5069919

Actually, I appear to have become purple at some point. You're still in the black, though.

5069930
I give you carte blanche.

A propos carte blanche and Baton Rouge, could you add the link to my last reviews to the spreadsheet? I won't be able to do it tonight on my iPhone (it's just impossible to do it right on a smartphone). thanks!

5069919
Spectrum?

The truth is, of course, that you're both in Rainbow.
(Celestia I need to sleep)

5069916

Horizon: I said I won't participate
Black Hole: But you will. Search your feelings.
Horizon (face aghast): Noooo!
Black Hole: It is your destiny, my son.

5069942
That was your alt I was speaking of. Why do you butt in?

5069900

I'm not sure Trump and Palin can be put in the same basket

FYI, Palin endorsed Trump a while ago.

Though really, it just sort of reinforces the "this is probably pretty inaccessible to non-Americans" point.

I spent the majority of the work day settling into my new shared upstairs office, tucked away in a corner behind a towering bulwark of cherrywood shelving. It provides perfect cover while I merrily draft Writeoff reviews do whatever it is I get paid to do.

Spoilers, etc.

I Am, I Exist

I like this story, Writer. You do a good job of setting the stage with the first few paragraphs, and I liked how you gradually reveal the nature of the protagonist as you slowly zoom from the wide angle shot down to the closeup with your descriptions.

It’s nice, watching these two not-quite-human entities have a final, fleeting moment of interpersonal contact as they face oblivion, one with solemnity, one with nonchalance. Their personalities, such as they are, remain distinct. I’d like to know a bit more about the protagonist to flesh it out more, but I suppose that’s inconsequential to the story.

Taking a step back, it makes sense that we would program our sapient robots to be comfortable/accepting of death. Although the idea of backing up your personality would go a long way towards dispelling any fears they might have about it. Perhaps we don’t program them with a sense of solipsism? If they are capable of such feats as wondering...

I’m getting sidetracked. There were a few nitpicks that caught my eye.

There's short and stubby maintenance droids

Should be “There’re”, or “There are”, since you’re talking about more than one droid, as well as more than one classification of droid.

Along the wall stands robust combat bots

Similarly, it should be “stand” when you’re talking about multiple objects.

But the we're moving so slowly

I suspect this was once referencing the line moving so slowly.

I look away, awkwardly.

I don’t think you need a comma here.

This is mostly minor stuff, though. All told, this is a well-crafted story, if a bit straightforward once you understand what’s going on.

Final Thought: Robots Teach Us About Ourselves

**********

Needling

Ah, now here’s a story for a dreary day over a cup of tea.

Writer, I think my favorite part of this story is how you handled the scene transition through the click-clacking of the sewing needles, the onomatopoeia subtly evoking the ticking of a clock as time passes. Very clever.

A couple of nitpicks on tenses - a nice touch, having it be in present tense, by the way.

another loop was created

“Was” should be “is” in the present tense.

Then, it did it again,

Whether you’re referring to the grandmother’s fingers or her knitting needles, since both are plural in the previous sentence, the first “it” should be “they”, and since we now have a plural subject, “did” should become “do”.

Writer, it's easy for a story of this nature to become a cheap ploy to tug at the heartstrings, but I think you deftly managed to escape becoming trite. The feelings presented here feel real, and for that, I commend you.

Final Thought: Almost Certain to Evoke Wistful Melancholy

**********

Actually, a mug of tea sounds lovely. One moment.

5070545
Oops

I can't wait for Friday to roll around. Then I can review to my heart's content!

Horizon, I will reach 27 reviews. Mark my words.

Reviews: It's interesting to me how very different people's opinions on stories and even specific sections of them can be, from one person to the next...

I'll try to get some more reviews in tomorrow night. Work has ground my soul into dust today, so I don't have it in me. I'll just finish off reading the rest of the stories.

5070667
That "27" figure was purely a joke about me having done 26. But yes! Review lots!

Here's some more to bring my own numbers up.

16. The Tattooist
Summary: A tattoo artist accepts a commission to draw a magical tattoo in a businessman.
This is Chapter 1 of a 3000-word Top Contender, but it's neither a complete story nor a self-contained scene; you're just getting started. That said, this was engaging throughout. I definitely want to read the rest. AT

13. Snakes on a Train
Summary: A suspiciously horselike action hero fights, well, snakes on a train.
I really like 5065438's idea of replacing pony names with generic names when evaluating ponyfics in non-pony rounds, and seeing how the story evaluates without the context of the show. I think I'm going to call that "The Dave Rule" and invoke it in future general rounds whenever an MLP story comes up. So: Hello, Dave Do! Pleased to make your acquaintance.
Wow, Dave! You're a pegasus! That's cool, always neat to see authors willing to stray into furry anthropomorphic fiction. I'm not quite sure how you're swinging a knife with the hooves the author keeps mentioning, though. I mean, if you were an MLP pony, you could probably hold it in your mouth, but that raises its own questions because we've never seen MLP's Daring Do with a knife. (Just googled it to double-check. The closest she's gotten is dodging the ones that Caballeron's henchponies throw. Granted, you do mention Caballeron as the villain here, but we'd have to do some heavy breaking of the Dave Rule to give you credit for that.)
It's also nice to meet you, Special Agent Steve Drops. Of course, learning that you're an agent of the government of Princess Cynthia is raising some questions about Dave. All we really know about her is that she's taking charge of an evacuation, carries a knife and is able to kill Tatzlwurms. Is she a special agent too? The story never really covers that, though I guess it sort of works in a generic-action-movie-hero sort of way. I think I'm going to headcanon that she's an agent of the rival government of Princess Linda, and that Dave and Steve are opposing agents who keep running into each other as their governments keep throwing their best agents at the same problem. (I'd ship it. I'm totally thinking there's a lot of unresolved sexual tension due to their professional rivalry.)
All out-of-context jokes aside, this is another "neither a complete story nor a self-contained scene" tale. I guess we've got a decent introduction to the protagonists, what with them saving innocents and reluctantly teaming up despite opposing interests, but there's clearly action both preceding and following the story, and the actual resolution to the problem comes after the cliffhanger ending. Ultimately, this did keep me engaged — though I don't know how much of that was the mental game of following The Dave Rule, so you're probably getting a better score than you otherwise would have. AT

