horses Sleep - This is a very interesting choice for the contest, because unlike the other entries, this is... a children's book. And it is very much like many children's books; it is very simple in its ways, and also about how you should appreciate what you have, and how what you want is not necessarily the same as what you think you want.

It works extremely well precisely because it is a children's book, and it is about a child being taken to the land of Equestria - or more likely, a child dreaming of going to Equestria, as such books often are wont to do - and she realizes that what she wanted was not quite what she was asking for, and once she got what she was asking for, she realized that there was more to it than that.

It was very simple, and it worked very well, though I'm not sure that the use of colors was actually all that effective; I think this would have been more effective as an illustrated children's story, but even still, it was what it was.

Unfortunately, while I can appreciate it for what it is, I'm not an enormous fan of children's stories, and so while it may be good for what it is (and make extremely good use of the prompt of a human in Equestria) it isn't the sort of thing I personally can get much enjoyment out of; I am too old for such things, and I suppose my standard for children's books is The Lorax.

Interesting idea, poor execution

Johnny Never Knew What Hit Him - Written by the illustrious Horse Voice, I thought this actually was a pretty clever way to use the ideas (and he used all of them save the second person perspective) in the story. Unfortunately, I felt like the story had a fatal flaw, and that was pacing; I never had the chance to come to care about the human-come-alicorn OC in the story, and as such, I didn't care what happened to him at all because the whole thing went by far too fast. It was a reasonably good idea, but the execution failed.

Outlier - I can't really recommend this one at all. It is very self-indulgent, brony comes to Equestria, sits around, talks to Lyra for a bit, then goes home/it was all a dream. Short and quick read, but not really good because it doesn't really do anything of value.

In Between - This is an alicorn OC story, where there was a third sister - Umbra - and the other two were banished to the sun and moon respectively. Honestly, it didn't do anything really interesting with her - I didn't get any good feel for them - and on the whole, there wasn't much to recommend the story.

The Young Filly and the Sea - The story of Twilight meeting a colt on the beach as a filly, who later turns out to be a prince later on so they can get married when they're adults.

The first chapter was alright, but the second and third were quite meh; honestly, I felt like the first chapter would have worked as the start of a longer work, but the second chapter just has them meet again as adults and get in a relationship in a few hundred words.

Really, the story could have worked had it been longer, but as it was, it just didn't.

3396378

Omega-7

Your thoughts, please?

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Omega 7 (by request of the author) - I felt like this Human In Equestria story was all over the place. Humans come to Equestria to save them from an alien invasion as part of some greater war. It starts out with:

All of these accounts were taken from helmets and interviews.

But none of the story was written in the form of helmets or interviews; it was just written in normal prose by the sound of it. I was interested by the idea of them having a bunch of transcripts of helmet coms/video and interviews, but the story was written in normal prose. Really, this doesn't make sense as the start if you aren't going to actually follow up on it; you didn't, so it shouldn't have been there.

It jumped around a lot at the start and felt kind of confusing, and it could definitely use another pass in terms of editing - there were several words which were either missing or were simply the wrong word here and there which were clearly typos. It eventually clears itself up, and the flow starts to improve, just in time for it to end without really ending, like it is the start of a story rather than a whole story. The soldiers also never really got much personality beyond "generic soldier" in my mind; it wasn't that they weren't okay in their role, it was that they just kind of were there and never really developed beyond that point.

3396378 Since you're taking requests, and since I'm kind of stuck in the middle all the ways you can sort the story folder so I'm not being noticed, could you look at Our Little Accident please?

3396378
And the Prairie Grass Blew - Enjoyed it far more than I should, being a rival entry and all. It features a younger Granny Smith in a younger Ponyville, finding love in a adventurer fresh from the Badlands. For the author's first story, it has good grammar and excellent vocabulary, far better than my first story and rivaling my latest ones.

All in all, a worthy contender, and a great story out of the context of the contest, which I guess was the whole point of the contest.

(I hope they don't get to judging right away, my story needs a lot of work on the sixth chapter.)

