Ooo... 16 entries. Not as much as last time, but considering the stipulations this time... hope they'll be delicious, eh?

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I tried refreshing, and no, I'm not any more. I can no longer make the edit I was going to make, but it's trivial enough that I'm okay letting it slide.

Well, it was loading fine for me until, at least, the last minute. My last edit is registering as being done one minute after the deadline

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You mean, 22?

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There's actually 22 entries, which is considerably more than the 7 that the last short story contest got.

Oh wow. Three pointer at the buzzer! I actually got in on time. Barely. I procrastinated all weekend and basically wrote the thing at a feverish pace in the last six hours. It wasn't the story I wanted to do, and I don't feel like it's as good as it could be for what it ended up, but hell, it's good enough and I'll take it. Now to start reading the others and reviewing.

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I figured it out. I was looking on my tablet which isn't logged in so it was six in hutch not central.

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Where do you get 16? I'm counting 22, with a total wordcount of 87k, which is about two-and-a-half times the size of last competition.

Alternatively, 0.14 Fallout: Equestrias.

And let the reading begin!

... tomorrow. I'm off to bed, it's past 3AM here

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Sadly, that unit of measure is nowhere near as good as a Wyoming worth of alcohol.

Oh, that's a lot of horsewords to read.

I did it! Never before have I experienced such massive procrastination blues. I got the idea for my story a on Thursday while visiting a Van Gogh exhibition, but it took me two whole days to get the stone rolling. The story seemed so good in my head that it seemed like it wouldn't need any planning. As usual with such impulses, it turned out to be false.

So I wrote my entire story in a essentially a single sitting during the night, writing the last words just a few minutes before the deadline (my timezone shifts the the deadline to 10 AM, which made this attempt harder).

Despite everything, I am very happy with how this turned out and I hope that people will like it as well. And I've learned quite a few things to boot. Wish everyone luck with the contest!

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I was stupid myself, and started working on one story that I got stuck on (it required a bunch of little mini scenes, and I came up drawing dead on some of them), then throwing it all out and going with a different one tonight (I had two ideas, so it wasn't so bad). I'll work on getting the first story done this week after I go through the contest entries, and I'm still not sure how happy I am with the second one, but, well, whatever. Its all in the spirit of fun, right?

Or something like that.

Ended up writing thousands of words over the weekend though, which isn't too bad.

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Bon chance!

That's like good luck, except it has been cursed with Frenchiness.

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Hmm...? Must've been lagging on my phone. It showed there was 16 entries for me. Either that or I was checking at the wrong time because durr.

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87k, a paltry number compared to FoE. Well... shit? I really ain't a fast reader. There goes all my smut reading time for the rest of the week :supersadpinkie:

I'm going to with the theory that Titanium Dragon and FoME spammed as many entries as possible because fetch land :] Also, I'd like to imagine they tried to sabotage each other through nefarious means ranging from email spam to hiring Kamigawa ninjas to take each other out because that makes things super dramatic and exciting

Alright, 90,000 words?

Let's get crack-a-lackalin.

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Not just ninjas, but Kamigawa ninjas.

...wait, wasn't that the shinto-inspired MTG block?

Looks like some dirty cheater snuck in past the deadline.

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I swear it wasn't me this time. I snuck in a minute BEFORE the deadline.

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Yeah, the ninjas were from Kamigawa block, which was the Japanese block. Some of them were actually interesting cards, but most of them weren't really playable in standard.

I liked the idea behind them, though. Attack with something else? PSYCH ITS A NINJA!

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Ornithopters and Will-o-the-Wisps lol

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I vaguely remember attempts at building ninja decks, but my memory seems to want to tell me that only ones which I ever saw in "real decks" were Ink-Eyes and Okiba-Gang Shinobi. I seem to recall Ninja of the Deep Hours was a card that really needed a deck.

But I may be mistaken. It was a long time ago.

Last time, for a number of reasons, I wasn't able to do a review of the stories in the writeoff. Due to the fact that, however, the wordcount involved here is much higher, I'm going to post the reviews sequentially, immediately after reading the stories. Is that acceptable practice?

Anyway, without further ado...

1) Love Call

Ok. It's a poem.
Argh.
As somebody who angrily skipped all of the italicized text in the lord of the rings, I'm afraid I'm not going to be objective, or to do this work justice.
I like the idea that love is a sword with two blades, even though it feels slightly derivative from Game of Thrones' metaphor of "magic is a sword without a hilt".
I am very puzzled by the idea that the protagonist is going north, away from its love (which is presumably in the south), and I can't reconcile it with the ending, unless there is metaphor involved. Which there probably is, considering.*
I liked the reference to "Ozymandias" and the way it was changed from the original, although I'm afraid that that is probably because everything is going so over my head it's not even funny, and an extremely well know and "pop" work works like a raft.
I don't know enough about meters, cadence, or any other technical aspects of poetry, so I don't know how well it performs in that account.
Finally, I don't think this story used the prompt very well; with just a couple of tweaks, this could have fitted into last month's writeoff. The final sentiment is nice, but again, I don't see how it relates to the prompt: "There is magic in everything" can be used to show how ordinary action have great consequences, but this read more like the story of an extraordinary thing.