19. The Last Word
Summary: Three mercenaries set up a nuke underneath a rebel city.
This starts in medias res and ends abruptly, but I'm not getting the same sense of incompletion that I was with the previous two; there's enough context around the edges to give this a full story arc of betrayal and counter-betrayal. As is typical with stories this short, though, there's really no space to paint in why we should care about the protagonist(s) — mitigated by the highly distinctive narrative voice, which makes them feel more dynamic. Kudos on that! I might bump this up to Top Contender later on the strength of that writing, but either way it's gonna be high on the slate. S

30. At Death's Door
Summary: Death now works in an office instead of wandering the world with a scythe.
5066132 linked a Grim Fandango pic earlier, and this certainly has a strong Manny Calavera vibe. The writing's a bit rough — "his accent more than evident of his origins" is a particularly unnecessary piece of telling — though the fact you're apparently making a stealth Steve Irwin joke is a welcome touch of subtlety, and I do like the explanation for why Death's job changed. Overall, this feels quite similar to Waiting Room, though more expository and with more well-trodden ideas. It does have a smidge more plot arc, what with the late Satan thing, but still feels like there's no real ending. Unfortunately, author, there's just not much to excite me here. NW

41. Outmoded
Summary: A husband and wife mourn the end of their trade as furriers due to changing social customs.
Hoo boy.
I'm going to set this story's Giant Can Of Worms down for a moment and talk about it structurally. This tells a complete story in its space, introducing its characters and setting up the conflict of their work stoppage and then throwing a twist in the works. I think it does what it sets out to do fairly effectively — and that goal is to set up a situation and then kick the framework of our understanding down.
Can of worms, open. So this is apparently about (ex?)-Nazis in some AU farming and murdering blacks so they can sell the skins. The twist is just breaking taboos left and right, and on one hand, I think that contributes to its effectiveness: kind of like a recent RCL feature, that visceralness seems to be the point. In the abstract, that's a really powerful storytelling technique. On the other hand, stories don't exist in a vacuum, and there are big ways in which breaking these taboos does leave this story vulnerable/compromised.
I'm pretty sure that "this story is racist" isn't one of them … but factor in Death Of The Author, and I'm pretty much just speaking for my reading of this. That is: I don't think we're supposed to sympathize with Karl and Eva, despite most of the story painting them as victims. Structurally, that twist ending is a signal that the premise is being subverted: what we see is not what we get. I think the author might be trying to start a discussion (in which case they're apparently succeeding) or making a point about racism … though that's where this starts to tread into worrisome territory. What, exactly, is the point the story is making? "Treating people as subhuman is bad", in a Modest Proposal sort of way? If so, this is so over-the-top compared to day-to-day racism that I can't see it being persuasive. I mean, the premise here is that blacks have fewer advocates among animal-rights groups than even cows or bears — how does that work when those are non-talking quadrupeds, and how is that world supposed to reflect anything in our own in a way that encourages critique? Basically, is there a point to this beyond the shock value, and if so, does the point justify using such an extreme attention-grabber in an age where racial tensions are already so high and being exacerbated for political gain? A Modest Proposal was a reductio ad absurdum to satirize existing attitudes toward poor Irish; who is this targeting?
So, yeah. I try to score primarily based on execution and overall quality, but I can't ignore the role of content in my assessment, and I do have misgivings that the content here isn't coherent and cogent enough to justify the level of outrage it seems calculated to provoke.
Some people might use voting as a signal — dropping it to a low place to signify that they find the story Not Okay on principle. (I'm not going to do that, but I think that's a legitimate choice.) Me, I'm going to mid-range it, because I can see the skill behind the structural construction, but I feel like this story overreaches in other ways. AT

*sip*

Ah... chamomile.

Waiting Room

This story… doesn’t really feel like a story, Writer. It starts off promising enough, asking a few pointed rhetorical questions about the nature of death itself, but then it feels like you try to avoid making a point for a majority of the body of the work.

I’m having an irrationally bad reaction to the line “So there you have it.” Have what? Almost nothing of note has happened so far, save that you’ve gone out of your way to make the protagonist’s death so mundane that it feels devoid of consequence. I already don’t care about this character because his own death was functionally meaningless. If it doesn’t matter how the character died, it’s enough to say that he’s dead, and it didn’t really matter how.

“So there you have it” is how you would want to segue into your conclusion at the end of the story, since it feels like this is trying to go somewhere. But then the story meanders around and shies away from ever taking a stand, up until the very end.

I’m then dumped into a crowd of dull people standing around in an empty plane of existence as they wait for their number to come up. It’s boring, tedious, and again, without consequence.

At the very end, there’s an effort to turn it towards a commentary that how you spent your life is more important than how you’re spending your death. But it’s only here, in the penultimate paragraph, that I learn something substantial about the character that I’ve spent this entire narrative not being invested in. He had a wife? He had a daughter? This never came up before. You would think that they would be in his thoughts when he died (or at any other point in the story). Perhaps his wife was, and that’s who “Meg” is, but as the story is currently constructed, it led me to believe that was the name of his sister.

Writing a story with the message that how you spent your life is all that really matters is an admirable enough goal - but this story needs some serious work in order for that to be clear.

Final Thought: “So, death, amirite?” “I dunno.”

**********

The Kraken in the Paddling Pool

Writer, this story was a thoroughly entertaining read. From the first two lines, I was hooked, and the poetry was an unexpected and welcome surprise.

I have to admit, Flora was winding me up a bit, too - that quiet voice in the back of my head was wondering if something would accidentally be summoned in the pool and devour your young protagonist. It all comes of reading too much darkfic, I suspect.

In all seriousness, I can’t really find too much to fault here. The meter is a bit forced in places, but I can easily forgive it for being spur-of-the-moment, both within the context of the story and within the context of the 24 hour time limit for the competition.

If I had to find a nitpick, I would say that the transition to verse is a bit abrupt. Instead of “Then she said:”, consider changing “said” to “sang”, or something to that effect, as “said” feels just a touch too deadpan for what Flora is actually doing. But that’s more personal bias than anything else, so don’t take it as gospel.

This was an excellent fic to end my reviews on for tonight, Writer. It was a playful, teasing romp from start to finish, and I smiled throughout. Thank you for such a fun read!

