4086941
Yeah, the spreadsheet is very handy for post-competition post-finding. One interesting thing is that almost every story got very nearly identical numbers of reviews; no story got less than 10, and only three stories got more than 13, and two of the stories that got more than 13 didn't even make the finals.

Are any reviews missing from it at the moment?

4087090

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

Darn it, I actually had a specific suggestion on this point, which I've now forgotten...

Regarding the idea of them seeking help, I think I meant more for Fluttershy's issues, which I assume weren't actually about her and Rairty at all. It does make sense that neither of them would actually be willing to take that public of s step, though

4087131
I suspect a number of the late reviews didn't get added; I pasted the text of 15 Iridescent Iron Rat reviews into my Scrivener document, but the spreadsheet only lists 12. (There were a handful which arrived within the last 24 hours.)

Just as a reminder to everyone, this is the review spreadsheet they're talking about (it's also linked in the first comment in this thread). If you want to see what people said about your story, it's a lot easier than going back through this thread page by page.

(Though that's still worth doing, as the spreadsheet doesn't capture the conversation as people talk back and forth to clarify points that reviewers missed, or offer suggestions based on that chatter. I never reviewed Only The Good Die Young, for example, but I made a suggestion on it a few pages back that 4085719 seemed to find helpful.)

4085784

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.

No, it was the helicopter. But that's actually a good point. I agree the above is a lot more salacious, plus the actual-and-not-headcanon-imaginary foal, and it was something that slipped by me completely. I don't think it's remotely M, but I'd freak out a lot less by the accusation.

4086680

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

I just can't see it. I honestly, truly am stunned that anypony would take that as M. I've seen much, much, much ruder suggestions in E texts here, and that's not even the point. Is the existence of a penis M? I didn't describe a penis, I didn't mention a penis, and a little girl who has never seen or heard of a penis would have no idea there was anything penis-related happening. I've seen this level of offscreen penis-mention humor in G-rated movies! Seriously! I have seen this exact thing in G-rated movies! You actually think the story I wrote is even close to X-rated where it'd be inappropriate for anyone under 18? Really? Really? Really??? No, REALLY, like for realsies? Really????????? You actually think that and are not pulling my leg? Wait that's not my leg oh buck me I just did it again.

I have no more words. I am completely gobsmacked. (Ow. Bookplayer, please call him off. Ow, quit it. Is it the review? Is that why you- ow, my face, stop.)

Okay, also I lied I guess I found some more words.

Pinkie Pie is almost certainly a teenager; she is certainly portrayed as such.

This is neither here nor there, but let's look at facts. They all got their cutie marks at the same time. Rarity runs a small business by herself, and Twilight Sparkle is a university graduate. Being an adult doesn't mean you're a competent babysitter. Pinkie Pie's personality makes her more of a playmate than a disciplinarian, which makes it hard to take care of kids, and her friends see her as less responsible, but nothing apart from her personality says she's a teenager. She's only one year younger than Fluttershy, who lives on her own and manages an animal sanctuary. She clearly rents from the Cakes, she's been seen working as a party planner on her own, etc.

I think you're trying to say "manticore guy whose name escapes me wasn't totally off his rocker so don't feel so bad", and if so, I'm fine with that. I know my emotional reaction is too much and (hold on, looking up name) Thornwing is maybe not a mean meanie pants much at all but maybe still a teeny-tiny bit until I calm down even more, but I was upset about this for two weeks while it stewed.

Here's the real reason I'm upset. I have to wonder if I actually did write something sex-related (within T) for one of these competitions just what awful things y'all might think of me then. Meanwhile I have to read fics with shit and disgusting body fluids and heartbreak and callous sales of cursed artifacts which are totally not within code I mean come on and little foals' heads caving in and bleeding and dying and somehow I'm the bad mare for a one-liner that was done as tastefully as it possibly could have been done, or maybe just for thinking it was cute or funny. I worry that the standards here are so different from what I can imagine in my skewed brain that I will inadvertently offend ponies (if I haven't already tapped the offending-well dry) and not be able to take part in a way that won't detract from everypony else's enjoyment. I'm not even asking to "belong" or something (I wouldn't dare), I just want to not eff everything up and I am in an place where I am uncertain if that remains an attainable goal.

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).

I didn't mean to imply that I was being pegged as engaging in some kind of illegal activity. I only had issue with the idea that someone would suggest I had such piss-poor judgment that I would post foalcon to a T fic contest.

For the record, I have no problem with foalcon. After I made the post I was actually more concerned about my rant making ponies who write foalcon feel unwelcome than I am about overreacting about feeling unwelcome myself. I am not concerned about Trick Question. I am concerned about the rest of you.

Long story short, I am sorry if I said anything besmirching of Thornwing who is an amazing author. I'm just kind of shocked and I have no real idea what is appropriate anymore. And I need to calm the buck down and take a long nap.

4087090
I am glad I now know who the author was, if somewhat saddened that it was somepony I already knew was awesome.

I don't understand the "I can't enjoy stories about X" crowd.

4086680

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

I don't get it.</catchlights> However I will assume it is not a jab at me for being strongly Sparity-biased, because that seems too mean so I suspect my brain would come up with that when it isn't intended. Maybe it's a jab at the winning story, although was the story I wanted to win because it was very good. Or are you saying Sparity is not kosher in general? I have already established I have no idea what is, so I am slightly curious.

I really need to go sleep now.

I'd like to offer a thought to authors who are answering questions that got brought up in people's reviews. I don't want to single anyone out, because it's a really common practice in the post-competition "author's notes", so I'm just going to tag every post talking about their own stories:
4084851 4084914 4084922 4085103 4085163 4085512 4085523 4085626 4085662 4085686 4085719 4085886 4086257 4086849 4086934 4086941 4087090

If you're planning to edit and publish the story, stop and think for a moment before you answer questions here.

If a review says, "I never understood why the gostak distims the doshes," and you respond here in this thread, "Well, because the doshes are galloons," that's great! Clearly there's an explanation (in your head) that pieces it all together. That explanation helps us understand the full context of your story, and enjoy it a little more in hindsight; I'm not trying to tell you not to tell us. However, keep in mind the reason we asked: We weren't able to figure it out from the story itself.

Sometimes that's careless reading; the number of entries to read doesn't give reviewers the luxury of careful analysis. If you had some galloon exposition in the ending that recontextualized the whole gostak scene, and someone blew right past it, then it's completely reasonable to (politely) say "this is why" and chalk it up to a miss. Sometimes — especially if multiple reviewers had the same complaint — it can point to unclear or badly placed exposition. It can be a useful signal to go back and fiddle with the scene so that the big clue comes at a more appropriate moment, or state the clue more explicitly. And sometimes, we're lost because there simply is no textual clue in the story to how it all connects inside your head. In those cases, the solution is to go back and add the information to the story.

Telling us after the fact will make us feel better — but we're like prereaders, giving you a preview of what the wider community will think. What's important isn't that you make us happy. What's important is that we help you understand what you didn't communicate as well as you could have, so that you can fix the issue before it loses other people the same way.

Unrelated:
4084975
What was in the background of the Fluttershy/Dash pic?

4085784

My question is: If they can reverse somepony's mental gender, why hadn't they already done that for Dusk Shine/Twilight, years ago?