3396454 Eh, I can give my opinion of this one.

"Our Little Accident" is a story about a couple of scientist whose particle experiment end up having an unexpected side-effect on their unborn son. The story plays with the idea of the perfect black and red alicorn, as Good Fortune really seems to be that good of a child. He's nice, responsible and masters things quickly. He doesn't really step outside of that mold, except for the ending which I won't spoil, but does give him a touch more character. All in all, I would say that "Our Little Accident" is a cute little slice-of-life, worth a read.

3396378 Since I am a little bored at the moment, let's do this again.

Rarity dates Prince Nightshade : This one obviously answers the 'Romance with a main character' prompt.

For me, this is a mixed bag. While I always enjoy reading Rarity, in first person pov no less, many aspects of it were a little weird. She has some excessively fashionable or vain concerns from times to times, but I didn't really feel the chemistry with the changeling prince. I had trouble seeing what they saw in one another. I would say that this is in part due to the rushed nature of the story. While it starts at a reasonable pace, it quickly gets a lot faster, and the resolution was a little... weird to me.

There were a few grammatical or formatting issues as well that tainted my enjoyment.

Still, the concept has potential and I would like to see this story once polished a bit more.

For Whom We Are Hungry

This is the best second person fic I've ever read. Not really saying a lot, but it's true. This is basically perfect. Everything is right.

It gives an amazingly well done point of view from a creature that has fundamentally different senses than we do. Everything in it is perfectly believable, every action makes complete sense given the personality of the changeling and why it has that personality.

This is essentially my concession.

Still liked Succession more, though. That's probably because it's not second person. ven the best second person story I've ever read still makes me grind my teeth.

3396431

Thanks for the review. I was never good at characterization in single chapter stories.

When the story count was still around 25 or so, I tried reading all of them. Now that there are over SIXTY entries, I gave up on that, at least for now

In any case, some of my favorites are below:

Remember Vigil had an OC with a more mythological take on the alicorn OC concept, although I think the entire point of the story was to show just how awesome Twilicorn is. Without spoiling anything, Twilight faces something that nobody else was able to face, and comes out more or less intact. It did the unthinkable: it made an alicorn OC believable and balanced within the universe, while still managing to tell a great story with some surprising characterization for both the OC and Twilight.

The King in the Mountain is what REALISTICALLY happens when your uber-powerful red-and-black alicorn OC exists within the show canon. It's a great character piece for Celestia as well.

Trial by Flower is cute and clever, and feels like it could easily fit within the bounds of the show's style and pacing. I was impressed by the OC and the subtle squeaky-clean romance that happens.

Two Roaming Souls.... There is NO way that this story is complete. I refuse to believe it. It's styled as the start to this long-form fantasy epic, with Spike in one of the coolest roles he has ever been in.

Ascension has one of the best-developed and most interesting OC's of the entries that I have read. Seriously, if you want only one of my recommendations to read, THIS WOULD BE THE ONE. ALL-CAPS SIGNIFIES AWESOME STORY

Tainted Reflection is one of the longer entries, but it is well worth the read. It's one of those strange "what-if" scenarios: what if a Pinkie Clone from the cloning pool gains sentience? It's another strong contender behind Ascension IMHO

Well, I think that's it for the recommendations. If I might indulge a tiny self-promotion for those who wish to subject themselves to it....

I wrote this entry: The Janitor Named Dustbowl

It had some problems, a couple of which I corrected in the Author's Notes disclaimer. Some of the other problems it has is with pacing and characterization. I don't write well under a deadline I usually require at least a month in order to really perfect something, and only for the first draft. I don't have high hopes for it personally; I'd be impressed if it made it to the Audience judging, but with the caliber of the other stories presented here I doubt that would happen.

This was a lot of fun! I wonder when the next contest would be... if there is even GOING to be a next contest?

Sincerely,

Mr. Album

Anyone want to comment on mine? I'd do a couple, but I only barely had time to write my entry—I haven't really been able to read much for a few weeks now.