Final Thought: Sassy Sing-Song Sibling Silliness

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5069865
5065156

Did you have that niggling feeling that “I am, I exist” has something to do with Nazis’ death camps?

I mean, the Jews stepping off the trains, waiting in line between armed guards and being led to death?

Just wondering.

5070991 ... No, but now that you've pointed it out...

For me, the protagonist(s) are too calm, too accepting, and too cognizant of what's about to happen, to allow my mind to touch on Nazi Death Camp, at least as a default reaction. The concentration camps and their victims are so thoroughly steeped in despair and horror on a level that I honestly can't fathom that I wouldn't have juxtaposed that with the placid, docile march of the robots.

You bring up an excellent point, though. Had the author not explained away the armed battle bot presence with the line referencing how damaged/malfunctioning the droids are - implying that they may become so far gone that they become a danger to themselves and to others, and thus need to be put down - I would be more inclined to agree with you.

Perhaps a missed opportunity? Or at the very least, an interesting (if daunting) alternate direction to take the story.

5070991 5071007

I never really got that vibe, though I did find the presence of the combat robots a bit odd. A contributing factor was probably that I didn't realize the nature of the beast until fairly far in.

5071007

For me, the protagonist(s) are too calm, too accepting, and too cognizant of what's about to happen…

Precisely. If I trust the multiple testimonies I'd read, they were perfectly aware of what would happen to them at the end of the journey. After 1940 at least, it was an open secret.

If it's not intentional, then it's a striking coincidence.

Reviews, the trying-too-hard-to-be-funny-th
Spreadsheet

29. That Sad, Perfect Smile
Heavy foreshadowing, between the unspeaking conversation, the lighting, and the repeated references to stellamaria, it worked well at gradually undermining the normalcy of the opening scene. I wasn’t sure of the significance of the frayed hem, though. Did he get bit on the wrist?

Some nice turns of phrase; “that sweet, sympathetic smile--the one that doesn’t move her lips so much as drift across them” I particularly liked.

The ending is ambiguous, but poignant. A strong entry, overall.

6. Needling
A few odd turns of phrase; “all the more strong”

Also, the use of “and reach the end of the line” seemed forced. ‘End of the yarn’ or ‘end of the string’ would’ve flowed better, and we would’ve still gotten the point with respect to the prompt.

Description was generally good you mention scents, and I liked the line “I can feel her nod in approval.” You didn’t really describe the voices, though; that felt like a missed opportunity. For example, I pictured the narrator whispering the last few lines.

Still, those are minor nitpicks, when all is said and done. The core is solid. This is a sparse story, but you pack a lot of meaning into a very few words.

8. Sunday Ride
Some mechanical issues from the get go; could use an editing pass. That said, there were still some evocative phrases; I particularly liked the ‘sound of the cello wraps around me.’

You managed to make me feel sorry for the Karg in very few words; good job there. Though on re-read, I noticed you used break/broken/half-broken very close together. That can jar a reader out of the story; it's good to try to mix things up where you can.

You share some fascinating glimpses of a very changed (and not-so-changed in some rather depressing ways) London. I felt that the inclusion of the different alien races was a nice touch.

The ending is a little bit of a letdown. We’ve seen bits and pieces of the world, but little about the protagonist; we don’t even know why he’s riding the train. Ultimately, this comes across to me as an interesting scene, but not quite a complete story.

18. The Party Decides
I was a little spoiled on this story before I read it, in that I read something that mentioned the Republican candidates coming together ‘voltron style’ to fight Trump. The description is a little sparse, so I’m not entirely sure if I would have realized that right away without that advantage.

Having dodged that bullet, though, as someone who is relatively current with US politics, the story was right on target. The voicing was good, and the jokes were mostly apt. The Govener Gilmore one was a particular favorite. I didn’t really get the Hillary one, though, as I didn’t see how that would help her campaign.

A bunch of topical jokes lumped together around an absurd premise (voltron style?). This story has a narrow appeal and limited shelf life, but for me, right now, it’s a hoot, to the point where I shared it with a few (non writeoff) friends.

*Ahem* Yes, as I was saying before, in the event of confusion between myself and Calipony, simply refer to the spreadsheet and look for the crazy guy with foreign letters in his name who is currently eight nine reviews behind horizon.

5071081
One-upmanship!

35. Death guts

Frankly, as almost all the other readers, I’ve no idea what’s going on here. I thought at first it was a some sort of big hog they were riding, but it turned out it was a car. Then I thought it was a video game. But the most jarring were the neologisms—I wondered if they weren’t true English words I wasn’t cognisant of. And the end is… is it really an end?

Verdict: flummoxing. If the idea was to convey the adrenaline surge of a flat-out spin, you’ve nailed it home. But I still have no idea of how the other elements—especially language—fit in this framework.

3. A real puncher

It took me two to three readings to figure out exactly what was going on, but contrarily to Death guts, I finally figured it out. Makes sense, though the twist at the end falls rather flat, because we have no idea why the guy changes his mind and takes a bead on the other actor. This piece smacks of 1920’s prohibition era, Eliot Ness and the like, probably down to the vocabulary chosen. So good job for setting up the atmosphere, even if your plot obviously bumped against the word limit. This feels more like a scene for a larger story, but it’s quite fine with me.

Verdict: Could be an excerpt from The Untouchables. Nice setting, suitable squalid atmosphere, but the end twist does not really spice up the whole shebang.

28. Ostheer

Here again, good job getting the atmosphere of a middle 20th century war—probably a trench on the front-line between Germany and former USSR, though as far as I know, there’s never been trenches there but only a front in motion until the German army was stuck and ultimately defeated in (former) Stalingrad. There’s little else to say about it, it’s more about a vision with a few vivid details. It’s suitably grim and dreary, though maybe a bit aesthetically tweaked. The end was—well—you know that hackneyed trope “it’s just a dream”. I think you could’ve dispensed with it and still get a good story. As such, I feel it’s been added just out of the need to provide the reader with a twist, and that slightly detracts from the whole story.

Verdict: Nice setting again, suggestive of war and its associated destruction/gloominess. Change the end, though, and make the whole scene real rather than imaginary.