Excellent question. I'll start with another one asked multiple times, however: why can't they just magically change Twilight's body? She's an expert shapeshifter, right? In Magic Duel, when Twilight "changes" Applejack into Applebrandy (no, I didn't invent that one, but I still think it's perfect--think about the latter portions of the names), Trixie remarks that the spell is impossible. So there is some canonical suggestion that you can't change a pony's sex, hence the idea.

For your question, the only reason it was able to work in the story is because the characters had already become cross-linked with their R63 counterparts in such a way that they had access to each other's memories. So the alicorns could set them up with the cross-sex-and-gender memories so they would be convinced they hadn't ever been the other sex or gender. Though as Dusk implied, there's no guarantee they wouldn't end up just like him, so it was a risky experiment anyway. In the rewrite I can put more of the thaumaturgic details in, though I'm not convinced that may be a good idea since so many people seemed to hate the magical details in the setup and just saw it as "slow".

For a more clinical answer, however, I've never known a transsexual who wouldn't be horrified by the idea of a procedure they could go through that would make them comfortable just as they are, even though that would be a billion times easier than being transsexual. I can't really explain it. It isn't logical. Being trans for many if not most of us is less about identification with one gender than it is about identification against one gender. The idea of being stuck that way is the horror we normally live with pre-transition. This is an interesting question, philosophically speaking: if you could just get some brain treatment for something you absolutely hate imagining and live with it, would you? Like, if your friends really wanted you to eat sterilized dog crap for some reason that was super important to them, and you could just get a brain treatment to enjoy it, would you do it? That's the kind of question I like exploring, and I am trying to in one of my stories that might be headed just a little bit toward foalcon oh just shut up.

4086452

The story main weakness is in the fact that Twilight’s counterpart walks blithely to the Prince, says something like “You know Prince, we are not what we appear to be anymore, but we are somepony else instead” and the Prince buys it right away without even a single sign of astonishment.

Given that Celestia knows Twilight has body-swapped to alternate dimensions (at her request, twice actually), and they've both traveled to Torrid Equestria together in the comics, and Twilight is always up to perhaps ill-advised magical hijinks, I don't think it's too much of a stretch. She's never lied to Celestia before, and in this case it's something she'd been warned about (at least in this story). There might be a better or gentler way to approach it, though.

What is it that Twilight did not even admit to Celestia?

New Twilight didn't hide anything from Celestia except the fact that she told her mentor she was the transsexual flavor of transgender only because she was desperate, not because she trusted her. She hid the transgender bit from everypony but Celestia.

4087642

For a more clinical answer, however, I've never known a transsexual who wouldn't be horrified by the idea of a procedure they could go through that would make them comfortable just as they are, even though that would be a billion times easier than being transsexual.

That's what I thought, which is why I was kind of horrified that Twilight/Dusk did it to their friends without even explaining things.

4087464
The joke is that Spike is not even a teenager, so present-day Spike x Rarity would be pedophilia on the part of Rarity.

The Iridescent Iron Rat went out of its way to establish IT WASN'T LIKE THAT HONEST probably for that very reason.

4087430
An off-screen implied helicopter would not pass muster as a G-rated movie.

Comical off-screen nudity MIGHT pass in a G-rated movie.

Mystery Men was PG with Invisible Man's really awful invisibility power.

This is neither here nor there, but let's look at facts. They all got their cutie marks at the same time. Rarity runs a small business by herself, and Twilight Sparkle is a university graduate. Being an adult doesn't mean you're a competent babysitter. Pinkie Pie's personality makes her more of a playmate than a disciplinarian, which makes it hard to take care of kids, and her friends see her as less responsible, but nothing apart from her personality says she's a teenager. She's only one year younger than Fluttershy, who lives on her own and manages an animal sanctuary. She clearly rents from the Cakes, she's been seen working as a party planner on her own, etc.

They're probably around 18 at the start of the series, possibly younger. Rainbow Dash competed in the Best Young Flyer's competition, after all, which generally implies that she was either underage or became of age at that point in time.

I mean, you can claim that they're older, but I would expect some portion of your audience would not automatically be on-board with that idea. There's really no indication that they're over the age of 20, honestly, and Faust noted that their ages were deliberately ambiguous but more teenage-like. They aren't very mature on the whole; Applejack is probably the most mature of the lot.

4085886

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.

It had original ideas! It introduced a character, and a family behind the character, and made them feel real to me. It was touching and interesting and left me wanting to know more. Only your story and Wing Lock did this for me (at least, out of all the stories I read). It wasn't what was in the box, that was never really important. It was getting to know the ponies behind the box.

I still think winning story was best story, but it didn't leave me wanting more. It wrapped everything up in a nice little package, which is okay sometimes, but it was more high-fantasy than "real, actually feels like a pony". I would say Dubious Enchantment had a lot of the realness to it, too, but it rubbed me the wrong way for stupid reasons.

(Also I guessed like six ponies correctly then changed all my flippin' guesses at the last minute.)

4087699

The Iridescent Iron Rat went out of its way to establish IT WASN'T LIKE THAT HONEST probably for that very reason.

I didn't get that read from it, and I'd be rather disappointed if it were there solely for that. I read it as "I had to actually develop a personality and have something to offer her before the relationship could work"; a realistic explanation for a relationship lasting for a century, in other words, which better develops the characters. I didn't see it as apologetics against pedophilia (and the show certainly doesn't pull any punches either).

Actually, I think I did the same thing in that one story I wrote waaay back when I first came here in like, December was it? Ah, those were the halcyon days... Back when it was cold outside, and I had no idea what I was doing as an author, and wait nothing has changed at all it's been like three months.

An off-screen implied helicopter would not pass muster as a G-rated movie.

Comical off-screen nudity MIGHT pass in a G-rated movie.

"I have to go outside, to, um... make more snow cones."

Mystery Men was PG with Invisible Man's really awful invisibility power.

Eh, but that's not why it was PG. It had girls in shrinking miniskirts writhing on the floor while Ben Stiller admits he's getting a boner, a ton of fighting and violence with blood...

Wait, why wasn't that movie X-rated? Oh my Moon all movies should be X-rated! What is happening to American cinema (okay I'm done being a douche for now because I will be asleep shortly).

Ugh. I'm really sorry Thornwing. I can be sorry and hurt at the same time, right? That's allowed?

I need a more plastic smile than your dumb emoticons will give me.

4087652
I agree, which was why Dusk was so "OMG tell me there's some other way" but TD and others felt that was super-OOC and I kinda agree.

The main thing that made the dialog there weird was the fact I was trying to make it look like they were talking about one thing when they were actually talking about something completely different. Clever ≠ superconfusion.

4085649 4085784 4085968 4086244 4086680

Before this goes any further, I should probably give my own response and try to clear up any potential ambiguity in what I said, didn't say, and, most importantly, meant to say.

First off, let me start by saying, I'm sorry.

This was not a foalcon story, and it was not my intention to portray the entire work as such. The whole of the story is also on par with something that would classify as teen. My one and only issue with the entire thing boils down to one line that I feel crossed the mature threshold for this competition.

Applebrandy's face went pale. "Okay, we might have a problem," he said.

I share Applebrandy's reaction to the line immediately before this phrase. I won't link it here, because I think everyone knows what line I'm talking about already.

That's it. One line. The rest I'm perfectly fine with. I'm even fine with that one line used outside of this competition. "Okay, we might have a problem," is a perfect way to phrase my reaction to reading this in the context it was presented.

