So Much For That -- Updated · 4:37am Jul 23rd, 2014
**Update: Got some further feedback from EQD -- Writing has improved, but story was "unrealistic and melodramatic", and "plays the readers for emotion". Overall, it will "require deep reworking with an experienced reviewer"
Tl;DR: We just don't seem to care for the premise, but if you rework it into something totally different, you might have a shot.
Hmm, how about 
With all due respect to the staff and the process they're upholding, I'm not pulling a 180 on a fic that won a contest, and that I'm damn proud of as perhaps my best work (outside of Moonstone edits). To be fair, their initial feedback helped me really polish this up and make it a lot better than it was. But, I've done all I can to it without a wholesale re-write, and I'm just not willing to do that.
Sorry to spam you all with blog posts. I just felt you all deserved to be kept up to date at least. And thanks to all for their supportive comments earlier; they really cheered me up. :)
-GMP
A mighty shame, that is
But at least you know now. If that's the stance they're gonna take, well, their loss, I guess.
Wait a minute...
They're peak autistic, what do you expect? Place is run by a serious dragon-fucker. For real, Sethiesto has a super hard on for Spyro, it's weird.
Basically don't give a shit about that nuthouse, it's always been terrible.
2308277
To be fair, the word count is high because I added the old version as an archive chapter. ;)
Honestly, the view count should really be well over 1300, but idiot me deleted the old chapters instead of pasting over them, so I blew away the view counter.
Yet somehow, the like/dislike counter was left intact.
As it's been mentioned before, the site's a grab-bag for pre-reader's likes and dislikes. Objectivity is a thing of myth at EQD. I'd say stick to your guns and submit it a third time with perhaps one last combing through and hope you pull a different pre-reader. Worst-case, you join we skeptic masses who dislike the site's stand on fanfiction on principle.
"Unrealistic and Melodramatic".... Really? Just because something has a happy ending doesn't mean that the trauma and event itself can't leave some Scars (did they even read the titel?).
"plays the readers for emotion" Now im not fully sure on this one so if someone can explain it to me if im missing something that would be most appreciated, but doesn't like all stories "play the readers for emotion" in one way or another?
Either way your picture is a perfect response to their "need to fix list" in my opinion.
Agreed, I'd say that's a big
NOPE
'Scars' is great the way it is.
The funny thing is, the story I wrote that got on EQD (let in without even a second editing pass, no less!) consists of a lot of the same thematic and plot elements as 'Scars' - a little bit of hinted TwiDash, traumatizing events, and Dash's search for how to recover. The pre-reader said it was 'one of the best depictions of Rainbow Dash they'd ever read' and passed it right through without questioning it, so that goes to show just how much EQD is a game of chance rather than even attempting to make their content definable by consistent standards.
I sort of think you may as well go to Vegas and hit the roulette table as submit to EQD, for all the good it does. At least the odds against you would be more straightforward to calculate and there's a slim possibility you might walk out having won money.
*points to his previous comment.*
Plays the readers for emotion? The horror!!!!