4084824
So does Pranks for Nothing.

Congratulations to our winners!

Horizon moves up into first place on the score boards with The Iridescent Iron Rat.

Bookplayer shows she knows how to write with Dubious Enchantment (and stylo told me that she wrote it, too, but alas, it told me someone else wrote it too, and thus I assigned her a different one).

Bradel writes yet another strong entry with The Museum of Lost Histories.

And a bunch of people decided that I wrote Wizards, Fools, and Foals, which was very flattering, but I'm afraid it wasn't mine.

More notes on my own entry soon.

4084796
Literal last minute patches.

4084838
I hear ya - my freaking refresh clicking probably didn't help either.

4084834
Another fun thing, less than a point separates 3rd to 10th place.

aaand that's a wrap. Secrecy's over!
I did better than I expected, considering that many of the reviews posted here didn't seem to get the link between sections… In any case, I prepared my response in advance in the hopes of posting it before everyone abandons the thread:

I went out on a limb here, in some respects. I don't actually think muscle knots are really this tightly (har har) coupled with emotional stress, but it made for a fun story to write. Lotus is the opposite of her clientele: silent and yet completely unfiltered in her opinions. I intended for her to be silent by choice, not requirement. I'll have to make that clearer.

I've had knots worked out, but not a full-on professional massage. I've also heard that certain types of deep-tissue massage are downright painful to receive, which inspired AJ's ordeal. Constantly interrupting her dialogue with expressions of discomfort was way more fun than it should've been.

I briefly considered adding the rest of the mane six as clients, each with their own private hangup. I concluded that that would get painfully repetitive, particularly if they all kept comparing themselves to Applejack. That's supposed to be the cohesive link between sections, by the way: they all look up to Applejack in one way or another, and yet Applejack has unspoken issues that have her in a worse state than the rest of them.

... That's what I was shooting for, anyway. I might've missed the mark. I'm disappointed (in myself) that the story wasn't cohesive for many of you, and also that it apparently wasn't as funny as I thought it was. Maybe my sense of humor is too deadpan and/or dark. I guess the laughs via hoof-in-the-back just didn't work as well as a pie-in-the-face.

Thank you all for your feedback!

[2:08:45 PM] M1Garand8: Oh, so Doseux wrote Lunnas Ache
[2:08:49 PM] M1Garand8: SHOULDA KNOWN
[2:08:52 PM] Floydien: Oh, did he?
[2:08:56 PM] Floydien: topkek

Also, congrats to all the winners! :3

4084834

Bookplayer shows she knows how to write with Dubious Enchantment.

Now here I go getting a bad rep... soon you'll be expecting competence from me or something.

4084856
That p. p. had everyone fooled.

4084864
It was too obvious, clearly.

For the record, I didn't guess him; I guessed Pineta wrote it, because he's written some weird offbeat stuff before and I didn't have anything else to go on. Horizon was right out, and a lot of the people I knew who could do it wouldn't have done it (or said too much about it for it to likely be them).

4084834
Out of all my runs on Stylo, this is the closest it got to actually predicting things:

724-Coming-Home --> orbitingkettle
725-Pranks-for-Nothing --> pineta
726-Setting-the-Beat --> presentperfect
727-Dubious-Enchantment --> baalbunny
728-A-Horrible-Horribly-Awkward-Uncomfortable-and-Itchy-Love-Story --> titaniumdragon
729-Wizards-Fools-and-Foals --> baalbunny
730-In-the-line-of-duty --> bookplayer
*731-Is-That-The-Time --> raritytookmanehattan
732-Cold-as-Starlight --> baalbunny
*733-Good-Taste --> badhorse
*734-Only-The-Good-Die-Young --> sharpspark
735-End-of-the-Day --> bookplayer
736-Apple-Knots --> badhorse
737-Closure --> badhorse
*738-Cold-Hooves --> presentperfect
739-All-Things-In-Time --> pineta
740-Some-Trade-Offs-Mean-More-Than-Others --> foxye
741-Passing-of-the-Torch --> baalbunny
742-Wing-Lock --> pineta
743-An-Antique-Key --> kwirkyj
744-Letting-Her-Go --> badhorse
745-The-Museum-of-Lost-Histories --> badhorse
746-Lunnas-Ache --> baalbunny
747-Apple-Cobbler-and-Stephen-Davis-Enjoy-an-Ordinary-Friday-Night --> raritytookmanehattan
748-Contradictions --> silentstrider
749-Caste-Off --> trickquestion
750-The-Old-Gray-Mare --> pineta
751-Opening-Hours --> fanofmosteverything
752-Back-to-Normal --> horizon
753-Rose-Petals --> pineta
*754-The-Iridescent-Iron-Rat --> horizon
755-The-Party-is-Over --> silentstrider
756-One-More-Round --> everyday
757-Trinkets --> bugle
758-What-Bartenders-Do --> morningsun
759-A-Day-in-Ponyville --> bookplayer

I didn't really follow much anything from this list unless I had some other clue supporting the decision.

4084864
6 guesses for PP
hue

I am ultimately content with my showing of making the cutoff, and am not surprised after that it was at the bottom of that pack.

The core idea I had was that of 'The Sun & Moon are basically giving the Royal Sisters radiation poisoning, and the cure is that each is the diametric opposite of the other' - everything came forth from that as well as the mental image of how it would change their appearance. I wanted something for each sister that clearly showed they were still Celestia/Luna, yet affected by what had happened; hence, Celestia takes on a sort of glowing ghostly white with a blue-green ghost flame mane, and Luna's night blue becomes more of a Rainbow Dash sky blue with Sunset-hued mane.

Twilight as the solution to their problems via Starswirl's spell was also fairly on in the process, as well as wanting the story itself to be about Twilight's reaction to all of this. It's her Kobayashi Maru - she can choose to accept the seeming inevitable and salvage what time she can, or try to find a fix despite being assured its impossible, and thus squander what time she has left. Except, just like Kirk, she does not believe in the no-win situation and she finds a way to cheat

A few questions I remember that stuck out :
1. Shouldn't Luna's banishment have thrown all this off?
- What I saw happening here is that Celestia may have had the power to raise the moon, but she was doing so with energy drawn from the sun; thus through the entire thousand years, banished Luna was still moon-poisoned, and Celestia Sunburnt. The other idea I toyed with is that, yes, raising both neutralized the damage, but it didn't undo what had built up, so when Luna came back they were right where they started. I'm more partial to the first, though.

2. Why was Twilight immune / why couldn't they just pass it on and continue?
- Twilight is immune because they cancel each other out, but she's also basically the only pony who could do such a thing because she's the Paragon of Magic; any other pony holding both would be unable to handle that much power. They also can't just give up the power because it's the only thing keeping them going. The idea is that the enhanced longevity/health granted helped sustain them this long, and without it, they'll die that much faster. So the Sun/Moon are a poison pill.

I think those were the two big questions, though I will have to comb for others.

I definitely plan to significantly expand the middle section and clear up the ending a bit. I still want it to end on that moment of revelation, because I like that as the finisher, but its clear that -what happened- needs to be made more obvious there.

Happy birthday to me, I placed at thirteenth, I wrote Coming Home, any questions for me?

This was a lot of fun! Now, I can finally reply to people! Hold onto your pants!

4060704
Regarding the voice: I feel like I couldn't leave it up to the reader - and seeing so many people miss the emotional subtext I spread out in it is frustratingly good evidence I would have been more obscure in it. I also wrote from a perspective and character I've never cared too much for or thought about, but it was fun banging this out in an hour.

Regarding the pills: Those are aspirin. I was thinking: Hangovers, people usually pop an advil or two. So, pills :V Relatedly, I've not dabbled with the merrily-drunk all too often, so my descriptions are a little lacking. I didn't want Smarty to be too aware of the surroundings and have too much knowledge, else I'd lose the reader.

Finally, about those damned shelves -_- I knew it was too deep an emotional ideal, but the idea of 'It's finally my time' and the anticipation was supposed to drop a pit in your chest as it turned out Smarty wasn't the choice of the child. If the toy was next to Smarty, it wouldn't have had that same 'Oomph' of seeing the hook brush over your head, ready to pick you and bring you home :V Also, regarding emptiness: It's a dying store. The shopkeep is on his final legs, barely keeping production up as he loses interest in the store. Hence the pockmarcked shelves. He'd rearrange them... but for what? Nobody buys his toys anymore... he drinks away the night, stumbles in the AM and drowns his troubles in what little good he can still do.

Twilight's parents were supposed to be broke, in my envisioning, but I forgot to mention it. Fimfiction's version shall be modified with many changes.

I honestly don't know how I could expand on the idea, as Bad Horse suggested way back on page 8 or something. It's been a fun experience. I'd love to do it again :D Maybe I won't finish my fic two hours into the contest this time :V
4048863
Thank you for pointing out that hook/magic thing, I would've missed it entirely :O I'm glad you liked it though :V I'll be uploading it soon.

4041628
Thanks for the compliment and tense catch :D I addressed your concerns above, on Twilight's parents, and the shelves. I'm keeping the shelf in the final version the same, but the reason they leave will be explained a bit better. Valuable feedback :D

4040972
I'm glad I inspired with those phrases :D I had thought about the coffee description (it is coffee), and I could fix around a bit, but I thought it worked quite well. I would expand upon it, but honestly, I feel it would have taken away from it to take the story out of Smarty's sole perspective. On the shelves: see above. I had hoped it would imply the store being on its last legs, and the shopkeep being hungover implying he doesn't keep up the store as much as he used to. As far as broken toys: I was just trying to set the mood and tone, by showing that he hasn't replaced the broken toys, instead, letting them waste away... making Smarty also consider if he/she will waste away with them. I wanted an undertone of desperation so the ending would flow better, and I'm glad it somewhat kept that balance for you.

I want to thank everyone who offered a review, and I think I can only name one who I was really hoping for something from. I'd love to see my HORSE score, Bradel. Please? :V Next run I'll be better-suited to review, now I know how this runs :D Thanks for a great time, guys!

4084935

If Twilight Sparkle appears in my room to demand that I write the story to be less emotionally taxing, she'll get what she wants.

Also I'll write myself into Equestria in the process because WHY NOT

4084894
Stylo, if you just try to stick all of the stories in with someone, isn't very effective a great deal of the time. Having suspicions reinforced by it helps, and while it can identify someone out of the blue (Apple Knots was IDed in this way as it stuck out very clearly as theirs; so did The Iridescent Iron Rat) many are not nearly so pretty and thus you need to narrow things down a lot.

Unfortunately there were lots of good stories and unfortunately I totally was off about what stories people wrote in many cases (though a number of folks were fingered by stylo but had too many other fingers pointing at them at the same time; if stylo tells me that they wrote one of five stories, that isn't terribly helpful). Stylo also told me that a lot of people wrote some of the stories, and a lot of people have some amount of stylistic overlap, wich makes stylo less useful.

