<Review deleted> Reason: Wrong story reviewed.

Title: Principal's Principles
Author: Kuairu
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject
Score: 5

I wanted to pass this, but I couldn't. It wasn't because of any one reason, but a few of them. Chief among them is that you spent 2/3 of the story being fluffy and adorable, but then suddenly slam hard into the sad territory. It feels manipulative to spend all that time illustrating how happy and fun things are, only to then yank on the choke chain at nearly the last minute. There was insufficient buildup to make the point work, so it ended up feeling forced. You had to push the sad harder. Maybe a few more hundred words plus more foreshadowing would have sold it quite nicely. Secondly, this story suffered for being rated E. While thematically quite mature in overtones, the E rating prevented it from really being brought to its proper potential. Loneliness, regret, and infidelity are some very heavy themes which you just barely scratched at. They're wonderful territory for stories, if they are explored sufficiently. I do appreciate the character study of Principal Celestia, and I think this will go in my headcanon, at least the lonely, regretful side of her. You have a talent for character studies and should definitely do more of them.

Title: Shuttlepod Down by Sparky Brony
Amount Read: All
Verdict: Reject (3.5/10)
Reason:

The main reasoning behind this story’s rejection is very simple: it’s very clunky. To start, there are some grammatical errors littered throughout, particularly when it comes to tagging dialogue. The capitalization is wrong, with one example being:

“Poor Opal.” She says softly

When it should be:

“Poor Opal,” she says softly

It gets better in the 2nd chapter, but that’s mostly because the author switches to tagging dialogue before it happens. The issue still is there every now and then, even though that construction isn’t seen as often.

Secondly, the prose itself is very mechanical. A lot of “She did this. She did this. She did that.” in the story, making it read more like an instruction manual on how to picture the scene than a scene.

The story itself is okay (I didn’t really think it stood out in any way, bad or good), so not wowing me with the plot and an almost robotic execution leads me to reject this fic.

Title: Bane
Author: Scarheart
Read: 100%
Decision: Accept
Score: 9

Wooooooow. Amazing! A meditative, pyschological, dark, slightly romantic post apocalyptic story with complex, adult themes that doesn't turn into edgy Fallout crankery? Sign me right up! The characters are amazing. You work with some themes I've touched and wondered about, but never quite tried to work on full stop. Very well done on the premise as well as the inner monologue of your protagonist. He is a truly tortured, penitent soul. And you also did amazingly on Celestia, showing the complex interplay between her and someone whose company she needs but who has deeply hurt her and all she cares about. I like how you made the protagonist behave realistically for someone who has been wandering out of his mind, alone, forever, but unable to die. He's crazy, fearful, suspicious, and tremendously sad and lovely. I enjoyed the dialogue with Celestia very much, especially how it was made clear that no normal being would be behaving like her in her place. The only point I dock is for the story having some problems with consistency of tenses. Welcome to the archive!

Title: Spectrum of Lightning by Seriff Pilcrow
Amount Read: All
Verdict: Reject (5/10)
Reason:

The first thing I have to point out in this story is the level of technology. I get it, the show hasn’t been very consistent, giving us a nation that builds hydroelectric dams but defends its borders with spears. But a lot of the technology presented just seems out of place with the rest of the universe. I’ll give the author airships, that seems plausible. But rifles? The ponies guarding Princess Celestia are basically waving sharp metal pokers at enemies, if any firearms do exist they’re so bad that the Royal Guard doesn’t think them necessary to protect the ruler of their country. There’s a great deal of attention given to televisions (Twilight Velvet mentions she has to pay a cable bill, Twilight Sparkle watches TV at her parents’, and Twilight Velvet is fiddling not with an old tube television way in the past, but an LCD one), something that really does not have any precedent in the show.

One big issue I had was with the concept itself. Yes, it’s true that there used to be a pretty big headcanon that Twilight Velvet wrote the Daring Do novels...but that was before we found out that it was Daring Do herself writing them. To me, the timing of everything seems off. Twilight Velvet was traveling with Daring Do back before she was even married to Night Light (or Nachtlicht, which is what she calls him for some inexplicable reason), and from the way they speak, they’ve known each other for quite a while. In the show, Daring Do isn’t really portrayed as that old, so being old enough to have adventured with a mare that’s now a grandmother would put her as much older than she seems. Even if she were really just that young, at least a few decades of exploration in remote jungles and ruins while simultaneously fighting off villains seemingly everywhere she goes would take a toll on her body and lead her to be not that effective in the modern day.

The final problem I had with this story was just that it seemed like the author was adding a lot of information in an attempt to make it interesting, but it just comes off as forced. Take Velvet calling Night Light by what his name would be in German. Does it add anything to the story? Not really. Does it have any background to it? No, because not only has any German-speaking land been mentioned, but Velvet herself admits linguistics is not her thing. Her entire personality as a whole also just seems...off to me. Night Light too, from what little time he’s had in the story. They both seem very laid-back and seem to delight in playfully antagonizing both Twilight and each other. For two ponies like that, it just is odd that neither of their foals would really turn out anything like them.

I will say, though, that the story is written pretty well. The action scenes are kept to a good length and actually done well, and as someone who has tried (emphasis on tried) to write action scenes in a story, they can be hard to do. They can get a tad repetitive, but that’s still very good, as anyone who has tried to write those types of scenes knows. The exposition itself also reads quite nicely, even though it’s dialogue heavy (just a statement, I don’t think being dialogue-heavy is bad) and doesn’t get shown much.

All in all, some good writing that gets mired down by a plot I thought was a little unbelievable and lots of little things that seem to try and keep it relevant and interesting. For those reasons, I am rejecting this.

Title: Sparks
Author: Harmony Pie
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject
Score: 6

I've seen your other works. This is good, but those were great. Your dialogue is on point, like always. Your grammar, as always, is flawless. Sparks is a cute, short story from one sister to another about overcoming insecurities and what really makes a person worthwhile. The moral was cute, wholesome, and delivered with a somewhat unique twist. I like that you purposefully drew parallels between Applejack and Apple Bloom, showing that they're both good but not necessarily physically attractive ponies. I enjoyed it for what it was, but after truly astronomical pieces like Dear Sister, Sister, I really cannot recommend it to the Cafe. I've seen better works of yours, and those are the ones I would be truly happy to recommend and hold up.

6143439
I’m excited for you as well, but this thread is for reviews only

Title: Voices Lost
Author: DwarvishPony

Amount Read: 100% (Total words: 8008)

Rating:

Plot/Theme: 15/20
Technical/Structure: 7/10
Characters: 5/10
Subjective: 5/10
Total: 32/50

Verdict: 6.5/10 - Recommend Rejection

Overview:

Hate and love can match one another in terms of intensity. Some might even go so far as to say they are two sides of the same coin, exchangeable as one person’s indignity turns into adoration or vice versa.

This particular piece delivers this exchange in the form of Adagio Dazzle, who initially sets out a plan of revenge on one seemingly unsuspecting Sunset Shimmer.

Thus, the scene is set, and it is time for us to determine if this narrative’s execution is worth the much sought after prize of being ‘The Best of the Best’.

I am your host, Princess Amore Dudette, and together we will go over a number of points, both high and low, to make that determination.

Technical/Structure:

I’ll get right off by declaring that the foundations of the narrative were solid. I didn’t notice much in the way of technical issues aside from an occasional misuse of punctuation in the dialogue tags. It was, overall, quite easy and enjoyable to read.

From a mechanical standpoint, there was an influx in the use of the characters’ names, particularly for Adagio. A number of paragraphs began with it in quick succession.

This can become bland in all but the right circumstances; I didn’t quite see the factor that would make this design choice stand out as having merit to the story. It was, however, executed consistently, and thus I posit that this is no major contrivance for me.

Characters:

The dynamic between Adagio and Sunset served as the backbone of this piece. Their communication throughout was as interesting as it was unique, partly because of Adagio’s inability to speak and Sunset’s ability to read minds.

The piece opens up with Adagio’s unbridled indignation for Sunset Shimmer. There is an implicit diction in Adagio’s actions that convey this idea. A few of the following quotes highlight this positive aspect:

“I didn’t know you could play the violin.” Sunset said cautiously, taking another step forward. “You’re really good.” Adagio knew that already. “So… how have you been?”

“Adagio?” The siren was trembling, gritting her teeth in frustration for a moment before opening her mouth to speak. No words came though. “Adagio, just talk to me.”

From these highlights, it is quite evident that Adagio is more than simply annoyed by Sunset’s presence, and as snippets like these are sprinkled throughout the opening, we get a natural feel for Adagio’s issue with Sunset.

Character development from here on out isn’t quite as clear-cut. While their form of communication is unique, I believe there are certain pitfalls that come with it, which I don’t believe the narrative was entirely successful in avoiding.

What I mean convey is that the romance between the two don’t come off as entirely natural. We don’t get to see some of the buildup of their emotions with one another for a frame of reference toward their motivations.

For example, it escaped me why Sunset was sufficiently motivated to help Adagio. As this is entirely taken from Adagio’s perspective, its depiction seemed to be entirely hinged on their brief conversations and on Adagio’s inner thoughts and feelings.

It felt as though Sunset’s ability to read minds, which is acquired with the help of her red pendant, delved deeper than either Adagio or the audience could perceive in order to attribute reason into her motivations. As a result, this came off as somewhat lackluster in execution.

Plot/Theme:

This story follows a cut-and-dry path toward Adagio’s redemption and inclusion among Sunset’s circle of friends. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as we see the show, time and again, use this concept as a means of depicting how two individuals can overcome their differences.

What is presented in the narrative was interesting enough to keep the reader engaged. It deviates from the known formula only so far as to minimize time spent enacting Adagio’s plans for the ruination of the Humane Six plus Sunset, thereby giving more facetime for her interactions with Sunset. This is something that I can appreciate, for the intentions were to show more of Adagio building trust for her new friend, who is choosing to spend time with her over the Humane Six.

That being said, there were at times where I wondered if Adagio really had a clear, underlying structure to her plans. Clearly, she had need to avoid consciously thinking of it under the presence of Sunset, but what about when she wasn’t? Furthermore, what can she really do in the face of a wielder of a magical trinket that allowed them to read all her thoughts?

I suppose, when you boil it down to its most basic components, the trinket seemingly forces her to somewhat follow along toward the only path open to her: redemption. The narrative is certainly written well enough that it does not feel forced, but it does have me thinking about how things could have played out if Sunset didn’t have that ability available to her, at least to that degree.

Still, the plot device provides a unique and fresh experience, overall, that makes this redemption story stand out from others.

