Where do we find out which stories are assigned to us (as per the first-round rules)?

The Nylon Curtain

The prose is nice enough, but I don't fully "get" this one. It's a couple of parables about new beginnings, which IMO is not a strong enough connection to weave them into something greater than the sum of their parts. The dialogue and interaction in the first part is well handled, if cliche. I'm not crazy about the flow and pacing of the Oliver story

Unfortunately, the weak connections between stories makes it so that the device of opening and closing with Twilight Sparkle is also weak, and it doesn't help that she basically says "Dear Princess Celestia, those were three stories about death and rebirth!"

I think what this story is missing is development. A good ending is an ending in which the status quo has changed. Perhaps Spike is freaked out and needs to be convinced that something new was born from the destruction. Or maybe Twilight starts off standing in the wastes, horrified, and at the end she finds something that makes her understand.

http://writeoff.rogerdodger.me/event/21-A-Single-Moment/fic/gallery for the gallery

http://writeoff.rogerdodger.me/event/21-A-Single-Moment/fic/vote/public for the voting page (remember to sign in as this will prevent you from accidentally voting on your own fic)

The Nylon Curtain:

Twilight Sparkle bursts through the library door, carrying naught but slumped shoulders and a drooping face. Spike, initially combing through a row of books on the shelf, turns to face Twilight’s panting, exhausted self. Puzzled, he approaches her, wary of the rainwater dripping off of her and splashing on the floor in torrents.

Some (forgive me) telly language, indicated in red. Puzzled => we are in Spike's point of view (POV). Rainwater dripping off her can't be in torrents.

“Twi?” Spike asks, putting a claw to his mouth in worry. “You’re not looking too—”

Twilight blinks once, and soon after begins swaying in front of the library’s doorway. Spike lunges over and holds out his claws, and soon after they cushion her fall—her eyes close, and her muscles relax.

Two "soon after"s; neither is necessary.

“T... Twilight, can’t...”

Who's speaking? Spike?

Twilight’s eyes open briefly, just enough for her to see the way as she lifts herself up. When she finds herself in the middle of the library, she collapses, and within moments a loud snoring escapes her.

Now we're in Twilight's POV, and out of it again by the loud snoring.

Spike brushes himself off and walks to the front door, sighing as he closes it. “Let’s get you to bed, Twi. Can’t have you sleeping on the cold, hard floor.” He moves next to Twilight, and begins prodding her along. A snort comes, and a disgruntled Twilight reluctantly lifts herself up once more.

Spike's POV, then Twilight's. This is okay; looks like you're doing omniscient POV. Just don't do it accidentally.

Twilight nods her head, and walks over to the nearby window. Outside, it is still pouring rain. “There was so much destruction, so many families that needed guidance after their homes had been destroyed... and yet, I can’t get something out of my head. I should feel bad for them, but everything seems so normal to me.

One pair of hooves falls and lands softly on the bed sheets, the other doesn't let go.

Nice. Use a semi-colon there, but still, very nice. That whole hospital section read more smoothly than the Spike/Twi section.

As quickly as she had arrived, the stallion

Mismatched clause subjects.

The mossgreens were quickly forgotten as the bag of mystery lies on the table—what could an executive, with loads of money and seemingly oodles of values and morals, possibly have put in that bag?

Mismatched tense. Whose POV says "oodles" (the colt?) yet also understands the stallion was an executive with moral scruples (not the colt)?

I just posted a blog post about 10 minutes ago on showing the theme of a story instead of telling it. This does that. Twilight tells us the theme at the very beginning, but I might have missed it otherwise. The Cerulean section is a little too mysterious to focus me on the theme rather than distract me from it. My biggest question is whether this theme merits a story. This story is pure theme; it doesn't give us anything else to satisfy us if the theme doesn't, and the theme is both a common one, and vague.

2616414

Yeah, see, I was expecting a Fimfic anthology.

Curtains Rise:

The case sat in front of her, silent for now, though she could practically feel the possibility emanating from the seams.

possibility => potential?

Nice story. Very few grammatical errors. You could expand this into an Octavia story that related the lessons she learned from music to non-music-related issues in her life.

Peeping Behind Locked Doors

Quick writing quibble:

An image engraved in the center of the doorway of a rising sun set in a backdrop of shining rays made it painfully obvious this was an important door of some sort.

This is telly. This would be fine if it has to do with a character's feelings about the door, but there's nothing suggesting that in either this paragraph or the next. Pointing it out because I like the tone you're going for, but it demands a higher degree of finesse.

Rumor has it that they magically appeared and disappeared throughout the castle on a regular basis so that their general location isn’t exactly known.

You're also prone to mechanical derps.

Not sure how to feel about this one, concept-wise. Banally obvious jokes like this are hard for me to get behind, but this had its good points--namely, the interactions between the two guards.

Various issues with prose, dialogue, etc. would have prevented me from enjoying this even if the joke was less straightforward. My advice is to keep seeking out opportunities to improve and people to help you improve, and then to perhaps find a nobler way to use your strengths.

A Story of Solstice

If anyone tells you that this is too purple, punch them. The first few paragraphs could use some cleanup, but so could everything, and the first dialogue exchange has me firmly hooked.

Shit, who are you? This is a style that I've tried to write several times. I could learn some lessons from you...

My one criticism is that this has no link to the prompt. But those who know me know that I appreciate prose nearly to the exclusion of everything else, and the prose here is impossible to argue with. A high spot on my list is now reserved for this one.

Aside: I've got mixed feelings about the concept and tone, because with the advent of s4 I'm starting to change my perspective on dark fics, including those that click with canon as this one does. Playing around with the universe is one thing, but the fanon universe as we have created it is just so very different from the reasons why we love the show--in other words, different from the reason why we're here.

Halter:
Very nice. Takes on a big subject. Nice Discord voice, start to finish. My only complaint is I'm confused. Starswirl's argument in favor of order was weak sauce, and I don't know what Discord was trying to accomplish. I get the sense Discord felt he had succeeded, but Starswirl doesn't seem to have changed, at least not as a result of anything Discord did.

From One to Another: The lesson from this and the previous story is, "Write more Starswirl stories." I really liked this. Are the poems original?

I get that Starswirl's singleminded dedication to his goal is what prevented him from reaching it, maybe. But the closing scene with Spike confused me. I don't know why it's there. Is he Starswirl reborn? I need a much bigger clue hammer if he is.

A Story of Solstice: Very nice. A bit purple, or perhaps I mean stylistically dated. I don't mean the descriptions. They're great. Mostly I mean the dialogue:

“I have found love and friendship in greater abundance than all the sky could hold. The earth ponies live and love and fight, and want for nothing while our people scratch a living off the mountaintops. Our legends cover us in glory, but we are leaving nothing for our children. For this one, I will leave a whole world to run in.”

Maybe this is good high-fantasy dialogue. Hard for me to say. I'm not a high-fantasy fan.

I've read a story very much like it before, with a pegasus mare in ancient times fleeing a cloud city and being chased down by her brother for an honor killing. Can't remember what it was, though.

"She had killed griffons with less effort than this." -- Nice.

I'm curious who's submitted. The competition is tougher than I expected.

2617321

I can confirm I entered, but I don't think that has much impact on the overall quality.

The Ponies We Love: I was all set to envy the author bitterly for writing a masterpiece, but the story isn't finished. Everything in it is beautiful, but each of the 3 sections sets up a mystery, and then it stops. If they're tied together in some clever way, I don't see it. I think this is the first quarter of an amazing story. If it had gone on the way it opened and wrapped up well, I'd have given it a 10. I'd have reduced the scores I gave to all the other stories to make it clear how good this one is.

