Hello! I'm still HapHazred, although I'm a story approver now. Instead of doing a thread where I explain my contributions, this is a thread where I explain, in broad and general terms, why I let stories in or not.

I already do this sort of thing for another group. I make sure to explain my decisions for multiple reasons: first, I think that if something has been submitted, and I reject it, the author deserves an explanation. I also do this because if I make a mistake, or a false judgement, one of the other admins can point out what I'm doing wrong. Finally, I do this so that an author may defend his story (hopefully politely) if I've made a false assumption.

My standards are going to be higher than what I normally look for in the Olympus Library (where I simply make sure that no story is bad or doesn't work, for whatever reason) and instead look for stories that work well and make the transition from acceptable to 'good'.

I will attempt to be as unbiased as possible, of course. And even though there are going to be cases where this blows up in my face, if you think I've been too hard on your story, for whatever reason, do feel free to defend it. I may not change my mind, especially if you don't change anything in the meantime, but I'd rather get my decisions criticized than be too harsh on a good story.

Just for the purposes of clarification, I'm explaining a few of the guidelines I work on when reviewing a story. I won't always stick to these exactly, but they're what I tend to look for.

-Grammar/writing/spelling: if I can go through the story and barely notice any mistakes, chances are you're good to go. I don't exactly comb stories for errors, and I'm perfectly aware that typos happen and we all have that one word we misspell. But if I see recurring issues, I'll probably end up having you fix those, since I'd think that a first requirement for a 'good' story is a relative absence of writing problems.

-Conflict: this means that the story exists for a purpose. The characters have something to overcome. What kind of conflict the characters face will vary greatly, I know, but if I feel there's no conflict, or if it doesn't come quick enough, I'll definitely point that out.

-Useless characters/scenes: Again, this is going to be very subjective, but a good rule of thumb is that a scene, chapter, or whatever should either advance the story, or be very enjoyable. This is probably the most subjective of my requirements, but if I feel it happens to often, I'll hold that against you too.

Like I said, I may not stick to the above perfectly, because most of it is subjective anyway, but those are what I look for. At the end of the day, I'm looking for stories that I'm confident everyone has a chance of enjoying, so I don't necessarily need to like it personally, so long as I can be confident that other people will.

Quick note on mature stories: Whilst gore is fine, gratuitous gore will stand against you, because it limits your audience. So, maybe hold off on Queen Crysalis slowly pulling that innocent OC's intestines out, will you?

Clop is fine, but stuff that's too squicky (especially rape) will probably be rejected. Again, I'm looking for stuff I'm confident everyone has a chance of enjoying, so the smaller the niche audience, the less likely it is I'll approve the story.

If anyone has any questions, either ask here or PM me.

Okay, my first list of decisions is cheating a bit. Like I mentioned, I already work on the Olympus Group, and have reviewed a lot of stories there.

Instead of go over them again and come to the same conclusions, I'm going to take the lazy route and link you to my decisions here. All the stories there that got rejected will be rejected from here as well: this is done in an attempt to save time and my own sanity (which could well be lost if I end up doing double the work I already do).

Like I said above, feel free to criticize my decisions, either on that thread, or here.

Stories that I let into Olympus I will re-review as I decide whether they get in here: just because a story got in there doesn't mean it will get in here (unless one of the admins calls me on my decision).

On another note, any story that gets in here will necessarily be put into the Olympus Library. So it's two birds with one stone, really.

Just to sum up which stories are getting rejected, here are the titles:

-The Super Duper Pony Couple

-Her Perfect Rainbow Mane

If this seems a bit sudden or unfair, I understand completely: however I'd rather not go over stories I've already looked at once when the standard I'm using for this group is higher than for Olympus.

Reviewed I ain't Your Sacrifice by Bad Dragon

Rejecting

Whilst this isn't a bad story, not by a long shot, it has a few problems that keep me from appreciating it fully. First off, there are a lot of technical and grammar errors, or bits of sentences that were clumsy (I have selected a few here):

Instead, I used all of my attention on the prison door.

Staying in the dark, they were trying not to get noticed

But, there’s no way out of here

As she waved her head, I smashed with my back against the wall

Ponies die of senseless deaths

With gaining their trust, the

Also, the protagonist of the story, whilst far from a flat, bland character, seemed rather inconsistent. One minute he's brooding in a cell, the next jumping around and playing with the guards, the next trying to gain their confidence. I would have liked a lot more consistency in his character, or at least being able to see more of him to get a better idea of who he is.

A lot of it reminded me of a bunch of anime I've seen, too, using themes like never giving up and always having hope. Unfortunately, these themes don't really go anywhere: the other foals remain the same as ever and the main character has more important things to think about later on.

Ironically, a small gripe I had with the story originated from one of the very things Bad was trying to subvert: the alicorn OC. This element was never used to it's full potential: aside from a brief reference to him having a horn, I could probably have gone on never realizing he was an alicorn in the first place. I'm not sure whether this is better or worse than having an alicorn character who becomes mary-sueish, but it sometimes felt like a bit of a needless add-on, which is one of the problems of alicorn OC's.

These aren't really problems that stop you from enjoying the story, or stop the story working, but I'd like to see it do more than what it does for me to let it in here.

I've decided I'm going to go through the self submissions folder first, then work on the other ones: there's the most stories in the Self Submissions folder anyway, so it'd be nice to get that out of the way before it gets out of hand.

Remember Twilight's Library? Yeah, I'm not keen to go down that bumpy, bumpy road. Good thing I'm 'ard as nails.

