5067515

I've had this avatar for years... and somehow it's never occurred to me that's what it might look like It's from the excellent webcomic Unsounded, and the girl in question is sniffing at a length of magical line connecting a spirit to its physical body. The look on her face amused me, so I thiefed it.

... and now I'm wondering how many other people have been thinking the same thing this whole time

5067543
It's your ship, but this plan would have removed stories from the Writeoff history that I'm glad I can still access, and I suspect many others will agree with me.

If an author withdraws from the competition because they have psychological issues, that's a tragedy. Deleting the story only compounds the tragedy, especially since we now have the ability to selectively delete our works from the website (so if the author really did want to remove their work as you suggest, they already could do so).

It's certainly not fair to those of us who'd like to know what the big deal was, but didn't get the opportunity to read the story prior to its deletion. Discussions about the merits of a story have extended well past a self-DQ because we were still able to read and respond, and sometimes self-DQ stories are worth responding to. One story in particular comes to mind, the one where Twilight breaks the fourth wall at the end. There was a lot of discussion over that one, and I was fortunately able to read it after the author self-DQ'd. The author only self-DQ'd because a few reviewers were VERY upset with the story, and this led to a useful conversation about the appropriateness of certain forms of humor and/or communication in fiction.

I must assume the purpose of deleting the story is to encourage members not to self-DQ, but I don't think it will have that effect. If anything, it will encourage someone who is temporarily emotionally unstable to self-DQ, because doing so would immediately destroy their work without them having to do it manually.

Just my two cents.

5067615

5067608
I don't like people self-DQ'ing. The pity party and associated drama that follows is unfair to all the other people who actually followed the rules.

If an author withdraws from the competition because they have psychological issues, that's a tragedy.

There's not much I can do about that.

I must assume the purpose of deleting the story is to encourage members not to self-DQ, but I don't think it will have that effect.

I think it will disincentivise self-DQ'ing. I may be wrong. But that's not really important.

The purpose of the decision is to be fair to all the people who actually follow the rules. It's to be clear that following the rules is important, and that the only reason not to follow them is if your reason for not doing so really is more important.

5067656
People don't self-DQ because they broke the rules. They do it because they feel they've upset people with their entry.

Definitely keep those stories around for discussion purpose, since they're some of the most interesting ones to discuss.

5067656

The purpose of the decision is to be fair to all the people who actually follow the rules.

I'm afraid I don't follow. How does deleting a story make things "more fair" for ponies who follow the rules?

I think it might make more sense to poll what the authors who participate in the Writeoffs want. I definitely do not want a story to be removed from the competition just because it is a self-DQ. Please note I'm making a big distinction between "intentionally breaking the rules" and "withdrawing from the competition".

Let me put it another way. I don't think ponies should be forced to remain in the competition if they have a legitimate reason for dropping out, and I'm not the right person to judge whether a reason is legitimate. I don't think withdrawing from the competition should ban others from reading and discussing the work that caused the DQ, partly because this has led to productive discussions in the past, and partly because I suspect most authors here would prefer those works stay online.

5067829 Why don't you, like.

Just message Roger. I mean it's not like he's not there. Just say "Yo, could you delete my story?"

Like why break the rules when you could just, you know. Ask for help.

5067741
People self-DQ by breaking the rules. The rule that gets broken is the anonymity rule, because the people in question cannot bear to remain in the shadows any longer.

The anonymity rule is very important. It's a central and defining part of the writeoff.

5067780

How does deleting a story make things "more fair" for ponies who follow the rules?

If there is no punishment for breaking the rules, why ought anyone follow them? It's not fair to all the people who very much wanted to break anonymity but didn't.

I don't think ponies should be forced to remain in the competition if they have a legitimate reason for dropping out, and I'm not the right person to judge whether a reason is legitimate.

People are free to break the rules. If they do so, their entry will be removed from the competition. They are not forced to remain in the competition. In fact it is quite the opposite: they will be forced not to remain in the competition.

The reason to drop out is not legitimate if doing so is less important than having their work remain on the website.

I don't think withdrawing from the competition should ban others from reading and discussing the work that caused the DQ, partly because this has led to productive discussions in the past, and partly because I suspect most authors here would prefer those works stay online.

I'd rather there be no DQ's at all.

There are other stories by rule-abiding people that can also be discussed. I doubt we exhaust the number of interesting discussions possible every event.

5067780

Please note I'm making a big distinction between "intentionally breaking the rules" and "withdrawing from the competition".

But strictly speaking, breaking your anonymity in the thread is intentionally breaking the rules, no matter how you look at it. I've never quite understood why people haven't just done what 5067869 is suggesting, because I'd imagine it's a hell of a lot easier on Roger to be able to deal with someone leaving the competition by request than forcing themselves out and making him go in and manually DQ things without any warning. Also it isn't breaking the rules. Which feels like a pretty big deciding factor, if you ask me.

[I do, however, agree that the discussion that follows these DQs is often valuable and worthwhile, and deleting the stories takes that opportunity away from us. I'm not convinced deletion is the best punishment, but I understand Roger's reasoning behind it as explained in the Skype chat.]

5067909

People self-DQ by breaking the rules. The rule that gets broken is the anonymity rule, because the people in question cannot bear to remain in the shadows any longer.

So add a way to self-DQ without breaking rules. People do it out of respect for other participants, whom they feel they have offended. They don't necessarily want, nor deserve, to have their entries deleted.

In general, though, rule-break should of course be followed by story deletion.

EDIT:

It's not fair to all the people who very much wanted to break anonymity but didn't.

This is a valid point. I still don't agree, but I can understand your reasoning.

5067909
If you could add a "Self Disqualification" button right next to the "Delete Alias" button, that would be just fantastic. You can add it somewhere in the profile settings, maybe.

5067910
5067928
It's difficult to strike the right balance here. On the one side, I can understand the need of stopping the hiding when someone feels they can't take anymore. That's self preservation. I know what it takes to be able to keep the chin up when faced with a volley of critics: it's gruelling. You must have a thick skin and a high self-esteem, and even then, it sticks in your craw.

On the other side, the reviewers themselves can feel a bit queasy when the author of a story they reviewed DQs: “have I been too harsh?” Etc.

I'm not 100% sure that nixing the DQed stories will deter people to do so. I don't want to make dubious analogies, but the death penalty has never deterred people from killing each other.

I won't elaborate more, back to the reviews for my part.

5067909
It should not be against the rules for someone to withdraw from the competition if they have a valid reason for doing so.

You're totally splitting hairs here by saying "they broke the rules". The only reason they broke a rule was in order to withdraw. Nopony here is talking about letting ponies break the rules for any other purpose.

I don't think it's appropriate, sight unseen, to force everypony to remain in a competition. What I'm saying has nothing whatsoever to do with "the rules", apart from the fact that you are leaning on them in order to force your point.

Just for the record, I haven't been watching the Skype chat and was unaware that there were ponies in favor of the idea.

I'm done communicating what I wanted to say, so I'll stop being so argumentative now.

Anyway, enough drama. (Mini) reviews!
Here there be spoilers.

