3887045

So I just finished The Star Chamber, and I thought it was quite nice. I don't track the whole Fall of Equestria thing, but you gave us enough background to understand the moral weight of their decision.

I think the best part was when I got to the bottom and saw that four people thought I wrote it. That made me smile :)

3887781
I'm not familiar enough with anyone in this contest to guess who wrote what, and was honored to see the author guesses for Knowledge and Wisdom . Although as promised during my (gushing) review of Funatics: earlier today I unfollowed you just to click the follow button again. I suspect I'll be following several new people in the next few days as well

3888917
3889045

I'd favorite this in a heartbeat if it came out on Fimfiction, even with no further editing.

I second that.

The story has a similar structure to LorT, but it is not the same at all. This was probably the only story in the list that I would say could go straight into fim as a copy paste with an instant favorite from me. I would be sorely disappointed if it didn't get published either as is or with a few minor revisions. It's a great story! Much better than the "inspired-by" work.

3889537

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.

I was expecting this story in some form to come in and I am very glad that it did. Your submission was much better and expanded on the original in a way that made it a different story. This isn't just a new suit. It is an homage and an expansion on the original bringing a lot of other possibilities to the mix. You can actually argue now that each of the four characters could have made a choice/viewed the action in at least two different ways. That's a huge improvement to me and took some doing. TD makes the point that:

I just am concerned that you added a lot of extra dimensions of ambiguity which aren't necessarily desirable components of the story.

and I totally disagree. I think that is what makes the story your own and ultimately better than the original.

Thank you all for your comments on Knowledge and Wisdom. Participating in this writeoff has been a wild, wonderful ride. I’ve workshopped stories with in-person writer’s groups before, and honestly this was more productive for me. I hope I contributed a smidgen of useful commentary to your stories as well. Hopefully I’ll have more time to craft thoughtful reviews whenever I participate next.

Knowledge and Wisdom:
I wrote this in about four hours on Friday and Saturday. It was actually my second idea, once I realized how long the first idea was going to take. I knew I didn’t have a lot of time to work with and in fact writing this took every minute I had to spare.
Obviously this story isn’t perfect, but I’m very pleased with the result all the same. I’m hoping I can solicit some more detailed feedback from a couple of you, especially once I have the second revision in hand.
I don’t have all your reviews right in front of me, so I’ll do my best to respond to what stuck out to me:

- The opening was primarily my having fun writing filly Twilight. I wanted her almost-carte blanche library access to be a brand new privilege, primarily to justify her wearing that lanyard. She’d be such a regular fixture in the library that I imagine all the librarians would know her on sight inside of a month. For my own nefarious stylistic purposes, I wanted her to have a physical ‘all access pass’ to wear. It made for a nice juxtaposition with the sign on the gate.

- Starswirl is first described as an obscure figure in history, so I think the idea of Celestia introducing Twilight to him holds water. To me it was yet another sign that Celestia was grooming her for great things from the outset

- I didn’t intend for Celestia to be genuinely angry. Really she just stops smiling and puts on a stern face, which is the most upset Twilight has ever seen her get.

- I need to make this clearer, but Celestia saw Twilight trying to read through the bars. Twilight isn’t picking the lock, but she is testing the boundaries that have been set. I don’t think Twilight necessarily did anything wrong here, but Celestia has a concern (forged in past experience, I’m sure) that mistakes might follow if she doesn’t intervene. Knowing Twilight, Celestia could’ve just said “don’t do that” and (literally) scared her straight. Should Celestia have seen this problem coming? Yes, I think so. My cover was that Twilight is still outpacing her teacher’s expectations, which might or might not be fair. Maybe ‘the talk’ was scheduled for next Tuesday.

- This isn’t clear at all (which I will remedy), but Celestia didn’t have that test ready-made. When she asked Twilight if she had writing supplies, the implication was that she was going to think up and write the test on the spot. Twilight spent that moment in time staring at the table top, scared that she was about to be shown the door.

