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Writefriends from all over PonyChan gathered in a war of words on the weekend of March 10. But who is the greatest a/fic/ionado? The decision is yours. Vote, rate, and choose your favourites!
Authors are anonymous, so you won't know who wrote what until the voting stage is over.
(See: http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/88413.html for info on how the competition went down.)
Cover image by Cassius.
I really thought it was going to turn out to be some kind of MMORPG...
Actually, the way it seemed like a video game was probably the story's weakness. It just seemed too implausible for a nightmare to work like a video game, complete with checkpoints, bosses and power-ups. I liked the story overall, but the story would have been far better if the dreams were as horrifying as Twilight had described. The way the dreams were written seemed more like a Legend of Zelda game. I had been hoping for something along the lines of Silent Ponyville, but the dreams were just not scary.
Also, Twilight trying to trick Applejack like that was completely OOC, for multiple reasons. First, Twilight would never double-cross a friend to save herself; she just wouldn't, especially not in such a sleazy manner as this. Second, Twilight would have known that Applejack would be unhelpful if she was angry at Twilight, which she would have been if the trick had worked. Third, if she wanted to trick Applejack, she would have been much more cunning than the way you wrote.
The ending, too, was a problem. It felt like a huge letdown to think that the mane 6 were going on an epic adventure, only to have them in a happy, sunny place and then have a single fight before saving the day.
Overall, the story had an interesting, fresh concept and the story was good enough to keep me reading to the end. Sadly, it could have been exponentially better if you hadn't dropped the ball with the nightmares and the ending.
I loved this story for many reasons:
1. The story didn't gloss over Bon Bon's death. You really described their relationship's love, and kept the reader from knowing exactly what was going to happen until she died. Giving Bon Bon some depth made the dichotomy between her's and the doll's personality that much more obvious, and that much more interesting.
2. The title initially gave me the fear that this would be an R.L. Stine "kid buys a doll at a garage sale, doll is creepy, oh no" story, but it wasn't. The title, while still a good title, forced me to start the story with completely different predictions about the plot than actually happened, and that made the plot twists more fun.
3. The doll itself was an enigma. Was it magic? Was it really Bon Bon? If so, why was she so mean? If not, who was it and why? Was it a dream? Had Lyra snapped and been talking for the doll? Oh, there were so many questions, and you had the balls to not answer them, leaving me wondering long after the story finished.
4. The ending! Oh, Lyra's deal with the doll really made me want to know more! I didn't see it coming, and it left me with more questions than answers, just like a psychological story should.
10/10 I look forward to finding the author's profile name so I can follow him or her and enjoy more of this kind of work. I bet you would be great at some psychological grim-darks.
10/10
Spoilers, but nobody should ever read comments before finishing the story...
This story brought a couple tears to my eyes, and not just at the end. Berry's portrayal as a tragic lost soul was perfect, and it made her into a sympathetic victim of circumstance and depression, rather than another alcoholic. Her suicide at the end was tragic and a complete surprise (until the doctor's warning, of course). This is a wonderful work and a great take on Berry's current fan portrayal.
This is Binding of Isaac, isn't it. That's... that's an interesting idea right there.
Anyway, while the opening was promising, the ending was ultimately disappointing. You're stuck in this weird gray area between sticking too close to your source material (the HUD, powerups, and bosses) and not enough (fields, sunlight). I'd pick one direction to go with. Also, the Elements at the end—can you say "deus ex machina"?
Look, you can do interesting things with dreams, and the Elements, and the interactions between them (he said, whistling nonchalantly and pointedly not looking at his own story). But you haven't set up that ending. You didn't drop any hints that the team could alter their environment with lucid dreaming, or that the Elements could be a superweapon. You can do those things, but you have to telegraph a move like that.
Hmm. A few errors in spelling and grammar, some awkward turns of phrase. This is a chapter one rather than a full story. The connection to the prompt is rather tenuous—her hair has a black stripe in it, how horrid! And I'm not really a fan of Nightmare Moon as a separate entity.
Also, Trixie is Princess Celestia's daughter. What.
Missed a full stop right near the start. "I'll never be as good as you, Twilight"
"I have study" I have to study.
"That's New Canterlot" Thats the new Canterlot...
"B1knight" all these character names should really be B1 knight F2 pawn.
"Twilight was it Rarity’s" was at
"Celestia to cough much" to cough that much
"He counted on his fingers,"...
Other than those grammatical errors, none of which were jarring, this was a fine story. Humorous at every turn with a good example of crazy Twilight. I don't think I'll forget her screaming at Rarity "Am I Beautiful?" for a while. Fluttershy was well characterised and the Black Queen's identity was pretty obvious. I liked when you personified the chess pieces particularly. Although 500 bits for a table is pretty ridiculous. I know it's for the story set up but that's like charging £5000 judging by the way they all reacted to it.
"Anyways, the this" Anyways, this
"Spike tole me" told me
"She had a feeling that she was going to be down there." ... for a long time?
Interesting if a little obvious. I guess it kind of had an episodic feel to it. I think it might have been better with some kind of genuine twist, I mean it was very straightforward. Maybe it's just me but I found the writing quite dry. Twilight acted as she should although I don't really see how she could have messed up that final recipe. Is there a special technique to crushing? I wouldn't have assumed so. It wasn't a pain to read but nothing really stood out. The few errors I spotted could be all excused as time constraints. It wasn't a bad fic, I just didn't like it much; personal preferences and all that.
The resolution is a bit short, but I think everypony felt the time constraints a lot this time. The first half was good, I liked Trixie being Trixie for once, even if she was fighting inner turmoil. The look back was a bit short and the ease with which she dealt with it a bit unrealistic. I mean one second she's staring at money thinking about how hollow it is, then she's excusing herself. This is probably due to time constraints so I won't mark down the story for it, but still it could have been a little more thought provoking.
Interesting if a little sombre. I liked the internal conflict Berry experienced over Fluttershy. The hint at the end as to the source of her depression was just the right amount. We didn't need her backstory, all that mattered was the present. You've managed to cast a tragic twist on the character of Berry Punch, normally labelled the "fun drunk". I think you overexplained some things though, by the end it was obvious what she'd try. The suicide wasn't a shock. It was an inevitability. Grammar and characterisation was good though.
"used to hoping" Hopping. Have to say this reminded me of Red Dwarf: Faith, hop and charity.
"cared enough foresight" Had enough foresight or cared enough. Not both.
"what was it," Still a question so should have a ?.
"like a canon" Cannon.
You took the character of Cranky a step further in this one. It was interesting to delve into his psyche and see what kept him going. A solid story, charged with emotion.
You use both beforehand and beforehoof. I know one's supposed to be a ponified version of the other but you shouldn't really use both.
"super best most friendliest ponies" I'm going to give a little leeway because its Pinkie but that should be friendliest or most friendly, not both.
Would Pinkie really use the word rad?
"between h legs" Between his legs?
An interesting concept? Letters? Octavia and Inky being the same character is something I haven't seen in a while. It was interesting to see the transition from Inky to Octavia. Not sure how related to the prompt this is; what exactly was the double-edged sword? The letters format could have been better done, there was no real concept of time other than sporadic dates. I liked it, don't get me wrong, but it felt a little flat. Inky did seem very self-centred with little justification.
"She flicked it, but the lights didn’t go off." I think you mean the lights didn't go on.
"How could you, Bon Bon? Don't you love me" I think you got Lyra and Bon Bon the wrong way around here.
Well that was... chilling. I'm surprised you managed to do so much with so few words. We got a snapshot into their lives beforehand, then the accident happened. Both quite dark and on screen as it where. The mention of Lyra fiddling with something in her pocket made me think that maybe she intended to propose and when she died in that scene; well, it was so sudden. The doll was odd to say the least, I like how you left it open-ended. What was that squeak? We'll never know. It was clearly not Bon Bon, the difference in personality and demonic laughter told us that. But you never explained what it really was, which leaves it open to interpretation, a good move. The only flaw I could really see is the way Lyra talks to herself after Bon Bon's death. She doesn't seem to be as broken up as one would expect. She isn't as self-damning as I'd imagine, she's almost functional. This could be attributed to a strong character but she does mention how much she misses her several times so I'm not sure.
"You look me," You look at me
" myself a bucketful" myself, a bucketful
"but they . Makes me wish" but they make me wish
"Canterlotian a couple" A Canterlotian couple
"been very thoroughly." thoroughly cleaned?
Well I thought this was quite funny. Colgate as a crazed inventor who consistently abuses magic is a Colgate I've never seen before. It was a pony twist on a classic tale. The characters were interesting and the dialogue was very amusing. The anagram must have taken a while to think up. The ending was a good twist too, finishing it and simultaneously leaving it open for a chance at a sequel if needed; the whole repeating the cycle thing. I think you mixed up Lyra and Bon Bon briefly when we saw that one of them was cheating.
I don't know what to say. This story exists. I wasn't fond of Fluttershy's journal part, it wasn't particularly compelling. Then we got to the Investigator who was an interesting character. I was willing to suspend belief for the sake of the story. Fluttershy a black market slave from a foreign nation? Absolutely ridiculous but I accepted it for the story. Then her kindness got infectious and I almost stopped reading. What? Where would you even come up with this idea? I didn't like it, I hated the plot. It was well written and the three formats were interesting but I didn't like it. I didn't like it one bit. Sorry.
What? This was an intro. I know that this was an intro to the season two opening. It was well written but nothing really happened. You added some fictitious back story to the Elements of Harmony but that's not relevant to anything. The fact is this is a good, well written passage but that's it. It's a passage, not a story. I know there were time constraints, I felt them too. But this needs a story to follow it.
"Compared images" Compared to images
That first scene might as well have been straight out of Inception, even down to the equipment they used. You did a good job of making up characters, particularly with names. Nightmare as a separate entity I have seen a few times, its a good concept and one I tried to use myself at some point. Your take on Rainbow Dash was good too, I could imagine the real Dash acting like that. I enjoyed this story, I can't see anything at all wrong with it. Certainly a strong contender.
It was inevitable that somepony would decide to reverse this. Still, it was a good idea. Nothing much really happened though. Fluttershy's lessons were pretty lacklustre. I did like the idea with the minotaur mazes, that was a good one. The resolution was also pretty plain, he gets angry once and suddenly he knows the exact balance? I don't know if this was due to time constraints or not but I think that the lesson should be more pivotal.