System Reboot
Someone said this was Star Wars fanfiction. I didn't realise.
I didn't connect emotionally here at all. "Oh a robot with amnesia surrounded by some other dead robots. And some dude betrayed some other dude with the robots." You need to show us why we should care about these characters, and this robot.
And the techno-babble fills no real point. People just glaze over it, anyway.

Cinder Clocks
There's a yellow line in the floor ending with a wall, and then someone decides to blow it up. Again, why should I care? We have no identifiable characters in here whatsoever.
The imagery does score some points.

Disillusioned
The prose is awkward and the resolution is weak.
However, this entry has pretty effective imagery, and raises many questions. Who is this man walking around? Why does he better hurry up? I sort of get the feeling the apocalypse happened - so why is he here? While we don't get many answers, the story hints at a larger world.
So this entry scores higher than the previous two, simple because it made me care to some extent. Fix the errors in sentence structure and grammar and it's a decent entry.

At Death's Door
Slice of life with all right premise and all right prose. Ends with a bad pun. Honestly, it bored me.

Ocean Blue
Poetry. Cool. (I'm not good at poetry, so take my advice with a fistful of salt).
This one needs to decide if it's free verse or meter, because right now, it rhymes sometimes, but mostly doesn't, and it ain't pretty. Free verse can be good, but not if it's mixed with hints of a weird rhythm I can't read wrap my head around.

The Kraken in the Paddling Pool
And another one with poetry. This one's great, though. The poetry could be touched up a little, but it's just very minor things. Overall, this one accomplished near exactly what it set out to do. Nicely done.

The Memory Palace
A man goes to have a memory erased, but lies to the doctor about which one. This was good - while I didn't understand at first why he wouldn't just tell the doctor the truth, I later realised it might be to avoid judgement, or perhaps sympathy. He just wanted it over with. Competently written, and evocative. Nice job.

Aaand that's the first half of my slate. More to come, sometime later this week.

This page of the discussion is somewhat lacking in reviews. You all are lucky that I have more important things to do, so that I can procrastinate by writing these instead.

22. Twenty Minutes
Summary: The protagonist takes a Ferris wheel ride and observes the people and couples around him.
Oh, gods, there is simply no way to review this briefly. D: Two major things leap out at me:

1) There appear to be hints that there is unreliable narration and subtext underlying the story that alters the entire interpretation, but I have no idea what the hints signify (or whether I'm even picking up patterns, or making patterns out of random noise). Most significantly:

There’s a sharp hiss and a threat, and the family steps out of line and exits.

What's hissing and who's making the threat? Why are "you" alone, and why is everyone staring when "you" enter the ferris wheel? Was the toddler really crying at a ferris wheel ride, or are they crying because "you" are a monster?

I watch you as you watch. … What are you seeing? And am I part of your observations too?

With that single section the entire narrative structure of the piece is upended. The narrator "I" is now a significant character to go along with the protagonist "you". Worse, "I" doesn't know if "you" is seeing "me", and "you" never shows any sign of acknowledging "my" existence, which just makes this reader's head hurt: who is telling the story to who?

2) The story is piled high with broken analogies, and it's hard to tell whether they're intentional for effect or simply misused English; they're very vivid and off-kilter descriptions, which makes them interesting prose, but they fall apart on logical examination, which is very distracting from the story. Examples:

The people in line watch you through the glass and you, sitting alone, watch them back. Everyone’s eyes play ping pong.

"Ping pong" means that they are bouncing back and forth between two things. What else besides you are they looking at?

Marlow feels the heat between them. It is sweaty, uncomfortable, and he wants to yank it off and catapult it out the minuscule, ventilated side windows.

How does one "yank off" or "catapult out" an intangible sensation like heat?

Their faces melt together.

That is … uh … certainly a vivid description of kissing. I am taking it as gross and alienating. That may or may not have been your intention, although the earlier reference to "young, sweet, detestable love" suggests the former. If so, I want to know why the narrator finds love so squicky, and the story never answers that.

Below the fairgrounds is a boy.

"The fairgrounds" is the land on which the rides sit. "Below the fairgrounds" is underground. Is the boy dead and buried? D:

Your eyes are like microscopes hidden inside binoculars

I have no idea how to visualize this analogy.

You frisk your memory for a face, a place. You search for through a lottery of eyes and hair and lips, but the frames in your anamnesis don’t match.

I had to look up "anamnesis", and now I have to assume that it is being used specifically to invoke past-life memories instead of the more typical kind. Seven scenes in, and this is the only suggestion in the entire piece that there might be reincarnation involved. If that's your intention: you cannot rely on the shades of meaning of a single word choice to carry important story implications — there really needs to be more foreshadowing of something so crucial to interpretation.

Two people don’t say anything to each other. Don’t even look at or acknowledge one another … only watch the clockwork of the sun from the windowpane.

This, on the other hand, I wanted to point out for praise (though the part I omitted with the ellipsis felt to me like it detracted from the impact of the paragraph, and removing it would focus your powerful imagery more strongly). "The clockwork of the sun" is a wonderful turn of phrase, drawing an unusual analogy that strongly tonally reinforces the description about these two characters; this is the sort of effect I think all the other examples above were aiming for.

Ultimately, the effect here is vivid descriptions that are just too impenetrable for me to discern character, motivation, or plot. This almost kinda works on the level of modern art — a barrage of images leaving impressions rather than coherent narrative — but it simply doesn't pull together as a story. You've got to give me SOMETHING to hang my understanding of the piece on. NW

35. Death Guts
Summary: Three people chat in a fast-moving car.
Direct quote from the story:

“I’ve been working too hard to get a distim of those doshes to lose it now on some gostak gone for the galloons.”

Okay, author, maybe it's not a direct quote — but when your third sentence introduces four pieces of invented slang, none of which appear to refer to the subjects of the first two sentences, then my formulation is topologically equivalent to what you wrote. The only solid context we have for any of those neologisms is in the way they interrelate, along with vague hints from word association (green:money, and slide flake:pejorative term for an individual, are about the only guesses I've got).
I simply never understood what was going on here. (Help?) The narrator (n.b.: and it was very disorienting to see an "I" after six paragraphs of apparent third-person omniscient) apparently is waking up from some drug-induced stupor, and then there's conversation about whether he wants to die or not, and the driver saying that "it's all at an end", implying that he crashes the car deliberately, even though the line I complained about above strongly implies a determination to do the opposite and avoid "losing" something (since you can't take it with you when you go). The slang is so pervasive that all I'm getting from the dialogue is a vague debate over their speed, and the feathers line just makes no sense in context. I don't know what they're doing, or why they're doing it, or why they're reacting the way they are, or even any scene detail other than the fact that they're in a vehicle. Author, descriptions like paragraphs 3-5 are certainly intriguing prose, but once again, you've got to give me SOMETHING to hang my understanding of the story on. NW

9. The Memory Palace
Summary: A man goes to a doctor's office for a procedure that will help him forget painful memories for good.
Well-executed; good use of space. Came together cleanly for me (though see other reviews for legitimate concerns). Nitpick:

LSD was an amazingly fast hallucinogen.

I guarantee you it's not. Oral ingestion generally has a ramp-up period of half an hour minimum, not to mention that even a moderate dose will leave you tripping for 6-8 hours. LSD is definitely not an outpatient-procedure drug.

