3887333

“Oh, nonsense. I’ve seen the look you were wearing many times; you are trying to impress someone.”

The mare blushed, her lips moving again.

Eventually I kind of stopped following the comments for all 31 stories, so I don't know if this has been mentioned in particular, but the above passage is very symptomatic of why Through Glass didn't get a higher score from me. Maybe I'm an outlier on this, but when you started having the figure through the glass move her words soundlessly whenever Rarity spoke, it got somewhat grating, because it made the whole conceit very obvious. The way this story is currently structured, there's very little reason for the reader to continue past the point where he/she figures out that Rarity is looking in a mirror. I'd say you have two options here.

The first is to really pull back on that or drop some red herrings, so that the reader doesn't figure it out until (ideally) the moment Applejack arrives—and if you can't do that, I think you're going to have trouble for the same reason Eakin's train story had trouble. Once you know the trick, the only thing the story offers is more prose.

The second is to try to set up some conflict and/or motivation for Rarity, which really feels lacking right now, so that the audience has a vested interest in seeing that thread resolved. Right now, the only promise you're making with this story is "You'll learn who the mare on the other side of the glass is," and like I said, that's paid off as soon as the reader sees the trick, with nothing left on the deck. I think this would work better if there was some secondary promise to the reader.

Personally, that's the framework from which I'd approach revision.

3887207

Yeah, I'll probably go with some variation of "I would now like to read a statement prepared by my lawyer" when I go to publish this thing. Too many people complained about her voice.

3887054
Where are you getting this breakdown? I'm not seeing anything like it on the writeoff site. Or did you just compile guesses from the thread?

In any case, that went fairly horribly.

This was, quite simply, a rush job. I had the idea for Terror Incognita an hour or two after the prompt was selected, but I didn't start actually writing it until Sunday afternoon. By that point, the ideas had been stewing in my head for so long that they were practically falling apart. In my rush to get out something, I ended up with a sub-2,000 word story, so it was shamelessly padded. That meant that I was kicking myself when reviews noted all the legitimate ways I could've fleshed it out.

As an aside, I was planning on using the technical term for "fear of the unknown" for the title... but it turns out that that's "xenophobia." Lots of unwanted connotations there. I didn't want people expecting immigration controversy or a certain HiE continuity.

As for the story itself, my intent was to establish a sense of mystery and uncertainty. Unfortunately, that's not exactly something that just be dashed out, and so the story just ended up feeling incomplete. As I noted in my own dummy review, even I'm not entirely sure what I was going for, and that's a very bad sign.

The good news is that given all of the criticism, I know what to do with the story. The bad news is that I have a lot of projects I'd like to take care off, including my entry from the previous write-off and a holiday story, which has an inherent deadline. And, you know, work. So, yeah, we'll see how this goes. In any case, thanks to everyone for the stories and the feedback, and congratulations to the winners, especially Pineta. I'll be doing review responses in a bit.

3887454 At the bottom of each story, you can see a breakdown of which authors were guessed.

Some of the many problems with "Time Off" (a terrible title, because I forgot to think of a title until 12:59 EST) are because it's not supposed to be its own story, but chapters 2 and 3 of "Mortality Report". The entire first half is there only because of the larger story it's supposed to fit into, and because the contest wouldn't let me submit a 1000-word story. I like to imagine I would have realized some of its problems on revising, but I didn't have time to revise.

3887288
By all means. It would hardly be fair if I took jealous claim to such a straightforward idea. You need not give me any kickback, but I will not complain if you do so. Go; have fun!

WOW. This was a good round, all told. :B Congrats to Pineta and Sharp Spark for good showings! Those were a couple of definitely good fics. :D

Okay, so everyone wants to know about Dirty Prancing, right? Right. Right? Right. Right?

Right.

Similarly to, if very different from, horizon's A Basilisk for One, this is my love letter to writeoff. Except... I can't really tell you how or why, only that it had something to do with a red-and-black alicorn OC comment made by Ion-Sturm yonks and yonks ago. If anything, my big mistake was in not writing this before the move from the *chans.

So yeah, I can't tell you why I wanted to write a Dirty Dancing parody (those of you calling it an "homage" were sorely mistaken; The Arena is an homage) starring a dorky Chrysalis and a red and black alicorn, only that I did, and I had the idea sitting around labelled "SAVE THIS FOR THE WRITEOFF". (Well, it was just an excuse to have someone say "Nopony puts Chryssy in the corner".) Seriously, it's been around two years now, which is forever in fandom time. And yes, this is the story that I started and panicked about during the last writeoff. Don't worry, I erased everything I had written prior to starting it again (which is good, because the first scene came out so much better), so I wasn't cheating. :B Promise.

Trivia: the "Title Drop" version would have included contrived lines of dialogue leading up to dropping the title of every song from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack I could. I'm glad I didn't do that. I left in the title drop at the end because I thought it was funny.

For those of you who haven't seen the movie, it's about a naive young girl who goes to a resort with her family and falls in love with a dance instructor after she gets caught up in some drama involving an unwanted pregnancy and a quack doctor. I decided to drop the abortion plot because A) it's not really the movie's main point, and B) it's definitely outside what I like writing about when it comes to ponies. (You know, decapitation!) Really, I wanted to focus on the dancing because you'd think a movie called "Dirty Dancing" would be about dancing dirtily. I mean, yeah, Baby sees the staff doing the dirty dancing and is intrigued, but nothing ever really comes of it. It's not important save for setting up the classist struggles experienced by the main characters. So I made dirty dancing the macguffin that would win the day and then kind of stopped caring about whether I was following the plot or not.

That said, I think what I need to do with this story is turn the parody up. Some people were complaining about the dancing being boring (I literally cut two major montages out of the movie and turned them into single "this happened" paragraphs, what more do you want?) and there being no chemistry between the leads. So if I make the characters aware of this fact, I think it'll work out a little better. Also, it will remove the criticism for the "Chryssy's been montaging" line. (I see Nympha as a fourth-wall breaker.) I'll put in the two scenes I cut for the writeoff (the latter was Chryssy wondering about whether or not she actually liked Sway; would be a good place for the chemistry joke) and I think I'll try and let the narrative breathe a little, because even with 9k words, it feels a little cramped. Thanks for the feedback, and see below for other notes on the story.

Oh, and before I forget: I'm really bad at author guessing. D: The only one I got right, beyond random guesses I wasn't trying with, was Bad Horse for Time Off. I had horizon pegged for On Wings because EQG, and I knew The Arena had to be either CiG or Chris. So close. Seriously though, I'm just terrible at this, but I'm glad there's a system in place for it now. I'll have to pay more attention next time. :B

3868769
I am very glad that someone appreciated this story for the reason I wrote it. :3

3869172

let’s face it, we all know Chrysalis is evil

Actually, it was more a "bug ponies" joke. :B Y'know, black widows, praying mantises, etc. Mostly mantises.

There wasn’t really anything wrong with the main story, but dance lessons and dance competitions just aren’t that engaging to me.

Kind of a problem with the source material. I mean, on the one hand, it's commentary on the era when dancing was the most important thing ever in movies (Footloose, Flashdance, etc.), but on the other I didn't really do anything to make it more interesting.

The era that the story in also felt kind of wrong; it was a thousand years ago, and yet, somehow, it feels largely like the present – or at most, like a century before the present time.

This was really intentional.

3870558

if I were Present Perfect, this is the story I would have written.

Goddammit, Bradel, how did you so entirely peg this story to me? That was the most damning review, in terms of maintaining anonymity. :B

Suspected Authors: Present Perfect (9)

That ties with georg on EPT for "highest surety of author"!

3870840

I am going to deduct a point for not having anything to do with the prompt.

It was there! The dancing she saw 'behind closed doors' is what won her the contest! :B I can't really complain, since you essentially gave it a 10, though.

3875344

Needs fewer (or more colorful) sisters. I wasn't keeping them straight in my head (except for the one with the big exoskeleton), and their roles weren't terribly distinctive.

I think I fell down most with Hedylie. The way they're supposed to go is:
Diurna's the oldest, the leader, and the suckup (note that she's the one who keeps helping Chrysalis in the early going), though she's as ruthless as any of them
Hedylie is the gothy, brooding, scheming one, usually Diurna's lackey but just until she can bump off the other three (less competition means an easier time scheming to take down the sister she sees as most dangerous)
Pierida is fat
Nympha is the youngest (Chryssy is second-youngest) and the practical joker, by which I mean she does ruthless, terrible things to her sisters and then laughs about it for hours

Also, a propos of nothing, their names derive from "diurnal" (the opposite of "nocturnal", which most butterflies are), the "moth-butterflies" or Hedylidae, and two other families of butterfly, the Pieridae and Nymphalidae. Io is a type of moth.

3878408

There’s a fair amount of flexibility in the FiM timeline, but not a millennium's worth.

I'd disagree (okay, you're probably more right than I am), but the joke was mostly doing the opening of the movie word-for-word, and since it takes place in the summer of 1963, well...

3882631

I would have named the instructor "Sea Sway" if he's gonna be Swayze, but alright.

The name Patrick is derived from the Latin "patricius", which means "nobleman". :3

3886972
You should be ashamed. :(

3887114
To speculate a bit more, it's always possible that reviewers represent a small subset of who's actually voting. (Don't know how many votes we got, so...) Dirty Prancing kept ending up in people's top fives, but with the exception of Bad Horse, it was never higher than third. I'm the only one who gave On Wings a ten. I don't recall seeing Brightest anywhere, but I might not have been paying too much attention. If more non-reviewers generally like a story that the reviewers think is okay to good, it's likely to have a better shot over the stories that a few people think are great and a few people really hate. I have a feeling the SD for this round was high overall.

3887129
My suggestion is to burn it with fire! :V

3887229
Glad you enjoyed it and weren't too put off by the harsh critique. :) This is about what you can expect from the writeoff!

Where's my wooden spoon?!

... Just kidding. =P

WARNING: INCOMING WALL OF TEXT

Amara
So.... yes. I ran out of time, hard. I think I'm slipping in my writing department. D:

(Not that it was any good in the first place.)

I'm very happy that those who reviewed all said that they liked the idea or said it had potential. I originally tried working on this idea way back in the last writeoff but I couldn't think of a good plot so I abandoned it (and never wrote it) for something else, which I ultimately did not finish, unfortunately.

A few of you guys have pegged the entry as a crossover... it's not. Well, technically all Human(s) in Equestria stories are crossovers. They crossover with "Real Life", an original setting by the author or another established fictional universe, just that people don't think of them as crossovers in the former two cases. But I digress.

No, this isn't a crossover with The Elder Scrolls or Dungeons & Dragons or whatever you are thinking of. It has RPG elements, that's all. Then again, most traditional medieval fantasy RPGs were influenced by D&D, I guess it can technically be said that it's very indirect crossover but again, I digress.

The humans are from an original world influenced by--suprise!--Equestria. A little background of the setting:

The World
The name of the world is Tellus, an alternate universe where magic exists and the Roman Empire (called the Latin Empire here) was successful in conquering both the Celtic and Germanic tribes (with use of magic) but collapsed soon after what would be our 1 CE. The kingdoms that rose from the ashes were the Kingdom of Albion, the Kingdom of Gallia and the Free Associated States of Germania. Albion currently has a colony in the New World, along with Gallia and Germania--Albion to the north and northeast, Germania in the central "Eastern seaboard" and Gallia in the south and southeast. Albion is currently the most developed out of the all the things. I'm still slowly working on the worldbuilding. =x

Technology
Like Equestria, the technology is schizophrenic. On the whole, the technology level is around late Middle Ages but certain key military technology are around late 18th century (Flintlock Pistols and Muskets, that is). Germania currently has the high technology level (and in the process of developing artillery) while Albion and Gallia are more magically inclined.

Magic
Magic in the setting is, in a sense, similar to Equestria, with influence from both traditional RPG and The Dresden Files. Spellcasting requires a focus, usually in the form of a staff but depending on the users themselves, it can range from those to wands and blasting rods to even a length of chain. More elaborate spells require a magic circle, with runes to collect energy and mold spells, which the caster can then direct at the target. Evocation type spells are all but impossible without a focus and silent casted, compared to how it is done in the Dresdenverse: concentrating energy with Will and released via a non-native language incantation.

Almost everyone in the world are capable of magic but a majority of them (two-thirds) do not pursue it as a career, so that leaves about one-third of the world population being wizards. This corresponds roughly to my idea of unicorn distribution in Equestria.

