This is where Submissions will be reviewed by one of our designated Story Approvers.

Current approvers are:

Charles Spratt

Man on the Moon

I'm also including a brief set of guidelines we'll use to judge stories by:

Stories need to have an acceptable amount of grammar/spelling. Perfect grammar is not required, but certainly encouraged. If there are too many errors, stories will be failed unless given ample reason not to.

Stories should be paced appropriately: again, perfect pacing is not required, but if it is too jarring, it will be failed.

Characters should all be in character unless given ample reason for it: this reason must be transparent in the story.

A story that is a sequel must either be able to stand on it's own, or have it's prequel already accepted into the bin.

Crossovers should not rely on their crossover material to be understood.

Stories with excessive gore/ gratuitious clop will be failed.

Squicky stuff is not encouraged.

These are guidelines, and may be ignored if a story approver decides otherwise. This decision will be made transparent, however.

These guidelines are to ensure that any story that gets accepted is easy to enjoy for most readers. Again, we're not looking for great stories, we're looking for good stories that can hold a reader's interest without the reader trying too hard.

Complaints about submissions are to be addressed to HapHazred, although if you're going to be complaining about me, you might be better of going to BikerPon3

I think that's it for now. Good luck, everyone.

My story will beYou are my Sunshine by Rubyfire377
4174108

4174575 Soup-er duper

4174108 Well, sorry I'm late. I'll be starting off with Mommy, Mommy, Look! Review should be out tomorrow. I have the review itself nearly done. I just can't decide whether it should pass or not

4174639 I'll probably be away most of tomorrow, I'm afraid, since I'm bound by my degree to chop bits of aluminium up until it resembles a piston. If you want my opinion, you'll have to wait until around 5 o clock GMT.

4174652
Alright then

4174108
You are my Sunshine
Review

After reading the short literary piece “You are my Sunshine” by Rubyfire377 in collaboration with the user Geoice, I would fail this story, and I can give ample reason why.

First off, the commonly shady sentence structure as in this example:

It was a bright and sunny day in the Everfree forest; a perfect day for Fluttershy to get some herbs from Zecora for her animals.

The first sentence sets the tone of a story so to speak. This sentence for the most part is worded wrong. It should be “It was a bright sunny day in The Everfree Forest; a perfect day for Fluttershy to buy some herbs from Zecora.” Secondly it doesn't really pull the reader or in this case me in. Okay, so Fluttershy is in The Everfree Forest going about her business. Now that I say it that, she is notably OoC here. Fluttershy wouldn't set hoof into The Everfree unless it was a matter of utter significance or danger i.e. whenever one of her friends are in trouble or when an animal has escaped, and she would still have an internal battle over that. My point is I doubt that she'll be walking in the most dangerous forest like a stroll in the park.

Now to look past the first paragraph to the story as a whole. It was enjoyable, but I felt like Stone Edge's character was some form of a failed self insert. Mainly because his dialogue was all over the place. Like here

“Who’s out there? Show yourself assassin if you aren’t to cowardly to face the wrath of Stone Edge!”

I'm thinking that he is speaking like an English knight or someone of high valor. Then here

“Wait a second, who are you? You’re not an assassin.”

it stays the same, but changes here

“ Heheeheh you’re a shy one aren’t you? So, do you have a name?”

It changes to, I would guess an awkward tone. It's hard to tell from the opening laughter. What I'm getting at is one's character does change throughout a story, but you can't have their dialogue skipping all over the place. It's not like you talk normally then switch to an Irish accent involuntarily.

Fluttershy, as I mentioned before, was noticeably out of character. She is terrified of dragons or any foreign creature. He kept to that until she started to open up to Stone Edge here

"I'm Fluttershy..." She managed to quietly force out.

I am going to use the first episode of My Little Pony as an example. When Twilight was making sure that everything went well for the Summer Sun celebration, upon meeting Fluttershy she was mute. Twilight was a pony just like her, and she was mute. To a Krirn as he called it, she’d most likely be frozen with fear no matter how charismatic he was. Either that or run away.