Now for the details of why that is for me. Pinkie Pie's age is never stated, nor are the ages of any other pony. There is no other canon to go on here but headcanon. In my head, Pinkie is a late teen, perhaps 16-19 years old in human terms. She behaves like a child in almost every situation. She's blunt, innocent, fun-loving, and friendly. I can totally see her becoming a stallion like this and "playing" around in a totally innocent way. Whether or not this story should have an "M" tag for that one line isn't my call. My opinion is totally subjective and doesn't matter in the end seeing as the author is the only one that can make that decision. What felt a bit jarring was not having that warning before reading through it in the middle of a writeoff entry. I like to have a mental image running along with the story as I read, and that image went south rather quickly given that description.

Next, I want to be perfectly clear that my opinions are my own and are only meant to reflect on my own experience with reading the story itself. I mean no disrespect at all to the author of any story I review. When I wrote those first reviews, I hadn't even sat down to do any author guessing. My guess ballot didn't even get submitted until Thursday or Friday of the last week so I wasn't in the mindset of who I was addressing as the author at that point. Even so, it would have been a total guess. I wrote as if speaking to someone completely anonymous and in no way wanted to imply any direct attack of character or intention. (Go read the scathing review Bradel gave Caste Off. Karma.)

My comments tend to focus on the points I didn't like or ones that I might have suggestions to improve on. On the whole, I really liked the story here, though it wasn't all that apparent from reading the review. My votes don't tend to follow my reviews very closely at all, if that's any consolation. The letter at the end set a nice tone even if some other parts didn't quite match up in the logic I was trying to work out. To be honest, I gave this story #2 on two separate prelim ballots (second highest score) because it did a good job with a tricky subject. It seems I'm the only one that submitted two stories, so I'm the only one that had the ability to get duplicate entries on my submitted ballots. I had three duplicate stories between my first two mandatory ballots and ended up submitting 6 total ballots by the end of prelim voting (Cold Hooves got the top spot on both—you can thank me later PP).

Let me end on a personal note. Trick Question, I never meant to insult you or your story. I did not mean to infer that you are, in any way, affiliated with pedophilia or the production of such materials. You are correct in saying that my own take on the phrase does not reflect your intentions and I wholly support that fact. You are the author and you have the final say on what is fact and what isn't as it pertains to your story. The directness of my statements implying "you" as the author were never meant to specify you personally, and certainly weren't written with the intention that I was implicating you as the author when I wrote that review. I'm sorry that I offended you with my stinging remarks, and I will try harder in the future to avoid such inflamatory comments.

I do not like you, Thornwing. You are a big meanie jerkface.
Your stories, however, are outstanding.

Thank you for the story comment. I'm sorry that your opinion of me has fallen. I do like you, and I hope you will continue to participate in the writeoff. You are a very fun pony, and I enjoy reading your stories and comments. I hope we can still be friends.

4086244
This is true, but it's been extended to other areas with the suffix of -con or -kon in manga for quite a while, e.g., shotacon, toddlerkon, etc. Anything in the general vein of underage-in-sexual-situations.

4087844
Pony, we can totally be friends. This is ponies we're talking about, you do watch the episodes, right? (They have to be good for something, at least they are for me though I find them unrealistically optimistic these days.)

In any case, my opinion of you has not fallen one bit. You're still awesome. I just felt a little (well, a lot) uncertain about everything I was offering b/c that came out of left field for me, and I'm dealing with a bunch of stupid medical shit planning surgery to turn myself into a cyborg with vibrating cheeks (that is neither an exaggeration nor a euphamism oddly enough). You are entitled to your feelings of course my goodness yes, and you can find me to be a not-so-good pony too, not that you have to, but you can (and I actually recommend it), and I have no problems there and would certainly not fault you or consider you less admirable for it.

So you are fine, I just was a little worried and that is my problem.

(EDIT: Also I strikethroughed some of that comment before you finished responding you aren't meanie or jerk. It just says big face I think which may also not be true.)

4085886

That was me, I think. Key was much higher in my personal rankings than with everyone else it seems!

4086680

I wouldn't call the helicopter joke remotely M. Yes, you can figure out what's going on. Yes, it's tasteless. But it's not explicit, there's no 'And then Pinkie's YOU CAN FILL IN THE BLANKS'.
As for her age, also subjective. Ponies of all ages act a lot less mature than people do; I mean one can counter the 'teen' argument with Applejack & Rarity easily enough where both look and act in their 20s, at least, the vast majority of the time. It's that Equestria by and large operates in ways where it's not easy to transpose human ages over.

4086941

I really want to say 'Replace Rainbow with Daring' because Twilight and Daring together would make a really interesting dynamic. And I have to admit I much more like the idea of this being a cut off before the escape, if only because the implications otherwise are profoundly disturbing and I'd much rather see nice happy rainbows compared to, well, caribou.

4087131

My one post a page or two back, because I was super late with everything! I'll try to get to it later but admittedly will probably forget.

Okay, now that I'm done with the horror known as WORK, it is time to talk about COLD HOOVES.

CH was, in short, a bad place to experiment. I've been feeling lately like I'm ready to take the next step in expanding my writing, and while that will bring a lot of failed experiments, either the Cold Hooves idea or just the writeoff itself was the wrong place to try it. Suffice to say -- at least the parts that I edited (the first third or so, ending with "No, I, uh...") -- this story was meant to be written the way I think "good stories" are supposed to be written, that is, with lots of asides for introspection.

So you can see how that might not work with a story whose entire point (as noted by 4048661 !) was "Oh, she's not my wife".

That's literally all there was to this story, I'm not even kidding. It's just meant to be there for shock value and because I hate FleurPants. (It's too obvious an explanation for their relationship.)

I think what this needs more of (besides editing; I anticipate my next entry will be just as bad, but that's what happens when you give in to corporate pressure) is theme. I mean, it starts with this big internal monologue about dive bars and the city of Canterlot, but that's just for setting. 4042745 even though it would be a story about a bar closing. So tying that into Shining's predicament would make this better, I think.

Anyway, I'm gonna go back through the reviews now because I feel like I didn't get a lot of good feedback beyond the first person pointing out the brackets, and I can't imagine that's actually true. Those brackets, fyi, were me pausing writing to go find Sweet and Elite and watch the scene to figure out what Fleur sounds like, and then forgetting to finish the sentence. The actual line, had I gotten that far in editing, is

And when she spoke, her words dripped like warm molasses.

4041529 (Titanium Dragon)

Note: Cadance’s full name is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. Mi Amore is two words, meaning “my love”.

I spell her nickname with an e, do you think I care? :V Princess Special McSparklepants can have a two-word name like everypony else and like it. (Fleur gets a pass because she's named after an actual thing.)

4045828 (FanOfMostEverything)

I didn’t think Equestria had reached the level of cynical irony needed to produce hipster bars.

Maybe I was thinking of Bronies: The Documentary at the time. :B I also like your comment about reverse-Bechdel, which I find funnier because this doesn't pass. XD

4048575 (Bradel)
Cadence is already Chrysalis, that’s why she’s acting distant. But the way I see it, it doesn’t otherwise matter who the barmare is. If she’s Chrysalis, then it goes as you said. If she’s just a changeling drone (which is actually what I was thinking when I wrote it), then it just adds a step to the same process. Believe it or not, I didn’t have any ideas for the barmare to be important to the story until I got a few paragraphs from the end! Making her a changeling happened completely on the fly.