Tentative score:N/A

*I have a couple of theories on that, but my idea is that Chrisalis' hive is in the South, and that's what she's referring to as her "love"

Love Call
This appears to be a poem of some sort, but it doesn’t seem to rhyme or have regular meter, and reading it out loud felt a little bit awkward. As it goes on, it grows increasingly irregular.

I will say that this story had me tricked about who it was about; I didn’t realize it was about Chrysalis until the second poem.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t sold on the poetry, and while I think the basic idea of the story is potentially alright, I didn’t really warm to it and the motivations were unclear. All there really was was the central twist.

Stallion Whose Name I Forgot
Hm. This is a longer entry, really enjoys its symbolism. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if I was wholly sold on the piece; I’m not sure if it really all came together in the end for me. I realized when they got to the hospital that it was Rarity there, and I figured from far earlier than that that the whole piece was highly symbolic, but… in the end, it didn’t really quite work for me.

It wasn’t a bad piece, really, but I didn’t really feel like I really went anywhere with it.

Waiting
I noticed a typographical error in this piece – an incorrect word substitution – but it wasn’t too bad.

The real problem with this piece was that it was 6,000 words long, and yet still left me hanging at the end of the story. I was wondering how it was going to end, but…

It didn’t, really. It did have an ending, but it still felt unresolved, and on the whole the piece felt more like the first chapter of a story than a full story.

I do understand the implication at the end – that it worked and pulled the characters out of their ruts – but… eh.

And Yet…
This isn’t really one story so much as it is a bunch of them stuck together, all clustering around the theme. This is the first story so far which actually really pulled on the prompt strongly.

On the upside, each of these were decent enough little stories which hit on the theme.

On the downside, this isn’t a minific competition.

On the gripping hand, it did feel like a “piece”.

I wasn’t super sold on the ending of the last one, as it felt like the least strong ending of all of them, and indeed the very final piece felt like the weakest of the lot, so it ended on a whimper.

Homecoming
Ah, Zecora. The eternal trap of the rhyming couplet. One of the problems with these is that it is very easy to make their rhythm feel off, and in this case, a few of them, while they rhymed, felt off. In particular, the first one:

“I’ll need just a moment, my young Princess! I’m afraid that right now, my house is quite the mess!”

I think the second sentence needed to be shaved down; maybe “I’m afraid right now my house is a mess” would have worked better.

Also, “wisdom” and “tradition” don’t rhyme. And everyzebra is outright painful as a single word.

“I have not a clue how your schedule goes. I certainly did not want to seem to impose,”

Again, cutting down the second sentence to “I did not want to seem to impose” would make it read better.

And story and me is a half-rhyme.

Eh, I’ll stop.

One other thing:

Twilight caught glimpses of Ceecee and Shireeya shyly stealing kisses, and she laughed when Bentugo told her old zebra tales, complete with his hilarious impressions of dragons and diamond dogs.

The problem with using hilarious here is that it violates Bad Horse’s “don’t tell the audience how to feel” rule; telling us that something is hilarious tends not to work very well in prose. This is actually done at several points in the story, and it did pull on my attention throughout the prose in the latter half of the piece.

On the whole, I was not really sold on this; the story-within-a-story was reasonably authentic, but one problem with a lot of those stories is… well, they’re kind of meh. A lot of authentic mythology isn’t a thing of beauty, and it is the pieces which are really beautiful which I like to see, rather than the also authentic but not so beautiful ones.

I suppose that’s why I like Norse mythology; a lot of it reads like ordinary stories rather than myths.

Three and a half seconds
A coma patient reversal story, like many of these after you’ve read a few of them, you realize what is going on once things start getting weird. This was a fairly standard one, and I didn’t really feel like it did a whole lot unique with the premise.

Just One More
This has some weird sort of shifts in the prose, where it feels like different paragraphs are written in a very different manner. It got very distracting about midway through the story.

Anyway, I’ve seen similar stories to this, with the idea that the character absorbs SOMETHING and just keeps on growing, and I’ve never been super fond of them. This one was no exception. This one felt kind of rushed at the end as well; the rest of the story was slower paced, but once she starts draining things, it goes at a fever pitch and she goes from draining some grass to towering over Ponyville in a couple pages. It feels very abrupt.

A Light In The Dark
Hey, look, someone else mentioning that the stars that set her free could be interpreted as Twilight freeing Luna from Nightmare Moon!

I don’t have any major objections to this story, but at the same time it didn’t really light my fires either. It was just a reflective piece, and I didn’t really feel like it went anywhere in the end.

Dawn
This story suffers a bit from talking heads syndrome – it is an extremely dialogue heavy piece, with the odd dialogue tags to keep track of things and have the characters gesture or whatever, but I think that it might have been better if they had made me see the scene a bit more.

Also, Luna uses “hath” at the start, but uses “has” elsewhere in the piece. Not a huge deal – and the hases are way later – but it would be better to be consistent.

I’m also not sure if I’m sold on using “Mayhaps” instead of “perhaps” – it is “authentic” but it feels a bit too archaic.

“Because, Luna, it is better than to cry.”

I’m not so sure about this turnabout, either, especially given her earlier reaction.

And the ending… honestly, I don’t like it that much. I think Celestia should have been out there to do it on purpose. Why wasn’t it purposeful?