As for character interactions….it felt as awkward as Stone Edge’s dialogue. Reading his speaking lines felt rushed somewhat, and it felt like I was rambling on without end. Like here,

"Well no, she's about the size of a regular pony...err twice the size actually. I've never been scared by her, but my dad said when she laid my egg she was super protective. Also when I was conceived, whatever that means.”

These sentences need to flow smoothly; right now they feel bumpy and rough. like in the first one

"Well no, she's about the size of a regular pony...err twice the size actually

.
His punctation was spot on from what I can tell, and the grammar was near perfect,but it still felt rushed and awkward. I would’ve written it as, “Well, no. She’s about the size of a regular pony; twice the size to be exact.” On to the next sentence,

I've never been scared by her, but my dad said when she laid my egg she was super protective.

I would change that to, “She’s very kind actually. My dad used to tell me that when she was nursing my egg she was the most protective dragon he ever encountered; nearly burned him a few times. From what he told me she was even more aggressive when I was conceived, whatever that means.”
I’m not going to break down this whole paragraph, but you get what I’m saying. When dealing with character dialogue try to put yourself in the conversation; act it out if you have to. Anything to make them feel more alive.

Nearing our end here; I’ll discuss syntax, and grammar. Now, throughout the story he had some typos, capitalization problems, and whole words missing even. So instead of editing the whole story I will just focus on the disaggregation of the letter he sent to his parents.

Dear Mom and Dad
Today was an interesting day because today was the very first time I meet a pony, and she was a mare. Her name is Fluttershy, and as her name suggests she is very, very shy. The funny thing is she is almost as shy as you mom. I think she is more shy than you, and she is kind of cute. Wait! I mean sweet, thats what I meant to say. Though I do hope I can see her again, and also she can help me with my annoying pet crow. She can allegedly talk with animals which is awesome. I do hope that you can reply to me very soon.
From your son Love Stone Edge

Let us see here…
Dear: Mom and Dad
Today was a rather interesting day because I met a pony other that...well you dad. She was a yellow pegasus who goes by Fluttershy. If you couldn't guess from her name she is very shy, almost as shy as you mom. In fact she may be even more shy than you: she's very cute too. Whoa Wait! I meant sweet, she is very sweet. I'm not going to lie, I'd like to see her again. She mentioned that she can allegedly talk to animals, but I'll believe it when I see it. I hope to hear from you soon.
From: Your son
Love: Stone Edge

There, that should be a sufficient representation of how to use proper grammar and punctuation. To close out I'll say this. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. Why am I saying this? Because in Peter l order to improve you need to work. Not some of the time, all of the time! Thank you for your time.

~Motm

Reviewed: Mommy, Mommy, Look!

Rejecting

At first, I was considering just failing the story on the spot because of the first paragraph’s complete disregard for the rules of spelling and grammar:

It was a very pretty day in Ekwestria. All of the ponies were very happy and singing and laffing and having lots of fun. They were making delishus love and brading each other's manes, which is easy for them to do because they all have manes,but only I have a mane (blatant contradiction), none of my friends do. It's because I'm a Princess.

However, after I got about 4/5ths of the way through, there was a reveal that suddenly made the atrocious grammar, spelling, pacing, and other issues with the first half all make sense:

Queen Chrysalis stood prone, analyzing the lined paper she held in her holed hoof. Before her, a small changeling filly no older than eight smiled up at her, showing her missing front fang for the world to see.

"Well, Mommy? What do you think? It's perfect, right?"

The second I saw this, what was earlier a complete pain to sit through suddenly became cute when I realized the reasoning behind it. However, with that being said, the question remains: was this reveal worth sitting through the first 800 words, which was borderline painful to sit through? Well, I’m really on the fence about this, but I’m going to go with no, it wasn’t.