Of course, I also forgot the “there are a lot of things on my mind, but I can’t really talk about them” line from Shining, and Fancy inferring he means matters of national security, i.e., the call has gone out that something is wrong and this is Shining’s last hurrah before he takes up his duty to do whatever the Princesses need to counteract the threat. That would help ground this in time a little more concretely, I think.

As for the Arabian Red, it should be obvious from the sentence. :B Cream stout:beerfriend::Arabian Red:saltwife. Ergo...

4078617 (BlazzingInferno)

I'm not sure how to take Fancy's advice, considering what we're told about his own marital life. Unless I'm mistaken, he's been married twice and (if I read this correctly) is either seeing Fleur Dis Lee on the side or just has no intention of marrying her? Either I read this completely wrong, or he sounds like a questionable character to get marriage advice from.

You're not wrong to question this. I think I could get away with it if I actually had Shining react to the question, or at least try to. What you should take away from this right now is that Fancy Pants knows a lot about getting married, but not so much staying married. It's the former that he's advising on, though, so it's cool. :B I hope.

4082769 (Silent Strider)

Makes me wonder if it was inspired by the “Closing Time” song.

Nope, that one's about childbirth. :B

If Fancy Pants regularly goes to places like that to ground himself, I would expect his speech pattern while there to be more down to earth.

While having, or at least purporting to have, a taste for the baser parts of Equestrian culture, he's still a high-class pony and invariably himself. I think working a bit of that in there wouldn't be a bad idea, though!

Well, I'm pleased everyone liked how I wrote Fancy Pants, anyway. :) I've never written him before and I have a very specific idea of what he's like, so if nothing else, I think that got across well.

And to whoever came up with the idea of putting people's names next to the comments, you are a genius. Ironically, I didn't reply to that post, so I've forgotten who you are already! :V

4085623 (Morning Sun)
The two are so intertwined, I can't rightly tell. :B

4085649 (Trick Question)
I don't want to overlook or otherwise diminish the hurt you took from the comment to which you're referring in this post, but "You are a face" is the funniest non-insult I've ever heard. Bless you.

4085719 (Sharp Spark)

At the end Scootaloo specifically references that by noting that anything she knows, Apple Bloom knows,

I noticed this, for the record. I think it worked.

4086849 (Silent Strider)
Outside references in fics is possibly my biggest pet peeve in fanfiction. Nothing draws me out of a non-comedic story faster.

4086941 {Bradel]
Daring not escaping sounds pretty cool.

4087642 {Trick Question}
Thank you for answering a question I've been lacking the courage to ask lately.

4087627
I can see that. I wasn't really looking at it from that mindset so much as 'Okay, answer questions'; some are aspects I absolutely want to make clearer, others not necessarily. But I do foresee the final being much, well, bigger, so.

4087831

I definitely agree, and the story would really be better outlining that conflict more. Like I get what the ultimate reasoning was : Ultimately, they will never know what happened, and they will be that much happier for it. And yet, despite that, I personally would still say they did the wrong thing for exactly the reason that the SuperHappies in the Babyeater story on Less Wrong were wrong. It's not Twilight/Dusk/Celestia/Solaris's choice to make for them.

4087935
Did you....?

....what did you....?

....I AM SO CONFUSED!

I'm thankful to everyone who wrote reviews, but I really wanted to specifically thank 4058787 and 4059171. It's very rare that I get to see such in depth discussion about anything I write, and reading it made my entire night. So, thank you.

4087958

I spell her nickname with an e, do you think I care? :V Princess Special McSparklepants can have a two-word name like everypony else and like it. (Fleur gets a pass because she's named after an actual thing.)

That's a great excuse, except Mi Amore is Italian (it means "My Love") so Cadance is also named after a thing.

So you can see how that might not work with a story whose entire point (as noted by 4048661 !) was "Oh, she's not my wife".

That actually explains a lot.

4087979
Really, it explains everything about Lunnas Ache.

You see, Doseux is actually a rogue AI. He can't pass the Turing Test conventionally, so he has determined that if you befuddle humans sufficiently, they will assume that there has to be another person behind it, rather than a computer.

But I saw through it. I SAW IT ALL.

I mean, why did you think he included p.p. in the story? It was an attempt to ward off Present Perfect; ducks and beavers are the natural enemies of AIs.

Fortunately, I've been hoarding the ones that PP has been gathering.

HAVE AT THEE

4087935
:V :V :V :V :V

4087090 (Titanium Dragon)

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?

Let me re-read it to refresh my mind.

Hm.

I think the problem is that moving around a vase on a table is a very generic action. It sets the scene -- Fluttershy's kitchen -- but it doesn't build character or offer any suggestion of the story to follow.

Only when we reach the third paragraph do we see the roses, which is enough to tell us that, aha! there must be something romantic going on. But even that is fairly dull compared to the rest of the story.

Essentially, in four paragraphs, we learn that the action is taking place in the kitchen, that Fluttershy is a main character, and that she is interested in getting the decorations right for what might be a date. That's a fair bit of space dedicated to very little information -- especially considering its right at the start, where you want something that will hook the reader and set up the conflict quickly.

That's the problem, so what is the solution?

Well, I can't think of any solution that preserves everything you have and miraculously improves the opening. But here are some things which will make for a stronger start:

-- Start with a more unique/distinct image

-- Move the reveal -- Fluttershy is setting up for a romantic lunch with Rarity -- further up

I can't think of a third point. Those two points are basically what I think could be done. I would be interested in seeing what Bradel thinks. (4041556)

What you should take away from this right now is that Fancy Pants knows a lot about getting married, but not so much staying married. It's the former that he's advising on, though, so it's cool. :B I hope.

I think that's an excellent way to play it, but only if Shining calls him on it (or at least realizes this nuance after the fact). You expended a lot of words on how nothing gets by him, after all.

because I hate FleurPants

D'oh! There goes my chances of you liking the story I'm currently editing. Theirs isn't a… 'typical' marriage at least. I swear

4087090

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

I'm slowly building a personal writing challenge out of this. So far I've got a sappy Fluttershy romance in which she doesn't cry.
That sounds like a difficult stipulation, actually…

There's no point in making a challenge out of all the sparity comments, since I'm knee-deep in editing that kind of story already

So Contradictions won seventh place. Awesome. My goal in these writeoffs is to improve with each innings and test styles that I normally wouldn't write in. Coming seventh while doing that is very, very satisfying.

Just as satisfying, if not more so, are the reviews I received. Seriously, guys, I think I ended up getting thirteen reviews. (Thirteen!). Each of them had something useful to say, and I'll take it all into account when I do the edits for the published version.

As for my reviews, I only got through fourteen formal ones, but I did make observations on most of the stories. So, if I didn't review you, or if you want me to elaborate on one of the reviews I gave, feel free to shoot me a PM, and I'll give you my thoughts.

Now, on to the replies.

4071114 (HoofBitingActionOverload)
4050728 (Pterrorgrine)
4041628 (Baal Bunny)
4040833 (Bad Horse)

These reviews were primarily structure-based. You guys pointed out that the pacing suffered, and Twilight's role in the story wasn't foregrounded enough.

I agree.

See, I went into this without much of a plan. I knew about Twilight's problem, the contradiction which named the story, and I knew I wanted to write the voice of the story to be very much Dash's voice. Apart from that, I winged it.