Not bad, actually. This isn't the sort of story I normally get into, and the perspective switch was jarring at best, but aside from a few minor grammatical errors, I kind of liked this. However, the shipping felt tacked-on and sort of forced. I feel the story would have been better without it, but then again I'm not a huge fan of angst to go with my ponies.
"it’s that Starswirl creates the most safe and dependable spell analysts anywhere.” ??? The fact that Starswirl can create Spell Analysts is hardly relevant here.
"equestria" Equestria, proper noun.
Well that was certainly interesting. The idea of a spell casting Pinkie Pie had me recoil in terror. Using magic she could permanently shatter the fourth wall for everypony! But seriously, I enjoyed this. It was an interesting story with a very clear link to the prompt. The only point I could pick out for improvement would be to have Pinkie Pier's slow corruption being seen rather than reported. Pinkie is present during the tests but it isn't until after that we are informed that she isn't acting like Pinkie. Irregardless this was fun, a nice adventure story.
Some good humor here amidst grammatical errors and a painfully obvious "mystery character" that the author more or less admits was a weak point in the text. Fairly decent stuff, though. I must say, I'm pleased that I haven't disliked anything yet. Then again, I'm only two stories in.
The usual amount of errors something like this has, including a jarring shift in perspective, but there are some interesting things at play. The story gets a little too "telly" in places (particularly when the fire starts), but this had something of the desired effect. I can't really see the connection to the prompt, though.
This didn't seem too much like a pony story. You mention hell and Michael Bay for one thing, at least make it Discordia and Michael Bray or something. The characters could easily be substituted for humans with no loss in story quality. But yeah, this was extremely confusing. Is this meant to be like the Island crossed with the Matrix or something? Clones being used as magically controlled pawns in a game and a "loose avatar" somehow being liberated by a real pony. I don't see where the double edged sword is. On top of that this seems like the first chapter of a proper story, this was supposed to be a self contained fic. I think this might be an interesting idea, just make it more pony and this could easily become a long, winding, conspiracy filled story.
Heh. Heh heh. This embraced the madness of its premise rather well and I like it. I don't often see stories with Colgate, but this was a good characterization for her. I saw some outright omitted words and glaring errors, but this was a delightful little chunk of crazy. I liked this quite a bit and wouldn't mind reading any more the author has to say on this premise.
I feel like this was only written because a journal-format piece won last time. Sorry, but that's not enough to get you good votes. You need these silly things (among others) called "hooks", "correct grammar", and "a plot that makes any goddamned sense" to do well in writing.
“... prepare Spikey-Wikey together with Rarity aren’t you?” for getting together?
"she was heard Rainbow Dash speaking." She was hearing or she heard.
"I am a very busy person" Pony
"And in the middle, is her goal." was her goal.
"suprise" surprise. I always get this one wrong too.
"everyony" You got halfway there; everypony.
Rosetta Stone? Good call on that name. The ending was a brilliant touch, hinting that Pinkie Pie is Chancellor Puddinghead's descendent was a very good call. The moral behind it was exactly what Party of One's should have been. I think though that the way the story played out distanced it enough from Party of One despite what they're all saying on /fic/. I enjoyed this, only Pinkie could take that term seriously. Good call overall in fact.
"like shewas close" she was
At first I thought it was the tomato cupcakes which mysteriously stay good for days whilst left on the counter. But this was surprisingly well paced. Everything kinda worked and, whilst not entirely show material, teaches exactly the kind of lesson the show does. This was well done and the only mistake I found was forgetting to put a space in. I liked it, even if it was a little plain. The subtle TwilightxPinkie shipping at the end wasn't enough to throw me off.
Definitely a strong one, although the ending felt a mite tacked-on. Personally, I think just ending on "That'll be fifty bits, please" would have been a bit stronger. You've got a nice OC here, one who is a bit passive at times, but she's endearing enough that I can let that slide. I didn't notice too many errors, either... I like this one quite a bit. It has the flavor of Inception without feeling like a ripoff of it. Well done.
I mirror 108Echoes opinions, pretty much what I would have said. I admittedly didn't spot any spelling errors although there were quite a few awkwardly phrased sentences. It was okay, nothing new. I mean this idea's been done to death really, even I've written something like this. But it wasn't abysmal, nothing truly terrible about it. Just you completely destroyed all Trixie head-canon with that ridiculous back story. Celestia's child, really? I mean who in their right minds. Plus this suffers from first chapter syndrome. All fics should really be one-offs in this competition.
Hmm. I'm not sure how to feel about this. Something... perhaps the pacing, perhaps the emotion, perhaps the characterization... feels off here. I'd need to think further before really delivering a verdict on this.
Although let me just say that Pinkie using magic and suddenly becoming better than Twilight at it was a big strain on my suspension of disbelief.
"blinked twitched" blinked and twitched or one of the two.
"other hammers, axes. Rakes, water pots, helm" I think you put a full-stop in there by accident.
"the deserts" Desserts
This was fantastic. You characterised Reveille brilliantly and really got across his voice. This has to be the favourite of the eighteen I've read so far. Kudos. Other than those few spelling errors I spotted, I can't see any way to improve this. The parents were well characterised too whilst I disagree with 108Echoes about Opal, it was kind of obvious she had feelings for him in that childhood awkwardness way. On top of that, this was well linked to the prompt. Fantastic.
This, uh.
I don't have words. What did I just read?
I feel like this would be much stronger if it ended right when they escaped the game. The rest of the story feels a bit tacked-on and out of place, like a different story wandered in and told itself while this one excused itself for a few minutes. And the ending... I... urg. This has a lot of potential, and with work, I could see myself loving this, but right now, I almost feel like the author undermines him or herself by changing focus partway through the story.
Still, I applaud your sense of experimentation; this is a very bold piece.
Hmm... a bit too much like Party of One at times for my tastes, and there were a number of errors that made reading this somewhat irritating at times. However, there was some good comedy here, particularly where Rosetta Stone was involved. But uh.
"Gerundville", huh? Really? Really?
Never played Binding of Isaac so I can't really comment on the video game idea. In fact I can't really comment at all, not knowing how much is from the game and how much you made up. I'm assuming you made up the entire final sequence so I can at least say good job. It was better than the other video game candidate. Good job.
Some errors, but nothing glaring... I felt like the resolution was rushed, however. You spend a fair bit of the story getting Pinkie into an emotional state, only for Twilight to shake her out of it with a few words and an omitted scene later? I can't comprehend why the solution wasn't shown. The final scene also seemed a little tacked-on as a "And then everything was okay" ending. I felt this didn't really live up to its potential.
Very nice. Some errors, but damn. This is a very, very good OC-only story, particularly considering the time limits of the contest. It also has a clear connection to the prompt. A few of the perspective changes were a little awkward and I feel the time skip was a little sudden, but on the whole I liked this quite a bit. Nice work.
Minor mechanical errors. There's no clear conflict until the panic attack—I'm not counting the busy shop or Pinkie's lonely twinges, because those get brushed off so easily. Pinkie's panic attack isn't set up, its aftereffects are told rather than shown, and I'm not really seeing a connection to the prompt. Because she has so many acquaintances, she doesn't have any friends, maybe? The Hedgehog's Dilemma, maybe? I don't know.
"I'VE BEEN TRAPPED FOR SIX YEARS IN THIS HORRIBLE NIGHTMARE THING. TIME TO COMPLETELY NEGLECT CALLING ON THE ALL-POWERFUL GOD-PRINCESS MY MENTOR FOR HELP AND INSTEAD INVOLVE ONE OF MY FRIENDS. HERP HERP DERP." 
It seems horrifically out of character for Twilight to not ask Celestia for help in this instance. You allude to "Oh, the Princesses shouldn't know about this," but never give Twilight any motivation to not turn to them. This is the worst sort of artificial conflict; if she was worried about Celestia being disappointed in her for participating in this, sure, I could see it, but she sounds at her wits' end in dealing with this, implying she's tried everything. Also, if participation in the game (which started after she was accepted into Celestia's school) is why she has such powerful magic, this directly contradicts canon, as she is shown to have powerful magic as a foal, before she's accepted. She might not have control, but she has a fair bit of the power.
Furthermore, the ending sort of came out of nowhere. I was just starting to get accustomed to the somewhat out-of-place, video game-esque segments when you go and change the setting! I don't see much point in spending all this time establishing the rules of the game when the story is resolved by bringing in the rest of the mane six, rendering all the world-building entirely pointless. A good half of this story could probably be removed without much damage being done to the overall story.
So much potential, wasted. However, the writing was fairly good technically, so I suppose that's something.
I agree that the ending feels very rushed, and add that it felt out of place. We didn't see Trixie make the transition from self-loathing to acceptance; she just ended up there in a single stated thought. Everything before the ending was great, though. I hope you consider fleshing out this story in the future.
>>324167 I have to agree with everything in this post. I liked this story more and more the further into it I got, but the start was more than a bit rough. The idea for the story though is perfect, and I can easily see an actual episode being made using the same concept.
I don't really see a point to this story. It doesn't attempt to be humorous, it doesn't have a twist or a surprise, it doesn't try to get emotion out of the reader, and the storyline itself felt more like an explanation of what alchemy is more than an actual story.
That said, the style of writing was very good, aside from a few typos. I just feel that the actual content wasn't very interesting or engaging.
This was a very good character study. There were some grammatical errors, but they didn't really detract from the overall reading experience. I also liked how the ending lead right into the episode Cranky Doodle appears in. This story was simple, but told very well.
It was very interesting to watch Inky/Octavia change over the course of the letters. I feel though that the story would be much stronger if it weren't comprised entirely out of the letters, though. However, a more fleshed out story would not have been acceptable for this contest. So I hope you decide to expand upon this concept later, because it really could make for an amazing story. But as this story currently stands, there's not quite enough to it.
This was... odd. I'm not sure how I feel about this, to be honest. As a horror story, it doesn't really provide any scares or eeriness. I just kept waiting for Lyra to wake up from a dream, but there was no sense of resolution as far as that goes. The story was interesting, but didn't really leave any impact on me other than confusion.
This story was entertaining, but I felt the writing wasn't quite up to snuff. Far too many grammatical errors for it to be an easy read. The jokes fell flat most of the time for me, and I never really got a good feel for Colgate's character. But having said that, the concept at play here was very interesting. I'd love to see this rewritten, with more attention payed to details and the storyline, and without the constraints of this contests' time limit.