Anyway, my new headcanon for this entry is that the previous two stories were artifacts of this story's LSD trip. TC

21. Darcy's Lion
Summary: A hunter explains the source of the trophy on his mantelpiece.
My Actual Reading Experience
Horizon, two paragraphs in: "Oh, huh, looks like someone interpreted the prompt as 'The End Of The Lion'. That's pretty clever, actually! Points for promptbending."
Three paragraphs in: "…wait, this story's going to be a feghoot, isn't it. And that's going to be the punchline."
Skipping to the end: "… huh, I was wrong."
Upon actually reading through the story: "Wait, no, I wasn't."
Author:
So basically this is a dual feghoot, with a headfake at a subversion before doubling down on the core joke. Gotta give you genuine props, that's a lot more effort than I usually see out of Writeoff feghoots. This was never going to be literature — and there's simply no critique to be offered on the text; it's really only there to pad things out before the punchline — but this easily clears its low bar. S

Trixie's Prelims 1

Degree of critique is not a bellwether for how I ranked a story.

Engi and the Rail
I didn't get a consistent sense of Engi's character. He seems alternately clever (how else could he make it this far on his journey?) and foolish (why would he leave water so far behind?). On a more pedantic note, Yucca Mountain never has been, and doubtless never will be, used to store nuclear waste.

Outmoded
This one isn't on my slate. I read it because there was a lot of chatter on the list about it being terrible, and I couldn't help myself. I think the story is mostly fine, and the emotional showing of a woman and her craft is the high point of what it provided me. The main problem is that the ending is a shocker, and not in a way that lets us know what the author was trying to say. I've read stories like this that hide the fact that the "animal" was a human of another race before, but generally in those stories the message is clearer, such as showing how easily that sort of inhumanity can be taught from parent to child. Here, the text only seems to humanize the protagonists, and I can't imagine that was the only intent of the author. Granted, I'm not as hung up on "messages" as most readers here, even though I always have something to say with what I write: I don't think every story needs to end with a clear "Dear Princess Celestia" to be worth reading, especially at this length. But in a case like this one you really do need to be clearer about what you're saying, because you're treading in very dangerous terrain when you use that particular word in that way. I'll give this the benefit of the doubt and assume it was misaimed, or maybe I missed a clue; for one, I don't see how the 46 years figure could be relevant, but it may have been a mistake to include a specific number when your audience is bound to be looking for Chekhov's guns in such a controversial piece.

Waiting Room
First-pony perspective is hard to do well because it's automatically telly and easy to slip into lazy (and boring) modes of conversation. Halfway through the story you switch from first-pony to third-pony, and the transition is unfortunately abrupt and telly. If you had shown us the car crash instead of narrating it, this would have been a story, but as-is it's just a narration of ideas. Separately, when I heard the name "Meg", based on the voicing of the protagonist, I immediately wondered if the he was going to be Chris Griffin.

Uncertainty Principles. (sic)
No recommendations. I suspect the dot in the title is wholly intentional. (Do Brits really say "my maths" rather than "math" in situations like this?)

Falling Through
I'd think an English-speaker from 1987 would have no difficulty understanding that line of dialogue.

Sitter
I think this story would have been better had you not relied on a D&D monster but instead used something original. This is especially true given that the protagonist is already not like a displacer beast because they can talk. The only purpose that crutch seems to serve here is to heighten the combat artificially, and none of the combat needed any magic or strangeness to tell the story you told. In other words, it would be the exact same story if you removed all the magical elements but the talking, and as a reader I'd be more engrossed.

An Honest Trade
This story does an excellent job of saying something that is completely unrelated to the fact that the story is sci-fi in nature, in a very short space. I'm impressed. To get pendantic, though, even an English-speaking robot wouldn't be this pedantic. If somepony can speak English this well, they would necessarily know that one of the definitions for 'line' is a line segment, so I didn't quite buy the initial exchange. I think it'd be better if you chose something she said that was actually wrong by some small margin.

Spoilers Beware.

Sitter
A fantasy(?) story where a bestial guardian protects a child named Alice. With a run in between intruders, he trumps on top.

I'll be fair, it's an alright story. For me, at least, there's nothing major that sticks out as "this shouldn't be here". Although, it does still leave me a bit confused. It doesn't leave the question as to "why are there suddenly random people who are in the house", but it does makes me question their entire purpose of being there. It's as if there was no given motivation that was assigned to them. They just pop in with no clear goal and they get their shit pushed in. They do take note that they know of the owner of the house, as well as their daughter, but that's all that they're given. What are they trying to accomplish? Were they thieves? Assassins? Just random people who strolled on in? If the interaction was used solely as a purpose of conflict to attach the reader, it really didn't do it for me.

Also, the random villains are written off, to me, as generic stupid villains. For one thing, they have no distinctive goal, as that was noted before. The story doesn't attempt with them at the slightest, it just focuses on how one-sided the entire conflict was for the main character. Secondly, they have absolutely no understanding of the person's house in which they've entered. They knew of the wizard in which they were sent after, which is revealed once the intruder said that Alice was "his daughter", so why didn't they know anything past that?

There's also this:

I melted into the shadows and summoned an illusion before dashing to the side, buying some distance and placing myself where they could not easily reach her. Lightning crackled from his fingertips, but I ignored the pricking heat while his partner’s dagger swung through my illusion.

The swing threw him left him overextended, and one of my tentacles struck and pulled him forward. He stumbled to one knee with a cry and my claws savaged the gap in his armor. His blood pooled on the floor as I padded back inbetween the magician and Alice.

“You will not touch a single hair on the heir.” My tongue lolled out at my wit.

The magician looked at me, eyes wide, the light in his hands guttering.

“Y-you can talk?”

I snorted. “Obviously.”

“Please don’t eat me!”

That's a bit odd of character shift. First he's fighting a mythical beast, his partner goes down, and now he tries to beg for his life after witnessing him talking? If you're going to write a villain, at least make them somewhat likable. Cowardly traits just makes me not care for them, or for the events that follow.

To me, I would only write a story like this if I had the 7k words to do so, as I know that motivations for villains can be lengthy. Within the 750 words limit, it's easy to struggle. But after everything that I've said, remember that I did also say that it's an alright story. Just not yet exemplary.

The swing threw him left him overextended,

Oh, also, you have a little typo there.

Hell on Earth, or at Least the London Underground
Before I begin, I have to note I believe the story isn't finished. The reason for that assumption is because it simply falls flat within the middle of a sentence. Now with that out of the way, I'll just go ahead and look at what's provided.

The story is about a man who is on board a train while his anxiety issues kick in.

Now, I'll just start from the beginning of where the problems arise. There are plenty of grammatical errors, there's a capitalization error at the beginning of the story, and overall it's hard to read. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, though, because I know that it's hard to make a story be easily read for another person.

I'll give you links to the Hemmingway Editor, as well as Grammarly (Google App Store). These are what I use so then my stories are pretty damn readable. They aren't perfect, but you'll manage to be filling in the gaps as to where they fail with a bit of practice.

Also, read lines within your story out loud to make sure that it sounds right for other people. It's best to be doing it while you're writing if you want to speed up the process.

