Title: Shuttlepod Down

Author: Sparky Brony

Amount Read: 100% (Total Words: 10,365)
Rating:
Plot/Theme: 14/20
Technical/Structure: 5/10
Characters: 8/10
Subjective: 6/10
Total: 33/50
Verdict: 6.5/10 - Recommend Rejection (Second Opinion by BleedingRaindrops)

Overview:

Of all the television series that I have had the pleasure of viewing, Star Trek has got to be up there as one of my favorites. It was a Sci-fi show that was more than just a Sci-fi show. More than a handful of people will even go so far as to claim that it molded the genre to what it is today.

In Star Trek, though, it wasn't just about getting into spaceships and flying away to remote regions of the galaxy. If you dig deeper into it, you can see the very core values we cherish as individuals. It does a phenomenal job at exploring the human condition and shake the very foundation of not only how we treat others but how we treat ourselves as well.

So when I see a Star Trek fanfiction done well, I cannot help but be ecstatic as I read it. From the near flawless characterization of the entire cast to the well driven plot, this story is well worth a reading, regardless of my decision with regards to this story.

Technical/Structure:

There are a fair number of punctuation errors (missing commas, apostrophes, sometimes mixing up commas and periods for punctuation between dialogue) within the body of the text. This marginally detracts from the narrative in the form of run-on sentences.

It is important to note that I spotted a few other technical issues as well. I spotted a few sentence fragments as well as missing a question mark for an interrogative sentence.

The story is otherwise fairly easy to follow along with from a technical standpoint.

Characters:

The characterization in this piece was phenomenal. The attention to detail in the nuances of their dialogue and their actions was on point almost start to finish.

Take this for example:

She flinches back, after a moment, he huffs, " dermal regenerator, it's in that cabinet," he points without looking. Twilight moves over to the cabinet and unfurls her wings to get added height. Her horn lights and the cabinet opens. The device flies over and slaps into the outstretched hand of the other human, he growls, "Thanks. At least someone knows how to be efficient."

The Doctor's lack of patience and irritation in this scene were captured brilliantly. There were several other moments where the characters each had moments where they shined.

The only real concern, which is only minor, that I had came when Twilight killed Hirogen in the engineering. I hadn't thought it would be in Twilight's programming to kill, even in the name of protecting Naomi, and her failure in making the promise not to kill again.

The sentiment, however, is powerful because it's out of protection for the girl. It is conceivable that the Hirogen could wake up before Twilight has completed her objective, and she couldn't guarantee Naomi's safety.

Plot/Theme:

There are typical Star Trek occurrences intermingling with the rest of the story, from the shuttlepod crashing down to malfunctions on the holodeck.

It starts with the simple issue of Diamond Tiara bullying the Cutie Mark Crusaders again. The issue, which was Diamond accusing the Crusaders of being changelings, was interesting; the fact she was able to convince her father of this obvious lie is nothing short of a feat for anypony else, but it displays her talents of leading others fairly well.

The whole issue seemed rather minor and unimportant, and it isn't long before one realizes why it comes off that way. When it is revealed that My Little Pony was nothing more than a hologram, everything clicked into place. It gave the reader that sense of 'Aha! I knew something was off!'

The plot from here on out follows in line with a Hirogen attack on the Starship Voyager. Twilight Sparkle manages to escape the confounds of her programming, and she proceeds to go out of her way to protect Naomi from the Hirogen.

I found the plot's flow in the final act of the story to be slightly too fast paced, particularly during the scene in engineering. The pacing wasn't quite slow enough to build proper emotional tension in the scene, which created the disconnect I found with Twilight in killing off the Hirogen.

Aside from the pacing, the story does well to establish the issues at hand. For example, the holodeck's matrices can't project Twilight's image outside of the holodeck or sickbay, and so she must go to sickbay, where she finds The Doctor's mobile emitter. Only then was she able to freely search for and protect Naomi.

The ending, however, was abrupt. This was intentional, and while it is highly regarded narrative device, it is difficult to pull off properly. The device is most effective at the most dramatic part of the scene. Right then is when it is most effective to pull the trigger. As it was, there wasn't enough foreshadow to create the dramatic moment from Q's entrance. As a result, the conclusion comes across as being left field.

Conclusion:

This story was really well made. I found the characterization to be really well depicted. The mechanical issues weren't sufficient enough to create a jarring experience. Finally, the theme was woven into the plot to create the kind of atmosphere one might expect from an episode on Star Trek. However, the pacing in the engineering scene could be polished to create more emotional tension, and the ending could either use more foreshadow beforehand or go on a tad longer to create a bigger revelation on the reader. This story is otherwise well worth the read.

Title: Sweetie Belle Gets Stoned

Author: Sparky Brony

Amount Read: 100% (Total Words: 1,609)
Rating:
Plot/Theme: 12/20
Technical/Structure: 7/10
Characters: 7/10
Subjective: 5/10
Total: 31/50
Verdict: 6/10 - Recommend Rejection

Overview:

'Stay away from drugs, kids everyone, it's bad for your health'. I won't refute or endorse this statement for all drugs, but it is accepted that drugs, at least of the nature that this particular work focuses on, are genuinely bad for your health.