But enough about my silly little world. =P

The ending you guys saw wasn't the planned ending. I ran out of time and wrote a "stopgap" to plug that gaping hole of incompleteness. Hence why everything is so rushed. There were supposed to be at least two more scenes on Olivia, Elizabeth and Dinky where they get to the tower, figure out how to get to Equestria and then fight their way to Marius--the Royal Guards were watching the entry point after all. There was supposed to be another scene between Marius and the spirit that ends with the spirit get released from the amulet. This is what actually destroyed Zecora's hut. As for Zecora, originally she was supposed to be knocked unconscious but uh, I was panicking and ended up writing her as "missing" instead.

Twilight and RD were supposed to pick up the rest of the Mane 6 and track down Marius and the spirit through the Everfree while they fought and having a "discussion" on the spirit's motives etc... The Mane 6 was supposed to find Marius in a standoff with the spirit and he enlists their help in fighting the spirit, which Twilight recognized as part of the Alicorn Amulet. Then we get to Olivia, Elizabeth and Dinky running and making their way to Marius. My plan kind of got fuzzy at this point but it involves a big mess of four party fighting and Rainbow Power and reformed spirit. And then Princess Celestia and Princess Luna arrive and Celestia recognizes the spirit and yes, there was a scene of the spirit begging for forgiveness.

That about ends what I've planned for this whole thing. The planned ending could have been better but I didn't have the luxury of fine tuning it at the time. =x

Some of the reviewers expressed the sentiment that I should pick either the smuggler or the spirit and stick and I did. I planned the smugglers as a Red Herring from the start, the spirit had already taken care of them by the start of the story. But I guess I still unintentionally put too much on them through Twilight and RD's scene. It didn't come off as such because a majority of it were left unwritten. The theme of the story was supposed to be "Closed Door", revealed through Marius breaking down the spirit's "defenses" one by one but it got reduced to a single line because... I ran out of time.

(Quite the recurring theme, huh?)

There was a lot of glossing over because I also needed to fit everything under 8k words, which ended up technically biting me in the ass because I never really finished the whole thing. o_o

I'm really thankful for the reviews that I've received on my entry. With them in mind, I think I'll expand the smugglers' role and focus on Olivia, Elizabeth and Dinky against the smugglers and dropping their mentor into the background. As for the spirit and the alicorn amulet, they may or may not still appear but in very diminished roles. I have big plans for them. :3

3880366
3880798
May I have some examples on the issues with the dialogue? That would be great, thanks.

3870894

How did Ditzy get involved?

Ditzy was Dinky's mother. ... It's a rather popular fanon.

3870787

If you just want to talk to someone, "Submit and I shall not destroy you" isn't the best way to show your peaceful intentions. Well, it's not like Wisdom is a very important stat for wizards…

Silly FanOfMostEverything, Wisdom is for Sorcerers. Wizards go for Intelligence. =P

(IIRC)

Also, Marius was dealing with a spirit that was attempting to kill him. I know it wasn't presented clearly but the spirit was "attacking" and Marius was still restricting himself to binding the spirit.

3878408

(we see Equestria’s response, but how does their world react to the sudden influx of cartload after cartload of precious gems?)

I think I actually missed that but the smugglers didn't flood the market with the gems, they released them in several towns surrounding the capital. I believe they knew enough of simple economics to not crash a market but it was noticeable enough--especially with the magic trinkets--to get the attention of a High Wizard.

3878408

She doesn’t even get a line! Let her express remorse, or beg forgiveness, or even swear to destroy Equestria—give her something, so that we know how that story ends.

She was going to get just that but you know, I ran out of time...

3876008

I don't think I've ever read an HiE story, so I don't know if this is common practice I just haven't seen before, but it works nicely to me.

Back in the dark days of early HiEs and before Iron Will and Arrow 18 Mission Logs: Lone Ranger, humans were commonly referred to as "hairless/furless monkeys".

3886275

I guess — but this is just a guess! — she met Marius in Equestria after whatever went down with the trapped spirit in the tower (the Alicorn Amulet spirit?) pulled him through to Equestria. But I don't know why she'd be in the other world, then. Was she kidnapped by the smugglers? But she seems remarkably non-traumatized and friendly for that to be the case.

She was kidnapped, that's why Ditzy was devastated, since her daughter was taken. Yeah, Dinky's intro would have been touched up to up her fear to strangers. I was going with the assumption that Marius had already earned her trust by then and she trusts his students as well, at least by honor. But it's still rather naive of her to go with strangers just because they claimed to be "Marius's students".

3886275

Finally, what the heck does the title refer to? It's never mentioned or explained in the text.

Because I never got the chance to. Amara is a Greek/German girl's name meaning "Unfading/Eternal" respectively and is the name the Red and Black alicorn OC adopted, which has a huge significance in her backstory and motives. (Kudos to Von Snootingham for guessing it.) I'm not spoiling her original name. Not until I rewrite this whole thing and publish on fimfic. =P

(Not that it was anything special.)

3880966
That's actually sounds like a pretty fun story to write about.

3886053

Dirty Pramarma - Two red and black alicorns fall in love while dancing and the resulting sparks between them blow up Zecora's resort.

Welp, that happened.

3886832

And this one makes me wonder if it was written to the prompt “Red and Black”.

It was. Originally. I was working in the Closed Doors metaphors into the plot but you know... I ran out of time.

(Really quite the recurring theme, huh? )

Also, congrats to the top 3 and everyone who entered! It was really fun! :3

3887352

Is it Two Peas in a Pod? Or really, anything Blueshift.

3887551

The funny part is I remember in my review (Or a comment to someone else) comparing this to Mortality Report, as to why it sat so ill with me. And now I know EXACTLY WHY despite never thinking 'wait, maybe Bad Horse actually just wrote it'.

Titania is a horrible horrible entity and I hate her

3887674

The funny part is I remember in my review (Or a comment to someone else) comparing this to Mortality Report, as to why it sat so ill with me.

Not in this thread. How did you compare them?

3887643

Amara is a Greek/German girl's name meaning "Unfading/Eternal" respectively and is the name the Red and Black alicorn OC adopted, which has a huge significance in her backstory and motives. (Kudos to Von Snootingham for guessing it.)

Well, I mean, what else would it be? Amara is clearly a name, and the spirit was the only character not named. Process of elimination.

3887272

When folks started:

Mentioning the Sunny & Starry nicknames that Celestia and Luna use for each other in "Funatics," I was sure I'd blown my cover. Because I used them here automatically: I've had them call each other that ever since I started writing Pony stories. I'll direct interested readers back three-and-a-half years to the Epilogue of Half the Day is Night, the story that got me into the Pony Fiction Vault, as well as to the last few paragraphs of In Their Highnesses' Clandestine Corps, the story that got me into the Royal Canterlot Library.

And yet? It was apparently my occasional use of the colon before dialogue that gave me away in one of the two cases where I got nabbed...

Mike

3887313
I walked away thinking the pony Rarity was trying to impress... was Rarity. Applejack is, after all, the ideal friend to yank her head out of the clouds. (Insert earth pony joke here).
For what it's worth, figuring out the mirror midway through didn't mar my enjoyment. If anything it let me adopt a second perspective and both understand Rarity and laugh at her at the same time.

3887643
Here's one:

“Rainbow, while you and your team were searching the northeastern sector towards Zecora’s hut, I had the Royal Guards check the spots where the minotaurs were claimed to have been spotted.”

Twilight is prone to wordy replies, but that last clause is awkward. I don't think you'll have any trouble ironing these out, just read the dialogue aloud and revise until it sounds natural

3887597

I am going to deduct a point for not having anything to do with the prompt.

It was there! The dancing she saw 'behind closed doors' is what won her the contest! :B I can't really complain, since you essentially gave it a 10, though.

You know, this actually makes me really happy, because that is exactly how I thought you were using it, but even then I wasn't all that confident I got it right. You made it soo haard to figure out, PP! (But I adore your story.)

3887388
Through Glass
Yeah, everything between the hat and the bit with her flirting with herself is being completely rewritten, which was why I was asking if there was anything in there people actually liked.

The second is to try to set up some conflict and/or motivation for Rarity, which really feels lacking right now, so that the audience has a vested interest in seeing that thread resolved. Right now, the only promise you're making with this story is "You'll learn who the mare on the other side of the glass is," and like I said, that's paid off as soon as the reader sees the trick, with nothing left on the deck. I think this would work better if there was some secondary promise to the reader.

Hmmm. I'll have to think about how I might do this. I could amp up the ship teasing, I suppose... either that or realy shorten the story.

3887454
Went through everything and counted them myself.

3887669
No, but I think Two Peas in a Pod might still be on my 15 stories you should read list because I really, really love terrible jokes.

But honestly that story is full of terrible things, like Rainbow Dash being into gardening and Rarity's secret and... well, really pretty much the whole thing.

The horrible pun at the end is just the capstone to the general terribleness of the story.

It is probably going to be displaced at some point, though, alas, just as poor Rainbow Dash Gets An Abortion was.

I guess I'll take this time to explain Disappearance of Chaos.

For starters, I joined this contest because it would force me to sit down and actually write a story which is something I rarely have time to do nowadays because essays and more essays. Unfortunately I feel as if my voice that I've developed for school essays and blog posts just doesn't carry over into fiction writing for me yet because in my mind I'm too focused on getting all the action across, which results in stilted prose and flat use of characters which are in my opinion my story's weakest aspects by far and led to an overall boring read.

As for the ending... well, I knew it would be love it or hate it but by the time I was second guessing it I really didn't have anything else to replace it with and I struggled writing this much over the course of three days.

As for the editing, I have to say my attention span is bad for short time frames like this. Normally I give myself a few days between finishing a draft and editing it so that my mind is fresh enough to spot all the small details without my mind wandering away which is what happened here. Just a luxury I don't happen to have here.

A big thank you to everyone who spent time reviewing my mess of words, I will take what you all told me to heart as I go forth and I'll be back next month to hopefully continue my slow ascent through the ranks of the story (and convince Horizon I'm not a 6th grader.)

Okay, let's start with a few overall thoughts before I get into my fic...

1) re. people's sleuthing: looks like there was little to no consensus on which story I wrote (congrats to TD and horizon for being the only two to guess right--TD already explained how he knew, and now I must pester horizon into revealing his secrets). Yet somehow, I got a small plurality of the votes for our gold-medal winner, The Brightest and the Best. Thanks guys, glad you think I write your favorite stories! ...Turns out I didn't, though.

2) Looking over the actual author list, I feel like I did okay with my guesses... but the one that I was absolutely sure about was that Pascoite wrote Behind Glass. TD, Pasco, whichever of you want to take that as a compliment is free to do so.

3) Am I the only one who thinks it's pretty cool that all three of Thornwing's stories ended up placing together in the voting? 'Cause I thought that was cool.

4) Last, it's neat that y'all thought Cold in Gardez wrote my story. Everything else notwithstanding, that's a heck of a compliment.

Right. Well, I guess I better talk about my story, then:

The Arena

I was very surprised by the reception this one got. I was even more surprised, after reading the reviews, that it didn't even crack the top five most controversial entries. I'm going to respond to the reviews, but first, let me explain what I was trying to do with this story.

The week before the writeoff, I introduced my 8th graders to The Lady and the Tiger. It's a story that's always kind of annoyed me, because every year when we read it, I can't help but see how I'd have written things differently. I don't mean that in a "that story's bad" way; in fact, it's generally only interesting fiction that I have that reaction to, because it means I've been thinking about it a lot.

Anyway, the big thing that bugs me about the story is the lack of agency that anyone other than the princess has: her lover's has no reason to want to do anything other than open the door with the lady, and the king exists only as a vehicle to provide the arena itself. LotT is an interesting thought experiment, then, but everything beyond the princess is cardboard-thin. We read the story, though, and kept my thoughts on the matter to myself.

Then, I found out that the writeoff prompt was "behind closed doors," and after having spent the week thinking about how to give everybody more agency, it didn't take me long to figure out what I wanted to write.

My goal with "The Arena" was to set up a LotT scenario where all three of the involved characters had some sort of interests or stakes in the matter, and from what I saw in the comments, it seems like I managed that. Along the way, I also changed a lot else to match my style and interests (gave the narrator a character roll, provided a framing device for the story, tried to treat the kingdom a bit less like it had no redeeming values other than "not as barbaric as they could have been," gave the princess/archduchess a more relatable reason to chose death for her lover, reworked the nature of the arena so that it was more believable as a functional "justice" system (that also really bothers me in the original; even though I know it's not the part I'm supposed to be thinking about, I could never get over "death or wedding" as the panacea for all crime in the realm), built up the kingdom's politics a little bit, and of course, wrote the whole thing from the ground up, altering the structure and pacing rather significantly in the process. I felt rather better about this story than the last few that I've submitted to the writeoff, and I was looking forward to seeing what everyone thought.

