Coming in at four votes ahead of Twilight's Library and My Little Economy, our eighth story up for discussion will be:

The war between Nightmare Moon and Princess Celestia has destroyed Equestria, leaving the few survivors to struggle to survive in a dying world of eternal twilight. Fluttershy, twisted by the war, now ekes out an existence in Everfree forest, but even that life is under threat. Twilight Sparkle is coming, leading the last army of Dawn, and she will let nothing stop her from retrieving the Elements of Harmony and saving the world; not even old friends.

At 16.5k words, readers have seven days to finish the story before we open up discussion in the Skype group, which you can join by shooting Bad_Seed_72 or I a PM. If you do not have a Skype account, or do not wish to join, this thread will also be opened after seven days from today for discussion.

We also encourage commenting on the actual story.

Happy reading, everyone!

Yes, yes, it's a bit late. I'm sorry! But what did you all think? Is this a contest winner? Or did it let you down?

4154563 4179290 I don't know. I mean, the premise is nifty, and the grammar and whatnot is decent, but I don't like the dark, serious edge it presents.

Of course, that's just my opinion.

Very, very dark. Actually quite a nice read, too. I kinda wanted to smack the backsides of almost everyone's heads there for their extreme stubbornness.

Well, I sure as all hell didn't hold back when I write my blog post on this story, but to shrink it down to a TL;DR:

Billymorph's writing style is great, but his technical ability is sorely lacking. Similarly, his characterisation of Fluttershy is great, but the the construction of the overall plot is bilge.

I was very disappointed that such a shoddy final product could win a competition. It seems to hint that the judges really don't care about writing quality.

-M

I liked the world more than the Mane 6, if that makes any sense. (I think it's from really liking Fallout: Equestria, though.) It's one of those 'everyone sucks' arguments, though I get why they are the way they are.

That mid-battle "WHAT ARE WE DOING?" speech was...awkward, but I did like the ending in the sense that you can tell that while there's a lot of work to do and the M6 will possibly-maybe-eventually-someday get along in some capacity, but nothing is solved right away. I guess if I was giving it a grade, it would be a low B, high C kinda thing for having an interesting world and showing that not everything can be totally fixed easily, but there are some awkward choices here and there that I think bring it down.

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I kinda wanted to smack the backsides of almost everyone's heads there for their extreme stubbornness.

Agreed.

The backstory has a few niggling details for me. A lot of Celestia's actions were rather questionable. "It's war" doesn't quite cover it all as justification and well, Nightmare Moon was just, you know, evil.

That said, however, I like the atmosphere and Fluttershy's voice. The flow of the prose was a little off but overall it was pretty good. The worldbuilding of the present is really and the ending is somewhat hopeful and I'm a sucker for hopeful endings. =x

I do wish there was a prequel so we could see just what the hay went down in the war. Sounds pretty damned nasty, there.

I think it was a somewhat too ambitious story, particularly due to the word count limit in the contest. It would definitely be strengthened by being fleshed out some more, which is why I'm hopeful that billycolt will expand on this story.

Anyone here find that the second chapter weakens the piece? The story feels less concise and more unfocused with it, the opposite of which being what I found to be one of the major strengths of the story.

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Anyone here find that the second chapter weakens the piece?

I kept telling him it should have been the prologue to the sequel.

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Even if he just integrated it into the original chapter somehow I think it would have been better off. Right now it's out of place enough to stick out like a sore thumb.

I liked your idea of using it as a prologue for a sequel, but I understand his decision to want to include a large time skip between this story and its sequel. I just wish he didn't simply append it to the story.

I’m going to preface this review by stating that, as is no secret, I adore Fluttershy and find Flutterbat equally as endearing. So it was to be expected that this story earned my vote in the GOBC, due to its description and artwork. However, that doesn’t mean I’m incapable of criticising a story with her poorly written. In any case, this being an alternate universe, I’ll probably allow for some deviations to her personality.

Now that’s out of the way…

I have to say, I was immediately struck by the beautiful prose in this story. First-person Fluttershy as she hunts for food, while reminiscing about more favourable days past, was filled with lovely descriptive language. billy has done a wonderful job of showing what kind of world she lives in, even before getting into the world’s description itself. Look at this statement here.

I missed the gentler days when woodland creatures wouldn’t run in fear at the sight of me, but less than I missed the taste of celery.

What a world, if it can drive even a pony like Fluttershy to carnivorous tendencies. Yeesh.

There’s a particular spot I found confusing at first, shortly into the story. Fluttershy is ambushed in her home by a unicorn, but manages to escape, while accidentally leading her pursuer into a lethal trap and, with no other choice presented to her, is urged by said unicorn to slay them and make the death quick. Given who it is, and where they found Fluttershy, I find it very difficult to believe that they were unable to recognise her, even in her alternate form, until what I thought for sure was going to be their final moments. So for me, the story stumbled a little there. Pinkie Pie also appears not to recognise this unicorn soon after, which strikes me as incredibly odd.

There are some strange word choices and less-than-ideal sentence structures about the place, such as this sentence.

I landed in the courtyard of the ruined castle, letting the carcass of the deer fall to the earth with a weary sigh.