This story focuses on weed in particular. For the sake of this review, we will see how it handles the affects that it has on the mind as well as the comedic impact it imparts from the taking of said drugs.

Technical/Structure:

The technical errors in this piece are mostly minor. There were comma splices present within the story, and I feel a few more commas could have been added, particularly some of the longer sentences.

I do note, however, that the narrative did alternate between present and past tense within the same scene. However, it didn't occur within the same sentences nor the same paragraphs, and it didn't create a jarring effect, so it was a fine use of the two tenses in this instance.

Characters:

The characters portrayed in this narrative behaved slightly differently than I expected, although the behavior is consistent throughout the piece. I posit from this finding that these characteristics, which were present on the show, were accentuated here for comedic purposes.

There is relatively little in the way of development within this piece, but I find leaving the characters static here to be quite alright, opting instead to expand upon the effects of drugs in a comedic manner.

Plot/Theme:

Sitting at around sixteen hundred words, this story doesn't have many focal plot points which it addresses. The overarching theme does well to represent the effects the drugs have on the body. They didn't suspend Apple Bloom out of malicious intent; rather, they taking amusement from their high, not even realizing that there was something wrong with their actions.

The story had some comedic moments to it, but it was ultimately too short to give that oomph, that punchline, that I was looking for in a comedy.

Conclusion:

This story was a good short. It addressed the theme well, the characterization was believable, and the technicals weren't too detrimental to the piece. It just needed to be a little longer to drive home the inanity of Sweetie Belle's situation from taking the drugs, and so it is with my regret that I am rejecting this piece at this time. Despite this, the story is still well worth a read.

Story: Twilight Years by Dafaddah

Amount read: All

Verdict: 8/10 - Accepted

Premise

I didn't exactly know what to expect when I dove into this story, just that there would be humans and that there was a Sad tag. What came surprised me quite a bit.

Now, I think I'll have to put forward that the issue the story deals with is one that touches me deeply for a number of reasons. It made writing this review difficult as I had to untangle my personal feelings from what could be considered objective criticism (or as objective as it can realistically be) and consider how it could be received by other readers, which are whom this review is written for.

My conclusion, at the end of my prolonged musings, is that we have a very good story that handles complicated themes quite gracefully, yet has a couple of issues that keep it from being truly great.

Technical aspect

Nothing much to say here. The story flows well, the grammar is solid and the voices of the characters came over pretty well.

The first chapter is probably the best in this case. We start to get a good feeling for George, the human character, simply by how he confronts problems and how he moves through his day.

This actually becomes less evident in later chapters, and the diminishing intimacy of the writing is contributing of robbing the ending of some of its potential impact.

Story structure

Through the story, the point of view slowly shifts from George to Twilight, with the mutating perspective following the slow, painful loss experienced by the characters. This repeating of the theme on different layers is one of the strengths of the fic. Every experience and every relationship are either a reflection or a reaction to the situation and the desires of the characters. It goes well with the totalizing effect the sickness has on those experiencing it and on their loved ones. It is also a risky way of telling a story.

Fortunately, the grace with which this is handled makes for a bitter-sweet tale about life and avoids being an overly heavy misery trip. This elevates it right into acceptance, despite its few issues.

There is then the problem that the solution of the mystery causing the inciting event is not very satisfactory. While this is a minor part of the whole, and one that doesn't affect the rest of the tone at all, it still leaves the reader wanting and feels a tad rushed.

Characters

The voices are solid and Twilight is In Character. George, on the other hand, could be defined better. We learn a lot, about him mainly in the first chapter, but that refers to him in the present. We lack a sense of historical perspective, of what happened to make him the man he is when he meets Twilight, of what his life was.

The final effect is that, when we reach the end, the connection one feels to the character is not as strong as it could have been. Exploring a bit more who George is would have been nice, as he is a pleasant guy and I was genuinely curious about him.

Conclusion

Aside from all the criticism I have piled upon this story, it is good and touched me deeply in less than seventeen thousand words. I can easily recommend it.

The difficult theme is treated with empathy and tact. It is a deeply humane tale, dwelling on what we are and how we end more than on flashy adventure or fun shenanigans. While those are quite valid aspects of stories that can make for great fiction, it is good to sometimes get down into the more intimate details of our lives and examine them. And to cherish what we love before it becomes lost in the oblivion.

Title: Tales of the Rainmaker
Author: BleedingRaindrops
Amount read: Every chapter published
Final Rating: 4/10 [Reject]

Tales of the Rainmaker is a story centred around our mare pegasi protagonist Rainstream as she tells her story of how she became so enamoured with the rain to an earth pony colt called List. That is the plot in a nutshell, and one might think to due to its simple plot it would be a rather short read… alas, it is not. The vibe that exudes from every pore of this fiction is that it is strongly reminiscent of the ‘flashback’ episodes one would see in a television show or an exposition dump from a particular character in a book chapter and would be dedicated to telling the backstory of a previously established character. This was seen in the MLP episode The Cutie Mark Chronicles in which we learnt of all the mane six’s cutie marks and the stories of how they came to acquired them. So why am I writing all this? This entire fiction is dedicated to that, telling a backstory of a character we only just met. Whilst true, we get to see her character in action the first chapter, it doesn’t even end before we are thrown in learning her backstory, which as of this moment is incomplete and still going on. Therefore, I don’t believe I am at liberty of judging the whole fic properly because it has yet to be completed, but I must stress: this fiction feels like it should have been a mere chapter in a much bigger fiction. But since that is the case, my review will largely leave out story since it isn’t complete, and instead focus primarily on the other factors I’d judge in a review. So to emphasise, plot/story will not be judged due to the work being incomplete, which yes, will hamper the score overall. That being said, in my judging of other criteria, the story will come up.