3403543 Fading: The fic follows the prompt about a Human in Equestria, specifically one that Celestia befriended and must prepare herself to mourn.

In itself, the premise is one that has been touched before. Immortal characters attract them a lot. It does not pull over an incredible twist either, it is very straight forward. However, what it does, it manages well. There is a sense of denial in Celestia's actions, and she constantly stumbles upon that feeling in her interactions with others. Thus, when finally this turns into acceptance (or so I felt), the writing becomes more powerful.

It's simple, but it works. An entry that is in the spirit of this competition.

3396555 I can return the favor. Fingers follows the human in Equestria prompt. Unlike other HIE stories I'm familiar with Fingers doesn't focus on the comedic aspects of suddenly being transformed into a pony, and the protagonist doesn't embark on an adventure after being dropped into Ponyville. The focus is on how being turned into a pony can ruin your life, and this is examined realistically. Fingers is a sad mood piece. If you are like myself, and you aren't a fan of sad stories, you should still give this tale a try, and you should stick with it to the end. No, there aren't a lot of laughs here, not even after Pinkie Pie befriends the protagonist. In one respect that's refreshing; instead of being all about Pinkie being funny, the concentration is on Pinkie being nice. This leads to the payoff and the end, and we do get a heartwarming ending; just when the reader starts to believe that it's going to be a bummer all the way through Pinkie finds a solution. Fingers is well worth your time.

Outlier is a brony in Equestria story that takes place in an AU where bronies periodically end up in Equestria and ponies routinely send them home. World building is artfully done by slow reveal; you don't even notice it happening, it's just part of the dialogue. You end up feeling you know all you need to know about how this AU works.
There isn't any action. The never-to-be-named protagonist doesn't want to star in his own episode of FIM, he just wants to enjoy the moment. And that's just fine. It's worth a read just for the banter between our protagonist and the pony he meets. Trading fanish references with a pony, how cool is that?!
Outlier is delightful.

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As far as I'm concerned, the contest, as far as I've read, is between Succession and For Whom We Are Hungry.

I liked For Whom We Are Hungry; it earned an upvote from me, and it did a good turn on the second person perspective by putting us in the mind of someone who was once part of the hivemind, and now is alone. It was a solid attempt at using the second person perspective, and unlike almost all such stories, the fact that it was second person did not distract despite the lack of agency.

The problem as far as I'm concerned with the story is that while it worked, it would have worked better in the first person perspective (possibly with we, even, maybe even correcting himself to I at times because, well, there is no we anymore), so while it was a very good shot at a second person perspective and the perspective did not detract, I feel like it would have been superior in the first person; the second person perspective was not necessary for the story.

3412824 Second person is never essential to a story. It's a bad perspective. Still, proof you can make it work, even if it's still not going to work as well as third or first person.

3413062
I think that first person perspective video games certainly can work well as "you", and I think "you" when you're dealing with roleplaying games also works pretty well, but it requires that the player actively be involved in the role in some way.

I think Bioshock is an example of a game where the story had to be told in the second person perspective because it was essential to the central twist of the game: the fact that you had been under mind control the whole time, and so all the decisions you had made were not your own. I think it might have been a bit better if the ending had opened up a bit more and given you more agency to reflect the twist, but it was a very good idea nonetheless, even if the game itself wasn't great.

I think you can use the second person perspective if you're playing with stuff like that. Or if you have someone telling a story to someone else, in a similar manner to the All-Concealing I.

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The King In the Mountain - My thoughts on this story are mixed; it was not a terrible story by any means, but it failed to really grip me or deliver any real sense of tension. The problem was that ultimately exactly that; the conflict in the story was ultimately Celestia's internal conflict, but it didn't get proper lead-up, and it would have been much more effective, as I noted in the comments of the story, had the Nightmare been built up more beforehand, either as a shadowy companion, or as a whispering voice that was apparently much stronger than it seemed at first. As it was, though, its introduction was quite sudden and didn't really work to create the necessary tension.