If you just throw all the stories in with mine in stylo, you won't find Rose Petals was mine; if you just stick in Rose Petals, it does fall in with the rest of my stuff, and isn't a total outlier.

I'm seriously considering:

Rewriting "Pranks" as a season one story with a "Dear Princess Celestia" letter from Twilight at the end and everything. Of course, considering that I wasn't going to enter at all this time, I guess I have to thank Bradel and everyone who voted for this round's prompt for forcing me into it.

As for the "cover art" question, there's a perfect screenshot on the back of the season 4 DVD collection--Rainbow with a smirk on her face and one front leg across the shoulders of an unhappy-looking Fluttershy--but I can't figure out which episode it's from! I've tried searching Google images, have looked through all the collected Fluttershy screenshots on the MLP wikia, have rewatched about half of season four this past week instead of doing the writing that I was supposed to be doing this month, and I haven't found it anywhere! I might just take the DVD cover, scan it, crop the image, blow it up, and see if that'll work...

Mike

4084960

Well, I got you on Rose Petals. What I'm kind of sad about is that even with my coaching last round, no one guessed either of my stories. No one called me out on my math either.

If there's one lesson I learned from this round, it's this: I shouldn't edit my stories. People seemed to like what I threw together in three hours with no editing a lot more than what I spent the rest of the weekend working on and tweaking until it was completely different than what I originally intended.

Dubious Enchantment and Closing Time writeoff final thoughts:

First, let me apologize for dropping the ball on reviews of any kind. I procrastinated, then had a busy week last week.

Second, well… second! Second place was a bit of a surprise… I was sure I was aiming for seventh again. There were some really awesome stories here. Thank you generous people who scored me well despite the flaw you saw in it (because nearly everyone had a pet flaw. I think Gob was handing them out free with a purchase...)

Third, the story: I love love love goblin markets, in all their forms.

This story actually started as a line that popped into my head for an idea I had for Play Your Cards Right, involving Pinkie giving Twilight a magic tarot deck, and then casually mentioning that she picked up this neat monkey’s paw for Rainbow Dash. When we ended up with Closing Time, I decided to combine that with my love of mystery merchants. Then I wrote the first few paragraphs about Gob, and it became a comedy, so I ran with it.

Fourth, reviews. Thank you to everyone who reviewed it. Thank you thank you thank you (especially because I didn’t get around to my own reviews.)

Reviews seemed to have minor issues all over the place. People liked, had issues with, and didn’t like the ending, so let’s go there first.

From a comedic standpoint, this is based on real life. I was a manager at Pier 1 Imports, and no matter how much customers were complaining about the shoddiness of whatever they were returning, somehow store credit for more cheap wicker was the solution they were looking for… I wasn’t exactly allowed to say “this store sells cheap wicker furniture. The item you’re purchasing with your store credit is exactly the same as the item you returned, just with a different weave. It will do exactly the same thing.” But I sure thought it enough.

From a more thematic standpoint… shops like this (the fairy market in Stardust, Portobello Road in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, the Floating Market in Neverwhere, etc.) sell stories. Specifically, they sell the thing that kicks off your story. And of course that thing is trouble, of course it's a curse, "may you live in interesting times." That is, essentially, what Gob told Twilight:

“It's not about the items, it's about the experience. For a few bits, my customer gets something that makes the world more interesting, teaches lessons, rewards the clever and punishes the greedy,” Gob said calmly. “In Equestria, a shop like this is almost necessary. And somepony has to manage it, so here we are.”

And the items they go for are the stories they'd want to be in: Rarity's is too vague, I think, but a magical item of jewelry seems romantic; magic beans are for earning the things Applejack needs to take care of her farm; Dash wants adventure so she goes for the treasure maps; and I think it would be physically impossible for Fluttershy to turn down a Mogwai, even if she knew about gremlins. Those are the stories in their souls. It’s the reason the musical Into the Woods begins and ends with the same words: “I wish…”

TwiJack: When the characters feel that it’s tacked on, it’s probably intentional. Specifically: I liked AJ and the poison apple, and that’s traditionally a love thing. So I tried to subvert it by having enough potential there that it made sense for the kiss to work, while everypony acknowledged that lip to lip contact as a poison fruit cure wasn’t really romantic or indicative of a future relationship (though they do recognize the potential.). (Also, I was surprised and relieved I didn’t get slammed for the Monty Python paraphrasing.)

Twilight knowing about the shop and threatening to report it: In the story: Twilight has a remarkable amount of genre savvy about the shop and the exact nature of all the items. The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday is a fantasy trope, and with Equestria being such a magic rich setting I would think they have a few (Gob also mentions that his competitors sometimes mix kidney beans in their magic beans.) If so, the government of Equestria (which I always imagine in line with GhostOfHeraclitus' stories, even if it's not specifically the same setting) would also have certain amount of genre savvy about them as well. Twilight's letter might result in a visit from a member of the Magical Retailer Licensing Board.

...maybe I'll write a story about that.

Anyway, I’m going to add a bit to Twilight’s last line to make this more clear.

The shop selling dangerous items: I addressed this, but as I said, in a world where you can buy the Alicorn Amulet, magic comic books, where Heart’s Desire grows all over the countryside and a love poison can be made via a book in a local library (not to mention where ponies live next door to the Everfree forest and fire-breathing dragons migrate over the country,) I think a shop like this works within the setting.

Also, I’m sure Gob keeps the proper paperwork and everything is up to code.

Using pre-existing ideas: Well, in a way that’s part of the joke. You, the reader, along with Twilight recognize what trouble is happening. It also helped for a short story to not have to show what everything was, explain or show Twilight figuring out what to do with it, and then solve the problem. I tried to drop more original items around the shop, and had I been telling the story straight then they would have been original items.

Fluttershy’s animals not peeking in when Twilight, Dash, and AJ show up: I’m adding a line to fix that.

Using Pinkie instead of Twilight: This is an excellent idea, but then I would have to write an awful lot of Pinkie.

Fluttershy’s characterization: I remembered she was there and gave her lines. What more do you really want from me?!

...I’m sure there were others I’m missing. I feel like everyone had something. If you had a serious question that I missed here, feel free to let me know.

I’m fixing up a few of the easier ones and giving a thorough proofreading, but I’m not going to change too much about it. For something written in three days, I’m happier with it than a lot of stuff I spent much longer on. I'll probably just post it soon and see what happens.

Thanks again!

4084980
I was pretty lazy with my guesses this round; most of my correct guesses were just from guessing as I read the stories, and then were confirmed by stylo. I don't have you in my Stylo database yet, so I didn't really spend much time focusing on what you wrote, and frankly, I don't have a good handle on your style.

4085103
This story actually inspired me to write a bit of original fiction, not pony at all.

You monster.

I did really enjoy the story, though. It was a very good one.

Well, congratulations to the winners. I really loved "The Iridescent Iron Rat", but as said before, I need to learn to write reviews before I may attempt an in depth analysis of the stories, and I can't yet guess an author to save my life. I am also very impressed that all of you managed to write such things in such a short time.

Now, let me start with "What I have Learned but with Hindsight was Obvious with 'In the Line of Duty'" now with proper Capitalization.

-Seeing the grammatical mess that my story was, I should kiss my editor if this would not pose some heavy logistical challenges and it wouldn't probably get me MACEd or tased. I think I need to offer him a beer/drink/coffee/hot cocoa at least, but there is still those pesky planet between us. Which means there is probably a market for some service to offer drinks/lunches/coffees to people half a world away, something more personal than simply sending money. Oh, and I am rambling...

-I need to sanity check Ideas and stories. The right answer to "Hey, I could make a 2000 word chase scene with idiotic over the top action and violence for futile and moronic motivations." is not "Cool, let's make it. " but should have been "Bad Kettle, not in three days and not without supervision."

-I am not (yet) "Doc" E. E. Smith, Warren Murphy or Lester Dent, so the omni-competent protagonist (which I find a hilarious idea) still needs work.

-Context is everything (almost). I find the idea of an omni-competent protagonist absolutely funny (I had belly aching from laughter watching "Our Man Flint" or "Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins"). I also think that cartoonish violence and over the top action isn't used enough in written comedy, and that ridiculousness is what makes "Die hard" funny and the lack of it "Tropa D'Elite" a punch in the guts. So I think I mostly missed a proper contextualization here, beside obviously the rhythm of the piece which was not a great idea for this format.

-I am a very slow writer, which means I needed too long to write the thing and not enough to edit it, or let it rest before rereading it a last time. Also, the spell-checker can be a traitorous beast.

-I also seem to have absolutely no shame, so while my submission wasn't exactly stellar, it was fun and I may try again.

There were two things I was going to post before the results came out, and then I lost the day to an Ultimate Frisbee tournament; let me clear those things off my plate real quick.

One: I read Good Taste second-from-last, and knew I'd have to add it to my this-should-have-been-a-finalist-but-wasn't callout list. (Now that I know it was written by Bad Horse, I can see why.)

Two, I was asked to drop in a review by request.
4084851
Apple Knots
Overall, this story felt similar to "Setting the Beat" for me, in that this was a "day in the life" sequence of events/character exploration rather than a story based on conflict and resolution, but I think there was ultimately more depth to it, and it was ultimately more successful in its aims. Part of this is because the three encounters were explicitly about digging out character and revealing secrets, while "Setting the Beat" had great incidental characterization but structurally was built around the music.
Part of this was also the gimmick — I don't think I've seen Lotus as The Voiceless before. Building your story around that sort of gimmick can be a two-edged sword; it's unusual and therefore interesting, but any sort of limit to communication also hampers the sort of story you can tell. I think this was pulled off surprisingly well — the choice of Lotus third-person limited and the conceit of communicating through massage filled in a lot of those gaps. (I note its strong showing in the voting; I suspect I'm not alone in thinking so.)
What brought it down in my personal voting was two main things. The first is that Lotus, erratically but repeatedly, shows a shocking lack of empathy:

She could also paralyze Rarity from the neck down and claim it was an accident. If only that pony wasn’t responsible for a quarter of the spa’s income.

Lotus’s hooves stopped cold for a second. Jittery here had a love life?

“It’s not like I’m not being honest with ‘em. It’s all probably just my imag—hrrg!”
Wrong answer.