On the whole, it is hard for me to really know what to make of this piece – for all my nitpicking it is, essentially, doing the same thing as I did with Moving Heaven and Earth last competition, and I liked that story well enough, so clearly I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t like this one. On the other hand, while the story ended with what had to happen, I’m not sure if the piece is really… necessary? Did this need to exist? I dunno. I guess I kind of liked it, and I liked the idea of talking about cutie marks and dismissing them as marks of destiny, but… I’m not sure if this piece really went anywhere. Honestly it feels kind of like a rehash of Moving Heaven and Earth. Maybe it is unfair of me to rate it lower for that, but meh.

Honestly, I feel like this needed to be a different story – make Celestia be out there, trying to figure out if she can/should raise the Sun on her own, and have Luna be the tipping point that drives her to actually do it. I like the idea of the cutie mark thing, but… I dunno. Probably needs to be a different story so that it has a real conflict.

Of course, it could be that they rejected her from their little circle, and she does it to prove that she doesn’t need a cutie mark to join their circle… and of course, gets her cutie mark in the process, both proving herself worthy and simultaneously ironically destroying her point about cutie marks.

Friendship is not Magic
Hrm. Twilight goes to find an ancient dragon to fix her horn, has a conversation about how magic is not good or evil but merely a thing and is not what makes her special (which would work a lot better if it was actually true; not calling Twilight’s magic special is like not calling a painter’s artistic talent special), and then leaves. Very to the point, about the right length for what it was, and at the end Twilight decides not to ask if it can fix her horn, which, while it was what the story was leading up to, didn’t really work for me for the reasons I mentioned above re: Twilight’s Magic.

Magic in the Earth, Magic in the Air
An adventure story starring Maud, Flim, and Flam of all ponies. The appearance of Maud felt like something of a contrived coincidence, but Flim and Flam coming back to town seems reasonable enough. Soarin’s appearance was DEFINITELY a contrived coincidence, though.

On the whole, the whole thing felt too contrived, and while it was certainly a contrivance, it didn’t really end up working for me.

Negotiations
Hey look, an Earth Pony Magic piece!

Admittedly I like the idea of naturalistic magic, but on the other hand, I don’t really feel like the show implies this to be the case at all – indeed, really, it seems that most ponies have fairly spot on the wall magic. Twilight is the rare exception – most ponies use magic to make their lives better, but only a rare few are really all that magical.

That being said, it was a decent enough piece, though I feel like the whole “negotiation” bit wasn’t done really quite enough.

And with that, I'm the first person to have their votes actually register. I shall do the rest tomorrow, I think. I will also most likely have to rescale my scores, unless there are a lot more pieces I like in the second half than the first half.

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Applejack Goes To Magic School For Some Reason
Okay, this is actually my favorite story so far in the competition. It made me smile, and maybe even – almost – chuckle a little. I know, hard to believe.

Yes, it is just a series of silly coincidences, but it amused me.

Parental Attachment
This… was a bit ridiculous. I actually came to the wrong conclusion that they were changelings, but the ending was weirder still.

I’m not sure if I really approve of this story, but on the other hand… well, it wasn’t something I’d seen before as a resolution for “where are Scootaloo’s parents”.

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Wait, you can edit the stories?

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I only submitted one entry, actually. I forgot to take the last minute effect into account, so I felt pretty confident when there were only four other entries submitted. Now...

In any case, time to start reading these things...

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You can edit them during the submission period, but not afterwards.

I forgot to take the last minute effect into account, so I felt pretty confident when there were only four other entries submitted.

There was even apparently an after the last minute effect, according to RogerDodger.

That was a hell of a last-minute rush! c.c I went to bed with something like 3 hours left in the contest, and nearly tripled in size! Yeesh. Well, what's 90k words between friends, right?

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I do remember seeing the submission page saying closed with 22 stories and the gallery having mid 80k words total, then refreshing later with 23 stories and 90k words. Doesn't really bother me though.

First round of my reviews is go:

Love Call: The free verse took a bit to get used to; I obsess over getting rhythm right, so seeing someone take a casual attitude towards it required a mental adjustment. At first, I thought the subject might be Celestia pining for Good King Sombra. Then as more evidence came in, I thought I understood. I was wrong. To whoever wrote this: You got me.

The far-future setting is interesting, and while I understand why more wasn't done with it, I still want to know more about it, especially what happened to the rest of the cast. The idea of a magicless no-man's land beyond Equestria's borders is also intriguing, the country and the world interchangeable because there is nothing beyond it.

In all, good execution, cool ideas, and a clever twist, but only tangentially related to the prompt. I suppose there could be an argument for "the magic of love" binding all together at the end, but it didn't seem to be the intention.

Stallion Whose Name I Forget: A fascinating and suitably dreamlike tale. I suspect the author drew from his or her own frustration in trying to fit the theme, or at least in creative difficulties elsewhere. The result is a very clever interpretation of that theme, redefining "magic" as a metaphor for creativity and inspiration. There are a few minor technical errors, but all in all, this was a good read. A bit rambling at times, but that was appropriate given the circumstances. Also, pilgrimages to strange and remote places seem to be a thing in this competition.

