Writeoff Reviews #34 - The Best Medicine · 10:47pm Mar 15th, 2015
First off, in case any of you didn't notice, a new story of mine went up about midnight last night:
Lunch
by The Titanium Dragon
ComedySick of eating the same thing for lunch every day at school, the Cutie Mark Crusaders decide to sneak into Sugarcube Corner to try and get something better.
Hopefully all of you enjoy it; the Cutie Mark Crusaders are fun to write about.
Second off... this was a really big writeoff. At 101 stories, it broke the record from the previous minific writeoff for the most stories submitted to a write-off. And I reviewed every last one of them.
This is just a compilation of my review posts; if you've already read them all in the write-off thread, you won't see any new ones here. This is mostly a convenience, as well as a record for posterity.
Don't know what the write-off is? Well, it is a monthly contest run by the Writeoff Association where a group of writers all write stories anonymously within a very short period of time (in this case, 400-750 word stories with a 24 hour time limit) and submit them to a site, where they are judged by the public and frequently reviewed by many of the participants, so that we all (hopefully) get good feedback which helps us improve as writers. Given a lot of folks there are Equestria Daily Prereaders, help run the Royal Canterlot Library, or have had their stories included in the Royal Canterlot Library, it is a pretty great group of writers, and there are usually a number of interesting stories each month, many of which later go on to be featured on the main site.
Hometown Support
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
Maud comes to Ponyville to cheer up Pinkie Pie after their father dies and the rest of the Mane 6 can’t get Pinkie Pie to smile.
She succeeds.
Honestly, the descriptions at the start of this story were pretty flat, and the story didn’t get all that interesting until we get to the description of the train and Maud showing up.
But this made me laugh:
“. . . Granny Pie died, he didn’t get all sad and mopey,” came Pinkie’s voice, limp and heavy. “He stayed calm-a-lected, even though it was so unfair.”
“Do you know why he stayed strong?”
A sniffle. “No. Why?”
“Because he was down to earth. Even more so now.”
I Will Learn
Genre: Sad
Review:
Zecora leaves her tribe to go to distant lands to learn how to make medicine better than the zebra shamans.
At its heart, this story depends very heavily on an OC and on events which we aren’t really given much reason to care about. While we see the origin of Zecora’s rhyming, and we’re given a motive for her travels, it wants me to be emotional about it but I just didn’t get pulled in.
4th District Court, Canterlot, 11:35 a.m.
Genre: Musical, Comedy, Courtroom Drama
Review:
This was a bold choice, going with music in this.
And it was a pretty good one, honestly; this was remarkably good, given how ridiculous it is to transcribe music into text. I really want to hear this sung rather than just reading it.
Though the very best part was the versebreaker, which is the best pony profession ever in a world where people can spontaneously burst into song.
Aspirations
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
The focus on the dress stuck out a lot; was it meant to be a reference to Rarity’s aspirations of being a painter?
On the whole, I think this story was too short to do what it was trying to do; 750 words is awful short for trying to write a story with much impact on a character, and this just didn’t feel like it got there.
I Want to Go Home
Genre: Sad
Review:
Twilight leads a colony of ponies out into the stars to found a new colony, a colony where they would attempt to practice democracy instead of the monarchy back home. Of course, not all is as it seems, and by the end, we discover that it was actually Celestia who was narrating the story to her own mentor.
I think this might want to be a letter or something; I’m not really sure, though I suppose it could just be her addressing her mentor in the abstract. I feel like some stuff got cut; her sister-in-law, for instance, could have done with being named in the end, or with more being described of their time on the world, and the failure of their experiment.
I liked what was here, but it isn’t done; it needs more words to really do what it is trying to do properly, I think. I liked it well enough – and I liked the story that I’m almost certain inspired it – but I think it wanted to have more meat. So, liked it, but it could be a lot better.
I do have to say I approve of this story’s title.
Pinkie Pie’s Glamorous Giggle Gas
Genre: Dark, Comedy
Review:
Pinkie Pie believes that laughter – and the power of the placebo – are the very best medicine.
She’s wrong.
This story was short, dark, and funny, complete with a Gilligan Cut at the end which really delivered the punchline.
Poor Rainbow Dash. And I have to say, “You’re glue” is a great pony threat.
Through the Fire and Flames
Genre: Comedy
Review:
Man, two stories named after songs?
This, however, is full of references to music (Blue Oyster, Ring of Fire) and it is strongly reminiscent of the story back a few writeoffs ago which was full of movie titles, though this one seems more to just be referential in general. Unfortunately, I didn’t like that one, either, and I actually ended up liking this one even less – while this might SEEM funny to some people:
Her mother gripped the comforter in one hand and threw it back, for the sole purpose of cleverly demonstrating that this was an Equestria Girls fic, and tut-tutted maternally.
Pointing out the joke like this is the surest way to kill it dead.
In the end, this story was far too meta to amuse me, and the referential humor just felt like “See! I am aware of memes!” rather than being an integral part of the story.
While the fact that it is a shaggy dog story helps a little, unfortunately it still doesn’t make up for the rest of it.
While the Roommate Is Away
Genre: Comedy, S&M
Review:
After someone pointed out that leather books are basically bound in people in the MLP-universe, it has totally changed every leather-bound tome into the Necronomicon in-universe for me.
Unfortunately, this story really had only one joke, and unfortunately, S&M is the punchline which has not only been done before, but the punchline comes in the middle of the story – the reason things like this usually make it sound like something ELSE is going on is because, well, that way the funniest part comes at the end.
The Artificial Donkey
Genre: Sad
Review:
The Donkey in this story is almost certainly Cranky, who is terribly lonely – the artificial pony is there just to give him a hug without needing someone else who would actually be willing to do so.
Only one of the kids figures out what is going on by the end, but it is fairly clear to the reader who it is and what is going on, and on the whole, I think the story works fairly well for being so short. It tells us a little story and doesn’t linger longer than it needs to. However, it didn’t really affect me emotionally, possibly because I realized what was going on, or possibly because I know that Cranky gets his happy ending eventually.
Strange Aeons
Genre: Alternate Universe, Adventure
Review:
Another take on Luna’s banishment, this one makes Starswirl the Bearded integral to the fight. Celestia is desperately trying to save Luna from the Parasite (it is implied that Nightmare Moon and Sombra both are the result of the same thing), and Starswirl does his best to help her delay until she can truly save Luna.
Unfortunately, this is really too small a space to do this sort of thing justice; compared to Wizards, Foals, and Fools last month, this falls far short, and seems to be taking on the style of mysticism without actually being very mystical.
The Empty Bottles
Genre: Slice of Life?