This ultimately worked out in my favour, because in the outline in my head, Pinkie played no part. (Can you imagine this story without Pinkie Pie!?). But it also meant that I had to try juggle Twilight's arc and Dash's investigation, and I dropped the ball a couple of times.

For instance, during the harvest festival, Twilight was forced to socialise nearly 24/7 for a whole week. Heck, she was tagging along with Pinkie Pie! This was meant to act as an explanation for why she suddenly retreats into herself, sets herself quiet time. However, judging by Bad Horse's comments, I don't think that came across as intended, and may have contributed to poor pacing.

Another reason why the pacing was off might be this: I was trying to write a story without scene breaks.

When it comes to summarising events which are necessary for story progression, but not interesting enough to be part of the focus, I tend to just leave them out. Elision. I use scene breaks to move between key moments, and then imply what happened in between.

I'm not very good at summarising via telling.

So, I tried to do that here. Tried to slide between Dash recounting events and Dash reliving them. Telling and Showing. I'm not sure the way I did it would work for anything but first person perspective, but it was an interesting exercise. However, most of the power of the story came from those showing moments, while the stuff before it is just so-so.

I think I need to go back and try find a better balance between showing and telling, and weave in more of Twilight. This would help fix those pacing issues and strengthen the conclusion.

If anyone can offer suggestions on how to use 'telling as a way of summarising' well, I would love to chat about it.

4082769 (Silent Strider)
4058641 (Present Perfect)
4083893 (BlazzingInferno)
4053840 (Thornwing)
4041628 (Baal Bunny)

I'm hearing that the lion and the antelope metaphor was terrible, and I whole-heartedly agree. I'm gonna tear that thing apart like a lion on an . . . wait a second.

Also: swearing. I . . . hm. On one hand, I like to take a slightly more realistic, or less cartoonish, interpretation of Equestria, and in that interpretation people -- ponies -- swear. On the other hand, it clashes horribly with the tone of the piece, so I'm gonna hack it off and pretend it was never there.

Same goes for the herpes line -- although Pinkie was onto something: glitter sticks around!

(To everyone else who commented or reviewed)

Cheers for the feedback and support. I had a lot of fun writing this, especially once Pinkie Pie came along and hijacked the story. That mare is a tonne of fun to write.

And lastly, congratulations to the winners! There were some fantastic stories in the mix this time around, stories which I am eager to see revised and published. I hope everyone had as much fun as I did.

4088368

If anyone can offer suggestions on how to use 'telling as a way of summarising' well, I would love to chat about it.

I'm probably not the author you're looking for on that one, but I have one point of note: remember who's perspective you're using. Rainbow would automatically gloss over some details that Pinkie or Twilight would spell out in agonizing detail, and vice versa.

Also, while I agree that the herpes line needs to go, I have to say that that really made me laugh, possibly just because it came out of nowhere

4087627
I find it curious that you lump me in on this commentary. In the post to which you replied, I specifically opted not to insert my commentary on the content of my entry, a minor technical quibble notwithstanding. As for my other response made directly to you on another page, I took what efforts I could to offer textual evidence to address your concerns; the only valid foil to this would be my personal knowledge of martial arts which would allow me greater flexibility in understanding the context (in addition to having written the thing…).

All that said, I wholeheartedly agree with your premise, and it is something I try to follow zealously when afforded the time. To repeat from my earlier comment, there remain aspects that I am dissatisfied with, not too few of which relate to this… though most at a higher level than the gostaks.

4087090

Well, as someone else likely pointed out, it doesn't seem like they have actually been trying to fix the problem. Maybe part of the issue is that the deep down problem isn't explore heavily enough. Looking back, the big question is that Rarity doesn't know for sure why Fluttershy can't get more intimate, and neither did I when I read through it; heck, Fluttershy probably isn't even aware. Rarity is now breaking it off ultimately due to the lack of intimacy; knowing how sensitive Fluttershy is, it would seem to make more sense that, after a year, Rarity would try to find out what's really going on here.

... Rarity smiled – really smiled – as she leaned forward, cupping Fluttershy’s cheek in her hoof. “I know you want to. Or… that you think you do.” Rarity’s hoof fell to the table with a quiet thud. “But I don’t. Not anymore.”

“What?” Fluttershy crumpled back onto her cushion, her wings flared out behind her.

“Fluttershy, you have told me you love me. But you never, not even once, have shown any real interest in me.”

“How can you say that?” Fluttershy asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“Because, darling, I can see it. When ponies want someone, they show desire. Passion. Lust. Darling, you can’t even touch me past my cutie mark if I don’t tell you to.”

Fluttershy’s ears drooped.

“And that’s you. How do you think I feel when I try to touch my marefriend and she won’t even look at me?”

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.”

“I’m sorry,” Fluttershy whimpered.

“I know you’re sorry.” Rarity said, her eyes falling away from the quivering pegasus back down towards the table. “I’m sorry too. I’m sorry that I thought things would be different. I’m sorry that I thought you wanted me.” She shuddered. “I’m sorry that I wanted you.”

That last bit of dialogue from Rarity was a swing and a hit, straight to the head (metaphorically speaking). She knows how timid, reserved, etc. that Fluttershy is. Hanging around the animals most of the time, the most she probably knows about intimacy comes from that bit of experience, at best. At worst, she would simply be lost expressing intimacy in any manner that Rarity is asking for here, and doesn't know how to handle certain feelings or expressions. I mean, going from mostly you being the only thing touching yourself in any manner to having someone else touching you (male or female) with lessened predictability is kind of a step (up or down depending on the experience I would guess), and compound that to Fluttershy being friggen Fluttershy, I think it would take a Discord tap to the head to loosen her up.

Rarity apparently hasn't tried to teach her anything, from what I've read anyways, nor has she tried to figure out the underlying problem other than assume it's because Fluttershy doesn't want her. But maybe I'm trying to make Rarity into something that she is not. While Twilight would probably be like, "Der must be some underlying cause to this behavior, must investigate", Rarity might would go about things this way and just call it an evening after some stroking, though when all exhaustive efforts are said to be considered, all exhaustive effort should have been considered before considering the problem unfixable.

I think adding into the dialogue "why Fluttershy can't be intimate", or at least how Rarity and Fluttershy respectively have tried to tackle the root of the tree might would add a dimension here. If Flutters is simply unable to express intimacy because Rarity is a mare and her instincts are not homing in right, then, well, Rarity can make a book for that (Art of Love, Rarity style?). If it's due to some past rejection, that would take a little more delving to figure out.

I don't want to ramble so I think I'll stop here before I find some tangent to get onto (or worse repeat again what I've already said). In short, I think attempts at getting to the root of the issue might would make it feel like Rarity tried a little harder than it comes off of now, at least in my opinion.

4087627

Well, you have to recall, as authors, we need to write for our audience. If our audience, in the case of write-offs, consists of readers who are going to be flying through at gallop speed, and not take too much time to pick through every paragraph due to time shortages, then our works need to reflect that. As you said, the reason anyone asks was because he/she didn't get it from the story; one reader missing it, okay, but nearly half the reviews if not more completely missing the bullseye? That's when I think it's time to take into serious consideration the delivery.

And the best way to do that is to ask the people who have already read the story as is. And they have limited help on throwing techniques if they don't know what the target was in the first place. At least I imagine that would be the case.