Waiting: Okay, if the children are born with an inert form of the virus, shouldn't that mean that they're born with a in-built vaccine? I'm no virologist, but that seems a bit off.

The author was clearly having fun with acronyms. I just wish he or she had found similar joy in the technical aspects of the story. Still, it's a neat look behind the curtain, though not so much a case of "there's magic in everything" as it is "please, please let there be magic in everything." At least the patch led to a referendum on the project… though I have to wonder how Equestria Girls works with this setup.

And Yet…: Certainly more on theme than the previous two, though at the cost of cohesion. It bounces around time and space to capture as many examples of magic-that-isn't as possible when it would've been better served by fleshing out one vignette. Scootaloo's or Lyra's would work best, emphasizing either friendship as magic or Clarke's Third Law.

Homecoming: Zecora's speech patterns will always be stressful. Your effort was noble, but not quite successful. The usage of rhythm may be somewhat lacking, but there's not much else that I find worth attacking. At first the tale's slow and moderately clunky, but once it gets going, it's pleasantly funky.

For pantheons foreign I'm always a sucker, whether they be zebras' or an applebucker's. The story of struggle from zebras' perspective is filled with their hope and not drowned in invective. (The script format's jarring, I also must add. The narrative pattern suddenly went plaid!)

But these are mere quibbles, for the ceremony was fascinating to both reader and pony. The magic in all things you properly captured, and after I finished I was still enraptured. So thank you, whoever typed up this delight. It may not be perfect, but it pleased my sight.

Three and a Half Seconds: Exotic pilgrimages and comas. The first I can see—"everywhere" is a big place—but I have no idea how this prompt led so many bedridden ponies. In any case, this is a quietly terrifying story of helplessness and isolation, an inversion of the usual themes of the show. Naturally it is those same themes that fix the situation, because the magic of friendship is everywhere. Nicely done, even if we never do find out the cause of the coma.

Just One More: Funnily enough, that's exactly what I told myself as I started reading this one. Also, I considered writing a story wherein Tirek does exactly what Twilight ponders here. An amusing coincidence.

In any case, addiction truly is a cruel mistress, and Fate truly is a jerk. That said, there really isn't much here. Terrifying implications, yes, but the actual structure feels kind of shallow. Almost as if it's been drained of something essential.

…Damn it, Twilight.

Review time. Will post in segments as a finish, four or five at a time depending on story length.
Part 1/6

Love Call: I'm not a fan of poetry stories or poetry in stories. I usually skip them if I see them coming in books that I have read. I understand that I was supposed to have some emotional connection and get caught up in the feelings the author was conveying, but really just felt like an overly long way of saying she ran away and then came back. It might be a failure on my part to understand and I'm biased since the only poems I like rhyme, but since I couldn't connect with this story I ended with just a luke warm feeling at the end. I finished for the sake of giving the author a chance, not from any personal desire or enjoyment.

Stallion Whose Name I Forgot: Me: *reading*
story:*poke* do you get it? *poke* do you get it?
me: Yes story, I get it. Now let me finish.
story:*poke* do you get it?
me: Argh, yes story I get it. Now can you please let me finish?
story:*poke* do you get it?
me:*flips table* stop poking me with your obvious symbolism, I'm trying to read here.
Overall, it wasn't horrible, I just felt the symbolism was layered a little thick. This may have to do with the length, as so much was crammed into what should have been one chapter of an adventure story through Raritys psyche, but it still was a little grinding. I'm sure most will catch on pretty quick to what is happening and find no surprises at the end. It had the subtlety of 'The Labyrinth' without the David Bowie charm (or bulge).

And Yet...: A series of short stories that needed to be longer. I barely had time to picture the scene before the repeating final line marked where I had to start again. This one had plenty of words left that could have been used to pull us further into each vignette and have that drop of emotional connection and understanding it desired. I also feel that the overall theme should have connected them more strongly. They all have the same final line to connect them, but I don't think that was enough as it didn't explore what exactly each particular take on magic was. There were also several grammar issues that need to get edited before posting to the website. For the record I liked the first one best.

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Part 3 3634325

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Aw, thanks for the encouragement guys! This is one of the reasons why I keep coming back despite constantly missing the deadline--we got a good crowd here.

Unfortunately, I went to bed right after writing that last night, so I never finished anything. And horizon, while I know exactly what you're talking about because I experienced that multiple times in the past with these (especially when I first started), I've found it increasingly difficult to disable most of my filters and just write. Knowing I'm not doing the story anything resembling justice kills me far more than it used to. *shrugs* I'm a slow writer anyway, and I wouldn't have been able to even make the 2000 word minimum in time, as I only had about 500 with an hour to go. Anyway, it's fine, I'm determined to finish what I started this week, and if it's in time, I'll humbly request you guys to give it a peek along with the other entries.

Some of these look good as hell... Welp, better get reading.

I actually had time/motivation to participate in this Write-Off for once! I feel so accomplished. I might even do it again someday.

Anyways, onto reviews. I think I'll start at the bottom of the list and work up just to be different.