Review:
I suppose I should have expected there would be a bunch of stories featuring Flim and Flam in here as well, given the prompt. Here, they’re selling apparently empty bottles which nevertheless seem to have some sort of effect on those who imbibe it. It seems to really, genuinely work! What is their angle this time?
What’s amusing is that this is already the second reference to the Flim Flam brothers and nitrous oxide.
On the whole, this story was cute enough, but didn’t really do a whole lot for me; we’ve seen their shenanigans in the past, and this was just a new angle which didn’t really go anywhere.
Good Girl
Genre: Dark
Review:
The punchline is child abuse.
While I get what you’re trying to do with this story, unfortunately, it didn’t really pull me into what was happening very well; flashbacks are very easily mishandled, and here, it felt like the whole thing was very drawn out compared to what it needed to be. The whole morphing into another scene in this way works much better visually than textually, and here, it just didn’t flow together correctly. There are ways of doing this correctly in text, fading from reality to a flashback, but here, it was belabored and consequently drug the story down with it, and the punch of the flashback wasn’t enough to really redeem the belaboring of it.
Not an inherently bad idea, but the execution really pulled this one down for me.
As an aside, I really dislike when people randomly make characters who show no signs of problems like abuse having it inserted into their backstories gratuitously; it doesn’t really work for me. There are some characters I could buy this sort of thing for, but Rainbow Dash doesn’t show the signs.
Unforgettable
Genre: Sad
Review:
TwiDash shipfic and Lovecraftian horror combine to traumatize Rainbow Dash. The only solution? Erasing Rainbow Dash’s memories.
This was okay, but it didn’t really light my fires at all; while the idea of the horror of this can work okay, the problem is that the relationship was made into something of a reveal, and it is thus rather hard to get attached to it over the course of 750 words. As such, the ending didn’t really have much of an impact.
I Shall Please
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
We see how Silver Shill got sucked into the Flim-Flam brothers’ scheme to sell their miracle placebo tonic here. Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot here that the episode itself did not cover with Applejack, and Applejack’s moral struggle over it was pretty much the same as Silver Shill’s was.
The Laughter I Choose to Be
Genre: Sad
Review:
Okay, wasn’t really expecting this one with this prompt, but hey, I guess just going with the prompt meaning “laughter” makes sense.
I’m generally a sucker for X Becomes a Changeling stories (something I’m sure cannot be gleaned from my membership in the X Becomes a Changeling group) and thus am rather biased towards this story, but at the same time, I’m not really sure if it scratched my itch quite well enough. In particular, the baby thing is weird to mention, given that she wasn’t there for that; I think there could have been a better hint for that.
On the other hand, the idea that she can’t get the hair right is definitely amusing, and the “starving herself to death” thing takes on a whole new dimension once you realize what she is, and those bits are very successful.
All in all, I think there’s a germ of a good idea here, but I think that the execution needs to be improved. And if you haven’t read it, I would recommend reading Kits’ story Who We Are.
Scootaloo, M.D.
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
This made me smile, but not laugh; while kids playing doctor is inherently cute (except when it gets weird), and Scootaloo going over the top was funny, in the end, the story ended up feeling a bit too predictable. It wasn’t bad, though, and making me smile is a good thing, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to read something like this, either. I’m not sure what would fix it, but I feel like it needs to be more, somehow; while the story made reasonable use of Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom, while voiced properly, didn’t end up quite coming through as well as they might have, and I wasn’t exactly thrilled by the ending.
Laughter
Genre: Tragedy?
Review:
Pinkie Pie goes over to cheer up Twilight, but doesn’t quite know how to do it.
This is a good story, and it does a great job of voicing Pinkie Pie, but it also demonstrates a certain lack of empathy on Pinkie Pie’s part – she doesn’t really get that something is REALLY wrong with Twilight, and thus, in the end, while she makes her smile, she doesn’t really go the extra mile that someone who actually understood would go. And so, in the end, things are no better than they were before – and maybe worse, as the ending seems to imply that Twilight was contemplating hanging herself, or possibly did so (though her tail didn’t quite twitch-a-twitch, so maybe not). If so, that’s pretty dark and sinister, though I think the presentation of Pinkie Pie as a pony who wants to cheer ponies up without truly understanding them is a reasonable one.
Mondays
Genre: Slice of Life, Glurge
Review:
Cheerilee has a stressful and unpleasant Monday, but at the end her students make it all worth it.
This did a decent job of establishing it as One of Those Days (with capital letters) but the ending, while sweet enough, felt like it came out of nowhere to turn things around and make for a happy ending.
Ten Degrees
Genre: Romance, Glurge
Review:
Another shipfic, this time starring Lyra and Bon Bon. Bon Bon’s day is ruined by Rainbow Dash messing up the weather, but Lyra manages to make the best of it.
This is one of those saccharine-sweet stories that some people really like but which I don’t especially care for; while someone comforting their loved one is a sweet thing, the story doesn’t really have a whole lot of impact on me, as I’m not really heavily invested in what is going on, and it didn’t really break new ground in any way or show me anything I’ve never seen before.
I think what really killed it for me was the ending, though; it felt a bit trite. It told me how things ended that evening, and I think it could have been kept short and simply showed me them eating chocolates at the end without the extra tell of them having full bellies and warm hearts.
Sisterhooves
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
This is one of those stories that didn’t really like it had much of a point; offscreen CMC antics lead to a minor injury, leading to Rarity patching up Sweetie Belle with a first aid kit, but in the end, nothing has really transpired and it didn’t really feel like the story had much of a point. Some stuff happened, but it didn’t really seem to have any greater meaning, and I didn’t really feel like it went anywhere.
The Smeasels
Genre: Comedy?
Review:
The shift to first person at the end is kind of weird, and the ending in general just kind of fell down by explaining something to the audience which we should have had more heavily hinted at elsewhere. The idea of a magical form of hypochondria is amusing enough, but I think that this story didn’t really do a whole lot with it, and the way it ended was just kind of meh. The doctor and the psychiatrist were both prop characters who had nothing really going for them.
I think it would have worked better had she gotten treatment from her friends, and one of them did nothing but tell her to get some rest (and implying via the conversation what was going on) while the other one gave her a placebo treatment which allowed Twilight to recover.
(Un)Rest in Peace
Genre: Sad
Review:
Hey look, it’s the Smooze apocalypse!
Twilight looks down on the world from above, looking at the damage that the Smooze has caused. Unfortunately, this just feels like a part of a story, rather than a whole piece; it doesn’t really go anywhere, it just establishes a scene and a setup, a problem to be solved which lacks resolution for obvious reasons of space limitation.
It isn’t a bad start, necessarily (even if it is a little bit generic), but it is just that – a start.