Why is this? Well, the reason I believe this is because, while the reveal was a clever one, I felt that the grammar was a little too overdone. Yes, I understand that it was supposed to be written by an eight year old, but the spelling is poor even by eight year old standards. There are certain words that are misspelled that even an eight year old should know how to spell, such as Equestria (the very country she lives in, and she can’t spell it right after 8 years? Are you serious?) and laughing, for example. In addition to that, the story from this kid’s perspective took up a little too much of the fic. Yes, at first it was cute, but after a while, this child’s story began to get grating again, even with the knowledge of the twist in mind.

How could it be done better? There are two possible solutions: One, make the child’s story shorter, so the novelty of the reveal doesn’t wear off, or Two, keep it the same length, but get rid of some of the weirder spelling errors. Yes, I can believe that an eight year old would misspell bigger words, but I’d at least expect her to be able to spell words like 'right' correctly.

So, in conclusion, while this isn’t a bad story as a whole, I also don’t think it’s quite good enough to make it into the Goodfic Bin yet.

Alrighty then, time to choose another one? Okay I'll go with...
*Randomly runs mouse through folder*
... A Night with Lyra.
I'll admit, I'm a bit worried about this one, but hey, I'll give anything a fair chance to impress me. Cheers

4176689 Agreed.

4176862 I was interested by that, since I agree with pretty much every point but would probably argued that the payoff, especially in a short story, was probably worth it.

You both seem to have a handle on things. Remove 'em from the folders.

4176880

It's a second-person story. Those often turn out to be either crap or pornographic crap.

4176933

I was interested by that, since I agree with pretty much every point but would probably argued that the payoff, especially in a short story, was probably worth it.

While I can see where you're coming from, I personally believe that a good story shouldn't be grating even when you know why it was grating. That's why I read over it twice: if it didn't overstay its welcome on read two, then I would've been glad to let it in. However, it did overstay it, so... yeah. Still, as I said, it just barely fell short.

Remove 'em from the folders.

Done, and done. Cheers

4176961 No probs. I see where you're coming from too. Keep it up.

4176940 It's not just that: this story has a lot of things that I don't like within it: HIE, Interspecies Romance, Lyra as an anthropology nut, 2nd person story, oh my! Still, you never know.

4176933 No Problem sir.

Reviewed: A Night with Lyra

Accepting

Okay, I’m not gonna lie: when I went into this story, I was expecting to hate it, mainly because it contains so many things that I hate in fanfiction:

HIE? Check.
Lyra in a role with a human? Check.
Interspecies Romance? Check.
2nd person story? Check.

So yeah, I didn’t exactly have high hopes for this one. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how it pulled itself off, somehow managing to do almost every single thing I mentioned previously well.

Let’s start with the 2nd person perspective. The reason I usually dislike these types of stories is because they fail to make the 2nd person vague enough. Usually, they end up dropping in something that alienates a lot of readers, like being in high school, or having an appreciation of anime, for example. A 2nd person story needs to be vague enough to fit almost anyone, and throwing in things like careers or hobbies will usually ruin immersion. This story, on the other hand, does it right; the way it tells the story keeps the human vague enough to fit pretty much anyone, which helped with immersion (I might argue that the person in the story was a little overly angry, but then again, I’ve never had a hangover, so what do I know?).

Next up, the Lyra with a human thing. The reason I hate this is mainly because it’s so overdone. Sure, it was kinda funny at first, but it’s just annoying how that became the only trait the majority of the fandom has adopted for Lyra. This story, however, doesn’t fall into that trap; Lyra is displayed as a three dimensional character with a likeable personality first, rather than putting her human obsession first above anything. She’s mischievous, intelligent, and friendly; she’s like that friend who does something that annoys you simply because it gets a rise out of you, but at the same time, makes it clear that it’s all in good fun. And yes, while there are hints of her obsession towards humans here and there, she’s still mostly shown to be a good friend to the main character first, rather than an obsessed nutcase, and I personally found that to be a breath of fresh air.