Tumbling Down The Slippery Slope: Applejack starts a race war, and apparently invents the phrase "Check your privelege." It's fairly well-written, and the first-person voice is good. I noticed Pinkie Pie stole that "unfair/funfair" joke from Spongebob and that kind of took me out of the story, but other than that it's pretty funny. I was wondering how this was all going to be resolved in under 8,000 words, since tumblr flamewars go on forever in real life, but I liked the idea of Humbugs. The punny name actually sounds like a creature they'd have in the show. Plus, it wasn't a total cop-out--everyone really was upset, it wasn't just mind control that can be fixed instantly. Overall, it felt almost like an episode of the show, and that's my favorite kind of fic.

Feel: I just had a hard time following the names (Glitter Song, Star Dust, Rosedust, Glitter Dust) since so many of them use the same words. A bit more character development and dialogue could have helped me understand what was going on. I know that they're on some important journey, but it's all told in such vague terms that it's hard to get invested.

The Sweetest Water: I like how this story is told like a traditional folktale. I like the repetition in the structure as he comes to each of the three pools. The moral came together nicely at the end. A pretty good story.

The Color and the Silence: Interesting interpretation of Celestia. Those stained glass windows that keep changing in every episode suddenly seem a lot more ominous.

Daring Do and the Jade Songbird: Wonderful pulpy Daring Do fun. I feel like you had fun coming up with all this convoluted backstory. I kind of saw the ending coming, but I actually expected Ginger Sprout to be Scootaloo's self-insert, kind of like how Rainbow Dash saw herself as Daring Do.

I'll come back to read more later.

Part two of three:

A Light in the Dark: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Nightmare Night as the longest night of the year? That would be the winter solstice. The preponderance of pumpkins in Ponyville suggests that, like All Hallow's Eve, Nightmare Night is a fall festivity, which puts it several weeks before that point on the calendar. Granted, there's some more flexibility there than usual with the sun and moon on manual override, but still.

Pedantry aside, this was certainly an interesting interpretation of canon. Not the first time I've seen it, but still well considered. The friendship-magic equivalence makes itself known as well; the spark fires when helping or being helped. The implications are vast, but left unexplored, filed under That Which Pony Was Not Meant to Know. Come on, an incomprehensible elder entity being freed from its long imprisonment when the stars are right, as was prophesied in days of old? What could possibly go wrong in investigating that? (Also, it may technically count as both a coma and a pilgrimage.)

Dawn: Huh. Two royal sister stories in a row, technically. I quite like Socratic Celestia and her adorable student Pluna. The prompt is approached indirectly, through the applicability of cutie marks. Through clever interpretation, a pony could claim his destiny lies… well, anywhere. Granted, certain paths are more obvious for a given mark than others. A surprisingly philosophical work, and one I enjoyed.

Friendship is Not Magic.: Given the magnitude of Twilight's reason for seeing the elder dragon, (another pilgrimage!) I have to object to first hearing about it in the middle of the story. It's not even hinted at until Twilight just casually brings it up. I also have to object to her revelation. Yes, Twilight, that is magic. It's magic that you yourself have used. Well written as the story is, I have to object to the massive logical fault here. And on that note, the title would be more accurate if it were the converse of the current statement.

Magic in the Earth, Magic in the Air: Wow, the villain is so generic that we don't even get a name. Not until the end, at least, but she could've at least supplied an alias. Also, if she stole the generator, how exactly is the stasis spell being powered? If Twilight's supplying the magic, then it's self-perpetuating in a way that makes my eyes cross.

Characters come out of the woodwork without rhyme or reason, and I find myself failing to care. Sweetie Belle's orchestration is interesting, but it's never made clear what she's doing outside of her personal metaphor.

The end is just… ugh. No. Luna bet against herself? She can beat Discord? Celestia couldn't follow her own advice and find a non-weaponizable version of the generator however many years earlier? Sweetie Belle still doesn't get a cutie mark?

Sorry, but this one just fell flat.

Negotiations: Huh. Another story that begins with "Apple Bloom trudged". What are the odds?

In any case, this one's pretty heavily dependent on headcanon, but it's headcanon I like, though I usually prefer my Pinkie Pies eldritch rather than simply insane. The biggest problem is that Apple Bloom's motivation feels rather out of character for her. It's not contradictory per se, but there's no evidence for it one way or the other. Really, the same could be said for the story as a whole. As I said, headcanon-dependent. Still a good read, though.

Applejack Goes To Magic School For Some Reason: An idiot plot, plain and simple. Aside from a cute bit of Twijack friendshipping, not my cup of tea.

Parental Attachment: Well, that was a thing, though not really a thing that fit the prompt. Still, kudos for a twist on Scootaloo's parents that I've never seen before.

Mark of Destiny: This is a story in desperate need of some better opening exposition. I figured it out fairly easily, but the opening is downright baffling at first.

That said, this was a fascinating read. It went all over the place, in a good way. It started off befuddling, then loathsome, then almost physically painful, then… well, I'm trying to praise it, but this isn't really working. Suffice to say, it threw out horrible, horrible situations, then acknowledged how terrible they were, and it did that well. This was still the best submission I've read thus far. Also one of the biggest exotic pilgrimages yet.

And last one:

Farsighted: A different spin on earth pony magic than Negotiations, one that's more believable, yet less satisfying. Talking about the infinitesimal odds of experiencing a given particular moment doesn't quite ring true in a universe where destiny doesn't just exist, but makes itself known on one's hindquarters. Still, it definitely met the prompt, and it's a nice Twijack friendshipping to boot.