- There’s really purple grass? D’oh! I’ll have to change that fake statement to “all grass is purple”

- The paradox thing caught me completely off guard. I was expecting some gnashing of teeth over the censorship thing, but not this. I’d say I’m sorry I started a meta-war over a technicality, but then again I’m really not. That was fascinating to watch. I didn’t want to chime in for fear of saying too much. Celestia wasn’t trying to give Twilight a genuinely impossible task, just a task that would get the point across. Twilight was naive enough to jump on the self-depreciating answer instead of thinking creatively or even raising an objection. Was it unfair? A bit, yes. That’s the point. Everything written down, even by your mentor, isn’t true, young Twilight. I’ve been thinking all week of how to fix this, and right now my best idea is to leave it as is and have Twilight realize afterwards that there’s a paradox, and for Celestia to dismiss it as unimportant.

- Why did Celestia ask to keep the test? Because if she hadn’t I would’ve fallen short of the two thousand word minimum. I didn’t mean for it to be a cover-up, and honestly I don’t think that would’ve gotten past adult Twilight anyway.

- The semi-unrelated end scene discussing lunch was there highlight the change in their relationship, or at least a restoration of it. Their time together opened with Twilight bowing low enough to stare at her mentor’s shoes, contained a painful moment of her not being able to make eye contact with her, and ends with a semi-innocuous shared secret and a laugh. Their friendship is just beginning. I still don’t like Twilight’s final line of dialogue, though. Any suggestions there would be much appreciated.

- So, censorship. Yeah. I knew this would get sticky from the moment I wrote down “dangerous ideas,” and I’ve very much enjoyed seeing everyone’s opinion. I didn’t want to leave it at “that’s where we keep the spells that turn ponies inside out” and call it a day. This was supposed to clue Twilight in to how much inherent power lies in the crown. Yes, Celestia could be hiding politically sensitive stuff in there (possibly tax subsidies involving a certain local donut shop). She could also be hiding the remaining copies of books ‘proving’ the ultimate superiority of each pony race. Every history book mentioning King Sombra isn’t in there; the extremely detailed accounts of how he rose to power and tortured his subjects (the books that read like how-to guides) might be. I know this is divisive, and I don’t think there’s any way around it. I explicitly stated that Twilight will eventually be able to go in there and get to decide for herself, which is something I’d like to tackle in the rewrite.

Speaking of the rewrite, yes I’m going to do some work on this prior to posting. My thought is to add a second section detailing what happens when Twilight gets to peruse those shelves for the first time, and what she has to say to Celestia as a result. I’d love it if a few of you would be willing to look it over.

3890224

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

3890459
Huh? Why can't I upvote this multiple times? I keep hitting the thumbs up button again and again, but the number won't go up any more. I think it's broken.

3890459
Couldn't top that if I tried, so have this instead:

Vernon Law

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward.

3889537
You could always throw it into your Bantam Tales collection (I think that one's yours) just so we have a record of it! :B

3889754
I think the prompt of mine that survived the cull was "I Remember That Summer". :B This story idea existed long before the Red and Black prompt.

Apparently, by "soon" I meant "the next day." Well, let's dig in. And, of course, thank you to everyone who told me what I did wrong.

3868919 (Bad Horse)
I have absolutely no idea where you got the idea of Luna waging a guerrilla war against Celestia. My intent was using one of the most secure structures in Equestria as a decentralized equivalent of the warehouse from the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, with the batponies gathering the various dangerous items and storing them in forgotten alcoves and creches in the castle.

As for Celestia seeming OOC, my intent was that Celestia could handle raising the moon, but she knew she couldn't do all of Luna's duties, and so she delegated some of them to those who could. Of course, as you noted, this is part of the headcanon that I didn't make clear.

Still, I'm glad the double-story structure worked for you.

3869502 (Titanium Dragon)
Nailed it on the head. This one was submitted half-baked and suffered for it, especially since I was trying to cultivate an air of mystery and just ended up leaving out important bits.

3872068 (horizon)
Looking back, you definitely have a point on Apple Bloom's non-choice. That's being worked on in the revised version.

3872846 (Bradel)
Wow. Wasn't expecting that reaction. Better than a "meh," but still, Twilight Ugh/10? My apologies. Though I'm not sure what you mean about Luna's voice.