So how much should we penalize a story for being unfinished? It shouldn't get credit for having a good ending, which is important, so I can't give it a 10. But neither will I say "It's one-fourth done, so I'll give it a 2.5." It depends on what we're supposed to be rating: the story, or the author?

A Timely Encounter

I'm just coming to the end of the intro bit before the plot drops, and I can say that this here really, really needs to clean up its act. I love Bloom and you write her well, and the action is cute too, but the writing is dry and it's making the story drag. Even improvements as simple as tightening it all up on the paragraph or sentence level would make a significant difference.

I'll get back to you with the rest.

The Nylon Curtain
Mechanically, the prose just felt... not purple so much as oblique. Take the third paragraph: Twilight fainted and Spike caught her. The current version isn’t direct, nor is it descriptive (Twi feeling strength fade and knees buckle, Spike feeling crushing weight of pony as he worryingly tries to keep the fall from harming her). It’s like it focused too much on being artsy and elegant, and at least personally, that didn’t do anything for me.

I… really didn’t care for Twi’s bookending scenes. Sure, great hook with Twi stumbling in from the rain, exhausted… except that was bait and switch. Twi and Spike then very deliberately mention the moral of the story, ruining the subtlety and buildup in the middle scenes. Twi pops in again at the end to redeliver the moral in an even more artsy manner, so much so that Spike has to shoosh her up. Twilight’s musings could make an effective conclusion point here (suggestion: on the scene of the volcano, sadly surveying the damage, and then in the last scene, only then does she have her epiphany?) and I do like the moral, but having her spell it out in Scene #1 makes you question what the rest of the story is for. I’m being hypocritical in my advice here since this is a point I presently struggle on, but you need to put faith in your audience that they’re not stupid. If you tone Twi way down and make her much more subtle, and include the rest of the story, people will be able to read between the lines and connect the dots.

As for the middle section. The hospital one-life-ends-another-begins has been done, but for what it’s worth, I liked its execution, and if Twi hadn’t been so on-the-nose in Scene #1. Cerulean’s scene was probably the strongest of the fic, with its interesting characters and vagueness that left the reader tracking down the clues—sharp contrast to Twi’s bluntness. Frankly, expanding Cerulean and Olive’s tale into a full story rather than just an “example” scene in the current story, wouldn’t be a bad alternative. But the “moment later” scene, uh. You call him “a younger colt” and you include a scene break, and thanks to the hospital scene, my expectation is “a different character, somewhere nearby, a moment later”. You then reveal it’s still Olive and almost no time elapsed, rendering the scene “transition” pointless and confusing.

So, pretty clear unfortunately that I had some issues with the story. But don’t lose heart! This is definitely one of those fics that has a strong vibe of having a good story idea but the execution didn’t measure up. If you tried rewriting this story with the feedback you get, I have a strong suspicion that the second revision would be substantially stronger.

Peeping Behind Locked Doors
*sweats profusely, licks lips, mutters "professionalism" under his breath, very nosebleed*

Sexy Misunderstanding is a story that's appeared in the Featured Box a lot, but that said, All Ideas Have Been Done. You basically have two options with how to stand out: doing something novel with the misunderstandees, or doing something novel with the misunderstanders.

We start with the guards. They do absolutely have a few fun lines (“My good parts are broken!”) but they kind of fell flat to me—a bunch of "dipshit" this and "dickpunch" that. Aren't these guys Royal Guards? I can't blame them getting hot and bothered for some Twilestia action, but they're sorta throwing all professionalism to the wind. While I'm okay with some vulgarities, I feel like there was a missed potential to ponify at least some of it (calling each other "featherbrain", using their wings somewhere in the slapstick, etc. They were needed to play a gag role, and they do so, and yeah. Consider that (as far as I can tell) the tie-in to the prompt is "this is the one single moment that we get to spy on some Twilestia" and like I said, it falls flat for me.

As for the princesses, the big point of this all is to play to double entendre, meaning it all has to work under the innocent context as well. Twilight crying out because Princess Celestia elbowed her in the head in an aggressive game of Twister... I mean, just look at that sentence. That's pretty brilliant. On the flipside... if you haven't watched a Seattle's Angels livestream, go do that so you know what I look like. Now imagine that you and I are playing Twister, and I comment on how soft your skin feels, and you thank me and tell me that you went to the spa to prepare for this special occasion. Now obvious, my example is highly erotic—as was your fic—but I admit it's a teeny, itty bitty bit creepy.

In terms of mechanics, there were a number of points that just felt clunky. “While Blitz was busy clenching his very sore essential set of parts for reproduction”. Just lots of clauses, and odd word order at points. Nothing an editor couldn't smooth out. All and all, this was enjoyable, but I had just hoped that it could have done something to set itself apart a little more. Now if you'll excuse me, alluva sudden a shower sounds like a fun idea.

A Story of Solstice
I struggle for much to say here. This has a very professional level of polish, especially considering the time limit. The imagery of the skydive, the empathic emotions of the foalbirth, and the sharp conflict of brother vs sister... it's all a great execution and I'm quite impressed. A clear contender, and so forth.

Of course, the point of feedback is to be constructive, so lesse. It does need a run through an editor, just for missing words and silly such errors. The flashback at the beginning, back to the bedroom, had a pretty thin transition, and confused me at first. Either needs a stronger transition, or possibly even a line break. There was a lot of world building at points, and world building is always good, except when its bad. Thunderhead's references to Pegasopolis and the Twelve Airways and such felt good, because you could figure it all out from context, and it helped make the world feel bigger. In contrast, the worldbuilding during the skydive, about the Acropolis and Elysium and Stratosa just felt tossed out there, lacked as much context, didn't feel as relevant to the immediate plot—in short, IMHO it detracted.

I guess the biggest issue comes from the darkness of the content matter: a pre-Hearth's Warming Pageant land involving ever-roaming monsters, dropping earth pony foals off cliffs, and honor killings that are contextually downgraded to just a wing amputation. There's probably little point in mentioning the obvious that this will polarize your audience, since your writing felt very natural and at-ease, and it wouldn't at all surprise me to learn that you have followers who enjoy this level of content. But such as it is.

Still, all in all, bravo.

A Timely Encounter
See, as I started reading, I was all prepared to enjoy this story about Apple Bloom (*cough two words cough*) learning a lesson about responsibility/accountability from her sister. And that woulda been an enjoyable fic too! What with the fun bits about mocking the ice cream ponies and being bored or such. And then the time travel spell happened and I was like eeeeee!

This is so hard for me to remain objective, because I just had such a stupid grin on my face as I laughed my way through. But on the flipside, isn't that exactly the reaction that Author is hoping for here? If the comments on my fic love my story so much that they overlook its flaws, I'd be on cloud nine.

Still, as per last review, constructive feedback. Hmm. It's very dialogue heavy. Aside from Future!CMC arriving and subsequently disappearing, it's basically just ponies standing around and talking. Hypocracy strikes again, since as both a reader and a writer, I have a huge dialogue fetish, so the tons of dialogue wasn't a negative for me, but I do expect others to dock points for that. The irony of future!AB's special talent being erased from existence was delicious, as were a few of the other time hijinks. This guy also needs a run through an editor, because especially of note, there's some autocorrect errors in here, which are always nasty to track down. Tie-in to the prompt is a little iffy, since isn't this about many moments that future!CMC tampered with? The ending felt long; I'd suggest axing the ice cream part of the ending (as well as RD and company) and just leave AJ Scoots and Sweetie.