This isn't really a review, more just an observation that I had. I'd like to post it so I can fool myself into thinking I've contributed something to this round :D

So, anyways. About Death Guts. A lot of things in this story remind me of a song by experimental hip-hop group Death Grips, called Get Got. The first thing was, of course, the title; Death Grips and Death Guts do sound pretty similar. And similarly to Get Got, Death Guts is about people moving in a really fast car. Knowing what Get Got is about affected my interpretation of Death Guts; Get Got is, further than "guy in fast car", about a man in a car driving as fast as he possibly can in a police chase, but as it turns out, the police were never really there and he's been hallucinating the chase. Details like the revolver in Death Guts also reminded me of things that one might carry during a police chase, and the detail at the end about the laughing also suggests to me some sort of mental illness, similar to how the character in Get Got is portrayed and how the character of MC Ride (the alter ego of Stefan Burnett, vocalist of Death Grips) is generally presented in the group's music.

Just an observation, I guess :v

Trixie's Prelims 2

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

The Memory Palace
The spelling 'drily' is much less common than 'dryly'. I think the story might benefit from a subtle hint foreshadowing that the protagonist has experience in the field of psychology or with the technique, such as the word 'familiar' injected somewhere prior to the dimming of lights.

For You and Your Denial
You should do a websearch for proper nouns before you select them for characters in a story. The narration in the last section is contradictory: the narrator says she paid no attention to the date, then immediately proceeds to describe the exact date.

Feinted Hotel Hen
I get the G1 references, but I don't get the story title. It seems a play on Hotel California but that's all I grok.

The Tattooist
This story is poorly named. It isn't about the tattooist, because we learn very little about who she is and what motivates her (other than money). I'm left not feeling much for either character: you described the technique effectively, but didn't penetrate deeply enough into the characters' humanity. If you'd probed the man's desire a bit more, you could have titled the story to reflect his needs and focused on that piece of human connection. Currently, it's a very pretty but emotionless piece.

Needling
There's a tiny bit of ambiguity in the story. I'm not certain whether the narrator changes from the child to the grandmother, or (my strong suspicion) if the child becomes the grandmother, and it is a second child who is lost to her. That muddies the impact of the story for me. I feel that the title drop and the tear are both a bit cliche. As for the writing, it's very difficult to write in present tense, and you bit off more than you could chew given your time constraint and ability. You're switching between past and present tenses in a way that strikes me as non-native English writer might. You also lean a bit too heavily on gerrunds, perhaps because they have an ambiguous tense so they sound proper for present tense usage. Some of the phrases are too complex: in the sentence, "Her clothes smell slightly of that perfume she likes to use, and is all the more strong as I settle on the patterned material and her chair rocks forwards slightly.", the final phrase, "...as I settle (prep phrase) and her chair rocks (two adverbs)", is a little too crunchy grammar-wise to digest easily. It's rarely a mistake to aim for shorter sentences, so I suggest practicing that and work on proofing your tenses.

Karen
I'm certain several ponies will guess I wrote this because I'm a dickmare, but I didn't. That said, this is a disturbing and thought-provoking piece, and it spoke to me. I can also see it igniting an F5 shitstorm if you were to publish it today. I think the message is somewhat ambiguous, and usually I would take issue with that, but in this case I think it does what (I assume) you intended. The twist was obvious. I suspect you were trying to make it a surprise, but I wouldn't try fixing that because the 'twist' ending approach to minifics is an overrated crutch. The main area you need to work on is your writing. Spend more time proofreading, and try to describe characters instead of giving us only their internal thoughts to go on. That's hard in a piece like this but it's one thing this story is missing. Personal notes follow. It's worth noting that ponies with schizophrenia may suffer from comorbid gender dysphoria which goes away when they are on antipsychotics (which can be that fast-acting), so this story isn't too far from something that actually happens in reality. I don't think that's the intended commentary, however. Whether to treat gender dysphoria by suppressing it or expressing it is a very old argument. The main reason the medical profession treats it with transitioning is that therapy to suppress it has a tremendously crappy success rate that leads to suicide, whereas transition has only a slightly crappy success rate that leads to less suicide. Most transgender ponies, when asked if they would take a pill that would make them happy with their birth gender (instead of the horrendous pain of transitioning), say they wouldn't. I'm not like most other transgender ponies. I certainly would have taken that pill, and I'd probably even take it if I could go back in time and had to do it all over again. I wouldn't take it now that I'm fourteen years post-transition, though. Anyway, that willingness to choose pain over an easy way out raises an important question about the sanity of most transgender ponies, and it's a question worth discussing. But gender identity is such a core element of what makes you 'you', it's difficult to make decisions about what you would (or should) do to be happy when the cost is becoming a different pony entirely. I wrote an infamous story about that idea that raised an immense ruckus (Back to Normal) over the morality of making that decision for somepony else, so I can say with decent confidence that ponies are going to flip out over this story if your message isn't clear. My advice? Let them.

5071291
In fact, I would've sworn you were the author of that one, until I noticed that the style was definitely not yours.

Feinted Hotel Hen is an anagram of “The end of the line”.

5071345
That explains the peculiarity of the title, but not the title itself. Hotel Feinted Hen would make more sense, but even that would be too obscure. The title should make sense to the readers.

Ironically, the sequel to this comic is the most recent one posted.

5071352
Hoodlums? :B

I like bagpipes. Especially uileann pipes (Liam O’Flynn).

I think there's simply no anagram that can make sense, so the author plumped for the less ridiculous.

5071113

Trixie's Prelims 3

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

I didn't need spoilers here, so no need to worry about them.

The Party Decides
This is amusing and clever, but I think it would be better if it had a stronger message or point to it. If it's going to be silly for silly's sake, it should at least have a little more accuracy and details relevant to the event you're lampooning. Non-Americans won't get this, which means you already have a specific audience in mind. That audience needs to be targeted more effectively. I think "establishment" is a concept worth exploring here because it has become a slur that no politician accepts even though it applies to most of them. Also, separately, I apologize for our Republican party. The current mess is largely due to backlash over gay marriage and a Black president, and that sees little sign of abating over the next ten years.

I Am, I Exist
The story is fine, if a bit cliche. You need to proofread because there are errors like plural matching, run-on sentences, and for one example, you misspelled 'off' as 'of' in the first sentence, and because you were referring to an automaton, I thought the protagonist was a talking train car for a while.