And finally, the Interspecies Romance. Personally, I don’t like that because… well, because it’s a guy doing it with a horse. I just find that creepy, and at first, this story seemed like it was walking down that path. However, this story was actually pretty clever with it. See, the story knows that the reader (as well as the human in the story) thinks that the duo banged the previous night, and it plays with that expectation, having all the signs point to the previous night being a sexual encounter. However, when it’s revealed in a clever twist what actually happened (which I won’t spoil here, but let’s just say it was… far tamer), I found myself laughing. Yes, this story managed to make me laugh at a plotline that usually makes me cringe, and I found that to be admirable. Not only that, but the twist made perfect sense, and tied all the loose ends together quite nicely, unlike some twists which don’t make any logical sense when you take a step back and think about them, or are just incredibly stupid twists to begin with.

Now, with that being said, it’s not perfect. The main gripe I had with it was that the HIE element is never explained. The story never even tries to explain why you’re in Equestria. You just… are. Even so, that’s just me nitpicking. The story never really needed to explain that; it just wanted to tell a simple tale that plays with the readers’ expectations in a humorous way, and it more than succeeded on that front.

It was fun, it was well written, it had hardly any grammar errors, it had likeable characters, and it managed to take several things that normally fail, and somehow make them work. It’s a good read, and one that I’m more than happy to let in.

4179926

4180041 The story, or the review? Either way I agree, but I'm just curious.

By the by, does this group have any sort of award thing for stories that made it in? Y'know, like for, let's say, Twilight's Library, for example, they had that little ribbon thing that they posted in the comments of stories that made it into their group. Is there something like that for this group, and if not, should there be? Just curious. Cheers

4180084 Both.

And, no—not currently. But I've thought about it, and I do plan on making one. I'm just looking for the right graphics. The only online badge/ribbon maker I've managed to find isn't very good.

4180101 Bah: everyone these days have ribbons.

Gold stars are where it's at:

4180239 If the story was a fail, then perhaps that star there would work, but I was thinking about something for the stories that succeeded. By the by, you're missing an approver on your first post, Hap.
Cheers

4180278 Quite correct, I'll add him momentarily. Was not in the best shape yesterday, unfortunately.

I really just meant the gold star as a joke. I don't feel the need to rub salt in people's wounds if they don't get in. Although I do kinda' like the idea of a ribbon or medal, I guess: I certainly loved the feeling when I got mine (Twice! Hoorah! Getting noticed and stuff!)

I was actually thinking we could make a sort of medal out of a dustbin lid. It feels more in keeping with the group theme.

4180280

I really just meant the gold star as a joke. I don't feel the need to rub salt in people's wounds if they don't get in.

I know, and I agree.

Although I do kinda' like the idea of a ribbon or medal, I guess: I certainly loved the feeling when I got mine (Twice! Hoorah! Getting noticed and stuff!)

I'd imagine that it would feel good (Wouldn't know, unfortunately: I got shot down from TL twice in a row.)

I was actually thinking we could make a sort of medal out of a dustbin lid. It feels more in keeping with the group theme.

Interesting idea, although personally, since I'm not an artist, I don't mind what it looks like, as long as it's aesthetically pleasing. I'll trust the more artistic people for its design. Cheers

Okay then, now that that's out of the way, I may as well choose another story.
*Looks through folder*
Hmm... I guess this time, I'll go with Where Fillies Fear to Tread. Hoping for the best. Cheers

4180280

I was actually thinking we could make a sort of medal out of a dustbin lid. It feels more in keeping with the group theme.

I did a similar sort of thing with the badfic bin, so a "goodfic bin trash lid" could work I guess.

4180708

The badfic one should be rusty and full of holes.

4180907

Reviewed: Discolored

Approved

When it comes to me and dark stories I tend to say away due to: excessive violence, unnecessary gore, or rape...( thank God this didn't have any of that) But this one caught my eye mainly with the like/dislike ratio, and the description.

Spell casting is a dangerous skill according to most experts. They tell you to be cautious when doing even the simplest of spells.
Twilight knows this all too well. She has studied the side effects of spellcasting and what it can do, but what she is not aware of all the side effects and how they play on an user after being overexposed to its toxic radiation.
For Twilight, she opens up a new door to her life, one that she never thought existed. For Rarity, it opens another door, one that she wishes she never opened.