Now, let me tell you that you should never, ever, ever use a change of text as a medium to portray a shift in anything within literary. Beside the italics, underlines, and sometimes bold, never use things like color change and text size change. You are writing to an audience with your stories, and they don't want to have to struggle to read your works. When you have them in two different fonts or sizes, however, it makes it a bit hard for them. Make it as easy as possible for them, in and out. If you don't do that, then there are going to be a large amount of people who close your story before they've even read a thing.

Overall, I believe that your story right now is decent at the very least. It can be improved on, as the focus is sometimes put on things that really don't have any significance whatsoever. The entire thing though is surrounded by grammar and readability issues, which makes it intimidating to read. Practice more and use those two links provided above so then you can iron out those flaws.

5068338

Do Brits really say "my maths" rather than "math" in situations like this?

Yes. Yes, we do.

5068367
Re: Hell on Earth...
I don't think the capitalisation at the start is an error—the story starts with the second half of its final sentence

5068441
Oh, wow.

That's actually clever.

5068441

Pip pip cheerio hibbledy-jibbledy jaw jaw rassafraw-hamptingson-shmidth go on wot oi blah erhurm wibblerry crikey.

5068492
Actually, that video is probably one of my favourite things ever. Not for the title it's given there, but for its original purpose—an attempt at recreating to people who speak English what English sounds like to non-English speakers.

It's just the geekiest thing ever and I love it so damn much

(I wouldn't be surprised if you knew this, but this is mostly just to clear it up for anyone who hasn't seen it before )

I just went through and checked the spreadsheet. We had about half a dozen posts missing from the total; hopefully I got them all.

Right now, we stand at 99 reviews, and two stories (The Light Upstairs and End of My Rope) still have 0 reviews.

5067605
Wow. Ironically, your description is almost exactly what I thought the image was the first time I saw it! But I just kept looking at it, and it kept looking more and more like snot-rocket.

This is probably only my problem, except that now it is also everypony else's problem (who read my posts).

5067605
Not gonna lie, I thought the same thing as Trick Question.

5068541
Here are the missing two, then. Time to a full set: 56 hours.

I'll get them added to the review spreadsheet. Don't be shy about posting reviews, y'all! Even brief impressions of stories help authors out.

26. End Of My Rope
Summary: A woman struggles with altered perceptions after an accident.
I'd hoped to have the thread's 100th review be more useful, but I don't have a whole lot of reaction here. This is another scene which wants to be a story; it offers some tantalizing glimpses at conflict, but even though the protagonist makes a decision at the end to preserve the status quo and return inside, it doesn't feel like an actual plot resolution to me. I think it's because there don't seem to be any stakes to it — this is presented as a decision she's made before and will make again, rather than as her finally giving up and staying inside for good. As such this feels like it's all establishing material for a longer story that digs into the issues you've introduced. The altered consciousness is definitely a strong enough hook to hang a story around, but it's not strongly enough in focus to make this feel like a self-contained scene that stands on its descriptions, so the cure here is to get back to writing and add an overall conflict and resolution. AT

46. The Light Upstairs
Summary: A woman speaks to a man who waits on a train platform in the middle of a snowstorm.
I saw the ending coming halfway through — at the "Waiting for someone?" line's response — but this nevertheless solidly brings out the idea it's trying to execute. Little elements like the way the woman is dressed and the choice of title all mesh together well with that idea and contribute to my impression of strong construction. The story felt bland to me in the predictability of the twist, but it tells a complete story, which is worthy of acknowledgement against the 750-word limit. S

Howdy howdy! I thought I’d share my thoughts on some of these entries.

I tend to do quite poorly in the minific rounds, this one being no exception. As pretentious as it is, then, for me to offer my thoughts, I’m going to share them anyway. I’m not an experienced writer, but hopefully y'all may find my thoughts & impressions at least somewhat useful. ^^

Anyway, on to mini-thoughts part 1 for my slate + some, numerical order, spoilers ahoy, you know, building schools, fighting AIDS, stopping wars:

21. Darcy’s Lion: I assume this is trying to be a comedy. I didn’t laugh. There’s comedic potential, though. Most of the story didn’t build up to the first punchline. The second punchline, in my opinion, was sort of built up to with some snippets (You know, building schools, fighting AIDS, stopping wars...That sort of thing.) (I had brought food with me that day, of course, but I gave most of it to the villagers, since they hardly had anything.). Puns are fine, but they didn’t have as much zing to them, considering the story before it. The third-to-last paragraph is awkward in terms of sentence structure; it made me scratch my head before I understood the joke. This was just kinda meh for me.

26. End of my Rope: Things happened in this story, but I’m not sure I know what was going on. I feel like the pieces are there but I don’t have the energy to put them together. The different weather and (a rope she’d had Char—the real one—connect) make me suspect something, but I don’t know what. Did she die from falling down the stairs and go to hell or something? I’m not the target audience, I don’t think, of story-puzzles. It’s otherwise interesting with the blind protagonist and whatnot.

33. Falling Through: I feel like this isn’t much more than just a nice scene. Bit clichéd, too. Bit stilted as well. Nice scenes are fine, but there wasn’t a whole lot of story to it. It feels more like the beginning of a story than a complete story, but even then it feels like there’s not a lot to go on, since there’s not a lot of mystery to this story, just more of a love story with a gimmick. It’s not bad, but there’s just not a lot here, in my mind, sorry.

46. The Light Upstairs: I was a bit confused by this one at first. The narrator was having some odd reactions to the man. I kind of skipped over them, thinking they were too intentionally vague or edgy or whatever the reason. Then I got to the twist, and I was touched. It was bittersweet, in the best way possible. If I were a better writer, I’d be able to determine whether the foreshadowing bits were good, and put into words why. I went back and all of them make sense now, but I can’t help but feel they were obtrusive to me, as I didn’t know why they were there. Maybe it’s not an issue. Just thought I’d point it out that it might be. I’d need a second opinion :p Aaaaand looks like the horizon has spoken, so you’re probably in the clear, author :P

48. Disillusioned: There are some odd word choices (A breeze gusted from ahead.), some telling when showing would’ve been better imo (she was also mysterious. Should I have a feeling about the way she seemed familiar to me, as if she reminded me of someone else?). Also, comma splices can be forgivable when used sparingly in 1st person or dialogue, but there are several instances here and it’s kind of annoying. The twist feels kind of random. This story felt like a tour of an old ransacked house more than anything else. The imagery’s close to being interesting, but that’s about it for me, sorry.

A fresh stack of manuscripts languishes as I continue my campaign against the unwashed hordes. Tonight, chalice in hand, I shall begin to right this wrong.

I seem to have misplaced my spoiler tags. Ye be fairly warned!

Hell on Earth, or at Least the London Underground

Writer, this is one of my favorite stories this round. Being dropped into the middle of a sentence and forced to catch up helps reinforce the theme of confusion and stress. And the way it comes full circle (hahaha) at the very end is a touch of brilliance.

I found myself asking if teenagers are truly such terrifying creatures - as much as I may agree with My Chemical Romance (on this particular point), it doesn’t seem like the type of fear that would make one cave in on oneself. Then I remembered that, to other teenagers, yes. Yes, they are, or at least, they can be. A subtle bit of characterization, Writer, one which I commend you for. I like stories that make me think a bit.