Conclusion:

This is an interesting tale from start to finish, and definitely worth the read if you have the time for it, despite some of the issues I felt the story had. I think most of is holding me back from accepting this story is the lack of conveyance of Sunset’s motivations. What is the one thing deep within Adagio that makes her feel as though she should help her? It could quite possibly come in the form of playing out a fond memory or sensory detail that gives Sunset an attachment to her, or something else entirely.

Title: Gotham Knights: Birth of a Princess
Author: Kitsy-chan
Read: 100% (6 chapters)
Decision: Reject
Score: 5

Great idea, just not baked enough yet. I failed this story for two things, Kitsy. Firstly, there are far too many issues in the early chapters. Up until you got the guy who did ch6, who is really darn good, there were frequent comma splices, capitalization errors, and lack of commas for direct addresses, Kitsy. Second, this story is just starting. Beginnings aren't really your strong suit and you write very long stories. I advise getting this up to at least 60K, or perhaps 100K, and then resubmitting. Celestia's adventure has just begun and the real plot is only beginning; I'd like to see more before I call the whole thing based on what is essentially the prologue. It would not be fair to pass judgement on what I know is just the start of a far grander narrative. Your characterization, as always, fantastic. The prose is fun to read and also effective while being easy to understand. The story isn't bad, just average and in need of some refinement. Thanks for submitting.

Title: I miss you, Celestia
Author: Kuairu
Amount Read: All
Verdict: 6/10 Reject

This story was fantastic in the sense that it was paced brilliantly, it flowed well and it the style was very fun to read. I noticed somewhere at the beginning you had a brief passage where you stopped referring to Celestia as ‘you’. Took away the flow a bit there but carried on throughout the rest of the fic very consistently. Spelling, grammar and punctuation were also fantastic.

It was very sweet in how it was said and you genuinely felt emotion for Discord and his romance with Celestia. Until… we get to this whole universe you have going on. It was… interesting, but it’s incredibly difficult to understand. It was too short for such a radical change in scenery. We were talking about Twilight leaving and how they should have adopted her and then they are fleeing real world Russia? It was very hard to draw a picture of what you were either trying to reference, trying to explain or world you were trying to invent. It was beautifully emotional but I couldn’t be emotional whilst trying to figure out where you were going with the whole universe. I would suggest maybe trying to keep it in Equestria or make it a lot clearer what you are trying to say and what universe you are creating here. Hell, I don’t even know if they are supposed to be human or pony.

All in all, it was a fun fic to read and I think you have an amazing talent for creating well-paced, emotional imagery with what you write. But I would consider trying to work on adding more detail and explanation on where your setting and situation is. I know you were trying to convey more of an emotional overtone over an actual full-on universe, but with what you had said about where they are, it just made it confusing. I would be more than happy to accept this fantastic piece if you maybe tried to work on either expanding or changing where this story is set or how you explain it. I look forward to seeing this fic back in the next submission opening!

Title: Flames of the Rainbows
Author: ShadowFall
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject
Score: 5

Not bad, just not great. You made genuine effort and it shows. I, however, do have to fail it on three grounds. Firstly, grammar. You misuse capitalization extremely often. You only capitalize first words of sentences, locations, proper nouns, and names. Acronyms and abreviations are excluded. Secondly, author, you need commas for direct addresses. Secondly, the characterizations are all flat. Your characters could do with more depth as well as show their likes and personalities more clearly. They all behave like cardboard cutouts. Thirdly, as good as 98% of the tac and gun stuff was, there were a few things I absolutely cannot ignore.
* There is no FBI SWAT -- the FBI has the Hostage Rescue Team
* Spetsnaz is a huge umbrella term -- everyone has their own spetsnaz -- it just means special forces.
* GSG-9 are police and GIGN are gendarmes, not soldiers.
* DP-28/RD-46 uses 7.62x54R -- western 7.62's, like the minigun, are 7.62x51.
* No modern ammunition is going to smoke like crazy, no matter how much you fire it because it's called smokeless powder.
* The AR33 only exists in Goldeneye007 -- the gun on the Rainbow Six wiki is IRL called an HK33.
* Please specify which MP5 -- there are a lot of them and they differ significanly.
* Following the buttstroke to the face you had, Spike should need of medical attention, at least concussed with a broken jaw.
* There was no need for there to be a big battle in the castle following the takedown. Grab the goods and RUN.
* The big battles after the initial storming were far worse for realism than the storming and let the fic down.
* Team members should refer to each other by rank and observe proper protocol at all times while working.
* Callsigns aren't cool; they're embarassing and derogatory by nature, and seeking acool one will backfire.

Overall, nothing huge that made we want to go berserk on you. I've seen so much worse done in fics supposedly about elite operators. Good job -- the last time I saw a fic that got weapons and combat even just 90% right, it was written by an actual serviceman.

I enjoyed this story. While it doesn't get it, it has my personal seal of approval.

Title: Luna Needs Moneyz for dem Vidya Gaems
Author: TheMajorTechie

Amount Read: 100%

Rating:

Plot/Theme: 5/20
Technical/Structure: 7/10
Characters: 3/10
Subjective: 5/10
Total: 20/50

Verdict: 4/10 - Recommend Rejection

Where do I even begin?

The plot is as good of a place to start as any, I reckon. This story is the daring tale of Princess Luna acquiring video games on Steam. It's quite a simple tale woven together under the umbrella of surreal comedy. That is to say that the characters find themselves in the absurd situation where Luna simply must acquire the money necessary for the purchase of a steam game she highly covets.

The narrative takes on the design of debasing the characterization of our protagonists for the sole purpose of a quick punchline. Take the following passage, for example.

"I request from thou a tribute of thirty bits of dat sweet moneyz for the purpose of acquiring some vidya gaems."

This is dialogue Princess Luna says to Twilight after she visits her. She acts as some tax collector, and doesn't do a convincing job of it. Twilight vehemently opposes her request.

When she fails to acquire the money from Twilight, Luna heads back to the Canterlot Castle in defeat. Where she suddenly realized she could skip her nightly duties nigh indefinitely because she was new to the new customs. Seriously.

And then, it struck her. She suddenly remembered that since she had only recently returned, and because she was still new to modern politics, she was allowed to skip as many night court sessions as she wanted to.

It feels as though, with the passage above, it is trying to ground us in logic here where none is needed. We already know none of the characters are going to follow anywhere near within the parameters of their normal behaviors. Luna might as well skip her nightly duties, not because she's new, but simply because trying to apply logic diminishes the overall effect on the surreal comedy you're going for.

At long last, when Princess Luna finally receives her payment via spamming her sister, she rests easy knowing she purchased her game.

Conclusion:

I'm going to have to reject this story at this time. While it had some comedic moments in it, it didn't leave a worthwhile, lasting impression on the reader, and its characterization was sacrificed for punchlines.

Title: of Diamonds and Dogs
Author: I Thought I Was Toast

Amount Read: 100%

Rating:

Plot/Theme: 10/20
Technical/Structure: 5/10
Characters: 6/10
Subjective: 4/10
Total: 25/50

Verdict: 5/10 - Recommend Rejection

Overview:

This is a short comedic story about Rarity and Spike going into the caves for some gems. It bears quite a resemblance to the episode 'A Dog and Pony Show'. The main difference I can see in this story is that the Diamond Dogs are subservient, even more so than what was depicted in the show. This, perhaps, take part sometime after the episode's timeline.

In the following sections, I will highlight what I believe to be the merits and detriments to this piece.

Technical/Structure:

There are a few grammatical inaccuracies that I noticed in the narrative. Furthermore, the story's flow feels rather clunky with its description. Below, I have a few passages I wish to highlight:

I’d had to explain the whole situation to Spike after he’d caught sight of their wagging tails sticking out from a few conspicuous piles of dirt last week.

This sentence reads easier without the contraction.

As one, the assorted Diamond Dogs flopped over and exposed their bellies to me – wiggling on their backs in an attempt to earn my attention and affection.

This is an empty adjective. It doesn't really add any description to the scene, and further confounds me as to how they are assorted. The second half of the sentence is also superfluous information, as we are implicitly aware of a dog's motivations when they expose its belly.

“Thank you, Lady Rarity! We love you, Lady Rarity! You’re the best, Lady Rarity!” They howled the last part as if they were baying to the moon.

Since you put emphasis on the last part, announcing 'the last part' seems unnecessary. I would personally rewrite that entire sentence. Something like this would be fine:

They howled as if they were in the midst of a full moon.

Characters:

The characterization in this piece appeared natural to me. There were definitely a few moments where the interactions between the Diamond Dogs and Rarity reflected what was seen off of the show. The narrative especially brought out Rarity's flair for drama and even cast her in the light of being crazy as she sits on a throne of passed out Diamond Dogs. This adds a nice comedic touch to the overall scene.

Because of how short this story is, however, there isn't very much room for character development or moments where they really shined. By the time I had really connected with them, the narrative had already drawn to a close.

Plot/Theme:

Of all the things that this narrative could possibly benefit from, I posit that it would be an adjustment to its pacing at areas. Allowing the scenes to be drawn out will add meat to the story, allow the reader to connect more with the characters, and allow for the flow of the scene to be guided towards the punchlines at a natural pace.

One more thing to highlight for this piece is how similar it feels to the 'A Dog and Pony Show' episode. It doesn't really stand off on its on as-is--I believe it is missing that certain touch that would separate it and give it its own unique identity.

Conclusion:

This was a nice and short comedic story with a few punchlines that drew a quick chuckle from me. The issues with its clunky description, the lack of something to give it a bit of oomph, and its quick pacing are what leads me to reject this story at this time.

Title: A Monument to Her Glory
Author: I Thought I Was Toast

Amount Read: 100%

Rating:

Plot/Theme: 14/20
Technical/Structure: 5/10
Characters: 8/10
Subjective: 6/10
Total: 33/50

Verdict: 6.5/10 - Recommend Rejection

Overview:

How would things play out if Nightmare Moon had been victorious over the Elements of Harmony?

This work depicts Nightmare Moon being the ruler over Equestria, rather than Princess Celestia. Her unyielding assertions set her apart from her peaceful counterpart, and this narrative takes us through her filter to connect with her, her desires and motivations.

The following sections will highlight what I believe to be the merits and detriments that stand out to me in this story.

Technical/Structure:

The grammar and spelling of this narrative is mostly on par with what I'd except, with the exception of some awkward descriptions and slight inaccuracies that slightly disrupt sentence flow. Below are passage illustrating my meaning:

There was something satisfying to the acoustics of these mountains. Whenever I spoke, ponies would hear. I could appreciate the wisdom of that in my cursed sister’s choice, so… perhaps I might keep the place after all.