3875825 (Thornwing)
The object was to provoke the reader's imagination. I guess I left the blanks too wide.

3875862 (BlazzingInferno)
Definitely taking all of this into account in the revision.

3876233 (Prompted-by-Raridash)
The painting was supposed to be a "Three Horses of the Apocalypse" scenario, with the adult Crusaders laying waste to the countryside. This is why Luna started keeping an eye on their dreams. She kept it up when they demonstrated a worrisome degree of mastery over their dreams. (Scootaloo managing to distort space and repulse Luna in "Sleepless in Ponyville" stuck with me.)

Also, on a personal note, I really don't like that you lowballed the score because of others' opinions, and I'm not just saying that because it's my story. You're allowed to diverge from popular opinion.

3878408 (Chris)
Another note of the lack of true choice in the choice. Really should've thought that one through more...

3880275 (Baal Bunny)
The third-person neutral viewpoint was one of the first things I changed in what I've already done. I think I was overcompensating from last month.

3880366 (PresentPerfect)
Well, the good news is that you may not have been able to tell me what to do with the first half, but a lot of others were. Good to know that the twist didn't feel like one; another thing to work on.

3880618 3882631 (Morning Sun and Von Snootingham)
"I want more." The highest compliment I could ask for. Thanks.

3884157 (M1Garand8)
I wanted each of the Crusaders to match Luna in a specific way: Scootaloo ejected her, Sweetie pursued her, and Apple Bloom blocked her. Also, there weren't any horror stories or Rarity-headed thunderheads to smite. Still, definitely going to give more information in the Fimfic version.

3885352 (Doseux)
I am incredibly amused by how the RNG got me right.

3886832 (Silent Strider)
Thank you.

3886971 (Titanium Dragon)

FoME had the same issue - it grouped Terror Incognita, Hearth Swarming Eve, and Dirty Prancing with him. Like half the other good writers.

Aww... I wish I'd written Hearth Swarming Eve.

3889884
The counter though is that someone could then stop participating and sit at the top of the scoreboard indefinitely; it's not a mark of all-time activity, it's a mark of consistent activity and all. It's in a sort of hybrid zone between 'Those who've done a lot stay high' and 'Those who are just joining in can still hope to become notable'

Ribbons/medals never go away, after all, and I suppose I'd wonder what you want the scoreboard to -be-, since that does determine how points matter or not. To me it's just 'Oh hey, I went up a bit again, cool', but I definitely like it as a barometer relative to other active authors.

3889639
And on this I guess it depends on if you want to write to medal, to amuse yourself, to please friends, or however. But even then, if you look at what won, first place is a blend that has drama, comedy, and worldbuilding that just comes together really well. Second place is political intrigue, third place is Pony Fight Club, then pure heartwarming, alternate worldbuilding, filly Twilight dramedy, serious statecraft, zany comedy, an old tale remade, and horror to round out the top ten.

Or, in other words, I'd contend that the crowd is open to all sorts of stories. I know what docked Wings of Angels for me was Luna. The idea that her 'Nightmare Moon Incident' began with someone taking her parking space fit, and really everything up to & including her attacking Celestia fit. It was what came after where I just went 'Wait, what?'

Because she was suddenly making toilet cider, getting prison tattoos, and talking in ways that made me feel 'This isn't Luna, like, at all.' That's what really fell flat for me. Like, to compare it to Dirty Prancing - the end where Chrysalis eats his head comes out of nowhere, but hey, she's an insect, and while it's absurd given the tone up till then, it's absurd that fits. Similarly, a minimum security weekday evenings only prison is absurd, but it's the sort of absurd I can somehow buy. But in this case,

“Oh, my prison tat? Pretty sweet, huh?”

is the line I would point to as most out of place. I read that line, and I see nothing of Luna in it, and it pulls me out of the story. In a story more absurd from moment one, it could fit, but you've been playing the drama fairly straight up till here, so it's a dissonant note in the piece, and it's not indicative of an overall tone change. Things go right back to played straight after Luna's prison antics, so I do feel like the story would be made far stronger by bringing that part in-line with the rest of the story.