Oh my god, this story was good. While actually constructive criticism is great, I have to urge you to disregard the two other reviews here before mine. They clearly didn't understand what this story was.
For anyone confused: This story doesn't just explain a part of Fluttershy's backstory, it attempts to give an explanation for "The Stare".
The story starts out strong by making the reader wonder who the pony writing journal entries might be. The constant references to the medicine, pills and their colors is a brilliant bit of mood setting. Then the inspector enters the picture, and he is a wonderfully written world-weary character; a perfect contrast to Fluttershy herself, who's words we had just been reading previously. And then the twist. Confusion is the initial reaction, followed by a sudden understanding as we connect the events of the story to the series proper. After that we move onto the doctor's professional analysis and conclusion, tying up the story neatly and leaving no more room for confusion.
I loved this story wholeheartedly, and it follows the double-edged sword prompt perfectly. I haven't read every story entered into this contest yet, but so far, this has my vote. I hope more people see what this story is trying to do, instead of dismissing it so easily.
Edit: After having read all of the other stories submitted to this competition, this story does indeed get my vote for best fanfiction, and the only 10 rating I gave during the voting procedure. This story is nearly flawless. It has great writing, a well established mood, a stunning twist, and it clearly wasn't rushed. I wish you (the author) well in this competition. This story deserves to be recognized as the great piece that it truly is.
I'm going to have to agree with Cainiam and Vimbert on this one. It's a nice teaser, but it doesn't work as a stand-alone story. Also, I disliked Discord calling himself a villain; one of the number one rules of writing a villain is that they don't see themselves as a villain. Even if Discord is a monster who exists only to spread chaos, he does so because he genuinely believes the world is a better place when chaos reigns.
A nice, episode-like story. The idea was solid, if not a bit predictable. But I got quite a few chuckles out of the jokes, and it's the sense of humor that made this story as entertaining as it was. Plus, Iron Will is just a great character that needs to be involved in more fanfiction. :)
I didn't care much for the way this story was presented. It was very dry, and relied on telling the reader information rather than showing it. We didn't get to see Pinkie's metamorphosis into the magically augmented pony, we're just told her emotions had started to dissipate. Also, while I think the initial twist worked well enough, things got really complicated and really confusing once Twilight started to reverse the spell. Try to be clearer in the future.
I have to admit, I only skimmed through the first half of this story. It was just fight sequences, which are boring when you are given no reason to care about the characters. And then the twist... you struggled so hard to explain it, that I wonder if even you as the author knew what you were talking about when you first started writing this. By the end, I'd understood what had happened, but the damage had already been done to my reading experience.
This story is just a mixture of "Tron" and "The Matrix" with some ponies thrown in. I can see how that would appeal to fans of those two series, but it didn't really appeal to me.
To, me this story felt very rushed. Not only in the amount of grammatical, spelling, and tense errors it had, but also in the too-quick pacing. The story just whizzed by without leaving much of an impact on me. Also, the start of the story was a bit too reminiscent of "A Party Of One", which doesn't make sense considering you'd think Pinkie would have learned her lesson about assuming things from what occurred in that episode.
There wasn't anything legitimately bad about this story, aside from the technical flaws that I mentioned earlier, but I didn't find anything that I particularly enjoyed, either.
I'm not sure how I feel about this quite yet. Maybe when I'm done reviewing it I will.
I feel the beginning of the story dragged on for too long. I understand that it takes time to set up for Pinkie's panic attack, but I can't help but think that you could have had a more interesting section of story leading up to it. Throwing in more jokes would have helped immensely, especially considering that Pinkie was a tad uncharacteristically tame throughout the entire story.
The point you brought up about Pinkie not having any true friends because she has so many people she considers friends though was very interesting. I can't honestly say that I've ever thought about the character that way before, but I can see how it might be true. This story works best if you imagine it takes place early in the first season, before we see her interacting 1-on-1 with her friends that much.
The resolution was rushed, though. But I understand that there were time constraint involved here, so I won't hold that too much against you. I guess overall I liked this story; it was well written for the most part, and made me think about one of my characters in a new way. That's about as much as I could ever ask of a fanfiction.
There's nothing I can say that the reviewers before me haven't, but I will say that I did enjoy this story quite a bit. I would be interested in seeing this story continue, even if some of the ideas it puts forth are a bit far-fetched. You have a solid grasp on writing and story telling, and I'm sure you'd be able to do something great with this idea if you expand it beyond this one-shot.
This was a very good story, but not a very good My Little Pony fanfiction. It's connection to the source material was tenuous at best, and the story didn't gain anything by being set in the MLP universe.
Having said that, it was written very well, aside from an odd section near the ending where the narrator's voice seemed to change. The characters were all written wonderfully, as well. My only real disappointment comes from my own misunderstanding: at first, I thought Reveille had been killed by the timber wolf. The story went straight from his attempting to take on the wolf to a funeral. A connection was bound to be made, but it turned out to be a fake-out.
However, I can't get over how much better I think the story would be if Reveille had died trying to protect Opal. Not because I hate happy endings, but because of how powerful it seemed to me when I thought he had died. It would have made sense from a story perspective, and would have ended the story more conclusively than it currently ends.
But that isn't what you as the writer was going for, so I'd never hold that missed opportunity against you. This story was very good, even if it didn't have much to do with the show. However, because of its lack of relevance to the MLP universe, I can't see myself voting for it, even though I do suspect that it is this story which will win the competition.
I would, however, buy any full-fledged fantasy novel that you might write in the future. And that's more important than voting for this story in a silly online competition.
I thought I had a lot to say about this story, but this reviewer hit the nail on the head.
However, I still enjoyed the story. Maybe it's because I am a huge Binding of Isaac fan, and because I knew what you were going for here. Honestly, I'd even forgive Twilight's OOC-ness if only we got a proper ending. This story suffered badly from time constraint, and it wraps up far too quickly. But I can't dislike this story even for all of its flaws, because it did get so much right. I just hope that you decide to re-write this as a longer story, and give more explanation for the dream world's workings.
Man, you're not suppose to capitalize "the" when it precedes the Black Queen's name. Unless you're Ezn, you nonconformist. I wouldn't be surprised if so.
The f1bishop? The g1 knight? Make up your mind -- do the names have spaces, or do they not have them?
The How-to-Read Books books, real great stuff. If you find those a bit too challenging, I always have the How-To-Read Books Books books collection.
Is "to" in "How-to-Read" capital, or isn't it? And does "How-to-Read" really need to be hyphenated?
“Nuh-uh, Twilight. We’ve been here for hours and all y’all has done is spout a buncha hooey about openin’s nopony knows or cares about. I’m getting’ outta here,” Applebloom, the g1 knight said.
Now, don't be mocking Apple Bloom's accent. Y'all have, not has. Remove the second G in "getting'".
Twilight, you messed up the café, didn’t pay for lunch when you said you’d treat me, accrued a tab of five hundred bits worth back-pay, made small fillies cry, and now you’re bad-talking me?!
Accrued a tab of five hundred bits' worth of back-pay and made small fillies cry. Makes "bits" possessive, insert "of" after "worth" and place an "and" before "made".
The next few days passed incredibly slowly. Twilight’s training routine was incredibly brutal, and Fluttershy had read nearly the entire library of books in that time, not even sparing time to sleep or rest.
Think up an adverb preferable to the second "incredibly".
Pinkie Pie evidently had taken part in the decoration, as party paraphernalia was scattered about: streamers, confetti, even a “chess” canon in the corner.
Cannon.
Her voice was gentile, definitely a member of the Canterlot aristocracy, yet there was something off about it.
Laughable! The word you want is "genteel", my good man.
Twilight gave herself a moment to calm herself before responding.
Too much "herself" in one sentence. Replace "gave herself" with the word "took".
She kept telling herself, “she’s not looking at the clock, you can do this” yet these felt like hollow words.
End the quotation with a comma. I'd rewrite "these felt like hollow words" as "her words felt hollow" or something.
T’was an excellent game, Fluttershy.
'Twas, not t'was; don't, not do'nt.
There was no doubt in Twilight’s mind that victory was at least twenty-three percent, give or take ten.
Most, rather than least, and follow "precent" with the word "likely".
CONTENTS CONTAIN ONE PINKIE PIE AND TWO FOALS.
I'd opt for "include" instead of "contain".
Never explains why Berry started drinking in the first place. She was already a full blown alcoholic before her unrequited love for Fluttershy. To me she was drinking herself to death due to an entirely different reason (a dead sister?) and the story would be better to address that reason instead.
You did get the characterization of both Pinkie and Fluttershy spot on. However, the use of the prompt was weakly supported in your story IMO. You showed no positive effect of Berry's drinking to balance with the negative effect of it killing her. Perhaps if you made it so Berry was drinking to forget a terrible event, and only being drunk enough to forget it allowed her to function at all? That would give you a better double edge sword (drink to forget/alcohol killing her) then having her reject help because she is afraid of failing and thus hurting Fluttershy.
Ok, Cerulean starlight has already beat you up enough over grammar and word usage. The use of the double-edge sword was decent, I perceived it as the love of the game was overcomed by the need to win, taking away that fun.
But as a chess player, you use of en passant as an illegal move is wrong. Use of en passant is voluntary, not required and ignorance of the rule doesn't count as an illegal move either. While I can see WHY you had to point out what happens when an illegal move occurs at the beginning of the match, you should have used something like accidentally moving a bishop from the white diagonal to the black, or a knight moved wrongly instead. It just causes your story ( to me) to be a little off.
BTW, while the identity of the Black Queen was obvious, it work well in your story having no pony BUT Pinkie realize it. It kind of made me laugh at how Twi or Shy couldn't figure it out themselves.
It is at it's core potentially a very good LONGER story. The self doubt Trixie has, the contempt she fells at times for the ignorance of her audience seems to fit the character well.
However what I liked about it, which you just skirted around, was Trixie's lost if innocence when she became a showmare. That most of the magic she loved to watch as a filly was just "tricks."
Moreover the ending was rushed and not very conclusive IMO. To me it would have been better if Trixie had some sort of epiphany where she realized it didn't matter if what she did was "tricks" or magic, it was the skill she did them and the enjoyment of the audience that was the real magic and have her contempt change from those foolish enough to believe in her show to those too jaded to enjoy it.
It could also be a done as a good follow-up to "Boast Busters."
No punch, pizazz, no great interest to finish, too straight forward.
It either needs to be much more tragic or much more humorous.