There's certainly some fics in this competition that I appreciated for their literary talents and artistic merit. But undoubtedly this is one that I enjoyed, and I'll be damned if that doesn't weigh in considerably on my voting.

All of It, for Her
Well, thanks for punching me in the gut, Author. Ow. I do love me some alternate character interpretations. And as you explore here, a lifetime is a really long time to scour a country for a single individual. But damn if that scene with the envelope didn't connect. What Could Have Been is one thing, but making Cranky blinded by his own single-mindedness really twists the knife.

As a narrator, Cranky's snark was enjoyable. However, it felt uneven and occasionally broke down. Since he was so "stuck in his head" too, external descriptions sometimes felt sparse or dry. The bit of angst before Cranky enters the cafe (even though he lampshades it) felt a little out of place. I know that his emotional detachment was deliberate, but beware this backfiring against your audience—the humorful moments of snark helped.

I think my biggest beef is, I can see the tragedy for Cranky, as Stardust seemed rather sweet and could have been good for him, especially with the prospect of finding Matilda looking increasingly implausible. But on the other side of the equation, I didn't really see what drew her to him. HIs tenacity? Mysterious past? Gruff-with-a-soft-side is a theoretical possibility but he kinda goes out of his way to be... *shades* an ass. I'd just like to see a little bit more from her re: why she likes him, rather than just presuming it.

A Waiting Moment
This one has some adorable puppy love, but is hindered a bit by some execution issues. Some of the scenery and body language seemed sparse at points, and some bits were telly. I've been mentioning that some of these fics need some editing, and that's true here too, but some of the errors are unfortunate like typos and random extra characters—stuff that another readthru before submitting might have caught. I also had to repeatedly assert to myself that these were sweet, G-rated ponies. In present day America, if a father knew that their teenage son had the hots for the babysitter, and he encouraged his son to confess his feelings, right before leaving them unsupervised for the night... Unfortunate implications.

Still! The scene at Doughnut Joe's was definitely the strong point. It was clumsy and awkward in a good way. It was sweet that Cadance seemed well-aware of his crush and was just waiting for him to confess (girls were OP in high school as I recall). Shining's bashfulness was well-executed, and I loved that part about the donut right at the end of the scene.

I'm a little ambivalent about the scene with Dad though. It was a good Dad characterization, and he had good kid advice ("go confess"), and sure that calls him into action at the end of the fic, but the Dad advice isn't particularly profound to the reader, so the ending lacks a bit of oomph. Since the Shining/Cadance banter was the strong point, I feel like we should have ended on her. Maybe we end at Doughnut Joe's with Shiny feeling disappointed but optimistic. Maybe we carry forward into the night and see a clumsy but heartwarming confession. Heck, it's a matriarchy, maybe Cadance makes the first move! It just didn't feel like Dad was an effective cavalry here.

Curtains Rise
Be careful of head-hopping (we see Bass Clef's thoughts in Octavia's flashback). I do like her parents in the flashback, but since flashbacks entail such a large part of the fic, I'd recommend linebreaks rather than large expanses of italics. I understand that a lira is a musical instrument, but when the fandom already has a popular musically-themed background pony with an extremely similar name, it's bound to lead to confusion. I particularly love that last line of the fic.

I have two main, related issues here. First, while I know that All Ideas Have Been Done, and while this has a nice execution, I still feel like I've seen this story a number of times. Even just within the scope of these write-offs, I can recall a few "Tavi/Scratch/Lyra right before a performance" fics. I'm not saying "someone else wrote this idea once already so it is OFF LIMITS FOREVER". But what I am saying is that, if you're taking a popular premise like this, you're really relying on either A) the strength of your execution or B) a novel twist on the premise. A might be here, but B not so much. The other is sorta the nicest bad thing that I can say about a fic: this is a really nice vignette. As in, I'm not really feeling a strong story arc. I'm not saying that your fic needs to be a brooding or bloody affair like some of your competitors. But clearly, Tavi faced some conflicts earlier in her life, since the flashbacks show her struggling. And the end of the fic directly implies that she conquered those flashback. And... overcoming those difficulties occurred offscreen. It's nice to read "Tavi used to have stage fright and now she's able to channel her nerves" but it's more satisfying to watch the actual overcoming of the hurdle, y'know?

Don't let me mislead you, though. It was a nice vignette, and I did enjoy the execution. I just think that you could take things further here.

EDIT: Removed all my massive blocks of spoiler tags since it was making my eyes bleed. You shouldn't be reading reviews before you read the story, anyway!

Penance for not delivering on what I said last round.

Three single notes, and the rest general thoughts. Let's see what we got. I'll be filling this space as I go along.

The Nylon Curtain

>she says, more rushed and loud than before
"and loud" is probably redundant, since you've used the exclamation mark already; "rushed" is a good one, though, as it's something that we wouldn't have caught otherwise.

>there is no reason to cry.’
herp derp single quote

>Why would he be doing this right after he quits his job?
after he quit, shouldn't it be, cos of tenses?

I'm either too slow to not see the connection between the scenes, or got trolled by the author subverting the expectations that the volcanic eruption would somehow kill one of the ponies. It was well-written, and ballsy-as-all present tense writing, but it could have been all the more... tighter, cohesive if you had given a more readily visible tie beyond mere philosophy. Still, this is def above average in terms of vision, and it could do very well, made to be very satisfying. An optimistic note to start this off with.

Peeping Behind Locked Doors

>cost probably more than he’ll ever make
he'd, tense derp

> “... Of course I was.”
You don't need the ellipse, as you've already mentioned that he paused. Losing the extra punctuation lets the scene develop smoother (even if it's just one line).

>a slight hic
a slight hic for onomatopoeia, or hiccup for properly-written descriptive, maybe?

Well, I'm the first to admit that low-brow sexual humour doesn't work for me. However, it managed to stay entertaining and easy to read. Quite a few grammatical derps the further in it got, but the ending had a nice bit of ambiguity that could've been more wicked if you had made it a tiny more obvious. By it, I mean that Celestia's being a pervert and Twilight is clueless - that is, if that was what was going on in the last part. That ambiguity, intentional or otherwise, was a good twist that made this more than just "something amusing but forgettable" for me.

Halter

Other people made this work. Specifically, I'm not sure if I'd have stayed to see it through if not for the knowledge that it was Discord talking. The twist was cool, and while it could have been fleshed out, it didn't need to be. An enjoyable little thing, certainly.

Curtains Rise

> a parents job
parent's

>my family’s support, “
space derp

Very nice lil thing, well constructed, short and sweet. Not much to say otherwise. Good one ya, author.

Why aren't people doing single posts for their reviews? Following this thread is getting difficult. c.c

2621834 If it's any consolation, once I do mine it'll be all at once.

Completed notes and impressions upon finishing on A Timely Encounter

That was adorable.

Moments
Well… I really don’t know how to feel about this one, as a reader. And the reader part of me says that that’s a good thing, that you want to make an impact and get your reader to just stop and think. But the editor part of me isn’t sure if I just wasn’t picking up the clues fast enough, or wrong genre savvy, or if there’s legitimately a narrative issue here. Lemme just walk you through my reading, and maybe that’ll highlight what I’m getting at.