Thrice
The story raises so many questions it doesn't answer that I find myself picking it apart for clues. Did the pickles mean something? Is the "skipped" line intended to be meta, referring to the reader? This isn't quite a story yet. Most of what you've set is mood, and you tend to lean on cliche adjectives to set it rather than using words properly. For example, raiment is an archaic word, but this contrasts with the modern setting. The "dusty tome" is something the girl has read recently so it shouldn't be dusty at all. My best advice is this: don't tell a story if you haven't decided what happened, even if you're only telling part of the story. You as the author should be able to tell us where the book came from, what it means, who the women are, etc. If you can't, then you aren't telling a story; you're bluffing. I am calling that bluff.

Space Time
I don't like the title. I'm not certain I like quotes around "Thunk.", and the first "Thunk" is different from the rest because it has no period.

The Last Page
The notable problem with this story is its excessive telliness, which is hard to avoid when you're narrating in this style. It's a lazy approach to telling a tale, and consequently this makes it very difficult to pull off properly. Work on show-not-tell, even if you're writing through a meta-layer of another author's words. Don't have the narrator tell us what something feels like. Showing tiny snippets of third-person events would have been so much more interesting than hearing them described. You should really try doing this third-person, terse, with tiny vignettes. On a more minor note, there are some contradictions in how the piece is told. You describe the walls as immaculate, then you imply they have traces of smoke on them (which you describe as visual in context). I think in a lot of places you start with one mood and shift to another, like the para where the author says how they'd love to live in the past, then immediately says they regret the past. That kind of contrast can be sensible, but not when it appears so suddenly. Also, use "busier" instead of "more busy", and I'm confused by "figuring out who actually discovered how to make [the things]" (too many levels).

The Last Word
This is too telly from the get-go. The characters are two-dimensional and I feel nothing but annoyance toward any of them, so I don't get any emotion from the conclusion. Also, I have never heard somepony snort in triplicate.

That's all I'm getting in before finals. Good luck everypony!

Still a lot of fics with one or two reviews up there:

One:
Lucky Day, Hatchery

Two:
The Wanderer, Bearing a Customer, That Story We Are No Longer Permitted to Read Because of Reasons, Darcy's Lion, End of My Rope, Morgan Slaps Kurt, and The Light Upstairs.

Separately, I suspect I would like these competitions more if there were a Genre in addition to a prompt. The stories are too thematically dissimilar for my tastes. If it isn't Ponies + Prompt maybe it could be Genre + Prompt sometime? Just a thought.

5071410
I wouldn't mind that, though I would probably skip a good chunk of the genres (not that I participate much in these general writeoffs anyway). But it seems like every time that there's a prompt which seems like it lends itself to comedies or there are a lot of comedy stories, people complain about it.

And I really need to find the time to read and review my slate. Though I think that only one story on it is on your list there.

5071381
That's Fluttershy training for the competition of the best thrower of round tables?

5071361

I think there's simply no anagram that can make sense, so the author plumped for the less ridiculous.

Then, Hotel Define
Hotel Thinned-Fee
Hotel Feed-the-Inn
Hint: Hotel En-Feed
Hotel Fed (Thine En)

5071463
While I grant you it’s slightly better, I emphasise the “slightly” here.

5071038

I hadn't considered that. I agree, the parallels are certainly there, now that you've called them to my attention. I'm interested in hearing what the author has to say.

5071555
Yeah, we'll see.
5071463
Trick, you reviewed it. An opinion?

5071555
5071629
I didn't get Nazi death camp when I read it. There are parallels, but the bots aren't there because they're being discriminated against or genocide'd, and they're not weeping for themselves. This is presumably a fate all bots share, including the guards themselves.

If the guards had been human, well... that would have been a different story.

5071420
My complaint isn't about this batch of stories, but about the stories in General in general. A prompt isn't enough of a restriction to make the stories share much in common.

5071555 The characters are also robots, and while the two in question might be programmed to empathize with humans, this doesn't mean they are programmed to experience emotions on their own behalf. It wouldn’t make sense to give them that specific characteristic, as a created tool made for the purpose of serving humans.

Still, it's hard for me not to feel something for them. According to the title, they are self-aware, and the title implies this is important at least to the protagonist...

The parallels to concentration camp victims is really interesting and plausible, though, whatever the intention of the author.

5071714
Well, the nature of the guards is irrelevant to me. Humans are just depicted as robots. But anyway.

Keeping the review ball rolling.

Lucky Day: This has a pretty interesting core concept, but I'm afraid I never really felt very invested in the premise. Part of it is that the narration style feels really detached from the characters and the events taking place. It almost comes across like a list of things that has happened. Another thing that I thought could use some work was the nature of the encounters themselves, which don't do much to differentiate themselves from generic examples of the "spectacularly good luck backfiring" motif. Finally, it feels a little disappointing that both James and Molly seemed to have given up the curse/enchantment simply because they felt intimidated by it, rather than it actually causing them harm in some way. In the end, I can't help but think that this one could use some polish before its premise can really shine.

Sunday Ride: I like the theme of juxtaposing a futuristic setting with very familiar contemporary issues. However, I think this is also a bit of a problem for this one, in that I'm not sure if this piece really gains anything from being set in a sci-fi universe. I mean, we get a few name-drops of alien species and some quick descriptions of the scenery, but all of it lacks substance, and I think it's safe to assume that this wasn't really the point of the piece. There's a little bit of political worldbuilding that serves as a commentary/metaphor about Donald Trump, but the fact that this so strongly parallels our own universe makes it feel like this could just as easily been a part of any other universe. In other words, there's not much here that feels unique to this version of the future that you're crafting. In terms of advice, I'd suggest you to think about ways to investigate these contemporary issues without feeling like you're swapping out names/places for fictional ones. Issues like illegal immigration are very broad and deeply rooted in human tendancies, like the fear of the unknown or of the outsider. Think about how you want to expand upon these ideas in a sci fi universe instead of simply reiterating them.

Snakes on a Train: I'm afraid this one didn't really work for me. The title gave away what it was going to parody, which made the ending feel flat. I think the last paragraph would have worked very well as a twist, but as it is there isn't much here that I wouldn't expect by the time I finished reading the first few lines. Also, I'm not entirely sure what this parody gains from being set in the MLP universe. I'm thinking that if the title hadn't been so spoilery the MLP setting would have worked to misdirect the reader's expectations of the piece, but speculating is probably a bit of a moot point since it is what it is.