Grammar was largely a non-issue. Of course, there were plenty of errors. For instance, the author utilises commas at the end of the speech: “This is an example,” / Yet after the speech (which we can see isn’t an end sentence) they follow it up with a capital letter: “This is an example,” He said. / They’re half-correct in comma placement, but make an error of capitalising after the speech. A frequent error is seen throughout mostly the first chapter. An additional nitpick, is that thoughts aren’t differentiated from the description, I.E. they are not in italics. Weirdly, after the first two chapters these issues seem to dissipate, but really the author should have gone back to rid the fic of the errors. Spelling errors are absent, as one would expect nowadays, and occasionally there are missing indentations/paragraphing. Overall: 8/10

Characters, well, this… hmm. One thing I dislike is the Mary Sue trope. So, one of the unfortunate pitfalls that Rainstream falls into, which the author does attempt to subvert at the beginning by making other ponies dislike her, is that she is a Mary Sue. But a special kind of mary sue, one that is both simultaneously optimistic and chipper, yet a crybaby for lack of a better term and excels at everything and is better than all of her classmates and every pony likes her without issue and on and on and on. I won’t spoil anything else. I myself was only made aware of this myself when I first read the first chapter and initially thought, like Fluttershy, she was incapable of flying but eventually learns to thanks to the rain. It’s predictable, yes, but a nice ‘slice of life-esque’ plot that should leave you heart warmed. When I read:

Ugh, that was so embarrassing! Rainstream was a far better flier than any of the other students. She could actually fly on her own! Some of them couldn’t get themselves off the ground if they tried.

and saw that she was also being arrogant and that her flying capabilities actually surpassed her peers (she was actually nervous, preventing her from flying in the earlier chapter.) I thought: Oh, well I suppose this is a story about her getting her cutie mark. But…

“I hadn’t realized it yet, but my cutie mark had appeared sometime during the making of that rain.”

So not only does she get it, she gets it off screen to speak, mentioned in an offhanded comment to List at the start of the second chapter. So now we have a protagonist who excels at flying, got her cutie mark early, and is put into a

“-accelerated learning program just so you’re not bored all the time.”

So, I am going to now apologise for ranting, but it seems like instead of every other character in this fic being characters in their own right, they’re there purely to advance the plot for Rainstream I.E. They’re sentient talking posts, who in turn talk back, ask her questions, reward her, and lack any kind of individuality whatsoever. In a way, it’s like they’re NPCs in a video game, each one of them dumps exposition (barring List who Rainstream is dumping exposition on) and teaches the protagonist new skills. There was one character who I found interest but lacked a considerable presence in the fic long enough to make an impact. So the only two characters in this entire fiction who come across as ‘characters’ are List and Rainstream. List, at least to me, after chapter one is merely there to ‘wow’ and is amazed at the story Rainsteam is telling… of this being said, I must concede one point. The emotions of Rainstream are pleasantly realistic to a degree, barring the constant and unending supply of tears and that she and rest of the cast have. Irrationality, sorrow, joy, etcetera. When I saw them displayed in the fiction, they were done well. Overall: 3/10

Technicals were sub-par. We get a good feeling for the characters as they’re introduced, but the overall flow of the story is quite odd. Chapters begin where others would have ended, massive/important events are hardly given attention and despite the story being told to List, the lies she makes are made aware to the reader and not to the colt. It would have been interested to see certain events revealed much later and therefore have the implications of that lie leave our jaws hanging, but that is admittedly a lot of effort to plan in advance. Overall: 5/10

To instil a more subjective perspective, I must apologise to the author, but I must make aware that this fiction feels like a lot of wasted potential. It’s a minor spoiler, but by the end of all the progress made thus far, this story feels like it’s going to becoming a fic of an entirely different genre than when started. I get the feeling this initially began as a ‘cutiemark’ story, but the author wanted to do more, hence the offhanded mention of it in the second chapter. We are no longer learning why she likes the rain, or can even see how these stories are comforting the colt trapped with her in her guest house to teach him no longer be afraid of the rain. A slice of life story does not expand into nation crossing adventure or impose unrealistic and far-fetched story lines. As a slice of life story, we, the reader, are expected to learn the life lessons the protagonist has learnt as well as learn some things along with them. I am learning nothing, except how to fly on updrafts, create rain, and fly to a foreign land to meet a new species. Simplicity is the best component of a slice of life, and if this story was reined in, a focus primarily on characters and not drama, this could have been a lot more.

I’d also like to state, this is my first review. I hope to review much more fictions in the future, and can’t wait to read what others have in store.

Yours sincerely, Jackelope.