Reviewing A Thief On the Rise, a 185K word monstrosity I'll have to get through. Wish me luck! And now, to the Hazardmobile!

4123925 Due to your review, I’ll attempt to make some fixes in the story. Thank you for pointing out the mistakes.

4123974 I didn't think they were outright mistakes, more like missteps.

I'd appreciate it if you PM me once you've made changes so I can give it another look, if that's okay. Otherwise I may never find out stuff has been changed.

Reviewed A Thief On The Rise By Alexander Jack

Rejecting by the skin of it's teeth

There's not a lot to criticize here, admittedly, and some of the stuff here is easy to fix. First off, there are technical errors, and some things are written clumsily. I'd like for Alex to fix them first:

taunting Kestral of his only chance of lunch

guess i'm not having

it's head being in string form.

towards North Montana Alberta

(could the strike thru be explained?)

The would be buyers ask what he's got

forcing him to use his stolen well earned money to simply eat

half the work is getting the cards without notice

for now, i think i'll just go

but how did they move me while i was asleep

All this is within the prologue alone: it doesn't detract too much from the story, but it doesn't work in it's favour either, and I would like for the writing to be checked again before I accept this in. And just in case you think it's just in the first chapter, this does persist throughout the story. From chapter five:

I do not believe the changelings would attack so short after a colossal failure

Anyway, I kept on reading until I reached what I believe to be the meat of the story: where things start to really happen. This is the story of Kestral, a thief/ranger/hunter/human of thus far unknown past, used to living on his own. Whilst I'm not really persecuting the story for it's choice of character, admittedly I feel that it doesn't win points for originality either. That said, Kestral isn't actually all that bad: he's nothing fascinating (just a thief and general bad-ass) but he's not especially over-the-top, although there are times when he goes borderline mary-sueish, especially when we get to him having magic.

That struck me as being an unessecary addition to his powers. The thing that made the character special (or as special as he could be) was how he did things: he was a thief, a rogue, a fighter... whatever. Giving him magic made him come off as a character that was less defined, in my opinion.

The story also annoyed me a bit by hearkening to lots of videogame tropes. He gets a 'library' of spells, and even a minimap of sorts. You can see this in the comments, too, although I'd rather form my own opinion of things.

So, to sum up, the premise isn't all that original, just another fighter goes to Equestria to combat evil, there are plenty of technical errors that I feel need to be corrected, and it reminds me too much of a videogame, which made me take the story a little less seriously. I don't feel I can justifiably persecute the story due to originality, though, so what I'd really like is for Alex to at least fix the technical errors and maybe investigate a few of the more game-ish aspects of it, because all in all, this was far from bad. When I said I'm rejecting this by the skin of it's teeth, I meant it: I get the impression that whilst it may not break any tropes or do something completely out of the ordinary, it's pretty well structured, we have conflict, very nice attention to detail... it's pretty good. I could definitely see this being enjoyed by a lot of people, so realistically if the mechanical problems are sorted out, I'd be perfectly fine letting this in.

4124305 .....

....

Well I'm screwed.

4124445

Well I'm screwed.

Aren't we all?

4124447 No about my story. It is not worthy. I must work harder until I get 100 likes...then I will be worthy. I will be back! Someday! I will be back!

4124452 I wouldn't be worried too much about likes. I don't really show favouritism towards popular stories. At least, I hope not.

4124489 ...welllllll....maybe this will explain.

This is what goes on in my head every time I write a fic. Imagine me singing this to the readers and critics. Particularly this line,

"I've got more in me. And you can set it free."

4124495 Weird... this is what goes through my head...

But ENOUGH DERAILING! I HAVE WORK! Dammit, I need more caffeine.

4124515 Basically that's what keeps me going. As one of my favorite fics said.

"Please the audience first, yourself second."

Always think what the audience would want. Would they want a Twixie fake out? Would they want an action scene or more detail. Always please the audience and let the audience see you suffer for their sake.

Well, sorry for the few days worth of absence: I've been in rather dire work-related straits, but that's over for now. I decided to clear out some of the stories that accidentally made their way into the main section of the library: there was a small technical concern and some people submitted stories directly into the folders, without passing through submssions.

So, I'm reviewing Stardust, by Arad.

Accepting

This is a crossover between MLP and XCom, a franchise I know nothing about. Frankly, though, I don't feel I need to know much about the crossover material to understand, so that's a big requirement checked. The grammar and spelling may as well be flawless: I'd really have to comb through the story to find stuff worth getting rid of. The characters are also pretty good: I particularly like Charles so far. Twilight acts like Twilight, too.

As for the setup, well, Discord sends Twilight to Earth, betting her that friendship won't survive over there, or whatever Discord-y thing he wants Twilight to admit to. Solid, I guess.

One big problem I have with crossovers is the content: for the longest time, it's basically a clash of cultures. The first few chapters are entirely dedicated to the characters marvelling or otherwise reacting to the others world. Understandable, but unfortunately predictable. I can't say much in the first three/four chapters surprised me, which I found strange considering the description praised the first three chapters, specifically. However, this is a bit unfair of me, considering that it really is handled well, and if it wasn't done by almost every other crossover I've encountered, I'd probably not have thought twice about it.

It tackles the crossover intelligently, it has a solid reason to exist (namely that Twilight needs to remain innocent and friendshippy) giving the characters clear goals, wants, and conflicts, and doesn't suffer from under-explanation.