The description alone tells me that this story is going to be very grim and suspenseful.

The perspective from wish l which this is being told is one very familiar to all of us: the third person omniscient perspective (also my fave POV).

Now I'm going to focus on the overall tone and setting of Discolored. This story was, for the most part, mysterious. We don't know what happened to Rarity; all we know is that she's been mortally wounded and was rushed to the hospital. The mystery thickens as she wakes up in a hospital bed with her horn covered in gause, and her eyes are blinking. I'll be honest, Nurse Red Heart at first made me feel a little apprehensive because it shows her walking in with a blood stained shirt then leaving and retuning, talking as if she'd just finished torturing a patient.

"May I check your horn?"
Rarity noticed Redheart's eyes. They were wonderful.
"Yes..."
Redheart smiled. "Don't worry, it's just a checkup." A pause. "I had to clean up from my last patient; he was a nice guy."

Rarity raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"He was dreamy," she began, a goofy smile gracing her face. "He had a smile that gave me the chills! Oh! he had my heart more so than any stallion..."

To me this makes mattress worse. I'm thinking that nurse Red Heart is going to do something malicious to Rarity, and she's just casual about it.

"Sounds like he is charming..." Rarity gave her a slight smile. "If only I met a stallion like that." She felt some pressure loosen from her horn. "Do they have more of them in Ponyville?" A piece of white frill danced in front of her eyes. "Or was he the only one?"

To wrap this comment wall up let's get to the end.

Ahem...Spoiler Alert!

This entire chapter built up to it's namesake very well. Throughout the chapter we were completely in the dark about Rarity's condition. I was under the assumption that she was working and a spell went horribly wrong fracturing her horn. For the most part I was right. A fourth of her horn is missing and her cutie mark was gone. Being the mlp fan that I am thought “maybe age was attacked by a cutie mark snatcher”, but using a more canonical train of thought I've deduced that Rarity used a either: forbidden spell where the consequence was the loss of your talent, or the spell was to difficult for her to handle and it backfired to the point to where it destroyed what makes a pony a pony, their talent, thus the broken horn and missing cutie mark.

~Motm

Nice to see Discolored made it through. That's rapidly becoming one of my all time favorites!

Reviewed: Where Fillies Fear to Tread

Accepting

Okay, first off, let's discuss the good, since there are quite a few things this story does well. First off, I like the idea. The idea of the story is to show us the world through the eyes of a young Trixie, back when she was at the age where her imagination was running rampant. This was interesting, since you very rarely see a story from that perspective, even though it is a very creative period in life. In Trixie's young mind, even the most mundane things can be transformed into the most epic of all things, and that childhood imagination is at full force here: Through her mind, a small hill becomes a treacherous mountain, a simple orchard becomes a lush jungle, and the most valuable treasures of all are merely cherries on a lone tree, guarded by an unstoppable dragon (slightly annoyed house cat). The story manages to capture the essence of childhood perfectly, and was, to be perfectly honest, really cute. In addition, I also liked the characters. Trixie's innocence, as I said earlier, was adorable, and Princess Celestia acted in a very nice, believable, and almost motherly way in how she played along with Trixie's imaginary world. The duo worked off each other well, and had good chemistry. They were well done characters. And finally, the story has some adorable moments, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't say 'aww...' a couple times in my reading.

However, with all of that said, it’s not perfect. There is one problem it has that almost caused me to fail this story. That problem was with the sentence structure and prose, which was occasionally sloppy at times. I mean, sure, there are the usual spelling and grammar errors here and there, but the problem I had was that the way this story described things was just flat out weird sometimes:

However different from each other they were, the ponies of Equestria had one thing in common.

She had exactly as many friends as it was reasonable to have.

she was willing to vet one of her golden hoofboots that this tailed, white as a ghost quadruped was the one everyone feared.

Your kind words are kind,”

This sort of odd wording popped up here and there, and whenever it did, it caused me to stop reading for a moment entirely out of confusion. Because of that, I could rarely get immersed in the story for too long before I was taken out of it by odd sentence structure. Although it’s not a deal breaker, it was clear to me that the story could’ve used one more layer of polish.