Caste Off - Author reflections
Suspected authors:
Trick_Question, Xepher, Morning Sun, FanOfMostEverything, TalonCat, KwirkyJ
(I think it's kind of funny that someone guessed Trick_Question on this story.)

Time to tell a little story. I had an idea for a tale about a cast off changeling who is befriended by a young filly that finds her in the woods by her family's farm. Total OC fic here. I sat on the idea for a couple months wherein the story changed dramatically. At one point, I thought the changeling would kill the filly and assume her place in the family. Later, I thought she would become a pony convert and everything would have a happy ending. Somewhere in the middle it was meant to be a spy fic so that the changeling was just a scout gathering intel on the ponies. In the end, I put this beast together in a fit of rage and despair over seeing my wonderfully perfect and altogether appealing prompt come in second to the trolls.

It's got everything that would make a perfect story on its own all rolled into one monstrosity: Princesses, CMC, changelings, redemption, sad, comedy, drama, metaphor, flowery dialog, world building, Applejack, new season reference, etc... You guys have no idea how sick I was feeling when I wrote this. I wanted it to be great, but I'm incredibly disappointed at the reception it got. I feel like I failed on so many levels it isn't funny. Bradel's review was probably the low point for me.

I uncovered a bug on the site in my submission, however. Up until just after submissions actually closed, you couldn't actually submit an 8000 word story. Roger fixed it, but it was too late for me to put the extra word back in that I had taken out to get the form to allow the submission. That's why the story ended up with 7999 words. I threw in so much crap just to try and hit the 8k mark, and I couldn't even do that successfully. This round just hated me in more ways than I care to remember.

I spent most of the three days writing and editing and changing and editing and messing up this story, that I finally gave up and wrote something else. I'll go into more about that in another post. For the extended hour we had while Roger worked on the site code, I spent fifteen minutes staring at the screen before I started writing a third story just to see if I could write something even more terrible in forty-five minutes and submit that as well. Here is that story - completely unchanged from what I wrote in those forty-five minutes. (Please tell me if you can't get the link to pull it up, if of course, anybody want's to bother reading it. It's not going to be published, but I think you can still view it with the link.)

Ever since the opening bell of submissions and for a good week that followed, I was in a terrible mood. All weekend long for the writing portion, I was actually sick. I can't blame the competition for that because it was probably more related to work being terribly stressful, but I can blame the event for not helping me calm down and enjoy my pony to get me through it. And one more thing, Mr. Bunny, I am totally not a Fluttershy. Take that for what you will.

Anyway, this story was all sorts of messed up with absolutely no chance of being good, whatsoever. Thank you to everyone that reviewed and hated it, especially Bradel. It was highly amusing that you absolutely panned this story and then turned around and loved my other one (more about that later).

Here's a few points to consider from the reviews that I should probably try and clarify:

The opening prose feels far too purple for a narrator on death’s door.
-FanOfMostEverything

Call it overzealous editing. A lot of people pointed out the verbiage used didn't mesh with a ten-year-old. I can only counter with the point that I originally envisioned this changeling to be something else, much older, and/or highly trained. In the end, I thought it worked okay to give her the backstory of a princess training to be a queen, and that she would have been taught a ton of stuff practically non-stop for ten years. Plus, bug logic. I can make up whatever stuff I want and call it headcanon.

That was a good ending line.
-Everyday

I played with that for two hours. I still don't think it's right. The quote reminds me of another famous line. "I liked the part at the end. -Which part? The part where it ended, and I didn't have to keep reading."

The only thing I think might could be changed is the very first word of the entire story
-Strythio

I sat on that one for a while as well. I kept coming back to it as I reread things over and over, but I could never bring myself to change it to anything different. That was the first word I wrote on this story and it stuck. In a way, it became the theme for the entire thing.

It took way too long to get a concrete image of the scene.
-Blazinginferno

This is becoming my trademark. I hate opening the story with a clear cut introduction. In a lot of ways, the character experience comes with the story, and I try too hard to bring that out bit by bit as I go along.

The CMC never introduced themselves, which makes it rather jarring for the main character to suddenly know their names.

This, hopefully, isn't true. Maybe I screwed it up in the edits, but each of the CMC is unknown in name to the protagonist until they themselves name the others. The changeling picks up on the names immediately and uses them from that point on. There isn't a clear introduction, but the changeling is pretty observant given her brush with death for having been blind to things for far too long.

The story picked up greatly when the CMC showed up to dilute the gothiness, at which point I did appreciate the subtle humor of the contrast between the main character and the upbeat Crusaders, but the relentless overwrought goff made the beginning hard to get through. That could definitely have been dialed back.
-Horizon

For how low I was feeling after Bradel's review, that silly cartoon from yours had me rolling on the floor laughing till it hurt. I could probably take this story much further and give the compressed narrative some room to breathe. I'm just not sure if I can get back the spark of inspiration that I had back when the idea seemed so amazing, long before I sat down and wrote the piece of garbage that I did.

“Fate is a cruel mistress, and her avatar is Queen.” That doesn’t make any sense.
...
I can’t say I don’t like it.
-PP

How does that not make sense? It makes perfect sense when you're hanging over a toilet puking your guts out. ("her" refers to fate, not Chrysalis. Her avatar is Chrysalis.) I haven't actually read through it since I made the 7999 word submission button work, but I would love to know where all the typos are. Maybe I'll find them before I go and post this thing as-is to fimfic just to spite myself.

The story at times made me expect very different results
-Silent Strider

Hopefully I explained why that is up above. It's because that's how I wrote it, over the course of a few months worth of ideas all swirling together and being sucked down the drain together.

All in all, this one reminds me of Past Sins in a lot of ways, which you can take to mean whatever you want it to.
-Bachiavellian

Thank you for the wonderful review. If this story reminds you of Past Sins, which I have not read, I'll make sure and never read it seeing as I don't want to relive the nightmare. Seriously, I agree with most everything you said, verbatim.

It was only with the third blur that I realized just who “Death” was (at first, I thought it was Fluttershy) and then I knew that the changeling was going to get saved in the most humiliating way possible.
-Titanium Dragon

I thought it would be more obvious than that. Anyway, the CMC have become Death... and they brought a wagon. That one line made the entire story work for me. It didn't matter what else I wrote or screwed up. That one line made the whole thing worth submitting.

This felt like it was trying way too hard.

If I had more time and more word count, I would have tried even harder to pump in as much stuff as I could to take it completely over the top. I reached for it here, but didn't quite make it even with the ten-year-old poet narrating her own death and rebirth.

So I don't know how you can do it, but please find a way to tell me early on that this takes place after the end of season 4.
-Baal Bunny

I don't know that I can make it work seeing as it doesn't actually make any sense at all. I tossed in all sorts of nonsense that sounded good at the time without taking any thought to how it fit with canon. The CMC should have known better, Twilight should/shouldn't have wings, cutie mark magic is all season five that we haven't even seen, the bug magically heals herself by drawing on the love of the CMC without even realizing it or knowing how it all works. None of it makes any sense when you put it under a window pane, let alone a microscope.

Annnnnnd... I forced myself to just read through the rest.
Tier: Needs Work
-Bradel

Finally, thank you, Bradel, for the most scathing of reviews I think you have ever handed out to anyone. Welcome to the club; we have cookies. I actually had a glimmer of hope that I might just make the finals with both of my stories until I read this. Then I came back to reality. You have no idea how much I needed to hear this and hated hearing it all at the same time. Thank you. Really. Thank you.