I think that there's definitely an audience for this story (as already evidenced by the massive amounts of views) and whilst it probably won't be a favourite of mine, I'm certain that given how the first few chapters are handled, this is a story that will continue to be enjoyable to many. I think that even though it may have gotten into the bin by accident, it most certainly isn't trash.

Next on my list as I check through the accidentally non-submitted stories is My Life as a Teenage Bardock

I have to admit it's not a title that fills me with hope, exactly. Well, we'll see how it turns out after I'm done. I'll get back to you later today.

Rejecting 'My Life as a Teenage Bardock'

There's a reason I dislike crossovers, and too many of these requirements are ticked for me to let this in. Or rather, keep this in.

First, let's analyse the concept. Bardock (a dbz character) is sent to Equestria. David (a nerd) is sent in his body with him. Then, we get given exactly what the title says: a teenage Bardock doing things. I'll give the story credit in that it did take such a stupid idea and ran with it, which I think does take a bit of courage. That said, it is pretty dumb. There's little to no conflict, their appearances in Equestria are contrived (Discord again, obviously: I didn't realize that was a trope that Stardust also fell into) and we quickly fall into the 'clash of cultures' plotline, which personally bores the hell out of me.

Well, I was able to overlook some of that in Stardust: why not here?

Well, the 'clash of cultures' was the conflict in Stardust: Twilight was supposed to learn and evolve from the new universe she was in. Here, Davock (that's his name now) isn't learning anything, and his conflicts (such as they are) have nothing to do with him being in Equestria. Honestly, I don't know why this even needs to be a crossover: the overarching story is being presented as leading up to a Freeza vs Bardock battle. Can't that just be a DbZ fic? Why does it need Equestria?

My guess is it's for the comedy from the culture clash, and I don't think that's sufficient.

My second problem is the source of a lot of the other elements of comedy. In fact, the first part did actually get a chuckle out of me. Because, well, it was Team Fourstar's Bardock episode. I'll be honest, I've never seen real DbZ, but you don't have to have seen that to read this: only the TFS abridged series. I get the feeling that a lot of the comedy is supposed to stem from the characters from the abridged, but really, it just feels like a few catchphrases and Bardock being really angry, mostly at David.

That said, I did get a laugh from Fluttershy (never thought I'd say that... Fluttershy isn't exactly my favourite pony) regarding the whole meat incident (and yes, we have the meat-ethics discussion here again). So it's not all bad.

David (the human part of Davock) is quite forgettable: I think he's supposed to be the sane one, but really, he's quite boring. He spouts anime references from time to time, and that's more or less it. The decisions he does make, he doesn't give a lot of reasons for, so I don't learn anything else. His conflict is also way too simple: he's in a saiyan (am I spelling that right?) body, and Discord offers him a chance to go home. He takes it. End of conflict. He doesn't really change, at least so far, and doesn't give much promise of changing either.

Bardock is also pretty bland: he's angry, he wants to fight Freeza, and that's it. He's given a chance to fight Freeza by Discord, and he takes it. End of conflict. Again, he doesn't change, and probably won't given what I'm seeing.

There's also a fair bit of clumsy writing in here:

Bardock now was no power to fight him

Some say that he found peace in the better place

I have felt a strange disturbance within the Everfree forest, it is nothing too alarming, however

“W-where am I? Am I alive? I feel... weak. What happened? The last thing I remember was sleeping in my friend's bed. I think?”

David looked down at his body to noticed his now muscular battled scarred body with a monkey tail around his waist, he panicked and rushed to a nearby pond to see that he was now Bardock.

A pastel yellow colored pony, it was picking some wild berries as scooted away

Everything is so dirty in here.” Whined Diamond Tiara

Um… Sorry about,

I mentioned that I didn't know why it was a crossover in the first place? This is cemented by my not knowing why the mane six are even there. Their task so far is getting Davock food: that's background character stuff. I don't understand why this is in Equestria, I don't get why the characters are there, or why it's so important they get food.

So, to sum up: putting my hatred of crossovers aside, I can see people get a few kicks out of this story... if you know TFS's Episode of Bardock, and just want to see him get into arguments with a teenager. Basically, if you look at the title and think to yourself, 'yeah, I could get a few laughs out of the idea', you'll probably like this story. But I don't think it really deserves to get in here: I don't think it's funny enough to overlook the bland characters, and relies far too much on it's crossover material.

Sorry, but I'll be removing this from the bin.

Okay: I've gotten a message from Alexander Jack (or whatever it was) that Thief on the Rise got looked at, so I'll be going over that next. I hope Jack can overlook the wait.

I'm back again, this time in the middle of checking that the final accidental crossover in the folder is up to scratch. Arcane Shadow: Rewritten is it's title... and after perusing the description, I don't know what it's a crossover with. Maybe I'm being a dunce again, but I'm actually pretty hopeful about that: most crossovers I see like to shove what they're crossovering with in my face and it gets in the way of a lot of story. Let's see how this one fares.

4146373

A Rage Review was done on it.

A charitable description would be : "It happened."

4146478 And I may very well eventually finish reading that review, but I confess all the Luna-speak became a bit of an eyesore for me. I guess I have a weaker stomach than most for that kind of gimmick.

It doesn't really matter, anyway: I'm rather adamant about coming to my own conclusions, so I'll still be reading the story in question.

Okay, I finished reviewing the first five chapters of ^^^ thing

Rejecting

In terms of writing, I think it pretty much meets the grammar requirements, since nothing I found was wrong. The main issue I had was to do with content.