Despite that, I still recommend letting this story in. Although it does have its oddly worded moments, the story makes up for it with a decent premise, likeable characters, and enough cute moments to make almost anyone crack a smile. While it’s far from perfect, I still think it’s good enough to let it.

Reviewing: A Taxing Evening

Reviewing: The Equestrian Eating Emporium

Reviewed:The Equestrian Eating Emporium

Accepting

Like I said before, I tend to stay away from the dark genre due to excessive gore and bla, bla, bla, but the genre is starting to amaze me.

Let's discuss the idea. I did not like it in the least (Five Nights at Freddie's, doesn't sit well with me...), but after reading the comments, description, and, of course, the like/dislike ratio, I decided to give it a read.

Although incomplete the story raises the same amount of questions that the game itself makes you ask. First we start out with our main protagonist, Michael Schmidt, who is tasked with watching the animatronics at night. He gets there early so he can scope the place out befis shift starts. Watching the children play and enjoy themselves, Applejack comes, offers him an apple fritter, and actually starts a conversation with him. Now, I'm no fan of Fnaf, but I've seen the game read and heard the stories. The animatronics in the game hate adults so Applejack coming up to a grown man and sparking up a little chat is surprising to say the least. This is odd seeing as how we view the animatronics as tormented souls who are desperately trying to escape their robotic prison. I like how this story puts a more humane spin on it.

The second chapter starts out much like the game. You're in the office, setting up, and the “phone guy” calls you. This was one of my favorite parts in the chapter because so many gamers and my friends do not hesitate to hit the skip call button. It's a true homage to the Fnaf gamer trying to get the hellish ordeal over with. Which brings me to another point of the story that I found quite interesting. (Making comparisons to the game again) The game's animatronics are hell bent on breaking into your office and stuffing you into a mechanical exoskeleton...eugh. In this AU crossover, the animatronics, being the mane six, and the cutie mark crusaders plus Spike (mentioned), are very docile; in actually they bear no ill-will towards the security guard at all. They move about at night so their servos won't lock up, and are seen just conversing with each other. The story takes a rather creepy turn as the guard, Michael Schmidt, is in the security office and Fluttershy (the animatronic) is seen I'm the window staring at him with unblinking eyes. Then she starts to pound at the door as if she were trying to break in. At this point I was trying to wrap my head around why would these friendly animatronics would just begin to act violent on impulse. Before I go on there was one thing that I wanted to point out; Twilight wandered outside during one night before Schmidt got there and is baldy damaged. Looking through the cameras Schmidt sees Twilight resting on the ground with Rainbow Dash next to her reading to her. This one scene brought a smile to my otherwise sour face... We get a taste if the show's characters here. Twilight is down and out, and her loyal friend Rainbow Dash is there to cheer her up with her favorite thing, books.

In the third chapter, the night drones on. Fluttershy and the others are banging on the office door while Twilight is repetitively tapping on the glass. There is no explanation as to why they want to get into the office, they just want to get in. Judging by the story so far maybe they want to give Schmidt a big friendly hug. They all eventually leave Schmidt be and go about their night as does he. I admit that I was very apprehensive there because I thought that they were going to kill him, I was proved otherwise when he noticed Pinkie staring at him in one of the cameras. Here I am thinking “why is this story mindf****** me”. She is staring at him with a tilted head wearing her Pinkamena hair. Looking away from the camera a letter is slipped halfway under his door. He goes and picks it up and is noticed by Applejack. She asks who he is and when he tells her she simply shrugged it off and walks away. That made me put my phone down and seriously think for a while. If they were so desperate to break into his office before why is Applejack acting casual when the door is open, not even causal, she acts like she doesn't care about Schmidt at all. This brings me to the most 'awww' inducing, smile enhancing, adorable part of the chapter. The letter Pinkie left at the door. It's a friendly welcome card to Schmidt stating that she doesn't mind him watching over her and her friends; she actually welcomes it.