The alchemy was too simple. It would (IMO) been better if you had some more steps and specialized equipment. Like having a step in Pinkie's potion requiring Twi to stir it ten times counterclockwise with a wooden spoon, then tap the kettle 3 times with a silver hammer, ect....
Plus it would have been better if you had Twi make ( in hindsight) an obvious error in a potion by breaking or failing to follow one of the steps, and then having the apothecary ponies point out exactly where she went wrong. Like having her just stir a potion a few times rather than count exactly how many stirs, or use a iron hammer rather than a silver one.
Moreover, the story just too predicable, no reason to even finish it really. The totally obvious ending made it seem like a waste of time to read.
While a good character study of CDD, where was the use of "double-edged sword"?
What was the thing that was both good, but also negative to CDD? His book? That his memories started out good but made him angry? To me it wasn't his memories that made him, well Cranky, but his failure to find Matilda and the depressing life he lived while searching for her. He would be angry without the book as well IMO, so (to me) this isn't all the great of a use of the story prompt.
The letters were good, until the end.
I could not buy into Inky felling like Pinkie abandon her because she couldn't make any of her performances in Cantorlott. Why didn't Inkie visit Ponyville? It was abandonment for Pinkie not to come to Cantorlott, but not also abandonment for Inkie not to come to Ponyville?
IMO it would have been better if you had no hint of trouble between the sisters in the letters UNTIL AFTER the gala, then have a longer letter from Octavia about her ruining her big chance, how little then had in common anymore, and how she hated Pinkies wild antics, maybe even having Pinkie fail to realized that the Cello player at the Gala WAS Inky/Octavia.
A very good story
But it does not seem to make use the double-edged sword at all. A BIG part of this contests was to write a story with that as a plot element. This story just doesn't seem to use it at all and because of that I can't give it my highest score but must mark it down a star or two.
BTW, IMO the doll seem to be a manifestation of Lyra's own guilty conscious and feelings she failed Bon-Bon rather than being a harsher, meaner Bon-Bon.
I too was put off by the many grammatical errors, too many dropped adverbs and articles. Also some word choices seemed a litte off as well. It is almost like the author's milk language wasn't English.
The concept is great, it reminds me of classic short story about a machine that allowed everyone to read each others minds, it was suppose to cause world peace, but instead it caused the fail of civilization for very similar reasons why the "FLASHBACK" almost drove Colgate insane.
The ending was rather cliche, but is still works. You could almost make a series of stories about different ponies using the FLASHBACK. Colgate seem to see mostly cleanliness and hygiene flashbacks, perhaps Twilight would be more likely see all the "white" lies ponies tell each other?
While I don't agree entirely with Emerald, I too think it is a good story.
I like the idea of Fluttershy being infectiously too kind, and also immediately thought of the stare when this ability was supposly locked away. Perhaps you can make that a more definitive cause of the stare in your story?
The parts I didn't like was some of Fluttershy's backstory. Just too much of a reach, a foal-napped filly from a poor foriegn country? IMO it would have worked better just to have her severely emotionally abused by her father. Also the ending seemed a little too rushed, perhaps more about Fluttershy after being sealed. I also thought there could be a little more proof of the "infectious kindness." One murderous colt doesn't seem enough, there is no reason to believe he wasn't already perpared to kill before meeting Fluttershy. Maybe if you had another pony give away all his bits to the poor, then steal more to also give to the poor. Maybe another well-meaning pony starts foal-napping foals he/she thinks are being mistreated, even when they are not.
Well written, good OC.
Ending a little too exorcist like for me, with Daisy seeming to take in Dash's evil nightmare. It would have been better (IMO) if Dash's nightmare was just contained or banished. However you could hint at whatever is Daisy's own dark side or nightmare is getting stronger the more she uses her abilities.
Also the dream world seemed a little too mundane, it was more like a flashback. I would think some parts would be very over the top grandiose, while others parts would be much darker and harsher, reflecting more Dash's dreams of greatness and fears of failure.
Good idea, you seemed to have Iron Will's character spot on. While the plot is gather obvious once you figure out it's a reverse of "Putting Your Foot Down," it still hard a nice plot element in Iron Will becoming too docile for his maze to respect him and having to learn to balance mildness with assertiveness. 
Too complex with too many plotbholes.
Too much action takes place outside the narrative, we ( the readers) are just told they happened.
I could see why Pinkie might need to bring Starswirl forward in time to study her, why kill him? Unless the need was to show the new Pinkie as completely amoral, she could have just left him in modern Equestria. Moreover the whole idea Pinkie created something that she couldn't destroy just because a earlier version of her made it? That version should or would be much weaker, it shouldn't be able to make something immune to her magic.
Plus how did the book get into the library? Since the book recently written, how could Twilight find it in the past? You could make it that it is the book that is immune to Pinkies magic due to the paradox the book must survive to somehow be found by Twilight in the past.
After changing Pinkie back normal, you could have Twilight finding a message from god-mod Pinkie that Twilight must use a certain spell to send the book into the past to start the paradox and protect the time stream. This is just my opinion though.
Plus it would have been better if you had Twi make ( in hindsight) an obvious error in a potion by breaking or failing to follow one of the steps, and then having the apothecary ponies point out exactly where she went wrong. Like having her just stir a potion a few times rather than count exactly how many stirs, or use a iron hammer rather than a silver one.
No, no, the very point of the story is that Twilight is competent and good at following instructions! Those aren't errors that are obvious in hindsight; those are errors.
What you should do is put more emphasis on how Twilight neglected to scan General Alchemy, as that negligence is crucial to the plot, but was too subtle.
You use the British "colour" but the American "realize". What's up with that?
Note: The smell varies from zebra to zebra.
Shelf life: keep no longer than two years.
Do you capitalize after colons, or do you not? Be consistent.
Your Faithful Student,Twilight Sparkle
Sincerely,Your Faithful Student Twilight Sparkle.
Since when has Twilight used "sincerely"? Make the second closing just like the first; move "Your Faithful Student" into the place of "Sincerely".
Spike was coming down with Seringel, a dragon only sickness similar to Strep Throat.
I'd hyphenate "dragon-only". And don't capitalize "strep throat".
“Twi? You down there? I...” Spike coughed again, “... you got a reply from the Princess.”
If "Spike coughed again," isn't an attribution, punctuate it with a period, not a comma, and capitalize "you". I'd bet that it's not an attribution because you haven't a single other attribution in this fic, preferring to type things like ""Oh."" instead of things like ""Oh," she said." I mean, I think it's not considered poor form or anything, and I'm not denouncing nonconformity, but that's somewhat unorthodox.
Also, you accidentally put a second space before Spike's name. Delete it.
I’m sure either on—
Either one? I'd think that to begin to say the word "one" but be cut off before pronouncing the E is impossible.
Twilight’s expression changed from concern to one of fear.
This is awkward. One of concern?
Hang in there Spike.
I'd place a comma after "there".
She opened it and quickly scanned it’s contents.
You need a possessive "its".
However, as dragon’s themselves are rare, we don’t have very much on them.
Ew, why the apostrophe in "dragons"?
One is on general alchemy, the other is a book of obscure sicknesses written by zebras.
Replace the comma with a semicolon, and remove the unneeded space before the word "book". Furthermore, I think that "a book of obscure sicknesses written by zebras." sounds off; I'd change it to "a Zebrican book on obscure sicknesses."
She had searched her library multiple times, but had found only reference to Seringel.
References?
“Good morning Miss Sparkle!”
I’m sorry Miss Sparkle.
I'd precede each "Miss" with a comma.
I didn’t mean to sound angry, I just have a lot on my mind right now.
The thought trailed off, she didn’t want to finish it.
Semicolons, not commas.
She, and everypony else in Ponyville, loved Derpy with all their hearts, but the couldn’t help but wonder what she was thinking sometimes.
They couldn't.
Some glowed brightly while bubbling, some just simply... bubbled slowly.
A semicolon, not that comma.
A second later, two rust coloured unicorn stallions brushed past some dried flowers that were hanging low and came to a stop in front of Twilight.
I'd hyphenate "rust-coloured".
He looked around store front, tapping his chin in a gesture of curiousness.
Doesn't "storefront" need no space"?
“Hmm... that would me... no...”
Would be?
“So, I’d be willing to bet that the supplies you need for making your own medicine won’t come in a starters kit.”
"Starter's", with an apostrophe.
“It’s one the simplest things to make, yet no pony except an alchemist would guess that something as bothersome as the Poison Joke could do so much good. All novices should start off with this or something similar.
This must be followed by a quotation mark.
However, her smile turned to one disgust as the potion quickly turned a mud brown.
Of disgust. I would make "mud" into "muddy".
All ready his breathing sounded like it was coming a bit easier.
Already.
The sun had already sinking below the horizon and the moon was starting to come up.
Already sunk.
“I wonder... if I could make something that worked this quickly... could I make something to help my friends.”
Shouldn't you end this with a question mark, rather than the full stop?
She always has a sick animal or something that could use a good does of medicine.
Dose.
Twilight, who was in just about to head to her workshop, called over her shoulder.
Was just.
It was a very sickly looking bear.
I would hyphenate "sickly-looking".
Without hesitation, she walked up, took the flask of potion out of her saddlebag.
Taking the flask.
“Anyways, the this was simpler to make then the other medicine I made.”
Than.
“If you’ll just take this please. My friend made it and it’ll help you get better.”
The bear, who had been pacing restlessly stopped and drank the potion and then slowly sank down.
I would insert commas after "this", "made it" and "restlessly".
Looking at back at the bear one last time, she headed into the cottage.
Looking back at the bear.
Fluttershy stopped mid knock.
I'd give "mid-knock" a hyphen.
“Umm... alchemy. What are you doing here Dash?
Close this with a quotation mark.
I’ll get started on another batch of Cure all.
Capitalize "all".
A pestle and mortar sat at one end, at the other end, there was the alcohol burner. On the burner, a pot of water bubbled, an odd, redish smoke coming from it.
Switch the first "end," with "end;". Shouldn't that be "reddish"?
Okay, listen up everypony.
Place a comma after "up".
She shrugged and sat down to wait for the list to make it’s way around the room.
Delete the apostrophe in "it's".
Four hours later and three cups of coffee later, Twilight groaned and slumped over her bench.
I think that the former "later" is superfluous.
“Just be sure to let it cool for five minutes.
This lacks a quotation mark at its end.