Title: Forget Me Not

Author:  Harmony Pie

Amount Read: All

Rating: 6.5/10

Final Decision: Reject

Review:
When it comes to the technical aspects of this story. Nothing jumped out at me. No missed comma placements, no serious spelling errors that detract from the narrative of the story. Speaking of the narrative, the story moves at a consistent pace throughout, being a relatively short story at a shade under six thousand words, this story is actually quite enjoyable.

That being said, my biggest gripe about it, Rarity doesn’t feel believable. There is way too much telling vs showing in this story. It really is a very sweet story, but…it doesn’t FEEL like the author puts themselves in Rarity’s head and tries to show how she feels to Twilight. I don’t mind Ditzy/Derpy being the deliverymare, but I was hoping for some more exploration as to Twilight’s responses to the missives. At least when it comes to the first one, go into depth, show Twilight’s emotions, how she feels receiving such a message. Just have her saying she analyzed the writing…that really doesn’t work very well. And the entire story suffers from way too much glossing over the events of the story itself. And when the story IS the events…it turns what could be a really great story into an okay story, or worse.

In summary, this story has a great premise and the writing is fairly good, but it suffers in the execution and sadly must be rejected. Thank you for the submission. Keep writing, learning how to craft the showing vs the telling in a story is one of the hardest things to do.

Title: My Wings Will Keep You Safe
Author: Brony250
Score: 8.5/10

‘Drama, usually, is of a conflict between characters. Not in an action sort of way, but in a more reserved ‘I disagree with you on this fundamental level concerning this particular issue. However, the drama in this comes from an admittedly more approachable and relatable aspect. The relationship between two people, or ponies in this case. It’s necessarily romantic, but how well and genuine the way two characters interact with one another to draw us, the reader, in. Is it realistic, engaging, and emotive? And to answer that question about this fic, and whether the author pulled it off, I can say with a resounding and ear shattering yes.

My wings will keep you safe has a rather simple plot. Applebloom is trapped in Twilight’s library during a thunderstorm. I’m aware this is similar to my last review, but that’s where the similarities end. Concerning a fiction on a scale as small as this, I think one of the best compliments you can give it is that it seems almost like a genuine episode you’d see from the show itself. One thing that I won’t factor in but want to state: Applebloom is adorable in this fic. As she should be by default.

“Thank ya... Mommy.”

Plot wise, it has a very simple foundation, as a slice of life fiction should have. I’d say the only two flaw of this fic is the two interruptions to the plot progression in the form of Steelwing’s appearance and everything regarding that mostly. I haven’t read the author’s other works, but I’m getting a strong feeling this is a character in one of the author’s other fictions. I don’t feel like it was absolutely necessary, and it’d make sense for Applejack to have asked on her sister’s whereabouts from Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle if she was worried of her sister’s whereabouts. That comes off as something of a plot hole. Other than that hiccup, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the plot or story of this fiction for what it was. Oddly enough we even get a minor plot point about motherhood and joy Twilight felt from it, even if only by proxy of caring for Applebloom for a night. Twilight get’s a taste of family greater than being a sibling and daughter, and this is the second story that runs alongside the primary one of the thunderstorm. Fear brought Applebloom and Twilight together, and after it, they became closer than ever. It’s a real feel good fiction and there’s nothing wrong with that. 9/10

Technical wise, it’s good. It lingers overly on the emphasising what we already know - that Applebloom is afraid of the lighting - and disrupts the flow with the aforementioned Steelwing. The story progresses naturally otherwise. It's good. Overall: 8/10

Grammar is fantastic. No issues whatsoever. My only gripe would be the subjective capitalisation of complete sentences. Overall: 10/10

Characters are portrayed somewhat faithfully. I’d argue that their differences and mannerisms from the show are done so to facilitate the movement of the plot. Applebloom’s tearful proclamation of Twilight as family and Twilight kissing AB on the head as she slept are examples, although from a dramatic standpoint they make sense. Every other character seems like themselves, barring Scootaloo’s exclamation against Fluttershy at the beginning (might have been prudent to not capitalise the full sentence here. It reads as though she is screaming.). Since the characters are not original, only the situation, no extra points aren’t granted for originality. Overall 7/10

This was a good, cute, heartwarming story and should leave a smile on your face. It’s not a masterpiece, the story isn’t some grand epic nor is it full of twists and turns that will leave your head spinning. This is a good fiction, plain and simple. CMC interaction with older ponies isn't all that common, and seeing the interaction of Applebloom and Twilight to a heartwarming crescendo was admittedly delightful. I liked this fiction. I wouldn't say I love it, but I'd say I'd remember for a time, and when I forgot it and see it in my favourites, chances are I'd give it a second read. This is a fiction I'd recommend you read, if only for the heartwarming aspects. I do wish this review was a lot longer, but I do have to admit the greatest strength of this fic is also somewhat it's the biggest weakness. Throughout I constantly panged the buzzword 'simple', but that's what it is, simple. And I don't know about you, but I think we could all do with a bit of that every once and a while.

Title: Twilight, Sparkle by bloons3
Amount Read: All
Verdict: Reject (3.5/10)
Reason:

If you’ve ever wondered “What would it be like if Mordin Solus spoke entirely in Newspeak?”, then A. Look no further than this fic, and B. I would like some of whatever you are smoking. If you don’t know what either of those things I just referenced are, I pity the existence you call a life.