3413062
To Love the Sun - Told from the second-person perspective of a human-come-alicorn who fell in love with Celestia upon his arrival in Equestria, this is without a doubt the best five prompt entry in the contest, and I say that having read no other such story, simply because I doubt any of them are going to be this good. The summary pretty much summarizes the story, and yet the story as a whole still delivers and even manages to surprise the reader. It also is quite short, weighing in at only 2,600 words, and yet it doesn't feel rushed at all despite how much happens in it; we're being told a story, and the story is as long as it needs to be, and hits on all the points it has to, and it manages to use all the prompts in a very reasonable (if dark) manner.

The largest issue with this story is that Celestia is a bit out of character, here, though not for the reasons that she appears to be off at first glance. Even still, that is more of a quibble than an issue; it is certainly the case, but I felt like the story still worked.

I do have to admit that I was thinking for a bit in the middle of the story that the protagonist was going to turn out to be Discord, blind because he was a statue, broken and mad from the transformation, but that wasn't where it went. The ending was still quite satisfying.

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Our Little Accident - This is an OC alicorn story, about an alicorn being born to a couple and starting to grow up into a colt. There were some typos in here (scare instead of scar, for instance) but I think the real "flaw" with this story is just that it is very much a fluff piece. Fluff pieces can be alright, but this one didn't really do anything for me at all. The alicorn OC didn't feel terribly interesting or distinctive to me, and the story as a whole didn't really go anywhere, as fluff pieces tend to be wont to do. It feels rather glurgy to me, though I do agree with 3396555 that the ending was solid.

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A fluff piece:

I like that phrase, and it's a pretty good description of my "Trial by Flower" story, too. Actually, it's a pretty good description of most of my stories: I may have to adopt it!

Mike

3412824

I'm going to do a blog post about this in a few days, once I get a chance to organize my thoughts. Bear with me if this seems confused:

At first blush, first-person and second-person seem to be almost identical, except that instead of "I," it uses "You." In fact, if you go through most second-person stories, you could do a find/replace for You/I and the story would pretty much instantly become first-person. The only difference is which pronoun they use.

First-person and second-person are both unitary perspectives, existing entirely within one character's skull. The narrative is described from the perspective of the main character; second-person's conceit is that the action is happening to 'you,' which of course makes agency and suspension of disbelief problematic.

But the more I think about it, and the more I wrote it, the more I realized that there are significant differences between first- and second-person, differences that go beyond the pronoun they use. Like I said, I'm still organizing this in my head, but I think the most significant, real difference is this:

- In first-person, the narrator is the subject, the "I," and is almost always the main character as well. This lets you play tricks with the "unreliable narrator," which is pretty cool, but you're still locked into that combination: the narrator IS the character.

- In second-person, the narrator does NOT have to be the subject. There can be a separate, distinct narrator who is telling "you," the subject and character, what is happening. The narrator can have his own voice, he can disagree with "you," he can correct you or berate you or whatever the author wants. Second-person adds a degree of freedom here in that it splits the narrator from the subject. In theory you could have all the different permutations of second-person that you have for third person -- omniscient, limited, etc. Imagine a second-person story in which the narrator doesn't know what's happening in "your" head?

For the most part, For Whom We Are Hungry is written as though the narrator and subject ("you") are the same person, but there were a few times that's not the case. Here's one instance that I happen to think is one of the best lines in the story:

... Ponies don't think about their sisters lying in the autumn leaves, their wings broken, their skulls crushed.

Ponies don't think about that. You don't think about that. You stop thinking about that. Stop it. Stop.

Stop. You stop in front of a young mare's stall...

[Emphasis added]

Those bolded words? That's the narrator instructing you, the character. It's one of the few obvious places in the story where the narrator is clearly distinguishable from the character himself, beyond the use of "you" instead of "I."

There are a few other spots, notably toward the denouement at the end, that are similar, but that's the most blatant. That is the voice of the narrator.

Does any of this make any sense? I hope so -- I've been puzzling over it for days.