Oubliette: Wow. As I noted earlier, I considered this basic premise, but I never considered something like this. I'd call it a descent into madness, but it began about four-fifths of the way to the bottom. In any case, it was an excellently disturbing tale… though the author managed to demonstrate that there is a bad time for a Monty Python quotation. That rather disrupted the mood, though considering who it came from, I shouldn't be surprised. Still, a very good read.

For the Best: Twilight/Applejack shenanigans. A third, minor theme, after great journeys and incapacitation. (Unless the same person wrote all three, but what are the odds of that?) I'm Mane Six pairing-agnostic, so Twijack shipping works for me as well as any of the other fourteen possibilities.

I absolutely love the interaction between Celestia and Granny Smith. Each offering her wisdom to the other, long experience from two perspectives intermingling… fantastic.

Less fantastic is that this doesn't seem to fit the prompt. I may be looking at too narrow a definition of "magic," but I'm not seeing it here. Farsighted's premise is there, but there's no attempt to connect it to the theme. Still, this is a great story, and that counts for a lot in my book.

Daring Do and the Jade Songbird: I like my Daring Do the way I like my orange juice: hand-squeezed full of pulp. This didn't disappoint in that respect, though it would've been nice to see a few more of the scenes that were only mentioned in passing. As it was, the momentum of the story dragged considerably during the recap. Still enjoyable, though, and definitely fulfilling the prompt.

The Color and the Silence: Wow. An origin story I most definitely did not see coming, and one that built nicely on the vague prophetic dreams Celestia appears to have. Fascinating in both concept and implications. I absolutely loved it.

The Sweetest Water: A pleasant fable. It almost seems like it was taken straight from a storybook. To the author, thank you for it.

Feel: Intergenerational fics are always interesting. This one does an excellent job of building the society of flutter ponies trapped in the Frozen North. It feels more like the first chapter of a larger story than a complete one in its own right, but that's not much of a complaint. I hope the author expands on this.

Tumbling Down the Slippery Slope: I could almost see this as an episode of the show. Both cause and cure are just the kind of ridiculousness I'd expect from Everfree wildlife. Social justice warrior Applejack is funnier than she has any right to be (says the white cis male.) Well done!

Final Hugbox Ratio: ~5.61

EDIT: Anyone who wishes to cast aspersions on my parentage criticize my criticism may do so at this convenient blog post.

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Mark of Destiny
That is a terrible pun. A really terrible pun.

Ugh. I’m not a huge fan of HIE stories in general, and while this played with it somewhat, as well as had fun with the whole idea of people using marks to enhance themselves, I’m not super fond of the tropes involved. Also, I’m pretty sure that cutie marks work in exactly the opposite manner, given what we’ve seen on the show – the person makes the mark and not vice-versa.

Really, the whole thing was very fanfictiony.

Farsighted
Ah, the Doctor Manhattan argument – that every life is a miracle of improbability. It is a very pretty argument. Too bad it isn’t really accurate, as while any particular outcome may be unlikely, in aggregate it is much less so.

It was a decent enough stab at such a story, though, and I do have a soft spot for the idea. Plus Twilight almost blowing up an oak tree was amusing.

Oubliette
A nasty little story about Tirek being left to die – or so he thinks, anyway. A very dark take on “There’s Magic In Everything”; most of the stories are at least somewhat hopeful, but this was just dark.

Not that that is really a bad thing; it was an interesting twist on the idea of “There Is Magic In Everything”, and why that might not be so useful for a thief of magic like Tirek.

And Discord’s duplicity in eliminating Tirek was a nice way to end it, though I don’t think Discord is the type to break his toys. Then again, Tirek may have crossed a line with him.

For the Best
Hey, a TwiJack story! I wonder who wrote this. *cough* Bookplayer *cough* Sorry, had something tickle my nose.

It was a sweet enough story and hit the points it needed to – and also brought up the whole idea that the whole “miracle of life” thing (brought up in Farsighted) also applies to bad things which also lead to the present.

After all, Wernher Von Braun aimed for the stars, but sometimes, he hit London.

It was a nice little piece, but it didn’t really go very far, and was much more about reflection than the story itself. Still, one of the better ones in the contest, I think.

Daring Do and the Jade Songbird
The magic of reading!

I think Daring Do type adventures can be very fun, but this didn’t really end up exciting me all that much, and I think the reason why was that Ginger Sprout, the sidekick, felt out of place… which makes sense, given the ending, but is still awkward to read for the same reasons power fantasies often are.

The Color and the Silence
I don’t think much of laser as a verb; it would have been better to say that it burned a hole through the clouds.

I like the idea of a magical tower of prophecy that even Celestia doesn’t really understand. It is a fun idea, doubly so because Celestia tortures herself with it, but sees it as absolutely vital.

I was a bit sad that Twilight/the Rainboom didn’t end up shattering all the windows, though.

The Sweetest Water
This very much has the taste of mythology clinging to it, and it reads very much like a fairy tale – because it is one, in the end, and it is about how people should be happy with their place in life.

I completely disagree with the moral of the story, but it is well-written and was enjoyable to read.