Don't get me wrong, this is effective characterization; and it's not even necessarily a bad thing. (See Estee's Five Hundred Little Murders for an exemplary example of a pony villain protagonist.) But when you make your protagonist sound like a sociopath, I don't think that can be a background or occasional element. 500LM is about Flitter, and what drives her to be such a horrid pony, and then puts her in direct contrast with Fluttershy, who does even more horrible things but is coming from a place of true strength and moral grounding. I think your initial inclination here, to make Lotus merely the proxy through which the story occurs rather than a major force driving the plot, was a good one; but the more complex you make her, the more it becomes about her rather than her patrons. The second half of that is that she bounces back and forth between genuinely helpful and frustrated by the long day and then the disturbing lines quoted above; when there's no consistent characterization it's harder to connect with her.
The second major issue for me was that I don't think you brought through your major theme well (of Applejack not being the pony that her friends think she is). Going through all of the Mane Six would probably be tedious, but a third example before Applejack shows up wouldn't go wrong; twice is a coincidence, three times a pattern. As well, both Rarity and Fluttershy have their own problems which are completely unrelated to AJ — she's really only ever mentioned in passing.
Which brings me to the title. "Apple Knots" is ambiguous: it could mean the tension in her friends that Applejack causes, or the tension in Applejack herself. It feels like something of a missed opportunity to throw that ambiguity away, because AJ is not central in any scene other than her own. I kept expecting Lotus to work out a knot of jealousy or envy over AJ's fabulous handling of the things her friends struggle with, or for them to be irrationally upset over something AJ did, but as it is there's a "Rarity Knots" section followed by a "Fluttershy Knots" section and only then do we get to the title.
The story has a bright future, but I hope that helps if you're going to polish it up for publication.

That said, congratulations to Bookplayer[1] and Bradel[2] for their first Writeoff Association medals, and congratulations to Thornwing for dominating the guessing competition! A big hooves-up to my own personal Top Five as well:
1. Cold As Starlight (my only 10)
2. Wizards, Fools And Foals / Dubious Enchantment
4. Pranks for Nothing
5. Contradictions / The Museum Of Lost Histories

I might type up some thoughts on Iridescent Iron Rat later, but I'm pretty gassed right now, and I've got work in the morning. I'm going to see if I can make some quick fixes and get it published rather than let it languish in edit hell like half of my Writeoff stories.

--
[1] 4084863 Pfft, we already knew you were a good writer. Now you just have a shiny to prove it.
[2] See [1]

4085237
Or Nazis.

4083840
Cleave?

4084824
I literally could not have made that one more obvious:

As TD lovingly put it, "trans angst"? Check.
Fuchsiafun help Purplesmart? Check.
Overuse of bold and italics? Check. (but less, at least)
Lavender Unicorn Syndrome? Check. (but less, at least)
Sadisms? Er, no. Scratch that.
Saidisms? Check. (maybe less)
Time or dimension shenanigans? Check.
Nonsequitur rudehumor? Check.
Etc. etc.

I have some more to say on this but I'm going to post it in two messages which follow this one because they are very different thoughts.

I don't have time to say anything about my entry, it'll have to wait until after work. :/

4084072
Also, Alexstrazsa is not Alex S. c.c Just, just making sure.

4084914

It's her Kobayashi Maru

I like this

Well, as my first write-off competition, I am not particularly surprised that I didn't get all that far; I am a little startled at the Wooden Spoon thing though. Like, what? Should I be mildly happy? Sad? I'm mostly confused right now.

Beyond the Wooden Spoon thing though, while I did not receive much of any award for Closure, I did receive feedback on it and my writing, which is a far more rewarding prize. The last time I had characters doing stuff with seemingly no explicit reason, my readers made note that it was kind of hard to get the "why". In hindsight, I by far overdid it with a character like Gilda, in part because she is not the talky type (as some folks have mentioned) and because she is actually a canon character that I didn't have to invent/reinvent.

Going back and reading my writing now, it's kind of a cringe, not because it's a terrible read grammar-wise, but because I feel I could have done so much better on it. Getting an editor I thought was out of the spirit of the competition, but I will have to bear that in mind for next time so that I can go ahead and line someone up for that. I could just repeat my review of my own story here, but I think that would be kind of pointless in the grand scheme of things. I already know some of the things I caught after the fact, and most of the less obvious stuff (to me anyways) is in other peoples reviews of my story.

Some of the other things that were a little less obvious were the style. I used to write very simplistically, but then I started cringing when I read over too many simple sentences in a single paragraph. The simple sentence is not a foreign being to me, but it hasn't been a friend in years, and I think for the sake of fanfic writing, I might need to adjust that. If it can be said in a simple sentence, no need to make it a complex one sort of thing.

What I hate the most about my fic is that title. I was originally going to title it something like "Brushed off Again" or something of that sort, but I didn't think the prompt would be read clearly enough in the story (should have been a red flag right there) so I made the title attempt to direct the intent of the story. Nice to see that didn't work out.

Probably what I love most about my fic is that it finally gave me a work to compare some of my lesser detail-oriented stories to when I am contrasting extremes. I'm detailed in all the wrong ways, while normally I simply lack detail in the right places. Through reviews, it also shored up that in skipping the pre-writing phase so often, structure and meaning literally come as I write. Which wouldn't be such a bad thing if the ending was not always the last thing I thought about.

Overall, I'm a little dissapointed with my own performance, but I offer congratulations to all the finalists. I was sitting there on the last day, reading through the thread, and then I read that I could still vote even if I had not read all the stories in my list. And I'm thinking, "Well, they gave me at least 4/10 or something stories that I can fairly rate" so I voted for those stories and put the rest as N/A. I'll have to be more wary doing that next time though, seeing how close the votes were for this one.

Almost can't wait for the next one. Maybe this time when a prompt is chosen, I'll already have something in my unpublished folder that I can whip out and not have to start from scratch. I think I can continue to rack in the "Avoided Detection" award for many more write-offs to come.

Fourth place, huh? I’m very much okay with that. Interesting to note that no one guessed that I wrote Wizards, Fools, and Foals. (Three people guessed TitaniumDragon, which is rather flattering.)

Two people thought I wrote “Dubious Enchantment.” (Clearly not; I’d have found a way to work in Derpy Hooves.) Each of the following stories got one me guess each: “The Old Gray Mare,” “Cold Hooves,” “In the line of duty,” “Trinkets,” and “Caste Off.”

I completely forgot the top 5 was a thing. I’ll rectify that now:
1. The Museum of Lost Histories
2. The Iridescent Iron Rat
3. The Old Gray Mare
4. Rose Petals
4. Apple Knots

Now, at last, for review responses. I’ve been keeping track of these for the past fortnight, so my apologies in advance for the length. Also, thanks to those who only had nice things to say, but to whom I have nothing to say in response.

4041529 (TitaniumDragon) It was originally going to be Spike warning himself to get as many books into the library’s basement as possible, but I couldn’t get the timeline to come together, so I just went with the equine father of chronomancy.
Also, it’s nice to know that I can write something you like.

4042450 (Axis of Rotation) Looking back, I don’t make it very clear how Star Swirl came to the conclusion that the inspiring figure was himself. Basically, as he’s writing the incomplete sentence, he realizes that he so carefully modeled his life on the mysterious stallion that he became him. Combine that with never seeing that stallion again and Star Swirl’s hopping about the timeline, and the conclusion is obvious to him once he thinks about it.
Star Swirl nearly forgot (and wanted to forget) the Nightmare Moon incident, which is why he prefaces the note with a comment on that forgetfulness. He’s asking Luna to forgive him because he knows about her descent into madness and chooses not to warn her. He has a very good reason, but he still feels guilty, knowing all the suffering she will endure. I only meant there to be friendship between Star Swirl and Luna, though I suppose some shipping was inevitable.

4054683 (Strythio) I find it difficult not to slip humor into my stories. At this point, I just try to run with it. As for the prophecy, if you knew one of your few friends was going to descend into madness for a millennium and anything you did to avert that would only make the problem worse, you’d probably be upset too.
How did Star Swirl know about it? Well, I’m not overly fond of the Journal of the Two Royal Pony Sisters, but I did like the bit that implied that Star Swirl was familiar with the symbol at the center of the Tree of Harmony. That implies his familiarity with Twilight, and by extension, her great deeds.

4057862 (RarityTookManehattan) Yeah, it was basically an attack of fridge logic. If Star Swirl knew about Twilight, then he’d probably know about what she did, and by extension, what would come of Luna. I felt the need to address it, but didn’t have a lot of time left to work it in. I’ll try to polish that.

4058641 (PresentPerfect) Someone figured out the twist at the same time as Star Swirl, and it was Present Perfect.

4058872 (Silent Strider) Given that the review immediately before yours figured out the twist at the same time as the character, I have to think that there’s a degree of variable mileage here. In any case, the key twist was in the combination of the base concept and the character’s reaction to them. Novelty can be an emergent property; the individual ingredients may be familiar, but put them together in an odd way, and you have a new spin. Also, I have no idea what you’re talking about in regard to the foreshadowing in the second paragraph. I don’t remember putting any in there.
As for the sexuality comment, that’s a symptom of how I plan out dialogue. In order to make sure it sounds authentic, I don’t write my first draft, I act it. That can sometimes result in overlong, unrelated tangents, much like actual conversations. I’ll try to prune those a bit more carefully in the future.

4071114 (HoofBitingActionOverload) Unfortunately, if I did cut off the story where you suggested, it would be under two thousand words. Also, given the amount of confusion that stories like “Passing of the Torch” and “Only the Good Die Young” cause through indirect reveals, explicit exposition seems like the better option.

4076058 (Trick Question) The views of the character do not reflect those of the author. Still, I’m the one who decided to keep that line, and that was a bad choice. As for the use of superlatives rather than descriptors, the first part’s tone was meant to be somewhere between personal journal and autobiography, so putting in descriptive details didn’t feel natural. This is Star Swirl, not an eight year-old with her first diary. Also, the intention, much like that whole scene, was to contrast the two ends of the journey, the humble apprentice and the mighty wizard.

4077502 (Thornwing) I’ll try to make the figurative nature of the curse a bit clearer. And thanks for the attention to detail on the bearded one’s name. I’m the sort of person who twitches at the sight of “Applebloom,” so I’d hate to make a similar mistake.

4081956 (monokeras) It’s comments like this that make me wish I could run this by an editor other than myself. I thought “dost” was second-person only, and that “canst” worked for the plural. A bit more research would’ve definitely been a good idea there. Thanks.
And yeah, as noted above, the gist is that if Twilight, the fourth alicorn, doesn’t get some early experience on Nightmare Moon, the world is pretty much doomed. So Star Swirl is stuck knowing that one of his few friends is doomed to go bad and get sealed in the moon for a millennium, which rather sucks.

Thanks again to everyone who reviewed, congratulations to the medalists, and good luck in the future.

4085491

The whole idea, or just that I made a Star Trek reference?

I'm… flattered by all the people who accused the author of Setting the Beat of knowing what they were doing. This is my first published fiction, of any kind, and I'm amazed that it's being received as well as it was.

To the people who said it didn't have much of a story: Thanks for giving me "most controversial". You're not wrong, but it had about as much story as it set out to.

The night before the prompt was released, I was driving home from Shakespeare rehearsal and this song came up, about a sax player who sees a pretty girl in the club he's playing in late at night. So when I checked the next morning and saw that "Closing Time" was the prompt, my first reaction was, "Okay. I can work with this." (This may also mean that if I enter anything in the next one, it has a better-than-random chance of being about theater or building things - set build is that weekend, and I will have it on the brain.)