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Getting into the realm of experimental writing, I can even see a story written in a dual first/second-person perspective. That is, the narrative follows a character/narrator in the first person, "I." Nothing strange here. But while this narrator is narrating his own adventures, he also refers to "you," also a character, describing what you are doing.

I think I need to go lie down.

3414021 Good idea. Let's roll.

3414009

- In second-person, the narrator does NOT have to be the subject. There can be a separate, distinct narrator who is telling "you," the subject and character, what is happening. The narrator can have his own voice, he can disagree with "you," he can correct you or berate you or whatever the author wants. Second-person adds a degree of freedom here in that it splits the narrator from the subject. In theory you could have all the different permutations of second-person that you have for third person -- omniscient, limited, etc. Imagine a second-person story in which the narrator doesn't know what's happening in "your" head?

I dunno if you've ever played the Stanely Parable, but that game plays around with that idea, though in a rather different way.

In the game, you are Stanley. The Narrator tells you what Stanley is going to do, but it is possible to go against the Narrator and do other things. The Narrator is a character, and he has his own agenda; he wants to tell a story. He gets upset with you, angry, annoyed, frustrated, worried, and even sad depending on your actions, and when you go too far off the rails he stops dictating what Stanley is doing in the third person and starts referring to "you", and you get the impression he isn't talking to Stanley at all anymore.

One of the most bizzare endings is where he realizes that you aren't Stanley at all, but actually someone else entirely, a real person who is outside of his control and who can make different choices, and starts talking to you and asking you to do things more like Stanley does as the narrative literally breaks down around you, the world becoming warped and twisted. Eventually he kicks you out of the game, and starts shouting at Stanley who, now without anyone around to control him, obviously doesn't do anything at all.

Ponies don't think about that. You don't think about that. You stop thinking about that. Stop it. Stop.

Stop. You stop in front of a young mare's stall...

I assumed the stop was you telling yourself to stop thinking about it; I know a lot of people do that sort of thing in their own heads, and even I tell myself to "stop it" sometimes when I am doing something dumb or time wasting and need to refocus. I didn't realize it was supposed to be a second, separate voice.

I had been assuming that the "you" thing was because he was used to being part of a hive-mind, so he was always "you" and never "I" because that's how the hivemind thinks of any individual; they are not I, they are you, one part of a hivemind. Why would you ever think about yourself in the first person? That would likely be discouraged for any but the queen. You're a part of the whole, there is no I in hivemind... okay, actually there is but shh.

3414009
3414657 To add a bit to the discussion, To Love the Sun plays well with the second person pov. Or, rather, that's what it felt to me when I was reading. Maybe it's just a trick, but when the narrator berates "you", says "you idiot", I really just felt like I was a mirror for the narration instead of the character and that, in the end, I was reading from a first person pov. Dunno if that makes sense, but I thought it was a clever trick to make 2nd person work.

3414696
That's precisely what the story was, which was why it worked; the entire story was the narrator berating himself.

Of course, whether or not YOU are still meant to be the narrator is in the eye of the beholder.

Is it bad that the "Stop it" line reminded me of

?

Can anyone review my story, Those Forgotten? It's not the best, and I certainly don't expect to win against all the amazing writers here, but I would love it if I could get some advice on this story.

It is a sad/dark, but I tried to create a story where those aspects had a purpose and a reason instead of just being there to make the reader feel something. They are still supposed to have an impact, but I didn't want it to be like a lot of fics where it just feels like the emotion and struggles of the character were forced upon the reader.

If anyone has the time, could you tell me how you think I did? I'm always looking for ways to improve, and this has been a great experience anyways.

3414009

Imagine a second-person story in which the narrator doesn't know what's happening in "your" head?

For some reason, rather than the obvious choice of The Stanley Parable (which Titanium Dragon already mentioned), this made me think of the cult classic I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. I'm just imagining a story told by a near-omniscient narrator who is observing the character and commenting on their actions. Between IHNMAIMS and Portal, I'm picturing something where the narrator hates the protagonist, and is addressing them to mock them.