Twilight opened her eyes and found herself nearly face to face with a very green looking Pinkie Pie.
Aren't "face-to-face" and "green-looking" hyphenated?
A look of deep concern crossed Twilight’s face. She could hear Pinkies heart beating faintly.
"She" is preceded by one space too many, and "Pinkies" is missing a possessive apostrophe.
I think we need to talk about alchemy and it’s dangers.
Its.
“Beginners luck. Now, lets get your friend there some antidote.”
Beginner's, and let's.
Anyways, we grow and pick our own herbs, so running the store is dirt cheap compared to other apothecaries.
I'd hyphenate that as "dirt-cheap".
I was successful in brewing a cure for Spike and he is doing well now.
Put a comma after "Spike".
Ask me any questions you have.
Some major plot holes IMO.
If Freddy KNEW these were actually clones thus living creatures, why was he so quick to kill Scratch's clone? Wouldn't that basically be murder? IMO he would have done something else, like stun the clone, convince it to leave, or just run away. Later he is upset about them creating life just for entertainment, but he was still willing to kill clones that were still part of the game.
BTW, if they were actual clones, where was the blood and/or dead (clone) bodies. The idea that they just disappear after being killed sounds more like they were just holograms and not real to begin with. Yes I realize that they could have been teleported, but the evaporating effect of Scratches body doesn't match the way a teleportation spell seems to work in MLP.
OK, just how and when did W.T. become a free avatar? You have Otavia actually playing her, then with no break in the game of strange occurrence it's W.T. as a free avatar and not only is Octavia no longer playing her but is at home asleep. There should be some moment when W.T. takes over, maybe suddenly feeling lost or without control or direction when Octavia leaves the game. Plus the game operators would have a means to delete, remove, or store a clone avatar when it's creator leaves the game IMO. Maybe Octavia leave suddenly without telling the operators, thus leaving her avatar still in play? Maybe even have Freddy cause her to leave just so W.T. would be left active in the game for him to rescue?
Not too bad
It seems a little rushed, especially during Pinkie's hunt for the sword. The fact there was really a sword at the end of the map seemed a too conquincidental and easy. To me it would have worked better if Pinkie hunted around the area some more with comic effects like bug the manure out of every pony she meets until finially some pony hides an obvious fake sword just for Pinkie to find and thus get rid of her.
Another rework of "A Party of One.". I like this one better than "Pinkie learns about Doubl-edge Swords."
Love the idea that Pinkie's had no real close friends to confide in and suffers from depression and panic attacks because of that. I actually knew a coworker that had a similar problem. She was a part of every afterwork activity, usually as the chief organizer. However it turned out she had no friends outside of work but hid that fact until she had a emotional breakdown.
The ending of Pinkie becoming Twilight's friend Is good but bonding over doing research? Too much what Twi would be doing away. What was there to confide in each other about, share their actual feelings like new close friends? However I could see Pinkie just enjoying something that was completely different from partying or baking as part of her recovery.
The previous reviews have already said about the same things I feel.
But I really did not buy into the idea that Trixie was Celestria's daughter at all. IMO given Trixie's egotism, she would have rubbed that into every ponies face, every chance she could.
Plus where is the the downside of her new magic power? A black streak in her hair? What is she channeling Rarity or something, The double-edge should be something more sinister and definitely more negative. Without that, IMO there is no true double-edge sword shown, even if the character claims there is one.
I've only read the first ten submissions, but this is my favorite so far. Author, I love how well you wrote your protagonist! If you revise the story, please, please, please don't change his manner and mentality. He's great.
One murderous colt doesn't seem enough, there is no reason to believe he wasn't already perpared to kill before meeting Fluttershy.
I agree with you, and, as I read it, the story, too, agrees with you.
I noticed the American "sympathize" and the British "endeavour".
Man, what's up with the "Things To Do" lists? I mean, firstly, make that a lowercase "to". Secondly, I get the feel that an item on a list should be a bare infinitive -- an infinitive verb without "to". Is that right?
1) re-run prosecution evidence of the Galestrom case
Is the article "the" necessary? You don't use it for these two:
4) research on Hunter case
2) research on Hunter case
You want these to be bare infinitives, not nouns, so I'd delete each "on".
1) Welfare Dept. paperwork
This is a noun, so put a bare infinitive before "Welfare". You used "sort out and submit Welfare Department paperwork" earlier.
1) Streamline the sundamn Welfare/FC system
That's not a complete sentence! 
Make "Streamline" lowercase!
1) meeting with Greenie
Make it a bare infinitive, not a noun. Try "meet with Greenie" or "attend meeting with Greenie".
Got Mummy’s medicine - 4 red, 6 blue, 6 clear (phyrol), 6 other clear (serenol) and the receptionist even gave me a sweet bun as I was leaving.
Gave Mummy half a teaspoon of the red medicine and 2 cups of water at 3.14 a.m. - coughing fit, wheezing.
Ah, okay, so you use a spaced hyphen, as opposed to an em dash; that's cool --
Dear Diary—
Bah! Change the two spaced hyphens to unspaced em dashes.
Got Mummy’s medicine - 4 red, 6 blue, 6 clear (phyrol), 6 other clear (serenol) and the receptionist even gave me a sweet bun as I was leaving. Mummy didn’t cough that much today, only 8 times, and all of them short.
Place a comma after "serenol", and spell "8" out as "eight".
Ms. Teacher forgave me though, but I had to sit at the back of the class again because the front seats were taken.
I'd place a comma after "me".
Actually I don’t think I like playing charades with pictures that much.
Shouldn't "Actually" be followed by a comma?
Didn’t go to school today. Mummy coughed blood in the night. 1 teaspoon red, 1 black pill, 2 cups of water at 4a.m.. I had to stay next to her and give her water, and feed her the black pill every 4 hours.
No, Fluttershy's records of medicine should be their own paragraphs, and I'd spell out "4 hours" as "four hours", like this:
1 teaspoon red, 1 black pill, 2 cups of water at 4a.m..Didn’t go to school today. Mummy coughed blood in the night. I had to stay next to her and give her water, and feed her the black pill every four hours.
I read my maths textbook and “Tales” that Dad gave to me. They were all stories about distant pegasi countries, and princesses, and princes, and adventures, and magic.
I read my maths textbook, and "Tales", which Dad gave to me. i'd add two commas and replace "that" with "which". Make that an adjective "pegasus".
I have to wake Mummy up every 4 hours to give her them. Why can’t the doctors make pills that you take every 8 hours instead?
1 teaspoon red, 1 black pill, 2 cups of water at 4a.m.. 2 cups of water at 5a.m.. 1 black pill and ½ cup of water every 4 hours.
Make "4", "8" and "4" into "four", "eight" and "four".
I always sit at the back of the class and all the other fillies are bigger than I am.
Follow "class" with a comma.
I just know that there were shouting things about me, because I heard my name.
They.
“Trust me, we won’t get caught”.
Move this full stop inside the quotation marks.
I didn’t want to listen so I’m here now, in Mummy’s room, where it’s safe, because nopony ever argues in Mummy’s room.
I would insert a comma after "listen".
he said that his father was “in-vest-ee-gate-ing”.
Capitalize "he".
Can’t let Whitey know though.
Give "know" a comma.
It’s not like his current case is weak either. He could plead insanity, or plead for leniancy because of his damn wife.
Give "weak" a comma. Leniency, with two Es.
It’ll take at least 6 for her to recover, and that’s using Greenie’s shortcut, experimental method.
Six.
I’ve received affirmation to go after the Galestrom assets now, and they’re going to give me leave for the Hunter case. It’ll probably be a 3-way split behind the mother and two daughters.
Remove one of the two spaces that precede "It'll". Spell out "three-way". "Behind"? Should that be "between"?
She asked when would Whitey go over to her place. I told her I didn’t know, and honestly I don’t.
Switch "would" and "whitey" around. "I told her I didn’t know, and, honestly, I don't"? "I told her I didn’t know, and honestly, I don't"? "I told her I didn’t know, and I honestly don't"?
It gives me something to talk about with her as well.
Consider following "her" with a comma.
Somehow, she’s gotten herself the nickname of “maid” because she helps Red Jacket with the chores e.g. cleaning.
You have to place a comma before "e.g.", right? You precede "i.e." with a comma at a later point in this work.
This isn’t an issue, it’s almost a blessing.
A semicolon, not a comma.
His tracker tried to stop him from leaving the place, but he was knocked down with a single punch.
He knocked him down with a single punch? I dunno. . . . "Punch"? Do ponies punch? Again, I dunno. Eh.
I interact with less than 10 ponies regularly, and there are 34 of them greeting me like I’m their new best friend.
You've got to spell "10" as "ten". I personally don't spell "34" as "thirty-four"; hyphens are messy.
The procedure for disabling the “kindness aura”, also referred to as “the anomaly”, exhibited by the subject Fluttershy will begin now.
Follow "Fluttershy" with a comma.
Her memory waves consist of three major layers: her early memories, memories post-trial, and current, short-term memory based on real-time input.
. . . If "early memories" and "memories post-trial" are plural, I'd have "short-term memory" be plural, too. It sounds off as it is.
A waiting time of 3 minutes to pass for full effect.
A waiting time of 3 minutes to pass for full effect.
Consider changing each "3" to a "three".
In this case, where the degree of change can be quantified, the path which leads to less change has been chosen, i.e. stemming the anomaly, thus limiting the number of altered ponies to 4—the subject and 3 others previously exposed to the aura. Such a being cannot fit into normal society without causing havok, as witnessed in the case of the murderer Red Jacket; one can almost say that it is a kindness done to the subject, that she should have this anomaly suppressed.
Spell out the words "four" and "three". "Havoc" has a C, not a K.
But big sis said I was keeping the whole house up, and she so I didn’t read aloud anymore. [seventeen spaces]
White Wings said he tried to visit me, but . [seventeen]
She said and Dad and I didn’t want to listen so I’m here now, in Mummy’s room, where it’s safe, because nopony ever argues in Mummy’s room. [seventeen and nine]
He said something about black markets and society and and and I don’t understand. [eighteen and ten]
Mummy is my Mummy, and Dad is my Dad, even if he , and even big sis is my big sis. [sixteen]
Even if she shouts at me and but she still cares for me, right? [sixteen]
Huh? Dude! The spaces are so irregular! At least use them in consistent amounts!
Have you ever heard of using pairs of em dashes (——) to denote omissions? You should try it. All the cool kids are doing it.