We start with Twi and her discussions of optimizations of happiness, which gave me a huge nerdgasm. (And I especially loved the line “Unexpected teleportation, I always find, lends one credibility.”) It’s Purplesmart trying to turn happiness into a math problem, yet feeling conflicted as she realizes certain philosophical models don’t work for her. Feels very in-character. Then we start to see her lying and avoiding her friends, and my initial assumption is that she’s gone too far. She’s become a soulless optimizer and is losing sight of what happiness really means, but is that evil of her? RD and the star comes up and, initially, this feels like an odd tangent, as if the author was just coming up with some adventure plothook for the sake of RD’s happiness. (Of course, I immediately second-guess that assumption, and the descent starts becoming obvious.) Then the Big Mac bit… she claims that he’s getting a moment out of this—and sure, he gets to smooch an adorkable princess—but all the narrator clues point to this being a very selfish moment of happiness for her, as it becomes increasingly clear that the situation is ed, which seems to undermine some of her earlier optimization of happiness for everypony. And then with horror we realize that this optimization isn’t some misguided adorkableness, but literally the only power she has. And on the one hand this sweeps off the previous questions as less relevant to the fic, but introduces others like if her actions actually matter, given the impending doom and fact that these are just magical replays of her friends, or if this “making everypony happy” has zero meaning except for her, again being more selfish… *inhale*

It’s like… any of those issues—is it okay to maximize happiness like a math problem, is it okay to lie and manipulate in order to maximize happiness, as a princess how entitled is she to her own happiness especially when it starts to come at a cost to others—would make a good topic to explore in a story, by themselves. And once you reread the fic as a whole (required for this type of fic), you can appreciate everything in its proper context. But the first read feels almost ADHD as it bounces between different, very deep, and philosophically challenging questions, 500 words at time, leaving your head spinning. I almost suspect that you should forgo some of the literary suspense (perhaps a very early mention of the star or the 23 minutes, to clarify something important is wrong) so that the reader can stay on the same page and just focus on the philosophical debate… maybe. I’ve been known to be whooshed by foreshadowing in the past, so we’ll see if anyone else agrees on my confusion.

A very thought-provoking piece. Thank you for sharing.

2618928

I guess the biggest issue comes from the darkness of the content matter: a pre-Hearth's Warming Pageant land involving ever-roaming monsters, dropping earth pony foals off cliffs, and honor killings that are contextually downgraded to just a wing amputation.

I hope you're not taking points off for having an un-showlike attitude. That wouldn't make much sense on a website where the most popular story category is clop. IMHO, fan-fiction that's unlike the show is more interesting than fan-fiction that resembles the show. We already have the show.

2622974
I was not planning to dock points for that reason. My point (which I admit seems extremely banal in hindsight) was simply that the violence will restrict the audience. Clop is insanely popular on Fimfic, yes, but there's still plenty of readers who won't touch it with a ten-foot pole.

The fic in question could be told while toning down the grimly violent moments like the amputation, without losing too much of the thrust of what makes this story good. Should it? Not for the sake of appeasing canon, no. But like a movie producer waffling between the PG-13 version of the script and the R version, there's pros and cons re: your marketability.

All of It, for Her

Don't have much to say. I'm tired.

This executed what it came to do very cleanly. It's got some really strong hits as far as letting Cranky's voice create moments in the story, and everything from the imagery to the supporting characters shines through very well. Good show--you should be proud of knocking something this nice out for a 72 hour contest.

I'll have to apologize in advance for how lackluster these reviews may be. I'm not always the best at that sort of thing.

The Nylon Curtain

This is interesting, I suppose, but it had me confused throughout most of these story. The intro and outro with Twilight seem to have no real reason to be there, other than to have familiar faces in the story. It was also a really unnecessary misdirection, as I too was expecting the other sections to be related to this volcano thing that's mentioned. The rest feel kind of interesting as their own elements, but not as pieces trying to build a theme. The prose itself was also a little weird, but that may just be me.

Peeping Behind Locked Doors

I kind of felt that this story was going that way, so all of the guard interaction after that left me skimming. I did really like the interactions though, despite that I was skimming; it's just that the dialogue was more appealing than nut shots. Like Pav said, some of the innuendo was, well, not double-sided. It had no real clean application, which lessened the impact of the reveal and made me feel like Twilight was trying to drop hints that she wanted some royal rump. Also, I can't really see a prompt connection.

A Story of Solstice

Honestly, baring some cleaning up and maybe shrinking down the world-building and verbose dialogue a little bit, this is really good. I can hardly say anything bad about it, personally, other than that the dialogue was a bit wordy. It's also not really saying the prompt to me.

A Timely Encounter

This was a pretty enjoyable read, and it's hard for me to say that anything really bugged me. However, just as well, it didn't quite wow me either.

All of It, for Her

Definitely loved this. A really good voice for Cranky, and an interesting look and thought about how his life must have been, working towards just one moment he might not ever have. I would say the inevitability of how the story will end hurt this entry, but for me it made the impact of his reaction to Lemon's gesture that more heartbreaking. Very well done. If I had to say something constructive, it'd be that we never really got to see a reason why Lemon wanted to be with Cranky, so it did seem to happen just because.

A Waiting Moment

I'm not really a fan of this one, but that's probably because there's some awkward dialogue (given that character's are supposed to be acting awkward, maybe that's okay?). Otherwise, the concept is pretty nice, though things just sort of happened. I would have preferred the story ending after Shining gets his courage and takes a chance.

Curtains Rise

Another very nicely made piece, though it could have done with seeing Octavia overcome that early stage fright, just to give the story that little extra kick. The prose was very strong, along with Octavia's conversations with her mother and father. Also, like has been said, those flashbacks need to be from Octavia's POV.

Moments

The best heartbreak, to me, is the kind you slowly realize. In that respect, this story rates very highly for me. Letting the reader piece together things and slowly come to the realization that everything has been, is and will be going to hell is great. However, the prose is scatterbrained a bit towards the end, which fits, but can confuse a reader. For me though, beyond small fixes, there weren't a lot of faults, and given how long this cycle may have been running, Twilight's voice fits very well.

The Ponies We Love

This looks to be starting a very nice 20-30 chapter story that I'm sure would work out great in the end cause the style is very nice, everyone's inner voice is well built, and it all feels in character (though I'm a bit shaky on the Luna/Celestia bits). However, as a write-off fic, it just leaves me unfulfilled. I'd definitely give a thumbs up for recommending you write more of this, but I feel I need to take off some points for the fact that it doesn't all pay off. It's all build-up. And no, it wasn't boring.

Halter

I liked this one. It was a good look at a start of darkness for the fanon identity of Discord. Though I also feel Starswirl's "support" was lackluster at best. Also, was it intentional that some of the voice's lines was un-italicized? If so, I assume that'd be a turning point of character development. Otherwise, bbcodes are dumb.

From One to Another

I think this was another good look at the Starswirl of yesteryear, but for different reasons. While Halter gave a look at a fanon turning point of Starswirl changing who he was at a single moment, this gives us a lifelong look at how Starswirl wasted most of his life working to one moment. I, however, am also a little unsure about the ending scene, but I believe it's that Twilight's his reincarnation to finish his work?

Selfless

Honestly, I feel like with story this could be something better, but it can't really work as a one-shot. That, or it needs a stronger moment to kickstart the origin story. Despite that it should have been actiony in the middle, there wasn't much of it, although I did like the alliteration. Funny enough, it might make a fine multi-part comic that you usually see on deviantart. Also, I don't think that ending scene has any reason to be there, despite that it made me chuckle at the most.