The last chapter (finally, man my thumbs are stiff) was actually just a bonus chapter that followed Rarity as she meandered throughout the eatery. The main point that I likes about this bonus chapter were the characters. Rarity is actually perturbed by the camera's. If the writer updates I see future conflict there. While wandering about she runs into Twilight who is doing the same as her. They talk about Twilight's condition and the goings on in the eatery. I loved the interactions here because we are led to believe that these are robots incapable of emotion or sympathy, but Rarity feels bad for Twilight and even hopes that she gets better.

To close, this story opened up a new door for the Fnaf fandom. Instead of the cold static metal in Scott Cawthon's universe we take those cold metal husks and put our favorite ponies in them. I want to see where this story goes, but one conflict nearly made me fail it. It's tagged as dark and gory yet so far I found it cheery, heart warming, and noticeably blood free, but that that is for any future updates the author may have.

~Motm

4187226 Can I just ask: does the story rely on it's crossover material, or would no knowledge of fnaf be enough to enjoy the story? Because you talked a lot about comparisons to the game, and I just want to make sure that it doesn't rely on that element too much: if it does, it needs to not rely on the game content, to be accessible to as many people as possible.

4187405
It did not rely on the game at all. The only element from the game that I saw were the guy on the phone, and the security console.

Then again the story is still incomplete so later chapters may reveal that.

4187725 Well, then for now I think I agree with your assessment. Just wanted to make sure.

4187741
Thank you. I should thank Charles Spratt too. I had to read his review to get an understanding of what you wanted (I'm a visual learner).

4187755 Awesomesause. On a dish of cool beans.

Reviewed: A Taxing Evening

Rejecting

I never thought I’d describe something as being too much of a slice of life, but as it turns out, this story managed to make me use that as a description. It’s not so much that this story is bad: it’s more that the story is uneventful and boring. I mean, I’m fine with slice of life stories (if I wasn’t, then why the heck would I like MLP, a show where 90% of the episodes are slices of life?), but at the same time, they have to be interesting slices of life, and this story just wasn’t, mainly due to the lack of conflict within the story.

So, what’s the story? The story follows Written Script, who is the town treasurer. Problem is, it’s tax day, meaning everypony is a little ticked off about their high tax rates. He has a few run-ins with ponies who are annoyed at their taxes, then he goes home and goes to bed. That’s literally all there is to it. Most of it is just Written Script talking to ponies about why their taxes are as high as they are. Nothing else. There's no conflict, no character development, and nothing to make his day seem particularly interesting.

Now, with that being said, I will give credit for how it looks into the psyche of the town treasurer. I did occasionally find Written Script’s inner thoughts to be amusing, (mainly his hope that he’ll find a drink in his desk) and I do think that he’s a decently developed character, despite the story’s relatively short length. In addition, I will give credit to the author for having the guts to try to make a story on something as mundane as taxes, and for what it’s worth, he could’ve done this concept a lot, lot worse, but ultimately, neither of those things can save this story from the fact that it was just dull and unmemorable.

So, in conclusion, there isn’t really anything wrong with the story from a technical standpoint; the grammar is okay, as are the characters. However, good is more than just the absence of bad, and that really shines through here. In the end, while it’s technically fine, and does succeed at what it’s trying to do, A Taxing Evening just doesn't have enough going for it for me to justify including it.

Reviewing: Together in the End

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So you're saying that it was too bland then?

4194348 I'm saying that a story needs to have something to make it engaging in order to be considered good, and this story didn't fit the bill.

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I see...

4194395 I'm of the opinion that a story should either have events you can get invested in, or otherwise be incredibly fun. It's the difference between a diary and a story, I guess. One is just a sequence of events, the other has an obstacle, conflict, that sort of stuff.

Now, I'm not saying that a story needs all of that to be good, but typically, it's a good start.