Or perhaps they were just the final straw when it came to the total sensory overload of our poor, beleaguered protagonist. Either way, I thought the text formatting was a nice touch, if a bit jarring. I thought it was curious that a similar bit of formatting wasn’t present when she was groped, as I assume that would provoke a comparable sort of emotional response, in severity if not in expression.

Still, it wasn’t enough to detract from my engagement with this story, as I felt I was crammed into the subway carriage right there with her from start to finish. From the safety of my office chair, I enjoyed the ride.

Final Thought: Well-Crafted Sympathy for Agoraphobes

**********

Karen

*drums fingers on desk*

There are some rather heavy issues being handled in this story, some of which I don’t feel I’m well-qualified to comment on. Whether the narrative is a commentary on the nature of the trans experience, or going on a circuitous route to construct a vision of a dystopian future where the very nature of identity can be altered via drugs (as apparently happens quite often, given the nonchalance of the roommate), and how well the story addresses either of these claims, is a question I’ll leave for others to discuss.

Focusing on the story’s prose, it’s well constructed and does an excellent job of portraying the titular protagonist Karen as someone wholly consumed by self-loathing. I don’t really have any complaints, Writer, especially after reading it twice, as the second time through almost every line took on a deeper, more haunting tone.

I did a double take at this sentence, though.

She didn’t flinch as the prick pushed the needle into her shoulder and pushed.

As the sentence reads, the roommate is being a prick for administering the drugs - which, within the greater context of the story, makes sense. However, at first I read it as a mishandling of a reference to the prick of the needle as it slides under her skin. If the first interpretation is correct, you may consider changing “prick” to “jerk” or something similar to make it more clear - unless you were shooting for ambiguous wordplay, in which case I can’t tell if I’m being pedantic or I’ve just had too much to drink.

Final Thought: Warrants a Second Read

**********

Feinted Hotel Hen

Being completely unfamiliar with previous generations of My Little Pony, I don’t have much to say about this one, Writer. The story is straightforward enough, although Megan’s consistent harping for the sake of conflict wears a bit thin.

“You cut in front of Wind Whistler. That's just not very nice.”

“Huh? I didn't! She just got here after me!”

“That's not what I saw. Go back to the end, now.”

I mean, really? Is Megan’s authority truly so absolute?

Final Thought: Smacks of Sisyphus

**********

Death Guts

I feel conflicted, Writer.

For the first two-thirds of the story, I was madly in love with the weird, disjointed slang flowing through the prose as it hauled me along for the ride (on a couple different levels, as it turned out). Then I came to this section-

His eyes flicked over me. Cold and sharp. Lake Superior looking right in you. “Don’t have a rag, son, it’s about at end. You want to die?”

What? Did I say that or just think that? In any case, he seemed to know.

-and in my confusion I was catapulted back into my office chair. The structure of these paragraphs makes it sound like it’s actually Him (not the “me” of the protagonist) who had spoken. If the speaker is meant to be vague and uncertain - which makes sense, given the high-octane, drug-addled nature of the story - consider separating the line of dialogue into its own separate paragraph, as you’ve done elsewhere in this story. Which reminds me:

the wind whistled past, forcing it’s way into the cabin

A personal bugbear, "it's" should be “its”.

As disengaged as I was, it made the final lines all the more disorienting. I thought these thieves/burglars/ne’erdowells had just explained how they weren’t planning on dying. Even after a second reading, all I can tell is that the driver just went, “nah, fuck it” and drove off a cliff for no apparent reason. If a commentary on the glorious rebelliousness of "live fast, die young" was what you were shooting for, Writer, for me, you missed the mark.

Final Thought: A Fun Ride that Ended Too Soon

Reviews, the fourth
Spreadsheet

10. Ocean Blue

This was an ambitious piece, and I know that kind of prose isn’t something that I’m ready to attempt yet. It’s not entirely smooth, but there are some definite strong points.

The result is atmospheric, but I did find it hard to follow. I had to read it twice to get the gist of the plot, and even then there were still gaps, especially the matter of ‘It,’ which I’m still trying to suss out.

The end result is evocative and sets a nice tone, but I’ve still got some gaps about what exactly went on.

40. Period

Very clean, sparse prose. Reading it, I really get a simple and light feel; almost airy. That may partially be the result of the generally short sentences, and all the resulting white space.

The narrator has a distinct, personable voice. The story within a story worked well enough; it illustrated his point, without overstaying its welcome, and without it you’d have trouble making the word length.

Overall a pleasant read. It’s so minimalist, I don’t have much to say about it. I’d say it does what it came to do, unless it was trying to convince me not to use periods, in which case it failed.

11. Hell on Earth, or at Least the London Underground

Descriptions were good; I can’t help but think that this was drawn from life experiences (except for the hand part, I can only hope).

The narrator felt consistent and believable. The smaller font got my attention, but felt a bit obvious in doing so. Otherwise, it generally felt believable in reflecting their emotions and ratcheting up the tension.

The ending was abrupt. I was surprised this fic was over 700 words long; it felt shorter. I’m not sure if I would have noticed the loop if someone else hadn’t pointed it out. Seeing as I did, I thought it was clever.

5067520
Duly noted. A joke that only I get is not a funny joke whatsoever. I shall refrain from such intentional Self DQ's in the future.

I did not mean to be offensive.

Ludicrous? Hell yes, but in the same way that Andy Kaufman was ludicrous. And... well... Jerry the King Lawler's fist certainly wasn't laughing.

Reviews, the fifth
Spreadsheets

39. The Kraken in the Paddling Pool
Ah, the Kraken. Being a fan of Kerbal Space Program, it holds a special place in my heart, although I’ve never actually met it.

Strong intro. ‘a grin with a dozen breeds of mischief in it’ is an absolutely great line.

Hmm. The was kind of cool, but the transition into it felt abrupt. Instead of just a ‘Then she said:’

‘then she took a deep breath and started chanting in a sing-song voice:’

The poems were fun and cool, but seemed rather long and involved for someone to make up on the fly. It had her name in it, though, so I’m conflicted. Maybe others might be able to pull it off, but I have a hard time envisioning it.

The poems are awesome, I think it just needs a little tweaking around them to make them feel more natural.

I liked the ending; overall it was cute and funny. It’s got a lot of great parts, they just need a little massaging to mesh together better, I think.

47. Waiting In Line at the Pearly Gates

Good prose; not a whole lot of description, but there was a nice variety of body language, and the dialog felt natural enough.

The scenes build on each other nicely, gradually subverting expectations. I liked the subtle hints you threw in; the line shuffling backwards and the folks from the middle east.

When they do reach the gates, I was surprised at how quickly they were both processed, considering the speed of the line…

Amusing twist at the end. A bit that was jarring in hindsight: the kids in the car crash. Are they actors, then? Still, nitpicks aside, this was a strong all-around entry.

23. Cinder Clocks

A few mechanical issues, though nothing major. “The cinder blocks that the line runs right into look fresh” feels like an awkward construct. Some other places where the spell checker settled on the wrong word.

I could’ve used more description up front; my initial image was just a low barrier, which confused things for a while.

Once I got near the end, and started getting a better picture of things, I couldn’t help but wonder just why there was a line there. If you’re going to build a wall, why would you then paint a line to it? Unless, of course, the line was pre-existing (such as double yellow one, but nothing else sounds like a road).