First off, this is a crossover, and quite quickly it became apparent that it was falling into a trap that a lot of crossovers fall into: it might as well just be a fic in whatever crossover universe it comes from. The characters are ponies, yes, but aside from one throwaway reference to Celestia, I saw nothing (until the arrival of Rainbow Dash, but I'll get to that in a sec) that reminded me of Equestria.

I can only assume that the universe described is similar to the crossover material, but unless you know it, it's just a lot of lore you don't know and really feel you should. It's confusing, and stands against the story. Until the arrival of bestpony, I was going to reject this on the sole grounds of having nothing to do with MLP. It does, though, but there are more problems than just that.

Rainbow's arrival confused me. In fact, this story is very hard to follow. It's strange, considering that poorly written stories managed to keep me from being confused, but after going through no less than five chapters, the only character I know is Rainbow, and I don't know what she's doing there.

She arrives using a sonic rainboom, going through the veil between two worlds. Supposedly, Celestia is worried about the veil between the worlds collapsing, but after a quick discussion, we're distracted by things, which are also confusing.

A big part of this confusion, which persists throughout what I read, I think lies in the characters. None of them are given proper introductions, and whilst this may not be an issue if there was only one or two of them, there are just so many! The first chapter throws this world and characters at me, and gives me names like Matt, Lance, and Anna, but without taking the time to introduce them, I couldn't commit to memory who they were before moving on to the next thing. It's like missing the beginning of a lecture: the stuff that comes after, whether you should understand or not, is hit and miss because of the lost context.

The story is equally confusing. The first chapter and second are really dull: the ponies are in the snow, discussing stuff. They encounter a bear, and that's their dinner. I get the impression that that's all there is to those chapters, and it was really quite dry. Even after five chapters, I don't know what's going to happen or what the story is even about. Maybe I'm just being a dunce, but it strikes me that if I can't easily follow what's going on, then there's definitely a problem somewhere. Strange, confusing and out of place elements like Lance (I think) the cyborn pony (or Termi-neigh-tor, as I like to call him) having a wet dream (but it isn't) about Anna (or the other one who's name I forget) serve to distract me and befuddle me even further.

This is kind of like Game of Thrones, with lots and lots of characters jostling for attention. However, in the books (only the first two, though, so don't go spoilering) we were given a clear character we followed, and who's perspective we could hang onto. It was a great starting point for all these confusing names to be learned from, and I think that's lacking here.

In any case, whatever the issue was, whether I was too dumb to see the story, or whether it doesn't make it's presence felt soon enough, something needs to change. If the author could make the feeling of an actual story happen faster, and maybe not be so confusing with all those characters and background lore, it's be pretty good, I think. The writing is certainly good enough: I'd have to seriously comb through that to find errors.

I don't feel that this is an easy fix, since I myself am a bit vague as to what went wrong, exactly, but if the author wants any further clarification, I would be glad to oblige.

Reviewing The Blind Leading The Blind

Not sure what to think about it so far. It's experimental, and that's usually a bit hit and miss. We'll see how it goes.

Reviewed ^^^that.

Accepting

Okay, I admit that the story will not please everyone. It's experimental, strange, and frankly doesn't go a lot of places. The main character 'Melly' is an eavesdropper listening in on a conversation between two ponies about the death of several other ponies.

In terms of flaws, there are a few bones I have to pick with this story. The first is that the main character doesn't really work for her conclusions: I typically believe that a mystery story should involve a deductive process, and in the mystery stories I write, I include that. Here, Melly already knows everything, and I think that takes stuff away from the story.

Not much, though.

If you're in the mood for a curious and inventive little thing to waste your time on, this will not disappoint. Unlike a crossover that's reliant on crossover material, it doesn't alienate readers because they don't know stuff they need to to follow the story, this one will alienate people for being experimental and inventive. This makes it rather niche, but in a good way: it's an example you could read and get ideas from, almost like a highly stylistic movie.

It's pretty much perfectly suited to being a one-shot: the novelty of how the story is told would have worn off really fast otherwise. That's not to say I wouldn't have liked to see more of the deductive process, but I think this story works well.

Grammar is fine, as far as I can tell. Again, if I can't pick up anything without seriously combing through, it's going to be pretty good.

The solution to the 'murder' is clever, but again, I wish the author took the time to have Melly figure out how it was done, instead of having her know everything already. I'm a sucker for that kind of thing, and when you think about it, when have Poirot or Sherlock ever known everything instantly? If they did, they wouldn't have books about their cases.

In any case, I'd recommend this one, and since I'm in charge, I am. It's short, intriguing, intelligent, and fun, doesn't overstay it's welcome... yeah, this is nice.

Reviewing the oldest submission in the self submissions folder before I get back to cleaning house regarding the stories that got put in by accident... College: An Anthro Life

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't wary due to the title alone... but we'll see how it goes.

Until then, have a good one!

ALSO I'll be adding the stories I picked as a contributor to the relevant folders as time goes on. So far I've only done Quizzical (by JMac... very nice story btw) and just to clarify, I've put it in both the SoL and Adventure folders. I think a lot of us know that sometimes it's hard to differentiate the two in some cases, and I think Quizzical falls under the category of... maybe it's both. So it's in both. Have fun with that little contradiction.

I'll do the rest later. Until then, have a good one!

4153017 Yeah, I definitely could have done more for her deductive process. I need to learn more speeds than 'The detective knows everything' and 'The detective knows nothing'.

Thanks for reviewing! I highly enjoyed reading your reviews (not just of my own story) and look forward to more.