3414657

I assumed the stop was you telling yourself to stop thinking about it; I know a lot of people do that sort of thing in their own heads,

I got that impression as well.

3414103

So I finally read "To Love the Sun." Great story, and despite your concession, I'll admit that it has me worried (along with a few other stories in this contest).

Words like 'serried' or 'gaoler' -- they lend an elegance to your writing that I feel eludes me sometimes. It was short, yes, but that's part of its charm -- any longer and I think the constant force of the narrator, the repetitive "You fool," might have gotten to be too much.

I'll ask you the same question about second-person, though, that I brought up with my story: who is the narrator? Is your narrator 'you,' the character, talking to himself in his dreams? Or is there someone else talking to him in there?

3413988 I'm with you. As an unashamed writer of cutefics, fluff piece isn't the insult to me it might be to others. I like it.

I'm not sure about "glurgy" however. That's an onomatopoeia for the sound the bottle makes as you pour out sticky syrup.

There are too many of them. D:

3421591
It's your fault, you know. You just had to be a cool guy who came up with a cool prompt.

Tsk, tsk—for shame.

3421591
Hey

Hey you

You wanna know something?

I fucking added up the word totals today.

Four hundred and three thousand words.

That's like, six goddamn novels.

This is all your fault.

3421591 Stay on target

Might you be able to do a request? Fairy Tale Garden? I certainly don't have the brilliance of plenty of the other participants, nor do I expect to win (it's nothing too big or anything), but I have received no real criticism or any kind of review, which is partly why I wrote it. I'd really appreciate some thoughts on it.

3423084

Looks like I’m going to be your self-designated reviewer, MissyAngel. Buckle up; it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

many ponies in Equestria - as in, none of them know.

Dash/hyphen confusion is a continuous error. A hyphen cannot do what a dash can, and a dash cannot do what a hyphen can.

It’s actually kind of funny; such strange ponies calling you odd.

Green tea; something you never even tried until waking up in Equestria.

Semicolon misuse. A complete sentence must be on either side of the semicolon in this instance.

Off in the distance, footsteps could be heard not too far away

This sentence has a couple of things wrong with it. First, “could” is past tense, and you are writing present, so it would be “can.” Second, this sentence contradicts itself: “off in the distance” does not equal, and is in fact near-opposite of “not too far away.”‘ I have no idea what you are trying to say here.

It was bound to happen

Again with the tense slip. I’m not going to mention any more of these—just be aware you have them.

“Hi, uh… ya know, I don’t think you ever told me your name.”

“That’s not important. What’s up?”

That’s a huge immersion-breaker, for me. You have been living in a town for long enough to grow a garden in front of your house, and the most inquisitive pony (Pinkie notwithstanding) doesn’t know your name? I realize that’s just a way to try to get around second person, but it felt very poor, to me.

In fact, you’re holding in the fact that you’d love to go on and on about Earth.

“Earth” should not be capitalized in this context. And out of all the words in the English language, did you have to use the same word twice in one sentence?

“Actually no. I’ll ask those another day.” You smirk in amusement. “I have… two big questions. It could take a while.”

. . . get accepted here in Ponyville?” You nod to her to continue. “But it’s been three weeks.

Right here, Twilight is actually the one talking, but you’d never know just to look at the sentence like I have it. If you have dialogue on either side of an action, then make sure the action is being performed by the speaker. Otherwise, as you can see, it really looks like “you” are saying the words, which is very confusing. Note, that’s twice: I won’t mention it again.

you become nervous as her eyes bore right into yours.

You’ve got some emotional exposition here. I’d like to experience what makes me nervous instead of just reading about it. What makes “you” appear nervous? Do “your” palms sweat? Do “you” decide to tap your leg? Your foot? What do “you” do that makes “you” nervous?

Unable to hold it back, you chuckle. Though it sounds a teeny bit forced - perhaps because it kind of was (maybe).