When I submitted, there were two main things I was worried about:
- That the musical terms would be too dense for people without that background. I tried to write the narration around the terms in such a way that people could pick up on, if not what the words themselves meant, at least what was actually happening. From the responses I've gotten here, it sounds like I did a decent job of that for the most part, but I'm not sure if there's a good way to improve on it in the text. Would people recommend I include a glossary in an author's note when I publish it to FIMfiction?
- That the Luna bit would feel tacked on. As I was coming up with the idea for the piece, I saw 4026453 suggest that there would probably be more Luna in the field, and I thought of a conversation between Luna and Octavia that would have had Luna talking about how Night Court was deserted as usual, and she was bored, and she was looking around Canterlot to see why ponies were still up, and it makes her happy to know that there are ponies who enjoy doing things at night in this day and age, oh and also she enjoyed listening to the music the band was playing. Then I got to about two or three paragraphs before I would have needed to start writing it, and I realized that not only did I not have a good way to lead into it, it didn't fit with what I had. It probably could have been a solid story on its own (or with other things that grew out of it), but it wasn't part of the picture I’d been painting. I still wanted to have something there, though, so I wrote that little paragraph, and no one seems to be complaining about it.

4039513
Yeah, the denseness of the terms was something I knew was a potential problem. Sorry if that part didn't work for you.

4041556
I'm pretty sure that phrase has been around and in use since well before that song, which I'd never actually listened to from beginning to end until after I wrote this. So that was not an intentional reference, or at least not to what you thought it was. I did once hear a big-band song (that I can't find now… come on, Google, give me something to work with!) about last call that ended with the singer saying, "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here," and the orchestra/audience groaning, and to the extent that that line here was an intentional reference, that's what I meant it to be to.

4041914

Re: "Flank Sinatra": Well, I was all set to use "Count Neighsie" there, as well as where I did, until I realized that Basie never recorded "That’s Life." Blame history, don’t blame me.

reading this story is like listening to jazz.

I'm totally going to pretend that was exactly what I set out to do I mean, you are an excellent person for picking up on that.

4048863
Depending on how you turn your head and squint at it, "Hosston" could be at least three cities: Houston, Boston, or Austin.

Sad to say, the "fifth position" joke is getting cut; while I'm not sure I agree with Bradel that the conversation as a whole feels forced, that line and the one after it definitely do.

4048876
4048899
I know B-flat on top of the staff can also be played in (a slightly shortened) fifth position, and I know trombones are more inclined to use alternate positions than I might be to use alternate fingerings. And if the run in question was more easily playable with the slide out there instead of all the way in, it seems to me one might do it. (I'm not a trombonist myself, but my brother and both parents are/were, so I do understand how the instrument works.)

4060704
Fifth is making a semi-joke about the piano being out of tune, both with itself and with A440 (or whatever tuning standard Equestria uses). I'm sure I can make that clearer.

Now for the thing I have been waiting two weeks to say.

It's hard to offend me. In fact, it happens so infrequently that it generally takes me a while to pin down the emotion. Well, it happened this time.

Thornwing posted a review of my story that called it "borderline foalcon". I don't mind critique, even super-duper harsh critique, but this is where I have to draw the line. That comment was so unbelievably incorrect, inappropriate, and uncalled for... I just don't even know where to begin.

I guess I'll start with the most obvious bit, though surely the least important. You are completely wrong. My story doesn't come anywhere near M, despite your claimed expertise in reading "all kinds of M stories". It's barely a T. After I rewrite it, I invite you to complain to a mod. The humor from the line in question was done in the most tactful and tasteful way possible, and it is only filthy in your mind. I could have been far more explicit than that and still kept it a T.

That said, I have some points I need to make.

* You don't know the difference between your headcanon and actual canon, and that's kind of important if you want to make nasty accusations like this.

* Pinkie Pie is not a teenager.

* Even if she were, an older teenager is not remotely a "foal" in the sense that "foalcon" implies.

* And what I wrote sure as hell wasn't "foalcon". The Japanese "-con" (pronounced 'cone') suffix refers to erotica. Nothing in that story is remotely erotic. If you anything sexy in that story, it is most definitely not my doing.

I'm extremely upset and hurt at the moment. You basically accused me of writing kiddy porn on a writing competition where I'm so new that I have no standing to defend myself. You knew exactly who I was when you did this, as did everypony else. You knew that even though the author was obvious, I couldn't say anything to defend myself for two weeks as per the rules I agreed to abide by. And nopony else tried to defend me, either, which was just swell.

Did you not stop to think that perhaps accusing an author of writing "borderline foalcon", in front of every other author in the competition, might hurt that author's feelings far more than a scathing critique? Yes, I know I play up my naughtiness-factor™ a bit in the discussions here, and maybe calling me a pedo in front of everypony else was an intentional bitch-slap. I might even deserve it. But as low as my self-esteem may be, I cannot for the life of me see an appropriate logical justification for what you wrote.

At the moment I want to leave and never come back, but no matter how embarrassed and angry I feel right now, I'm not that shortsighted. However, if anypony else who has been in this competition for a while thinks that accusation was warranted or in the least way appropriate, I will gladly turn tail and walk.

I do not like you okayish, Thornwing. You are a big meanie jerkface.

Your stories, however, are outstanding.

Despite the drama, most of the feedback was excellent and I agreed with 80% of it (for me time constraints and concentration led to a lot of structural errors). I do need some more feedback on a couple of things, though.

I agree with the Deus Ex being a major issue, as with some of Dusk/Solaris. All of the awkwardness around that was to try to get them to sound like they were having a conversation about one thing when they were actually having it about another (sorta like the Diamond in Sugarcube Corner that flew over my head in the extremesadfic, though much more poorly executed). The idea behind it was that the only reason they'd made it one-way was sheer luck that had no chance of working if they tried it again, but I'm retooling it to make it believable and less author-hoofed. The same goes with the subtlety to the end of it, that was just a tad too unclear. I don't know if there's something specific here I'm missing, though.

The one place I could really use added feedback is the part where I disagreed with reviewers: I actually thought the way the name-changes happened over a spread span of time was one of the best things about the story. I wanted to illustrate a slow transition into having the characters' thoughts tangled with one another. Some reviewers saw this as poor pacing, and others were annoyed that the transitions weren't immediate, but I really didn't want to have a hard transition there. Is there a way to preserve the nature of what I'm trying to convey without making it some kind of blunt transition? Or, would it be less annoying if the rest of the story were longer and had more content to counterbalance things?

Anyway, polite feedback is always welcome. I'll be staying away from this forum for a little while, but I will come back eventually to see if there is any advice.

Congratulations everypony! My first write-off and I came 27/36 (with Is That The Time?). Honestly, I'm okay with that! I wrote the fic in a real rush which contributed to extremely weird pacing, which a lot of you commented on, so that obviously needs fixing/improving if I'm going to post my fic for real. Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed my story, the criticisms are really useful and because a lot of you praised the idea as having potential I'm planning on redrafting it and posting it on fimfiction (eventually). It's also nice that a lot of you said things along the line of "it was a jumbled mess but I enjoyed it." Someone thought my story was written by PresentPerfect? Waaaaat? I'm flattered.

Overall found this all really fun! Looking forward to the next one, but hopefully next time I'll remember to submit/vote for prompts and won't end up with one I have no ideas for

4085103
Congrats on not getting seventh

Only the Good Die Young

This is actually an idea that I've been chewing on for quite some time, and when I was totally stumped for the writeoff, I finally realized it would work well and went back to start it from scratch. It came together as best as I could expect it to – I think by its very nature the story I'm trying to tell is a bit of a mess, and I don't know that I can edit it to explain more or explain less without losing audience in either direction. Though I am going to take horizon's suggestion here 4081407. I did try to think a lot about how to stagger the information that's being revealed, but ultimately it'd benefit a lot by dropping Glitz's identity in there earlier, because it does get buried in the conversation with Diamond Tiara.

My actual thoughts about what happened:
Twenty years ago or so, as the CMC were doing their normal crusading things and working with potions, Apple Bloom accidentally created some kind of immortality tonic. An explosion and fire ensued, and Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo died - and AB would have, except, immortal. From that point on she hasn't grown or gotten her cutie mark. The Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle showing up aren't hallucinations or ghosts as much as constructs of Apple Bloom's lonely mind. At the end Scootaloo specifically references that by noting that anything she knows, Apple Bloom knows, at least subconsciously. The story's about AB trying to move on from that past, one way or another, though I'm still not entirely satisfied with the ending. I wanted it to be somewhat ambiguous, and a reflection that things don't just suddenly get fixed all at once, but that she's trying now. Don't think all that came through.

Thanks to everyone for their comments and thoughts. I'm pretty happy with how everything turned out... I expected even more people to have a hard time following the story than it seemed to get here. Though I also have to admit that I took a certain strange glee in writing a story that on-screen killed the CMC in the first scene. Particularly when given writeoff conditions, the only context you have going in is the title.

...And I'm sorry about the 'fibrous nuggets' reference. I threw that in at literally the last minute when I realized I could get away with doing so while making sense in the context. (Seriously though, immortality + getting eaten by manticore = kind of horrifying? I think of it in terms of AB passing out at some point when dying and then waking up completely okay at some later point, but still)

4085662
My question is: If they can reverse somepony's mental gender, why hadn't they already done that for Dusk Shine/Twilight, years ago? If it's somehow "kinder" to do that to their friends, why wouldn't it have been "kinder" to do it to them as foals when they started feeling that way?

Anyway, re this issue: 4085649:

I'm sure Thornwing will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he was referring to the stuff between Barb and Elusive/Rarity, especially the "ride" double entendre. I agree with you, it wasn't even borderline foal con, but it was a joke that I think pushed the limit without getting the results to make up for it. I'd cut that part, if I was you. (But leave the first instance of Blitz/Dash noting that Barb/Elusive is kind of creepy. That's an interesting point.)

Also, despite me having no interest in it and being mildly to strongly against it, I know people who have written foal con who aren't pedophiles, so even if you'd had an explicit sex scene I wouldn't be accusing you of that.

Regardless, no one here thinks you're a pedophile, we can all read the story for ourselves and see that. You didn't have to defend yourself, I don't think anyone was worried about it at all. I think this is one of those situations where you noticed because it was directed at you and assumed a lot of other people (including Thornwing, possibly) were thinking about it a lot more than they were.

In short, no reason to be embarrassed. Let it roll off your back like any other critique.

4085692
Thanks! If my streak had to end, this is the best I could've hoped for.

4085523

It's actually a combination of the first few paragraphs; I should have been more specific. The first paragraph made sure the fact Star Swirl traveled through time was fresh on the mind of the reader, while the second one made clear that the story was about a mysterious encounter early in Star Swirl's life; the way my mind works I was fishing for plot ideas all the time while reading, and those two immediately combined in my mind as Star Swirl traveling to the past and inspiring himself. By the 4th paragraph, when a clear description of Star Swirl is given, I was already certain of the whole plot except the little betrayal towards Luna.