This is very wordy. It’s fairly inactive too, looking at it. Instead of “the courtyard of the ruined castle” it could have been written as “the ruined castle’s courtyard”. Same deal with “the carcass of the deer”; “the deer’s carcass” (or even simply “the carcass”) would have been better there. What that does is make the sentence more active and engaging. “fall to the earth” gives me the idea that the carcass might have been dropped from a height, although it’s written that Fluttershy dropped it after touching the ground herself. In that sense, “fall to the ground” might have been a better word choice. Or even just “drop,” a single word replacement. Finally, look at the entire final line.

letting the carcass of the deer fall to the earth with a weary sigh.

Even with the suggested changes, it would still read as “letting the carcass drop with a weary sigh”. What’s wrong with this wording? Let me clarify. The carcass—not Fluttershy as I’m sure you intended—has become the last addressed subject. This participial phrase is incorrect, as the way it reads has the carcass letting out the weary sigh.

In any case, there’s a decent amount of that throughout the story, but not to the point where it really affects readability. That said, that passage did read weird to me and I had to do a double pass over it to clarify what was going on. Even though I acknowledge that the majority of regular readers don’t even notice when those instances occur, it’s something to be mindful of. (That goes for anyone reading this review: fewer words + greater activity = more engaging, unless you’re deliberately being over-flowery and purple, in which case Fimfic’s general readerbase probably isn’t your target audience)

Story suffers from a fair decent amount of annoying saidisms. Many of them aren’t so bad, but a few stick out like the elderly at a deathcore gig. Examples like “inquired,” “chirped,” “blurted out,” “I tried again,” etc. A few misspellings too, though few and far between (like En mass instead of En masse). Sentence fragments every now and then, as well as a few comma splices. Again, not terribly distracting, but definitely present. What I do get rather annoyed at is a lack of commas for direct address, and if there’s anything I hate most as a prevalent error in this fandom, it’s the misspelling of Apple Bloom as “Applebloom.” Applejack’s accent wasn’t too butchered, but it still annoyed me at times.

So, yes, the story does have quite a few technical and mechanical flaws. At this point it might seem I don’t think it should have won the contest. But I pressed on anyway, to see how the rest of the story played out with these factors considered…

It’s a pretty great story, all things considered. It has that certain something about it where every character is different on the outside, changed from their horrific experiences yet fundamentally the same deep at their core. It’s these different interpretations and interactions that sell the story to me, and sell it well. We’re offered a glimpse from both sides of the War that caused the great calamity; even though this is Fluttershy’s story, both armies of Dusk and Dawn are at least represented in some light. A lot of thought went into creating this dystopia, creating everypony’s different motives for fighting the war.

Honestly, the way that the Elements came together as Fluttershy described, even with all the negative thoughts on her mind felt very shoehorned in. While it’s great to have that ending, it didn’t feel like the ending this tale should have had. It was definitely far less dark than I imagined, when it had been gearing up to end in tragedy—a final stand. In the end, I can’t fault an author for ending a story differently to how I thought they would. It just doesn’t feel quite right to me… no matter how awesome it was that Fluttershy became the leader of Harmony instead of Twilight.

A good read, but lots of mechanical flaws, a great many of them basic ones. I’m not entirely sure I’d have picked this for the contest winner, but I can’t make that call on any basis, since I’ve hardly read any of the other entries. I think in the end, this story’s prose and the little tidbits of alternate worldbuilding such as the Elements healing Rarity’s leg instead of restoring her mane made it worth the effort. I can look past a story’s faults if it is legitimately a good story.

6.5/10

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That's cool, mayn. Glad you read it anyway.
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I wholeheartedly agree on the stubbornness thing. Still, the world they lived in gave them a little bit of justification, even though they were kinda responsible for perpetuating that existence.
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If I had read more of the contest entries, I'd have a more informed and viable opinion on this. Still, in spite of the fact that I did like the story overall, and considering what I just said a sentence earlier... I might be inclined to agree with you. At least on the winning aspect. Again, I'm largely blind here, but I still think it deserved a place in the top ten.
What would you have picked for a winner in its place? Consider this a chance to recommend me a great story
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Yes, the mid-battle stop / harmony thing was way shoehorned in. It didn't feel realistic at all.
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Well, in the end I liked it too. You bring a good point though; a little backstory would have been nice, but do remember that there were words constraints. Of course if the story wasn't so wordy in places where it didn't need to be, billy might have had more space to flesh this out...
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I agree. That epilogue has no reason to exist.

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I find it very difficult to believe that they were unable to recognise her, even in her alternate form

I think it makes sense. Note that she had just killed a deer and was covered in dried blood. Rarity also likely hasn't seen Fluttershy since the beginnings of the war and, under the high tension of the situation, probably wouldn't notice the similarities between the Fluttershy she remembered and the gore-covered "monster" desecrating her friend's home. Plus it's also consistent within the story - even Rainbow Dash, her best friend couldn't recognize her in the heat of the moment. The fact that Pinkie didn't recognize her, however, is a good point.
Relevant quote:

My muzzle and chest were still stained with the deer’s blood and a vicious scowl married my features as I glared at the unicorn who’d caused me so much pain.

Again, I'm largely blind here, but I still think it deserved a place in the top ten. What would you have picked for a winner in its place? Consider this a chance to recommend me a great story.

A 6.5/10 makes the top ten? You're either a really tough reviewer, or you don't have much confidence in the rest of contestants.
Try reading SaddlesoapOpera's The Cup Cake Killer. That one is easily top two in the contest for me.

It's interesting, I actually never really noticed all the mechanical errors in the story until you and InquisitorM pointed them out, despite being quite aware of similar errors in many of the other contest entries. Maybe there was something about the prose that turned off my ability to be discerning about it.