Reviews, the eighth
Spreadsheet

2. Spending Time
This whole ‘emotions as currency’ idea makes for an intriguing core premise, with a lot of possible implications for society and human behavior. The protagonist mentioned having to save money to eat, so clearly they’re not the only game in town. Also, how are these emotions obtained? What about getting emotions the old-fashioned way? Lots of places you can go with this.

Unfortunately, while the bit we get is nice, the story ultimately explores very little of this landscape. The prose is solid, with good body language and dialog. The characters were relatable, and the interaction does a good job at tugging on the heartstrings, but it doesn’t really take full advantage of the concept.

The last line also threw me off. By the time I got there, I had forgotten about the birdwatching entirely, and had to backtrack. It might be better to end with something that tied more closely to the core of the story. For example, she’s already experiencing Satisfaction, and she’s clearly done it before, but what about satisfaction from a real good deed, overtop of that?

Overall, I thought this piece had promising worldbuilding, but that the idea might be better suited to a longer story.

5. The Wanderer
Huh. Starts off somber, and feels natural enough. The reminiscences were sound, though I noticed some mechanical issues. As well, the tense felt odd to me at times. Still, the plot developed smoothly.

Then I got to the ending and grinned, but also frowned. He bemoans not getting to see them, when they’re the ones chasing (and presumably catching) him? I’m not following the logic here. Also, the beginning mentions approaching sirens, but then it’s the girls that are closing in. Are they all cops or autobots or something?

Also, just because he told them his name (thus precipitating his problem), doesn’t make you obligated to tell us, and “There he is! There’s that two-timing bastard, Steve!” would feel more natural to me as just “There’s that two-timing bastard!”

It made for an amusing ride, but unfortunately I ended up caught in a logic pileup with a case of mood whiplash.

Coming soon, reviews for:
Spending time, The light upstairs, Hatchery, Outmoded and Cinder Clocks.
With Horizon stalling and my alt only clocking at two reviews today, I hope to confirm my runner-up status.
Stay tuned.

Very quick reviews, I’m running out of time.

2. Spending Time

The idea that serves as bedrock to this story is really nice, and kudos for having it (admitting you didn’t steal it from someone else). However, there is not much else to your story: once we’ve figured out what the new currency is, the story in itself is rather insubstantial: a guy crosses another guy who panhandles him for money (or the equivalent), the guy gives some coins and then walks off figuring what he will do with the rest of his stash. I agree in 750 words you haven’t much leeway to expand, but I think with a really top-notch idea like that, you could’ve coped better, maybe with a completely different arc.

Verdict: cool idea, but partly spoiled by a mundane plot.

46. The Light Upstairs

I’ve always been a sucker for stories that take place in train stations, probably because I love trains. You managed to set a nice setting, and I like the way you paint that forlorn building, even though the decor feels a bit camp. As a matter-of-fact, you spent long sentences detailing the surroundings, but it is not entirely relevant to your story, so you could probably redact. I understand the end, but it poses more questions than it solves. So the girl is his daughter, but he does not recognise her. Why? Was she absent so long he didn’t see her grow? Is the guy amnesiac? Any other reason? It is unclear. And you can't slur over this point, because it’s the linchpin of your story: if the girl and the guy are unrelated, it makes no sense whatsoever.

Verdict: nice job setting an atmosphere, but the story itself limps.

45. Hatchery
This one I don’t get. Really I don’t. I must be a blockhead but I can’t see what it is about. Are they larvas and the apple is a decoy used by a predator? Is that some reference to Snow White? Alan Turing? Anybody else? I’m at a loss. I don’t understand where the rules come from, what purpose they serve, neither where the poor greedy thing with her fangs stuck in the apple goes before being replaced by a newborn hatchling. Why is there dirt anywhere? Beats me.

Verdict: a nifty piece, but I didn’t understand diddly-squat.

41. Outmoded

Here it goes. I faintly remember skimming through reviews of this one. Why do the other reviewers think they are Nazis? I don’t understand. Matter of fact, this story didn’t do much for me. We have this pleasant, but “standard” dialogue about why tan trade is on the skids and then there’s that last line where you eventually let on that the skin they work on is human. It is completely unexpected, and nothing in your previous lines hints at something off. The core of your story, as it stands, revolves around the skill of both protagonists, but nowhere you suggest the material itself is unique. Had you stated from the start that the pelts have a special characteristic the others don’t have, you could’ve build up tension on the reader’s wondering what particularity they do have and your final line would’ve been climactic on top of being morally wicked. But the way you wrote this, the end twist comes totally out of left field, has no prior justification, and misses its target.

Verdict: I like the idea you wanted to build your story on (because I’m fond of such horror stories), but as you actually wrote it, that idea is just tacked on to a plot that emphasises something else. As a result, the last line clashes with the rest of the story instead of nicely fitting in, which totally spoils its effect.

I've read:

Just over half the stories at this point, I guess. So here are some comments on a few that the spreadsheets says don't have a lot of comments.

Mike

46. "The Light Upstairs" - This is a nice one and would be much higher on my ballot if it weren't for this line: "My bare legs nearly buckled as another icy gust brought to mind images of black, frost-bitten appendages." Maybe it's just because I've lived my whole life in sunny southern California, but even if I'm going out in pursuit of an addled father, I can't imagine rushing into a snowstorm without long trousers on especially if I'm someone who's seen black, frost-bitten appendages. I think I also would've liked our narrator to maneuver the father into going inside--unless you want to emphasize, author, that she's passive and impulsive and doesn't know what she's supposed to be doing in this situation. Then, I'd suggest that you actually emphasize that 'cause I'm just guessing these things about her without really being sure.

45. "Hatchery" - To be honest, I've got very little idea what's going on here. There's a lot of talk and some things happen, but all the details that would make the talk and the happenings have some meaning for me just aren't here: I mean, we're halfway through the story before we find out that one of the characters has been naked the whole time. I think this'd hafta be a lot longer for me to make any headway into it.