Pretty much everything I have to say about this fic, both good and bad, can be summed up in a few short words: this work is chaotic.

Chaos is a difficult and unique prompt to write, and I suppose I have to give the author some respect for capturing that actually quite well. There’s only one problem: I’m not sure that’s something you want to capture. The entire work seems like a jumbled stream of consciousness, with two very incoherent voices both trying to communicate to each other and argue about who gets to take control of Twilight Sparkle. At times, they fight by holding their breath and trying to pass out. Other times, they reach a compromise. But it’s just word after word after word of sometimes what feels like complete nonsense, and not in the comedic way. While it made a little more sense than TextpostBot 98, the technique is ultimately what bogs it down.

And that, therein, lies my main reason for this fic’s score: not only is it very difficult to read because of the word salad thrown at you, but because its pacing is very contradictory. Sentences are very choppy and use confusing wording, which are generally two things you want to avoid using at the same time. Choppy sentences make the reader speed up, because so much action is being packed into such a tiny space. But awkward language makes you trip up and try to go back, but you can’t because the pacing is speeding along at a mile a minute. It’s like making one bad mistake in Tetris and trying to make everything else fit into it; you’re trying to juggle all the new content rushing towards you, but at the same time you’re hung up on something that happened six shapes ago. Sooner or later, it just gets too unwieldy to keep track of and handle.

My main praise from this comes from the experimentation on the author’s part. It’s clear they wanted to try something different, and so they did. They wanted to capture the essence of chaos in writing, and unfortunately for them, they succeeded. Was this experiment a success? I say no, although not as disastrous as the time I got 99.7% error on a chemistry lab in high school (I still don’t understand chemistry). There might be something great in this fic, but whatever it would be is buried and tangled in a confusing web of...well, confusing-ness not totally unlike when you pull your headphones out of your pocket and they’ve transformed themselves into knots tighter than anything any sailor can make.

And in case it’s not obvious, I really love metaphors.

Title: Snails 1/2 Becoming Popular

Author: kitsy-chan

Amount Read: 100% (Total Words: 16,905)
Rating:
Plot/Theme: 16/20
Technical/Structure: 6/10
Characters: 8/10
Subjective: 9/10
Total: 39/50
Verdict: 8/10 - Recommend Acceptance

Overview:

The Ranma ½ series has always been a valuable source of entertainment for me. The inane situations that Ranma found himself in always got a rise of laughter out of me. Although the show was cast with a comedic overtone, it very heavily emphasized on the serious issues of transgenderism.

Ranma, the main protagonist of the show, was cursed to transform into a girl with the contact of cold water, and he was able to return to his normal form when he came into contact with hot water. Even though he showed the capability of acting like a girl several times throughout the show, however, he still displayed clear feelings of masculinity overall, regardless of his gender at the time.

Snails ½ Becoming Popular is a spoof of the original concept of Ranma ½. It takes several themes from the show, such as the profound ability to attract liquids to change the gender of the cursed protagonist, and apply them to the story. How well it executes it will be depicted in the following sections.

Technical/Structure:

The technical structure of the story is mostly solid with a few minor hiccups in punctuation. Periods and commas were periodically switched in between dialogue. Which one used depends on whether the dialogue precedes a beat or a saidism.

Additionally, there were a few commas that were missed in some areas and placed unnecessarily in others. Take the following two examples, for instance:

He thought, it shouldn't be hard.

Looking around quick Snails make break for it...

The last quote in particular was slightly confusing. There seemed to be a missing word, an issue with tense, and a missing comma to separate the gerund clause from the independent clause.

One other thing I noted was that the story consistently used numbers in the narrative, as follows:

"Daddy, I want 3, no 4 of the best dresses they can make...."

We would typically see the numbers written out. I deduce the reasoning behind this might be that it provides a cleaner stylization to the narrative.

I also noted that the beats adequately depicted characters' emotions, and saidisms--synonyms of said--were timely used to put emphasis at specific points in the narrative. This applied a natural feel to the dialogue.

Another thing I felt the need to highlight was the following quote.

"Oh yes, eat light however: a few small snacks should do."

Whenever I do these reviews, I always try to find some new information to gleam from them, and I was happy to learn something from this quote. It displays a knowledge of the usages of the colon that surpass its common usage. It is emphasizing the independent clause here, rather than the colon's more common use of beginning a list or series.

Characters:

While there weren't many points in the story where I could definitively say that its characterization particularly stood out to me, it felt fairly natural almost throughout its entirety. There is only one instance I could find that came across as inconsistent for a character with regards to their development:

Flinching, Escargot lowered her head submissively. He didn't want Diamond mad at him. None of this was his fault "I'm sorry Diamond Tiara, I didn't mean to. It's not my fault I'm prettier than you."

I fully expect this line of dialogue to come out of Ranma's mouth, which was usually directed at Akane. Snails, on the other hand, hasn't had adequate development up to this point to say something like this, mockingly or otherwise.

The mere fact that he would consider himself prettier than Diamond would be an indication that he was at least somewhat vain. The only qualities he demonstrated thus far, however, was of a meek individual who hasn't really been able to make heads or tails of his newfound gender.