Ask me any questions you have.
I'll just leave this here...
In reverse alphabetical order because I said so.
The Ueton Game
The first half of this story was very engaging and hooked me well enough to want to keep reading till the end. That said, the ending was a bit anticlimactic, to say the least. Within the time constraints of the contest, and seeing how you still had the longest story of the lot, this is to be expected. But the story still has ways that it could be improved. Justification for the mane-6 to have gotten a free ride into the game-winning zone seems to be the most necessary thing. “We get to fight Nightmare Moon because friendship,” really leaves a sour taste in your mouth.
The prose described the events excellently and the dialogue was fluent. I definitely felt like I could trust that what was written was what was intended to be written, and I couldn’t find any major issues with the mechanics. (However, double-spaces after full-stops are unnecessary, and you could have done a find-and-replace to turn those double-hyphens into em dashes, but these are minor niggles at best.)
On Vimbert’s point as to why Twilight wouldn’t ask Celestia for help: it’s just a sad nuance of putting Twilight in any sore situation; she has this “get out of jail free” card from her relationship with the princess. There’s no way to avoid it. I guess more work could have been done to imply Celestia wouldn’t have been able to help (that the image of Luna could solve the problem implies that Celestia could, at least by proxy), but it still seems to me like an unavoidable bit of fridge logic.
Overall, an enjoyable story that could do with a few extra scenes.
Sword, Hammer, Stallion
Second paragraph:
>He glanced at his son after each hammer stroke. Dark blue eyes, cool green hair that made Cross Tree taste mint whenever he saw it, a dark green bush of a mane. Tough little muscles on his ungainly coltish limbs. Little Reveille still wasn’t quite used to the loud noises of the workshop, and his eyes and ears still blinked twitched with each resounding whack of hammer on steel. He had once shied away from the sparks when he was very young, but now he stood firm in his oversized goggles and thick apprentice apron, watching the sparks dance.
Two sentence fragments dedicated purely to the physical description of your character. I had to read through this some three times to actually understand what this was saying, and even now I don’t quite get it. This information should be slipped in through more subtle and rigid prose, because now I’m going into the story not trusting your mechanical diligence in your work. Fragments should only be used if the reader trusts you enough to give you that artistic license, and even then, only if the fragment adds to clarity of what you’re trying to express. “blinked twitched”? I think you missed an “and” in there. Also, it might do you some good to hyphenate your compound terms: dark-blue eyes, cool-green hair (or is it cool green-hair? I can’t even tell), dark-green brush (what does this even mean? The brush is green? Isn’t brush used as a verb here? I’m so confused). Rule of thumb: if there is any ambiguity without the hyphen, use the hyphen.
>The weight… every blow that goes into creating it.
More sentence fragments...
>Needing, wanting to cut and stab.
These fragments give me that feeling.
>Rakes, water pots, helmets, armor.
You love those fragments, don’t you? I think now might be the time for you to learn to love the em dash (—). I’m getting nit-picky at this point, really, but you’ve given no reason to justify this use of language.
>You can see the glow, this baby’s hot.
Comma splice.
>Another day, another sword.
See this? It’s good use of a sentence fragment. It acts like a phrase or interjection and isn’t so long that it feels confusing to the reader.
>A little ways up that path was a single Guard outpost, the final checkpoint of ponydom before the rest of the wild, untamed world claimed the land.
Comma splice.
>That single road out of Equestria, out of everything he’d ever known, shrouded by trees and possibly crawling with monsters.
Fragment.
>If you go up that path, and there’s no telling what can happen.
Unnecessary "and".
I stopped at the end of the second scene-break. At some one third of the way through a short story, there’s no hook here to keep me interested in reading this. The dialogue is plagued by ellipses that make the dialogue sound stilted and awkward, and the plot will develop as such: grave warning from wise man is ignored; protagonist gets in trouble as a result; protagonist gets out of trouble and sees the wisdom in the original warning. I can know the plot of a story and still enjoy it if the prose is engaging, but your first third has given me no reason to believe your story will deliver that.
>Read the whole thing you bum.
All right, all right. I simply got bored ‘sall. It’s not a jab at you but a bit of info that might let you know where the problems lie.
>The noise of his blood pounding in his ears was louder than anything he’d ever heard. Opal Eye suddenly starting to shake beside him felt like an earthquake.
That first sentence is strange to say the least. The second sentence is all kinds of awkward. After three re-reads I figure that “Opal Eye suddenly starting to shake beside him” is supposed to be a noun clause or something. But even if it is grammatically correct, it reads terribly.
Well, I can’t say the prose was as bad as the first third, but I still don’t think it’s a very interesting story. What was Opal doing out in the forest/fields/not-in-town? If her parents had actually told her it was entirely safe, and it apparently isn’t, and so she just hung about there all the time, how on earth was she not already wolf chowder? The ending also seemed very extended. I mean, closure is nice, but the meat of your story is the ~1,000 word scene in the middle. This story just seemed chocked full of words that don’t really engage the reader at all, which was why I was lead to abandon it in the first place.
Sorry that I can’t really be of more help. This is just my take on the story, and my take isn’t at all definitive.
Shadows
>The essence of the alicorn flowed around Trixie, and into her ...
Sounds hot.
>She was laying on a wooden table, shackled and bound so that she couldn’t escape.
Oh dear...
>Trixie closed her eyes and sobbed quietly, already knowing her fate.
Oh my.
>pressing in on her from every side.
[George Takei] Ooooh my.
Hmm, somewhat of a nice introduction to what seems to be a larger story. However, I think the discussion between Nightmare Moon and Trixie became a little too casual and ended too abruptly. That is to say, even in the face of Trixie’s “new found leverage”, I think that Nightmare Moon should still try and wear an aura of dominance over her, rather than just going “okay, whatevs sista, we be partners now oy-oy!”. Feel free to disagree.
There were quite a few typographical errors, but seeing as they weren’t systematic I’m sure that you’ll find them yourself when you do some editing.
Alone, this story doesn’t stand well (much like my own), but it has potential to expand into something interesting.
Pinkie’s Panic
>“I'd love to...” she glanced around, wondering if there was some way she could avoid it. “...but I [...]”
Eh, nope. This doesn’t work. Put em dashes on either side outside of the quotation marks if you want to punctuate your dialogue like this:
>“I'd love to”—she glanced around, wondering if there was some way she could avoid it—“but I [...]”
Eh, I don’t really know what to say of this. The prose was mostly confusing and far too often over-stayed its welcome. What could have been said in few words took many. What Twilight said about Pinkie was true, I suppose, to some extent, but it feels like the entire story is just a vessel for you to regurgitate Twilight’s essay to us. It doesn’t read much like a story at all, and like others have said, Pinkie’s reactions was far too contrived, especially considering what she learned in Party of One.
Pinkie Learns About Double Edged Swords
>No, It was something subtle. Something in the air.
Improper capitalisation and a sentence fragment.
>”You want to...” Pinkie lowered her voice conspiratorially, “... prepare Spikey-Wikey together with Rarity aren’t you?”
Eh, nope. This doesn’t work. Put em dashes on either side outside of the quotation marks to punctuate dialogue like this:
>”You want to”—Pinkie lowered her voice conspiratorially—“prepare Spikey-Wikey together with Rarity aren’t you?”
Also, the second half of the sentence reads strangely, but it kinda works, I guess.
>There seems to be a desk set right at the end of the tent.
Present tense out of nowhere.
>[...] examining this err... precious stone tablets.”
“these” or “tablet”
>you’re the goto pony
I’d say hyphenate to “go-to” if you want to use it as an adjective, since it’s not really a standard word.
>a heavy bags
Eenope.
>artifact
If you’re using British English, it’s “artefact”.
>All I know that she came
You accidentally a word.
>“Well, I thought you were telling me that my parties were no fun anymore and...” Pinkie’s voice softened a little. “... you wouldn’t want to be my friends...”
Again, use em dashes for this.
>The lavender unicorn […]
Oh dear.
There were a few other errors in there too that you should be able to pick up in editing.
Story-wise, this seemed pretty similar to Pinkie’s Panic. As in, it was pretty slow and not much happened. The “Pinkie thinks her friends don’t like her anymore, but instead of asking them directly she snoops and makes assumptions” thing has already been done in the show, so I’m not sure why you’d go for that same angle. The rest of the story, i.e., the whole double-edged sword business, didn’t seem to have much impact on it at all. Rosetta Stone? I didn’t really get the final scene either. But maybe we can chalk this up to me not being a very perceptive reader. I feel like there was supposed to be some irony that I missed but can’t figure out what it is.
Piercing Octaves
Well, I can’t really review myself now can I?
I’ll say what I have already said though: the ending is intentionally awful, monotone, etc. If you want to give feedback on its current state, I’m interested in knowing your impression of the world and story before Frederick takes W.T. to Octavia’s. The line, “See, now you are free,” is, in its current state, the end of the first chapter, to better let the reader understand the differences in tone between the two parts, since the differences between the game and real world (and therefore how the story reads) are like night and day.
I do remember someone saying there’s a problem with referring to hell, e.g., using “bloody hell”. Equestria has Tartarus, and hence the Underworld, which was commonly referred to as hell in Greek mythos. (Equestria is also littered to the dunes with Greek mythology.) That there would be a hell in Equestrian parlance is not exactly far-fetched. And for Christ’s sake, half of our interjections don’t bloody work in the pony world as is. Cut me some slack, willya! Making ponies talk naturally is hard when the words I want to use “aren’t allowed” for the sake of your headcanon.
Pieonic
>Last month was water breathing, the month before that was research into wing spells -which still had many advancements to go before they evolved past the fragile butterfly wings that were gifted to rarity -before that was astral projection, and before that was scrying.
Comma splice. And gah, your em dashes are hyphens...
>However, almost all of the books she had put on the reserve for the subject did just give the instructions and insight to simple tricks. Though a single book by her favorite unicorn, Starswirl the bearded, did give advanced insight into the otherwise hopeless field.
Your usage of “did” in both of these sentences destroys the flow of reading. Compare them to:
>However, almost all of the books she had put on reverse merely gave instructions and insight into simple tricks. [...] unicorn, Starswirl the Bearded, gave advanced insight into the otherwise hopeless field.
Often, using any “be” verb will stilt the flow of sentences and throw them into passive voice, and you end up with all sorts of confusing stuff like above. See how once I remove “did”, fixing the rest of the sentence becomes pretty easy. Also, I’m not sure if the “the” in Starswirl’s title should be capitalised, but “Bearded” sure should be.