The Mane Cast Walk Into a Room

I sort of had to force myself to finish the story, but afterwards, I can appreciate the way it was built. However, the prose was still a little shaky, and the blunt explanation lessened the impact for me (I do understand that it might have gone completely misunderstood for a majority of normal readers otherwise). The character voice were pretty spot-on, for me, too.

Here we go, the reviews nobody was asking for.

Alexmagnet reviews the writeoff fics in a few short sentences because he's too much of a lazy asshole to bother with anything else!

The Nylon Curtain

Okay... that happened. I'm not really sure this story ended up as deep as it seems to want to be, and besides more than a few grammatical mishaps, it just never really seemed to decide what voice it wanted to have. It's not bad, it's not great. It just is.

Peeping Behind Locked Doors

Pretty decent innuendo comedy, but not exactly anything special. Got a some laughs out of me, especially from the guards, though it won't go down as being particularly memorable.

A Story of Solstice

I don't know really what to say about this one. It's good, sure, but a lot of it felt... tacked on, if that makes sense. The ties to Greek/Roman mythology, while interesting, seemed to weigh the story down unnecessarily. I mean, it's hard to criticize this story given that it's written incredibly well, and the descriptiveness is stunning. I dunno, man, this story is fuckin' good. What else can I say?

A Timely Encounter

Fuckin'... I don't even know. It's just, if you're keeping your story relatively short, why would you waste so much time on mundane shit like Apple Bloom (that's the correct spelling by the way) making up voices for random ponies? This whole thing felt like it was trying to be a comedy, and at the same time tell a semi-coherent story, but it failed at both. Maybe I'm being harsh, but I couldn't really find anything to like about this.

All of It, for Her

Pretty good, and Cranky is written rather well, though the prose suffers a bit from being a desert. I liked the ending, and it was handled pretty well, though, as Pav said, I find it somewhat hard to believe that Stardust would be so attracted to him. He's pretty much just a dick to everyone and everything. This ain't an anime, people don't fall for tsundere characters because they're endearing. Nobody likes assholes in real life.

A Waiting Moment

>a noticeable pool of warmth flooding her face
No. Just... no.
Eh, so this one was reasonably cute, but pretty forgettable. The tie to the prompt seemed rather forced at the end, but that could just be me. Overall, it ain't a winner, but it ain't a loser either. It's pretty square in the middle for me, a solid “meh”.

Curtains Rise

Surprisingly, I actually kinda liked this one. I don't know why. Perhaps it was just the right amount of cute and heartwarming? Perhaps I've been so jaded by all the writeoff fics I've ever read that when I come across one that doesn't annoy me, I immediately latch on to it? Either way, this one was adorable and I liked the ending quite a bit. All that being said, however, I wouldn't go so far as to say this is a particularly great story, I just liked it quite a bit, which is a distinct—but important—difference.

Moments

Huh... I mean, what can I realistically say about this? Was it good? Sure. Did I like it? You bet. Do I care why there's a random asteroid about to obliterate all life? Not particularly. If I were voting, would this get a high score? Probably.

Ponies We Love

According to the A/N at the end, you realized this was unfinished when you submitted it. So, I have to ask... why? Why would you submit something you know is unfinished? I mean, this has potential to be interesting, but right now it's just half a story. You've got some build up, but nothing more. I mean, if you just wanted people to read it, fair enough, but I really think you would've been better off finishing this and publishing it when it was complete.

Halter

Absolutely my favorite fic thus far. Star Swirl gets pretty much no love ever, so seeing him a story that is unabashedly awesome... well, shit, that really gets my blood pumping. I can't really say much in the way of criticism of this fic. There was nothing that I particularly disliked, so good on you. It's pretty damn rare that I genuinely enjoy a writeoff fic this much.

From One to Another

Good. Very good. I liked this quite a bit, and the ending especially really got me. I'm honestly quite surprised that the two fics I like the most are both Star Swirl stories. Is this fate conspiring against me? Or is it divine providence? Is there really much a of a difference? Anyway, I like tackling fate and destiny in stories, though I usually go from the angle that you shape your own fate. It was really interesting to read it from the other side, and especially well done. Personally, I'd like to see this fleshed out a lot more, but it's pretty good how it is.

Selfless

I'll be honest with you, author, right off the bat. I skimmed like 90% of this fic because it was pretty bland. It's not a bad story, not by any means, but it's long as shit and I couldn't bring myself to care enough to read it that intently. Am I being a lazy douche? Fuckin' right I am. But if you can't grab my attention, why should I care?

The Mane Cast Walk Into a Room

Okay, lemme stop this writeoff train for a second. What the fuck is with all the present tense fics? Seriously, why so many of them? Whatever, I should probably talk about this story with a terrible title (no really, that's a dumb title).

Dumb title aside, this was actually a lot better than I anticipated. The characters are all written rather well, and the story about time loops was actually pretty damn cool. It doesn't quite top either Star Swirl story for me, but it's definitely my third favorite fic. My only complaint is that it feels like it drags a bit, sort of like a bride running down a street trying to hail a taxi. The story is far ahead of the prose that lags behind. I feel like that metaphor is so close to making sense....

The Ponies We Love
Ohai Author's Note. Straight and to the point, yeah? Well, alright then. Was it boring? Yyyeah, a little, but that's not the helpful answer. It's a problem with the pacing and the story arc. Lemme do a similar play-by-play as my other review.

906 words. That's how long we have of describing the chamber door, and describing the chamber itself, and then so much small talk. After that point, Luna finally tells Celestia off, which is more or less where the action starts. As it stands, there's not really a strong hook at the very beginning. One of Vonnegut's 8 Rules, after all, is to start as close to the end as possible. Don't give us a reason to stick around 900 words from now; give us something—even something small, to whet our appetite while you build up—at the start.

So they have conflict, and Celestia goes back to brood. She sets up that she can tell she's growing distant from Luna, but at least she's still super close to Twilight (important!) Then we hop to... Rarity? And she's tired from a dress order. Doesn't feel relevant to the Celestia part (and even after reaching the end, I'd still probably vote to cut this section). Then we get to the Mayor/Twilight section. We get a lot of building of Twilight's state—and if we've already gotten a hook in the previous section, then you can afford to take more time here—and it's all pretty good character building, filling up a backstory for a princessyzed Twilight. But here. Right here. 2930 words into the fic.

Neither did the Mayor’s hope dwindle entirely. And in lieu of that hope, she had forsaken ever bringing this point up to Princess Celestia in her weekly reports.

^^^^^^ Thissssssss. This is where, literally, I sat up in my chair and went, "Ooo. Oooooooo." Now we have a story! Celestia thinks she's losing Luna, but still has Twilight, not realizing that Twilight's starting to slip away herself, largely driven by becoming a princess by Celestia's (metaphorical but, importantly, not literal) side! I would love to see more of this.

And then we hop back to Rarity and Fluttershy. As mentioned, Rarity's exposition here makes the earlier scene redundant. And the interplay between them is sweet! And Rarity buys into the theme of missing important details by brushing off FS, yet subverting it with Coco. So, thematically relevant, but not (yet) plot relevant, but well written enough that I'm willing to wait and see how it ties into the story so far. And then it ends.

So, aside from the fact that you still have a lot of story that yet needs to be written (and you have my sympathies there, I did that to myself in a previous write-off), the main issue with what's written so far is to follow Vonnegut's advice. Your hook is 906 words in, and the moment where your story truly starts is 2930 words in. Get us there faster, and then you'll be free to take chapter upon chapter to explore the scenario you've devised.