Gilda Has the Floor
Genre: Sad
Review:
At first I thought this was Gilda ranting at Applejack and Rainbow Dash’s wedding, but then I realized that they were actually at her funeral. While I think that’s a fine idea, I think the story could have been executed a lot better; in particular, there could have been more hints in the first half, and Gilda’s speech could have had more vitriol in it about her abandonment issues and other things – it could have gone on longer and given us more insight into Gilda, as well as how she was feeling, and I think that would have improved the piece.
In short: good idea, but it needs to be spruced up.
Healthy Obsession
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
This made me chuckle a little bit at the end. I liked how it all came together, with Twilight’s mention of being able to heat up her lunch tying into how she faked being sick, as well as her insistence that her dad not stay home with her.
Besides, quadratic equations are awesome!
This was a cute story and had some fun with Twilight as a kid, as well as showing some hints as to why she would be alone and friendless later in life.
Turn the Radio Off
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
Applejack finds a radio in their new castle, which seems a bit strange – technological devices like that coming out of a tree? It doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense.
And then the ponies all start fighting over the radio and what music to listen to.
I think this might have been supposed to be funny, but it didn’t really end up making me laugh; this sort of argument requires real hyperbole to really end up working for me, and this just didn’t go far enough with it to make me laugh, and didn’t really accomplish anything otherwise beside establishing the ponies’ taste in music.
Behind You
Genre: Poetry
Review:
I read this out loud to myself and I found it not very pleasing to the ear, unfortunately. Also, adding an extra blank space between lines in stanzas made this significantly harder to read; having that extra blank space between paragraphs should also be an extra blank space between stanzas, not between every line in the stanza.
I thought that the content was reasonable enough for a children’s poem of the “scare ‘em straight” variety, but it just wasn’t that much fun to read. The half-rhymes and inconsistent rhymes ended up overwhelming the content for me, as a poem like this should be a pleasure to read.
The Problem with Prokaryotes
Genre: Comedy?
Review:
I have to applaud someone using the word “prokaryote” in a pony story. Well done.
Anyway, I think Weird Al already covered this in song form:
I think the core idea here – of someone who doesn’t understand that bacteria are everywhere and totally inescapable being horrified at it – is amusing, but I think that this story could have done a better job selling Sweetie Belle’s freak-out, which would have made the story hold together better, especially with Rarity walking in the next morning and then sighing and going over to talk to Twilight, again.
Applejack Kicks It Up a Notch
Genre: Random, Comedy?
Review:
I’m not really sure what the first part of this story has to do with the second half of it, as it didn’t seem to use the setting of their family reunion at all, nor really make much sense at all on the whole. Applejack did a bunch of random stuff that didn’t really feel very Applejack for the sake of… comedy?... and then it ended with her “succeeding” and being oblivious to her failure.
Love at First Sight
Genre: Slice of Life? Romance?
Review:
Echo the permanently invisible pony comes to Ponyville in hopes that Twilight can fix her. While every pony is at least mildly disconcerted by her, Pinkie Pie is Pinkie Pie, and can even look her in the eye despite the fact that they are, well, invisible.
Unfortunately, this story is far too short to really go anywhere; it feels more like the start of a story than a complete story, and it also suffers from not enough emphasis on Echo’s problem at the start. Because we only have time to see Twilight and Pinkie Pie, we don’t get enough of Echo’s discomfort before we see someone avert it, which hurts our ability to empathize with the protagonist’s plight, and thus prevents us from caring as much as we need to that Twilight succeeds – or at the very least, that Pinkie Pie can make Echo feel better.
The Topiary Garden
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
The story where Twilight lives a healthy life and talks about her dead friends without angsting or feeling excessively sad about their passage or damage to their graves.
I want to give you a gold star just for choosing this topic, though I must admit I’m not seeing a strong connection to the prompt – I think that the idea is that letting new ponies into your heart is the key to avoiding loneliness when your friends go away, which is a decent enough lesson.
However, despite all that, this is really more of a statement than a story. “See!” it says, “Angsting over immortality is dumb!” I agree Mister Author Dude, but I’m not sure that this did more than preach to the choir.
Sisterly Love
Genre: Slice of Life, Glurge?
Review:
Just a note: you should always put a blank line in between your paragraphs in the writeoff. And at the very least, you should indent them. This does neither, and makes it significantly harder to read.
Anyway, the idea of Rarity overworking – indeed, working more than Twilight – isn’t a terrible one, but this felt kind of glurgy at the end, with the collapse and her little sister carrying her off and then the supposed-to-be “Aww” moment at the end. The problem was, it didn’t really feel “earned”, it just kind of ended up feeling trite, with someone overworking and then suddenly changing their mind at the end after collapsing, rather than there being much in the way of genuine-feeling development.
Also, if those pills were intended to be stimulants, you might want to mention them earlier.
Lament
Genre: Poetry, Sad?
Review:
Luna struggles to write a poem for Celestia’s birthday, and curses herself for being so bad – and so slow.
I’m not sure that I really buy the message that Celestia gave Luna here, though; while it is true you can churn out garbage very quickly, the thing is, as you get better, you really do get faster at writing stuff of a given quality. I generally find that my speed stays the same as I increase in quality, with more quality being produced per given unit of time.
Also, “the last two thousand” should be the last thousand, seeing as Luna was only banished for a thousand years.
I do totally understand Luna’s reluctance in not showing her rough draft to people, though.
The Best Kind of Medicine
Genre: Tragedy
Review:
Someone’s kid is dying, and the doctor gives their healthy parent anesthetics to commit suicide with.
This is just ridiculous. Doctors won’t do that; it not only violates the Hippocratic Oath, but it is just plain old wrong to do. You’d lose your medical license if you did it.
On top of that lack of realism, however, there’s another issue as well: I don’t care about these characters. You introduced them for no purpose other than to die, and you didn’t give me any reason to care about them in the 750 words here. I don’t know them as people, they’re just a transparent attempt to manipulate the reader’s emotions, and it doesn’t really work as we don’t really get to know either of them as individuals.
If You Can’t Cry…
Genre: Comedy
Review:
The end of Twilight’s little speech at the start is wonderful, and probably the best part of the story; unfortunately, the rest isn’t as funny as that was. While playing one final prank is all well and good, unfortunately the start made me think this would be much funnier than it was, and thus I was a bit disappointed at the end of it as the prank wasn’t especially amazing.
Forgiveness
Genre: Sad
Review:
Luna locks herself in the dungeon, presumably after her return in the present. Is she punishing herself? I think that’s the point here. But Celestia’s begging for forgiveness doesn’t really feel right – the lines don’t really sound like Celestia in my head. And honestly, given Luna’s behavior upon being forgiven, and her sense of pride, I’m not sure if I buy that she would go and lock herself in the dungeon like this unless there was some other reason for doing so.