>Feeling this topic was much more important then next month’s choice (illusionary magics), she decided to extend its length for another month.
“than”, not “then”. Usage of brackets in prose should be avoided as much as possible. That appositive would work far better if it were appended with em dashes. And I don’t think magic should be plural there as it reads oddly, but that’s a minor niggle at best.
>Opening up the book to the pages labeled with notes on what traits best attributed to a successful experiment.
Fragment.
>might just do a lot more then slow her down.
than
>“But Twilight, this is me we’re talking about, why would you think that I would be able to ‘free my mind’?”
Comma splice.
>LEAST
Italics for emphasis, please.
>it’s that Starswirl creates the most safe and dependable spell analysts anywhere.
He creates analysts, i.e., ponies that are skilled at analysing data? I think you want “analyses”. Even still, I’d end the sentence at “spells”. Maybe append “in all of Equestria” if you want some zest.
>“Okay, Twilight, if you say it’s alright,” She agreed with a slight uncertainty.
Improper dialogue punctuation.
>“Any time you could take off each day?”
This sounds really weird. I don’t really know if you need to bother with this, since you skip straight to the scene with the experiment anyway. Just get them straight into it once Pinkie agrees and stop waffling.
>Pinkie spoke as she headed out the door, any second thoughts on what she had agreed to dispersed to see the librarian so enthusiastic.
This doesn’t really make any sense.
At this point I’m going to ignore any grammatical and stylistic errors and focus on the story. I think it’s obvious that the mad rush to get this many words out in such a short time has plagued your story with errors that could probably be fixed with a little self-editing.
>”If you could lay on the couch I’ll be right over.”
Should be “lie”. I know I said I wouldn’t do anymore line-by-line, but this shit is pretty hard to get right, so I’m assuming that you might miss this in your own editing.
>One week later
You... you can’t do that. This information is conveyed in the next paragraph anyway, so you could just get rid of it.
The first scene where Twilight is testing Pinkie’s magic is very... well, monotone. The systematic nature of it seems characteristic enough of Twilight, but somehow you’ve got Pinkie Pie in the room without anything happening. Make her do some quirky things that gets a bit of banter going on between them to keep the scene engaging. Right now, it just reads as Twilight saying, “Do this,” and then Pinkie doing it without a hiccup.
>At this last bit of information the purple pony broke out into a poorly silenced giggle. “Oh come on, Twilight, I don’t want to use this as a tool for gossip.”
This is extremely weird and out of character for Pinkie Pie. I cannot imagine her saying that in the slightest—specifically “as a tool for”. (Edit after having read the story: if you’re trying to show her changing, she wouldn’t be this un-Pinkie already.) And who’s this purple pony, Twilight? She’s lavender. But this is Pinkie talking. Why do you have a beat (action before dialogue) with Twilight as the subject and then Pinkie talking? It’s confusing.
Twilight’s field tests. Ugh, what is going on? The prose here is so confusing and filled with passive voice that I’m wracking my brain trying to figure out what you’re trying to say. You need to say what’s happening more clearly so that the reader knows what’s happening.
>humanity
Enope.
>effected
affected
Welp, the prose in this story was just painfully difficult to read. I hope I don’t offend by assuming English is not your native tongue. The story could have worked well with better execution, but it was just so much waffling and “this is happening” combined with confusing sentence structure. I probably missed half of what happened too since by the end I resigned to reading each paragraph only once.
Minotamed
Fluttershy is using “The Stare” on something that trivial? I get you want to show her being more assertive, but The Stare is a bit extensive, I think. Maybe just have her give Angel a stern talking to.
>her animal friends
her animal friend
>fifty pages
Mein Gott.
>backsass from the maze
Hehe.
>Fluttershy giggled, proud that she’d written something good enough for somepony to consider it worth memorize.
worth memorizing
All right, I really enjoyed this story. I could hear Iron Will’s voice just coming through the pages (screen, whatevs). The dialogue was in character enough to make the whole thing feel like “Putting Your Hoof Down”, only with the roles reversed. The prose was well written and easy to read, with the only errors being typos. This had all the elements of a good short story and read almost like an episode of the show. Nice work.
Minor nitpick: your em dashes were hyphens.
I Dream of Daisies
>Pushing her nervous aside for a moment
nervousness
>a few a tricks
“a few tricks”, unless you’re trying to make her sound hick.
>felt to numb
too
>she was able to think with the utmost clarity
unnecessary “the”
>Daisy's vision was fuzzy, her ears were ringing, her legs were wobbly, and she felt sick to her stomach.
Comma splices, but it’s not so big a deal since all the clauses have the same subject and have similar form. Up to you if you wanna get rid of ‘em (the splices, that is).
>pull of
pull off
>Rainbow Dash in the shower-room underneath the stands, alone.
fragment
>the the
the
>and probably seen a few magical wingspan enhancements in her day
has probably seen
“in her day” implies she’s retired
It seems weird that you’d use “his daughter” as the subject instead of just “her” when the paragraph is focused on her.
>I know, you've told me.
Comma splice.
>competitors of your
competitors of yours
>ariel
aerial
>, "we
. “We
>sharp white teeth
“sharp-white teeth”, or “sharp, white teeth”? It’s ambiguous.
>The screams of the ponies who had been sitting there were short and bone-chilling, as they all fell into the creature's mouth.
The comma before “as” uses it as a coordinating conjunction meaning “for the reason that; as a result of”. Without the comma it uses as a subordinating conjunction meaning “at the same time that”, which is what I think you mean to say.
>wicked will, and finally
no comma
You have a lot of cases where you use Mr/Ms without a full-stop after them. You’re supposed to have a full-stop after abbreviations.
Overall, I enjoyed this story. The prose was fluent and described the events that occurred well. Sans the mistakes pointed out that seemed to me more typos than overlooked things, the story was well written. I especially liked the interaction between Nightmare and Daisy where Nightmare said a whole paragraph before being rebutted with with some variation of a sarcastic “Sounds wonderful.” What exactly happened to conclude the dream could do with a bit of a touch-up, I think, but otherwise the story’s events were solid.
Harmony
>A distraction, to avoid having to think about the implications of his return.
Fragment. Previous full-stop should be a comma.
Well, this was short. Very short. The dialogue was fun and engaging, but the whole “Contrary to popular belief, the Elements did not banish Luna to the moon” thing felt a bit unnecessary, since it leads into “Celestia is a tyrant” territory, which just doesn’t sit well with me unless it’s an actual plot device (which your story really didn’t need, being so short). It was written well, although it’s not too hard to be rigid in prose over such a short piece.
Also, double-spaces after full-stops are unnecessary.
For the Love of All
When you have excerpts omitted from a journal entry, you should use spaced ellipses instead of giant loads of white space, e.g., “and she . . . so I didn’t read aloud anymore.” Why is this a good idea? Because a lot of places and software will cull any space after the first (Ponychan and LyX, for example), and, well, it makes the paragraphs look a hell of a lot nicer. Giant gaps of white give the paragraphs a weird look.
>I just know that there were shouting things about me
“they” instead of “there”? Not sure if intended since it’s a juvenile diary.
>doing Fluttershy a kindness
Eh... Again, diary format gives you a lot of wiggle room, but I don’t know if you really want this.
Well, wow. This was definitely an interesting story. Epistolary stories have a way of getting you engaged, don’t they? First person is definitely my favourite perspective, anyhow. Fluttershy being an abused orphan isn’t new, but I liked this take on it. The tie-in with the prompt was very well done, also. The implication that her suppressed, infectious aura is the source of The Stare is also very subtle.
FLaSHBA-CK
>“Colgate,” she yawned, holding a hoof to her mouth, “you’ve been down here all night. It’s morning now.”
Since most people don’t consider “yawn” a speaking verb (you can’t yawn and talk at the same time), you can’t do this. If you swap the commas for em dashes, you get the intended effect without it being incorrect (at least to those who would say that yawning isn’t a speaking verb):
>“Colgate”—she yawned, holding a hoof to her mouth—“you’ve been down here all night. It’s morning now.”
>light blue glow
“light-blue glow” or “light, blue glow”?
>“You! Are seeing me! Working on...” She tossed her mane back and raised a hoof, striking a pose that one would see from a statue. “...The FLaSHBA-CK!”
I’d lowercase the words after the exclamation marks since the words are forming the full sentence. Also, use em dashes to punctuate the dialogue:
>“You! are seeing me! working on”—she tossed her mane back and raised a hoof, striking a pose that one would see from a statue—“the FLaSHBA-CK!”
>This lets whoever sees the recent past of whatever the wearer’s looking at.
There’s a lot of things this could be trying to say. I’m guessing “sees” should be “see”.
>Runs on science I don’t fully understand myself a bucketful of unicorn magic.
You’re missing a bit of punctuation somewhere. Try “Runs on science I don’t fully understand myself—a bucketful of unicorn magic.” Hm, yes. Em dashes make everything better. Mmmmm, em dashes...
Sorry, where were we? Oh, right.
>“With this, we can see...” Colgate threw out her free hoof, making a arcing wiping motion. “...The future!”
There’s an em dash for that. Also, “an arcing”.
>I can imagine a lot of...” She wracked her brain for an appropriate word. “...Imaginative uses for this, but I think most of them aren’t legal.”
There’s an em dash for that.
>but they .
Oops. I think you accidentally a some words there.
>ooh’d
“ooh” is a standard verb. It doesn’t need to be italicised, and it doesn’t need the “e” in the past tense form to be contracted.
>dark gray coat
“dark, gray coat” or “dark-gray coat”?
>By the by
By the bye
I enjoyed this story. The way you’ve written Colgate is fun to read—an eccentric and live-in-the-moment kind of mare. Lyra running away to her “thing at the place” was great too. The message of the story was pertinent, very true: ignorance sometimes is bliss, haha. We all have our secrets, don’t we? Everyone needs a bit of privacy. Fun story. A good read.
Creepy Doll From Down the Lane
First off, "from" in the title shouldn't be capitalised since it's a preposition.
>A diamond necklace laid inside the box.
lay
In English there are two different verbs, lay and lie, that do similar but distinct things. To lie is to "be located or situated somewhere; occupy a certain position". To lay something is to "cause to have a certain (possibly abstract) location".* The main distinction between the two is their valency, i.e., how many arguments they take.