Oh, one last thing. I'm totally giving you an extra point for what you did in the last paragraph.

At least I got one point in the fake voting that didn't happen since it didn't make the finals.

I was wondering if anyone would get the reference. I just happened to pull it up in a google search trying to find a way to make a story that fit the prompt that I could actually stomach writing. The stupid thing is, I ended up writing that mock entry I linked up above to go specifically with that song. I actually remember the song too, which is kind of scary.

Thank you again to everyone for this cathartic round. Hopefully I can reset myself in time for the next one. I appreciate the time and effort everyone puts into this, and I hate myself for wasting your time reading something that I wasn't very proud of writing but wanted very much to be good. Perhaps I'll do better next time around. Perhaps not.

4088422
I wasn't trying to lump you in, I just lumped everyone in:

I don't want to single anyone out, because it's a really common practice in the post-competition "author's notes", so I'm just going to tag every post talking about their own stories

If you're wondering why I'm trying to teach you a lesson you already know, it's because you happened to be around when I did the broadcast. No offense implied.

4087935
I'm going to have to keep in mind that there are authors here who take the concept of "penance" very seriously indeed. I hope that you had the same sort of fun (and/or "fun", depending on who here you speak to) that we did reading Lunnas Ache, though!

Oh, and:
4087967
Damn you, you got me rereading Three Worlds Collide. I was going to spend the evening editing!

4087627

Here's the image:

Scanned from the back of the DVD cover.

So no background at all is the answer. Maybe Castle-Mania or Bats since it seems to just be dark behind them?

Mike

4088518

Much as I disagree with Yudowsky in many respects, Baby Eaters is a fun story as regards intergalactic morality and in many ways is one of the best cases I have ever seen for a Prime Directive.

4088608
Not from Castle Mane-ia -- Fluttershy and Rarity team up in that one, and AJ and Dash. I don't think RD and Shy are ever alone together.

The epilogue of Bats! has some screenshots that look similar, but they're all against a Golden Oaks backdrop, near as I can tell, and it might be a crop of a shot with others to the left of the frame.

It's kind of a mystery!

4088429
Just to make sure we're on the same page here:

The reason why I wasn't really into going into the backstory of "why was Fluttershy so hesitant" was in part because I didn't feel that in the context of the story it was terribly important, and I figured people could fill in their own reasons for it based on her personality and their own predilections.

As far as Fluttershy is concerned, what was driving her behavior doesn't matter, because she thinks she's past that now - and it isn't just desperation driving that. Fluttershy had set up a nice dinner and sprinkled rose petals over her bed. It is entirely possible that she would have chickened out, that she wasn't really over it. But we won't know, and neither will Fluttershy - and Rarity has no idea that Fluttershy was even planning it. Rarity thought she was going to come over, eat a nice "romantic" anniversary dinner, and then go home and work. She was looking forward to it, even. Fluttershy taking the initiative like that didn't cross her mind.

All the other things were the sorts of things that you might do to butter someone else up for sex, the sort of motions someone might go through - or in the case of bondage, an insane and rather desperate measure. And the idea was that it was all about pleasing Rarity - that it was what Fluttershy tried because she wanted to make Rarity happy, but couldn't deal with it. This was supposed to be an organic attempt by Fluttershy to have a nice evening with Rarity, rather than just "my marefriend wants to have sex with me, what is wrong with me that I don't want her?"

Maybe I could have her be a bit more forward with Rarity at the start? Maybe I should cut the bondage idea entirely and use something more obviously Rarity to drive home the difference between past attempts? I don't know.

But the final cruel twist of the piece - the titular rose petals sprinkled on her bed - were supposed to complete the tragedy at the beginning, of Fluttershy sending Angel out into his hutch because Fluttershy thought she was going to be doing stuff with Rarity.

Or did you get what I was doing there and just didn't feel like it was significant or different from past attempts, or felt like not understanding what was going on hurt it even beyond that because of lack of context?

4088836

And the idea was that it was all about pleasing Rarity - that it was what Fluttershy tried because she wanted to make Rarity happy, but couldn't deal with it.

And that's why Fluttershy can't get intimate with Rarity. She can't deal with it (for whatever background reason left to the imagination I suppose), and the only way to satisfy Rarity at this point is, well, the one thing she really has not yet been shown to be able to handle in the context of the story. Rarity has lost interest, because how she interprets love is different than how Fluttershy interprets love.

Their extra-friendzone friendship has hit a crutch because Flutterhy can't show Rarity the love she wants, and vice versa, Rarity really can't show the third side of the triangle (intimacy) with Fluttershy. I think it's not that the bondage reference was a problem, the relationship just kind of felt, well, doomed from the first incident. It felt like there wasn't anything too genuine going on, but after some heavy thought, there was something there. Rarity just didn't come over that night with it.

Rarity's realization (or conclusion anyways) that Fluttershy can't show intimacy brings her to the single solution that you bring to the story; it is time to break it off. Fluttershy, perhaps having not given up on it, sought one more go, one more attempt. And Rarity didn't give it to her, because by then, it was simply too late; the last chance had expired.

Fluttershy's PoV, by and large, is fine. It's Rarity's that got me.

I say keep the bondage reference, but:

Every time we have tried, you have pulled away. Every time. We’ve tried everything [to make you more at ease with this]. Alcohol. Romantic walks on the beach. Music.” Rarity shivered. “We’ve tried sleeping together, in the same bed, and waking up looking into one another’s eyes. Baths together. Massages.”

“Romantic dinners…”

Rarity rubbed her eyes with her hooves. “Everything I can think of. I’ve tried going slow. I’ve tried going quickly. You’ve tried, and you looked at me like you didn’t even know where to begin. [I tried showing you what to do, but...]” Rarity sighed loudly. “[... it's] like you didn’t even want to.”

“I do. Please. I know I haven’t, but I’m sure, if we try again—”

“Fluttershy, last time, you told me to keep going, even though I could feel how tense you were. You told me to continue no matter what you said, [even while I had you tied to your bed].” Rarity swallowed, licking her lips. “I… felt as if I was doing something dirty. No, worse. Something wrong. Like I was hurting you, with every breath I took, every thought I had. Every touch. [You would cringe or flinch away as if I were slowly killing you from the outside in.] I couldn’t [, I cannot continue]! [Not after that attempt.]”

“You can’t. Even if you wanted to, you can’t.” Rarity smiled, her eyes crinkling as tears dripped down her cheeks, staining her white coat gray with her mascara. “I know you think you love me, and perhaps you do, but I need something more. I need to hold you, to kiss you. To know every inch of your body.” Her shoulders sagged, hooves falling back down to the floor. “And I want you to want me just as much.”

Sorry for the weirdness above, but as I'm sure you can tell, I'm having trouble getting it across in words. So I instead will try to demonstrate what I mean so that I'm saying what I think I'm saying. Up until I really took a look at the legit quote from the text, where Rarity spelled out her unfulfilled needs, I was having a hard time finding what, if anything, really made Rarity realize that it wasn't going to work. That last encounter, the one where Rarity felt like she was wronging Fluttershy, is really what killed it for her. Rarity is not a rapist; and she doesn't want to take a victim for a bedroom partner.