So, let's move on to that, eh?

3867332

I was very disappointed to hear that you felt this way; not disappointed in you, mind, but in me. When I submitted the story, I felt like I'd put a unique spin on a classic tale. It seems like I didn't do that, and I'm sorry. I was rather hoping, in fact, that people immediately familiar with LotT would enjoy it more, because the choice is revealed--something somebody who didn't make the text connection might not find surprising, but which I thought someone who did would. Incidentally, in my first draft there was an armed soldier behind the door; I changed it to a timber wolf so that the allusion to LotT would be a little more obvious. I guess "obvious" wasn't something I should have worried about.

This brings up a question I had, for you and for the other people who said that this was basically just LotT: would you have felt that way if the minister had come out from that door instead? Obviously that would change my whole story--I needed the tiger-analogue, so I used it--but if it had gone the other way, would that have changed your opinion on how derivative it was? I ask because personally, I've always believed that in LotT the princess chose to spare her lover, but I'm well aware that I'm in the minority (at least, among middle schoolers and English teachers).

3867859

Definitely French, that's my headcanon and I'm sticking to it.

3868526

I edited down a fair bit about the Arena, actually; the description in the draft was far more of a treatise than the one you read. I probably could do some more shaving down, though I worry that it would seem as arbitrary as the original if I cut too deep.

3870331

I'm replying to this instead of to your review because when you mentioned that third option, I slapped myself in the head. I'd considered that the Emperor might be lying, either to his daughter or to the narrator, but I chose to leave that unsaid; it didn't seem to work for the narrator to realize that, and I figured readers could parse those possibilities on their own. I never even considered that the Archduchess might chose to give no sign, though, and as soon as you said that, I realized it was just as likely as the other two choices; to commit herself to the judgement of the arena, no matter her father's machinations. I like it!

3871443

I was a big fan of the second quote when I wrote it; glad you liked it, too! And to you and the others, I apologize again; I really felt like I'd done more with this than I seem to have.

3871739

Glad you enjoyed. To your question/point about the Emperor: I thought that the fact that he, himself, was twisting the rules of the Arena (or twisting the narrator's leg, as you posit) put an interesting spin on his character. What is it that he wants? Not justice--at least, not most of all. No, if he broke the rules this way, it was because there was something more important at stake. The life of a guard is a little thing, but the mettle of an heiress is not to be taken lightly.

3872672

Glad you liked the writing, at least!

3874912

I certainly wouldn't hold up the griffons' system as one I'd like to see implemented. My goal with it, though, was to create a scenario that felt juuust realistic enough that one could imagine it actually happening. As I mentioned above, one of my peeves about LotT is that, even though "realistic setting" is hardly a fair thing to judge it by, I could never swallow the way the arena was presented there.

3875825

Glad you liked the "improvements!" As to the "truth vs. justice" question: while I, personally, might agree with you, I think a griffon would tell you that the accused was the only one who knows the truth, and that when he picks the door, free of compulsion, he reveals that truth. Surely, a person who knows the events of assurity, revealing which justice is most appropriate, has thus revealed the truth, haven't they? ...Griffons, man.

3875873 3875980 3878645

Thanks for the reviews, and I'm glad you all enjoyed!

3880366

The Arena's not just death-or-reward; the magistrate is charged to come up with two rulings which address the central ambiguity of the case, not necessarily "did the accused do it." For example, if you pawned your x-box and then accused me of stealing it, the magistrate (after looking at your pawn receipt/the fact that we live in different time zones) might decide that the true ambiguity at the heart of the case was whether your spurious claim was malicious, or "just" misguided. Then, I might find myself in the Arena, facing one door containing a sizable pile of (your) bits as payment for my inconvenience, and behind the other a hand-written apology. Depends on the magistrate, really.

Some might suggest that this broad latitude on the magistrate's part introduces all the same ethical grey area which griffons deride in pony justice. The griffons would disagree.

3884157

Interesting that you should mention the Germanic/Roman worldbuilding of LotT. I've noticed that, at least in recent years, people reading the story for the first time tend to come away with the impression that it's an arabic setting, despite the western titles used. In their defense, tigers live much closer to the middle-east than to western Europe, but I've often wondered what that says about us when we assume "semi-barbaric"=Arabic. It's also possible I'm reading way too much into what 8th graders say.

3886054

I appreciate the honesty, and I'm glad you didn't feel like this was plagiarism. I certainly never intended to plagiarizer anything, and in fact I thought I was far, far removed from doing so, but the comments in this thread show that I didn't do as much as I thought I did. I was trying to write Chris's version of a classic tale, and instead it seems I just re-wrote a classic tale.

3886275

Glad you were still able to enjoy it, even if I didn't do enough with the core of the story.

3886832

Thanks for the review!

(also, this comment was what got me thinking about the question I put to TD et al upcomment (god, this is getting long, I'd better wrap up))

...
...

Okay, I think I got everyone. Once more, I'm sorry that I wasn't able to do more with this story, and that it necessitated an examination into whether it was plagiarism (I'm relieved that everyone seemed to agree that the answer was "no," and I would in fact very strongly disagree with anyone who said otherwise... but I feel incredibly disappointed in myself that the question even had to be asked). All I can say in my defense is that I thought I did a lot more with this story than I did. I'll be sure not to make that mistake again.

I probably won't revisit this story again--it's not something I'd feel comfortable posting as-is, and I'm not convinced there's a way to change it to be less derivative that doesn't amount to "scrap the whole premise and start over." Still, it was a good learning experience, so thank you all for the comments and advice. I really do appreciate it!

The Millennial Vault did get some questions asked of it along with the feedback, so since I'm back from work now, I guess it's time to address those. Also gonna be collating all the criticism it got into a nice long block of quotes, purely for my own convenience, so....yeah. Another wall of text incoming. Apologies.

Incidentally, if anyone else here wants all their fic's feedback collated into a single block, I don't at all mind doing that for ya. Just give me a bell.

Titanium Dragon

The good: we had our everyman hero get introduced, have a bit of a chat, have Twilight show up, the vault open, all that stuff.
The bad: the climax was confusing and we were robbed of the ability to really know what it was and understand what happened.
The idea of them burning the photographs was fine. Things man was not meant to see and all that rot. And that’s fun and all, but…
I don’t feel like it really ended up working at all. Lovecraftian horrors and Things Man Was Not Meant to Know/See/ect. are all fun enough, but this story did not instill in me the amount of dread necessary for them to work properly, and thus, it ended up falling flat for me emotionally. The story needed more tension, more of a growing sense of dread; instead it felt like a pale imitation of what a story like this is supposed to be like. I never felt the necessary thrill of emotional response to the tale, and consequently, it didn't end up impacting me.

GaPJaxie

My biggest issue with this story is probably pacing. We have too long with the reporters before the reveal, and not enough time after to properly appreciate the fear. While the reporters banter at the start is well done, being both realistic and establishing, it isn’t the meat of the story. From the moment the vault of doom opens we more-or-less know what’s going to happen, so lingering on the crowd before the reporters enter isn’t effective tension. We do get some effective suspense when they’re in the passage, but it’s too short to really enjoy.

Bradel

I always like myself a nice bit of horror. Between the title and a well-executed first couple paragraphs, this did a pretty good job with the hook. The two primary OCs are fun to read. Neither winds up with a whole lot of personality, and they're occasionally hard to distinguish, but that doesn't really interfere with the narrative (for that matter, if their distinctness mattered more to the narrative, they'd probably be a lot easier to tell apart). The author does a very good job making them active in this story, though; in fact, this may be the most active story I've read so far, which is probably why I come away with fairly positive feelings. Actual use of stakes here, and some tension and resolution, even though it's underdeveloped in this format. If anything, this could stand to be substantially expanded, with some more framing story (definitely keeping the focus on Breaker). Although the writing is quite good here, there are a number of usage errors which kept nagging at me throughout. One note: HITEC-wise, I feel like there's not much to pick apart here. I stand by my comments above, but I think the strengths and weaknesses here are too balanced for HITEC to be very useful.

I am not at all surprised that I managed to sort-of break the HITEC system.
Also...

3874941

It was not meant to be a serious knock! Felt bad writing it, feeling a bit bad now too, but I do like guessing authors, and I did kind of wonder if you might have gone back to that type of well, given the success you got out of it the last time around...

(Anyway, maybe I'll get lucky and not be wrong on Sunday!)

FanOfMostEverything

There are several weird idiomatic issues here, and I'm not sure how many of them are just because the author seems to be using a different dialect of English than what I'm used to.
Really. Really. None of the unicorns in the whole darn press corps can make their horns light up. Come on, Snails pulled that off!
The story wants to be suspenseful, but it doesn't build it up enough. It basically holds up a sign reading, "Be worried now." The questions it raises aren't satisfying ones. Most especially, why and how did Twilight get knocked out and not her guards? This needed fleshing out and had plenty of room in which to do it.

I did get a few comments about the English usage. I suspect it's simply mostly cases of British vs American English phrasing.
Snails? Really? Welp. Just goes to show how little of S1 / S2 I actually saw, assuming that episode was Boast Busters.

pterrorgrine (love the name, by the by)

This'n is a horror story, but you wouldn't know that from the first part. Not because it's depicting an idyllic world to later subvert it, though. Nor is there a mounting sense of dread. Anyone who's read a story knows that something exciting is gonna be behind those doors, but the first part of the story never feels like more than stallions standing around talking. The OCs aren't anything to write home about, and there's never a reveal of a cool monster or nifty ancient curse. Having the audience wait outside the doors doesn't seem to add much either -- "they've been in there a while" doesn't have much impact when it's friggin' Twilight at an archeological dig (she's probably orgasming over a rune carved slightly differently from normal, guys!), and how much of the monster is revealed is the writer's decision of what to describe, so it can still be done minimally -- so why didn't we just follow Twi and a couple of scientists on a straightforward, press-free archeological expedition? And I'm grousing over never getting a money shot of the monster, but the payoff is foregone in a more general way -- we never figure out why Past Equestria left what amounts to a booby trap, unless I missed some subtle exposition.
All in all, this was kinda paint-by-numbers, frankly.

Baal Bunny

This one's closer than the last but still not quite there. I would've liked a description of the setting right at the beginning, for instance: I'd been picturing them inside a meeting hall of some sort, so learning that they were outside in the woods beside a big stone structure really threw me out of the story. We're told that there's "nothing obvious from the overall picture" that Ink Stroke's a journalist, and then we're told that he's got one of those big pony cameras strapped around his neck; if you want Breaker to sound more like a newspaperpony, instead of "three hundred words," he should say he needs some amount of column inches; and if Hayward-on-Sea is really out in the sticks, Breaker should be impressed that Ink Stroke's heard of it.

That's some real nit-picky advice there, and I'm a man who can appreciate that level of detail. ^^
But yeah, I added the camera part later as I thought it would make for a interesting Chekov's Gun, so you can imagine I facepalmed quite hard once I realised the "nothing obvious" quote had been left in.

The narrative says about Twilight, "Clearly she was holding back on her enthusiasm," but in the very next sentence she says she's excited. The word "collating" in the phrase "Collating towards the doors there!" made me stop and blink; I had to wonder why no guards stayed outside the structure just for crowd control if nothing else; and I wondered why Breaker yells, "It's us!" at the guards running toward him down in the tunnel--does he expect the guards to know who he is? I need a little more from the ending, too--this monstrous whatever-it-is surging from the bowels of the earth, and all it takes is closing the doors to stop it? And with all those reporters in attendance, how are the authorities expecting to keep a lid on this? Again, the bones of a story are here. They just need more fleshing out.

Thornwing

Okay, this story felt pretty smooth up until the cave opened. Then it fell apart. I wasn’t expecting the “horror” and I never saw the connection to anything else from the first ¾ of the story. Once again, the story just ends, and I’m scratching my head wondering why I just read 3k words to try and make me feel something about a pair of reporters just to get thrown a 180 that didn’t make any sense, even for a horror fic.
I need to see more of the cave. I need to feel some building suspense. I need the creature to not be stopped by a flashbulb on a camera or a couple unicorns shutting a door.
I suggest the two reporters head down in the cave and don’t find anything for a while. Build some suspense. Maybe they can help save the group and beat a retreat together. More suspense running away from something they’ve seen rather than just being told to run. Being unicorns, they need to know some basic lighting spells or levitation too--it’s just too weird not to. I think that’s the biggest problem with a lot of stories about unicorns, you have to get around their ability to use magic to solve their problems, but you have to do it in a believable way.
This story did not fulfill the role it set out to fill.