This is so convoluted that I don’t know where to begin. I don’t even know.

she’s genuinely surprised by your response.

More emotional exposition. How can “you” tell she is surprised? Also, I won’t mention this error again—just know you have it.

a heavy breath escapes under your breath.

This doesn’t really work. . . . Under your breath is silent, but heavy implies force or weight. So you forcefully sighed quietly? Perhaps “long” or “deep and slow” would have been better here. Also, repeated “breath.”

Usually strange new creatures take a while to . . . get accepted

This is a common occurrence? Since when? Perhaps it should have been a hypothesis of hers.

they’re getting worried - "

“I don’t have a way back home,” you cut her off, and rudely, at that.

Very, very redundant here. “You cut her off” is simply restating what the hyphen (should be a dash) is indicating. And is there ever really a polite way to cut someone off? Personally, I can’t think of one; therefore, “rudely” is also redundant.

dip a forefinger against the tea

“Into the tea” perhaps? “Dip . . . against” doesn’t really make much sense.

You push away any harshness back down your throat and dip a forefinger against the tea, watching the liquid ripple.

You have quite a few of these, but this one is very easy to see, so it’ll probably be the only one I point out. It’s called a misplaced modifier, and it means that the underlined group of words is too far away from the word—in this case “you”—it is modifying. Generally, modifiers modify the closest noun or pronoun.

who smiles super wide

Very poor use of “super.” I would find a much better word to replace it.

“The guards gave me real mean looks, though.”

“You didn’t bow down to them, so they probably didn’t like that.”

From the context, I can tell you meant Celestia and Luna, but what this is telling me is that “you” didn’t bow to the guards.

you figure out,

you joke

Twilight answers.

You’ve got some saidism abuse going. Basically, that means that you are using complicated words when “said” would be just fine. And the funny thing about “said” is that no one actually reads it, so it doesn’t slow down your story.

“Little too excited there, princess.”

When in direct address, “princess” should be capitalized.

Then your eyes flash,

This is what you call a viewpoint slip. If I’m “you,” how can I see this? I can’t, because I’m not looking in a mirror. You drifted a bit into third person, so you could add this.

However Twilight’s reacts

I don’t get what’s happening here.

One day I had to burrow eighty bucks

I chuckled, which completely ruined the sad mood you are trying to portray.
burrow ⇒ to dig; a hole or tunnel
borrow ⇒ to receive money with the intention of returning it.

Notable mention, the first words of some paragraphs have more or less spaces before them than others. You need to clear that up after the competition.

The story has a somewhat poor hook; as in, you have something dangerously close to a Weather Report Opening. Everyone opens their story with “it was a sunny day in Ponyville,” and your story isn’t much different.

You also have some emotional exposition (I think I listed it somewhere) that could be done away with. Things like “you enjoy having accomplished something so well” could easily be done with some dialogue, or if that’s not your thing, show “your” pride by having “you” lovingly take care of the garden. Find a weed, for example, then carefully extract it while being sure not to damage any of the surrounding flowers. It really puts a damper on things when I read about how someone is feeling, as opposed to experiencing it.

Now, the character building. To be honest, “you” felt fairly flat to me. She didn’t have enough substance for me to really get into her character. I can list everything about her right here.
*Likes to garden
*Lets her friends down
*Kinda hard on herself (debatable. I would have liked to see some more of that shown in her gardening.)
That’s all I really know, so I didn’t really care about her problems. You didn’t give her enough for me to connect with, and that’s a really big problem when it comes to writing a sad story. If your readers don’t care about the person they should, then the story falls flat, and that’s the real reason why I didn’t give your story a good score: it didn’t evoke any response from me.

Final point, why trust? Trust seems like a very poor choice for the seventh element, seeing as it’s pretty much just loyalty or honesty, depending on how you look at it, and the way you portrayed it in the story just made it seem like loyalty 1.5.

Overall, a somewhat mediocre story fraught with poor mechanics.

. . . That was just a bit longer than I intended, but I can't very well give a negative review without evidence, I suppose.