Furthermore, it came off as slightly jarring to me that he would say something like this if he didn't want Diamond mad at him. If we are to take into consideration that Snails has spent any time with her whatsoever, he'd know a statement like that would make her positively livid.

There were a couple of defining moments of character development for Snails, though, that are worth highlighting for their merit.

The first is at the Princess contest, where Snails gives his speech to the crowd:

Shaking his head slowly, he looked at the judges, then the crowd. "I don't. I don't deserve to be a princess. It's not who or what I am." Sighing, he looked back at the CMC's. "I'm only here because my friends wanted me, needed me here. I'm not smart like Princess Twilight Sparkle, I'm not wise or regal like Princess Celestia or Princess Luna. I'm just a little pony."

"I'm sorry if I'm letting them down, but Noi is so gentle and beautiful. And Dinky, Dinky here has such a huge heart. They should be seen for what they are. They are so much more worthy than me to be the princess, and they want it for the right reasons."

His show of humility and his ability to see positive qualities in the other contestants are not only well depicted here, but this served as the first real moment where one might fully be able to fully relate to Snails as a compelling protagonist.

The second is when he is at the castle in Canterlot:

Without really moving, Celestia picked up a pitcher of water and moved it over Snails. With a gentle motion, she poured its contents over him. Tilting her head curiously, she watched him turn into a filly: the same filly from the Harvest Festival.

The door opened quickly and a guard ran in, "Sorry Princess, one of the guests..."

Celestia merely pointed to Escargot and winked.

The entire scene, in truth, could be quoted for its merit, but this passage here, in particular, denotes two things. One is that Princess Celestia's character had a strong voice--her expression--in this scene, despite saying very little.

The final thing that this passage depicts is that, for the first time since Snails has become cursed, somepony else has become aware of it. This in turn leads him to begin questioning over whether or not he should divulge his secret to Rarity and, implicitly, others.

These points in the narrative tell me that its characterization was mostly in line with the characters from the show and possessed fluid development leading up to its sequels.

Plot/Theme:

I found that the narrative, while fairly straightforward, had a few spots where pacing could have been fleshed out a little more. Take the following for example:

His hoof went off the edge of the slope and he started tumbling.

In the scene, Snails was being chased by Timberwolves through the Everfree Forest. The only fault I can find with it was that the fast-paced action didn't allow for the details of the scenery to fully catch up to the protagonist. Prior to this statement, there hadn't been any mention of a slope or cliff.

Finally Rarity finished showing off her dress. No harm, no damage done. Now she could escape. Carefully slipping off the stage, Escargot made her way through the crowd. Slipping right past his mom, he looked up. She was obviously trying to find him. With a huff he ran the last distance home. Getting undressed in his room he bounded into the shower again.

One hot shower later and he was himself again. Shaking himself off he quickly headed outside. Right into his mom.

There were a lot of events that transpired in this paragraph, which were glossed over without much interest in said events. The scene went from the stage to Snail's home and back rather quickly. The bigger question here is how he managed to slip away without anyone noticing and how he had time to get back to the contest before it concluded.

Conclusion:

To conclude this piece, there are a number of issues, which were already presented in the previous sections, that could be resolved to improve this story. I found that none of the issues I presented, however, were significant enough to leave me walking away from the piece dissatisfied.

Title: Snow And Sand: A World In Two Shrouds by Jackelope
Amount Read: All currently published (up through Chapter VII)
Verdict: Accept (8/10)
Reason:

For me to accept a fic into this group, you know it has to be good, and Snow And Sand: A World In Two Shrouds is no exception. So as always, I’m about to explain the bad parts of this story first.

The first issue I saw in this story is one that I always hate to see, because it’s so easily rectifiable: the text of the story itself. There are missing end quotes and punctuation, semicolons where semicolons don’t belong, periods instead of question marks, missing words, and on one occasion, two completely conflicting passages. The incident is located in Chapter V — Sunder III:

“She expectin’ us?”

The captain, again, refused to look anywhere but forward. “Always,” he replied curtly. “And do not refer to the Queen as anything but. To do so is to disrespect the Queen, and an affront to us.”

“Duly noted.” I’m surprised his head isn’t plastered in her shit, it’s so far up her ass. Sunder looked down to Steorra and the back up. “How long the Queen have us in her company.”

“That is for the Queen to decide. It is simply my task to bring you to her,” he replied.

“You said the Queen wasn’t expecting us.

Given it happens just a few sentences after, it’s clear the story could have benefitted not just in this location from some thorough proofreading: it reads like a first or second draft, not a final edition.

The second issue, and the one I think brings the story down more, is the plot. I’m not sure whether or not the author knows where it’s going; while he’s created a great deal of lore for the setting, not a lot about it happens in the 20,000+ words, and questions that could be easily answerable (even if they are shrouded in varying degrees of falsehood) are prevalent: what happened in the world? Why are there no more unicorns? Why are pegasi removed from the rest of society? Why do the North and the South hate each other so much? On that, why aren’t they unified? Normally you could offer a pass based on the grounds of “Everyone knows it, so you don’t need to say it” (a real-life example would be writing a story about people in the United States; someone unfamiliar with Earth’s history might wonder why there are so many people of European descent so far from Europe, but it’s not like we Yanks walk around every day talking about the colonial period), but Steorra is a young child and asks numerous questions throughout the story. Many of them are mostly unimportant things (such as “Why doesn’t it snow here?” Answer: it’s too hot), but it shows he lacks knowledge around the world outside of what he’s already experienced. Even if he is at least somewhat aware of some of the questions I posed, it would be very easy to at least touch on some of them through him. Given this was written for a contest with a concrete deadline, I don’t suppose it’s all that ludicrous an idea that the author was just buying time while he ironed out those details himself.