4153066 Cool beans. I actually really like mystery myself, and dabble at it from time to time.

I really just write these reviews to keep me accountable. Imagine if I just did whatever without explaining myself. It'd be terrifying. Glad you enjoy them, though: I admit however that criticizing other people's work is far harder than keeping your own stuff flawless. The irony.

4153086 Actually, I'm aware you dabble in it because I'm reading your Unexpected Turbulence story now.

Yeah, I'm sure it's a lot harder. I confess myself very fond of reviews, however. I've always been fond of them and I enjoy reading them when they're done well.

4153086 I'm with ErraticOverlord, I'll read reviews of your's of stories I wouldn't otherwise consider reading. And mysteries are tough. When done right, all the clues are there in the first few chapters, and you didn't even know they were clues (study Agatha Christie).

4153114 Aw, thank you.
4153147
Agatha Christie is my favourite. I confess that I don't read nearly as much as I should IRL, but whenever I'm travelling I almost always have a Christie with me. My favourite was Peril at End House, because it had me the most flabbergasted out of all the ones I read without pulling too much of a 'give new information out of nowhere'. That said, all the ones I read from her are awesome.

4153241 Christie knew every trick in the book. Hell, she invented half the tricks in the book. The old chestnut "It's the one you least expect" stands, but this won't help you. You don't actually know who "the one you least expected" is until the last chapter. None of the suspects did it. ALL of the suspects did it. The chief witness, who you forgot all about after the first chapter, but still remains fair game because it kept being foreshadowed, did it. The freaking VICTIM did it. The policeman investigating them did it. All apply to the end of an Agatha Christie.

Have you seen Mouse Trap? If not, do you know how it ends? Of course not. At the end of the play we are all sworn to secrecy, and four generations of theater goers have kept his pledge out of respect for Dame Agatha. Don't ask me how Mouse Trap ends. But I'll tell you this much, it's the character you least suspected. The character you least suspected isn't the character you think you least suspected.

4153318 Well, considering it takes me about half a year to finish a short book, I'll probably never get through all of them until I'm well past the busy day-to-day life I lead. Not that I'd trade it with anything, though.

You are right, of course. I tend to spend most of my time knowing most of everything or otherwise learning it (pompous though that may sound) and I really appreciate it when a story not only keeps me guessing, but taunts me at the same time. It's infuriating, and I love it.

4153241 I think mine was Cards On The Table. It focused less on the technical side of how the crimes were done, but more on the mentality of those who committed them. It showed the personalities and lifestyles of people all just from the way they played a game.

I don't think I've seen a mystery before or since that did quite what that story did.

4153359 Sweet. I'll have to keep an eye out for that one.

And now no more deviating the thread thingy! I have fallen into your traps for too long! (In other words, take it to PM's... specifically mine, I guess)

4153318 That goes for you too!

Jeez, I'm being a terrible admin.

Okay, Reviewed first chapter of College: An Anthro Life

Rejecting

Firstly: grammar and phrasing:

i'm making it out to be...right?

man i'm tripping

Y-Yes...um, i'm looking for room 340.

Hearing it was like feeling the round-house kick of Chuck Norris...in Walker: Texas Ranger to be fitting.

Besides being clumsily phrased (namely the 'to be fitting') references have a tendency to throw me off. Since it's first person, I'm inclined to make exceptions, but it is jarring, at least for little old me.

Oh i'm fine...just feel like my arm is an instant noodle

Funny there pardner, names Big Macintosh, but most ponies just call me Big Mac.

To sum up, on grammar and writing alone I'd have to reject this. I'll go into further detail for the purposes of being thorough, though, since there are flaws there, too.

I don't often read first person, since it is relatively rare... and for good reason. It's harder to get right, in my experience, and it does kinda' show here. The narrator's thoughts go all over the place, and we get such a lot of them. I would really like to see the narrator calm down, slow down, and be a lot clearer.

I get the feeling the story is being told as if the narrator is engaging in a discussion with me... and whilst some might disapprove of the concept, I frankly don't mind. What I do mind is that the narrator is telling it in a way that, if I could, I would slap him over the head with a ruler and tell him to start over. It's energetic, yes, but confusing.

Something that might help a lot is spacing out the paragraphs. Right off the bat I'm confonted with a veritable wall of text, an internal monologue of the narrators. Whilst not horrible, it is a bit difficult to read.

So, to sum that up, I'd love for our author to slow down, try to be clearer, and space his paragraphs out a bit, make it easier to follow. I'm particularly bad for this, because I have an absolutely horrendous short term memory, so typically if you can get me to follow, anyone can, and that's what we want.

We start our story on a train/bus to Equestria, and our protagonist is giving us the run-down about how the worlds came to meet. I don't think this is just personal preference when I say that this would have been better spread across the first chapter, since it breaks up this massive block of exposition (including a bit of info on our hero) across the story, maybe even through dialogue. That way, we progress the story whilst giving the reader information, instead of hitting me over the head with either or.

I never really got the chance to study anything about Anthro's in high-school, so having to learn about there whole history is quite overwhelming.

Wait, is this... no, never mind.