'Of that' reads odd to me here, and I believe that the sentence performs just fine without.

I alighted upon the ground, and began to stride strode through the grounds toward the guest wing. As I strode up the steps to At the top of the steps entrance, I made my presence known by thrusting the doors open so that their slams echoed through the hall.

There are a few tweaks here that I suggest to eliminate the redundancy count of the word 'stride' here. Additionally, these corrections give Nightmare Moon's action more strength. Instead of beginning to do it, she is just doing it. If you intend to do an edit of this piece, search for any areas where you can use a more active voice and strengthen the impact she has on her subjects as well as her environment.

Moving swiftly down the halls, I soon found myself at the rooms sized for griffons.

This appears to be superfluous detail, as we already know they're meeting with the griffons. Furthermore, what this is empty description. What does a room sized for griffons look like?

With all the speed of a glacier, I lowered my head to stare into his eyes.

I am having trouble picturing the speed of a moving glacier. I feel as though they are so slow that their movement is almost imperceptible to the eye in short time frame. How long does this take? This is what I consider to be awkward description. It's hard to picture whether or not her action fully comes to pass, and it also seems out of place with the rest of the narrative.

Characters:

The characterization within this piece takes on a rather interesting dynamic. Instead of Nightmare Moon powerless and defeated by the Elements of Harmony, she is the ruler over Equestria. Her power is renowned far and wide; even Twilight Sparkle's hope have all but vanished without a trace.

Development comes in the form of the discovery of Princess Celestia's state of mind. Though she seems to have been imprisoned by Nightmare Moon, she had already been found in that state when Nightmare Moon came into power.

The command Nightmare Moon holds over the scene is astounding. She dictates the pacing of the narrative to great effect, as this reflects her power over everypony else. It's as if she demands the reader's attention.

Plot/Theme:

This story has quite a lot going for it. The concept is that instead of Princess Celestia having control over Equestria, Nightmare Moon does. The extent of her hold over the domain extends to the land's far reaches.

There sadly isn't a lot in the way of tension here. Nightmare Moon is in control, and there is nothing presented to really stand in her way from total domination.

Perhaps it's fine as-is. There are a lot of ideas at play here that could really benefit from broadening this narrative. Giving Twilight direct presence within it, for example, would further assert Nightmare Moon's control. How would their final confrontation play out would depend on the type of narrative one intended. It could either be a physical bout between the two adversaries or a battle of wits if Twilight's confidence has waned.

The other idea at play here comes in the form of Princess Celestia's breakdown. I can't help but want to know the events leading up to this occurrence.

Conclusion:

This is a story with big ideas. It feels as though there is a whole world of possibilities that it is just short of following through with, from Princess Celestia's breakdown to Twilight Sparke's reluctant surrender, if only in the smallest of degrees. The clunky descriptions could use some refining, however, to make this piece stand out more. It is with these reasons that I reject the story at this time.

Title: Six Nights and a Day with Sunset
Author: Echo Wing
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject
Score: 6

It was a close choice. Ultimately, however three things came around to make me reject. The first was grammar. Nothing is too bad, but consistent and minor mistakes abound. It's nothing a good proofreading with someone who knows their commas can't fix, like subordinate clauses and direct addresses, author. The second thing is that the story is told with tons of little section breaks. This creates a narrative that feels fragmented, which is only amplified by how you have frequent flashbacks and flash forwards in the narrative. The narrative is interesting and engaging. This is the best look into Sunset Shimmer I have ever read. I like that you took gret care with all the characters to keep them true to canon but also expound upon what we got the EQG movies. Finally, you have some pacing problems due to more than a few of your chapters being enormous; more than 8K words is more than a handful. Anway, patch up the grammar and resubmit.

Title: Equestrian Alliance: Menagerie
Author: Jack Hammer
Read: 100% (15 chapters)
Decision: Reject
Score: 3

This story is a fail. The grammar has numerous problem with commas and more than a few with capitalization. It's all stuff I ran through in the previous review I did for you. The characters are still flat, but fortunately less jackassy. Instead, everyone is a 24/7 hyper perv, which would be okay, if it weren't the only thing all of them have going on. Protec looks as terribly managed as ever, with miminal courtesies for chain of command, containment protocols which lead to damage to property and loss of lives, and a general sense of irresponsibility. This is a turnaround from the previous fic's Protect, which was a kind of NGO superpower, but it at least did feel like it was mostly squared away. The story does have a very Doom 3 feel, with getting a tour of where all the carnage is going to take palce well in advance of things getting gruesome. The horror tag is misued, because any kind of fear or tension is immediately dissolved by the comforting rumble of ballistic countermeasures and the deadliness has so far been more stated than actually shown. Lastly, the story was simply boring, with nobody really wanting anything and no stakes actually mattering in a way which involved the reader emotionally.

Title: The Honing of Perfection
Author: Dafaddah
Read: 100%
Decision: Accept
Score: 8

Well done. What a delightfully dark fic about the origins of Queen Chrysalis and how a soft, young changeling becomes a hard, pragmatic ruler. The grammar is 98% perfect, with just a single capitalization error being the only issue I recall. As far as characters go, these are not ponies and you make a concerted effort to show that in both their psychology and how they speak. I appreciated the book ends to the story, with Chrysalis starting out deciding she'd be the queen of a perfect hive someday, and ending with her deciding to start her perfect hive right then. The look into changeling society was interesting, combining anthropomorphic traits with some real facts as to how certain social insects really operate. All in all, I recommend this fic.

Story Name: Numb Lava

Author: The Parasprite

Amount Read: 100% (4,093 words)

Rating: 10/10 (seconded by Kalash93)

Review:

Hoooooo boy. I actually read this story before submissions opened, so I am 100% pleased to see it in the submission folder. I snatched it up immediately, even before the submissions closed. (My apologies to the other reviewers)

This story is as close to perfection that makes you want to cry as there exists. Grammatically, I didn’t see anything that jarred me out of the story, no misspellings, no major grammar mistakes. So, I can’t fault this story on the grammar. And I can’t honestly fault this story on the narrative either. I have never had a story that I’ve read, IN MY LIFE, affect me as much as this little four thousand words story did. I have cried for My Little Dashie (yes, I’ll admit it), I’ve cried for a couple other stories. This one got sobs. The pain written into this story is so immense, I can still feel it now, weeks later.

If you haven’t read the story just yet, this story is about a character being sexually abused, it is NOT graphic for lewdness sake, it’s graphic to show exactly how that character feels with what happens to her. And yes, the character in the story is Twilight Sparkle, and her abuser is Shining Armor. Twilight is the star of this story, and her emotions are so raw, so real. I have never read a story that…impacts me like this before. This is an amazing story. It is also completely disturbing. Then you find out, this was something that actually happened to the author of the story. (No, I’m not outing anything here, it’s in the author’s note)

The basic plot is, Twilight’s going to sleep, she hears the sounds of her brother getting up out of bed, and him coming into her room, and abusing her. The details of what she is feeling as he does things, why she responds the way she does are written in detail here. And after Shining is finished, she goes to clean herself up. The final line “Then you'd definitely lose your library card.” Is haunting.

In summary, this story is sheer, terrifying perfection. It doesn’t hit the feels, it pummels them to submission then kicks them a thousand more times just because. This story changes the reader. For the better? For the Worse? I don’t know. Each of you will have to determine that for yourselves.

Now, please excuse me, I have a shower to take, and some whiskey with my name on it.

Title: The Sun Also Rises by EchoWing
Amount read: 100%
Verdict: 8/10, accepted
Reasoning:

This was a short piece that gave us a lovely look into Sunset Shimmer's reformation after the events of the Fall Formal. The author managed to convey the feelings and personalities of each character well, along with coming up with an inventive take on Luna's exile and Sunset's current housing situation. The piece was also (nearly) completely free from typos or grammatical errors, so credit must be given there (I only notice do one, personally).

This story began rather slowly, however, and I am not sure whether I would've read on if I hadn't have needed to do so. Furthermore, we don't really take anything away from the story; it is very much a slice of life piece, and though done well, it doesn't leave the reader particularly wanting more, nor does it feel as if the ending was just enough. Instead, though the story was enjoyable, the reader is left feeling somewhat on the fence about continuing, if I may say so, since there is nothing to grab our interest and nothing to particularly make us think about the piece itself.

Those are minor nitpicks, though. I'm happy to accept this into the folders.

Title: There is still good in her
Author: Raptormon132
Read: All of it
Final score: 2 [Rejected]
This was a short fiction, so expect a short review, but don’t mistake it as curtness. You can’t really give it credit on the writing nor the story as it is almost one-for-one the exact scene in Star Wars episode five. Grammar was fine, aside from a few issues with spacing, run on sentences and over utilising the comma in some places. You can’t really mark on any other merit, as it is like I said just a scene lifted from Star wars with some character’s names switched around. It makes the interesting comparison between Tempest of the MLP movie and Darth Vader, but there’s really nothing more beyond that, unfortunately. I read this mistaking it for a comedy at first, not checking the tags like a dolt, so I suppose you could say I was surprised to find it wasn’t one, so congratulations author for catching me off guard. If I were to give some general tips to the author on improving his writing, it would be: make sure commas are placed correctly and not overused. Use a few more ‘said’ and ‘action’ tags during dialogue. And I would’ve recommended you go a little bit further, having Obi-Wan detail what ‘Luke read on the wiki’ in dialogue rather than that throwaway paragraph you included.

That’s all there is. I don't reject it out of malice, or disliking for the author and work he wrote. On a story level, it's just lifted Ver Batum from the movie, so technically not the author's own work. That would be the sole reason I rejected it. Nothing else.

Yours sincerely, Jackelope.

Title: Why The Immortal Smiles by kalash93
Amount Read: All
Verdict: Reject (6/10)
Reason:

This was a neat little experimental fic. I think it did some things well, but I don’t really think it stood out enough to be accepted into the group.

For starters, I’ll mention the length: it’s way too short. I read this in just a few minutes, and before I even knew it, it was done. I feel bad for any of the author’s ex-girlfriends like it was just a really quick overview, without much real pensiveness put into anything Celestia is thinking about. She glosses over a lot of different things, but never really sits down and thinks about them. Take it from me, someone very prone to having his mind aimlessly wander, and nothing ever gets thought through that quickly.