3888917
My concerns about the story's origins would vanish if it was published with a line like "based off of ..."
There are books on store shelves that don't even bother with that.

So this is what 8th graders get to read now? The only thing I recall from eigth grade reading is The Butterfly Revolution, which I wish I could recall considerably less...

3889096
Nope, that's fine! Just create a blank Gdoc and link me it so that I can paste it all there. Seems like the best way to go about it.

Geeze, already I'm seeing you guys' stories flooding in while I'm still collecting my thoughts and trying to decide what I even want my story to look like post-edits

3891005

I have absolutely no idea where you got the idea of Luna waging a guerrilla war against Celestia.
As for Celestia seeming OOC, my intent was that Celestia could handle raising the moon, but she knew she couldn't do all of Luna's duties, and so she delegated some of them to those who could.

This excerpt is why I said both things:

Luna awoke in one of the many chambers in Castle Canterlot, a niche hidden behind more than a dozen defensive layers of matter and magic both.

Fantasia, the bat-winged captain of the Dreamguard, saluted her. "How did it go, Mistress?"

"I do not know." Luna rose and considered the centerpiece of the chamber. They were useful for storing more than her physical form, and this one held a painted canvas. "Do you think Celestia knows the number of fell treasures we hide beneath her muzzle?"

"I cannot say for certain, Mistress," said Fantasia. "In your absence, she asked us to go where the sun could not shine. We serve that purpose still."

"Put it where the sun don't shine" means "stick it up your ass". So you've got Celestia exiling the bat-ponies, and doing so in a rude and crude way. Both are radically OOC for her, I think.

Luna seems to own / run these chambers. I inferred from all that that the bat-ponies created these chambers beneath Canterlot after being told to go "where the sun could not shine", and have been hiding there, behind defensive layers of magic etc., and that they don't know whether Celestia knows this or not.

3891767 Want to tell us your write-off name?

3891816
Quite. I just wish I personally were faster :P
Anyway, all this discussion has been fascinating, I have been reading even if I haven't been posting, and now I can't wait to try again the next time around :)

3891841
I'm not on there. I regret to say that, in the final moments of exhaustion and dissatisfaction before I collapsed on the last night, I decided not to submit, a decision I have come to regret. I put up a link though: In Its Season, password is "Turning".

3891835
Oh, I see. I didn't mean that in a rude sense but a poetic "go where I can't to protect ponies" one. Guess I'll have to rephrase that.

3889639

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 means you are asking why some people didn't like it. The people who rated it lower. You've got, IIRC, at least 4 reviews saying that the wacky crackfic Luna part didn't match the other parts, and there are other reasons scattered throughout as well. You can believe 'em or not, but that's your explanation.

If you're asking the more-general question, "Why doesn't everyone agree with X, Y, and Z anymore?", I would say your sample size is too small to justify proposing a grand sweeping movement in ponyfiction critique at large.

3889402 That is some top-tier puncraft -- I'm with 3889458 for like every other entry at least. But our achievements are but incentive to do even better! For French Gryphonia, I wanna see bird puns in French. Better crack open that textbook, Chris!

3891816
Well I'm still editing writeoff entries from three years ago, nerr nerr! >:V

3892597
Thank you, thank you, I try. Unfortunately, I don't know French, so I can't help there.

3887090
If you want to see a difference between what happens in the write-off and what other people think, go check out the reception 3887011's story is getting, now that it's been published on Fimfiction. I think that's a pretty fantastic example of readers not being okay with authors trying to tell interesting stories with these characters.

I'm dumbfounded by what's going on over there.

3893220
I'm kind of amazed myself. Though to be fair, I think a certain amount of it is not so much the story itself as it is drama about whether it should have been added to a certain group or not.

But ultimately, it's a weird thing about expectations and understanding of characters. I agree that there are a couple of weaknesses, the same ones plenty of people pointed out during the writeoff – I did some tweaks to try to resolve them, but they're still present. But if you're not willing to accept any degree of sudden conflict or violence in a fic... Well, there's not really anything I could change here other than to not write it at all.