Okay, remember what I said about the big block of text? Well, this:

One was sitting on the left of the bench reading some kind of book. She was a nice shade of purple, with purple hair that had a lighter streak of...purple. She also had big, lovely eyes colored...purple. She wore a typical school girl outfit with a long skirt, but the catch was...they were purple. The mare looked like a unicorn since I caught a glimpse of her horn. Their was a pink mare over her shoulder, Earth pony I believe, who had nice poofy pink hair, staring at the book that that the purple Unicorn was reading. She looked to be wearing a simple shirt with some shorts to match. Next to the purple mare was a light grey Unicorn with a nice purple mane and, again, crystal blue eyes. What struck me about her was her more...fashion oriented appearance, having a stylish white work shirt with some possibly real diamonds etched on the collar. She also wore a pink work skirt to go withe the aforementioned shirt. This mare was conversing with a yellow mare with a pink mane and...wings, a Pegasus. Her wings were folded nicely on a green sweater and under her was a simple green skirt. Their were also these wonderful green eyes in her skull that nearly tore me from the other two mares. Oh, and she...also had big...um...lets use fruit here...melons...no watermelons...straight from an anime...like Seikon no Qwaser. Across from them were two other mares conversing with each other. One was an orange Earth Pony with a blond mane and light green eyes. The mare had on a simple plaid shirt with some ripped up jeans. She also had a large stetson hat and, unlike the other girls so far who wore simple shoes, cowboy boots. The mare she was conversing with was blue and had this rainbow mane that seemed to be a little jagged. The mare was dressed in a sports bra tank top which was perfect for her floating wings and she wore tight, TIGHT yoga pants. Her eyes also struck me blind with those perfect magenta gems...i'm not weird I swear. That was all I caught in that short span of time I looked at the group...unrealistic...most likely...worth it...for a nerd like me...definitely.

I think the internet term tl;dr serves well here. Still, I'm 'ard as nails, and read anyway. This is a description regarding our Mane Six in all their anthropomorphic glory. I don't mind anthro (granted I don't see the point) but this massive block of description comes out of nowhere and is equally jarring. Break it up into smaller bits, maybe even punctuate with dialogue... anything. Gone are the days of texts looking like the great wall of china: these days I think we've all come to realize that small paragraphs are much easier to read.

Not to mention, natural breaks with dialogue keep me invested.

So, that's the first chapter. I don't feel I need to go further because the first chapter alone needs improvement. That's not to say it's bad, though.

The chapter does introduce the character, gives us information about what's going on, introduces the mane six, what the character's mental state is... it does it's job, but it's in the execution that I believe it fails.

If the author could get an editor/proofreader/spellcheck for the grammar, clumsy writing, and spelling, and try to space things out and make the text flow more naturally, I'd be more than happy to keep on reading. As it stands, though, this takes too much effort to read for me to accept it into the Bin for now, story aside.

Just to mention story, though: I get the impression that a story like this will revolve on the interactions of each character. It's therefore imperative to keep dialogue flowing, and again, break up those monologues in between. Otherwise it won't flow well, and become difficult to read.

That's my two cents, anyway. Please get in touch if something changes.

Two in one day! Yeah!

I won't finish this today, but next up is The Electric Medley

4153825 Sure thing. Tell me if you think it's up to scratch.

Okay, reviewed the above.

Rejecting

First off: picked up a little thing in the description:

All of the machines in the electric division have been stolen from another pony.

Now, either I'm going nuts (more than usual) or we already know that stuff gets stolen from ponies. Maybe you meant 'by'?

Oh, and, uh... nerd alert, but:

Lights require electricity, and electricity is produced in the Cloudsdale Weather Factory.

The amount of electricity that's used by lights is under 1% of an average house's energy consumption, with the largest part of the energy being consumed by heating and appliances. Even if you tripled the number of lights, you'd barely have to increase your electricity output at all relative to it's present production.

Btw, this does not impact the quality of the story at all. This is a pet peeve of mine since the entire world seems to be scrambling to get eco-friendly lightbulbs when they could try to cut down on heating by installing double paned windows... which are forbidden in a lot of houses by law in Edinburgh and several other large historical cities. Utterly infuriating.

Ahem. Back to work.

Our story starts with Sassaflash (finally, a pony with a name similar to Scootaloo... not all ponies have to be called Moonlight Serenity or Mystnote Magic) getting out of bed because she's late for work.

I have to admit, her first line really didn't sit well with me.

"Oh no! I'm going to be late for work!" she shouted.

I'm not given her thoughts, feelings, appearance or reactions: she just shouts that she'll be late. What I wouldn't give to see something more like:

Sassaflash lazily opened her eyes, focussing on her alarm clock with all the speed of a lethargic snail. She yawned as she read the time, barely able to collect her thoughts.

9:30 AM

Sudden panic caused her to sit bold upright. "Oh, no!" she exclaimed, throwing her blanket off of her and jumping out of bed. "I'm going to be late!"

There, I hope I've successfully shown what Sassaflash is seeing and feeling, how she reacts, and what environment she's in, instead of just having her should 'I'll be late', which is, by comparison, rather lacklustre.

In fact, the whole introduction is a bit like that. I'm told, very bluntly, who Sassaflash is, what she does, what's going on, and what her day will be like. The key word being 'told': I dislike reciting little nothings like 'show don't tell' (especially since I believe there's a place for both) but here, I really feel I have to.

If the author gave me the opportunity to discover all this for myself, I'd be much more invested. For example, if the author withheld the information regarding Sass's character, but showed me how she behaves by interacting with other ponies.

It's the difference between me saying:

Rainbow Dash is an incredibly ambitious pegasus who wants to join the Wonderbolts, and has the ability to create a sonic rainboom, but because of her own anxieties, she's only able to do it when she needs to in order to save her friends, putting her friend's needs and safety above her own fears.

And actually watching the MLP episode 'Sonic Rainboom' (which is my favourite episode btw).

One is like reading from a documentary, and the other is an adventure I can really get invested in.

Heck, an entire chapter could have been dedicated to the introduction alone, giving me the information I need efficiently and interestingly, instead of handed to me in little over 200 words.