Secondly, I think the choice of setting the fic (presumably) in the future didn’t really do it much justice. The entire second half, where Celestia is pondering the Mane 6, didn’t really bring me in because of the fact that it deals with a lot of material that is the author’s headcanon of the future. It made me feel disconnected from her thoughts, because I had to fill in so many blanks.

However, I liked the premise of this story. I think pensive fics like this are interesting, and the first half at least was done pretty well. A bit confusing at parts to know exactly what it was the author was saying, but it wasn’t that bad. Writing it like a bit of a disjointed stream of consciousness was a double-edged sword: on one hand, it made it kind of jumbled at points, but on the other hand, it showed realistically what it would feel like to just be letting your mind wander. At the very least, it wasn’t like I got completely lost, just couldn’t always follow everything.

Overall I thought it was a neat little read, but I think it had some issues that kept me from thinking it’s good enough to accept. For its very quick nature and choice of setting, I have to reject this fic.

Title: Descendant of the Night: Beginnings by Vaatidj
Amount Read: All currently published (up through Chapter 8)
Verdict: Reject (5.5/10)
Reason:

A longer story, so it turns out I made a longer review. There’s a lot to talk in this story, both good and bad, and I’d like to think I covered everything. Let’s take a look into Descendent of the Night: Beginnings, shall we?

First, I have to start with the easily-fixable surface issues: the writing itself. It needs a proofreader. Dialogue tags are capitalized incorrectly (namely, it’s always capitalized, even when following a comma), some of the grammar is incorrect (“suppose to” when it should be “supposed to”), incorrect words are used (“since” when it should be “sense”), the character Thunder Shield actually changes gender partway through (referred to as “her” in the first chapter and as “him” after), and there’s just mistakes throughout. It’s not unreadable, but it is distracting.

Once you delve down a little deeper, some more issues arise, mostly in execution decisions. To start: Soarin. To say the least, he’s pretty irrelevant. His inclusion in the story I already was not 100% sure on to begin with. Luminous already has Topaz to help her with, and the entirety of her interaction with Soarin up to that point had been having lunch with him where he said very little, yet she claims she can trust him. And after that, he just kind of disappears. I honestly forgot he was even there until it was stated later (chapter 7 or 8 I think) that he was.

The next big execution decision I had an issue with was the Paradox Hunters. I don’t think they’re bad—in fact, I thought they had some very interesting lore that fit well in the story—but in contrast to earlier chapters where multiple stories are told at the same time quite well, the story of Silvia and Ralf at times seems to overshadow the rest of the story. Virtually the entirety of chapter 6 is following them, and the entire time I kept scrolling down waiting to see where everypony else’s stories picked back up. Given that only Luminous (the main character) had had entire chapters devoted to her before, it was just very startling to introduce two entirely new characters and follow them without giving any updates on the rest of the story.

Finally, there are just a few little things that the story doesn’t explain very well but instead of keeping them along as hooks (which I imagine is the author’s intention), they end up reading more like the author is just dismissing them and telling you to roll with it. Some examples being how and why Sweetie Belle is a robot (Luminous mentions ponies haven’t perfected that technology yet), how Luna gave her aura to Luminous (I imagine it’s supposed to make me wonder if she’s still alive but it came off more as “she’s an alicorn, they’re not bound by the laws of nature”), and a big thing is why Luminous didn’t see right through Luna’s lie about being her descendant. Well, okay, she does. But she more or less says she had a hunch about it, not mentioning the fact that Luna claimed she was her descendent...by saying one of her ancestors was her cousin. That’s being related, sure, but Luna should know better than to say something like that.

Now, onto the good parts! To start, I think a lot of the lore introduced is neat, and the idea of having Luminous be a part of a neutral nation brings in some really neat views of the world as told from somepony more connected to the ideas that we’re familiar with in the show, wishing for a return to normality as opposed to essentially wanting to stamp out either the moon or the sun. I think even just the concept is neat, because personally I just think the idea of neutrality can be neat in political stories. Most AUs regarding the subject matter this fic deals with either places everypony in one camp (Celestia or Luna), and having Luminous have to choose a side and know that it’s not the popular one I thought was a good choice of setting.

Outside of that, some of the worldbuilding is done pretty well. One of the only people I follow on YouTube is Matt Colville (he’s a writer and his D&D videos focus a lot on worldbuilding and storytelling), and one of the things he talks frequently about is the idea that the town is safe, while the wilderness is dangerous. That’s exactly what’s presented in this story: Canterlot is safe, and the outside world is not. Luminous needs to sneak out of the city lest she fly into direct darkness, needs to plan her supplies because she won’t be able to get many more out there, they need a guide through the darkness, and the presence of monsters in the dark is always there.

Next, the Paradox Hunters. I mentioned them before, and while they do tend to completely dominate whatever scene they’re in, they’ve got some good backstory. I’m still not a hundred percent sure what a paradox is, but the mystical elements surrounding them are very interesting (I’ll admit it, I’m a sucker for mysticism). They also seem to provide some link to the show itself, at least that’s what I got from the scene with Octavia/Melody and Silvia. If that’s true, then it brings in another interesting question for AUs to deal with: is this reality the one that’s supposed to be?

Overall I think there’s some really interesting and neat concepts in this story, but there are a lot of execution issues that hold it back. For those reasons, I am rejecting this fic.

Title: Midday Munchies by Spoopy Star
Amount Read: All
Verdict: Reject (6.5/10)
Reason:

Everything I have to say about this fic is pretty short, actually.

The downside is that it’s pretty skimpy. Not much real gets said or done in the story, especially regarding the prompt of the story. Honestly, it might have done better if the description was just Shining Armor and Cadence eat lunch together. I didn’t really feel like there was all that much discussion about Shining Armor bringing Cadence to meet his parents. A few quick paragraphs after a look into their relationship, then it’s back to a look into their relationship. Not to mention that the ending was so abrupt—I got to the end and legitimately thought “That was it?”

The upside is that it’s just amazingly cute. Cadence seemed believable given what we’ve seen from her in the show, and I saw a lot of parallels with Twilight, which would make sense since they got along together so well. It makes you feel bad for Flurry Heart: with a mother like that and an aunt like Twilight, she’s well on her way to adorkableness. No escaping it.

Is this story cute? Yes. Did I laugh a few times? Sure. But the actual prompt of the story is buried, leaving me wanting more.

Title: Severed by Lightwavers
Amount Read: All
Verdict: Reject (6/10)
Reason:

To start, I’m going to talk about what it does well first (I know, right? Deviating from my tried-and-true reviewing formula). Mainly, I think it characterized Tempest quite well. It’s showing her later in her life, closer to the events of the movie, where she’s at this point already hardened on the outside, even if she’s still not entirely secure with her broken horn on the inside. It was a nice characterization, because that’s what I feel we saw from her in the movie: a mare who presents herself as tough and unwavering, but secretly longs to be whole again and will do anything to achieve that.

Beyond that though, I don’t really think anything stood out to me. Spring Forward, while providing a nice contrast to Tempest, doesn’t really add much to the story, and it could have worked well without her. There’s a quick little scene where Tempest realizes she’s letting her plans of escape get the better of her, but then jumps onto the next plan. And on that, a lot happens in such a short story: she’s musing in her cell, we see Spring Forward, there’s the funeral scene, the funeral pyre, the attempted escape, the real escape, and her in the desert, all in about 3 and a half thousand words. It doesn’t give much of anything in the story any time to sink in.

So, while this fic characterized Tempest pretty well, I don’t think it used that characterization superbly well and didn’t give her enough time to shine and perform any meaningful actions that had any staying power, and for those reasons, I am rejecting this fic.

Story: All That Remains by JackRipper
Amount read:All of it
Verdict: 6/10 Rejection

Review:

When I saw this in the feature box a few weeks back, I was intrigued. Not because it was in the feature box, of course. I’ve seen diamonds and drivel side by side on that thing. A story’s presence there means nothing in regards to its quality.

No, I was curious about how vague the synopsis was. Twilight Sparkle is at her limit? Which limit? Emotional? Physical? Mental? Stress?
Had she simply read too many books and could no longer keep her eyes open? Even given the context, her battle with Starlight Glimmer, it’s still unclear if her patience or her magic have run out. But I suppose that’s why we read the story.  I must admit, I had to look up indefatigable to see if it was a real word, though it ended up meaning exactly what I’d expected.

The story, however, disappointed me. Let’s have a look:

The Good
The premise is okay. I’ve often wondered what might have happened if Twilight had been less vanilla in her tactics, and this presents a passable explanation. The idea is obviously beyond her character from the start, but after about a thousand repetitions, I think she’d be ready to try anything. Accidentally killing Starlight as a filly and destroying her through indirect attrition is a really cool idea, and definitely the sort of stuff I like to see from the dark tag.

The pacing was comfortable, and there were no noticable moments where things moved too quickly or too slowly.
This was also well proofread, so thank your editor. I found only one small mistake.

She had underestimated Starlight’s resolve. The mare was far more capable than Twilight could have imagined, and her fatigue had long since become apparent.

Well that’s confusing. Wasn’t Starlight indefatigable? I think you forgot about syntax for a moment here. If you're talking about Twilight being fatigued, this should instead read:

She had underestimated Starlight’s resolve. The mare was far more capable than Twilight could have imagined, and her own fatigue had long since become apparent

By making the subject of the sentence 'the mare', you automatically assign any ambiguous pronouns to 'the mare' and not 'Twilight'. You can switch that around with some wording added, as demonstrated, but as it lies you've basically said that Starlight had become fatigued.

This was your only proofreading mistake that I found, though, so kudos.

The Bad

While characterization and premise weren’t bad, the plot really drops the ball. Another fine example of “great idea, poor execution.”

As demonstrated in the show, Starlight is vastly superior to Twilight in a number of ways, chiefly magical prowess, creativity and resourcefulness, and spell creation. Three key areas that Twilight would need to excel at to win this type of a fight. Normally she does, but she’s met her match here. Resorting to more drastic tactics wasn’t what held her back. Starlight was just better, and that’s a cold, hard fact. The outcome you've portrayed here could never have happened.

However, given enough suspension of disbelief, if we assume for a moment that it did come to this, and Starlight showed Twililght her hometown, her backstory here is just… pathetic. Her teacher demands perfection for… some reason—it’s not explained—and her father is vaguely abusive, and never does so on screen. Am I supposed to feel sorry for her or something? Give me a break! Even if this wasn’t very over the top, there’s not enough detail for me to believe any of it actually happened.

And then there’s this:

“And then I never saw him again,” Starlight whispered, stepping away from the window and wiping her eyes with her hoof.