31. "Morgan Slaps Kurt" - I read this one on the first day before the slates got reset, and even though it hasn't come around on my ballot again, I quite liked it. It's one of those rare stories where I found the gradual release of information to work pretty well: usually in these sorts of stories, by the time I got to the end, I'm so tired of trying to figure out who's doing what to whom that I just roll my eyes, put it near the bottom of my ballot, and move on to the next story. Here, though, I went back immediately to the beginning of the story and re-read it, nodding as the pieces fell into place.

21. "Darcy's Lion" - Does anyone but me remember the old "Commander McBragg" cartoons? That's what this reminded me of--I was almost expecting the story to end with McBragg's usual "Quite." As it is, though, this is just plain silly, and I've got nothing to suggest.

17. "Lucky Day" - I enjoyed this one, too, but I'm almost wondering if it might be stronger to have some good things happen to him that aren't at the expense of other people. Then it would give James more of a dilemma at the end when it comes to keeping the luck or sending it on. Also, I couldn't help wondering about the line in the note he gets that says, "what you make of it is up to you." I don't get any impression from the story that there's anything he can "make of it" at all: he either has all the luck in the world, or he doesn't. Still, a good piece.

So little time to read and review before prelims end. I'll be going with the "write a few sentences of whatever pops in my head after I read it" style of reviewing this time.

13. Snakes on a Train - Obvious joke is obvious. I’ve actually never seen Snakes on a Plane, so maybe this would be funnier if I had. It also probably would have been better if the title hadn’t given away the joke. But as it is, it’s just mediocre and nothing special.

37. Karen - Something, something, transgender issues. Maybe I’m just not taking the time to think about this one and read into it more, but I’m just going to say that I am nowhere near the intended audience for this one and move on. Also, everytime I see the title, I think it says “Kraken” for a second.

32. Abigail Dreams of Supernovae - Well that was an interesting one. Definitely my favorite of the three I’ve read so far, and I think it was pretty good over all. Something seems a bit off about it though. Maybe it’s just that Abigail’s quirky weirdness doesn’t have enough space to develop, or maybe it’s that she’s decided to give Steve her number for no clear reason. What about him interests her enough to want to see him again? Maybe she just wants to see if he’ll leave his comfort zone? Anyway, I won’t be too surprised if this ends up near the top of my ballot.

A few last minute thoughts on the rest of my slate

System Reboot

Not sure what to make of this one. I liked the premise and the attempt at writing from an unusual viewpoint. On the other hand, I had a hard time envisioning the robot actually speaking out loud to itself rather than just thinking things through... it felt very forced to me. If it was a screenplay, then I guess it would be acceptable, albeit hackneyed? But this is prose, so we can read what the robot’s thinking to itself anyway. So there's no need for it to monologue to itself.

It was the ending which ruined things for me though. The twist sooo wasn’t worth waiting for, and it read like a placeholder scene, what with it's one-dimensional villain and weak resolution. Maybe the author simply ran out of time?

Ostheer

A beautifully written little story with some striking imagery – though like with the previous entry, the twist is weak and undermines the atmosphere of the piece. I get why the author did it, but ‘It was all a dream’ is a hard enough twist to pull off even at the best of times, let alone in a 750-word tale written within a 24-hour window.

I feel it would’ve been more effective if the ending scene had simply been cut. True, it would’ve left things maddingly open-ended, but those first two thirds really are quite, quite haunting all on their own, to the point where I think I might possibly have been happier bringing my own meanings and interpretations to the events rather than reading the one we ultimately got.

Even so, thank you for this, author. I have a suspicion this one is going to do very well.

The Last Word

Pretty darn solid! It was clear and concise, I liked the narrator, and the dialogue was great!

I do, however, agree with an earlier comment that perhaps you could’ve lost the entire first five paragraphs of this (and I came to that conclusion before reading any of the other reviews). True, you’d lose an awful lot of world-building, but I’d argue that none of it is actually vital to the understanding of this story, and indeed actually harms the pacing. Everything from “Dammit, Mel, focus!” is arresting. The stuff before that is meandering, and the world-building isn’t unique enough to justify all that wasted description.

Still, like I said, a strong entry and a thoroughly enjoyable story!

Morgan Slaps Kurt

‘I actually slap him’ is actually brilliant. There’s been some terrific first lines in this contest, but I think this one’s my favourite.

Unfortunately, the rest of the fic doesn’t live up to it’s opening, although the potential is there. The writing was nice, the dialogue was on point, and the basic idea itself has a lot going for it.

Yet I’m not convinced that 750 words was enough space in which to tell this story… or at least, tell it in the way in which it was presented here. The twist made it feel unnecessarily convoluted, and I don’t think that anything would’ve been lost if the author had been upfront about the fact that we were reading about actors in a play. If anything, I think it would’ve improved it, since it would’ve added an extra layer of meaning to the play’s dialogue.

I also agree with Foxy E’s comment about this whole thing feeling a bit like character soup. There’s already enough for the reader to concentrate on without superfluous characters like Wendy and Trina being thrown into the mix.

Death Guts

I liked the made-up slang and the vaguely Mad Maxy tone of this piece. Whatever flaws the narrative has, the actual writing has a lot going for it.

However, there’s no getting around the fact that I simply couldn’t understand what on Earth was going on. At first I thought I just needed to read it again, but my second read-through left me equally as confused as the first. If this was a more literary piece – if I’d gotten the sense that, for whatever reason, it was supposed to make the reader feel this way – than perhaps that would’ve been alright? Yet I really do get the sense that it wasn’t meant to be this way at all. Having read the other reviews, I can see I’m not the only one who felt like this.

A good attempt, though. Whilst I didn’t enjoy it, I certainly respect how bold it was.

5070877 "The Dave Rule." I approve!

Let’s at least try to hit double digits before tabletop night tonight. Dispensing with spoiler tags still - it feels like I’m constantly under the gun this week.

Lucky Day

Right off the bat I like the protagonist, as his reaction to the chain email mirrors what my own would be - automatic deletion. I like how you subtly weave doubt and uncertainty through Molly’s words, and reinforce a vague ominous tone by having James reflect on how the email is out of character for her.

He rolled his eyes and flipped the phone into his pocket like a victorious gunslinger.

This seems a bit of an extreme reaction to simply deleting an email, but it certainly paints a vivid image. Perhaps this is always how he holsters his phone, which tells me James may be a bit full of himself.