As for the rest of the chapter, I feel that there was a fair bit of wasted potential. I personally don't know if the idea of using lightning to produce electricity has been used before, but I'd have liked for it to be shown in a lot more detail. The tour feels like a rehearsed play, with information being given in a rather ham-fisted manner:

"There's the cloud division, whom their respective 'CS' (Cloud Supervisor)s are Cloudchaser and Flitter. They are two of my friends. There's the tornado division. Their 'TPS' (Tornado Production Supervisor) is Dizzy Twister. She's also one of my great friends. There's the sun division, also. Their 'SS' (Sunlight Supervisor) is Cloud Kicker. She's on good terms with me. Lastly, there is the rain division. Their 'RPS' (Rain Production Supervisor) is Medley. She is also one of my many friends."

Showing that these ponies are Sass's friends could have been done in a far more engaging manner by having them actually present. Quite literally, I'm just told that Sass has friends. I need to be shown: I need to see these ponies interact, or for the information to be delivered in a way that retains my interest. Effectively, my interest has to be earned. Giving me information without me being invested just means I won't care much about what you're telling me.

Then there's Spark's little story, about how electricity was 'discovered'. It's more telling.

I think I've found the main problem that this story has.

In essence, there's nothing 'bad' here, but all the information that could be served to make me interested, to make me enjoy the story, is delivered flatly and without flair. It makes what could have been a very intriguing introduction about electricity, power, worldbuilding and characters, a very dull experience, which is an incredible shame. As an engineering student who goes absolutely nuts over stuff like factories, you could have had a very interested reader.

The story needs to slow down, and take the time to show me everything. Show me the factory in operation, don't just have a tour guide explain it to me. Recall that when on tours, the guide complements the factory itself: you get to see the machines work, the rooms, the sounds... to be interested, you need to give me all of that, and show the characters reacting to their surroundings so much more. Show me the relationships between the ponies, don't just tell me they're friends.

Until the story delivers the information in a way that keeps my interest, I'm afraid I can't let this in.

Next up on my list is Gumballs Setting Him Free

Because the current oldest story submitted is... longer, and I'm running on 2 hours of sleep. Dedication!

4155646 Finished reviewing <<<— that.

Accepting

I'm a bit on the fence about this one, but I think it does what it sets out to do effectively and neatly.

This is a story about Pinkie dealing with rejection, specifically by Cheese Sandwich. If I had a qualm with this story (and I do) it's that it doesn't really tell the whole story. I think this story could have benefitted from telling the story of the rejection itself, instead of just the aftermath, because here, we get told a lot of what happens.

That said, it's not bad, and pretty much comes off as a stylistic choice that has it's benefits, I just think it would have been better had it taken more time to show more.

Pinkie is quite believable here... although I confess the beginning threw me. She's perhaps a bit too conventionally sad near the beginning, and again, we're told a fair bit.

So, if the story has these problems, why accept it?

Well, it's because it deals with these problems in an effective way. Like very effective damage control. The first person does lend itself to the telling quite well, and the second half of the story makes up for the slightly too sad Pinkie in the beginning. Not to mention, it really does have quite a nice little message.

I think this one is good enough to let in, in any case. It works well as a one-shot, too, but I think it could have benefited from showing a bit more.

Reviewing Derpy's Loss

I've been warned to read till the very end... which isn't hard considering it's just over 1K words.

I'm quaking already!

I'm finished, and surprisingly, I don't really feel anything towards this story.

Rejecting

To clarify, this isn't a bad story... it just doesn't have anything that I think makes it transition to 'good'.

As soon as I saw the length of the story, coupled with the warning, coupled with the first few paragraphs, I knew without a shadow of a doubt what the ending would be. It was obviously working far too hard to make the whole ordeal get blown out of proportion without actually saying what had happened, that it was really obvious (at least to me) what was being foreshadowed.

On that alone, I probably wouldn't reject the story. But the story is just so... mild.

It's incredibly short, so there's barely anything to get invested in. The short stories I reviewed earlier often had something that made the story greater than what was being told, like for 'Blind Leading The Blind' there was actually a whole other story being told off the page: the mystery in question. And even though it was nothing but dialogue, it stood over 1K words.

Here, not enough happens for it to really become worth it... or at least, not enough. Like I mentioned, it isn't 'bad', but it doesn't do enough either.

It's a bit clumsy in places, too: it focusses on what's being presented as Dinky's death (I assume, since it isn't outright said to maintain the illusion) then it skips to lunch, of all things. Upon reading the ending, of course it makes sense (or if you're me, as soon as you read it) but if you were fooled, that must be jarring as hell... and even for me, it took me by surprise, and really shouldn't. For this kind of story to work, it has to seamlessly maintain both the illusion, and the reality of what's being presented, and here it kind of flickers from one to the other.

Finally, I have a bit of a gripe with Derpy's character development being 'muffins', but if the fandom likes it...

And nobody learns anything from the experience, which gives it a bit of an empty feel. Oh, I hear you cry, she learned to not trust the hubby around the medicine cabinet!

Well, I think it's not a personal thing when I say that that doesn't count.

In short, it's a silly little nothing to waste your time on, and it's very harmless, but I'd like it to be more to get into the bin. Have a message I can take away, maintain the illusion more effectively, be longer and tell more story, or include some form of character development... all four, if you can. As it is, it doesn't do anything for me, sorry.

Reviewing my first second person fic: King Sombra is in Your House

Can't say the title gives me much hope... but I've been surprised before, and it's best to not judge a book by it's cover too much.