Prometheus
Genre: Dark, Horror
Review:
Someone grows a miracle cure using human livers.
Unfortunately, while I generally approve of dark twists, I just didn’t buy it; why is this guy showing Rarity their illegal operation? This is not the sort of thing you just show to people. Moreover, there just isn’t enough time for there to be the creeping sense of dread necessary for a proper horror story.
In short, it feels rushed, and I never really got emotionally invested in the story, so the twist at the end didn’t have much of an impact.
Sweetie Belle’s voicing felt off, and frankly, Rarity being the protagonist didn’t matter at all; it didn’t really make use of her character.
If I was going to do this, I’d cut the start and just have them trying to figure out what the miracle cure was for some reason (maybe some weird side effect/noticeable deviation from the norm which made them curious?).
Quackery
Genre: Slice of Life, Rant
Review:
Ponies complain about homeopathic “medicine”.
This, again, feels more like it is just trying to say “homeopathy is bad” rather than really telling us a story; yes, it is bad, but you’re kind of preaching to the choir here, and don’t really do anything to change a believer’s mind.
While the characters are all in character, the strings are showing, and if you want to rant about homeopathic medicine, do it in a blog; if you want to write a story about homeopathic medicine being worthless, you need to actually make it a story.
Mansions
Genre:
Review:
This story is drenched in symbolism, but I’m not sure if it really adds to the core of the story – it is very transparent, and the symbolism isn’t especially beautiful. I think that, had more been done with it, it might have justified itself, but as it was, it felt a little unnecessary.
The core of the idea was decent enough, I suppose, but the whole thing is kind of vague and I never really ended up coming to proper grips with it, nor really caring all that much about what Big Mac did.
Also, I’m not sure if white and blue are the best choices for the mansions, unless you’re intentionally invoking Celestia and Luna. And if you are intentionally invoking those two… well, the story doesn’t do anything with it.
Mysterious Maladies
Genre: Romance
Review:
Twilight thinks she and Applejack are getting sick when they’re actually in love.
On the one hand, this is an inherently funny idea.
On the other hand, I’ve seen it before, and this wasn’t a particularly amazing example. It did make me smile a bit, but it didn’t make me laugh, and honestly, one of the major problems I’ve always had with the idea is that Twilight is not that oblivious to stuff like that. Heck, she had a crush on Flash Sentry without freaking out totally.
Heck, that’s part of the reason that Estrus is such a great story, and it is the biggest flaw with
Angel Falling
Genre: Comedy?
Review:
Angel Bunny is rude, crude, and totally going to get laid tonight – at least, if he has anything to say about it.
Unfortunately for him, he’s sick, and thus, he has no chance at all against Fluttershy and her medicine.
I’m not terribly fond of this story; while the idea of Angel being a particularly crude-minded individual is a funny one, here, it just didn’t end up clicking with me for some reason. Maybe it just felt too immature to me, or maybe it was just too brazen in its crudeness.
Granny Knows Best
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
Okay, I chuckled at this.
The very first line and the ending of this are both very strong, and the middle is pretty good as well, depicting a family that doesn’t know how to feel – well, other than Granny Pie – and how Granny Pie is trying to change that for Pinkie Pie, and, in the end, probably succeeds. I liked this story on the whole, and I think it did what it was trying to do pretty well.
That being said, I’m not so sure if the very final line of this really fits with the rest of the story. It is definitely, definitely very funny, but it doesn’t really do anything for the theme of the rest of the piece.
The Flu Blues
Genre: Comedy
Review:
Set during Three’s A Crowd, this story is about Rarity and Applejack bemoaning the blue flu, and Pinkie Pie trying to come up with ways to nurse them back to health.
All the characters are spot on here, and Pinkie Pie is at her best, jumping from idea to idea, showing the dangerous combination of cleverness and obliviousness we’ve come to expect out of everyone’s favorite pink pony. Well, except for Cadance’s fans.
But that’s beside the point!
Overall, this made me smile, and the dialogue, character, and conclusion all combined to help sell the piece.
Astral Rift
Genre: Sad
Review:
Some human gets caught in a negative space wedgie and ends up in Equestria. Equestria, as it turns out, is not really an ordinary world, but a magical plane which wanders from world to world, and ordinarily, when this happens, the creatures which are sucked in lose themselves – but not humans, for some reason. Unfortunately, being separated from your home planet is very bad for you, and it is killing the human.
This story has a potentially decent idea in it, but unfortunately, there’s really no reason for us to care about the protagonist – he’s pretty generic, and the story doesn’t really do anything to make me want to care about him. The ending, thus, doesn’t have any emotional impact on me, nor does his struggle to get home, because the story is over long before I have any reason to care about what happens to him.
On the editing side of things, I noticed that there were a few points in the story where the wrong tense was used:
His dirty skin turning a shade of grey.
This should be “turned”.
The Perfect Cure for the Common Cold
Genre: Romance, Cute
Review:
This made me smile. It wasn’t serious, but it was a complete story (a seeming rarity for some reason), it didn’t feel cut down (indeed, it felt like it had a good amount of content for 750 words), and it made me laugh a bit at the end.
Daring Do and the Unsolved Adventure
Genre: Adventure
Review:
Daring Do runs into a spacetraveller/planeshifter and, after following her back to her spaceship, gives up on being Daring Do and decides to be AK Yearling from then on.
This isn’t really a complete story; it is basically an introduction to something, but at the same time it feels terribly awkwardly constructed. Why does she need to go back? The story says she needs to see it again to believe it, but… it just feels weird and arbitrary, and I didn’t really buy it.
White Lies
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
Applejack sucks at lying, and hates lying. It isn’t her style and she can’t do it right, even when the whole point is to make someone else feel better.
I think the idea of Applejack really hating to lie and it making her feel terrible is reasonable, but I don’t think that the Element of Honesty really ties into that – rather, I think it is just the way that Applejack is. She doesn’t believe in lies, she thinks that the forthright truth is a good thing – but at the same time, Apple Bloom is pulling her in another direction, looking for comfort that she just can’t give.
I’m not sure if I quite buy this characterization of Applejack, but it is an interesting enough one that I’ve seen a few times, and it works well enough.
Festinat ad Auxilium
Genre: Sad
Review:
Rainbow Dash is feeling depressed, from what I can tell, and hiding away from her friends, and her friends immediately latch onto the wrong things when she tries to explain herself.
The story is written decently enough, but it doesn’t really feel like it is all there. It just didn’t feel substantive enough to me for some reason; maybe at 750 words, trying to get me deeply into the character AND get her friends not understanding it is a bit of a big ask, but it just didn’t quite cross the finish line for me emotionally.