I’m also not quite certain how the ‘Clocks’ portion of the title ties in. Still, the piece was atmospheric. It had some interesting ideas and hints at a larger world, but hard to follow.

More reviews guys!

48. Disillusioned

Tenses shift. Ah, yes, grammar flubs (‘laid’ instead of ‘lay’, for example). Proofreading would be welcome.

Okay. This one is fairly off-putting. The rough prose tended to bump me out of the flow more than once, and that created a jerky experience, which detracted from the story. The pacing is very slow, and at end, one wonders if this is not an inner experience rather than a true exploration. But, most of all, the story poses more questions than it answers: why is this guy amnesic, why is his wife dead, and how come his house is rundown?

Verdict: slow pacing with rough prose, weak conflict and no real resolution. Needs expansion to give the readers the additional elements needed to solve the puzzle.

31. Morgan Slaps Kurt

This does a good job sidetracking the reader into believing it's depicting a real spat before revealing it's just a dramatic performance. However, once that first twist is past, the rest fells more or less flat. We've that guy who apparently makes bloopers on stage, and the other actress/director who is furious because that compromises her dream of making it to Broadway. There's a conflict, but there's not much else: we don't know why the guy is deemed inept, nor does the end give a strong resolution. Instead, we've a sort of flimsy conclusion similar to the end of the MMC episode (MLP season 3 showdown): “Everything's gonna be all right”, which is rather unsatisfactory.

Verdict: the first lines are promising, but the rest of the story does not live up to those expectations.

12. Aldebaran

The setting is interesting. We've got someone (a warrior?) lost in a maze, and the decor shifts between present, future and past giving a sense of timelessness that adds to the dystopian surroundings. We don't know where and when this takes place. The whole piece feels unreal, with visions and dreams. And then we have the final revelation that this is some modern revisitation of the old myth of the Minotaur. But at the same time, it could be a metaphor about depression after a rupture and the mental maze people are caught in.

Verdict: an interesting take on an ancient tale blurring the line between the hero and the monster he's supposed to chase (isn't the hero becoming the monster?). Multi-level reading and possible interpretations.

I've written a review! Am I a productive member of the community yet?

Waiting Room
To me, this story comes across as a little confused, and if I'm honest with you it left me feeling like maybe the author hadn't quite thought through what they were trying to say before they started writing. And that's okay—goodness knows I plummet headfirst into a whole bunch of these minific things without really thinking through how they're going to end, or what they're even about, because that's fun—but it's definitely less than ideal.

My first hint of worry comes across during the introduction: the second sentence seems suddenly very weak, flimsy and general next to the bold imagery of the first, and then to follow that with the implication that it is "romantic"... well, I can only assume you were referencing the first sentence with that word, but it felt like a strange and jarring jump nonetheless. Your three questions, I think, are poorly chosen: they should probably try to evoke that sense of deep and meaningful thought one would expect from great thinkers, not pseudo-deep simplicity.

Then we come to the series of one-line paragraphs, which I thought was an unexpected and brilliant structural decision which worked surprisingly well. Unfortunately, the second one seems a bit out of place—so far, the concept of a fear of death hasn't even been raised, so where these sentences should be refutations of the common wisdom you outline in the first paragraph, the second one just seems like someone derailing a conversation. So naturally around this point I started to become a little suspicious and wary of our dear narrator—and if you were going for unreliable narrator, author, I commend you for succeeding and making it look like an accident, but I don't really see what purpose it serves.

I liked the "I'll skip the details" line—that was a nice nod to how jarring sudden backstories can be for a change in tone, and also had a cute little "because this is a contest with max. 750 word limit" implied there. But I didn't really get why we were getting this "this is how I died" background in the first place. It seemed like something inserted for reasons along the lines of "you can't have a story about a dead person without at least touching on how they died", which comes across as forced and uninspired. Besides, your narrator specifically says "I can't tell you... how death will come for you," which just makes their entire backstory feel somewhat unhelpful and irrelevant. In fact, it's probably more the case that the opening is irrelevant and unhelpful, because the rest of the story works much better if you assume this is meant to be the story of their death experience and not general advice about death.

Was it the dramatic scene you play out in your head before you go to sleep?

I don't know. I mean, I don't tend to fantasise about complete strangers dying when I'm curled up in bed, trying to get some sleep.

I really, really don't get the point of this paragraph. It seems to be completely at odds with the message of the story: "I can't tell you how you'll die, because that's unique to you and my death experience won't necessarily be anything like yours. Here's how I died. Was that anything like how you imagined yourself dying?" Am I missing something obvious, author(/anyone else)? Because the way I see it, this content is contradictory and more than a little confusing. You can understand why I went for the unreliable narrator hypothesis!

Speaking of that, the message of this piece seems to ultimately be "oh, btw, reincarnation's a thing." But because I spent the entire piece distrusting the narrator, I came away with the sense that not everything was quite what we thought it might be. And now I'm going to end on a thought-provoking question, because I'm awful like that and, to be fair to it, I liked this piece enough to want to start a bit of discussion about its intended reading: how do the people in the waiting room/"limbo" know that reincarnation—or, to use a fancy word I just made up to make my argument make a little more sense without really trying to explain it, the afterdeath—is real?

Verdict: This was probably one of the weaker pieces on my slate, which was a bit of a shame because it's certainly not the weakest piece in the whole contest—I think I just got a particularly good selection in my slate, so sorry about that! While it has some moments that don't quite work, and inconsistencies in the apparent subject matter over the course of the piece, I thought it was well-written and had just the right choice of narrative voice to give the overall piece an almost laid-back, relaxed tone that contrasted perfectly with the core subject matter. There's a fair bit that could be improved on, but it is nonetheless a good entry.

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Spreadsheets

I can't escape plz send backup reviewers

Now that we're a few days in, I'm going to get less aggressive about spoilertext. Reviews may contain unmarked spoilers. Obligatory link to spreadsheet.

3. A Real Puncher
Summary: A hitman and his client make plans backstage before their victim's stage performance.
I'm a big fan of the worldbuilding by implication here — such as the fact that the most direct clue we get to this being a Mafia family power-play is the offhand mention of pinky rings, and yet it seems comfortably clear from context. Kudos also for telling a complete story, even if it didn't feel terribly satisfying to me: the storytelling is undeniably well-done, and we get a great sense of who these characters are, but not why it's important that the protagonist chooses one over the other, without which the twist falls kinda flat. S

24. The Property Line
Summary: A young boy's relationship with the boundary between his family's land and a feuding neighbor's land changes as he grows.
Nice economy of words here and indirect storytelling; the framing device is handled quite well. I'm left wanting more, not because the story feels incomplete, but because without the 750-word limit I'd like to see more of these characters, especially the growing relationship with Susannah. What anecdotes we get are great. TC

2. Spending Time
Summary: In the future, currency has been switched over into the ability to feel specific (positive) emotions for a period of time.
Author, I'm curious to hear how you got to this idea from the prompt.
First of all, serious kudos for the best single line I've read this competition:

My savings are nothing too grand, but I do have almost four and a half Minutes of Bliss stored up from several years of Christmas bonuses.