Wait, what? What are we supposed to infer from this? That her friend got his cutie mark before her and her father stopped letting her see him? I mean, at least your backstory isn’t as petty as the original, but this is still Mary Sue territory.

Lastly, the emotion, or lack thereof.
This is a dark story, with a tragic premise. The words should be dripping with raw emotion. And yet there’s nothing here. You tell me Twilight wept but I don't hear her tears. You say Starlight pleaded with Twilight but I feel no fear from her. For being from a genre I normally drool over you’ve left me with an uncomfortably dry mouth. Take some time, add some detail, bother a friend who actually dealt with an abusive background and really let us feel what she feels. You can do better.

If you want an example of how to do this type of premise properly, take a look at Hard Reset by Eakin. It's not a perfect parallel to yours, but it does an outstanding job of showing how one's sanity can break down over the course of countless time loops, and the thoughts and emotions that might result.

This needs a lot of work.

Title: Freak Like Me by Seventh Heaven
Amount Read: All
Verdict: Reject (6.5/10)
Reason:

The reason for this fic’s reject is very simple: the execution of the premise. I enjoyed the buildup to it, because it captured Starlight’s insecurities well. Fluttershy seemed believable as well, and although I think Twilight was a little too quick to let Starlight go without any of her help, it wasn’t really that bad. Then, she meets Discord: the main plot of the story. But the actual discussion between them, wherein Discord gives her confidence, is very short. It gets buried in the rest of the story, and even gets a little buried in the interactions with Discord himself.

On that, the advice he gives her just seems a little...I don’t know. Forced, almost. And if not that, rushed. She fills in a lot of the gaps that he’s presenting to her, and some a lot of them were jumps even I wasn’t making while reading, so somepony who’s struggling with a lot of self-confidence issues wouldn’t really make them, especially if they’re to the conclusion that she should feel good about herself. People in situations such as that often reject such sentiments, feeling as though they’re an exception even when logically they can recognize they’re not.

Outside of that, however, I really enjoyed the story. Twilight, while I would think she would push a little harder to try and help Starlight whenever she needed it, was written pretty believably in her tendency to lecture her friends (see: Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3). Fluttershy, in what little time she got, seemed pretty spot-on. As mentioned before, Starlight’s insecurities are captured well. However, the main characterization that I think was done pretty exceptionally was Discord’s. His mannerisms, the way he’ll conjure things out of thin air, and just overall personality were captured all very well. I’ll admit, he made me smile a few times while I was reading this.

Overall, I think this fic had some very good characterization, but it wasn’t tied together very well around the central plot. Discord’s confidence-building session takes a while to get to, and then it’s over very quickly.

Title : The Flight of the Kite
Author: Doctor Disco
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject
Score: 4

Sure, it's cute, but what's the point? The only one I can think of is that kite flying was a happy thing for young Starlight Glimmer which she shared with Sunburst, only to so it later and reestablish a similarly kite tinted friendship with Maud Pie. At least I assume that was the point; the story didn't really seem to have one, and was so brief that there was not any room for side focuses or diversions. It started out being about Starlight and Sunburst, but the ending was about Starlight and Maud. Those are starkly separated characters, times, and moments. Trying you tie them together by parallel did not work. The story was cute, but I also had to fail it for issues with commas. Go back and have an editor comb it. I could if you'd like. Honestly, if you'd stuck to either young or old Starlight, and developed the ideas fully, plus reached the 3K word mark, you'd have a decent light drama. Keep on writing.

Story: The Magical Creatures by ShadowFall
Amount read: All
Verdict: 5/10, against
Reasoning:

The lands of Equestria and Pokemon, both being of magical nature, are well suited as crossover material. It is as such that I really want to like this story—but it sadly falls flat.

The plot, for one, all begins too quickly. In the first thousand words the reader is thrust into the crossover material, with only a tiny picnic scene beforehand to ease us in to this particular author's style. Not only this, but the introduction of the Pokemon Giratina, obviously intended to be intense, was merely dull and disinteresting as a result of the lack of sentence length variety. When trying to create tension, short sentences are very useful—but not when it feels like reading a list. Add a one-word sentence, or at least a little variety.

After this, the chapters become disconnected with eachother, with each reading almost as it's own short story as opposed to part of a larger work. The third chapter was jarring, too, since we could not tell whether the events were present day or in the past until right at the end, leaving the reader a little confused. At this point, I will openly admit I lost interest; there was no established storyline to be found, and as such there was little to hook the reader's interest in any upcoming chapters since we can only assume they, too, will be standalone. We are left wanting so much more, but have actually gained next to nothing from the story. It would have been better as three oneshots.

Along with this, the characters sometimes felt poorly written, as if they were extreme versions of their depicted personalities in the show, making them feel out of character, and Daring Do simply felt completely wrong. In the show she is relatively careful, but here she is just arrogant.

The author also needs to review their formatting of speech, since punctuation was frequently misused. Should an example be required I would be more than happy to provide one.

Title: Tales of the Rainmaker by BleedingRaindrops
Amount Read: All currently published (up through On Eagle’s Wings (Part 1))
Verdict: Reject (4/10)
Reason:

First, I have to start with the framing of the story. It’s told in the past, as Rainstream is telling List (a colt or young stallion of yet-undisclosed importance) the story of how she won the Best Young Flyer competition, then apparently some more stuff after that. It’s not really necessary, in my mind, because it could have served just as well starting out in the past and just following her. She also spends quite a bit of time beating around the bush and just reliving her life instead of just getting to the point of how she won the competition. It’s a bit like How I Met Your Mother in that regard (but not as bad as “Wanna know how I met your mother? Well here’s the story of every woman this dude named Barney slept with over the course of 9 years”). By presenting it in this way, I kept reading and wondering when the actual competition was going to happen. And then, once it does, she doesn’t stop telling the story to List, she just keeps going. The execution would have done much better if it just started with her in school and gone from there.

The next main issue I had was the text itself. There are parts of it that are nice, but the vast majority of it is very linear and descriptive, and not in the good way. I’ve ranted (on many occasions) about my dislike of 3rd person past tense in our group’s Discord, and unfortunately, this story hits a lot of my gripes about it, mostly in that the sentence structure gets repetitive and it’s exposition heavy. Finally, my other main criticism of the text is her love of rain. You may be wondering, “Why is that a part of the text, wouldn’t that be characterization?” In most cases yes, but I’m not criticizing her love of the rain. I’m criticizing the fact that the idea is repeated very frequently, almost to the point of exhaustion. It’s mentioned at least a few times per chapter, and almost every time the descriptions are very similar.

Next up is time. To say the least, I don’t know the timeframe of this story. It seemed like at the start, she was a young filly that was about to get (or had just gotten, I’m not sure which) her Cutie Mark, but not long after she starts a relationship with Stormfeather, she spends the night with him. Nothing sexual, but she’s at the age where List feels it necessary to ask if she slept with him, leading me to believe she was in fact much older than just getting her Cutie Mark (for comparison, Sweetie Belle has only recently gained her Cutie Mark and still thinks fairy tales are sound sources of romantic advice). I was even more confused when she participated in the competition, because when Rainbow Dash participated, she seemed fairly average in terms of age of competition and was by no means a young filly. But then it’s said that a few years have passed since Fleetfoot was her tutor. Which just makes me question it even more: when exactly does this story take place?

Unfortunately, I have to pull Rainstream herself into this. Whether or not she’s actually a Mary Sue is debatable, but she definitely has many of those qualities. She picks up weather-making extremely fast despite its alleged difficulty, Stormfeather claims he was immediately infatuated with her right upon seeing her, she comes from a family that completely ignored her, she just happens to be an extremely powerful flier with no real explanation given for it, she seemingly randomly suffers panic attacks (I don’t know enough about Rainstream or clinical psychology to say whether or not she has any disorders and whether or not they’re portrayed well), and it seems like the only reason she even won the Young Flyer Competition was because she had a close relationship with one of the judges. Bluntly put, it’s not good characterization. After a certain point, it became hard to really feel anything for her, good or bad, because of it.

All in all, while this isn’t necessarily a bad fic, it has a lot of errors in its execution that really bring it down. From a tendency to constantly point out Rainstream’s love of the rain and her iffy characterization to the framing and exposition, there are enough things throughout the text for me to reject this story.

Title: Master of Death and the Equestrian Adventure by aliengirlguy
Amount Read: All currently published (up through Morty’s First Pony Friend)
Verdict: Reject (2/10)
Reason:

There are a lot of things in this story that aren’t done very well.

To start, Harry’s characterization is completely wrong. He’s a misanthrope, plain and simple, and that is so wildly different than he is in the Harry Potter series. It seems like this is explained through all the hardships he’s gone through, but this is pretty contradicted through the original source material, where going through so much seems to increase his faith in humanity and those around him. He becomes overly misanthropic, and even devolves into just being flat out edgy.

Next, Death’s characterization. In fairness, Death was never explicitly shown in the books or movies (that’s a debate for another day though), but what we do get from the book also contradicts what we see of Death in this. It seems so odd that Death would prolong Harry’s life forever for no real reason, especially when he seemed so eager to cut the Peverell brothers’ lives short for thwarting him. On that, the idea of becoming the Master of Death presented in this story and presented in Rowling’s works are completely different. In the original HP books, he becomes the “Master of Death” because he holds the keys to stopping Death: the Elder Wand to defeat it, the Resurrection Stone to undo it, and Death’s Cloak to hide from it. No true, real, actual conquering of it: he gains the means to, then discards of two of the three Hallows and wishes to return to a normal life, happy to greet Death when his time comes.

Finally, there’s just a lot of little issues throughout. The pacing is too fast, the grammar has some slip-ups here and there, almost every character is fairly shallow, I found it very strange that Harry shares a co-ed room with Cadence, and the author places footnotes throughout the story. They’re not quite as dire as some of the characterization issues, but they’re there nonetheless.

Overall, this story would need a massive overhaul to fix a lot of its issues, and for that reason, I am rejecting it.

Title: Colts Don’t Need to Talk by Milo_Chalks
Amount Read: All
Verdict: Reject (6/10)
Reason:

I’ll admit, Pip/Rumble is a unique pairing, to say the least. I think there are some neat things done in this story, but ultimately, it doesn’t do enough for me to accept it.

My first critique is the writing itself. At best it’s just middle of the road, nothing that really jumps out at me either way. But for most of the story, it’s very stiff and not the kind of stiff you want in a M/M shipfic. I was fading in and out while reading because of such, and I even thought I had missed something when they started fighting because it was so sudden (I hadn’t).