Reviewed: Together in the End

Accepting

I’ll admit, this story’s idea is nothing new. I’ve seen ideas similar to it done in, well, almost everything ever (Majora's Mask, Teen Titans, FFXIV, etc.). However, just because an idea has been done a lot doesn’t mean that it can’t be done well, and this story is living evidence of that, making for one of the best Doomsday stories I’ve ever seen.

Here’s the story: the world is coming to an end. There’s only a few precious hours left until the world is destroyed by an incoming meteor, one that’s large enough to grind their world into dust. Celestia and Luna had headed out to try to stop it, but were never seen again. The only options Equestria has left will result in the extinction of the entirety of their race, meaning that there’s nothing anypony can do but wait for the world to end. The story follows Rainbow Dash, showing how she spends her final moments with Scootaloo, and describing everything up to the final moments of their lives, before the incoming meteor ends them.

So, what does this story do well? Well, it does quite a bit well. First off, the characters are portrayed perfectly. The story goes into a decent amount of detail about how Rainbow and Scootaloo act, portraying their reactions excellently. In addition, the other members of the Main 6, although they’re reduced to cameos via flashback, all act very much in character as well. Although they’re all unable to be with one another for the end of the world, it’s clear that they will have the others in their minds until the end. There wasn’t a single moment where anyone was OOC here, which made it easy to get immersed. Also helping immersion was the fact that the pacing was perfect, going fast enough to avoid getting tedious, while still going slow enough to show us everything the characters go through. Another thing worth noting is the grammar. Throughout the whole thing, I could only find one minor grammar error:

She just didn't realise it would happen so decidedly, nor that it was actually going to happen today.

However, even that grammar error is only an error in the United States, meaning that outside of the USA, the story has absolutely flawless grammar. Even in the US, one grammar error in a 4000+ word story is really impressive. Finally, the atmosphere is incredible. The story is incredibly gripping, and all throughout it, I felt an odd mixture of feelings; I felt down at points, while at other points, I found myself smiling at points where Scootaloo brings up something that she feels would give a shred of hope for herself and Rainbow Dash (she thinks that Rainbow can outfly this thing.) However, all throughout it, I felt a feeling of… finality, I guess is the best word. It’s hard to explain, but throughout the story, I desperately was hoping that something would save everypony from this fate, hoping that something would come up that would fix everything, but at the same time, I knew that such a thing wouldn’t come. All throughout this story, I was feeling every single thing that the characters felt, which kept me invested the whole way through.

The only real flaw I could find with the story was one minor plothole: why is Celestia able to move the sun, yet unable to move something smaller like this asteroid? At first, it seems hard to believe. However, after thinking about it, I realized that even that could be explained: who’s to say that Equestria is heliocentric? Maybe they’re geocentric, which by definition, would mean that the sun is actually smaller than their planet. If that was true, then this meteor would be a far bigger celestial body than the sun or moon would ever be, meaning that even the movers of the sun and moon couldn’t alter its course. Yes, there’s only one flaw, and even it is easily explainable by the fact that we don’t know much about how their solar system works, so for all we know, it could make complete logical sense in their world.

So, what is my verdict? Let it in. Everything this story did was handled excellently: the idea, while somewhat cliché, is one of the best executions of it I’ve ever seen, the characters are excellent, the pacing is perfect, the atmosphere is not only there, but is also incredibly gripping, and I couldn’t find a single flaw that couldn’t easily be worked around. It's an excellent read, and one that's more than worthy of the title 'Goodfic'. If you're into end of the world stories, dark stories, tragedies, or just really good stories in general, check this story out. It's a good one.

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After a final greeting and speech, the Princesses of the Sun and Moon set out to destroy the danger once and for all. They haven't been heard from since.]

The two were later seen in a seedy bar drunkenly reminiscing over 'those poor sad bastards from Equestria' before collapsing.

4198428 Sorry for taking so long to file it . My job called me in before I could finish filing the story. It should be in the right place now. Cheers

Really good rating, yet not too long? What on Earth could possibly go wrong?
Reviewing: Hay-oh, Welcome to Hayburger

4199447 It's not even got a dislike. Even excellent stories have some of those.

What the hell is this?!