Reflection
Genre: Sad
Review:
Luna’s narration here feels awkward, with her changing her mind over the course of telling a short 750 word story. I’m not sure that it feels earned, given the way that Luna typically behaves, as well as her gravity at the start of the story.
It’s a Fine Line
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
Twilight questions Rarity’s expensive spa habits, while Rarity defends what she does before the spa twins, much to the dismay of Aloe and Lotus. She justifies why it is that she spends her bits the way she does, instead of giving them away to the needy, by pointing out that it isn’t just about survival, but about flourishing – and that via the work they give Aloe and Lotus, they allow them to run a very successful business.
I think this is a point well-taken, and there is a certain balance to things – spending money on things we want, things which make our lives better, personally, does help other people, and it does support certain kinds of business. It is a difficult but important take on capitalism, though it is true that, perhaps, it is not the best way of spending one’s money.
Still, given I don’t donate to charity, clearly I side more with Rarity than Twilight here, though, like a couple other stories in here, it does feel a bit more like a lecture than a story.
Labor Pains
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
Okay, this made me chuckle a bit. Poor Carrot Cake learned that the most intense pain of all is the feeling of forcing a large object out of your body. While I do agree with Twilight at the end, magic allowing ponies to experience this sort of thing is an amusing idea – though also a bit awful, given that it probably means that there are magical spells which equate to simulating torture.
The Best Medicine
Genre: Sad
Review:
I read this once after I saw bookplayer talking about what it was about earlier in the thread, and wasn’t terribly impressed, but after another day, re-reading it, I think I disagree with earlier me and like this story a lot more than I did before. It felt cut down to me originally, and I think I still feel a bit of a pinch in it, but it actually feels fairly substantive for being 750 words long.
I like the subject matter, though I am somewhat amused that there are apparently TWO Rainbow Dash-is-an-alicorn stories in this competition (at least – that’s what just what I’ve found so far).
On the one hand, this has bookplayer’s fingerprints all over it – Applejack being mature, along with TwiJack. On the other hand, would she really make Applejack not rise to alicornhood when Rainbow Dash got there?
Of course, on the gripping hand, she spoke about this like it was part of a set of stories…
Still, I don’t think I’ve seen any other TwiJack in here, and that makes me suspicious.
I do like that Applejack took a more mature take on things, and that they are apparently just coping with life going on as immortals.
Back On That Horse
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
Rainbow Dash encourages Scootaloo to try again.
This was a cute little story; a bit weightless, but it did communicate the idea of the scene well enough, as well as Scootaloo’s feelings. Rainbow Dash’s voice came through alright.
It didn’t knock my socks off, but it was competent. The scene was set pretty well, and the description of Scootaloo’s stunt’s failure was actually pretty good – it got me in the right mood for it, and Rainbow Dash offering to catch Scootaloo in the end was a nice friendly moment between the two.
Field Work
Genre: Comedy
Review:
Okay, this was another great story in this SAME SET. How does this happen? I find a set that I hardly like anything in, and then another set where they’re like, half stories that I would give 7s to.
That just should not happen. And here I was starting to think everyone else was crazy for getting sets like this. Maybe I just got unlucky earlier.
Anyway, I liked this a lot. Pinkie Pie and Twilight are voiced well, and the ending made me laugh.
Poor Rainbow Dash.
The Smallest Acts of Love
Genre: Slice of Life, Cute
Review:
There’s a line between “this is sweet” and “this makes me feel sick”, and I think this story is a good illustration of it.
Is it cute?
Yes.
But it isn’t over the top with it; we just have one character taking care of another. It is fairly insubstantial, but it was cute enough, and Luna’s lines (particularly “You look like a hydra sat on you,”) worked well enough as being teasing and doting without being saccharine.
So, what I guess I have to say is that I liked this little slice of life, and that you managed to make it cute without bothering me.
Twilight Sparkle
Genre: Dark, Crossover
Review:
Harrison Bergeron is a great story, but I’m not sure that I needed to see it again with ponies standing in for the humans in that story, and greatly cut down.
The Poetry of Politics
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
Wouldn’t you know it? Mayor Mare used to be a poet!
This is a story about someone who gave up their passion for work, without realizing that they could still do both. I like the message, and I think it was mostly pretty well-written, but I think it might have been a little too simple – there just wasn’t enough time for a proper struggle over whether or not she should participate.
I think this is a strong idea, though, and there could be a pretty good story built out of it.
In the Fields
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
I thought this was just going to be a cute story about Applejack playing with Winona as a puppy, but then it turned into something else.
I think the biggest problem here is that the two halves of the story didn’t feel connected enough; I didn’t really get any sense of something bigger and more important going on with Applejack at the start of the story, and thus, the second half of the story felt like it came out of left field, and not in a really good way. Knowing that there is some sort of emotional core – even if I didn’t know what it was at the start - would have helped tie it together a bit better, methinks. I think that could make it a much stronger story.
bare
Should be bear.
A Cure for Endings (Onwards, Twilight)
Genre: Sad
Review:
The whole thing felt a bit jumbled; I think there was a decent idea here, the idea of Twilight feeling obsolete as the world changed around her, and trying to figure out how to make things better, but the whole thing felt confusing. I know what happened, but the story doesn’t really do a great job of presenting it, and I think that disentangling that idea from the presently confusing presentation of it has some potential.
The emotional journey in this – Twilight’s redemption – also didn’t really work, simply because it was too short and too jumbled for me to really feel it.
The Symposium
Genre: Comedy
Review:
When people talk about the battle of ideals, they never meant it to be taken this literally.
This was a silly little story, and it made me smile, doubly so because I actually recognize all of those “intellectual” movements (particularly the pataphysicists). The absurdity of the scene – and Celestia’s subtle manipulation to make sure no one actually died – ended up bringing a smile to my face.
Everlasting Laughter
Genre: Graves Fic, Sad
Review:
[youtube=www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrPte1uijDw]
Admittedly, the whole Pie family giggling just feels weird, given the sort of dull emotionlessness we got from them in Pinkie’s backstory (and Maud’s general stoicism). Unfortunately, this story didn’t really do it for me emotionally; I knew what was going on from minute one, and the ending just didn’t feel like it had enough build-up to really make it contrast strongly with what was and give some sort of emotional closure, in part because my emotions never opened up to begin with.
Daring Do is the Best Medicine!
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
This is clearly a lesson taken straight out of the show.
Unfortunately, I didn’t really care for this at all. The story has a bunch of problems with its actual construction – missing commas really hurt, and you should simply not use more than one exclamation mark on the end of a sentence unless you’re making notes on a chess game. But even beyond that, it feels like it isn’t really put together properly; a bunch of stuff happens, but it doesn’t really feel like a coherent narrative, and characters show up for no apparent reason, and stuff happens that… just kind of happens.