(Besides, a friend of mine watched a movie that uses basically this same idea in the last couple months, so it was fresh on my mind.)

Though, of course, I still loved the story even though I knew the twist from the start. Even the little betrayal of Luna wasn't really a surprise; I used that theme in one of my entries in the previous WriteOff, after all.

4041529
Portraying Rarity as a pedophile was definitely not my intention. I don't really see Spike as a child (childish at times, yes). I've always seen him as the 7th wheel, the outsider, and the underdog. In short, a character that I'm hard-wired to root for. I'm probably disagreeing with the show's actual staff on this, but... Welcome to fan fiction.
I'm not looking for an argument (OTP or otherwise), but I needed to say that... If only for me.

'Coming Home' has been submitted, and will be visible on-site today :D Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions, you'll find I took some of them. I'm glad you all enjoyed reading here, and I hope you'll pop by and drop me a thumb if you liked it during the writeoff :V

I'm looking forward to adding a few of these to favorites when they post :O

EDIT: Here it is :D

Twenty-fifth out of thirty-six. By far, my worst placement in any writeoff I participated in. I'm really not sure what to think of that.

Thank you to everyone who provided me with a review for An Antique Key. You've definitely provided me with valuable advice and insight.

(Someone guessed Bradel wrote this? Clearly, someone must've clicked something wrong here.) I was guessed Cold as Starlight, Passing the Torch, and End of the Day. An interesting collection. I'm flattered.

Onto the responses. One of the big questions is, why does Princess Celestia do what she does? Well, consider the alternative:

Doodad bowed to the Princess and presented the mysterious box.
"Your Highness, I've come to possess this box that resists magic and refuses to open. It is my hope that you'll be able to shed light on this mystery."
Princess Celestia regarded the box for a moment.
"That is a music box."
"Really?" Doodad squinted at the box. "How do you know?"
"Because it is mine."
And in that moment, Princess Celestia became the second-palest pony in the room.

Jokes aside, here's the real reason: if we equate pony life-cycles to those of humans, then Doodad visited Celestia about eighty years ago. This would be while Luna is still banished, and the sight of their old music box makes Celestia's heart ache. With Luna's return so "close," Celestia compels Doodad to hold onto it with a enigmatic answer. She tells him that 'somepony else will be the one to open it.' Besides, this wouldn't be the first time Celestia's been a troll.

Which brings us to Twilight's involvement. Originally, Celestia intended that 'somepony else' to be Luna herself, as a way of welcoming her back. Celestia, however, comes to decide that Twilight might be able to learn something from Doodad's family, and so presents her with a key with the instruction of going to Knick Knack's shop, 'whenever the mood suit her'. Twilight, naturally, left right then and there, despite it being the middle of the night. This places the events of this story not too long after the return of Princess Luna. The shout-outs to her friends were meant to help with this, but realistically, it would've been better without them and I should've found a way to make that clear another way. My original plan for the story only had the shout-outs to Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Fluttershy, but it seemed unfair not to include the others, so I found a place for Applejack and, rather inelegantly, threw in Rainbow Dash.

And finally, why does Bauble respond the way he does (besides the whole 'this is my gift to you'-thing)? He struggles with the thought of not opening the box, but what would Knick and the Old Dood do? They spent years trying to open it, after all. Opening it would be paying them proper respect, wouldn't it? He also struggles with the thought of passing it on to Trinket. Then it becomes a gift-or-burden dilemma. The box is eighty years of failed attempts at opening it. Is that the kind of legacy that should be passed on? These internal debates ultimately lead him to give Twilight the box.

Why wasn't this included in the actual story? The prompt was "Closing Time," so only the scene within the shop is relevant. This scene is the middle, but I know how the beginning and end also go.

Onto specific responses:
4058641
4061671
(Present Perfect) I definitely wanted a "journey-not-destination" idea here. My thought was that a music box isn't a big deal. It's not treasure or a time capsule, like they might've guessed. It's just a little box that plays a song. Subtle to the point that it might as well not be there, I suppose.
As far as setting Twilight at ease, it was more the idea that Bauble doesn't consider it a big deal more than anything else. I should've made that more clear.

4064841
(Bachiavellian) Some of what I wrote was meant to be padding. I was concerned with meeting the word-minimum. Thank you for the advice on what to cut away, and for saying you'd rate it above-average.

4055069
(Trick Question) Thank you for rating my story as well as you did. If I may ask, what did you feel from my story? I am quite curious.

4054683
(Strythio) I like this incorporation of the prompt much better than my own. The line would likely be cut in its entirety in a rewrite and expansion.

4052102
(FanOfMostEverything) The names were just me being silly, so I'm glad to hear it got you to laugh.

4065007
(Thornwing) Thank you for placing my story among your finalists. Giving the box and the key to Trinket is an interesting direction that I hadn't considered. It would require Twilight giving away the key, though. Considering Celestia gave it to her as part of an 'assignment,' I'm not sure what decision Twilight would make. If you have any other thoughts on the matter, I'd love to hear them.

4042745
(RarityTookManehatten) I'm glad my story was able to amuse you. I agree, the opening paragraphs have room for improvement, but they're mostly there to set the scene (it's nighttime, she has something important in her saddlebag, and the shop's name is Knick Knack's). If I could avoid that, the story probably would've started when Twilight walked inside.

4046009
(Baal Bunny) It's before she became a princess. I was hoping that Bauble not reacting to her and simply calling her 'miss' would help lead a reader to that conclusion without something to expressly state it. Then again, even as a princess, Twilight can't even get a cab in Manehatten, so I can understand if a lack of recognition isn't enough evidence.
Now, if I can say this next part without sounding like a middle-school English teacher, I'd like to know what you think Twilight learned from the experience. I'd definitely like to hear your thoughts and theories.

4041529
(Titanium Dragon) Thank you for your thoughts. 'Okay but unambitious' seems to be the general consensus for this story.

4044895
(Bradel) Thank you for the HORSE review. As I said, I did some padding because I was worried about the word minimum, and this helps me know what to cut and what not to do in the future. I'm a bit amused that the name 'Baub' put you on guard. I was just being silly with it, so the fact that you expected some sort of payoff from it is a little unexpected. I'm sorry to disappoint you.

So concludes another long post from Everyday. Lastly, if I ever force the prompt into the reader's face again, you have my permission to punch me in the face. Assuming you master the art of punching through the Internet, of course. 4038570

4085649
I'm not trying to take sides, but we might be letting things get a tad out of hoof here.

Keep in mind that Thornwing only has two more writeoffs under his belt than you do and one less than myself. Most of us are newcomers here, so there's really no need to accuse anyone of big-maning their way around the newbies. My understanding of his comment was that it was an attempt to be colloquial rather than a statement of personal hostility. On the other hand, I tend to try to steer clear of declarative sentences/judgements in my own reviews to avoid misunderstandings like these, so I can definitely see where you're coming from.

As for the M rating, it's very subjective topic. The author of Fallout: Equestria rates their story as M, even though it only mentions sex in passing and in playful innuendos, and I've definitely seen more violent/darker content in some T rated stories. People have wildly different opinions about what constitutes as "mature." My point is, Thornwing's definition of M is clearly different from yours, and that doesn't need to be a bad thing.

So I wrote Some Trade Offs Mean More Than Others. February isn't too late for Christmas shenanigans, right?

I had the idea for this one back in December, I think after seeing the prompt "A Perfect Present." At least, the basic skeleton of "Rarity, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash brave the Christmas shopping crowds of Manehattan to get presents for their little sisters (And Scootaloo.)" Thought about cranking it out quickly to actually capitalize on Christmas feels, but ended up just tossing it in my idea folder to rot.

Still, Closing Time made me think of it again, and I applied a new angle and fleshed it out into an actual story.

4042125

Marespray? That sounds less like a hair care product or more like a deodorant… at best. Manespray probably would’ve worked a lot better. Puns are all well and good, but bear context in mind.

This is something that was pointed out to me early on... and I decided to go with Marespray anyway. I figure it's just a very different musical than Hairspray. And probably one that isn't really appropriate for children. :3

4050630

One thing that bugged me: I was able to figure out from context that Babs first asked Santa to get her divorced parents back together, but what's the second thing she asked him? It was presumably for a present, since he said that could be arranged; but the only other time it seems to come up is Babs' strange assertion to Applejack that things would work out for the best. That implies she asked for Santa to deliver the presents that we see at the end, but that makes no sense because at the time she asked she wouldn't have known that none of the three shopping trips would work out; and it would also undercut the moral of the story, which is that Santa wanted to reward them for their choices to help strangers. I think you're better served speaking up about Babs' second request, even if you're being cagey about the first.

What Babs Seed asked Santa Hooves for on the second go around was something to the effect of "Not for nothin', but you think you could make it so Applejack over there has all her stuff work out for her? She works really hard for the sake of everyone else and deserves it."

Maybe not in those exact words, but that's the general idea there.

4067358

I'm very dissatisfied that we didn't get to see Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom's alternative gifts, that seems like a given since we saw Scootaloo's. Oh, and the cutie mark on one side only?

Coming up with good gifts is hard, yo. I've always been pretty terrible at it in real life, and that apparently extends towards writing fictional gifts. =/

4077553

What I disliked : Rainbow & the homeless kids. I sort of feel like having been exposed to that, she'd feel a need to do more than just leave her wallet behind. I don't know what she'd do; I don't she'd know right away, either - but I think she'd feel obligated to intervene further SOMEHOW, because it's become her problem now instead of a distant one.

Someone else expressed a similar sentiment to this when I had them look at it prior to the contest. Ultimately, it's a tricky issue, since it goes a bit beyond the scope of fic. Additionally, it depends on ones interpretation of Rainbow Dash's character, and how you think she'd approach things.

The way I see it, Rainbow Dash doesn't like complex social issues that have no easy answer. (For instance, going into the system could easily be a worse option for the kids than living on the streets, depending on what experiences they had. (Though Equestria's systems are likely better than ours. Their streets are probably better too.) They piss her off, because she's powerless to do anything about it. She's not quite smart enough to fully understand the full breadth and scope of the problem. But she is smart enough to understand that she doesn't understand enough, which only frustrates her further.

Further annoyed because she was just trying to a nice thing for someone she cared about and suddenly confronted with a grave injustice, she gets angry, lashes out and does the only thing she can think of at the time to help; throwing her hard earned money, and running away because she doesn't want to dwell on how what little she could do wasn't enough.

Of course, it's all a little hard to portray that mindset in the fic itself, because I also think Rainbow Dash isn't really the type to dwell on such things in a heavy internal monologue.

I also kind of figure she approached Twilight off screen to talk about the issue, but dunno if that could really be worked into the ending without feeling forced and distracting from the moment they're enjoying with family. (This could actually be a decent fic on its own.)