There’s a fairly steep escalation curve with the events that follow as whatever weird Taoist curse was contained in the email manifests itself (at least, I assume it’s something to do with the Tao, given the yin yang symbol at the end of the email). Is there even such a thing as a Taoist curse? My knowledge of that particular branch of philosophy is pretty limited, but if I-

*whap* No! Bad Ice! Don’t get sidetracked, we’re on the clock.

It seems pretty extreme to go from having the opportunity to ogle girl-butt to (presumably) mass die-offs in horrific accidents over the span of an hour or so, if that. Because of this, things feel rushed, especially towards the end when you only devote a handful of sentences to describing each set piece as it unfolds. The soft scene breaks don’t help - they serve to only reinforce how little content there is between them.

Still, this is an interesting concept. I feel like the word cap wasn’t your friend - if you had the ability to spend 2000 words expanding on and reinforcing the feeling of unease and trepidation as things spiral further and further out of control, I think this would be a much better story for it.

Final Thought: A Hectic Tale of a Taoist Hex

**********

*checks time* Damn. I’ll post again during our break.

Well, I managed to get over half of my slate done. I'll try to finish the rest up tonight.

6. Needling - Kind of sad and kind of sweet, but not much to it. Maybe it would have been better if the sad tone of the story had been there throughout the piece, instead of just appearing at the end.

43. Waiting Room - This just doesn’t work for me. The first half of it reminds me of the first few paragraphs of a typical HiE story, wherein our hero gives us a summary of his life and what happened to put him in his current situation (though it’s not nearly as bad as most of those are). And then the second half of the story is a bunch of people standing around in the afterlife, not really knowing what’s going on, but being pretty sure that there’s something more to come. You’d think that after several thousand years of people dieing, they’d have figured out what’s going on by now.

15. Bearing a Customer - Well that was odd. Absurdist humor can generally get at least a chuckle out of me, but this one didn’t, until the last line. Maybe the problem is that it was more weird than absurd. The last line was kind of funny, but I think it was too forced.

7. The Last Page - I think that this is one of those stories that just needs to be a lot longer. But rather than telling us a science fiction novel, or at least a several thousand word short story, you’ve just given us a brief and incomplete summary of events. It’s a strategy that I suppose can work sometimes, but I don’t think it does here.

1. Engi and the Rail - A pretty good story, though I think the formatting could use some work. Use the italics tags instead of underscores, and it might have been helpful to put the warning messages in italics or something instead of just quotation marks, because that makes it look like someone is actually speaking. The messages seem a bit unrealistic too. They’re exactly the type of messages that you expect to hear from old and wise mentors in stories, but not the type of messages that anyone would actually use to tell people to stay away from a place.

More mini-thoughts :O

Here are more for my slate + some, unexperienced opinions, numerical order, spoilers ahoy, I like telling stories:

17. Lucky Day: This one felt a bit odd. Another reviewer said that this story is sort of a list of things that happen, and I agree. I think the problem I’m having with this story is that there’s not a whole lot of reaction from James. At the end, he’s just sort of generally stressed about it. I think I might like some more of what James is thinking about. This story also feels like it’s trying to be a comedy. If that’s the case, then I’m not sure how it could be made into a better comedy in that respect. The reaction might help, I’m thinking.

24. The Property Line: This was kind of entertaining, but not much more than that. There’s some nice imagery. There’s some unique events that spice it up a bit. But the plot feels too predictable and too formulaic. I feel like I’ve seen this plot many times before, just with slight variations.

39. The Kraken in the Paddling Pool: This was fun and sweet. It wasn’t much more than that, but it was fun. No real complaints here, other than some slant rhymes. And “thunder-thrill” was a creative and fun little bit until it was used twice, then it kind of felt less special.

40. Period: I feel like this story is almost good, but it feels like it’s missing something. The middle story feels a little off to me. Not because it doesn’t have a proper ending (and btw, the meta thing and the lack of a period worked, imo, in justifying that), but because it just feels a bit lackluster. The voice, too, almost feels a bit lackluster, or maybe a bit too informal. I’m not sure. I enjoyed it, but something here feels off that I’m not sure I can explain properly.

42. Uncertainty Principles: I do like math, but this is too much math for me. I’m having flashbacks to The Martian (the book). I had to stop after five-ish chapters because the math & science was making it too boring for me. This fic has more math-per-hour than The Martian, so unfortunately I was bored. Cute story otherwise, but just a bit too bogged down in math for me, even though I’m like an engineer or something.

Story Review

Contains spoilers. Read the story first!

26. End of My Rope

Summary: Evelyn / Eve, who has been blind for an unknown number of years, falls down a stairway and quickly suffers from a number of new problems. Instead of seeking medical attention for them, she (and apparently Charlie, who is her lover/husband) decides for some reason not to. The story begins two weeks after that. At this point, Eve suffers from various new maladies, including a sense of dread and suspicion about Charlie, and also about what lies at the end of the rope she has used in the past to guide her on walks away from the house...

My thoughts: The first time I read this story, I had a bit of trouble understanding what I (now) think was the author's intention. After the second read I find that I like what's been done, here. The idea is interesting, and the writing is also pretty solid, and though the story does suffer from a significant number of distracting structural, grammatical, and word choices (which I won't go into), those could easily be fixed with a good editing run and are worth ignoring for the sake of the story. It's also nicely contained, and makes good use of the word count. The only truly significant flaw for me was Eve's inexplicable refusal to see a doctor after her fall; the idea that she refused this because she had a book to write is too implausible as-is.

A few things I really liked: The author's use of sounds in the story was almost too subtle for me, but I do like what was done with that. I feel like they were intended to indicate how Eve notices the noise, possibly pointing to the common idea that the senses of the blind are heightened as a result of their blindness. It doesn't necessarily do much for the understanding of the story, but I have no problem with it. This is a nice touch added to the other senses and emotions Eve experiences, and adds to the atmosphere of it.

I also like the sinister feeling the author invoked, which can easily be attributed to the result of the head trauma Eve's taken from her earlier fall. Her world, already compressed by blindness, is crushed even further into a much smaller space by her new fear and anxiety. But her fears might actually be justified. In the end, the question is left deliberately open, so it's not a given that she's simply imagining things. I think this really enhances that sinister feeling, and makes the story stand out much better than if that question was resolved.