This story is not without its merits, however. Visually, it’s very beautiful. Describing the world around the characters is a very difficult thing to do, based on one question alone: how much detail is too much? We all acknowledge it exists, but seem to disagree on where the line is. Some fics are extremely lean when it comes to detail, leaving you do to all the leg work of imagining the scene. Others give you way too much (such as one story I once read where a single minor character had over 250 words describing her). This story reaches the perfect medium; the setting is described not too to-the-point, but doesn’t meander and just start waxing poetic. Besides from that, the descriptions are just beautiful. Descriptions very easily can fall into the pitfall of just becoming like a list of features, and this story doesn’t run into that issue.

Something that pleasantly surprised me about this story was the switching perspectives. Only once do two subsequent chapters follow the same character, and while I dreaded what I expected to be a glut of characters making it difficult to follow anything, I found anything but. The character count is kept very reasonable, and the transitions from one character to another are smooth and natural. Sure it usually only changes from Steorra to Sunder, but the one chapter following Crescent Sickle doesn’t seem out of place at all, but rather gives the story a little more perspective it didn’t already have.

The final thing (technically the revisiting of an earlier thing) is the lore. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic already has a surprisingly deep lore, meaning that the bar is set fairly high for someone wishing to create new lore and place it in the world. I believe this clears that bar, wonderfully fusing MLP’s pre-existing lore and world with high fantasy themes and turning the show itself from facts and history into myth and legend. There are tales within the story here and there that are familiar to the show’s canon, and bits and pieces of mythology that don’t exactly capture how events transpired, making you think about what must have happened in this world to dilute the facts as much as they were.

This is a good story held back by, but not completely floored by, many oversights in the prose, constant delaying of the main plot, and the Magical MacGuffin of (seemingly) the only unicorn left in the world and some mythical sort of promised land his father is trying to get him to. Those issues are not extremely serious, however, and the beautiful (if in need of an editor) writing and the lush and seamlessly added lore make the story shine enough for me of all people to accept it.

Title: HORSEMASK!!! In Equestria
Author: Midnight Chaos
Reviewer: Kalash93
Decision: Reject

There's not too much to say about this one. A joke and a meme became a fic. It's a 1300 word trollfic. Yes, it's funny. No, it's not enriching. I enjoyed reading it, but, for obvious reasons, despite its humor and technical flawlessness, I cannot accept it. Thanks for submitting it, though, author. It was a very welcome break from my other tasks.

Story: Before the Party by wildprince15
Amount read: 100%
Verdict: 3/10, rejected
Reasoning:

This story struggled from the get-go. The sentences were all "choppy" and disconnected, with most also being of similar length to the ones before and after, making the reading unpleasant. Furthermore, the uninspired word choice and repetition really dragged the quality down. A simple thesaurus could bring this fic's quality up a lot.

"It was called that on account of it being located in Ponyville, a town that got its name from all the miniature horses that roamed around the town, lead around by their masters toward the green pastures on the outskirts of the town."

Her adoptive parents, Timothy "Carrot" Cake, given the nickname on account of his auburn hair, and Margaret "Cup" Cake, given the nickname on account of her...less than modest time as a younger woman

This story also suffers from semi-frequent spelling, capitalisation and punctuation errors, a mistake which can easily be fixed with either an editor or simply a review of writing rules.

The story's plot, too, is lacking. Every scene feels dull and unimportant, without any development of the characters at all or even much relevant to the story. Furthermore, each character is portrayed as an overplayed version of their usual selves, and not in the amusing way but rather in an annoying, cringeworthy display of bland, stereotypical people. From the short amount of story that we get, all Fluttershy does is cower and whimper. All Twilight does is, as Rainbow puts it, "nerd out". All Rainbow does is "be awesome". All Rarity does is say "Darling" all the time. And Pinkie Pinkamena, since that is oddly how she is referred to in this, is... dead, actually. Or, you know, she died after being struck by a lightning bolt but re-awoke a day later. Oh, and she got a week off school after dying, which seems to be her biggest worry.

It's genuinely as crazy as it sounds. But, sadly, that was all I could take from this story since the rest of it contributed nothing significant to the plot so that it did not manage to hook my attention at all. Should the author change things up somewhat so that the events described in the story actually contribute to the overall tale, however, and so that the events in the story—or at least the characterisation—are more believable, then this story could do much better.

Title: Harissa
Author: Orbiting Kettle
Amount Read: All
Rating: 8.5/10
Final Decision: Accept

Review:

Fanfiction, in general, is a very nice genre to write for. You have established characters that the author can use to create the narrative for the reader. You know Twilight Sparkle, her back story as revealed within the confines of the show, and an author can expand upon that, while staying true to what makes her a special and unique character. When it comes to Zecora, her entire back story is pretty much a blank canvas. Open to how the author wants to craft the story.