4050631
4054097
4071057
4071114
4082769

There's a lot said in these posts about the ending which is really somewhat of a consensus.

In my original outline, I had the story ending back in the cafe when they were all depressed. It didn't work out, but they were still pretty okay with it because they had done the right thing. Then I remembered Santa Ex Machina was a Christmas story staple anyway so I might as well go full ham.

I think I'll keep the Santa ending, but rework it a ton so it fits more with the overall flow and theme of the story, and feels less like they were over-rewarded and such. As well as polishing off all three sections.

Thanks everyone for the reviews and feedback! It's definitely valuable stuff.

The only question now is whether or not I want to publish soonish, or let it rot for 10 months until Christmas rolls around again.

4085860
Hey 4085491 and/or 4015032, could we get a new group folder for "Closing Time" stories?

I have to remark on the fact that three people guessed me for Cold as Starlight, which was like the last fic I would have seen myself writing. (Seriously, if it has Celestia and Luna it's almost certainly not me)

Was that stylo or just because fight scene?

4085649

I guess I'll start with the most obvious bit, though surely the least important. You are completely wrong. My story doesn't come anywhere near M, despite your claimed expertise in reading "all kinds of M stories". It's barely a T. After I rewrite it, I invite you to complain to a mod. The humor from the line in question was done in the most tactful and tasteful way possible, and it is only filthy in your mind. I could have been far more explicit than that and still kept it a T.

Frankly, the helicopter joke is pushing on the M-line. Remember, ratings tend to be defined by whatever is most extreme/inappropriate in something.

* Pinkie Pie is not a teenager.

Pinkie Pie is almost certainly a teenager; she is certainly portrayed as such. Her actual age is unknown, but I would tend to say that all of the mane six are teenagers, and Pinkie Pie certainly comes off as one (excited about being left in charge by herself, babysitting, ect.).

* And what I wrote sure as hell wasn't "foalcon". The Japanese "-con" (pronounced 'cone') suffix refers to erotica. Nothing in that story is remotely erotic. If you anything sexy in that story, it is most definitely not my doing.

This is true. The story wasn't foalcon.

You are, however, getting far too upset by what Thornwing had to say.

Besides, it could be worse; you could have written a sparity fic.

4085784

Also, despite me having no interest in it and being mildly to strongly against it, I know people who have written foal con who aren't pedophiles, so even if you'd had an explicit sex scene I wouldn't be accusing you of that.

I'd imagine that the vast majority of such folk aren't pedophiles as the term is popularly defined (i.e. someone who molests children).

4086513
Fight scene, I'd wager. I didn't run stylo for you, because I don't have you in my library of stories for stylo yet. I should fix that.

So, a few things about my story, All Things In Time.

It was basically a spoof of a Doctor Who episode I haven’t seen yet, the one named Closing Time, where the doctor is going around saying his goodbyes before his approaching death. It wasn’t my first choice; I spent the first two days trying to think of something to write, and then this one jumped at me with barely 12 hours left. So, it went without a true draft, with very light editing, and no proofreading at all; I really love my spellchecker

My other main influence for it, strange as it might be, was Lilo and Stitch; I tried to copy the mix of drama and comedy from it. I also added a few other assorted ideas; Gandalf’s fight in Moria as the model for how Star Swirl’s apparent death went, a villain straight out of Paperinik (Donald’s superhero alter ego in the italian comic), and a bunch of other things. With no time to think things over, I threw them in almost without changes.

The original ending was different; Celestia would find a way to incite another time traveler (Time Turner / Doctor Whooves) to rescue Star Swirl without breaking her promise, but in order to not cause a paradox Star Swirl would need to never again meet the princesses or Trixie. But, as much as I like happy endings, it would wreck both the tone and the flow of the story, so I cut it short.

I thank everyone that reviewed my story:

4041529 (Titanium Dragon)
I couldn’t use Twilight as his apprentice, not without wrecking the whole dynamic of the story due to her relationship with Celestia, so my main choices were Trixie and Sunset Shimmer; I went for the one that already dresses like Star Swirl. She is, after all, a powerful magician, and had a brush with things ponies are not meant to have (the Alicorn Amulet) in canon.

“Wibbly wobbly” was foreshadowing for the original ending; I was making clear that Star Swirl had already met the Doctor. I left it in when I cut the original ending, which might not have been a good idea.

4041628 (Baal Bunny)
I don’t think “snoring where they stood” is wrong here; it refers to where they stood before falling asleep, and if you add “they are” before that fragment, to account for it being used in present tense narrative, it still doesn’t feel wrong. The other errors you pointed seem to be spot on, thank you for pointing them.

4039710 (Trumpet of Doom)
Well, in canon Star Swirl is certainly related to time travel spells, as the library wing that houses them was named after him (as seen in It’s About Time). He is also a mentor to Celestia in the comics. And in… whatever canonicity level the Journal of the Two Sisters is, Star Swirl both serves as a mentor to Celestia and Luna and is a very active time traveller.

Celestia at least knew of Trixie when she set a fireworks display at the end of Magic Duel; besides, Trixie having studied at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns is semi-canon (stated by show creator Lauren Faust, but only after she had already left the team).

4053840 (Thornwing)
Star Swirl needed an apprentice exactly because he knew he would meet inevitable death at some point, and thought his work too important to let his death interrupt it. And Twilight was a bad choice for becoming a full-time time traveller due to a number of reasons: she has other responsibilities as a princess, she is the wrong choice of apprentice for someone that is avoiding Celestia, she has the Mane 6 and Spike, and so on.

4041908 (Everyday)
Curiously enough, the bright pink ribbon on Trixie’s head wasn’t planned; instead, I clearly saw it when I got to writing that part. And then I almost cried writing fiction.

4048863 (FanOfMostEverything)
Well, I went with the idea that after over a millenium ruling Equestria, it takes a lot to faze Celestia; I actually thought I was almost going for OOC when I made Celestia stunned enough that Star Swirl almost managed to pull a doctor on her and order her around.

4084476 (BlazzingInferno)
I need to find the time to start writing outside WriteOffs again; I do have three other stories drafted in roughly, kinda, the same timeline, though their tone is more adventurous. No promises, though.

4058641 (PresentPerfect)
Well, the action was mostly in the hooves of Star Swirl and Trixie, but the story I wanted to tell was about Celestia finally finding closure for Star Swirl’s death, so she had to be there. And sorry for the blatant references; I didn’t think they would draw such anger and thought that a joke about cakes, one that I thought fit the story and turned the ending into the kind of bittersweet I was aiming for, would be appropriate for a Celestia fic.

4050630 (Horizon), 4059504 (Axis of Rotation)
Well, to tackle both at the same time (and sorry about the size):

- In the past, Star Swirl almost dies preventing a demonic horse from escaping Tartarus. Celestia thinks him dead and is devastated; Star Swirl already knows she will spend a millenium alone, and doesn’t want Celestia to face such grief again when she doesn’t have Luna to support her. Thus, he pretends to be dead and starts avoiding the sisters, becoming a kind of time-travelling troubleshooter. This is why he displayed his “not telling everything” tell when saying why he avoided Celestia.

- Mostly just hinted at, but during his time as a full-time time traveller he becomes increasingly aware of his mortality, and comes to realize the work he is doing is more important than himself. He goes on to find an apprentice, a competent magician that has few attachments; Trixie. He also learns a few extra tricks, such as learning to copy changeling magic, and finds that Trixie has an affinity for dream magic.

- In the incident over two hundred years in the past, in the fight against the Evronians, Star Swirl and Trixie prevailed because they were prepared, and even then they weren’t able to save the village. Celestia arrived later with a small contingent of guards to investigate and, not knowing what to expect, got a few coldflamed before she could subdue the last remaining creature; coldflaming is a much harsher condition to recover from than simple changeling emotion drain, so Celestia considered it a great cost. When retelling she is more shocked due to not figuring it was Star Swirl than due to the creature’s danger; a properly motivated and protected Celestia would likely have common Evronian soldiers fleeing as they do from Xadhoom.

- Star Swirl pops into the present to take care of a menace, dragging Trixie along. They are shielded from detection, but the shielding doesn’t extend to dreams; Luna has a vision of Star Swirl’s death, learns about Trixie in the vision, hunts her down through her connection to dream magic, and through her offers to tell Star Swirl. They meet, say their goodbyes, and Luna proposes to help Star Swirl meet Celestia; Star Swirl accepts because Celestia would know anyway, and if he was truly going to die, he desperately wanted to meet Celestia one last time. Besides, now Celestia had all the support she would need to deal with his real death. Luna is the one that puts the castle to sleep long enough for Star Swirl to go inside unseen and take Celestia out.

- Celestia also had a vision of Star Swirl’s death, but didn’t understand it; regardless, it rattled her enough to almost lose her composure when facing a similar situation of announced death brought by a petitioner, something that has not happened in a long time. As she is considering the events, Luna puts the plan into motion and Star Swirl quickly gets to Celestia. He isn’t being rude, not intentionally, but he is pressed for time before Luna undoes her spell; forgetting to undo the disguise he used to approach the castle was a mistake out of haste. Star Swirl leads Celestia to where the fight will happen.

- Trixie wanted to prove herself in front of Celestia for a number of reasons, one of which being that she is still a bit too proud for her own good, but also because she knows she will have to work with Celestia in the future and because she suspects Celestia sees her as a failure after they saw each other in Magic Duel. She wanted to prove herself to Star Swirl just as much, though she didn’t say it. Star Swirl allowed because, with his impending death, he needed to make sure Trixie was ready to take his mantle, and to have Trixie convince herself that she was indeed ready.

- Evronians was because I was lazy. I have no excuses.

- Merely hinted, but Star Swirl goes face his death because not only he doesn’t think he can change fate, his death already occurred in a chronological sense; trying to change it would create a paradox. He also had a long time to come to grips with the idea that he would know beforehand when he would die.

- I see the relationship between Celestia and Star Swirl as being similar to that between someone and her cool grandfather; they allow themselves certain liberties when no one else is around, something Star Swirl had extended to Trixie. It more or less mirrors what is shown in The Journal of the Two Sisters, or in the comics, so I don’t see Celestia deferring to Star Swirl when there is no conflict between them, or Star Swirl talking to her as he did when Luna and Celestia were foals, as insulting or disrespectful. By the way, I considered the parts of the Journal of the Two Sisters that tell about how Star Swirl and the princesses get together true for my story.

Sorry if I sounded condescending in here, it was not my intention.

Thank you all for your reviews; whether positive or negative they matter a lot to me, and sorry if I missed someone.

From the author of:
Cold as Starlight

First, I want to say thank you all for the feedback and reviews. It has been very much appreciated to find what people thought was there, pointing out a few things that I had, myself, overlooked, &c., &c. As much as I might have wished for a more impressive final score, Starlight was put against some very respectable material, and I am proud that it fared as well as it did. Rather than reply directly to those who so graciously offered their feedback – or defend or clarify my choices – I will instead offer a reflection here and trust that my final publication (if and when released) will speak appropriately for itself.