That brings me to my next point: pacing. A lot happens in this story, and it’s not really long enough to contain everything it’s doing. Things happen very quickly all right after each other, without much in between them to ease the transition. Not even between scenes, either, but within them. As I mentioned, I thought I had missed something between Pip and Rumble playing together and them fighting because it was such a quick transition, showing that the rapid switching is prevalent within scenes, as well.

For good, I’ll say that this fic show well what two colts going through what they’re feeling would go through: Pip with his questioning his sexuality, Rumble with both that and his parents’ fighting. With kids as young as them, it usually would manifest itself in irritability and withdrawing from others (both of which they seem to be partaking in, somewhat).

I think this is a neat little fic that has some good aspects to it, but my socks remain un-knocked off. Predominantly because of this story’s execution, I have to reject it.

Sorry guy, only reviews are allowed in this thread

Title: Silent Night
Author: OkemosBrony
Amount Read: All
Verdict: 7/10 ~Fail upon second opinion from Princess Amore Dudette

This fic was a good read, the prose was well done, it flowed smoothly, and I love the idea of Rarity being a far more dynamic character with her relationships. Yet often I did find Applejack’s characterisation a little hollow. Rarity was well characterised and I very much saw her character shine through, but Applejack, the central character, didn’t do as much shining. She also doesn’t at all stay true to her element, choosing to literally lie through her teeth twice in this small exchange. That being said the conflict she faces with her parents was well written and it was a good choice to show her as one to emotionally repress her feelings.

It also felt as if the conversation moved too fast, it seemed a bit too easy to get Applejack to open up. I could very well see that she was trying to repress her emotions but after encountering the slightest resistance, she cracks. The dialogue seemed forced and unnatural in some places taking away from the emotion you are trying to create (but I did notice some fantastic dialogue as well such as the conversation about colour). There is a lot of exchange and dialogue but not much between it. This just allows the scene to fall away after the halfway point, disconnecting them from the environment. There needs to be some writing to keep them tethered to where they are.

The ambiguity of the scarf was a doubled edged sword. It was fantastic as it left the audience thinking about it and it gave a sense of mystique to what her mother truly meant behind leaving her daughter a single scarf. But because it seems like such an integral part of the story behind Applejack’s distaste to her mother’s parting, it would have been a better choice to maybe leave a subtle clue or allusion. It doesn’t have to reveal the entire story behind the scarf but just gave the audience something to feed their imagination. Retaining the ambiguity you created but giving it elaboration and more power as to what it could have possibly meant. It doesn’t even have to be at the end but it gives justification for the reason why the scarf is so important to the story.

The story was very well written in a sense of prose and direction, the idea was original and interesting and I did personally enjoy the fic. It left an interesting direction into the loss of Applejack’s parents (in a way that totally isn’t cliche at this point). It also allowed for an interesting development between Rarity and Applejack’s relationship. However, due to the issues above, I cannot accept it. I’d recommend lengthening the exchanges between characters and giving the conversation more of a natural feel. It allows for so much more emotional impact in the dialogue. Keep the world around them alive as they interact, and create some flavour of allusion with the scarf and I would be happy to reconsider this fic.

Title: You Forgot Your Toothbrush
Author: Famous Last Words
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject
Score: 4/10

This story is technically flawless, but that's all it has going for it. Seriously, what was the point of it? Starlight Glimmer was caught with a toothbrush and awkwardness ensued? It doesn't even make sense in the story; Twilight would know about Spike's toothbrushes and just see that Glimglam had borrowed one. There was no need for the letter and flashback and framing devices. It's very short, but I found myself bored by the halfway point. There honestly is nothing to analize or dig into here. Better luck next time; try a stronger submission.

Title: An Angel Of Grief
Author: Nugget
Read: 100%
Decision: Accept
Score: 8

Congrats, on a second round, with help from our very own princess, you've made it! The technicals are great. What really sells this fic is the atmosphere and how you lay it on thick. You could have done with more dwelling on the feeling of grief, though. Grief is something that can consume you and just become your way of being. It's strangely addictive, actually. The usage of literary reference to strengthen the story does not go unappreciated. There is not too much to say about this story, other than that it is dark and sad done right. You don't yell at us to be sad, you instead make us sad through sympathetic elements in the story. Regardless, welcome to the Cafe.

Title: The Cow Jumped Over The Moon
Author: Lightwavers
Read: 100%
Decision; Reject
Score: 5

A very short story indeed. I want to comment you for your use of pathos and displaying Nightmare Moon feeling like she had been wronged in how the day had been embraced and the night was shunned. Your idea about there being spaceflight in Equestria was interesting. Alas, it was not enough to save the story. You had a few grammatical problems, mostly notably your use of dashes. The greatest problem faced by this story is that it is too short to make an impression. You are a competent writer and we would like to see more from you again.

Title: Heavy Wings
Author: Jackelope
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject
Score: 7 (Second opinion by Milo_Chalks)

Okay, what to say about this one? It's one of a kind for sure, but it's not really a story. What was interesting was the perspective used and how you subtly shifted the way it was written towards the end. It gave a very brief but depressing look at how Dashie would do if she ever lost the ability to fly -- read: terribly. She's practically mourning the whole thing. It's a clever idea and smartly done, but the execution is hampered by the literally minimal word count and the fact it's a collection of huge paragraphs does not help, either. Super short stories normally get in either by being epistolary or heavy in dialogue. Yours is neither. Nice try, though.

Title: Anathema
Author: Doctor Disco
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject
Score: 6/10

I don't want to reject this fic, but I have to. To describe it's biggest problem, above all else, it's that it jumps around between POV's and times, rapidly and chiasmically. While nonlinear storytelling is absolutely fine, it's like oil and water with the brevity of the story and its first person perspective. You do three characters in very quick succession, jumping back between times and places, and even hide a small plot twist in there. There is too much going on in this story. If you had made each unique POV and time its own chapter and stretched the thing out to 6K, odds are pretty good you would have made it. I appreciate the way you portrayed Chrysalis undergoing an internal metamorphosis, but the brevity of the fic does not allow this to hold as much weight as it really should. There was a missed opportunity with Chrysalis, who does play Realpolitik, lecturing Twiley about the harsh truths of ruling, and chastising her for essentially lackadaisically leaving the fates of living millions and unborn billions to chances and inklings, something which I wish the show would tackle, because, it is true that luck always eventually fails. I think a dialectic, even a brief one during the comfort scene between her and Glimmer would have been a fantastic ability to do a quick compare-contrast and let Chrysalis now talk about both sides having been on both. Anyway, with a significant expansion, this fic could very well make it. Feel free to submit again following a rewrite.

Title: She Struck A Chord With Me
Author: NickyDs
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject
Score: 4/10

Interesting premise, terrible execution. To address the biggest problems first, never embed outside content in the body of a story! We came to read horswords -- not listen to whatever your pet music is! You can name the songs, give green links, or post in the notes, but not in the middle of a story! It takes the reader so far out, as well as breaks the flow of continual text, and also demonstrates obscenely low regard and confidence in your own writing that it is practically a signal telling the reader that you didn't care enough to really try to convey something, so you'd much rather commandeer someone else's totally unrelated content to do it for you. It is simply lazy writing. You've been around here for a while and your stories get good ratios; you must be capable of much better. Now, other problems include... out of character, especially for Rainbow Dash and her dialogue, comma problems, like not having one for a direct address, author, and awkward prose. Also you did paragraph switches for dialogue by the same speaker -- not technically an error, but very easy to misread and not really the prefered way. Now, I did like the premise and you did make me think about EQG shipping. You're not a dumb guy or a bad writer. Keep up the practice and feel free to submit something else.

Title: Sorry Ma’am by NickyDs
Amount Read: All
Verdict: Reject (4/10)
Reason:

Ice cream machine 🅱roke.

Unfortunately, that’s basically the entire plot of this story: the Hayburger ice cream machine is broken. There’s really just nothing in the fic to work with, honestly. It’s all over very quickly, and the whole thing is just a buildup to the plot of “the ice cream machine’s broken.” Even though it’s short, though, the ratio of buildup to plot is pretty heavily skewed in favor of buildup, for it’s only the last little bit where anything actually happens (and even then, not much happens). Outside of that, I’d have to critique the technicals of this fic, because the entire writing (dialogue and prose) is very boxy and stiff. For those reasons, I have to reject this.

Title: Twilight’s First Day by David Silver
Amount Read: All
Verdict: Reject (6/10)
Reason:

I know this is completely unrelated, but I reviewed a fic called Sorry Ma’am and then a fic whose chapter is called Yes Ma’am. Coincidence, huh?

The main reason for this story’s rejection is simple: it doesn’t really do much. It’s showing the first time Twilight really got to meet Celestia in a one-on-one situation, and we see a lot of filly Twilight. I really enjoy a story that either fleshes out the portions of a character’s personality we haven’t seen or dives further into aspects we have seen, but neither really happens in this. We see a lot of filly Twilight, but it’s not really anything we’ve not seen before through flashbacks and early, pre-alicorn Twilight.

A quick thing, but the writing itself. It’s not bad by any means, but I found it to be very straightforward and not really adding much beyond just describing the actions of what’s happening. Not really adding any atmosphere to the story.

For good, I’ll say that it did capture Twilight’s personality well. She’s got the very high expectations and crisis thinking we’ve seen from her before, as well as just a drive to learn something simply because she does not know it now. But it’s not really enough to push this fic into accept range, and as such I am rejecting it.

Title: A Tempest's Shadow
Author Okemos Brony
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject
Score: 6

Good but not good enough. If I have to find one fault with this, it's that the emotional crux of the story is something that we didn't get to see. I don't mean the maiming, but the shunning. The change of the protagonist from child to villain is based on one incident we don't get to see, and without it, there is not enough emotional torque built up over the rest of the story to compensate and explain why the protagonist comes to serve the Storm King. Mechanics, characters, and plot are solid. If you added maybe 300 words to elaborate upon how Tempest Shadow has been shunned by her peers since her maiming and how that makes her so emotionally fragile, that would work. Otherwise, it seems like two bad days and the girl is ready to destroy Equestria.

Title: My Only Sunshine
Author: Coffee Bean
Read: 100%
Decision: Accept
Score: 8

I reviewed this story before and gave it a reject, because, even though I liked it, it had far too many grammatical issues. The pacing of the story is still a problem and the prose isn't the greatest, but it's a character piece that lives on its lively dialogue and compelling what-if scenario. I went through it again to see if it had been edited as I recommended. It has been well proofread -- well, but not perfectly, but the abundant silly errors are 90% gone, so, as I had hoped the first time, I finally get say welcome to the archive!