(Or better make the full story clear so you can avoid it. I deliberately left the major plot elements non-obvious in the title/picture/description because I think the thing I like the most is how it becomes a very different story than you expect. Maybe that was unwise in retrospect.)

3889695

Also, “burnt” would be over-cooked food. The pictures were burned.

I friggin' knew it! I looked askance at that but I wasn't sure enough of my instincts and assumed the author knew what they were doing.

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

Wow, that's a rewarding little detail that I really wish I had seen on my own.

I'm only taking such thorough note of them because you posted them after the glut, but your reviews are pretty perceptive (often in ways, like the above quotes, that complement my own reading) and fun to read.

3891860 Word choice would surely be enough to obviate the crude parallel: "go where my sun's light cannot" or something.

3893220

Yea, reading through the comments the real problem seems to be about said certain group, because there's been a bit of a hullaballoo regarding story submissions there over the past month or two, so it's more tension from somewhere else spilling over. In other words, dramabomb collateral damage

Logging in this morning:

I see that three of the top four stories in the Featured Box are Writeoff stories.

Mike

3893963
Honestly, this makes me a bit happy mine wasn't in such good state that I could publish it right away. Pretty rare air up there!

What's this? It's the feature box, with three of the top four stories from the latest Writeoff!

#1: Dressing Room, by GaPJaxie
#2: Rough in the Diamond, by Sharp Spark
#4: What We Wanted to Do, by Cold in Gardez

The image is with the mature filter on, but even with it off, those rankings are unchanged. I think that shows there's some class left around here.

Edit: update! We're numbers 1, 2 and 3!

3891173

The counter though is that someone could then stop participating and sit at the top of the scoreboard indefinitely

Well, no, everyone would still gain on that person by virtue of scoring points while he didn't. Yet the last few finishers would gain little to none. I think that's a fairer system than having someone "lose" by opting not to participate.

I'd wonder what you want the scoreboard to -be-

Ideally, I'd scrap the scoreboard altogether. It's already so arbitrary in how it decides to weight things based on the type of event, the number of participants, and age.

I read that line, and I see nothing of Luna in it

That's a pretty narrow view. She's been through prison, and it obviously had a disproportionate effect on her. She's not a funny character in canon, so you have to take liberties with her to get her there, and if you're never going to buy into that, there's nothing more to say. If you didn't find that line funny, that's fine. You don't have to like the story. My point is that it's still a subjective judgment. All you can say is you didn't like it. You can't say it was wrong. You'd at least have the weight of public opinion if everyone said that, but when people like Bradel, Pres, and horizon found it funny, it goes to show that it's a viable path to take, any other individual's reaction notwithstanding.

3891868

If you're asking the more-general question

Since that is what I asked, then chances are, yes, that's what I'm asking.

That's an oversimplification, as I already said I'm looking at more than my own stories (no, I'm not asking for people's opinion of mine specifically, because those have already been given, and repeating them adds nothing; for that matter I've already said I didn't think this story would do well, so I already had an idea of why people wouldn't have liked it) and over the history of the write-offs going back to the beginning. That's not a small sample size. The faces have changed over time, of course, but until the last six months or so, the votes of the most experienced reviewers matched well with the final results, and it was rare for one of them to tout a story that didn't finish quite high, even if it didn't achieve a medal (well, not from the older ones, as there used to be medals through tenth place).

Chris didn't list his top picks, and the other guys with long-standing reputations as reviewers are Bradel, horizon, and PresentPerfect.
All three listed my story as a top five. It finished 12th.
Two (and PP couldn't, since it was his own story) listed "Dirty Prancing in their top five. One rated it #2. Hell, you rated it #1. It finished 8th.
None of these three listed the winner as a top five pick.

It's just a big change, I guess, from when these events used to occur in a reviewing-centric community, and now the FiMFiction side just values different things in a story. It's pretty consistently been this way since we got the spike in participation, at least in my subjective judgment. I'm seeing many more surprises in the winners than I used to from keeping up with posted reviews.

As for me, I can't say. The only story I read was "Funatics."