One thing I found curious as comments emerged was the somewhat stark polarization of reception. While the quality of writing overall seemed to trouble few, there was a great degree of variation in how much of the nuance and, for want of more accurate terminology, 'purpose' of the story was understood. It isn't exactly an adventure story, it isn't a drama; it is something else, and I think this disjoint of expectation and form, in addition to (as mentioned in a review, I think) 'staggering attention to detail in showing versus telling,' set many readers ill at ease. With all due respect, I will never apologize for making my prose rich. (Make whatever capitalist/feudalistic/related joke you wish – I won't mind.)

(Unlike Lunnas Ache; that was a trip. Unfortunately, I had to come back to it a couple times, but I was set to read the entirety of it before turning to other reviews for outside opinion. It's wildly experimental and has very interesting things going on, but, alas, it is excessively (blindingly?) opaque.)

Unfortunately, there were a number of typos and other errors that more thorough (read: time-consuming) editing would likely have resolved; Imagine my horror when reading it the day after submission, seeing that they->the typo in the first sentence! For the archaic language, I was intending for a style approaching shakespearian; a careful reading should reveal a subtle meter, often deliberately broken. In Perfect Form's line, "I think dost understand now," there is not a dropped word: she is commenting that Luna has come to a realization, not Perfect herself. Immediately thereafter, however, the 'thine art' is a major error, I believe a result of splicing words and getting distracted before polishing it properly. I recall someone complaining about misuse of 'hyphens', and to them I say: I properly utilized en-dashes <snark>thank you very much</snark>. There are a few other, deeper, existential issues with the story that trouble(d) me and actually have yet to be ironed out.

By and large I am nothing short of elated at what attention Starlight has received, in addition to it being the longest contiguous pony work I have written to date and approaching a story form as opposed to my wont of vignette. Horizon, if you read this, I am overwhelmed that you thought to grace Starlight with a perfect-ten.

Thank you all again for your feedback, positive and negative. I enjoyed reading (most of) all of your entries, and you have my sincere apologies for lacking the wherewithal to offer my own thoughts this time around.

Ya know, I have to say:

That review spreadsheet was a little nice during the competition. It's freaking fantastic if you want to go back and respond to people's comments on your story. Thank you, TD.

So I kind of fell down this week and didn't get any reading done. Given which, I'm not too sure how I feel about the two-week format. I think I'll have to give it another time or two before I have a firm opinion. The weird thing, though, is that I haven't read any of the top entrants except my own all the way down to fifth place. I'm going to need to do that. It also means I have pretty much no idea how my story really stacked up, because apparently it got voted higher than everything I actually read. This is all very weird to me.

Anyway, onto discussing "The Museum of Lost Histories"

So I did something dumb this write-off, and almost everyone who read my story seemed to catch them. First up, let's talk about the Aethon.

4061183 wrote:

My only real issue is that it is never really clear what the motivations of the place’s inhabitants were.

4077502 wrote:

The structure in the middle felt a little off and could use more work to build up the creepiness of the place. The ancient horses also need some more explanation within the story itself -- perhaps a room devoted to them that they don't realize is about them (maybe I missed that if it was already in there). If I didn't know the names already, I wouldn't have been able to tie them to any purpose for being there. Also, for the sake of convenience, the two mystery ponies just leave. That's not really creepy, it's weird. If Twilight ditched them on purpose it might make more sense, but there should be a reason they up and leave the "visitors".

4050630 wrote:

One of those nagging details is the relationship between the unicorn-curators and the island itself. From their behavior, it certainly seems like they're in on the secret — their longevity and their lack of warning about the island both point to them wanting the visitors to stay and get destiny-eaten. But then why don't they guide the visitors to the "special collections" room in the basement? The story implies they don't start getting consumed until they visit the fate engine and wake the thing up, so surely the curators would be trying to speed that process along. Their behavior is fine if they're innocent bystanders, but if they are, that needs to be lampshaded, because all of the indirect evidence plays against it.

Balias and Xanthos are ponies I've been thinking about writing for a while now, and I'm half-way through one story that deals with their tribe. And I know I've talked about it before. In public. Which means, once I realized I wanted to use them here, I needed to strip out some of the detail I really wanted to mess with because it was going to point a giant finger at me as the author to anybody who's heard me discuss them. Them, by the way, means a race of ponies I've cooked up called the Aethon (and the mythological naming goes hand in hand with that name for the group). Given that I'm still playing around with them, I don't want to get into too much detail on the idea, but for anyone who followed my post "Star Chamber" blogging from two rounds ago, these are the guys who I thought could work as a substitute for the caribou, once I get some detail on them.

So yeah, not giving these guys a lot of detail was intentional, even though I knew it was going to hurt the story during the write-off. I'm really looking forward to going back in and being able to play with them more, though, now that this is over. And (because I don't want that to sound like, "Thanks for the comments, y'all, but I already knew that) I want to mention that you guys gave me a bunch of good suggestions about particular approaches to fleshing them out. I tend to take a "pressure point" approach to editing—look for the spots in the story where elaboration or modification will create the biggest overall effect and mess with them—and a lot of those detailed suggestions are going to be helpful.

One thing I'm less sure about right now, though, is how to end this story. When I settled on this idea for the write-off, I'd actually planned to have Twilight and company escape from the museum—but I also realized that I'd need more than 8000 words to set up the location, introduce the Aethon, create a threat, and execute an adventure story escape at the end. So one of my early tasks was paring down the idea into something that I could manage during the write-off, and that would still feel like a story. I settled on ending the story at the nadir for the write-off, and then going back afterward to flesh out the Aethon (and possibly the museum itself), and build in the escape.

Letting it sit for a couple weeks makes me less sure what I want to do. A lot of readers seemed to like how I ended it (4039710, 4042450, 4052102, 4084629), but some others didn't (4082769, 4058641). I have to admit I like the dark side to it, but it also screws up my ability to do more Twilight and the Aethon stories—which I'm not cool with. Now, I could go all Marvel Universe and AU this thing so it's a different Twilight who gets captured (and might even get rescued in the future by Twilight Prime)[1]. That'd let me keep the dark element to it without nerfing my ability to keep using them (though it'd require some rework on how the museum works). I think I'm inclined to stick to the old outline, though, and let the three of them get out. Or something like that.

An earlier idea actually had them meeting up with Daring Do in the museum, and then Daring notescaping with the rest, to give it a bit more punch in the originally intended ending. That's seeming awfully character-cluttered in my mind, though, so I think I'm probably going to pull the Daring idea—which means Rainbow may be up in the air as well, since Daring was one big reason I thought it might be worth tossing her in the mix. Still, I like having three protagonists here and I'm not sure anybody else fits very well. I suppose I might be able to do Daring without Rainbow. Hmm. I think it's going to take a bit of thinking.

One of the nice things about extending this, though, is that it'd make it very easily to clear up some of the really great problems a few of you noticed (and that completely flew by me in the writing), like Spike's letter-sending ability. If I open part two with a letter, I suspect that'll flow fine. The Spike vs. lava thing is a bit more troublesome, but given that it's only there because of one tiny bit of description, it would be easy to remove. On the other hand, it might be better to go the other way and just hang a lantern on (a modified version of) it. I really do want to communicate the idea of oppressive heat, and Spike's a good character to communicate that through specifically because he's heat-tolerant. I just need to make sure to play that out better. Thanks to 4084629 in particular for noticing that.

While I'm doing thank yous, thanks also to 4044213 for pointing out an emotional mis-step in how the ending is framed. I think that may be another thing that's easily resolved by adding more material, but it's a re-framing I'd failed to grasp on my own and it'll be important to keep it in mind as I continue to write on this—and if I opt for the AU idea, it probably needs re-working where it sits. I really liked the bit of dialogue it references, though, so that tends to be another point in favor of extension, because I feel like it's a lot easier to keep that bit (or something like it) if it's not critical for the ending of the whole story. I know, I know, I'm supposed to kill my darlings. ("But it's so hard!" said every writer ever.) We'll see.

And I want to thank 4077502 and 4050630 in particular, too. They mostly hit on issues I was already aware of, yeah, but they provided some very helpful additional insight on those issues that I think will help me a lot going forward. And thank you to everyone else who reviewed my story, too—and to everyone who reviewed stories but didn't make it to mine (I know the feeling....)—and to everybody who participated in the write-off. Oh heck, just thank you to everybody, ever. Does that work?

[1] This makes me want to write a Transformers crossover story involving Optimus Double-Prime.

But I suspect that might be too derivative.

Man, this story seemed divisive. Some folks seemed to suggest it was one of their favorites, while others seemed to be a bit upset by it. Judging by the scoring in the final round, obviously a fair number of folks weren't very happy with it (or didn't like the shipping content).

So, fun fact: my speculation about the story being inspired by the ISD game about breaking up all of the mane 6 ships was indeed the original inspiration for this story. I had come up with the core idea of it ages ago, but never wrote it. Then I realized that "Closing Time" was a natural fit for breakup stories; had I realized that on day one, you guys might have gotten a more polished story than this.

It also came in a bit short in its first draft, which clocked in at only 1750 words; I had to go back and add in a bit more dialogue, which might have caused a bit of the circularity in the argument as I inadvertently repeated something.

4040906

Oh my gosh. This is disturbingly believable. I suppose I deserve this sinking feeling in my gut, for writing "Fluttershy's Night Out."

Clearly, membership in the Evil League of Evil is defined by our willingness to make Fluttershy cry, the most vile crime of all.

Also, I think every single story I've written featuring Fluttershy has involved her crying.

4049564

To each their own on all the shipping. At least this one made it more realistic than most. Voicing was good. back in forth = back and forth. The prompt use here leaned more toward metaphor, and that felt good. The sexual references stayed out of the mature range, but hinted strongly. I actually liked the story quite a bit, and there's not much more I can say to help improve it.

4042944

I truly don’t know what to say.
I ache for both of them.
I wish it could be different, but it’s framed very realistically.
Both ponies recognize the importance of physical intimacy, but Fluttershy is certainly the type who would struggle with it.
I ache, but I’m glad to have read it.

4039044

Well, this is one heck of a story to open up on. A punch to the gut, delivered with precision. It does a good job of establishing the preliminary conditions, hinting at the problem before exposing it, and looking at a likely inherent conflict of the relationship. This was quite well done.

4038965

Ah, Rarishy. And they need to talk. That can't be good...
... and that was something. I'm not sure if the author went through this sort of thing before but I think it was handled well and handled realistically. The writing is emotional but not overblown (read: not like a soap opera) and both main characters have good voices. The story sets out to do its job and does it economically, it was as long as it needed to be. Overall, I like it.

4058641

I don’t know that I’ve read a story where I identified with Fluttershy so completely. I think I’ll go now. ._.