Title: The Luna Papers
Author: Coffee Bean
Read: 100%
Decision: Accept
Score: 8

More princesses from you. I accept this story, as it solves many of the flaws I pointed out in My Only Sunshine. You write compelling, character-based fics with a heavy emphasis on dialogue. The story certainly earns points for covering Luna's development and trials in dealing with being in Equestria, as well as the novelty of her and Cadance trying to get to know each other. You did a good job with how the princesses want to get to know each other, but are both distrustful strangers. Well done on always making Luna slightly creepy and alien, something missing in a lot of her depictions, but I think it fits that a millenia old being with divine powers and disconnection from normal people would be on some level fundamentally unsettling, and as you made a point of showing, odd but not malevolent, though indeed classifiable as crazy. Your prose is odd in some places, with a few issues regarding strangely hypenated or capitalized word, although given you've done it in other princess stories, I'm treating it as a stylistic choice, and the actual grammar problems are few and far. Well done again.

Title: Night of the Hunt
Author: Jay the Stormtrooper
Read: 100% (44K (Nov 3, 2017))
Decision: Reject
Score: 5

Hoh boy, I like this story, but it has way too many significant problems. To number them...
1. Far too many Nouns which are not Proper are capitalized for no reason.
2. Problems with commas and parsing dialogue.
3. Some inconsistent spacing between paragraphs.
4. Need of a Crossover and Romance tag, and I predict you'll need a sex tag, too, eventually.
5. The protagonist is a burgeoning Sue, and I can feel myself already preemptively gagging.

So it's a technical fail. It's enjoyable. The dialogue is tight, the characters are nice to read and interact well. I like the setting and vibe. However, the above problems make it a guilty pleasure, although, as you can tell by my following it, a pretty good one at that. Also, I've seen you botch both Latin and Russian quite horrifically in it. I know both of those languages pretty well, and you know it, so next time, just ask and I'll give it a proofing. Mirovna's Russian is all over the place. Sometimes it's stanfard, sometimes it's written as if with my accent. Sometimes she addresses Clover as if male, and other times as if female. Vsyo v bardake. There is also one brief section where the story is turned suddenly into first person before reverting to third. And I swear I found some tense jumbling.

It was a fun story, but not one for the Cafe.

Title: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/374147/hexes-and-horsepower
Author: https://www.fimfiction.net/user/49515/ShadowFall

Amount Read: All

Rating:

Plot/Theme: 8/20
Technical/Structure: 5/10
Characters: 4/10
Subjective: 2/10
Total: 19/50

Verdict: 4/10 - Recommend Rejection

Overview:

Cars! Guns! Explosions! What more could you ask for in a work inspired by Michael Bay, who is renowned for his high-concept, over-the-top action films? If you’re privy to his stylization of films, then perhaps this will be the story for you.

In this review, I’ll be discussing the literary aspects of this narrative so that you can make that determination for yourself. Additionally, I’ll be making my determination over whether or not this particular work is worthy of the claim of ‘best of the best’ award in its present draft.

Technical/Structure:

Possibly the first noticeable aspect I established in the way of story’s structure were the odd phrases sprinkled throughout the prose. Take the following quote for example:

A smile grew on Twilight’s face as she came to a stop at the red light, her Toyota Corolla feeding her the woman’s voice on the other end through its Bluetooth speakers.

I believe a more natural way to phrase the second clause would have been as follows:

...a woman’s voice echoed through the cabin of her Toyota Corolla from its Bluetooth speakers.

There is one additional thing to note about this quote: the two clauses appear to be entirely independent thoughts from one another. From what I can tell this happens a few times with varying degrees of dependency mismatch.

To rectify this, I posit these final changes:

When Twilight came to a stop at the red light, a smile grew on her face at the sound of a woman’s voice echoing through the cabin of her Toyota Corolla from its Bluetooth speakers.

‘When’ establishes a subordinance to the independent clause.

Another rev was given by Rarity, containing a more menacing drone than a fierce roar that came from her adversary.

The use of passive voice in the sentence above isn’t suitably arranged for my tastes, but there isn’t anything grammatically incorrect about it.

One thing to think about moving forward is how the mix of active and passive voice affects the readability of the narrative as a whole. This statement, for example, can come off as a little odd for some people due to proximity between the subject matter and its description.

It isn’t necessary to fix in this instance, as there isn’t much you can do without changing it from a passive voice to an active one, but I felt it prudent to make you aware of it in your consideration on how it might impact flow.

Characters:

The characterization in this piece started fairly smooth in terms of dialogue and motivations. The characters’ interactions came off as natural and something I could reasonably see happening.

From the point of Sunset’s introduction onward, however, I have minor contrivances with regards to characterization. It’s a number of little things that add up to an overall awkward experience.

Take Fluttershy’s phone conversation with Rainbow Dash, for example:

“Damnit, I know that she’s been gone! I’m telling you, I saw her! Red and yellow hair! It was her!” Fluttershy could actually hear her stand straight up from wherever she was sitting, throwing her other arm in the air.

After Rainbow Dash’s declaration, Fluttershy apparently can hear Rainbow Dash waving her arm in the air as well as how she stands. I’m not sure how she derives these conclusions. She might be able to imagine what her reactions would be like, but how can she hear them? The most I can deduce is that she hears the sounds of a chair scuffling across the floor, and even then, there is the potential for the sound to be produced by something else.

One other small issue leading up to Sunset’s arrival comes in the form of Rainbow Dash’s sudden anguish over the eight year gap, particularly with some of the characters’ reactions to it.

“To hell with this, they may be here to sugarcoat some things, but ahm’ coming inside to talk some sense into you. Ya’ need to face the truth, Dash. Sunset left us.” Applejack came up to the door.

This statement suggests that this is a reoccurring event for Rainbow Dash, which further suggests that she has at least a moderate issue functioning in her daily life. The problem then becomes the fact there is no precursors to this event to suggest that she isn’t over Sunset drifting apart from them.

Drifting apart after graduation is a common occurrence; the only way Rainbow Dash wouldn’t be over it is if it had turned into an obsession, and I’d have loved to see a hint or two into that obsession prior to her sight of Sunset. Perhaps she thinks she sees her when no one is really there, which would give reason for her friends disbelieving her when she actually does see Sunset.

“Okay, and can you tell me what’s inside there? We just need to verify.” the teller asked again.

I’m not sure a teller would even know what’s inside an individual’s lockbox. I’m not sure exactly how it works; they might screen the personal effects before storing them away (to make sure you’re not storing anything illegal like, say, drugs), but I can’t imagine them then taking the time to store that data as a means of identification (note: this kind of thing is normally done in a lost and found box, where identification doesn’t associate an owner to their possession). I would sooner expect them to ask for verification of identity.

The story then takes on a surreal feel to it.

They gave him just enough business to make his quota for this month out here in the desert, and besides. The girl who came in and bought all of the Twinkies? As if she was capable of harming a fly.

Maybe I’m looking too far into this, but I don’t buy an after the fact telling of his reasoning for not calling the authorities. For starters, the girls’ apprehensions doesn’t affect his revenue at this point. They already bought the Twinkies. This fact shouldn’t entitle them to any favors.

Secondly, I’m not sure how buying the sweets is enough for him to make the judgment to trust them over his own government. Is there something he doesn’t trust about the authorities? There’s a little bit of context needed for how he derived his conclusion.

Plot/Theme:

I feel there are a lot of missed opportunities here with regards to the focal points of the plot. We aren’t really treated to an inside scoop of the antagonist’s motivations, the so called hold they have over society, or any characteristics to differentiate them apart from other characters aside from a name.

This sounds like it should be something that’s covered in the characteristics portion of this review, but the reason I have problem with this stems from the fact that they seem to have so little presence across the currently published chapters despite it being relayed to us that they seem to have nigh on omnipresent and omnipotent influence.

To clarify, this isn’t an issue with pacing. It isn’t as if things are being dragged out too long between action scenes. In fact, the pacing is quite on point with what I’d expect.

This, more or less, has to do with gravity of the situation at hand. What gives the villains so much power over the Rainbooms? Why should I care if they get access to Equestrian Magic? Seeing some context of the implications should this transpire goes a long way.

Beyond that, there are slight discrepancies with the plot.

Sunset stood back up, fire in her eyes, and walked towards Rainbow Dash, “After what I had to go through, don’t you think for a fucking second that I’d be lying to you! And why would I lie? All of you are the only people I trust out here! That’s why I came!”

Though she doesn’t trust anyone outside the Rainbooms, this changes later on in the story when they meet up with Vinyl Scratch and Octavia, and for the life of me, I’m not sure why. It isn’t necessary information for them to work on their cars, as far as I’m aware of.

There are, additionally odd things that the readers’ attention are drawn to at times.

An owl hooted in the distance as after the fifteenth or so splash from a frog, Sunset’s eyes refused to stay open, and complete darkness swallowed her vision.

Take this for example. I fail to see how pointing the number of splashes before Sunset passes out here is relevant.

Applejack pulled her truck up to a pump, opted to go to the clerk inside to pay with cash, and started to fill her tank.

The statement above is only slightly odd with telling us the method of her payment. I can actually see this being relevant if there is some moment of reflection or a cue of some sort to indicate how it benefits her to use cash over card.

The specific scenario that comes to mind is avoiding being tracked. If that’s the case, it would then be odd due to it coming across as if it’s just a decision that bears no weight to them (and if the intention was just an everyday decision, then it would be superfluous to state how she’s paying).

Conclusion:

I would like to close this review first by stating that this story has all the makings of good story there. I think it needs a little polish--a little bit more depth to the scenes and characterization of side/minor characters--as well as an edit to avoid awkward phrases. With those closing thoughts, I must, sadly, reject this story at this time.

Title: Lost in the Rhythm
Author: Jay the Stormtrooper
Read: 116K (100% available)
Decision: Reject
Score: 4

Argh! So much wasted potential! You can do better than this! You are not stupid! You know your way around a story! I wanted to like this one, I gave it every chance I could, but God damnit! It screws things more consistently than all the Bangbros girls combined. I'm going to try to break it down section by section, and do my best to not make your ears ring. I have gone into far more detail than usual in order to lay out all the lessons that need to be given.

Prose
Well done. It's good and easily readable. I have no quarrels with it, and I'll actually be taking some notes on how to write enjoyably with a healthy mix of paragraphs, sentence structures, narration, and dialogue. On a basic writing level, you can tell a story and give us the basic blocks of it quite well. You just make a lot of terrible decisions, which I am going to take you to task for further down.