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According to the A/N at the end, you realized this was unfinished when you submitted it. So, I have to ask... why? Why would you submit something you know is unfinished? I mean, this has potential to be interesting, but right now it's just half a story. You've got some build up, but nothing more.

This is my opinion right here. The write-off is a game, and this author lost the game (and so have you now that you've read those words). It's a failure at a write-off fic, and it doesn't need help from a high scoring finish in order to keep on being, you know, really good.

Halter
Mmm. I read this last night but actually ended up sitting on it overnight, in terms of review. The issue contained within, about some circumstances being outside your control no matter what... let's just say it hit a nerve that was already raw, and move on.

It’s an interesting piece. It’s more dialogue heavy than A Timely Encounter. I suspect that the fact that one of your primary characters was incorporeal started to take its toll on you, as some of The Voice’s descriptors started feeling strained toward the end (you mention a voice smiling and frowning at a number of points), and the whole thing seemed to skate a fine line in avoiding—pardon the pun—talking heads. (As someone who’s written Fluttershy in a robotic, non-expressive body, you have my sympathies there.) And it’s more brash about its philosophical arguments than Moments, as the fic is primarily “Star Swirl argues with The Voice, claims to win the argument, and sees if he’s right”.

Mmm, I think that’s my beef with it. Star Swirl claims victory, against all logic and evidence. The randomness of the locket, he claims to be Order, while simultaneously calling it Providence—divine guidance, which may technically be Order but is typically assessed to be "outside the comprehension of mortals". He hears The Voice’s laughter in his soul and thinks it’s evidence of his imminent victory. It’s a crap argument: we know it at face value and by understanding exactly who The Voice is/will be, and The Voice certainly knows it’s a crap argument too. But Star Swirl is so stubborn about it, he’d give Applejack a run for her money. So we know there will be a tragic downfall, and this is unquestionably a key moment in the fall, but it’s not the fall. Against all logic, he’s standing strong. If we didn’t have the benefit of future sight, you might think there’s some small chance that he wins. And because Star Swirl’s tenacious, bold claim to The Voice is so intriguing… it begs for a sequel. Maybe only 2-3 more chapters, but just something to give payoff to that claim. Since it’s crazy and we know Point A and Point B and the path (to me) isn’t immediately obvious… y’know? Still, while I strongly desire a continuation, it didn’t hamper the immediate enjoyment of what’s present, so good on you.

*blinks and F5's a couple of times*

Did A Timely Encounter get removed from the running? GV? #25?

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I felt compelled to answer those who don't know why I would post an incomplete fic for the writeoff, and so I just went ahead and created a new user to maintain anonymity.

The write-off is a game, and this author lost the game

Too true. But you're failing to consider: why do we play the game? Is it just for kicks, to see what score out of ten you get--to simply try to be this round's winner? If that was the case, there would be no point in providing any feedback. Only that's exactly what we do, and you can quote Golden, 25, and multiple others that that portion is the most rewarding of the entire writeoff.

So that's why I submitted. It wasn't out of some vain, desperate hope I could win. Rather, it was because there were (and are) plenty of things I can still get very useful feedback on. What did you think of my writing--my style? That's something I really want to know. Was is boring (an important question because I do have the story planned out, and its pacing and general structure were not going to change--so if it's boring now, it very well may be in its finished form, or at least require serious editing/cutting). Was the dialogue interesting--did the ponies feel in-character?

Obviously, no one is going to see the point of anything I included; they won't see the connection between most of the scenes (a whopping four), and they certainly aren't going to be able to catch any kind of glimpse of the message I wanted to convey. I simply didn't get far enough into it for that to begin to happen. But again, there's still plenty of things people can give feedback on.

I uh hope that cleared up the confusion

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Oh of course. I was talking about the scoring.

From One to Another
I'm torn here, I think. On the one hoof, this takes an interesting interpretation on Starswirl's Destiny of "failure". Naturally, we know that his destiny ties into something larger—and he even has vague comprehension of this—but it's a harsh realitization for him, as he spends a lifetime unlocking the secrets of Destiny just to find out that his Destiny is to be somepony's plot hook (I particularly like the use of the asymmetrical summoning circle).

We also see some scattered visions of Starswirl's lifetime... Problem was, while these were nice and fleshed out the character a bit, I didn't really feel like they were connected to the narrative. Yes, he was a lonely workaholic who didn't understand friendship, but that's sort of tangential to the Destiny part. It left me searching back and trying to find if there was a connection I missed, in the Bluebelle scene and the Airshow scene, but it just felt like character building and nothing more. And again, it's nice, but when you're barely pushing 2k, the short length kind of needs a bit more cohesion to the fic's central idea, which to me, was the Destiny element moreso than "Starswirl's Life In General"

As for the Spike scene, I was initially puzzled like my peers and this may need at least one subtle hint added. But here's my guess: Spike isn't a reincarnation of Starswirl so much as an agent of his Destiny, a spiritual successor. Starswirl's spell kicked off events like Twi's exam and probably the Sonic Rainboom and all the threads of fate required to one day lead to Twi's ascention. While just-hatched Spike at first strikes as an odd choice, it makes sense when you consider he gets to watch Twi's cutie mark appear, calling back to the summoning circle.

Geez, I can't remember the last time a writeoff had this many really good stories. Good work, everyone!

And a quick note to all our new competitors: Don’t ever announce your wordcount to anyone. Don’t even ballpark it. I did that once and ended up being the only person to have written a story that long. I only mention this because someone told me their wordcount and now I know which story is theirs. :B It’s not the end of the world, but if you want good, objective critique, you should really try and keep with the spirit of anonymity.

The Nylon Curtain: It took me until the very end to realize the connection between the four middle scenes. I’m still not sure what they have to do with Twilight and the volcano. I noticed some tense shifts, close repetition, and overreliance on adjectives, especially in the first scene. I also thought the second and third scenes were fairly maudlin. You could definitely do more to make the narrative threads stronger, using repeated symbols and whatnot, but I was a bit more surprised by this than I anticipated.

Peeping Behind Locked Doors: I must be past the point in life where watching frat boys spy on people is funny. I did not find this story amusing in the least; to be honest, it’s downright creepy. Two guards should know better than to peep on one Princess, let alone two. It demonstrates a severe lack of respect for Celestia and Twilight, not to mention their positions as guards and mares in general. This could have been used to some effect, to make commentary on them and people like them, but it isn’t. It doesn’t help that the two are indistinguishable as characters. The other issue I have with this is a certain amount of over-writing near the top. A line like “Before too long, the empty hall had its abandoned nature ruined when two guards passed down it.” is a clunky idea made clunkier for being expressed in too many words. Not to mention, the opening is actorless and thus not much of a hook. This did not work for me as a story.

A Story of Solstice: I love that first line. Those following it leave something to be desired, however. There’s a tremendous vocabulary at work here, but a tendency towards run-ons leaves the imagery lacking. You’d be well advised to exert some economy in the writing, and make it all the punchier (the pain of birth scene is another good example of imagery that really works in this piece). That said, this was pretty fantastic. You’ve woven a really tense and emotional look at pre-Unification Equestria, capturing the militarism of the pegasi perfectly. There’s a good job done of making the stakes high; the sense of “my god, she’s flying for her life while in labor” was a fantastic turn to take. The lessons imparted and the pain Whisper endures really drive everything home. My only other comment would be that I’d like to know who Cirrus is more or less immediately (even a “my friend” would help), because I had a hard time figuring her out. This is really stellar otherwise, and if you’d like some assistance patching it up after the contest, give me a ring.