Blazzing Inferno

The OCs were interesting, if a bit generic. Overall I quite enjoyed this. It could do with an editing pass to clean things up (especially a couple questionable paragraph breaks and a tense jump, if I recall), but what would be really nice is expanding the story entirely. Add more characterization in the beginning, more tension in the cave, more running, more panic... I'll stop. Suffice it to say I liked this, now gimmie more of it.

Morning Sun

I think this story can be renamed 'Princess Twilight awakens a Shoggoth' given the tone of it all. It's a short horror piece, although I think it needs a bit more to up the horror angle. This doesn't really chill, and I think the story needs to come down more on 'here's what they saw', or else work a lot to make the unseen more sping-tingling.

Foxy E

Horror. I like horror. Good horror has you frightened to turn the page but compelled to do so anyway.
This . . . didn’t quite do that for me. The first part was a little slow, but was building fairly well, but the story never reached climax. Breaker enters the vault, sees the archaeologists making tracks, then follows their lead. We glimpse some smoke and some evil, and then the doors close, and whatever the scary thing was is trapped again.
It’s ultimately unsatisfying.
Technical Feedback: Stronger hook needed – don’t be afraid to launch straight into things; trim some of the descriptions.
Story Feedback: Give us more meat! If you imagine horror to be peeking through a door, what you did is open the door, sense something, then close it again. Try open the door wide enough for us to glimpse the beast’s foot, then slam that door shut.

Bad Horse

I liked the intro to the press ponies better than the story, but the intro should either be cut or made relevant to some story you write instead of the story that's there. The horror part isn't horrible or scary. If you write a horror story, you gotta use the 2 characters introduced, and by "use" I don't mean "have them do stuff", I mean the things that's scary should be uniquely scary to those two characters, or else the way they defeat it should play to their strengths, or, ya know, teach them a lesson. The world needs more Lovecraftian friendship lessons.
But there's nothing interesting about the horror part of this story. Throw it out, re-read Lovecraft, and start again.
Though, Lovecraft isn't a good model, IMHO. He's good for communicating exactly one idea. You only need to read one short story by him to get it. It's a good idea, but not worth reading two Lovecraft stories, let alone a book full. They're all the same. Because Lovecraft has no people. His characters don't connect with the stories. They would happen exactly the same way to anyone else. I mean, that's kinda his point, that they are ants who don't matter. But it's an impediment to writing good fiction.
Nitpicks:
1) Luna wouldn't show up at a vault that they thought had things about her because it was too upsetting?
2) Creature is too powerful for Twilight, yet is stopped by doors closed by 2 ponies?
3) Royal guards do something useful?
4) Past Equestria builds a giant elaborate underground complex to release a horror on future Equestria? Why?

Fascinating stuff here, but I don't want to splurge yet more words out on an already stupidly sized post, so I'll be as brief as I can.
My only history / knowledge concerning Lovecraft are his most famous Elder Gods, playing a Cthulu board game about two years ago, watching part of a Call of Cthulu Let's Play on YouTube, and briefly arguing with a guy on how to correctly pronouce Cthulu last weekend (I go with a hard-K). So basically, not much at all. And actually, I'm not sure researching a nearly 100 year old book series is the best way to learn how to write decent contemporary horror. Standards have changed, n'all that, plus it's so over-used as a trope that it's kinda over-saturated in my opinion. Not to say I won't take anything from that field though.
As for the nitpicks:
1) Noticed this questioned a couple times. My basic reasoning is that Luna would find anything from that particular time period hard to deal with.
2) Something else questioned a few times. Did you people not play Borderlands at all?
3) Har-har. Sometimes I like to defy common tropes now and again.
4) I might just address this in the re-write.

Chris

I enjoyed what you did with Breaker, and the little bits of character/setting-building around him were pleasant. Once things got to the cave itself, I was a little disappointed, because this quickly became a horror-ish story. I don’t have anything against horror stories, but there wasn’t the kind of foreshadowing I’d have liked to have seen. The beginning can still be cheery, but I’d like to see some hints dropped early on—maybe the doors have some graphic or disturbing sketches, maybe one of the rumors is that there’s a Nightmare creature, or something not spot-on, but related down there… something that creates a hint of trepidation going forward.

Von Snootingham

Spooooky! I'm intensely curious about what was down there and why, but I think it almost certainly works better that we don't know. Much Lovecraft. “'My camera’s got the flash. We can use that in an emergency,' Ink said" Why am I getting flashbacks to Fatal Frame? I have a question though. If there was some eldritch horror down there that needed to be locked away, why was the prison set to open after a thousand years and not a guard or warning about it left behind? They just locked an undying terror from beyond the stars up, knowing the door was going to open eventually and it could just waltz right out? Irresponsible ancients!

Your last few lines gave me an idea which would work rather well I think in the re-write, so cheers!

Present Perfect AKA Mr One-Sentence-Feedback

Your review was bad, and you should feel bad.

M1Garand8

I have one question: why does Luna has a vault containing an Eldritch Abomination and she doesn't warn anyone about it at all? The introductions of the OCs are well-presented. The story suffers a little pacing problem near the middle when everyone was waiting for Twilight, it's definitely way too long for me when it doesn't build enough tension. The other problem is with the monster. I get that the author is going for Nothing Is Scarier but it falls flat when there wasn't enough tension, hampered by telly prose when the OCs were waiting for the exploration team to return

It's not Luna's vault. I never wrote it to be Luna's vault, so I'm not sure where you got that from exactly. All I said was that Twilight expected there to be some mementoes to her inside.

horizon

Good: Great job introducing the OCs. Maybe I'm biased because of my work in the news industry, but their banter kept me strongly engaged, with cool little details about both themselves and the world around them.
Bad: The story falls apart after the vault is opened (for reasons others have covered).
Suggestions: I second the observation of how disappointing it is that the vault monster took out a princess but was stopped by a flashbulb. When OC protagonists succeed where show cast failed, they often feel like Mary Sues. Also, if you're going for a horror story, you can't be afraid to twist the knife a little. Compare this to The Sunset Room: that was memorable because it did terrible things to Big Mac, and because it gave consequences to Applejack's bad decision. This one's more like summer-blockbuster horror in that the teflon protagonists take on a big but conquerable foe, but even summer blockbusters have bystanders getting ripped apart to sell how serious the threat is.
If the horror was done as well as the setup, you'd have something here.

I do have a "twist the knife" moment planned for the re-write actually, but I don't really mind this fic being a "summer blockbuster" horror as it were.
I strongly disagree about the Mary Sue comment, and I hate Mary Sues as much as the next guy, but I did have a vague reason why Twilight was knocked out, which of course I failed to touch upon at all in the first draft. That's certainly going in at some point.

Silent Strider

The typo at the first proper paragraph didn’t do the story any favors, and it does continue with small writing issues, like extraneous words (“completely dominating”) and some bits of what I tend to call clumsiness. For example, “Twilight’s voice lit up the area like a match”... not sure this is the image you wanted to conjure, as a match tends to be associated with burning things down.
No guard or clerk remaining at the door? The two newsponies being able to just walk inside unopposed sounds like a stretch.
Can’t say I liked the ending. Too many unanswered questions about what was there, why was it there, how did it end there in the first place, why release it at the time the doors opened, and so on. A little uncertainty in the ending is one thing, but not answering anything and only raising more questions is another entirely.
All in all, didn’t really kept my interest.

I am not seeing the typo you mentioned, but otherwise, great advice here.

Phew! Finally done! Now for the miscellaneous stuff:

3886931
Sadly I couldn't because I'd already committed to being positive with my posts, but I was seriously tempted to at one point.

Incidentally, I've just gone back to see the guesses for Vault, and some people were actually insane enough to suspect PresentPerfect and Cold in Gardez. REALLY!? I hope those weren't actual serious guesses.

And finally, how no-one spotted I wasn't seriously channelling both The Writing on the Wall and Into the Depths while writing for this at the ungodly hours is beyond me, especially the latter. Pen Stroke =/= Ink Stroke? That completely slipped under the radar? You guys should be ashamed.

But seriously, all the feedback is truly truly appreciated. Thank you all. Almost 100% of it will go into the editing process.
I'm seriously glad to see (as underlined) all the words more or less relating to wanting to see this idea expanded upon, so I'll go away and do that. Maybe not as successfully as you hope, but better than you might expect. ^^

3887781

I actually said to myself, about halfway through Funatics "boy, the pace just doesn't let up..." and then I remembered that there was an author competing to whose stories I have inevitably had that exact reaction, for better or worse

3888632

We look forward to seeing more from you! A lot of those issues will work themselves out with practice, which is exactly what the writeoff is. The minific contest (under 750 words) is up next, I believe, and I find it's easier to focus on writing issues at that length--the story's short enough that it usually takes care of itself (I am probably the only person who feels this way), and that leaves me to focus my creative energy on getting the exact words on the page that I need.

3888917

I probably won't revisit this story again--it's not something I'd feel comfortable posting as-is, and I'm not convinced there's a way to change it to be less derivative that doesn't amount to "scrap the whole premise and start over." Still, it was a good learning experience, so thank you all for the comments and advice. I really do appreciate it!

To be fair, I stand by what I said in my final comment and I'd favorite this in a heartbeat if it came out on Fimfiction, even with no further editing. I think it's a great story, and I want to re-emphasize an important distinction with it. I'm totally, totally, totally cool with fanfiction that looks like this. Possibly even non-fanfiction that looks like this. The bit that got me was that this was being entered in a writing contest, and it just felt like a really unfair advantage to take a story that's esteemed enough to have endured for more than a century and pop it in a contest with some very nice, not inconsiderable touch-ups. I didn't know how to deal with that. Not that I have a whole lot of experience in the write-off, but part of the challenge to me seems to be coming up with a story to tell. Admittedly, PP also dodged that one by writing a parody. But I don't think I feel off-base stating that the ideas behind your story were the best ideas presented in the write-off. And I can't give you credit for most of them. And that raises a very difficult question of how to judge the story.

I'm guessing the reason it didn't hit the controversial list (which surprised me, too) is that readers probably all had a bit of a similar reaction: recognizing that the story—and above that, your work adapting and improving it—was really good, but dinging you a few points for the fact that you were able to pretty much adapt the story wholesale.

I hope I'm not sounding really negative here. That's not my intention. Mostly, I'm reacting to the quote I lifted above where you said you wouldn't be comfortable posting this, because I personally feel like you should be. I think "The Arena" was a really great story, and I loved it. And I'm cool with you having adapted LotT to get it. The part that's hard for me was your choice to use it in a contest. But I think it'd be a real shame if this story just slipped by the wayside. I think it's excellent, and I think it does what you set out to do with it—improve on a lot of places where LotT is weak and really shore up that story.

I'm going to be kind of disappointed if I'm not able to favorite this story on Fimfiction, personally. And I know, that decision isn't up to me, but I really thought that I ought to say as much.

Time for more of my ramblings.

I really enjoyed this month's writeoff. Even before the prompt came up, I had decided I was going to try some first person POV. I felt like I should push myself into trying a new style and see how well I could do with it. If anyone still has any comments to make on my stories, I would love to know how they held up on that front specifically. I found there were things I liked about it, and things that I didn't. The change of pace was refreshing.

Yes, I wrote three entries. Yes, I wrote them in two days (I didn't do anything on Friday since it was a pretty hectic day at work and I spent the evening with family.) Overall, I think there were a lot of concepts floating around in my head and I couldn't decide which one to write about, so I did as many as I could without giving any one in particular a ton of thought.

Remember
This one came up first. For the record, I am 100% American and never knew this holiday existed for the better part of my life. "V" for Vendetta got me interested in the topic along with the fact that the 5th of November also happens to be my birthday (as well as Bradel). I wasn't sure if the whole prompt idea really made it across - I was sort of going for a Behind Closed Doors in a metaphorical sense with Discord in a sort of limbo prison state. If you check the episode where he first shows up, the statue has him posed with his eyes closed and his mouth wide open. Being blind to the world and stuck behind that "door" for a great amount of time gave rise to my premise. The amount of sarcasm throughout felt decent enough, but I think I might add some more on that front. The ending especially felt weird to me, like nothing really happened. I'm leaning toward changing it to show some softening of Discord's heart while toughening up the first half to show more of a gradual decline. I also need to give some more thought to both Luna and Celestia's speeches, since I didn't have a lot of time to really bring out what I was going for there. Mainly, that redemption is possible and we can't know the good without the bad.

Burning Bridges
This was my Sunday writing that took most of the day. I really wanted to write something to help make sense of EqG tied into canon show. The movies do a horrible job of explanation to the point where they lampoon it with RD stating "Who cares why it happens". I care. I want it to make some sort of sense since I kind of like the movies - the second more than the first of course. I had a bunch more to this story that I wanted to write, but I got to where I finished and realized that if I was going to go any further it would end up being a 20-30K adventure story taking it far past the limits of this contest. For this part, it worked to keep it focused around the realization of being behind a closed door, as in, jailed. Beyond that, it gets into much more than I bargained for when I first latched on to the idea. It's pretty funny how carried away I can get even when I sit down with an outline of where I want to go with something.