3893220
This is surprising. I mean, based on what the experienced reviewers were saying about it, I can't say I'm surprised, but since it's essentially the FiMFic crowd voting on these now, I am surprised to see it received much more poorly than it was during the write-off. Go figure, but there are plenty of my stories that got a much colder reception (on total views, anyway) than I would have predicted from character list and subject matter, so... the public is very fickle, I guess. Sucks sometimes, but you usually benefit from it as often as you suffer for it.

3868553

proofread a bit

What is it that you thought needed proofreading? I only saw one typo in the whole thing and two instances of something that needed rewording.

3894115

I think this round might have been a bit of an outlier, Pasco. If you go back to Title Drop, several of those same reviews you mentioned managed to pick the top three stories, and even the order they placed.

Same thing for the mini fic round before that. The "reviewer" consensus and the popular votes all lined up well.

3894172 Yeah, I couldn't say for Title Drop. I didn't play in that one or read the thread.

3894115

What is it that you thought needed proofreading? I only saw one typo in the whole thing and two instances of something that needed rewording.

Huh. Looking back, I'm honestly not sure. It was at the end of a review block; maybe my eyes were just a bit frazzled. Sorry for the confusion.

3894172
3894176
*unlurk*

One stat I tend to look at is the score out of 10 that the winning fic receives. For Behind Closed Doors, that was 7.80/10. Title Drop by comparison was 8.94/10. Generally my assumption here is that the gold in Title Drop got a lot more consistency in its 9's and 10's from individual reviewers, whereas for a 7.80/10 that still takes gold, that implies to me that there was more division in the scoring. For the people grading on curves, there might have simply been disagreements on orderings. For people who score on a straight scale, they might have seen this simply as a weaker round overall.

And yes, in reply to the "top five" discussion here, I think the only logical explanation is that individuals who did not publicly disclose their top five fics, ended up voting completely differently from those who did. I do think, just skimming the publicly disclosed top five lists, these are a lot less consistent than previous rounds. Compare to Title Drop; in that round, people were pretty much listing the exact same fics, just in different permutations. If there was even disagreement in the disclosed top five lists, it's no small wonder that the undisclosed lists disagreed in kind.

I don't think that we can say that this round's results are part of a larger trend. Again, Title Drop is a specific counterpoint, but even looking at the scores as a trend, gold has usually gone to somewhere in the 8.0 to 8.5 range, with occasional outliers. There is Magic in Everything was 7.11/10. One-way Ticket, the group's very first event, was 7.16/10.

I do think it's fair to say that we've been getting a lot of fresh blood recently, usually 3-4 newcomers per event. Compared to the days on /fic/, we were significantly more insular back then, and echo chambers are never a healthy thing. This does mean that "the sort of fic that resonates with the voters" has changed and evolved over the past few years, but at least IMHO (and I fully admit that I haven't stalked every single event that closely, including this recent one) I don't see this as a degradation, just a change.

It's not even anything that we can say as a blanket statement about Fimfic. Title Drop's gold medalist is currently the #1 all-time rated fic on the site (admittedly this can be a turbulent position), followed by #3, #2, and #14. In Behind Closed Doors, gold and silver haven't been published yet, but the Fimfic rankings are presently #5, #13, #4, then #3 with added mustard of group admin drama.

tl;dr The disconnect between authorial self-perceived quality vs. community reception continues to be infuriating and incomprehensible.

Hey, since this is still vaguely active, I wanted to say, if you've been in a writeoff prior to this one, please check out this post and let me know if I've missed any of your entries! (Assuming you haven't seen my journal on the same topic, anyway.)

3894115

Going back to what I think Horizon said re : Wise Reviewing, or whatever the term was, I'm not saying it's OOC in an objective sense, but that I personally felt that did not fit her, did not c are for it, and so the story suffered in my eyes because of it. I'm then offering I think other people may have had the same reaction, even if some of the more veteran crowd did not. On the other hand, I've also seen Rainbow Rocks, and I saw a consistent trend from many people nothing they had not, and so the Dazzlings/Sunset are going to resonate far less with that crowd.

3893220
3893261
I think Sharp Spark needs an honorary "Most Controversial" award for that flame war over there. I'm still laughing at the response it got. It's weird to think that people are trying to debate the literary merits of a story about two elements of harmony getting into a brawl in a secret Canterlot fight club.