The offhand way in which we're introduced to the exchange rate here is brimming with existential horror in the best sci-fi traditions.
You've got a smashing core concept, and on the whole the execution is good, although I'm finding my appreciation of the story brought down by fridge logic. I could probably forgive it for not answering the question of "but can't people feel emotions naturally?" on the grounds that it's part of the premise and we should just assume "no", but then I hit lines like:

Even without the Satisfaction, I know I’d be happy to help.

The whole Phil scene, actually, takes a lot of the shine off of the story in hindsight. Have you considered rewriting it to have the protagonist refuse Phil's request? After all, he's feeling chemically mediated Satisfaction, right? "For the next half an hour, everything is going to feel just fine", emphasis mine. It seems to me you've got a much more fascinating premise if you take that to its logical conclusion: that the reason someone would bother to spend Satisfaction rather than just doing an activity they enjoy is that Satisfaction is absolute, even if they're doing something like sticking their hand in a fire. Laughing in the face of a panhandler who the protagonist normally supports would be a hell of a scene. The alternative, I think, requires some explanation of why people in this universe appear to be completely incapable of feeling emotions without purchasing them. S

36. For You and Your Denial
Summary: A woman meets her father's former assistant again, 15 years after he vanished.

> My father’s assistant, Rohan
> Arnold Palmer, the greatest carpenter in Kennebec County

Uhhh ...
That aside, once I understood this one (at first I skimmed past the "five years after" line, which was crucial), it held together well enough. Even if the video above suddenly seems way too relevant to the post. I kinda bounced off of it for no reason I can really justify, though — and I don't think there's anything I can really recommend to change that would improve this. Sorry I can't be helpful here. S

44. Space Time
Summary: An astronaut races against time to repair a fuel leak.

Flight Engineer Shaun Harrison could feel many things.

I realize you're building up to a second-paragraph stinger here, but this is really an underwhelming first line. It's abstract and mushy, and the emphasis gets shifted to the wrong place: the bare fact that he can feel, rather than what it is he feels (the amorphous "things"). Even a simple recasting of this such as "Several things fought for F.E.S.H.'s attention" would punch this up considerably — that gives you a dynamic action word, makes the "things" the subject rather than the object, and offers a sense of him juggling his attention between multiple important items that demand it.
This tells a complete story, though against the other complete-stories-in-750-words I've read this round, this feels like it covers comparatively little ground — it could stand some trimming of redundant descriptions, such as the repeated attempts to set up the consequences of reaching "Bingo fuel". You do set up a compelling conflict here, although I think the word limit here just doesn't allow enough space for context; we kind of root for Shaun by default because he's the protagonist, but we can't really get to know him well enough for his sacrifice to be meaningful. I'm also ambivalent about the textual change at the end; I see what it's going for, but the fact of the size shift draws enough attention to itself that it's probably negating the effect. AT

Ballot Round II

I had a much better time with the second half of my ballot. Four of the six stories I read made it into my top five, because of: 1) an interesting central concept, 2) Well-handled conflict, 3) Good use of language and form, 4) Characters who I cared about, or 5) A well-structured story arc.

Or, y'know, some combination thereof.

Anyway, onwards!

28. Ostheer

Great mood piece. It captured a sense of shell-shocked silence and used it to deliver a short, bleak message about the nature of war: it only ends when the people are gone. Maybe not true, but it's easy to imagine a young man caught in the heart of one of the world's bloodiest conflicts feeling that way.

As far as criticism goes, I'd say that Karl could have been better characterised. Right now, he's bland. He's the everyman. He's a vessel for the message and mood at the cost of being completely uninteresting as an individual.

Maybe asking for an interesting character is too much to ask of a 750 word story. But for an author with well-developed writing chops, i.e. this author, I imagine it would be possible to drop in a few interesting character points /and/ have them work in unity with the theme.

But hey, nitpicks.

(Also, I didn't like the start. It paid off with that repetition of structure at the end, but I feel like the details about Dobler and Fuchs and all that could have been introduced in a more streamlined way. As it was, it didn't really grab my interest until around paragraph six.)

24. The Property Line

The story itself was fairly predictable, but it told a whole story arc, and it told it pretty well. With so little space to work with, that's an achievement in itself.

However, the way the story was presented bothered me.

Nobody likes block paragraphs, except for the writers of engineering textbooks, repair manuals, and philosophical wish-wash. And maybe fantasy fans, because hey, fantasy tends to accumulate a lot of big paragraphs.

Anyway, the problem is that while the story has a clear structure, that structure has also resulted in some really ungainly paragraphs. I guess you could point to the old "one paragraph, one idea" adage, but that'd be stretching the rules.

Break up those paragraphs, find a neater way to organise the beats, and add in a few more concrete descriptions / mini-scenes. I bet you the story will read nicer.

19. The Last Word

Mildly amusing. Loved the line "he snorts in triplicate". It fits nicely with the bureaucratic tone of Mel's narration, and it's a plain funny image to boot.

Now, onto the not-so-amusing stuff.

Those first five paragraphs.

Cut them.

Seriously, it takes those first five paragraphs 254 words to convey five simple bits of exposition. I know you were playing the voice card, but that's no excuse to use up a full third of your word limit on basically nothing. And the voice itself isn't strong enough to carry the piece anyway -- too vague in its details.

So, find a new starting point and go from there.

Other than that, you could stand to lose a few of those vague terms I mentioned earlier. "Alliance", "Rebel HQ MileHigh", the "Pastures" -- they're all too general, too vauge, too cliche to generate any real mystery or tension. Sharpen them up and give us some context as to why they matter.

Do that, and the story will be a lot more intriguing.

28. That Sad, Perfect Smile

I've got mixed feelings about this one.

On one hand, it tells us a story with a nimble twist at the end -- the starship captain, who has been suggesting to his wife that the family go on a holiday to Planet X, despite the risk of Stellamalaria, is in fact hallucinating each encounter while presumably suffering from the fever brought on by the disease.

Wow that was a mouthful. The story tells it better than I do.

Much better, in fact. Despite the technical flaws, and I'll get to them in a sec, I felt some connection to the poor starship captain and his longing for family and home. Which only makes the punch hit twice as hard. Which rams home the sense of loss and melancholy.

Which . . . doesn't seem to serve any greater purpose.

Realising that the captain is dying might be sad, because he seems like a decent guy with a loving wife and of course that makes us feel sorry for him. But that isn't enough to generate true pathos. For that, we need to know why him dying would have a Really Important Impact upon his life. Then, depending how you play it, we either feel a sense of loss and remorse for what is bound to happen, or we feel a sense of hope that the captain may survive and go on to do whatever he needed to do.

To be great, the story really needs to centre around:

The Stakes

The Choice

The Outcome

Weaving that into a piece this short may be difficult, but for this scenario, I think it's more than possible.

13. Snakes on a Train

Not much to say on this one. Decent action scene. Everything flowed smoothly. Nothing glaringly wrong with the writing, except for an overfondness for semi-colons. (Seriously, there are some places, such as "A shape shot past her; leg-long and serpentine." where a comma would do.)

In sum, the story -- scene, really -- set out to do what it meant to do: it provided a bit of action, hints to a greater story, and very little else.

10. Ocean Blue

Narrative poem, huh? Neat.

A forced rhyming scheme hurting the clarity of said narrative? Not so neat.