Regarding the POV switch in the middle, it was more of a test to see how well it would work. On second thought, it makes the story much more interesting to keep it all in Sunset's head so the outcome isn't so well laid out. While it was fun to play in Aria's head, it made all the useful insights and questions about her motivations and truth get washed out without any building conflict or risk. I also thought about using Sonata for this part, but that would have been hard given that she is more of a walking/talking sponge. I still plan to include her in this story when I get around to finishing it.

I want to throw out a request to the group for anyone who is interested in giving some feedback on the direction I plan on taking the rest of this to send me a PM. It wouldn't involve much, but I don't want to toss it all out there blindly. In general, I plan on tying up the human Twilight angle, take it back to Equestria, and make this first part really the tip of the iceberg in terms of the overall story. If anyone is willing to help, I would greatly appreciate your time in giving a little directed feedback.

P.T.S.D.
This was a total last minute joke. I hope no one took it seriously. The acronym came to mind and I couldn't pass up the chance to try doing a first person comedy. I know it fell flat for a lot of people, and I probably could have sold it more, but that's what my weird sense of humor created. The ending was pretty clunky, but at least it wasn't too far off the mark. The whole point here is that Twilight has this build up of friendship in the offseason that she has to relieve in massive dumps like with a season premiere/finale. The episodic release only takes care of the bit by bit pressures. After six months of hiatus, she's in a bit of a bind and nearly kills Spike with her overabundance of fermenting friendship. In the end, the good Doctor realizes she just needs to get laid and that will take care of all her problems. This whole thing was thrown together at the last minute on a whim. I probably should have spent some more time on my other stories, but I couldn't concentrate on anything else once this idea got stuck in my head.

Sadly enough, this one got the highest rating of the three. But, on the bright side, can you get any better grouping than three in a row? I mean, come on - that's pretty impressive right there.

3) Am I the only one who thinks it's pretty cool that all three of Thornwing's stories ended up placing together in the voting? 'Cause I thought that was cool.

3888917 I sure thought it was cool!

Thanks again to everyone for your comments. It's a privilege to participate in these events with all of you wonderful people.

Happy Holidays, and we'll see you next round.

3888922

Incidentally, if anyone else here wants all their fic's feedback collated into a single block, I don't at all mind doing that for ya. Just give me a bell.

Bell. I'd love love love it if youd be so kind as to collect it all, but feel free to back out considering how much... 'lively debate' mine generated

3888922 I'm totally preening over the fact that you dig my handle.

3888917 "Arena" really worked for me. I had noted the "Lady or the Tiger" connection in the reviews I was skimming, and I've read the story but not recently. I came into it expecting basically a copy-paste with "manticore" replacing "tiger" and so on, and what I got was a whole lot better (than my memories of the original, I would go so far as to say). But that also means I have no idea how much it stands up on its own. You should publish, but you would obviously have to frame it with "LotT" in the description, maybe even change the title to "The Empress or the Timberwolf" or something.

As for the French thing (pardon me as I hop off onto my own headcanon stuff and just hope you find it worth noting): I groan over "Prench" almost as much as "buck" for "fuck", since they both directly contradict word usage in the show, so I'm glad you took the idea head-on. I'm really tickled by the idea that pony-Earth is full of countries like "Saddle Arabia" and "Neighpon" and "Ger-MANE-y, geddit" and... "France".

And, separately on another train of thought, my own headcanons tend toward the idea that the gryphon lands are basically barbarian, lawless places where there may be a set culture, but no real central authority or government -- even to the extent that they're basically wild animals to ponykind's tame animals. So with everyone's favorite flying race rocking a neoclassical motif, when I saw that you had given the runners-up a French one I immediately thought of a Rome/Gaul aspect to their relationship. Not sure if there's anywhere to go with that -- almost certainly not in this story -- but there it is. (I can't really imagine France, at least as we know it, existing in a world that has unicorns and not being, like, chock-full of unicorns, although that's in large part an American "France is pretty and effete, unicorns are pretty and effete, must be connected" perspective that may be downright ironic from a brony.)

A more significant criticism than the outside-reference aspect, in my mind, is the ones given by FanOfMostEverything et. al. The justice system does have its austere barbarian beauty, but it's also crazy, and I think it would be more comfortable if the narrator acknowledged that a little more fully.

And to both of you: the specific imagery around the door and stuff that Door Matt quoted Chris on is really good, and probably exactly the kind of thing that "Millennial Vault" needs. (I could even see you making a point of contrasting the originally-lighthearted opening with the horror of What Lies Beneath!) And I do feel silly for not saying anything about the similarities to Into the Depths, since that's maybe my favorite Pen Stroke.

3889093 I didn't read "Burning Bridges" but I did like "PTSD" more than "Remember" (can't remember if I got to either soon enough to vote, though). I think what made "PTSD" stand out in my mind was the sheer surrealism of having some sort of "friendship buildup", which dovetailed nicely with the other comedic aspects.

Wow, how did we reach this many comments? I'm going to need some time to go through them.

Meanwhile:

3888917
My issue wasn't quite that it lost its novelty, but that, expecting the choice and knowing beforehand that the Princess was now the Empress, it allowed me to predict the result.

For your version, BTW, what truly caught my attention wasn't the actions of the princess or the guard, but those of the then Emperor. The way I see it, the first time the judgment from the Arena was going to directly impact what he held dear, he threw away his lifelong belief on the truth coming from the Arena and decided to set a new test, one that didn't leave things to chance. Assuming the ambassador had read the Emperor correctly before, we have there the deconstruction of a person in a few passages.

The Princess and the Guard? I like to believe that she decided to uphold her father's old credo in his stead, that the nod by the guard was in acknowledgment that no help from her was forthcoming and the timberwolf coming from the door was chance, merely because I see this as the most positive sequence of events on a few levels. But there is not enough information to make anything better than a wild guess, so I just pondered the possibilities for a bit and moved on.

3888922
Sorry, not a typo. Reading again, it's an improperly used em-dash that made me read the sentence wrong. "Adorning the head" should be between parenthetical em-dashes or commas, but you only used the dash after it.

(Incidentally, it's recommended to not use single hyphens in place of em-dashes. Use either two consecutive hyphens, like this: -- , or else a proper em-dash: — , which on windows you can get by holding alt and typing "0151" on the numpad.)

3887057
More foreshadowing would have been nice, but my gripe is about how a supposedly competent thief can miss that, on the next day to her caper, a major event — and one that apparently wasn't secret, even if it might have been private — was going to happen in the place she was invading. This hinders believability a fair bit, makes the thief's competence, when it comes to planning, seem like an informed attribute.

Not much to say this time around. Congrats to the finalists, especially our first-timers, Pineta and sharpspark! I've been super-low on time the past few days, so I'm still reading through a lot of the entries, but from what I've seen the overall quality was pretty high this round.

As for What We Wanted to Do, I'm not surprised it finished where it did. If it made people laugh, though, it accomplished something. I'll see if I can smooth off the rough edges and get it posted here soon. I have a reputation as a comedy writer to uphold, too.

Also, I'm tickled so many people apparently think I write like GaPJaxie :)

3889110

Sorry, not a typo. Reading again, it's an improperly used em-dash that made me read the sentence wrong. "Adorning the head" should be between parenthetical em-dashes or commas, but you only used the dash after it.
(Incidentally, it's recommended to not use single hyphens in place of em-dashes. Use either two consecutive hyphens, like this: -- , or else a proper em-dash: — , which on windows you can get by holding alt and typing "0151" on the numpad.)

Ahhh...this old issue again.
As a member of the superior British Empire, we were brought up to use spaced en dashes. Em dashes are the work of the devil in our eyes.

3888917

I probably won't revisit this story again--it's not something I'd feel comfortable posting as-is, and I'm not convinced there's a way to change it to be less derivative that doesn't amount to "scrap the whole premise and start over." Still, it was a good learning experience, so thank you all for the comments and advice. I really do appreciate it!

dafudge? Why arn't you comfortable posting it? I strongly urge you to do so good sir, as I can see it getting a brilliant reception out there.

3888917
Here's the thing:

I felt that The Arena was the single best story in the competition. Had I never heard of The Lady or the Tiger, I would have thought it was a work of brilliant genius.

The thing is, the core of this story is pretty much The Lady or the Tiger. It isn't just inspired by it; it basically is the same story, except better written and in a different setting (and with one other important difference, noted below).

It is better than The Lady or the Tiger for a large number of reasons:

1) It is better written. The style of The Lady or the Tiger is very 19th century, and doesn't spend its words as well as it could. It is a bit rambly to read. This was much better.

2) The choices being different every time is more interesting and makes more sense in a system which is about suitable punishments; the original story was about the glorious savagery of the people in question, whereas this is much more of what I would expect in a system like this. The griffin who killed himself was a very interesting thing to show and helped show why the system was interesting, but still horrible.

3) The writer was a bit more sympathetic towards them, though perhaps a bit TOO sympathetic; the system is clearly insane from the standpoint of anyone familiar with western judicial systems.

4) The change to the ending was very interesting, and it added more agency to the agents in the story.

5) The frame story is much better, and it lends the ending much more significance - the person who made that decision is now in charge of their country, and you're either dealing with someone who was willing to give up their position for the sake of sparing someone's life, or someone who was cold-hearted enough that they sent their lover to their death to preserve their position. This makes the story have a lot more meaning in a sort of external, "who do I care" sense.

It is worse in one way:

This iteration of the story is more ambiguous. I am less convinced that this system is truly random; by having the king tell his daughter which door was which, we add in the additional ambiguity that he simply lied, or that both doors lead to the same fate. This was absent from the original story, where the princess secretly found out via her own heroic action which door was which, and as a result we also know that the system was, in fact, "fair". I don't know if there is any good way to get around this issue in general, though you could potentially have the minister come out after they lead away the timber wolf and have him administer the last rites on the griffin. However, the king lying is something which is effectively impossible to rule out here, and unfortunately, by making him into more of a character and more of a participant, you give him agency as well, whereas I never questioned the "fairness" of the king in The Lady or the Tiger.

The other issue is that by giving the griffin below agency, you potentially create the issue where he didn't believe the princess (because she would lose so much if she chose him) and thus picked the wrong door out of lack of trust. This is less of an issue, and is more fridge logic than anything else, and I'm not sure that this is a big deal, but still... I think the greater ambiguity nagged at me a bit.

Ambiguity is not a bad thing, and I think adding the extra dimension of ambiguity to it isn't bad. I just am concerned that you added a lot of extra dimensions of ambiguity which aren't necessarily desirable components of the story.

You also changed the story in a very fundamental way:

The Lady or the Tiger is a story about human morality. We don't know the outcome, and thus, when we see the story, and read it, the choice that we believe the person made is not reflective of the story, but of ourselves. This is part of why the story is so interesting - the real point of the story is to test not the humanity of the princess, but the humanity of we ourselves as readers. The story you wrote is about the actions of the people in the story, and because agency is given to two people rather than one, we are more disconnected from the action, and we are less apt to say "this is what happened". In The Lady or the Tiger, the reader is put in the shoes of the Princess; here, we have more potential viewpoints, and thus are less likely to associate ourselves with any one person involved. Thus, the choices we think that they made are not based on the viewpoint of us, the reader, but on our perception of the characters involved.

The fact that so many of your eigth graders and fellow English teachers thought that she chose the tiger doesn't speak very well of them.

I'm replying to this instead of to your review because when you mentioned that third option, I slapped myself in the head. I'd considered that the Emperor might be lying, either to his daughter or to the narrator, but I chose to leave that unsaid; it didn't seem to work for the narrator to realize that, and I figured readers could parse those possibilities on their own. I never even considered that the Archduchess might chose to give no sign, though, and as soon as you said that, I realized it was just as likely as the other two choices; to commit herself to the judgement of the arena, no matter her father's machinations. I like it!

I don't like that possibility at all, and the narrator clearly believed she gave some sign. I think her doing something is much more interesting, and makes the story more interesting.

Interesting that you should mention the Germanic/Roman worldbuilding of LotT. I've noticed that, at least in recent years, people reading the story for the first time tend to come away with the impression that it's an arabic setting, despite the western titles used. In their defense, tigers live much closer to the middle-east than to western Europe, but I've often wondered what that says about us when we assume "semi-barbaric"=Arabic. It's also possible I'm reading way too much into what 8th graders say.