Sure, it's not going to make total sense and there's no reason to write up a huge backstory in order to create that illusion. The only issue I had with the story apart from maybe needing an AU tag is that there is very little setup at the beginning to set the stage for the action. Everything past that is quite enjoyable with the fight scene itself being very well written.

I can see people liking it or not liking it for a number of reasons, but that's the beauty of it. It did what it was supposed to do. All this does is reinforce the idea that everyone has their own opinion. They are free to voice it and everyone else is free to consider it/ignore it/counter it. I applaud people for having an opinion and not being afraid to share it. What isn't cool is when that opinion starts getting directed at people and the personal attacks start flying. It's kind of sad that the fallout over a fun story and group politics left a lot of sore feelings when we're supposed to be helping each other and enjoying the work we all put into this community.

Thanks again to everyone here for being cool. It's really fun to be a part of these competitions and I hope everyone can enjoy them as much as I do.

3895382
Actually, the thought occurred to me the other day that we seem to have a lot of "I didn't see EQG/RR" people in the writeoff, and On Wings likely had a lot of N/A votes for it, thus amplifying whatever votes were cast.

And on that note, I really think that if you're going to be in the writeoff, you should watch both movies, if only so you know what's going on when people write about them. They're not canon to the show, but they're still major media events in the franchise (moreso than the comics, I'd say), and being aware of them is a good idea. On Fimfic itself, you can avoid stories about stuff you know nothing about, but here there are no tags and likely no warning at all as to what you're getting into. Shouldn't you be prepared?

3896698

Well, you should also just watch RR because it's awesome! I mean, EQG was kinda...meh, but RR showed they learned, a lot, and made it way better

3896762
Too true.

You should also watch A Very Minty Christmas for when I bring back G3. :V

3896916
If a story involves G3 characters, does it need a crossover tag?

I'm perfectly fine not knowing

3896698
Also, yes, EQG movies. I'll be sure to watch them before I participate again

3897025
Find out here!

3897033
Yes, actually. This was established long ago for previous-gen crossovers on EQD. :B

And I'm kind of kidding anyway. I mean, I wouldn't write a G3 crossover for the writeoff. Now for Fimfiction...

3893588

I friggin' knew it! I looked askance at that but I wasn't sure enough of my instincts and assumed the author knew what they were doing.

Never assume that I know what I am doing, for as I was advised once: it's not important to know what you're doing, it's important to pretend to know what you're doing.

But even I can't manage that at 3am. Hence the error.

3897635
I didn't even know this was a commonly asked question. Intriguing.
Makes sense being British that I instinctively used Burnt, but if I were to use that sentence again (which isn't the case, but meh), I'd probably go with Burned instead.

3893220
3893261
3896151
Sharp Spark got the first Foal Free Press article in a month out of this debacle -- kind of a dubious honor, but then the drama was entirely other people's.

3897395
I JUST MIGHT

3898166
I really wish you had not made me aware of this site. :B

3898166
3898523
Holy crap. Horse infamous.

Is it just me, or is it really weird that a site exists for the sole purpose of reporting on the drama of another site?

3897577 You know, I've made the opposite mistake. The middle path is narrow indeed.

3898523 Because you don't like it or because you're about to spend a lot of time reading it? (Considering its nature, those might not be mutually exclusive.) (Also, for some reason I got a notification about Thornwing's and Doseux's comments, but not yours. Not really relevant to anything, but weird.)

3897395
3898523

He's like a shark. If he stops reviewing stories, he'll drown.

I think. It's been a while since those biology classes.

3898166
Man; that's some dumb internet drama right there.

Honestly, much worse stories than that have gotten into the Library, so I can't even see how you'd complain. Frankly, if the admins added more random stories that they read to the library which were, you know, actually good, it would help populate the library with better stories.

The real problem with Twilight's Library, though, is that it really is literally useless; it provides a very marginal number of views, and they don't even do some sort of review thing on the stories which do make it in. If they had a weekly post of some sort which promoted the stories that they'd added to the library, it might be worthwhile... but, well, they don't.