Honestly, I wanted to stop reading after the first paragraph. Not because any one bit was bad, per say, but because the rhyming scheme obfuscated the story, resulting in a narrative that was muddled and unclear.

I say that it's the lack of clarity that I disliked and not the story because on my second read-through I was able to pick out a lot more of what was going on, and I think if you scrapped or relaxed that rhyming scheme and maybe paid more attention to the cadence of your sentences, then you'd actually have a pretty cool poem.

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I've written a review! Am I a productive member of the community yet?

No.

5069369
Actually, we can go further: Scientific studies have proven that it takes 27 reviews to be considered a productive member of the community.

(*checks his own spreadsheet column*)

... oh dammit.

I can't escape plz send backup reviewers

I'm travelling this week :(

Also, only two TCs so far? Are you getting stricter?

5069375
Do you happen to sleep Horizon?

5069309

5069469
5069543
...and this is why I still get you both confused.

Sorry for the lack of reviews. New job has been kicking my ass.

The Party Decides: I'm pretty sure you already knew how your readers are going to feel about this one. I think you'll be glad to hear that I was appropriately befuddled and entertained in equal amounts. This one isn't exactly a deep piece, but it's certainly humorous and relevant, at least to my fellow American participants. Still, dumb humor isn't called "dumb" for nothing, so I'm afraid this one probably doesn't have the best of chances when it comes down to this month's final results.

Feinted Hotel Hen: I don't know very much about G1 MLP, so I'm not sure if I'm the best judge of character voicing here. I will say that most characters sound distinct and nuanced, but that's about as far as I think I'm allowed to go. The conflict itself ramps things up to ridiculous levels at a good pace, but things do start to feel a little like a one-joke-show. That's probably at least in part due to the wordcount not giving you a whole lot of wriggle room, but it's still definitely an issue IMO. Overall, most everything feels solid here, even though I do get the feeling that I'm missing out on something by not knowing the source material.

Abigail Dreams of Supernovae: Another piece that does an excellent job of making its characters feel like flawed, complicated individuals. Voicing is on point throughout, and the last few lines are surprisingly thought-provoking. This piece sets out to make you really think about how relationships between human being work, and it succeeds with flying colors (at least for me). I have a feeling that this is going to remain at or near the top of my slate throughout the entire contest.

5069602
We are not spacetime related. Caliaponia is one hour and a half late w/r to me.
It's like, you know, apparent double stars.

Reviews, the sixth
Spreadsheet

27. I Am, I Exist
A few mechanical errors, including an unfortunate ‘of’ instead of ‘off’ in the first line, which tripped me up right off the gate. Descriptions were decent, especially strong with body language. The description of the train made me think that it was a steam train, at first, though, which was incongruous with the setting.

Clever use of the prompt, and good worldbuilding; everything felt consistent. At first, I was distracted by the thought that this might be another Star Wars fic, but that eventually faded.

The ending was thought provoking and poignant with how matter of factly they take the situation.

13. Snakes on a Train
Well, I go into it amused by the title. MLP? Huh. I wonder if this’ll be subverted.

Good action, I didn’t find it hard to follow what was going on. The foreshadowing of agent Sweetie Drops also worked for me. The in-media res intro worked, and the backstory was filled in cleanly.

I got to the end, and there was no subversion; pony, through and through. Still a good effort, though I suspect it’ll be hurt by being ponyfic in a general fic round.

28. Ostheer

Prose was solid. There were a few places where I would have worded things differently;
For example:
“It had rained in the night, as Karl’s uniform was soaked through, far more than dew alone would cause”
could be,
“It must’ve rained in the night, as Karl’s uniform was soaked through; more than the dew could account for.”
Or to make it less tell-y,
“Karl figured it must’ve rained over night, as the dew never soaked his uniform this thoroughly”
I suspect this is mostly a matter of taste, though, and there is that pesky word limit, of course.

Imagery was one of the strong points of this fic, and I liked the numerous little details you added. For example, Fuchs cutting Hohlbaum’s boots to fit spoke volumes. I didn’t get much of a sense of the larger world, but that wasn’t really what this was about. It all came together to weave a strong sense of melancholy for me.

‘War is hell (particularly trench warfre)’ is, perhaps, not the least trodden path to take, but this was a well-executed example. The eerie peace of the dream nicely set up the scene at the end, and his reaction. A strong entry, overall.

5069602, 5069779

Huh. I must confess to being baffled; I've never had any trouble confusing myself for anyone else, and Calipony doesn't have nearly enough gravity. Maybe Trick can measure Doppler shift? That might make it easier. Or maybe I could add some continents, or a mountain range? If all else fails, you can fall back on the spreadsheet; I'm the guy with foreign letters in his name who is currently nine reviews behind horizon.

5069865
Let's keep up with you, bro!

More reviews!

27. I am, I exist

I suppose it's 'first ofF the train'. A double 'the' later on. 'Cacophony of clattering': isn't that pleonastic?

Hmm… the end was anticlimactic. For a short moment, I hoped this was a sendup on the dead waiting at Paradise's door to be motioned either to Paradise or Hell, but no. It's just what it appears to be, there's no real twist. Just a story of robots going to the pound. Add to that that I've no special passion for robot-centric stories (as opposed to Asimov's that are focussed on the relationship between robots and humans) and your picture is complete.

Verdict: a robot story with not much at stake. Lackadaisical. Second thoughts: see below 5070991 for a possible interpretation.

18. The party decides

As non-American, I shouldn't feel involved by this one. Unfortunately, nobody on the planet can afford to shrug off the US presidential election. As a matter of fact, there are some people/robots in that story I've never heard of, but most I definitely have. This is funny, of course, but it's fairly basic and a bit difficult to figure out when you're not an insider. I'm not sure Trump and Palin can be put in the same basket, and portraying Clinton as mercenary is maybe a teensy overboard, but in a slit like this, I can't blame you.

Verdict: difficult to appreciate the humour of the piece when you're not American. Silly and a bit crude.

49. System Reboot

I really didn't get it. Is that a reference to some SciFi universe? The closest I get would be a Terminator reactivation. In any case, it didn't feel much interesting. As I said before, stories of robot per se leave me unconcerned, and this caps it with an insubstantial plot. It's not badly written, it's just… plain boring.

Verdict: a robot story with no real plot. Stodgy.

25. Feinted Hotel Hen

Ok, I glanced at other reviews which spilled the beans over the background. So it's G1 ponies. The story is fluffy, silly, flimsy, but made me smile nevertheless. I won't rank it high, but at least it was crazy enough to justify the ride.

Verdict: a story targeted toward MLP intended demographics. Silly, but somehow fun in a childish way. Refreshing.

5069900

Let's keep up with you, bro!

Nooo! We already had the same number. Now I'll have to review more for the joke to work again

5069909 5069900
Yeah, and I'll have to review even more to stay eight ahead

(And yes, I do sleep — but I screwed up my schedule by staying up all night earlier this week finishing Life Is Strange, so I passed out after work yesterday and got up in the middle of the night for a while to do some more reading/reviewing.)

5069888

Ask Spectrum to make a spectroscopic analysis. You're in the green, while I'm the red. Unless you're blue in the face and I'm yellow. Or lemon.

5069909

Sorry alt, I didn't want to ruin your night!