I always got the impression The Lady or the Tiger was set in the Middle East, Asia, or Africa given the time period in which it was published, as that was where people would believe that sort of thing would happen. It also struck me as the sort of "cargo cult justice" which people seemed to believe other people were capable of/would engage in. It also had the touch of the exotic which always struck me as being "Asia/Africa as seen by 19th century Europe".

I probably won't revisit this story again--it's not something I'd feel comfortable posting as-is, and I'm not convinced there's a way to change it to be less derivative that doesn't amount to "scrap the whole premise and start over." Still, it was a good learning experience, so thank you all for the comments and advice. I really do appreciate it!

For the record, as others have noted, I'd probably upvote and fave the story if you posted it, even as-is. It is a much more interesting take on the source material than, say, The Gift of the Magi is on its source material, as that story is fundamentally exactly the same story (I would class that as plagarism, because it adds nothing to the story at all).

It is ultimately fanfiction, and I like the idea a great deal, and I thought it was worth reading.

But it does basically read like someone was like "The Lady or the Tiger is outdated, let's do a modern remake" and you took the source material and built on top of it, but still kept the very core of the story. People do this all the time, and sometimes this makes the new version much better. I think that was mostly the case here. People make multi-million dollar movies based on this idea, and I think that's totally fine.

I just don't see it as valid for a write-off.

3887348
> Minotaurian Guinea
… well, that was stupid. Thanks for the catch!

3888917
I must vehemently agree with the other responses to your post: Arena is 100% publishable, and will be immediately upvoted and favorited when you do.

Don't be ashamed of remakes. I certainly hope I didn't imply in my review that there's no value in a remake: everything I said was meant to be in the context of competition voting. The format of the writeoffs is such that once you clicked Submit, all we had to go on was the text of the story, without any hint as to the intentions of the author except for evaluating what we saw as the same or different from the source. My dilemma was in how to score it in voting, when all of its competitors had to sell their own original ideas, and you had to improve something already known to be great: how do I/we compare apples and oranges?

Hell — my own most popular story, Hard Reset 2, is a direct remake of Eakin's work, plus one idea he never used (multiple intersecting time loops). The entire genre of fanfiction is based on derivative works. Tinkering with other authors' ideas is literally the entire foundation of why we're here.

now I must pester horizon into revealing his secrets

Well hey, did two doors just appear in the far wall? My spooky future sense tells me that behind one is information flying free — publication of your story and the revelation of a secret. I will just have to assume that the other door involves me conveniently forgetting my methods.

3889103
I have to throw in my own headcannon on pony countries and the griffons, since they're near and dear to my heart. My version of the Griffon country, despite being called GriFinland, is based on Greece. I had an aside chapter in one of my stories that's a series of excepts from a pony textbook on Griffon history and culture, that, if anyone is interested, they can read here. But I must warn you, it's inundated with bird puns. For example:

For years, the ancient Geese were at war with the neighboring pegasus country of Pegsia. Perhaps the the most famous story from that time is the Battle of Stormopylae, in which Lord Lionidas and his 300 Sparrowtans defended for three days and nights a pass known as the Trot Gates against ten thousand soldiers of the Pegsian army.

I've also had an idea for a long, epic adventure story that would have the heroes venture across the sea from Equestria (I've always figures Equestria was an equivalent of the US and Canada, what with the city names) and through various lands based roughly off our own geography. There's the pony countries of Great Bitton (comprised of Reigngland, Trotland, and Shireland), Prance, Germaney, and Bitaly. There's a country of Ibex over there, though I haven't decided where yet. (I just like the word ibex.) North leads to the Caribou lands (the not horrible rape-y kind. no FoE here). Next to Bitaly is the greek-based Grifinland. South across the Meowditerranean Sea is Sphygypt, which is populated by the griffon's cousin race, the sphynxes. (ruler: Tunakhamen. cities: Caitro, Mewmphis, and Owlexandria [founded by griffon conquerer Owlexander the Great]. settled around the E'Nilef River). East from there is Saddle Arabia and Camelzstan. South from Sphygypt is Zebrica and a giraffe country I haven't thought much about yet. Though if I had to name it right now off the top of my head, I'm thinking... hmm... Neckgeria? Eh. Plus, now I want to steal horizon's Minotaurial Guinea, even if just for a mention.

Soooo... yeah. I spend a lot of time thinking of horse puns.

3887643
I totally like the idea behind this world. Keep working on it, I'd love to see more! :D And not even with ponies necessarily attached!

And eh, I don't remember what I was looking at in the dialogue, even skimming it isn't helping. :/ Sorry.

3888306
Whoo! :V I wasn't trying to be obtuse, I just don't go for "prompt must be entirety of story" with writeoffs. Helps me get stuff done.

3888632

Unfortunately I feel as if my voice that I've developed for school essays and blog posts just doesn't carry over into fiction

That's not too surprising. Essays and fiction are different creatures, after all! I hope you'll come back and challenge yourself again, though. :)

3888917

Some might suggest that this broad latitude on the magistrate's part introduces all the same ethical grey area which griffons deride in pony justice. The griffons would disagree.

Y'know, this idea sparked at the back of my mind, so I think you got that across. My main concern (once I'd finished it and started reading the comments) was just that it cleaved too closely to the original.

3888922
I was literally like, half-asleep reading this or something, because I only remember it through a fog. I guess I didn't get invested in the OCs early on, so I didn't have much reason to care about what they were doing after that.

3889402

GriFinland

HOLY SHIT WHY DID I NEVER THINK OF THIS

Thank you, Fimfiction writers, for continuing to impress me with your new ideas. :D

3888632 I don't think I posted a review for Disappearance of Chaos. I thought about one of its problems, though, because I was trying to figure out why it was a problem, and why I don't think I make that same mistake even though I have never articulated it. That problem is the insertion of details that don't fit the style or mood. Like these:

At first, no one took notice, ‘tis the way when someone only appears when they wish to be seen.

"''tis" is 400 years too late for this story.

Apparently she would need to learn how to like the stuff to survive royalty.

This is from Twilight's POV, which we aren't in. More than that, it's an interjection that hits me as being very wrong. It's hard to say why. Feels like a digression thrown away. Would be better omitted, or shown, not told.

Spike is upstairs reading a new comic book.

I don't know why this line bugged me so much, but it did.

a little too quickly it seemed, as his stomach soon ached… wait a minute.

The narrator says "wait a minute", in present tense, though the story is past tense. This style is like a guy telling another guy a story, first-person present. But the story isn't being narrated this way.

A second letter came up, this time actually from Celestia. “Discord lives at the very top of Canterlot Mountain. Twilight, you should hurry and go to him. I fear what he will do in his secluded insanity.”

Quoting the letter as if Celestia were present is very very informal, like a kid telling a story to another kid.

Twilight slightly faster as her wings were slightly larger than her peer’s.

"Peer" is too formal for this story.

etc.

3889045 3889103 3889110 3889141 3889242 3889301

Thanks for the response, guys (I wasn't fishing for compliments, honestly!). I'm glad you're all so positive about the story in a FiMFic-format, and I'm happy that a lot of you enjoyed it.

I'll think about what to do, but I'm still not sure this is something I'm comfortable with publishing (further). Like horizon said, "the entire genre of fanfiction is based on derivative works," and if I thought there was a problem with taking someone's ideas and running with them... well, I wouldn't be here, would I? But the overwhelming impression I have of The Arena is that I didn't so much "run with" LotT's ideas, as "walk them around the corner, affix a Groucho Marx glasses-mustache combo totheir face, and bring them back to where they started."

I love building on ideas, and playing with ideas that I love, whether that's folklore, poetic styles, or one of C.S. Lewis's less-popular works. But even if the story is still enjoyable, I'm not comfortable putting my name on something that people will look at and see "just" Stockton in a new suit. That feels disrespectful to the original, if nothing else; a good fanfic should be an homage, an expansion, a deconstruction... but not a repetition.

Like I said, I'll think about it some more, and I'm really grateful for the thoughts and encouragement. I don't know what I'll do--I don't know if I'll find a way to make myself feel good about this, or to alter it so that I do--but I appreciate the feedback.

P.S. to horizon: Ooh, you're evil.

P.P.S. to TD: re. "LotT as a moral mirror:" Although I'm well acquainted with this interpretation, I don't feel like a lot of people react to LotT as a personal story; Stockton takes pains to remove the princess from our moral sphere (hopefully; most of us wouldn't kill a lover just so he couldn't marry someone we hated). In fact, I think the biggest key to determining how someone feels about her is how they parse the phrase "semi-barbaric" (a phrase I am not fond of, by the by); I think the emphasis is on the prefix, that the word is used to press how these aren't actually a strange and barbaric people; that they're closer to our moral senses than we realize. Readers who put the emphasis on the "barbaric" part, and read it as "barely a step above cultureless," tend to expect the tiger. Of course, there might be something to that which sheds some light on the reader, too...

3888917

Interesting that you should mention the Germanic/Roman worldbuilding of LotT.

When I read LotT, the thing that jumped out at me was that the justice system seemed to have been derived from the Roman gladiator battles and the Germanic tribes were considered "barbaric" at the time so it kinda stuck with me that it may have been a Roman influenced Germanic tribe.

3887962
Thanks!

3888922
Look like I remembered wrongly, sorry about that.

3887114 This is definitely the case. There was a time that the people known as good reviewers served as a pretty accurate bellwether of how stories would do. But for several months now, there have been some real surprise results. There is a silent majority that doesn't want the same things from a story, and it becomes an increasingly difficult decision as to whether to pander or take my lumps.

3887123 To be blunt, rehashing what you already wrote in your review does nothing to answer the question. And when just as many people liked it for the exact reasons you didn't, it just serves to highlight those as subjective judgments. The humor angle in particular—I'm not at all troubled that you didn't like some of the jokes, unless you can point out ways in which they actually don't work, i.e., would not be funny to anyone, not just you. But that's obviously not the case. Comedy is one of the most subjective things to write, and it's the risk I take by choosing that.

I'm not asking why some people didn't like it. I'm asking why the majority of people had such a different opinion from the people who've earned reputations as good judges of writing.

That's because your median placement is 3rd. 12th out of 31 means that you're not even in the top third of the stories.

I don't know that it actually works this way, but if so, that's horribly unfair. If I finish higher than X place half the time, then I'm required to do so in perpetuity in order to keep my score from dropping? What about Gardez, who won gold in his first two events? Does this mean the only way he can keep from losing points is to win gold again in the third? How is that fair?

I am far too late with this. Originally, I thought I had more time than I did, because I wasn't logged in and therefore the clock wasn't set to my time zone. Even so, I am far too late with this. So late, in fact, that I didn't even get to submit votes this time around.

This will be my first time doing reviews for the entire writeoff. It's unlikely that I've said much that wouldn't have already been said, but hopefully one more perspective wouldn't hurt. These were written while I was in the process of reading, so it will occasionally contain predictions and theories. I wrote these before seeing the results and without seeing a single review in this thread to keep it as unbiased as possible. I will have more to say about some than I will about others. If you would me expand upon my thoughts, or if you have any questions, simply respond to the relevant post or message me in private.

1. Creativity Unbound:
I appreciate the use of “ponequin”.

“Quick, under the awning, here. And now I've gone and splattered mud over all both of us, how careless! Careless, yes, absolutely. How silly. Ha!”

This felt rather rushed in a blunt way. I can understand that goal was to make it fast-paced, but I felt that this lacked a progression from one point to the next. Also, a minor nitpick: I feel like Rarity would have a greater reaction to getting mud on the two of them, but that might just be me.
Um, the ending makes me uncomfortable. I don’t know how else to express it. The way she’s talking to herself, actually having a conversation with herself—

"I must open the door, but I know what's on the other side.
“Rarity, ask yourself, what did you leave on the other side of this door?
"What did I --"

That phrase, “the other side” just fills me with an uncomfortable sense of dread. And then the transition to speaking to herself in second-person gives this a very dark feeling that I can’t shake away. I’m not sure if that’s what you were going for, but that’s what I felt.
And yet, the only thing I could think that’s on the other side of her door is her key.
Overall, I’d call this “okay”. Your use of italics for emphasis felt a bit superfluous at certain points, but you’d did well in capturing her voice in a believable manner. The thing is, though, not much happens in this, as is the nature of a story told through dialogue. Action is inferred, rather than actually portrayed, which weakens the effect that it could otherwise have.

2. What We Wanted to Do:
Immediate title drop. Okay, then.

Why would Rarity, the bestest big sister ever, keep secrets from her?

Yes, that’s right, Sweetie Belle. The world is a beautiful and perfect place, and don’t ever let anypony ever tell you otherwise, okay?