A Timely Encounter:Well, it’s gone, but you still get my review since I read it. ”Cherry Blitz” is a really amazing name for a pony. So this is good, clean fun. Solid story, good comedy, don’t really have much to say. This does need another check for typos. And you could maybe try approaching the opening a bit differently. Apple Bloom mimicking the two ponies was amusing, but writing about people being bored is generally not the most interesting way to start a story. That said, I liked this and might actually want to see a long sequel about the adventures of alternate timeline adult CMCs living in the past, comedy or no.

All of It, for Her: It took until his name was mentioned for me to figure out who this was, but I feel like that was me not putting things together rather than you being obtuse. So with that said, this is a really great Cranky piece. You’ve captured not just his cantankerous nature in the inner dialogue, but his tribulations as a non-pony in Equestria as well. Giving him a foil like Stardust was a pretty clever thing to do, and made this far more interesting than it would have been as just Cranky on his lonesome. You could probably do even more with her, honestly. His story was one of the most poignant and surprising pieces of storytelling from the show, and I’m quite glad to see a piece of it here. This could use a little tightening for language (“if I cared to bother”) and maybe a few apostrophes on words like “‘bout”, but that’s about all I have to say.

A Waiting Moment: This needed an edit pass: typos, tense shifts, and as an aside, make it “Armor” so we have fewer clues as to your identity. This is pretty cute, and you capture the feeling of being an awkward teenager in love well, but it really needs some meat, it’s too fluffy. The scene in the donut shop definitely feels rushed, and ultimately, while I can hope Shining’s about to get his “moment”, there’s not enough buildup really to assure the ending.

Curtains Rise: I see you’ve found a way to work Octavia’s fanon last name in her real one. Sneaky. This is the kind of slice of life story that I like, calm and meditative and focused on one very specific thing. The flashbacks lined up very nicely, and I especially liked the first one for the cuteness factor. The three lessons imparted through them work well together. After an editing pass, this will be pretty solid, I should think.

Moments: Really great use of the prompt, this a very clever story concept. I have to say that spots in the narrative were a little clunky, though, mostly those dedicated to the science and philosophy aspect. Not so much because they don’t sound like things Twilight would say — in this situation, especially, she would — but that they stand out from the rest of the narrative, which is far more emotional. It’s like shifting into a higher gear, but with vocabulary. Not a knock on word choice, just that the voice needs some smoothing out.

The Ponies We Love: You know what I like best in this? The scene where Mayor Mare is considering Twilight’s place in the world. Honestly, that whole scene is great, but that one passage really jumped out from what had, up to that point, been a fairly standard sort of fic. Yes, this is somewhat boring, to answer your question. And unfortunately, since it isn’t finished, I can only judge what’s here, making it pointless as well. This is why you don’t want to just start a fic in a writeoff; I mean, there’s nothing wrong with using it as impetus to get yourself writing, but at the same time, we can’t judge you on what you didn’t write, and all your feedback is going to be marred with “Y U NO FENASH STOERI”. This definitely feels like it’s building up to something, but that something is also a good ways off. There’s a lot of background to this, what with that final scene about Coco, and I have no idea how the first two scenes relate to any of the others, save by sequentiality. So, again, it’s a good try, but it isn’t a story yet.

Halter: I honestly don’t get where the “Star Swirl is Discord” meme comes from. I mean, there was a time when people were theorizing John DeLancie might voice Star Swirl in season 3, but that rumor was spurred on by hearsay and false screencaps. So why does the fandom hold onto it? Anyway, for being a conversation on a topic I care nothing about, this is pretty fantastic. Discord’s voice is spot on, the dialogue all sounds natural and gives us just enough to piece everything together. This is a really great use of the “single moment” prompt, and I’m glad someone did a story like this.

From One to Another: I took me until about the halfway point, but I see what you did there. I’m not sure how necessary that ending was, though it’s certainly original. I very much liked the use of the prompt as narrative technique; the layout of the scenes worked well. Furthermore, watching Star Swirl destroy his destiny in pursuit of the very thing that could have saved it was heartbreaking, and very powerful. That said, while the interstitial “poems” worked as scene breaks, setting everything up, I didn’t find them terribly noteworthy. I’m not sure how well this would work without something in those spaces, but reading them really just slowed everything down. A tad rough around the edges, but this is pretty impressive nevertheless.

Selfless: I didn’t realize it before, but I need more Power Ponies stories in my life. I definitely want to know more about these villains you’ve created. I’m also pleased that the PPs aren’t just written as the mane cast. Of course, the reveal is the best part, and ever so sneaky. The ending is equally sneaky. This has maybe some close repetition errors, and there’s a spot in the transition scene between the office and the bank where the narrative lapses into pure telling, but otherwise, this had good action, a fun twist, and it was a lot of fun. Definitely my favorite.

The Mane Cast Walk Into a Room: Not quite what I expected, given the title. Some interesting things going on with perspective here that I haven’t quite thought over in entirety. This gets really repetitive by the end, though at least that’s lampshaded. Kind of a better experiment than a story, I’d say.

Selfless
Forgive me, Author, for I am about to issue an insult most grave: your writing reminds me a lot of my own. Good heart and ambition, but the execution just needs some more practice and experience.

Let's start with the highlight, though. The Sinister Stallion, full-stop. He's just dripping with charisma and presense, and a number of his lines—"you expeditious exasperation"—were just a hoot to read. I still have one fic left to read, but in terms purely of "a single pony's characterization", Sinny here has to be my favorite. While I definitely got some Doctor Doom-inspired vibes from him, he (I think—I'm not totally comic savvy) seemed more like an homage than a straight-up ponification, which definitely fits with how the Power Ponies themselves were handled by the show writers. The name "Fetlockdown" was also particularly brilliant, and Spike's letter at the end was great.

The choreography of the action sequence played out nicely, but this starts to lead to the issue: the prose itself. Grabbed a paragraph that jumped out at me in particular.

Sinister aimed the four cannons at the two as Galley tried to scramble to his feet, but Fili-Second seemed unconcerned. The reason why was that Sinister’s cannons were soon frozen solid as a blue beam of light hit Sinister square in the back, sending him down to the floor below. The frozen metal shattered into pieces from the hard impact, though the majority of Sinister’s armor was unharmed.

It kinda has this dry and clinical feel to it. It focuses so explicitly on cause and effect, and "the reason why", rather than the events themselves, and the desciptions and feelings, and the narrative flow. I am not the best person to explain this or how to fix it, since I suffer pretty badly myself, but ideally someone can offer suggestions—likely, practice and exercise. There's other little minor things, like autocorrect typos, and one paragraph near the hostage-taking which had multiple "began to" (it weakens the action!). But smoothing out your flow is the major one.

Still, while execution is crucial, this has heart and good ideas, and I liked what I saw. As you improve in the execution, you'll be quite the force to reckon with.

Curtains Rise

One of my favorite little things about this is the bit about having to stand on two hooves.

Acknowledging and making use of illogical cartoon things like this gives a little more soul to ponyfics.

This is a lovely example of how a story can move and breathe despite having no more action in it than Octavia opening her cello case, standing up, and waiting for the curtain to rise. The drive comes from the "umg feelz" in the flashbacks, and the development/conclusion comes from the reader coming to understand more about Octavia.

The descriptions here don't have the force that other entries do, but neither are they awkward, and only rarely are they telly. I advise taking a close look at your adverbs and cutting maybe a third of them. Personally I think that some of these moments deserve a bit of flourish, but you're not me, so maybe it's best if you focus on letting everything just kind of flow past without distracting from the dialogue.