Grammar
Pretty good, actually. A few silly mistakes. However, you use way too many capitals where you don't need to. Healer isn't a proper noun. Element of Honesty isnt' a proper noun. Military ranks are not capitalized unless used as a title or with a name. You had inconsistent formatting where you'd suddenly skip half lines at random. You randomly underline certain words for no reason. And you had one case where you denoted a POV change with asterisks and a note. I would let this fic be a technical pass, but just barely.

Style
Personal gripe: the chapters are long, but you never take advantage of their length. You never go more than a couple thousand words without jumping to another scene or a POV, except for the very beginning, and that is a shame, because it stops you from developing immersion in the same way as your initial continuous club sequence did. Also, it's considered bad form to mix and match POV's. First person, third limited, omniscient all jumbled together. Pick one and stick with it. To be completely honest, there is no reason to do it. All it does is add a fuckton of filler and distract from the real star of the story! There is nothing that could not have been found out from his POV, only later, and given that you then wipe out all his past anyway after he has been a vegetable most of the story, why even have bothered?

Plot
It's an HiE porn with plot romance! But like almost everyone hates the main character for no reason! And now they want him dead for getting laid! And it was all Discord's fault. And now he's got amnesia, too! Seriously, your plot is one colossal collection of sins. The first is that it really serves no purpose for your character to end up just being a punching bag always and everywhere like a fist-attracting version of Jesus Christ. Being a bullying magnet is a personality. And the depiction of your villains is frankly cartoonish. They're just bad because they just want to be bad because of reasons. It's a very far line from wishing a girl was banging you instead to doing kidnapping, torture, and murder. No, I'm not buying it, even with magic. In fact, the magic makes it even worse, because you can't use this with yout DARK TAG to make it a look into sociopathy or violence in an alien society, so that's more wasted potential. The second is that without foreshadowing, it's suddenly revealed to all be Discord's fault. This second thing is why I am going to town on this story. Because you made it all Discord's fault, nobody's accountable, all this crap is ultimately pointless, we can't really have any kind of examination of the ugly side of Equestria -- nope, all just magic. Forget possibly delving into racism, biases, prejudices, and so on, everyone was just a big meanie weeny pants because magic made them be! Given what's happened, you can't just bail out everyone by letting it be magic; it's a cheap explanation with a few hair still clinging to it from where it was yanked from an ass.

Characters
Hoh boy, more stuff I have to take you to task over. Yay. I don't like doing this. You can do far better. I saw it in Night of the Hunt. This is not that story. Characters behave nonsensically. So what if you claim at the very last published chapter it was magic -- still does not change any of it whatsoever! Even excluding the massive dickery your protagonist got, you're showing some fine alien brain worm shipping, wherein your romantic leads suddenly fall in love after banging a couple times, right after they'd agreed it was just a fling, because of... reasons? They don't know each other, have a history, common interests, or values -- no reason for a romance, but after a one night stand and a short delay, it all blossoms into twu wuv! The assassin character was also frankly pointless and pretty stupid. How the hell he's got his reputation, I'll never know. From being super clumsy, taking his time on kills, letting himself be bartered down humiliatingly, he must be the world's worst assassin. And then there's your OC. He has two modes: mopey and unbearable jackass. Depressingly, he's more engaging when he's being mopey, because we can sympathise with him. He's a borderline Pity Sue, but still, just his angst over being stuck in a world with beings that don't want to understand him makes for the most compelling reading of the fic. Focus more on that. The arc of the story could be him coming to like Equestria and love a certain mare. And the fact that you just gave him and amnesia is a massive slap in the face to all the readers who just sat through nearly 120K, 75% of which WAS NOT FOCUSED ON HIM! This is unacceptable. Don't jerk around your audience. Don't insult us. Subverting expectations is a marvelous yet risky game. An HIE romance where the protagonist genuinely, understandably doesn't want to be in Equestria? Interesting. One where he starts to rethink his opinion? Cool. One where Equestria has a tangible dark side that's getting exploring? Awesome. One where it was all the fault of magic and he's getting his brain rebooted after 75,000 words, so never mind? SERIOUSLY not cool! You can't just cocktease the audience constantly -- take a premise, and an idea, and a plot, and stick with it.

Miscellaneous
1. Get a properly rigorous gramarian; your whole staff makes way too many capitalization and formatting blunders.
2. A bump on the front of your head cannot give you amnesia; the memory region of the brain is on the side.
3. It's an HIE romance; no need for the dark tag, unless you're going to explore the dark side of the society, which, since you just suddenly made everything the fault of magic, isn't going to happen.
4. The story feels artificially edgy, more like an overgrown 14 year old wrote it.
5. The story is actually well constructed, but just makes truly baffling decisions at every single turn.
6. Plot twists are never as awesome as you'll think -- follow things to their logical conclusions, unless you're a master who can build and foreshadow the twist the entire time in a way that an astute reader could reasonably infer, and you set out from the beginning to do it.
7. Pick a genre and stay with it. This fic has too many characters, POV's, and ideas jostling for attention. If you'd just picked one, it would have been fine.
8. Wasted opportunities, man, just way too many.

There, read it all? Good. I know you can do far better, Jay. Keep writing. Just think through things before you do them, consult a skilled grammarian, and 80% of your issues will evaporate like water from a hot stove. I've been purposefully harsh with you because I know you can do so much better and like hell am I letting my friend get away with anything less than their best. This is the longest review I have ever written for the Cafe. Bring your A-game the next time you grab your pen. I have faith in you; I would not have written as this out if I considered you incapable and not worth the effort.

Title: The Hatchling
Author: Dafaddah

Amount Read: 100%

Rating:
Plot/Theme: 11/20
Technical/Structure: 9/10
Characters: 7/10
Subjective: 5/10
Total: 32/50

Verdict: 6.5/10 - Recommend (Acceptance/Rejection)

Overview:

The Hatchling is a short story about war, adventure, new beginnings, and whatever else that comes with an egg containing a draconequus possessing the magic of chaos. Discord was killed in a war between the Elements of Harmony and the dastardly villains King Sombra, Queen Chrysalis, and Tirek.

When he comes back as an egg, everypony decides what to do with him. At some point Fluttershy announces that she adopts him, the egg is taken by one of two underground organizations. Not much is known about them other than one of them is called ‘Order of Harmony’, who want to turn the egg to stone, and the ‘Horde of Discord’, who I presume to merely be worshippers of Discord by their title.

In the following sections, I will do an analysis breakdown of what I believe to be strengths and weaknesses of the story.

Technical/Structure:

After perusing the story, I found the grammar and spelling to be in excellent shape. I only noted a few small mistakes; there was a missing comma here and there, a missing word, and a single run on sentence that I note. I have below written one such example.

Big Macintosh stepped forward to take a closer look but Applejack rushed forward to bar his way.

The story had a nice blend of show and tell, particularly with the opening chapters of the narrative.

Characters:

I was unable to shake the feeling that the dialogue didn’t fit the some of the characters quite right at times. Take the following passage, for example:

“Well,” began Spike with a nod to Princess Celestia. “Having him be a ward of one of the ruling princesses might be safest, but it could also be seen as putting Discord in line for succession to the throne, and given his reputation in prior incarnations, that might cause... issues with the populace.”

At first glance, this appears to be a smidge too articulate for Spike. Granted, this narrative takes place in the future, sometime after their war, so perhaps Spike learned how to articulate his ideas better in that time.

I wasn’t able to find much in the way that depicts their growth as individuals since the time of the war. The most significant pieces of information that I had to go off of was Twilight’s prosthetic leg and Fluttershy’s depression over the loss of Discord.

How the others have grown, if any growth had taken place at all, is a mystery. For losing their draconequus friend, I imagined each of them would be mentally affected, if not scarred, by their loss; sure, they weren’t as close to Discord as Fluttershy was, but he was still a friend.

That being said, the dialogue presented in the narrative was interesting and carried the flow of the plot well, and this I believe is one of the strongest points in the narrative despite my small issue with it at times.

“Look,” Twilight added. “We’re doing nothing here but chewing our hooves off. How about you all go home, and I’ll send word if there is any new development? Fluttershy, I’ve had a room prepared for you in the castle’s living quarters. Rarity and Spike will go keep you company there.”

I found Twilight’s oblique disregard for Fluttershy’s wishes in the passage above to be most perplexing. I would think, for something like this, she would have inquired first, or at least phrase it in a way that didn’t seem like she didn’t have a choice in the matter.

Perhaps this was a part of Twilight’s growth as a character, between the past and the future, but I feel a little bit more context beforehand would have been required if that were the case.

The final issue I had with regards to characterization were the organizations themselves, ‘Order of Harmony’ and ‘Horde of Discord’. Neither organization was given much depth or development. I felt they needed to be a little more fleshed out with the presence they took on throughout the narrative.

I do note, however, that it is entirely possible that this was intentional for the comedic effect of depicting organizations with those kinds of fanatical views in a light that is entirely absurd, and that is a very well crafted idea. If that was the case, though, I would have liked to see more events transpire with them to further alienate them from reality.

Plot/Theme:

There was a lot going on in the story given its length, and I feel some of the plot devices went somewhat underappreciated.

It starts out in the midst of a war that really doesn’t seem to have much impact other than setting up Discord’s death, which makes the rest of the narrative possible.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though, as this takes place within the prologue, but I still felt that something as significant as a war would have lasting repercussions felt throughout Equestria.

Unless I am missing something, there doesn’t seem be any outside of their immediate party, and even, then it plays minimal role with the rest of the story.

The egg itself was somewhat alright. It served its purpose as the instrument of starting the adventure with a hook in that an item of import is now missing, and party must go out and retrieve said item.

However, once it set things in motion, its usefulness as a device seemed to dry up, making way for the organizations to make their entrance into the narrative.

Their depth goes only as far as two opposing actions banging their heads together over whether to destroy or save the egg. While this does sacrifice their characterization, it can come off as comedic in nature.

And while this there are several scenes that give off a nice, almost dry humorous undertone, the overall experience comes off as somewhat of a mixed bag for me.

On the one hand, the atmosphere created as a result has a comedic tonality that can be enjoyable, but on the other hand it feels as if everything only exists for the sole purpose of moving the plot forward. It is well written, but it feels somewhat forced.

Conclusion:

While, I’m not accepting this story at this time, I still believe that this story is highly worth a read. It has a really interesting concept, the dialogue is woven together beautifully, and it manages to retain the interest from start to finish.