She put them under her pillow so she wouldn’t forget them.

I have a bad feeling about this…

Again, I would like to extend a separate, particular apology to Mr. and Mrs. Cake.

I am shaking my head at you. I am frowning at my screen, and I am shaking my head at you.
It was predicted that there’d be a story like this before the writeoff even began, but all things considered, this did a decent job of it.
I guess we’ll never know what happened to those slugs, though.

3. Unlocked Emotions:

“And not because they figured your cutie mark would be a dryweight?”

Metafiction. Frightening and delightful all at the same time.
Well, perhaps this has simply gone over my head, but I’m not sure what the point of this story was. The two characters turned out to be gay, but I had that pegged long before the reveal. There’s a little bit of social commentary, but besides that, I don’t really understand what we’re supposed to get out of this story.
As I said, maybe it’s just going over my head.

4. Audit:
The guard post is a very clever idea.

The crystal palace, it seemed, was no more resistant to dragon magic than any of the gemstones he ate.

I like this. I like this a lot.
I was worried this would turn out sad. I’m glad it didn’t come to that.
This is was a nice, realistic look at what Spike might go through during a normal day of being Twilight’s number-one assistant. Despite the simple nature of the story, it was quite pleasant, and I was never actually bored reading it. Considering I was reading about a dragon doing inventory, I think that’s an accomplishment.

5. The Arena:

He then determines two judgements: one for each possible answer to that uncertainty. These judgements are then given form, and the accused is brought to the Arena.

This is going to be like “The Lady, or the Tiger?” isn’t it?

“I would, of course, be forced to disown a daughter who married so far beneath her station, but you ponies are fond of saying that love will win out, are you not?”

An astute reader knows which door is opened now.
This was basically what I predicted it to be. I do have an appreciation for the ending, though. It presents the two interpretations in a compelling manner, either one speaking volumes on what kind of griffin the Empress is.
Generally, I find that epistolary stories struggle to do well, simply by their nature. This, however, did very well. The writing is fitting for one who has held a position of importance, such as an ambassador, but the way he addresses his reader illustrates that he has an understanding of his position in relation to the Princess’s. He is articulate, respectful, and recognizes his own faults. He’s a very well-rounded character, no doubt.

6. The Star Chamber:
Wow, Cadance gets real. That was good.

“Cadance and I did the same for Luna when she returned. Your part will be easier than hers was.”

That is a frightening prospect. I can only imagine how difficult that must’ve been for Luna.

“I don’t… I don’t think I should answer that yet, Celestia. I’m not in control of my feelings.”

Very wise, Cadance. To all who speak ill of her, this is why Cadance is a Princess.
This was quite an experience. I can’t claim to be familiar with the source material for the third matter of discussion, as I have only ever heard of it without ever reading it. What I do know about it, however, is more than enough to frame an understanding of the gravity of it all.
The idea of a magic that allows a pony to only speak what they truly believe honestly feels a little contrived, but as it is the center of the story, there is little that can be done about it. Not that anything need be done about it. This issue is extremely minor, and could very well just be a personal issue.
This was a good philosophical piece, and the growth we see in Twilight is interesting. Although she maintains that reformation should come before killing, she has opened her mind to the idea. Life is not simply black-and-white, good-and-evil. It’s an important lesson to learn, and you captured it well.

3889657

7. Hearth Swarming Eve:
Before we even begin, I give you credit for using precisely 8,000 words.

“Sunflanks and Moon Moon”

How long has this been a thing? For all of the nicknames they have been given, I don’t think I’ve encountered these before, and I like them far more than I should.
Cloud Kicker, Noteworthy, and Scootaloo as a family unit?
Okay. I’m okay with this.
I found this to be a little confusing, but the story summarizes the ideas well enough that I eventually understood it.
I admit that I am curious what kind of secrets Rarity is keeping, but a gentleman never asks, and a lady never tells.
I just hope Twilight has learned the lesson she was meant to.

8. Ill-Gotten Gains:
Hmm.
A whole lot of “hmm”.
This was well-crafted, I suppose. I’m glad to see someone point out the implications of gravity spells. But here’s a question, then:
Why does she use a grappling hook?
That aside, there was a lack of consistency when referring to her as Quick Switch and the Silver Snitch. You hopped around a bit without much prompting, which was distracting, at times.
I’m not sure how I feel about this ultimately being about Celestia and cake. Honestly, I liked Quick Switch’s character. I would probably enjoy a story centered on her. The fact that this is all a set-up for a diet joke just undermines what would be a quality original character.

9. Amara

Presently, she set the quill in the inkwell.

“Presently” and words of a similar nature generally should not be used in the narrative. Having her set the quill back into the inkwell would be enough to pull us back into the present.
Well, the idea that there is a spirit within the Alicorn Amulet is an interesting one, and the idea of it escaping and seeking vengeance has potential. Unfortunately, it’s handled and resolved the same way Nightmare Moon was.
The ending left me feeling unsatisfied. There is still a lot more that needs to be addressed. Where is Zecora? Will the furless, hornless minotaurs continue to plague Equestria? How does the reunion of Dinky and Ditzy go? What’s to become of this newly-reformed spirit-not-a-spirit pony? I mean, she’s crying right there in front of them, and no one has anything to say about it?
The ending also lacked a sense of grace. There was potential for a lot of character building and backstory in the interactions between the Spirit of the Alicorn Amulet (Amara?) and Marius, but it’s quickly interrupted by the Elements of Harmony. Moreover, why do they have the Elements with them? Twilight was unaware she was wearing hers, and we can assume that Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie were wearing theirs when they arrived, but why would Rainbow Dash suddenly have hers? Are we meant to assume one of the others had hers and gave it to her somewhere off-screen? Also, how did the guards know to bring the Element Bearers to Zecora’s hut?

“There was an explosion in the Everfree Forest. Should we investigate?”
“Yes, but first, let’s hitch ourselves to chariots and track down four mares scattered throughout the town.”
“Agreed. We’d better make sure they pick up their magic necklaces, though.”
“Do you think the Princess has hers?”
“Probably.”
“But shouldn’t we pick up all six of them?”
“No need. The Princess and one of the Element Bearers will be there when we arrive.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”

I ask that you forgive me if I’m being harsh, but this to me is quite a gaping hole in the story’s logic.
Olivia and Elizabeth don’t really add anything to the ending besides the fact that they have Dinky with them. Meanwhile, the ponies have absolutely nothing to say.
All eight of them.
This could have been interesting, but to me it gives the impression that the ending was rushed, as if the deadline was rapidly approaching when this was being finished.
One last question: what was the closed door here? The gate to Marius’s apartment?

10. The Millennial Vault

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this!” Breaker yelled, all at once aware that ‘new’ most likely meant something dangerous. Or at the very least, unfamiliar.

Um, no one said “new”. That was the first instance of the word “new” in the entire story.
Here’s a little thing: for a reporter, Breaker doesn’t seem very observant. He fails to notice or “just” notices things quite frequently throughout the story. It’s not a big thing, but it was enough to catch my attention.
"..." is not considered good form. Have him look to ground rather than leave, or shuffle on hooves, or something.
This story managed to make me curious what it is that’s down there, but it begs the question: what was the point of this time capsule? Were the unicorns of a thousand years ago so malicious that they wanted to release this thing or these things on the world long after they were gone? After all, if it were simply a cage, why would there be time-release on it?
The idea that whatever it was down there was so terrible that everypony present mutually agreed to destroy all evidence of it is interesting, but I think the delivery was a little too blunt, and because of that, it lost the effect that it might otherwise have.
Also, “burnt” would be over-cooked food. The pictures were burned.

11. Disappearance of Chaos
A little bit of Lavender Unicorn Syndrome in the beginning, and I don’t like that Discord was referred to as an “it”.

Fluttershy stayed calm until the doors closed behind her

Inverted prompt-drop! I applaud you.
Well, ultimately it ends on a joke I didn’t find too amusing, but I’ll leave that alone.
There’s a slight issue with the pacing in several places. It felt as though there were paragraphs that were trying to quickly advance to the next scene by stringing together unimportant events in rapid succession.

12. A Pale Horse

He nodded distractedly through the young son’s jumbled account of trying to get a frog-catching cutie mark with his friends.

Manehatten Branch of the Cutie Mark Crusaders! Well done, Babs Seed.

It didn’t. It was a cancer that had lodged itself in some deep recess of his mind, hardening from a thought to a worry to a crippling anxiety. He began to view his life as made up of long, horrifying stretches of pure helplessness, broken up by brief moments of bitter resignation and the occasional patch of despair.

I think they make a pill for that.
Jokes aside, that is quite bleak, and yet, it is an unfortunate reality for some people.

Discreet felt like he could have burst into song as he cantered out of the psychiatrist’s office.

This is just one of those “What could possibly go wrong?” moments. It makes me smile an evil smile.
My evil smile enjoys the way this ended. It’s scary without trying too hard. Just a question: is this supposed to be the pale horse of the Apocalypse?

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Specifically, the way that scoring works has nothing to do with your placement; they're just correlated because better finishes boost your score faster.

It's simple: Every point already "banked" in your Hall of Fame score degrades by a flat 10% with each event, regardless of medals or finishes. You lost 272 points because you'd already scored 2,720 prior to "Behind Closed Doors".

Next month, you'll lose 272. I'll lose 239. Cold in Gardez, currently at 1000 points, will lose 100. darf, who hasn't competed since leaving the fandom, will lose 8 of his remaining 80. It's pulling everyone back to zero, but the people on top are pulled back faster, simply because they've got more to lose.

Basically it makes it so that you'll "top out" around the average of your last ten finishes; once you reach that point, you'll only progress further if you're consistently scoring over your maintenance value. As more people regularly compete, they'll settle into a score reflecting their long-term average placement.

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13. All the World's a Stage
I’m doing my best to not allow my extreme cognitive dissonance to effect my judgment of this story.

“Well, come on, luv. It won’t bite,” he encourages her in his Bittish accent.

You’ve already told us he has a “Bittish” accent. There’s really no need to say it again. As a side note, “Trottish” is the more commonly used phrase. If you were attempting to be original, that’s fine, but an audience is generally more receptive to what they consider familiar.

It’s tastefully appointed with magic lamps, potted plants, and tasteful paintings.

“Tasteful” is used twice here.
Oh, and we finish with a title drop. I’m not sure how to feel about that one.
Well, most of this story is walk cycles without much really happening. I will say that the implications of the story are nothing short of frightening, but it plays its hand early and ultimately ends up exactly where we expect it to go.
The writing itself is handled well, though. You manage to give the reader imagery without slowing down the narrative. You provide enough to paint a picture, but not so much that it feels unimportant, so well done on that.

14. Extreme Princess Tension (E.P.T.)

Or at least that was the opinion held by Amethyst Star, or Sparkler to her friends.

It’s nice to see a compromise of names like this. I personally prefer “Amethyst Star,” but this is a nice solution.

There was a long pregnant pause…

Well, that’s subtle.

There was a second long, pregnant pause.

And the subtlety continues.
Well, it’s never blatantly stated, but I think it’s fairly clear to everyone what’s going on here. This was a pleasant look at Amethyst Star’s character, and her reaction to the sounds of bells is amusing.
Now I’m just wondering who the father is.

15. Burning Bridges
There have been numerous ideas and theories about what kind of living arrangements Sunset Shimmer has in the world of Equestria Girls. The idea of living with the principals is a nice parallel and quite clever.

I stormed after her, mentally preparing to physically toss her out on her tail if it came to that.

I like the idea that Sunset Shimmer still thinks in phrases like this. And the fact that she measures time in moons.
The thought that the Equestria Girls world is some type of limbo of eternal high school has been done before, and it wasn’t particularly impressive then, either.
Sunset Shimmer’s characterization is enjoyable, and Aria’s is handled well.
I feel the ending is rather abrupt. I think an explanation on Sunset’s part would give us a greater understanding of what she thinks about the situation, rather than having her write that she’ll explain later.

16. Some Doors Aren't Meant for You

I’ve heard of The Legend of[…] the Door Who Wishes He Was Actually a Sofa or Maybe an Ottoman or Something

Now there’s a story I would definitely want to hear.
Too much Fluttershy neglect. Be nice to Fluttershy.
And still more Fluttershy abuse.
Well, there were a few funny moments scattered throughout this story, and I do appreciate the references being made. Unfortunately, I found the truth to be a little underwhelming, so it didn’t have the emotional impact you were probably going for, at least for me.
I did enjoy it, though, for what it is.
However, I am putting you in a circular room and making you stand in the corner until you learn to be nicer to Fluttershy.