Dunno where to rank it, but I like this as a study in how to write something that's both sedate and compelling.

I would like to take a moment to echo what Present Perfect and Bad Horse said: I'm pleasantly surprised by the consistently high quality of entries. Even moreso than usual, everyone who entered should be proud of what they managed to create.

Moments

Curtains Rise was a fic based on a nice principle; this one is a philosophical exploration and a "look how clever I can be with the prompt." I don't even know where to begin with what this does right. The clash between Twilight's internal and external self, the bit of philosophy on distributing happiness, the way things like the philosophy let Twilight slowly reveal what's happening, the progression of the slowly unfolding information until the final reveal, it's all very smooth and perfect.

I know I'm sounding like a big wussy but the gory scene is a little jarring. Something to communicate the terrible tragedy without using actual show-don't-tell imagery would fit better with the whole concept--perhaps having to lie about where the Princesses are now?

You people are making it very hard for me to name a #1. This might be it.

The Ponies We Love

If you know me, you know that I have a very short attention span, and I can't stand this at all.

There was something bothering Luna, she reflected, something she was not letting on. That much was certain. Clearly, her issue with Celestia “talking up a storm” was simply a front. Luna never was very expressive of her true feelings, choosing to hide them more often than open herself up and share them.

“Oh Luna, why can’t you be honest with me and trust me?”

Whatever it was that was needling her little sister, it wasn’t temporary. This wasn’t the first time she had been short with her when stopping in her quarters to talk. More often than not Luna seemed as if she was always waiting for her to leave, a mixed air of impatience and disinterest about her. Over the course of the last several months it had been steadily growing.

While your internal monologue does flow well at times, you need to watch for when this kind of thing can or should be cut down, because this is dry and boring. So much of this kind of thing just does not need to be told. There's plenty of room to show this in the dialogue or other bits of atmosphere.

"It had a narrative" you say, but even if you had one planned, this is way too long without giving me any reason to read.

The Mane Cast Walk Into a Room
*eye twitch* Okay, had to stop in the first paragraph. I can accept present tense stories, and your usage of present perfect tense in the first paragraph is gramatically correct (http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/presentperfect.html topic #3). But oof, it sounds soooo detached. "Here, you can see that Rainbow has found her target." I would definitely recommend avoiding present perfect (:B), up to and including changing the fic to past tense if necessary.

The last lines of these sections should have an emdash to signal interruption, rather than a cold stop.

Well, I ended up liking this one quite a lot! The use of the different narrative styles was quite effective. Some were stronger than others, but they all managed to strongly portray the ponies' voices well. Plus, tons of incidental humor—too much to list em all, but most of Pinkie, and Twi's "Fluttershy is... talking to the wall" line stand out in my mind. It was really fun to see the same events from different perspectives (AJ and FS with the bookshelf) or with different attitudes (pretty much Twilight's entire section, ehehe), while avoiding the common pitfall of making the loops too similar, thus redundant, thus boring. A clever use of the prompt. Since each section ends on a sudden cut, it helps create and build anticipation throughout the story.

Now , I did "see what you did there" with Dash's simple narration, and felt it was a pretty good S1-inspired Dash. However, since her narration is deliberately simple, it makes a weak opening hook if the reader isn't "in on the joke". Which is a shame, because narratively speaking, it does probably make sense for her to go first. Not really sure what to do about that one... I also felt a little frustrated by the arrival of the time loop. I merely assumed, perhaps deliberately, that you were simply retelling the same scene from different vantage points, not necessarily that this was a time loop. I took a quick second skim, but I didn't really notice any foreshadowing. A) This resulted in it sort of having a "came out of nowhere" feel. B) Twilight mentioned she was slowly altering the time loop (how? I assume this was just hoofwaived) but I don't think I saw any indication of this either. Adding some gradual changes each loop (unless I'm a nub and I just missed them) would help properly foreshadow all of the above. Still, this one was solid and enjoyable as-is.

Wow! Gotta echo the sentiments of the others, this was a nice round! Y'all should be pleased. Voting is going to be a very difficult proposition, which is a great problem to have. Thanks to everyone's reviews so far (exceedingly fair and accurate, I gotta say ) and looking forward to even more! As I've said on Skype, don't let my loquaciousness turn ya off to reviewing! Flashgen and Alex's quick reviews were still extremely valuable, so don't be afraid to toss in your two cents ^^ As you might've gathered, getting this feedback is practically the best part of the contest.

Halter

I actually didn't see the Discord in here until I read back through the other reviews, and skimming back through the fic, I don't see anything blatantly spelling it out; I was supposed to have gotten it from the fact that the voice is all about chaos. I didn't, because I'm only vaguely acquainted with this bit of fanon. In fact, I forgot all about it until Applejinx did something with it a few weeks back. I would call this out as a weakness of the fic, but apparently I'm the only one that's so clueless.

Because I didn't get that, I didn't get the ending. Even now that I do, I don't see the "click" that I should.

I'm sitting and pondering the fact that it's almost nothing but dialogue, and I don't really have an answer as to how I feel. Talking heads is bad and everything, sure, but I fear applying that advice to you would be like bugging someone about "show don't tell" for no reason.

Largely, I should just point to Pav Fiera's review and say "what he said."

2635364
Nah I actually missed it myself til I read comments. The big clue was supposed to be the oversized fang Clover gives him. I didn't say anything cuz I just figured it was me missing something obvious, as I tend to do.

2635364
2635549
You pretty much just have to know that "Star Swirl is Discord" is a Thing in fanon. That's why I caught it immediately, and reading the italicized lines in Discord's voice, they worked out pretty well. :)

From One to Another

Poems! Someone wrote poems. Remember how there was a poetry write-off? Remember how thoroughly the entries sucked? Good times.

Unlike the poem write-off's entries, I thought this entry and its poems were actually good, and as such I don't have a lot to say, because I liked the prose and the voice. Good job, author.

Main criticism: I didn't think it was possible, but this story has an even shorter attention span than I do. Trying to work a concept like this in so few words was either an ambitious risk or a foolish crapshoot. That's probably why there's disagreement over your ending.

Selfless

This suffers a bit in comparison to other entires. There are a couple of other very strong examples of a character voice driving the story.

It's a superhero story, so there's no reason for the opening to be so mundane. It's begging for some melodrama--you're willing to do the Scoops character and the awesome Sinister Stallion character, so why not make the office scenes a little corny too?

Personally, I think it would be better to dump the last scene with Spike. "And that's where Humdrum came from" is a really great ending; adding "and that was what happened in the comic book!" is just kind of "well, duh?"

As for criticism of the writing, again I'd like to point to Pav's review and say "what he said." He calls your writing dry, but I can see where you try to add bits of flourish, and I see why they don't work.

Sinister aimed the four cannons at the two as Galley tried to scramble to his feet, but Fili-Second seemed unconcerned. The reason why was that Sinister’s cannons were soon frozen solid as a blue beam of light hit Sinister square in the back, sending him down to the floor below. The frozen metal shattered into pieces from the hard impact, though the majority of Sinister’s armor was unharmed.

It's not just that your focus is wrong, it's also that your writing itself is a bit clunky. Scenes like this should *always* be honed to a razor edge. If you decide to edit this, focus on making it shorter.

Still, this was really charming. I appreciate the concept of playing the "perspective of a journalist" and the really great ending.

>fetlockdown
I don't get it. Hoof dive?