Feel
Okay, so, this story has one major flaw:

It isn’t a story. It is the start of a story. The idea of ponies travelling south through the snows of the frozen north in search of the legendary land of Equestria is a fine idea, but the introduction of the reason why the Queen sent them out really meant that it felt like the start of a larger story rather than a story unto itself; rather than ending in triumph, it was really only the beginning. And given the description of the flutter ponies, it has a not-unreasonable chance of ending in tragedy, if the flutter ponies who went south became changelings.

Tumbling Down the Slippery Slope
Ah, nothing like making fun of the cult of social justice. And the Humbug pun was both wonderful and terrible.

Fun times.

Anyway, this was amusing in its own way, but at the same time, dealing with social justice warrior types is mostly just frustrating, and I suspect that my recent run-ins with such folks have somewhat soured me on the humor of them.

Still, it was a silly little story, and beating them with the power of clean laundry was, at least, amusing.

Whew! Done.

Overall, I wasn't really as thrilled with these stories as I was with the stories from the last writeoff; none of them wanted me to promote them like The 18th Brewmare did. On the other hand, the stories I read today were, on the whole, better than the ones I read last night, so I don't feel as guilty about my scores.

Four favorite stories:

Applejack Goes to Magic School For Some Reason
The Sweetest Water
The Color and the Silence
And Yet...

Guess I should mention that I'm not even considering the prompt in my judgements. It just seems too vague when dealing with a world where happiness has been weaponized, so just gonna assume it fits the prompt and if not I couldn't prove it otherwise.

Part 2/6

Homecoming: I dislike Zecora. As a character she's interesting and likable, but the rhyming is just annoying for any stretch of time. This tries to capture her particular trait but it doesn't do all that well ('story' does not rhyme with 'me'). It's also worth noting they they don't seem to rhyme in their own language, only equestrian. A lot of potential was missed in presenting us Zebrica culture. We get a nice build up, but the only thing we see is a dinner and a play. Kinda benign for such a celebrated festival. It seems like the story was built around the play, but since the play wasn't extremely strong it wasn't able to carry the story. I think the story would be much improved by adding more cultural elements and not having such focus on just the play.

Three and a Half Seconds: Nothing really happens in this. We get some description of settings, but very little information past that. We don't learn the cause or much of anything really. I know I said I wasn't looking for the prompt but this one had the feeling that it was just added after the fact. There are several grammar issues that make reading some parts awkward and the extremely slow pace didn't help. Overall I didn't feel the emotions that the author wanted me to, and in a story that is entirely reliant upon me feeling something I left it as if I had just been reading the dictionary.

Just One More: Keeping a story focused is very important to keeping the readers attention. If the author's train of thought tends to wander, so will the readers. The first part of this was like reading ADD ramblings. The main premise behind it, although not wholly original after the Tirek episode, still had promise. I kept thinking that Twilight was behaving odd even before she started sucking everything dry, so the contrast to her nonchalant attitude after becoming a magic vampire was basically nonexistent. Once I lost connection to what was supposed to be a marked change in her thoughts, I basically lost connection to the story.

A Light in the Dark: Prophecies are vague and can be interpreted in numerous ways. This was just a very glancing attempt at doing that and didn't "blow my mind" as a story that focuses on this would need to. It feels like an average fluff piece, with little substance.

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There were several stories where the prompt was weak at best. Really it was more of a "the ones that did it well/cleverly got a boost from it" than "I took off points for not using the prompt", though.

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I think after rereading Dawn I may have been a bit too harsh to it; in the light of day, there are a lot of little jokes in it, though being more awake I also noticed a couple other typographical errors in it (everyone instead of everypony, though I suppose they are likely cruel to donkeys as well. They've likely spent years researching a less kind means of addressing them, which I'm sure will eventually pay off.).

Argumentative little fillies are inherently cute. It isn't fair.

I still stand by my reasoning that Celestia should have been more proactive, though. And I still don't know if I like the ending, seeing as it undermines the whole conversation they have about marks. It feels like it needed to have something more, where Celestia tries to clamp down on the reinvigorated idea, or not have Luna bring it up again or something. It was funny, but... I dunno.

I also ended up bumping up the score on And Yet..., as it ended up a bit stronger in retrospect compared to a lot of the other stories. I do agree with the criticism leveled at it that the stories do feel a bit erratic, though. I'm also not super sure that Lyra's bit fit in all that well with the other stories, looking at it in the light of day; the real problem is that they all felt like they were set at different times, but as a result it felt a little bit odd as it jumped around, and Lyra's event seemed very significant, possibly not even set in the same world, and yet wasn't mentioned at all (though I suppose on the other hand, that might just be because it wasn't relevant there). Not that the idea behind Lyra's little bit was bad at all - that there is magic in everything, even that without it - but it felt a little bit jarring.

It wasn't offensive, though.

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I'm not even giving a boon to those who obviously included the prompt. In the last contest there were a few that I rated 0 because I felt they had nothing at all to do with the prompt, yet at the end they ended up above a large percentage. So from now on just gonna take the prompt as a personal challenge to write around, but ignore it once the voting takes place.

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"*I have a couple of theories on that, but my idea is that Chrisalis' hive is in the South, and that's what she's referring to as her "love""

Was it not referring to shining armor? I picked up some herem vibes there at the end.