The Merchant
Genre: Mystery
Review:
This didn’t feel like a complete story, and in fact, was rather confusing. Introducing a large number of OCs, including an immortal (or at the very least an extremely long-lived one) in a 750 word story is dangerous, and here, it just didn’t come together; it felt more like a fragment of the start of a story than a story, and the “strange” merchant didn’t really seem to have much purpose because the story didn’t have anywhere to go with it.
It Conquers All
Genre: Romance
Review:
I assume this is a journal entry.
Rainbow Dash has a crush on Applejack, but unfortunately, 750 words is far too small an arc to go from “denial” to “I’m going to go ask her out”; consequently, the story ends up feeling rushed, and the emotional arc never gets there because we don’t have enough time to get into any one emotion before it is flung aside in favor of another.
The Worst Medicine
Genre: Sad
Review:
Sci-fi zombies in Equestria doesn’t really end up working that well, and the whole sophisticated technology felt out of place; we’ve not seen anything really that sophisticated out of the ponies, and the whole facility felt very sci-fi rather than having the sort of early 20th century charm that the show tends to possess.
They have to terminate the last subject for no apparent reason, despite the fact that doing work on them could potentially be useful, and the whole ending feels forced because there’s no clear reason why it has to happen now, especially before the results have all been analyzed. The whole thing feels far too rushed, and I’m just not convinced of the emotional arc of the piece, nor that euthanasia is the only option.
Rarity’s Cure for a Hangover
Genre: Romance, Comedy
Review:
“Boring as sin” is not an adverb, and doesn’t make sense; sin is exciting, not boring!
Well, other than sloth, anyway.
A RariDash piece, this throws us in at the deep end, but ends up feeling a little bit forced, like it is trying to justify itself rather than just being justified. And of course, Rarity tries to make Rainbow Dash a hangover cure… which, quite frankly, Rainbow Dash is totally right about, that is total alcoholic talk there.
All in all, it tried to be cutesy, and the bit after Rainbow Dash turned down Rarity’s “offer” through the end was the best part of it, but the rest of it just didn’t do it for me, and it didn’t come together. I think it would have been better if it had just cut the shipping entirely – it was unnecessary to the central humor of the piece, and it would have worked just as well if Rainbow Dash was just hanging out in Rarity’s house after a party when Rainbow Dash had too much.
A Bitter Pill to Swallow
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
Pound Cake flies the coop and goes off to Manehattan to be his own man.
Er, stallion. Whatever. Point is, he needs to leave, and his parents just don’t get it – pegasi aren’t meant to be cooped up indoors!
I’m not really sure if I buy that, but I do get that he resents not being able to use his natural abilities, and why that might make him feel trapped. I’m not really sure how well the ending solves that problem, though.
I wasn’t ever really blown away by this – there’s nothing really here that impressed me, and the whole story felt a little bit flat. I never really engaged with Pound Cake properly, and thus his triumph at the end didn’t really resonate with me.
A New Lesson
Genre: Comedy?
Review:
Pinkie Pie teaches us that we all need to stay in school so we can write our manifestos properly. This makes me think about this Onion article for some reason, even though it isn’t really the same thing.
Still, the story didn’t really engage me; I had no reason to care if random person I don’t know goes to school or not beyond the abstract, and the story, while a bit amusing, didn’t really make me care about it either; all there was was the humor, which, while okay, was fairly limited.
Also, if you’re going to reference Bad Horse, you can at least be evil about it.
Discovery
Genre:
Review:
Daring Do is some sort of immortal pony who gets herself saved by Celestia. While the idea of Celestia saving Daring Do sometimes is definitely amusing – after all, Indiana Jones feels a bit silly when Superman is about –the central premise, of Daring Do being grumpy about immortality, never really makes any sense. It is just the same shallow, empty complaining that we always hear in “immortality sucks” stories, and it doesn’t sound any more convincing this time than any other.
The pun at the end was cute, though, as was the idea of Celestia saving her, but her angsting over being immortal (as opposed to anything else) is a bit shallow.
Empathy
Genre: Sad
Review:
Vinyl Scratch fails a class in school. For the third time.
This did an alright job of capturing the slice of someone’s life, but I never really empathized with Vinyl Scratch here. It isn’t my thing, and she isn’t my kind of person, nor do I have that kind of reaction to stuff. I just felt disconnected from her, and consequently, from the story.
Like Wildfire
Genre: Slice of Life, Cute
Review:
Twilight is too sick to help Shining Armor shovel the driveway.
This was a cute and rather silly story, with Shining Armor wanting to be lazy and Twilight being a tissue-based monster. On the whole, I enjoyed it, even if it was very light and fluffy, and had a somewhat obvious ending – it is hard to complain about something that made me feel a bit warm and fuzzy.
A Doctor’s Choice
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
I don’t really buy this, to be honest. It is true that different schools teach different things and focus on different things, but not going to the best place you can go for what you want to study just seems alien to me (says the guy who went to Vanderbilt). Maybe I lack the proper perspective on this, but I really don’t get it; if she goes here, what’s to stop her from being compassionate?
Pinkie’s Pie
Genre: Comedy
Review:
Horizon, did you write this after you thought that Chapter 4 of Mistletrapped didn’t have enough Pinkie Pie innuendo in it?
Okay, I don’t believe that, given the prose. Still, weird coindicence.
I generally approve of terrible innuendo, but the prose in this story often felt awkward and stilted, which kind of pulled me out of it. It also felt a bit forced at times; sometimes it felt funny and natural, but other times it felt like it was stretching a bit too obviously for the joke.
Like Draconequi and Rabbits
Genre: Slice of Life, Fluff
Review:
This is very insubstantial; while Discord’s character comes through alright, it didn’t really feel like it accomplished a whole lot or had a whole lot to say other than “Discord is a sucker for Fluttershy.” (But aren’t we all?)
It was cutesy, but didn’t really do a whole lot for me and didn’t really connect with me.
Perfect Prescription
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
A nurse wants to leave pediatrics after losing a patient, but a doctor and a cute little kid convinces her otherwise.
I feel like I’ve read this story before, or seen it before. A doctor clowning around to cheer up their patients is practically a trope at this point (thanks to Patch Adams) and this just kind of felt like it was very by-the-numbers for a story like this. I didn’t really have the time to empathize with the nurse’s loss before she ended up having her mind changed for her, either, which probably didn’t help.
Between Adventures
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
This did a fairly decent job of painting the scene, but the ending – and Rainbow Dash’s change of emotions – came too quickly for it to really have much of an impact. I think that the central conflict in this story was rushed and needed a lot more space to breathe – I’ve seen this sort of story before, and it can be strong, but it needs to be properly paced, not rushed through. Here, it was just too compact.