Ah well. Hope you enjoy your review, and I'll be happy to answer any questions.

3423502 Thank you! I've been needing something to work on for this!

Considering I could find no editor in time for the deadline (just someone to look it over, but he didn't really point anything out much), I'm not surprised by the numerous mistakes. I'll be sure to fix any and all I can when I get the chance. I didn't even realize there were so many, so thank you

And again, with the deadline, I was kinda pressured into finishing the story and couldn't quite get into the emotional depth as I wanted (I pretty much procrastinated on this story, sadly, so it clearly shows!). With a little rewrite, I'll try to add much more substance into the narrative to make it flow better.

As for trust, I find it far different than loyalty. To me, it's a significant part in friendship, and while it does have similarities to loyalty, I don't think it's the same. Trust is having faith in someone to rely on. Loyalty is having devotion and holding an alliance with someone with great strength. Trust is something you must earn, while loyalty is something you give to a friend. I'd explain it more, but I just can't put it into words, pathetically enough. Either way, I have issues with trust in old friendships, and loyalty is not how I would describe the problem at all. That's how I know they're not the same.

3423904 I feel your pain. I had didn't have an editor, but I had three sets of eyes, myself included, proof the copy and it's still absolutely ratty. The grammarcites sneak in during the night and add typos, I'm sure of it. And editing after submission to a contest is wrong (and a disqualification most often).

3424068 Heh, yeah. It's like, you think you're reading through it really well, but then someone points out plenty of them the next day, and you just think, "Oh, shit."

And is it? Boy, if so, I'll keep it as it is for now. Thanks! Should be obvious, I guess, but the temptation to fix it is strong sometimes, that's all. I'll hold back for now, of course.

3417276 It's funny, I have been writing live action games since 1989, and all of the character sheets are written in second person. Yet I find anything that isn't a gaming character sheet nearly unreadable in second person. I don't know why the pronouns make so much difference, but they do.

And editing after submission to a contest is wrong (and a disqualification most often).

Where did you get that from? It's not in the rules. If you have a grammatical error in your fic that you know about, then fix it.

3424717 3424068 Yeah, I was editing my fic for days after I submitted it. After the deadline even. I figure it's only a problem if you make substantial changes to the whole fic. Fixing errors and cleaning up the grammar is just polite.

3424717
3424788 Point taken, it is not in the rules of this contest (it has been in other contests, but it's not in the rules here). But I feel submission is the point where you agree to let your story be judged as is, but that's just me. I actually like archonix's point that cleaning up your copy is a polite thing to do for the judges. But revisions after submission make me uncomfortable.

The gist of most of this is that you need to be prepared for the story to be judged as it is when you submit it. If you do anything to your story after that, then you do it with the understanding that the judges may not see those edits and that your score could reflect that. In essence, if you submit your story with a bunch of errors, and the judging mentions a lot of errors, then you don't have the grounds to dispute the rating just because you fixed those errors post-submission.

Although on the whole yeah, substantial changes wholesale are much more heavily discouraged than minor fixes.

I have reviewed all the stories.

Goddamn.

There's about a two-in-three chance that I didn't like your story. If that's the case, I'm sorry, it just means you didn't make a contest entry that conforms to my personal standards. I'm only one guy. Unless you set out to specifically impress me (and why the hell would you?), you've done nothing wrong. I noticed a lot of people for whom this contest entry was their first submission to the site, and to them I say, welcome aboard, contests are a rough place to start out in. First-timers will have a lot of problems in their writing, that's just fine, everyone starts somewhere. So keep tabs on any feedback you get and keep writing, and you'll do just fine from here on out. :)

For the record, and for my own personal remembrance, here is my top ten:

1) In the Place the Wild Horses Sleep
2) Home
3) To Love the Sun
4) All Skin and Bones
5) For Whom We Are Hungry
6) Two Roaming Souls
7) Far from the Tree
8) A Brush With Beauty
9) Succession
10) Time & Disregard