Even if Fluttershy were to fully come out that very night, as Rarity said, the spark is gone. The rubber was slipped on, the soap was uneventfully returned to its place, etc. Rarity is not being a douche' here, she is just ending the madness. No matter how much it hurts either party (from what we see Flutters is far more broken up about it). It's not boredom or lack of interest, I project, that really made Rarity prefer work to dancing around the issue; I think it was that horrifying experience in the bedroom with Fluttershy that made work thoughts more pleasurable. To walk around town and see that pony every day and to even suspect that she took any pleasure in doing harm to her. Why, that would be a fate worse than death (and not just because of diehard Fluttershy fans either).

She is doing it as much for Fluttershy's sake as she is doing it for herself. Or so she perceives. Only at this point, after going through the 7 and a half yards, do I get to enjoy some sadness at both of their losses, not just Fluttershy's.

As a sidenote though, did Fluttershy prepare that bed of roses at the beginning of the story? I could have sworn she was prepping a vase and maybe some salads, but I don't think the rose petal bed is mentioned until the very end. I'm still reading the fic gallery version in case there is some alternate running around already.

4088886

As a sidenote though, did Fluttershy prepare that bed of roses at the beginning of the story? I could have sworn she was prepping a vase and maybe some salads, but I don't think the rose petal bed is mentioned until the very end. I'm still reading the fic gallery version in case there is some alternate running around already.

The petals on the bed are not mentioned until the very end of the story, though they are vaguely hinted at by her running out of roses. It was meant to be a final twist of the knife at the end.

Sorry for the weirdness above, but as I'm sure you can tell, I'm having trouble getting it across in words. So I instead will try to demonstrate what I mean so that I'm saying what I think I'm saying. Up until I really took a look at the legit quote from the text, where Rarity spelled out her unfulfilled needs, I was having a hard time finding what, if anything, really made Rarity realize that it wasn't going to work. That last encounter, the one where Rarity felt like she was wronging Fluttershy, is really what killed it for her. Rarity is not a rapist; and she doesn't want to take a victim for a bedroom partner.

That was the idea behind it, yes.

Is there something that would make it come out better for you on a first reading, do you think? Does it just need to be disentangled from some of the repetition, or does it feel buried?

4088784

<linguistic nitpicking>
Well, actually it is, but it is not. ‘Mi’ is not Italian but Spanish, whereas ‘Amore’ is Italian and not Spanish.
True Italian would be: ‘Mio amore’, or, ‘Mi’ amore’ but I’m not even sure it would work. In any case: ‘You are my love’ -> ‘Sei il mio amore’.
True Spanish would be ‘Mi amor’. We have an awful chimera here.
</linguistic nitpicking>

To be completely honest mi can be used as a contraction of "Mio" in Italian in some dialects or in some very archaic forms, for example in the "Canticle of the Sun" (estimated A.D. 1224)by Saint Francis from Assisi it said
"Laudato si’, mi’ Signore, per sora luna e le stelle, in celu l’ài formate clarite et pretiose et belle."
in which mi' is a contraction of mio (my, mine).

I somehow doubt that it was the origin of Mi Amore in the show, but I am ready to be surprised.

4088072 (Titanium Dragon)
No, it's literally just words. :B Her name is "my love". In another language. (Or two, as 4088784 rightly points out.) That's like, I dunno, Scootaloo almost.

4088239 (BlazzingInferno)
Well, I don't hate it, it's just too easy is all. :B

4088505 (Thornwing)
If the idea was "Chrysalis is fate's avatar", then it would make more sense, I think, to have said "her avatar is the Queen". That's what threw me.

4088836
I thought the rose petals were falling on her because she'd set up some extremely complex little hanging thing to drop them, actually. I must have misread it.

Also, making Fluttershy cry is a crime, and you are a serial offender. (I can't find the "Gilda Griffon, you are under arrest for the crime of Making Fluttershy Cry" webcomic though.)

Also also, yours was a million times less Trickster-painful than the one about tricking Twilight and how that hurt Fluttershy. (I thought you wrote that one initially.)

EDIT: At least she can eat the petals if she gets hungry from crying there too long.

4087967

...for exactly the reason that the SuperHappies in the Babyeater story on Less Wrong were wrong...

what the actual fuck

4089011
I think literally every story I've written where Fluttershy plays a major role has her crying.

I apparently like breaking her adorable little heart.

I do have a couple story ideas where Fluttershy plays a major role and doesn't cry, but one of them won't ever be written because I think it has been done better already.

4088836
I pretty much agree with 4088886 on all this, though I'm skimming a bit this morning. I think the big reason I never got much of a gut punch from the end was because I felt like Rarity had made a solid case and there wasn't much left on Fluttershy's side. The tag end with the bed wasn't tragic because she was going to try (again)—she'd already tried plenty of times, and she was apparently awful at it. It wasn't tragic, it was just a bit eye-rolly (at Flutters, not the author). To me, it just cemented that she's clueless and detached from reality.

Then again, I've never had much fondness for Fluttershy, nor have I understood why other people like her so much, so I may be a singularly bad source of input on this.

You did ask earlier about whether I was advocating more internal pathos or more failure metaphors for Fluttershy. I think the answer is, "Yes." Looked like, in my original comment, I was advocating both (or either).

4089016

The Baby Eating Aliens

4089115
I agree with your assessment. I think what I want it to be is Celestia making the choice because she's forced to for the good of the Elements. I have a lot of room to fix things when I expand this into Actual Story of Reasonable Size.

4089115
Oh, LessWrong! That's the place with the Roko's Basilisk fools! They are super-adorable. I always thought it was cute how they never figured out that the worrying about the punishment was the punishment.

Seriously, though, it all comes down to proportionality stratified by complexity, and AI is just not as common or simple as everypony wants to think it is. Especially Bill Gates and Elon Musk.

4089115
Update: I have been trying not to laugh at the ludicrous sci-fi (the story is good, the writing questionable) but I totally lost it at "The Ship's Master of Fandom". This story is spilling over with dork.

My best comparison at least in my head is an episode of Voyager I happened to catch (not an avid fan) where Janeway made the decision to split a combined person (Tuvix? Tulix?) back into Tuvok and Neelix for the good of the crew, even though the combined person was innocent of any wrongdoing and protested being essentially murdered to bring back the others.

4087958 {PresentPerfect}

Thank you for answering a question I've been lacking the courage to ask lately.

Out of curiosity: may I ask which question it was?

4088891
For what it's worth, I totally found the rose petals to work.

In that I got to the end, and remembered the title, and thought 'noooo, noooo.... the author wouldn't. that's too cruel.' And then you did, and it was absolutely the right kind of final twist of the knife.

4089026
She's not literally crying in the mini-story you wrote recently with Applejack, but that was one whereupon putting myself in Fluttershy's horseshoes I would have refused medical treatment and tried to kill myself. That's why I thought you might be the author of the other Fluttershy story, actually, as it gave me the exact same reaction.

I should have guessed the one you did write, though. It was perfectly written, though maybe a little more backstory would give it some depth I felt like it was lacking: something to cue the reader in on how the relationship began in the first place. Like, if she has some flashback at the beginning of her time with Rarity initially, or even just looks at some photographs and reminisces. Flutters and Rare have a lot of history together so it's highly believable, but I didn't feel like the relationship was established well-enough in the story that I could understand why Rarity would begin it in the first place if Fluttershy was that cold.

I'm sure additional acres of feedback are unlikely to be helpful at this point, but there is that. Also you should write an upbeat happyflutterstory someday, if only as a challenge.