Lie takes one argument: the subject which is lying.
Lay takes two arguments: the subject which is laying, and the object which is being laid.
Sounds simple enough, right? But then when you get into the verb inflections, it turns out that the past tense of lie is lay, which causes all hell of confusion. The full set of inflections for each verb are:
infinitive, past tense, past participle, 3rd person singular present tense, present participle
lie, lay, lain, lies, lying
lay, laid, laid, lays, laying
So yeah, that's that. Since the quoted verb has only one argument (the diamond necklace), your base verb is lie, whose past-tense inflection is lay. (Don't confuse "the box" as being the object of the verb when it is actually the noun associated with the preposition inside.)
*These are just the primary definitions. Of course like other words they also have abstractions.
>That's okay, you don't have to speak.
Comma splice.
>for awhile
for a while
Awhile is an adverb, while while is (in this context) a noun, and prepositions (in this case for) associate with nouns.
>gawked for her for awhile.
at her for a while
>blankets and pulled it
"blanket" or "them"
>she saw... a doll and a tattered dress.
Unnecessary ellipsis.
>An exact duplicate of Bon Bon.
Fragment.
>It felt... friendly somehow.
Unnecessary ellipsis. Try "It felt friendly, somehow," for the effect you wanted.
>Looking closer, it felt like deja vu somehow.
Poor sentence phrasing, especially since somehow was has a couple sentences ago.
>I’m sorry, I’ll do better!
Comma splice.
>Lyra screaming
Present tense out of nowhere.
>I'll guess I'm eating sandwiches then.
I guess ...
>She wasn't sure but it sounded like it was coming from... under her bed.
Unnecessary ellipsis. Comma before coordinating conjunction but.
>Inside was... the doll
Unnecessary ellipsis and Object-verb-subject phrasing make this sentence very awkard.
>Confused, she looked back in the room but the doll that was sitting on the floor was gone.
Comma before coordinating conjunction but. The sentence also doesn't read too well (or at least, I had to read it thrice to understand what it meant). Consider "Confused, she looked back in the room where the doll should have lain, but it was gone."
>“Don’t you recognize me? "I'm Bon Bon."
Misplaced quotation marks.
>on," Lyra grabbed
Grabbed isn't a speaking verb.
>"I'm sorry, "Lyra whispered.
Misplaced quotation marks.
>repeated
repeatedly
I think you have a bit of an issue with using ellipses in narration. It's not good if your narrator is confused. Unless your narrator is a character or flavourful (which your narrator is neither), restrict him/her/it to saying what is happening. If you need to pace things, try to do so without ellipses, please. If you’re feeling like a more colourful narrator would suit the story better, that’s cool, but confused-objective doesn’t fly.
The story was okay. The prose was very confusing at times when it really needn’t be. The dialogue read well, even with your apparent ellipsis-philia. I don’t really know what else there is to say. [Fluttershy] It’s... nice.
Correspondence
>I hope your still
you’re
>When you went off after that fight with dad; I didn’t think that I’d ever want to talk to you again.
Remove semi-colon, replace with comma if desired. “When” subordinates the clause on the left of your semi-colon.
In just the first paragraph there’s multiple cases where you didn’t put a comma before a coordinating conjunction (e.g., “but”).
Well, yikes. The story was interesting, but the execution was just... well, it needs help. A large portion of Pinkie’s letters were just retelling episodes of the show, so I just skimmed them. The grammar is in dire need of help, to the point where backpedalling onto it being in diary format just won’t cut. I didn’t want to do a line-by-line on this because it would have ended up very, very long.
Now, on Inky changing her name: “Isabelle is good, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t have that Canterlot ring to it.” I’m surely not the first to say, “Um, what?” Isabelle is an extremely royal name. There’s no way this is going to fly past many readers who know much about English culture. And no, “but things werk diffrnt in equestrian” doesn’t cut it. Also, classical musicians wouldn’t call themselves a band. They’d call themselves an ensemble.
Overall, like Vimbert said: nice premise, poor execution. If you go through some thorough editing on this, you might end up with something great. But in its current state the letters just don’t read anything like letters, nor do they read like narration. The style is just sloppy.
Call Me, Call Me
>cheerful employee training program smile
If “employee training program” is a compound adjective, you should hyphenate it.
>All save for one, the one on top, which he placed on his bed.
Fragment.
>Pictures, postcards, bits of drawings and designs for toys. A black-and-white photograph of Doodle as a child in front of his house with his mother and father back when his father still knew the definition of altruism or the meaning of spending time with his son.
Both fragments. Introduce this list with an em dash, and turn into a comma the full-stop that’s splitting the list.
>More fragments that are a part of this enormous list.
Don’t do that, seriously. I’m reading these sentences thinking they’re complete, and then the sentence ends without a verb clause and I’m like “what?” Fragments should be short, and should only be there if they increase readability. That these “sentences” are just another item in this egregious list is painful to read. Since some of these items in the list have commas in them themselves, separate them with a semi-colon—you know, the way you’re supposed to do painfully long lists.
>He found himself loss
lost
>he said agreed.
Nope. Agreed should be in quotes; otherwise you need a dependent clause after said (e.g., “he said he didn’t”). “Agreed” is an odd answer to “Do you mind if I sit here?” anyway.
>of how many night
nights
>He laid down
lay
See above explanation. “Down” is an adverb, not an object. One argument, so your base verb is lie.
>But his joints had grown old and weary, and his bravado, likewise battered by time and disappointment, had atrophied down to a resigned resentment that was content to simply sneer at those that came too close, talked too loud, or smiled too much.
This is a great sentence. More of this.
>In Doodle’s worst bouts of anger, such as then as he stared at the mysterious spots on the ceiling, he would let his frustration fly about [...]
And less of this. That appositive is all kinds of confusing.
>He abruptly became aware of himself and the face before him faded [...]
Comma before “and”. You’ve got a lot of other cases where you didn’t have a comma before a coordinating conjunction, but this was the most jarring. It reads initially as “became aware of (himself and the face before him)”, but then I’m slapped with this extra verb, which throws me into all kinds of parser madness.
>He laid there
lay
Well, yeah, this story was disappointing, primarily because it’s obvious that you are capable of writing some very strong and descriptive prose. Because it’s more of a reflection than a story occurring, all the prose is in passive voice. Find how many of your sentences begin with “He had/was” or some variation, and you’ll see the problem. It’s a shame that you were being held back so heavily by this crutch, because I feel like you could write something very powerful otherwise. Great paragraphs popped out of nowhere amongst the maddening walls of info dump.
Benefits and Consequences
Cerulean Starlight already went through a large amount of copy-editing, so I’ll skip what he/she has pointed out.
>“Twi? You down there? I...” Spike coughed again, “... you got a reply from the Princess.”
Em dash. Learn to love it.
“Twi? You down there? I”—Spike coughed again—“you got a reply from the Princess.”
>The knock seemed to resonate through the the library and down into the basement, bouncing off the circular wall until it faded into nothingness.
“The” knock. What knock? Surely this should be “a” knock? And you’ve got two “the”s next to each other. And the sentence is passive. Try “A knock resonated throughout the library.” Cull fluff. Is the point that the sound of this knock didn’t echo for eternity—not unlike any other run-of-the-mill knock—something worth mentioning? Is the point that it went down into the basement important? Is Twilight in the basement? Why is she reading books in the basement and not the library? Why do I have a paragraph to this one sentence? Christ, I am going mad.
>Twilight was cut off by the stallion with a pestle cutie mark.
Get rid of this. Put it in the next sentence if you must:
>”We are aware of how rare dragon diseases are,” the stallion with a pestle cutie mark interrupted. “It’s no wonder that you would have to brew your own medicine.”
Okay so, there’s this big plot-hole right here: Why the flipping hell doesn’t Twilight just ask this apothecary to make the antidote? Why does she need super-secret Celestia-library books for something this hick chemist is so lax about?
Again, what? This potion is low-level poop that the apothecary talked about like as if he was sniffing that stuff back in grade school, and now all of a sudden Twilight is making God-tier potions?
So, yeah. This is a pretty boring story. Not much more to say. Weak premise and rushed prose. You could have added a bit of conflict with the apothecaries getting pissed off at Twilight or something, but this entire story is filled with lots of words and not much happenings. And get rid of the implication that the potion is beginner level stuff, because otherwise Twilight getting that super-special book from her connections is trivial.
A True Magician
>Fresh flowers from seemingly nowhere, cards appearing and disappearing, sudden bursts of confetti and smoke, the works.
Fragment. List should be introduced with a colon, and “the works” appended with an em dash.
Bleh. Rather typical Trixie story. The main problem with this story is it’s almost entirely monologue. There’s no interaction at all. Even between the crowd and Trixie all we hear is her mocking it. Inner-conflict like this is just cliche to be honest.
A Game of Twits
Skipped by request. I’ll read it later once you’ve touched it up.
A Case of You
There’s a lot of cases where you use semi-colons to separate dependent clauses from the main clause. You’re not supposed to do that.
>; her back rising up and down erratically.
>; uncomfortably close.
>; times when I felt desperately sad and lonely.
>; especially this way.
>; crying and speaking
All of these should be commas.
>; the humping in my head, the erratic beating of my heart, the stinging in my chest
The semi-colon should be a colon or an em dash.
Anyway, wow. This was a really nice story. The narration and prose flowed extremely well, even though it had quite a few errors (which I managed to overlook just because of how well it flowed). Berry’s feelings translated through the text so lucidly. I can really see how Berry would get the thought that Fluttershy could never love her, because she has to love everyone. I can even see how I’d get that same feeling from someone who was too nice to everyone. The subtle tie-in with the prompt here is wonderful. A great story to end them on, and a great story to start them on for those who read them in order.
Well, that’s all of them (except for Chess-man’s). Some were great, and some could use a bit of work, but overall I’m really impressed with what ya’ll came up with. Kinda makes me feel bad for my ending being so half-baked. Such is life.
Here's my belated review.
Good show on the subtle impression that Berry Punch was drinking because of her lost sister. Still, I don't find the tie-in to the prompt here to be strong, since technically drinking to death isn't a double edged sword... and actually sounds pretty miserable however you slice it.
Also, you can't drink yourself to death with alcohol to induce a heart attack. Might want to fact check this next time. Alcohol excess might cause respiratory depression, but will not directly cause a myocardial infarct. In fact, you'd probably die of liver failure first rather than anything else.
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