The Cure for Death
Genre: Sad
Review:
I cottoned on to what was happening pretty early in the story, but this was a cute enough idea. However, I do have one problem with it:
If Celestia can do this, why the heck doesn’t she have a whole flock of phoenixes?
Overall, though, I do like the idea of cheating death in this way, and it was a reasonable enough idea, even if it didn’t quite work the way the mare had hoped it would.
…Is A Good Story
Genre: Metafic, not a story
Review:
This story being placed immediately after “The Cure for Death” made for a fun titular juxtaposition.
Uh oh, a metafic. Also: while “Internet” should be capitalized, “the” should not.
Sorry, but someone already sort of did this, and this is just kind of boring. It doesn’t do anything terribly interesting; if you’re going to write a metafic, at least be interesting about it. Lunnas Ache was at least engaging.
Let It Out
Genre: Slice of Life, Fluff
Review:
Luna feels way too proud to break down sobbing like this; stalk off in a total huff, sure, but this? Seems very much at odds with her characterization in the show.
This is half the tears of the Moon, and half fluff, but it didn’t leave me half-satisfied – while the serial exaggeration was supposed to be funny in the first half, I got distracted by Luna’s characterization, and then the second half just didn’t end up touching me with its tickle fight.
Laughter is the Second Best Medicine
Genre: Slice of Life, Cute
Review:
Poor Pinkie Pie. But that’s what happens when you treat sick people in stories – you get sick yourself!
Unless they’re dying, in which case you don’t. Funny how that works. Ah, well.
This was a kind of cute story, but it worked decently enough for what it was; it was definitely going for the dawws, and I think it worked reasonably well, though it mostly just made me feel a little fuzzy rather than actually earning a verbal exclaimation.
Dungeons and Apples
Genre: Slice of Life, Crossover
Review:
Shouldn’t that be Apples & Alicorns?
Anyway… yeah. This just kind of fell flat for me, mostly because I’ve seen this joke too many times before. And I suspect everyone who is familiar with D&D has probably seen this joke too many times before.
A general note: while someone having some sort of physical tic works in both a cartoon and a story, usually they need to be shown in different ways; trying to directly translate cartoon tics into stories generally feels weird, as it did with Braeburn back towards the start of this story.
Discord’s Best Medicine
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
Discord is sick and Fluttershy has to make him better.
This was far too simplistic as a story, and really felt like a children’s story to me. The writing in it was very telly as regards character emotions, but the whole thing just felt far too straightforward, with the ending played entirely straight and telegraphed from the start.
The Gift
Genre: Sad
Review:
The core of this story is okay, but I’ve seen it before, and done better. The prose was somewhat bland, especially the introduction; it just felt kind of generic, and I never really felt for Fluttershy here, and have no emotional connection to Elizabeak whatsoever. As such, Elizabeak’s death is kind of meaningless to me, as I really have no reason to care about the Timber Wolf or Elizabeak, and Fluttershy feeling bad about them just… doesn’t touch me because I’m disconnected from why she cares.
Balm
Genre: Sad
Review:
The final line felt unnecessarily telly; showing us that instead of telling us that makes it much more powerful, as that is the whole point of the story.
I thought that the start of this was okay, but in the end, the story lacked emotional impact. We don’t get a good view of Rainbow Dash trying to block out the pain of loss with her work early on, and as such, the reveal later on fails to really do much for the reader. “Be sad for her,” it tells us, but heartstring #4 was not tugged.
To Soothe the Savage Breast
Genre: Poetry, Slice of Life
Review:
Reading these out loud, they almost all felt awkward to read; the only bit that really sounded pleasing to my ear was:
So into town, the others laugh and talk,
But Tavey barely gets herself to walk.
The rest of the lines rhymed, but… they just didn’t flow off the tongue properly. It felt like there were too many syllables in almost all of them, and I just never got into the flow of the poems.
The Frog of Love
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
This story made me smile. It wasn’t amazing, but it was worth reading; Snips and Snails worked well as a comedic duo, with Snips continually shooting down Snails and throwing in his own advice. The end of the story had a good solid payoff, and the whole thing hung together quite well.
If I was going to complain about anything, it would be that “lovesick” in the second paragraph is probably unnecessary, and that “concept” in the final paragraph should be “idea”.
Complications
Genre: Comedy
Review:
I don’t really get why Pinkie Pie’s speech is slurred; I’ve been under the effects of nitrous, and I’ve had teeth pulled, and neither resulted in slurred speech.
All in all, it was a pretty light story, and while I liked the overall idea, I’m not quite sure if the delivery on it worked; it felt like the punchline came a fair bit before the end, and after that point it was just Pinkie being silly. Also, while the punchline cribbed from the show IS funny, it was a lot funnier the first time (or when it is used in other inappropriate circumstances) rather than as a standalone punchline.
First, Last, and Always
Genre: Sad
Review:
Applejack and Big Mac coping after their parents died.
A decent enough little thing, this was more of a scene than a story; there was no real arc, just a brief little conversation at the end. It was a pretty decent scene, but at the same time, while I understood the context of it, it didn’t really touch me emotionally in any way – I never really connected with what happened in the story.
A Crown for Princess Twilight
Genre: Poetry, Sad, Immortality Angst
Review:
I wasn’t really enamored with the poetry – reading it out loud, it just didn’t sound that great to me. The actual content of the piece as a whole wasn’t very appealing to me either. The entire idea of immortality angst is weird, especially given the whole idea of “seeing them again” (do people really cry this much if someone moves away?), but added to that is the whole lack of any realization of anything else going for her, after centuries and centuries, despite the fact that she has Cadance, Celestia, Luna, and Discord at the very least.
Intention
Genre: Sad
Review:
Rainbow Dash sucks at comforting Scootaloo, but Scootaloo feels better anyway.
I thought this was mostly well-written, but it just did not capture me emotionally. Rainbow Dash seemed reasonably well-voiced, but there wasn’t anything terribly distinctive here, and I didn’t really end up getting feels. Rainbow Dash’s speech at the end felt weird to me as well, like Rainbow Dash was jumping all over the place emotionally, especially with the smile at the end of it. I just didn’t really get how Rainbow Dash was really feeling, and it felt kind of erratic to me, and I’m not sure why Scootaloo felt better about it after that.
Light and Dark
Genre: Slice of Life, Historical
Review:
Celestia deals with a rich racist unicorn, and Luna comes up with a better suggestion of how to “deal” with him.
I liked this on the whole, as one might expect of a historical story about Luna and Celestia; Celestia is more benevolent, while Luna is more direct in her thoughts of how to build a better Equestria, and the conversation worked. If I had a complaint, it was that it ended on a whimper rather than on a bang, just kind of trailing off into darkness; I think it could have stood to be punchier at the end.