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This very much has the taste of mythology clinging to it, and it reads very much like a fairy tale – because it is one, in the end, and it is about how people should be happy with their place in life.

I read it more as the sweetest water coming not from life, power, or knowledge, but from love.

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It was indeed the Crystal Empire, where Cadance and Shining Armor were. The poem was subverting our expectations about who the poem was about.

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Well, that was part of the life he had, with other ponies rather than alone.

The problem with that reasoning is that there is no reason why being special means that you can't interact with others.

I'm halfway through Slippery Slope, and I've already thought of a better name for it.

Strawman: the Fanfiction.

It's unfortunate the plot is so stupid, because it's pretty well written on a technical level.

Edit: Also, it steals a joke from Spongebob. Brilliant

Edit 2: Okay, it redeemed itself the least bit at the end, but it did it by kinda avoiding this issue at hand. It changed the piece from being about privilege (which is a real thing, despite the story's claims to the contrary) to one about honest between friends. A nice moral and all, but a bit random.

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The sad thing is, I've seen plenty of people like that. It gets REALLY bad. Spending time around people like that is spending time around members of any other similar extremist group (religious fundamentalists, Klansmen, ect.); not really a fun experience.

It is for the best you have not; as I noted in my review of the story, it was less funny to me because I've spent too much time recently around that kind of person. :\

Though I think it would be best to avoid turning this thread into an argument about SJW types.

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I can't stand the term "Social Justice Warrior," as it's become conflated to included anyone who cares about social justice. If the fic was aimed at extremists, that's all well and good, but that's not what it looked like it was parodying to me. It looked like it was just making fun of the concept of privilege itself, and anyone who would ever suggest that it exists.

But you are right, this is neither the time nor place. I will say, though, that it's currently one of the lowest ranked for me.

On an unrelated note, I'm voting N/A for Homecoming, as I feel that it doesn't actually qualify as a story; as far as I can see, it doesn't have a conflict. It's just a series of events. Great worldbuilding, but not a story.

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Is that the only one you are doing that too? Cause under that guideline 'Love Call', 'And Yet...' and 'A Light in the Dark' wouldn't be classified as stories either.

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I haven't read Love Call or Light yet, so I'm not sure about those. As for And Yet, it just feels... different to me. Maybe it's the snippet-story format, or maybe just because it's so cheesy that I love it, but I hadn't really considered the "No Conflict" thing with that story as I had with Homecoming. Hm. I haven't submitted my votes yet, so I'll keep thinking.

Part 3/6
Dawn: This seems to be in the same universe that a story from the last prompt shared. There a several times where grammatical and editing errors ended up being distracting, though that is starting to be a common theme this time around. The start was difficult to follow as I don't understand the negative connotations of thou being used, nor was much of the dialogue particularly engaging. I did, however, find myself getting swept into the flow of the story and the ease of which the character spoke to one another. At times they seemed artificial and contrived yet there were still moments that felt like I was eavesdropping in on a conversation between two real sisters. Celestias even handed, almost monotone reponsonses throughout could use more inflection to give it more emotion, but I thought Luna was done well. One of the few I didn't have to force myself to finish.

Friendship is Not Magic: There are ways of doing the wise old hermit creature correctly and ways of doing it incorrectly. This one had the latter. He was pointlessly talkative, giving a whole paragraph about the symbolism his name represented. She just asked who was there we didn't need a dissertation over it. Most of the reasoning was flawed or at best poorly supported and Twilights acceptance was without resistance. Though after having that guy ramble on for four paragraphs I'd nod along too if it meant he'd stop speaking at me. Which is the main problem, we are vicariously spoken at, not reasoned with. I think most of the dialogue should have been with Twilight and the mountain answering plainly. That way we reasoned through her dilemma with her, and the answer found, not given. Oh, and also the purpose and crux of the story should be mentioned early on, not as an after thought. I mean honestly most of the scene before going into the cave was pointless since we don't actually learn anything passed Twilight wanting to meet an old dragon.

Magic in the Earth, Magic in the Air: This story is a hot mess. The pacing is inconsistent, the dialogue awkward and has several tense shifts. Also, the main storyline is poorly thought out and ridiculous. Twilight prepared for everything but a terrorist attack when experimenting, so instead of just telling her to have guards Celestia blackmails Luna into being a terrorist? Isn't that the plot of the MMDW episode? Come on now, gonna have to have a more believable situation than that. It's been pointed out that all the character arrivals was too coincidental, but I think the randomness of the character interactions was more distracting. It seemed like no character could behave in a normal manner for any period of time. On top of all that Sweetiebelle now controls the matrix. This story needs a huge overhaul to come close to achieving what it wanted.

Negotiations:It is not a poorly written story, and tries to handle its chosen topic efficiently, I just feel the idea itself leaves a lot of unanswered questions. If earth ponies can negotiate with plants/inanimate objects why were they not used to solve several problems from canon? Couldn't applejack have asked her trees to knock away the fruit bats? Why does zecora need to boil potions when she can just ask the ingredients to mix themselves? Why did builders need tools to build the building that fell in MMDW when they could just ask it to connect itself? When I should be focused on the idea presented and the story I was instead focused on plot holes.

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