Thanks to all of you for the nice feedback. I'm glad that the story had an emotional impact on you folks, though maybe some of you would have preferred I didn't write a story which was a punch to the gut.

4052774

1. "Rose Petals: - No line edits, and not much to say other than I'd like Rarity to be even more reasonable about the whole thing. She could talk about how she knows it'll be difficult when she and Fluttershy see each other in town but that she knows they'll both handle themselves like adults: something to show even more clearly that every drop of the passion she once felt for Fluttershy has been drained out of her. That's the sort of thing that could make an already strong story even stronger, I'd say.

Hmmmm. Interesting thought, though while Rarity's ardor has certainly faded, much as she says she doesn't love Fluttershy anymore, she knows that she's hurting her, and she is hurting herself a little, too (but in a healthy way).

4041556

The four opening paragraphs here are very dry and uninteresting, and the first sentence deserves special mention. It does nothing to catch my attention, and it's collapsing under its own weight. Then I hit the fifth paragraph, and a story springs up—something that actually catches my interest. This feels like a classic "in late, out early" type issue. On the other hand, the initial stuff does provide some nice character work on Fluttershy—it just does it before we have any reason to care about her. I can read a lot more subtext into that scene after the line about Rarity, but until I hit that point it just feels like chaff.

What would your suggestion be? Rearrange the introduction so that we know what is going on up front? Or do you think on FIMFiction that the story summary would give us context for it?

I'm also seeing a few repeated word issues that toss me out of the story—'carefully' used twice, back to back; then 'small' used twice, back to back. Adverbs not helping the cause, cluttering things up, distracting me in spots where I really wish I wasn't getting distracted.

I hate repetition.

I hate repetition.

Unfortunately, it is hard for me to catch unless I let a story sit for a while; I should see if I can't figure out a better way to quickly scan for it. It is a flaw of mine in writing; I have to go back and watch out for stuff I overuse.

The meat of this story, I like—but I'm a shipping fan. I like that Fluttershy is both obsessive and unable to get past her own intimacy issues. I like that Rarity is willing to pull the plug on something that's not working. I like the juxtaposition of the two. I really like the way the bit at the start mirrors the futility in everything else Fluttershy does here. At 2000 words there's not a lot of story, but I still get some enjoyment out of this. It'd help a lot to see the writing cleaned up, though, and I personally feel like this story would be improved by hitting the Fluttershy futility button a few more times. She's really pathetic here, which I like—but I think you could find a few more opportunities to stress that through her thoughts and actions, instead of relying so heavily on the conversation between her and Rarity. Normally, I'm a big dialogue fan, but here I feel like you're going in circles a bit, and you'd be better off working the theme from some other angles.

So you're thinking that the story needs to spend more time in Fluttershy's head? Or have more scenery which reinforces her repeated failure?

4044096

Owch.

Short, sharp, and packs one hell of a sting. I liked it. When you can deftly handle a twist like that, swapping a story from sad to tragedy, then you’re doing something right.

If I had to criticise something, it would be that the dialogue is a little repetitive. I mean, in my experience, that’s how a lot of arguments go, but it’s not exactly entertaining reading – not as much as the rest of the story.

Yeah, re-reading it, I think this was a bit of an issue. Was there any particular part that really stuck out at you as repetitive that you remember?

Technical:
Dialogue attribution is great.
Great pacing.
Helluva kicker.
Strong, realistic handling of the situation and of emotion.
Dialogue could do with some trimming and sharpening.
Those first four paragraphs – with angel and the rose – are much weaker than the rest of the story. They need re-examining.

What would be your suggestion in regards to the first four paragraphs? I was trying to set the scene there, with Fluttershy setting up for her ROMANTIC DINNER and trying to express some amount of joy there before it all got crushed out of her by the rest of the story. I also was hinting a little bit at the ending sneakily there with the mention of the last two roses, implying that not all the roses automatically went on the kitchen table.

You and Bradel both noted that this was weak, and I'd really like to make it better, but I'm not sure what should be done. Should I have it start with her saying something about Rarity/setting up something Rarity related? Putting on something Rarity had made for her, maybe?

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Considering how many words were used, I'm thinking that a bit more development could have greatly helped me believe the relationship between Rarity and Fluttershy. I get that Fluttershy is apprehensive and Rarity got tired of waiting, but the only solid evidence that they have been trying at least to make it work was during "the talk", about the many attempts at making things work.

I do enjoy though that Rarity was like, "It's not you, it's both of us", even though she still shifted a good bit on focus that Fluttershy was a big part of the reason that there was a rift. Flutter's reaction was also pretty realistic considering her character.

I struggle with dealing with this, as other folks felt like this was compact and effective, while others felt like it needed to be something larger. Obviously, something like this could be a second act climax to a longer piece about Fluttershy and Rarity having a relationship and struggling with intimacy issues, but it would be very different in that sort of context. I actually have an idea of a story to use it in, but I doubt I have the patience to write it.

What do you feel could further reinforce their relationship in the context of it being a short story of roughly this length, i.e. without adding another scene?

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Um. Wow. That's a gut punch, followed by a knife in the back.

You're welcome.

Assuming that that was the intent (what else could it be?), mission accomplished. Unfortunately, I think the characterizations suffered for it. I can understand that Rarity had lot to get off her chest, but her sheer bluntness didn't feel in-character. She was so calm and direct it was like she didn't care about Fluttershy's feelings at all, even as a friend. Adding some more body language might help that. Then again, maybe I just don't have enough breakup experience…

She was resisting her impulse to physically comfort Fluttershy in the story; I suppose I might be able to add more, but that's what this was:

Fluttershy wrapped her hooves around her own shoulders. “But…”

Rarity started to rise from her seat before she froze, already half a step around the side of the table before she caught herself. Slowly, she retreated to her cushion, her ears pressed back against her mane. “I can’t tell you how much it hurts.”

Wanting to comfort someone you care about is a natural impulse, and she's having to resist it because, well, it is easy to give her just one more try.

Again.

I do happen to be a married father of two, though.

Fluttershy's intimacy issues were actually the part I enjoyed the most (which feels extremely weird to say). I think this deserves to be explored more fully. Keeping a teen rating prevents most of the obvious show vs. tell options, of course. Still, this is such a believable extension of her shyness that I think you could figure something out.

More about the struggles the two of them had in being intimate?

Author, if this is is based on a real life event, the spoiler-tagged paragraphs below might be upsetting. That's not my intent, and feel free to skip over them. I'd feel remiss if I didn't speak the whole of my reaction to the intense break-up you've written.

No, this is not based on a real-life experience.

Their relationship, as it's currently presented, felt painfully shallow. Rarity really let this go completely south without trying to find the root cause of the problem? It sounds like they spent a year quietly mopping blood off the floor without asking who's actually bleeding, or where. If Rarity loved her, why didn't she suggest some professional help, or even a book? Sure, it might be inevitable that the relationship needs to end, but she doesn't come off as showing real concern for what sounds like a deep-rooted problem that her significant other (or even close friend) is suffering through that happens to manifest in their physical love life. Is Fluttershy's problem really just their physical intimacy, or is that just a symptom of something else? It doesn't sound like they did much to find out; they just kept trying to satisfy Rarity's immediate want for physical intimacy without looking deeper.

Contrast this with Fluttershy's canon attempt to be more assertive. She drove Rarity and Pinkie away, and yet they came back to help her because they cared about her wellbeing (which is subtly different from caring about their friendship with her).

This story's Rarity feels like a stand-in for a partner who really doesn't know Fluttershy all that well.

To me, Rarity shoulders more of the blame for things turning out the way they did, and Fluttershy is the looser in both the short term (intense grief) and the long term (no support for her unresolved problems). That, I think, is the real tragedy conveyed here: Fluttershy's emotional/psychological problems ruin her relationship, and in response her partner deserts her.

I don't even like this ship, and yet you got me riled up about it falling apart. Good job, I guess. I'm probably going to have to write a sickeningly happy Fluttershy romance of my own, just to make myself feel better.

Well, I was going for an emotional response there. Seems I got one.

To address one objection, though: I don't think either of them would likely feel terribly comfortable seeking outside help about this sort of thing, especially not Fluttershy. Rarity might ask questions or get a book (assuming one exists in the universe, or at least which was readily accessible without Rarity admitting that she's so horrible that her lover can't let her love her) but actually going to a psychiatrist?

Those are for crazy people, darling.

People don't act perfectly rationally, and they've been struggling with it for a while now.

I'm not necessarily saying that they did the right thing, but Rarity did what she believed to be the best she could, and now cannot do it anymore.

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The elephant in the room: I can’t truly enjoy shipping. Or the end of shipping, as is the case.

Notta lotta I can do about that, I'm afraid.

The nitpicks: wrapping her hooves around her own shoulders? “At arm’s length”? There are a few expressions that break the pony illusion, though nothing too drastic. Also, while ‘touch past the cutie mark’ brings good imagery and is quite proper for the setting, using it twice in rapid succession kills its impact.

Yeah, definitely going to try and address the repetition issue.

As far as the others - what would you suggest changing them to? Horses do indeed have shoulders (and homologues for arms, which are sometimes referred to as arms, though they are usually referred to as forelegs or front legs. Ironically, the upper part of a horse's foreleg is called a forearm), but "at leg's length" sounded dumb to me.

Overall, just a single scene, but one fairly well done. Fluttershy seems strangely assertive, though it can be pegged as a fear reaction to the relationship ending; otherwise the characters seem spot on, recognizable even though it’s a kind of situation that doesn’t appear in the series. There is a lack of polish here and there, but nothing truly harmful. If it wasn’t shipping I would have enjoyed it quite a bit; as it is, I could still enjoy the technical aspects.

Yeah, going to work on polishing it up for posting.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for the feedback. It sounds like the major issue is polish (verbiage, some repetition issues), though some folks were uncomfortable with it for other reasons (or just made uncomfortable with it). A few folks suggested that the story didn't do a good enough job of establishing the relationship, but I plan on keeping it to a single scene - it needs to be sharp and punchy - so any suggestions towards that end would be appreciated, if there is anything in particular you feel would do a better job of it.

More than one person mentioned the introduction as well, so I plan on reviewing that. Any further suggestions for how to make that better would be welcome, as would any other feedback as relates to improving it as a piece.

Would more signs of Rarity and Fluttershy's life together at the start while Fluttershy is setting the scene help? What do you think would improve this piece?

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I couldn’t use Twilight as his apprentice, not without wrecking the whole dynamic of the story due to her relationship with Celestia, so my main choices were Trixie and Sunset Shimmer; I went for the one that already dresses like Star Swirl. She is, after all, a powerful magician, and had a brush with things ponies are not meant to have (the Alicorn Amulet) in canon.

Trixie isn't a powerful magician, though; that's pretty much the entire point of Trixie, she's a paper tiger with no real power.

I wasn't suggesting that you use Twilight, I just was expecting an OC rather than a character from the show.