17. Rough in the Diamond
Okay, this better become a happy story soon or will be very upset. I don’t like to see friends antagonizing each other.
Um, I guess this qualifies as a happy story, maybe?
You manage to write action sequences fairly well, which can be quite difficult. I’m going to guess that Prism Blitz lost the match, partially because she seemed to come out of it worse than Lady Diamond, but also because it gives her motivation to return for a rematch.

18. P.T.S.D.

“…I’m having trouble controlling my friendship. I need help. The medication just isn’t working.”

This makes me smile and laugh more than I think it should.

I gave the disorder her name for that very reason.

I like where this is going.
“Tirek’s advocate”. I like that, too.
So, we’ve got a little bit of satire, some humor thrown into the mix, with a light sprinkling of irony for flavor. What does that leave us with?
Well, a lot of it is talking heads. It’s clear that you did try to break up the monotony to help avoid that, but the fact remains that ultimately, they’re mostly just sitting there and talking.
The idea that the magic of friendship is addictive is an amusing one, but it’s the kind of joke that doesn’t actually get any funnier. Repeating that point didn’t really add to humor, because not only have we been exposed to the joke, but we’re also prepared to see it again. It’s a therapy session, so we’re bound to return to that point again.

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19. Dressing Room
Too much metafiction. Give me a moment.

“But I don’t understand this whole Equestria Girls craze. It’s like, cartoon apes? What’s up with that?”

Okay, never mind. I’ll need more than a moment.
“Tom Flanks”.
Is nothing sacred? Is no thing or no one safe?

“At first, people thought she was just a ratings booster—like, ha ha,” Star swirled a hoof in the air, “obvious celebrity casting is obvious—but she’s grown into the role.”

No, no—I’m okay, I promise. I just need another minute.
As a side note, is “people” intentional, or is it meant to be “ponies”?

>What about Spike? Is it ever difficult having to work with a CGI “actor”?

No. That’s it. The line has to be drawn somewhere.
This was quite an experience. Despite everything I said before, I’m glad I went on this ride. It’s looking at our beloved ponies in a way I never would have on my own. Thank you for writing it.
And thank you for the image of Celestia being Batmare. It puts a goofy smile on my face.

20. The Sunset Room
I was immediately disappointed when this wasn’t about Sunset Shimmer. My mood improved as it became apparent how good the writing was.

Guided by earth pony magic, the apples fell neatly into the buckets.

I like this explanation. I’ve wondered myself how they manage to do it.
This makes me feel yucky inside, but somehow in a good way. It makes me scared for the Apple family. The ending is just creepy enough to not transfer into territory too dark for my tastes. It manages to ride on the edge of that line, which impresses me.
The buildup was effective and Applejack’s internal conflict was relatable to the point that the reader can sympathize with her struggle. The payoff was also handled well. It didn’t try to be shocking or creepy. It just presented the reality of the situation and allowed that to speak for itself.
Just a thought, if I may: would Apple Bloom or perhaps even Twilight have considered asking Zecora for help when Big Mac first became unwell? With her knowledge of cures and remedies, they’ve gone to her on more than one occasion.

21. Remember

I remember an extra cloudy, sun-filled day where the pigs flew lazily through the sky. The fish sang, the birds croaked, everything was just as it should have been.

Excellent Discord right there. It made me smile.
The problem with stories like these is that not much happens. It is simply in their nature. However, because not much happens, there isn’t much character development, either. Discord still has the same mindset at the end as he did in the beginning. One could argue that Celestia goes through a little change in her way of thinking, but Discord undermines it so quickly that it becomes unimportant.
Characterization was done well, and the writing was enjoyable, but the story itself didn’t have too much substance.
Also, I’m trying to connect it to the prompt. I guess that Discord being imprisoned in stone puts him behind a metaphorical door? I know alignment with the prompt is not majorly important, but it’s a thought I had while reading.

22. Dirty Prancing

…a stallion black as herself, winged and horned, with red highlights in his wavy mane and tail.

This made my eyes narrow at the screen.

“Me, I got a backstory so dark and mysterious, even I don't know nothin' about it."

Once more, I found myself narrowing my eyes at these words.

In the center of it all, covered in mares, was Noble Sway.

This one just made me roll my eyes. I get the feeling that whoever wrote this was the one who submitted “Red and Black” as a prompt, or at least was in favor of it.

Pouting, Chryssy dropped her dropped disguise…

Is this a typo or a pun? To me, it could honestly go either way, considering she just fell over.

"Take my love. Use it to heal yourself, make yourself stronger…”

I am so done with this guy. Has there ever been anything cornier than that?
Well, that ending was… unexpected. I guess all I’m wondering now is what became of her sisters.

23. Through Glass

Perhaps something yellow and white, to go with her coat.

Just a little prediction here: despite all of the anonymity so far, I think the identity of this mare will be revealed.
…Well, I was right, I guess. (While reading, I kept picturing Fleur, though.) As soon as Applejack stepped in, though, that made it clear. Looking back, the clues were subtle, but they were there. That’s what makes for quality writing.
I very much enjoyed this one. I’m quite fond of introspective character pieces. I find it to be an underappreciated genre.
The writing was quite enjoyable. You capture Rarity well. I’d call the pace “leisurely”. It’s at a slow, comfortable pace, but I never felt like it was dragging on. It makes my heart ache a bit to understand that she’s hoping to impress Applejack, but I also get a glimmer hope when Applejack notices it.
This makes me smile, and I’m happy you wrote it.

24. Time Off
Twilight translating Luna? Excellent.
And then the bomb drops. Wow.
Hmm. Well, this was an interesting experience, to say the least. The question “What is this story about?” would not have a simple answer. It’s about a lot of things. There are many layers to this, and it gives us enough of a glimpse at each of them to gain our interest before moving on to the next layer. Impressive writing, if nothing else. It leaves me wanting more. A lot more. I want to know the entire story behind each layer of this story.
I hope to see more of this when the competition is over.

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25. The Brightest and the Best
Poor Twinkleshine…

“And I must say, she was also extremely polite and modest, and altogether a very sweet little filly.”

I would just like to say I appreciate that you had a professor make this comment. I’m glad that they take more into consideration than scores and performance.
That was a very satisfying ending. I really like this one. If I were to list one issue, I guess I felt that Twilight was described as a little too competent. As much as I dislike the phrase, “Mary Sue” comes to mind, if only slightly. It’s not a major issue, certainly not one that would require being addressed, but there you go.

26. Unto Whom All Doors Are Open

The door shut behind me.

I like your use of absolutely-no-subtlety.
This was interesting to say the least, and almost certainly a piece of social commentary. Assuming these songs were compiled by you, that is quite an accomplishment.
I wish we were shown more of what this unnamed doctor went through. The imagery and language is sophisticated and pleasant, but separated by large streams of hymns and prayers.
I don’t have too much to say on this. I guess when it comes down to it, I would’ve liked there to be more focus on the doctor than the songs. I do not wish to lessen the significance of them, but they slow down the narrative too much for my tastes.

27. Knowledge and Wisdom

As always they were polished to a mirror-like shine, and as always she could see her own self-consciousness reflected in them.

Oh, my heart…

Was she going to have to write “I will obey Princess Celestia” a hundred times, or a thousand? She’d do it a million times if it meant returning to her mentor’s good graces.

Oh, my heart again…

“Twilight is a faithful student. Princess Celestia thinks of Twilight like family. One of these statements is false.”
Tears formed in her eyes. This time there was no mistaking it. She was done here.

My heart has collapsed in on itself and promptly melted.

Twilight dove forward and hugged her. If they’d been standing she would’ve only been able to wrap her hooves around the Princess’s leg; instead her cheek was pressed against her chest, and the thump of a heartbeat sounded in her ear.

The heart-puddle has congealed into a vaguely familiar shape and now has a smile.
Well, I enjoyed this one. It had a nice balance of cute as well as important-and-valuable lesson. If there’s any way I could think to help improve this story, it would be to have Twilight display a greater understanding of what she has been taught. Twilight is quite perceptive, after all. As it is, she’s mostly just asking questions to prompt Celestia to expand on her thoughts. I think letting her make inferences would let her illustrate that she does have a grasp of what Celestia’s teaching her, as well as adding a little more balance to their interaction.
All said, though, I liked this one.

28. On Wings of Ashes
Is this about phoenixes? No, apparently not. Not yet, at least.

She’d try to hum with it, but she could never find the key or settle into one of the harmonic lines,

Perhaps I’m looking too deep into it, but this makes me sad.

Why would they want that anyway? They couldn’t get any energy from it.

This one made me ache. The idea that the Sirens don’t see any value in a heart besides as an energy source? Heartbreaking, yet perfectly reasonable.

“Nightmare Moon? Like, for realsies?”

It was only a matter of time.

“Well, yeah! I can’t really sing anymore—” she squeezed her eyes shut for a second “—but I listen, outside the choir room.”

Well, there it is. My previous sense of dread is affirmed.
This has been an odd experience. I was quite dubious when we had a muscular Luna enter the story, and I personally think I was right to be. A vice-principal who gives her students tattoos with ash, saliva, and a pin?
And the metafiction regarding the Crusaders and cutie marks? That made me uncomfortable.
Snips appearing out of nowhere to comment on how Sonata was sitting? That was just distasteful.
I will say that I liked how it ended, though. The idea of rebirth and remaking one's self ties into phoenixes, so I was not completely wrong, at least.
But I think the real question here is this: did Sonata ever get her other two tacos?

29. Easy as Cake

“We are here on behalf of Fancy Pants and Fleur Dis Lee.”

Using her “proper” name, I see. I commend you on your commitment.
Was that a reference to teleporting bread?
Is there a reason so many mares have green hair in this? Or is it perhaps the same pony each time?
Well, the cake hitting Celestia came as no surprise. The fact that the mare with the green mane was a spy suddenly makes a lot of sense, though, so well done on that.
I’d be curious to learn more about the stallion who once wore the Alicorn Amulet and the failed revolt. A little Equestrian history never hurt anyone, after all.

30. Terror Incognita

The two doors were immense.

Doors right away, huh? Okay, I can roll with it.
“Califoalnia”. I don’t know whether to give you a pat on the back, or just hang and shake my head.
I’m a little disappointed that we don’t get to properly see what’s on the other side of the door, but I understand why it was done. Luna is not permitted to know, so we can’t know, either. Besides, look at the title, after all.
Okay, the revelation of the painting and, more precisely, who was in it was a major shock to me. Honestly, perhaps more than it should have been. Either way, it worked quite well. It makes me want to know where the story goes from here.
Well done.

31. Funatics
Well, there’s a title drop. I don’t know if you’re trying to be ironic or just plain evil, but it hasn’t gone unnoticed, either way.
…I thought it was similar to “phonetics”. You know, phonetically close to “phonetic”?
No?
I’ll move on, then.
This makes me smile. The writing is clever, and I very much enjoy the character interactions. Pinkie Pie in particular, I feel is characterized very well. Silly, without being too much.
I think I might actually like “Starry and Sunny” better than “Lulu and Tia,” although that honestly wouldn’t be too difficult to pull off.

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Yes, I was aware of these editing issues a week ago and I've corrected them. As for Bittish/Trotish, I'd never heard of Trotish until exactly an hour and fifty one minutes ago when I thought it up as an analogue for Scottish and wrote it down in my last post. But I've heard Bittish as an analogue for British several times.

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Final thoughts: There were a few stand-out stories that I believe will stick with me more some time. A good showing from everyone, as always.

Personal favorites, in numerical order as they appear in the gallery:
Audit, Dressing Room, Through Glass, Time Off, The Brightest and the Best, Knowledge and Wisdom, Funatics

As I said before, feel free to comment or ask for more of thoughts, if you are so inclined.

I hope I'll be able to participate next time and be more timely with reviews, as well. I'll see you all then.

Thank you for your time.

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Hey Roger, we need this month's folder in the FIMFic group! We're seeing stories published already!

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Thank you for the reviews! Hopefully the final version of Swarming will explain those secrets better.

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“Presently” and words of a similar nature generally should not be used in the narrative. Having her set the quill back into the inkwell would be enough to pull us back into the present.

I actually picked that writing tic up from Harry Turtledove.

One last question: what was the closed door here? The gate to Marius’s apartment?

It was supposed to be something to do with Amara but it got pared down to that one comment from Marius.

3889723 It just leaves a raw taste in my mouth that I lose significant ground to the last-place finisher if I choose not to participate—which is going to be the norm. At the least, wouldn't it make more sense to depreciate scores by event participated in instead of every event? Then if someone can't or doesn't want to join one, he doesn't take the hits for the ones he skips. As is, it's kind of double jeopardy. I'd do better to write some shitfic every time just to get a dozen points out of a near-last finish.