I am always a sucker for Luna putting a twist on the words of others, and her note about what you do with trapped flies was an especially good rejoinder, as it is absolutely true.
Though as XKCD taught us:
Trixie Invents Yoga Pants
Genre: Slice of Life, Fetish Fuel
Review:
Why did you have to use the word “ass” here? Was there any reason to do that? It feels juvenile and discordant.
Anyway… this felt kind of pointless, like it was supposed to appeal to someone’s fetish, except that sort of thing works a lot better as a picture for what you were doing here, and it all just kind of felt unfocused and pointless, as it started out with Applejack struggling to read minotaur and then went off into something else before going back to the original topic, and then finally ending with a bit of a non-sequitur.
Carrot
Genre: Slice of Life, Medical
Review:
Someone pretends to be in a coma, but in reality, it is purely psychosomatic. Naturally, the perfect cure to someone like that is Pinkie Pie, who is far too erratic to allow someone to remember that they’re supposed to be a vegetable.
All in all, this piece was okay, but I never really emotionally allied myself with the protagonist, and as such, his recovery at the end didn’t really touch me.
Using “scorn” as a saidism is a stretch.
I’m also a bit sad that you didn’t use the best vegetable joke of all:
What’s the hardest part of a vegetable to eat?
The wheelchair.
Blight
Genre: Slice of Life
Review:
I feel like this story was supposed to somehow align Fluttershy with the plant, and make use of that comparison, with Fluttershy being taken care of by her friends… and then that didn’t happen, and I was kind of left wondering if that was left on the cutting room floor, or if it was just kind of a character piece about the kind of person Fluttershy is. If it is the latter, it didn’t really feel like it said a whole lot to me that I didn’t already more or less know, and I think other stories have done a better job with Fluttershy being like that, most notably All the Mortal Remains.
You Look Hot. Want a Drink?
Genre: Sad?
Review:
Flash Sentry is apparently gay, at a gay bar, on his way to go join the royal guard, giving us a bit of insight into his backstory. I didn’t really hear Flash’s voice in this very well, though, and the story just kind of seemed a little bit empty – it focused on Flash hitting on the stallion, then transitioned to his backstory, all without giving us enough time to ever really care about what was going on or about Flash himself.
A Medicine that Works
Genre: Sad
Review:
Another “Applejack dealing with her parents dying” story, this story didn’t really seem to know what it wanted to be – it started out as a story being told at some time in the past, with the camera following Applejack as she flashed back through what happened, but then it felt like the story forgot it was doing the whole flashback thing and just told a story in a very telly rather than a literary manner.
Only the Best
Genre: Tragedy
Review:
Shining Armor tries to cling to life until Twilight gets there.
Unfortunately, the story left me without much context as to why that was something he needed to hold out for, and I think that stripped away a lot of the emotional impact of the ending, as his failure doesn’t really have much of an impact on me because I don’t know why it was so important in the first place.
Time is Closing In
Genre: Romance, Tragedy
Review:
Applejack turns 40 and realizes she’s never going to be immortal, and that she’s throwing her life away chasing a pipe dream. She wants to live in the now, not keep pretending she’s going to become an alicorn – but to Rainbow Dash, that’s tantamount to suicide.
I actually really liked the idea behind this story. I think the biggest problem this story has is some unclearness in it – are the other five alicorns? In my initial reading of this, I had assumed that the others were the princesses, but re-reading it, I suspect that the intent was that it was the rest of the mane 6. It feels a little weird to have Applejack be the only one of the mane six to fail to become an alicorn – though it is not unbelievable to me, after some thought, she always kind of came in towards the top for alicorns for me, and her being the only “failure” lends the whole thing an even darker cast.
I think this could do with a bit more space to breathe as well – the ending, in particular, felt a little bit too compact. Still, it held up by and large.
Two Rainbow Dash alicorn fics (and Applejack isn’t) in the same competition is a weird coincidence, though.
Opportunity in the Community
Genre: Comedy
Review:
Flim and Flam were already having a bad day going through the fireswamp.
Then they ran into the chimera, who, alas, was not getting any pies for her trouble today. But hey, at least there were these two tasty ponies…
This was rather silly, but it hung together well enough; it sort of bordered on Slice of Life versus Comedy, having a clearly comedic bent without wholly going over that way, and the ending made me chuckle internally, but not externally.
Present Tense
Genre: Sad
Review:
Pinkie Pie wanders through a fading dreamscape.
This story was, on the whole, a bit too vague in its symbolism and imagery to really engage me; while everyone loves stories about psychopomps and death, this never really came together as a piece or really showed me anything that awesome as far as the genre goes. The writing also felt kind of jaggedy, and the very final line in particular was pretty ugly and not very satisfying.
It's comical at the same time and Pinkie can't help but smile.
This was awkward, though frankly, the whole story parsed kind of weirdly for me – the present tense just didn’t work that well, especially not “She remembers going to sleep in her own bed,” which definitely SHOULD have been past tense.
One Untended and Apart
Genre: Fairy Tale, Sad
Review:
The first and last lines of this story didn’t work very well for me, but the rest of it worked well enough as a cautionary fairy tale/just so story, explaining why a certain type of apple tree produced bad apples (though it was a little weird, as Antonovka apples are perfectly edible, though it is good at surviving the winter).
Love and Other Bandages
Genre: Romance
Review:
Fluttershy helps an injured changeling recover with the power of love. Rainbow Dash, understandably, does not approve.
While I get the author’s point here, the ending still felt a little weird to me; in particular, it is easy to see why Rainbow Dash would be so upset by it, seeing as she is Fluttershy’s girlfriend, but the whole thing feels terribly unresolved.
Still, I think I liked the idea behind it, and I think it could be made into something pretty good; what was here was an interesting idea, and I liked it well enough, but it just didn’t have the space to really go much of anywhere, or to make the ending as shocking or emotionally impactful as I think it wanted to be.
And there we go!
Word tells me I wrote nearly 12,000 words worth of reviews for this; pretty crazy.
I should have another set of reviews up this next week, as well as at least one more piece of prose fiction.
Until then, enjoy the weekend!
The link for Who We Are shows the text through the spoiler tag blackness. Not sure if you care about that or not.
2880985
Probably not a huge deal, though it is a bit of a spoiler if you're familiar with the story. I dunno if there's any way to spoilertext links. Is it possible to recolor them?
2880990
A few moments of experimentation seems to point to nope. Might wanna just say 'try this story' for the text or leave out the link.
2880990 2880998
All you have to do is put the url tags outside the spoiler tags. There might be other ways, but this works for most things.
2881604
Thanks!
I'm so relieved. You got the joke. That's enough for me.