Reviewed ^^^ that

Rejecting

Much like the last one, there's very little to take away from this story. Sure, it's harmless, but it doesn't really do anything either.

Really, you could read the title, and pretty much have the story figured out.

This is a story about King Sombra and a human... specifically, you, the reader.

I have to admit, I'm not sure I 'get' second person stories, especially if they're a bit like this. All of the comedy here stems from (you guessed it) the clash of cultures typical to almost every HiE and crossover. Sombra marvels at the television, explains what his life is like, you explain what your life is like... and I guess that's supposed to be funny.

And for some people, it might be. For me, I'm afraid the story did very little for me. Granted, it didn't make me furious or anything, but I never laughed. Or even smiled.

The story goes nowhere, nobody really learns anything, and at the end of the day, you've wasted your time by reading this story. I mean that in a nice way, in that you've read a story, and possibly enjoyed relaxing back whilst exploring the riveting notion of King Sombra being in your house: but don't expect much more than that.

Again, this isn't a bad story, but it doesn't really do anything for me either, and you won't get much out of it. I guess if you're the kind of person to laugh at second person stories, and like this kind of nonsensical premise, then fine, you'll probably get a chuckle out of it. But I don't think it'll do much for most people, and it certainly didn't for me.

Some of the dialogue is also a bit clunky:

So ape, I’ll be very warm here. It’s a very comforting bed. Thank you for letting me stay here. Your home is really good. It has everything I need too! Of course, it don’t have crystals or slaves, but it still good

No ape, I’m good here.

(Sombra saying: 'I'm good' doesn't seem like it fits an evil tyrant kind, but hey, maybe that's just me)

But overall it was readable, so I'm not rejecting it based on that. I'm rejecting it because it failed to make the transition towards something memorable.

Reviewing 18 Months

Finished!

Rejecting

In all fairness, I actually think this one would probably get in if there was more of it written. Right now, I have too many questions and too little answers: we've basically finished the first act and gotten past the initial plot point, but without knowing which direction it's going, I don't know what to think about it.

However: the writing is decent, so far. Again, I can't really get that much of a feel for it, because it comes and goes so quickly. I have a few issues with the dialogue that I have a hard time placing:

“Wow, you're really good.” she said with a smile.

“T-thanks,” I stuttered.

“What's your name?”

“I...I ah umm,” I cleared my throat. “I'm Forte, Forte Piano.”

“That's an interesting name. Well, I'm Sunset Shimmer.” she replied.

We stood in awkward silence, not one of us daring to utter a word.

“It was nice meeting you Forte, but I have to get going.”

It's goes pretty quickly, and I think I would have loved more time taken on what our protagonist, Forte, is thinking. I mean, we can guess what's going on pretty easily, but I'd like for the author to spoon-feed me a bit more. We go from him quickly explaining that he 'fell head over heels for this one' directly to that piece of dialogue, and it's a bit abrupt.

Maybe it's a stylistic choice, though. I can't really say for sure if it works for or against the story right now, since I don't have a good feel for it.

Promblem number 2: Sunset Shimmer. Why does this have to be Sunset? She's basically acting like a pony who wants to go to music school, and acts mostly sweet and kind... and I don't see a lot of Sunset in this character.

I guess you could argue that it's AU, so it doesn't matter... but it should be AU for a reason, right? There should be a reason for deviating from canon, like to highlight something that a character doesn't have or to specifically put characters in positions they otherwise wouldn't encounter. But Sunset can encounter street musicians in canon, and I don't think this story is highlighting anything about her character in this story.

At least, so far.

That's the real reason I'm rejecting this one: there's barely anything for me to look at. Even if it was still incomplete, if I had a few more chapters, and more time to get a real good grip on the characters and events, I'd be able to come to a decision. As it is, I have nothing to make a decision on, or at least, too little.

Please give me a call when more is written!

Next up: A Rainbow's True Colours

Finished A Rainbow's True Colours

Rejecting

There are two problems I have with this story. The first is some frankly weird phrasing.

The breeze of the wind was getting colder

The more you think about that sentence, the less it makes sense. The breeze can't be of the wind: it's a type of wind.

late summer —> animals were starting to hibernate

False.

In the distance of Ponyville

her final days of this season

At a sudden stop

Slightly peering at the bags

These aren't big things, but they stop me every time I read them. That said, spelling is good, it's just that these are strange and uncomfortable to read.

Then we come onto our next point, and I'm getting the impression a lot of shorter stories suffer from this. It has very little payoff, and isn't very memorable.

This is a story about Rainbow Dash getting a vaccine. The thing is, it only really has one joke, and it goes by pretty quickly. Obviously, Rainbow is afraid of needles (and who'd blame her: freakin' terrifying), but the punchline goes by so quickly, it's basically the whole story. That's not to say it's a bad punchline: I could see people get a laugh out of it. But it's all the story has.

In fact, as soon as the vaccine is over and done with, it only takes about four lines for the story to end. We barely get any payoff for the joke: it goes past too abruptly. If the story gave the reader time to laugh before cutting us off, it might be better. I'd still reject it because it doesn't do enough for the reader, but at least the joke would work better.

To sum up, it's a cute little waste of time that you can certainly enjoy for about five seconds, but it won't do more for you than that: it has no message, the characters don't really change, and the joke got botched a little around the end. It's okay, but I don't think it should get in here.

4161396 Seeing those quotes in my story made me cringe.

D'aw, oh well. I'll try again next time. Thanks, though, for your thoughts!