This story is excellent, in a nutshell, Zecora is in the process of cooking a meal for her Ponyville friends. But, she’s also remembering her past. And boy…what a past it is! Through the story, we see that Zecora was a queen of the zebras, and that they were involved in a bloody and very costly war. We see her joy of having a filly, and then we see the betrayal, and the fight for that war. And in the end, she decides that her experiences in that war make her unsuitable to be the leader. This shows Zecora as a very strong character. What makes it even better, she’s not just making the food for herself and her friends, but also for her daughter, which shows up at the very end of the narrative. This story, right here, is very good fanfiction.

I thoroughly enjoyed the read, and am happy to accept this story into the Café, well done and bravo. Keep it up!

Title: Snails 1/2: The Perfect Stallion

Author: kitsy-chan

Amount Read: 100% (Total Words: 68,726)
Rating:
Plot/Theme: 14/20
Technical/Structure: 5/10
Characters: 9/10
Subjective: 6/10
Total: 34/50
Verdict: 6.8/10 - Recommend Rejection

Overview:

In contrast to its prequel, I felt that Snails ½: The Perfect Stallion started out a little bit stronger in terms with its thematic concept. It is established right from the beginning that he is struggling to come to grips with his identity, and this remains more prevalent throughout the story than its predecessor seemed to.

Technical/Structure:

While the overall scene flow felt mostly smooth, there were a number of technical issues that detracted from its overall enjoyment. I noted punctuation errors, comma misuse, and the occasional capitalization errors with names.

Escargot turned around and made for the castle. It was another 10 min run back, but at least he had long legs.

Numbers were not spelled out here, as I noted with the last story. Additionally, minutes were truncated down to 'min'. I recommend against the use of truncated words wherever possible.

Sometimes, however, it makes more sense to use, especially in dialogue. 'Plane' for airplane is a perfect example. This is just for future reference, and the singular use does not detract much from the overall experience.

"Make me." Diamond Tiara probably regretted saying that as soon as she said it.

The above quote captures a point where Diamond Tiara is being confrontational. In the following paragraph, it is revealed that Gisa, Escargot's companion, takes this as a challenge and physically assaults her.

This is really more of a touch-up, but I felt it would have been better to add the beat in with the following paragraph to improve the overall flow of the scene. I also found the word 'probably' to be unnecessary.

Lifting the pillow off Snails's face, Gisa looked down at the colt, tears in his eyes.

There are a few awkwardly written sentences in the story, and the above quote is no exception. I know that, in this scene, Snails is the one who is crying, yet this reads off as if Gisa is the one who is crying. She is the one doing the actions in the first half of the sentence, so it comes off as jarring to express his actions in the latter half.

Looking up, Snails shook his head, "Pinkie put it in front of me, I'll try not to think about it."

There were number of comma splices, especially toward the end of the narrative, that also detracted from the experience. The above quote depicts one such instance, which can easily be remedied with a semicolon or a period for punctuation.

Characters:

One of the first things that I noticed right from the beginning of this story was that Snails' conscious struggle against his gender identity was more explicit in this piece. I feel that it was well defined here, and really shaped how the narrative played out to its benefit. Below are a few quotes to highlight his ongoing struggle.

Pausing at the door, he reached up with a foreleg and grumbled, "I just want to know why nopony respects me as a colt."

The above quote not only explicitly defines his bond, his frustrations over being respected as a colt and unicorn, but it also feeds into his struggle in keeping his identity a secret from his new friends, the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

He's afraid that revealing his secret will have lasting repercussions resulting not only in him being disowned by his father, but rejected by his new friends, as he soon comes to find out.

"Good, now why don't you and Snips go swimming or something?"
Snails drooped. He used to love swimming.

This further highlights his struggle. There are certain aspects of his life that had to be given up in order to maintain his secret. As time goes on, it becomes more apparent how increasingly difficult it becomes to keep his curse hidden from everyone.

There are other characters that play pivotal roles in defining this piece. His father, Long Haul, for example, is constantly forcing his idealisms onto Snails, which further enhances his struggle. Snails put into question things he would otherwise not have thought. He begins to wonder whether or not his curse is affecting him, and perhaps to some degree it has.

Plot/Theme:

There are a few oddities with regard to the scenes' flow. Although it was rare, there were a few times where I did not understand exactly what was going on. Take the following quote for example.

The large wash tub had gotten away from Flitter and Cloudchaser and slammed into the ground mere feet from Escargot. It bounced, then rolled down the street, eventually settling against a fence. Unfortunately, the hot water inside hit her with all it had.

What exactly happened here? How did the wash tub get away?

There were a few odd moments, such as in the following quote, where the dialogue just abruptly ends. This created a jarring experience for me, and it isn't determined until later that he had given up trying to convince them to avoid Escargot, and had instead sought Twilight and Rarity for guidance.

Sweetie Belle shook her head. "If he's bad she'll need all of us more than ever. But thanks for the warning, we'll be ready for Diamond Tiara's tricks."

Turning he walked out and ran towards Twilights castle. He needed help, he just didn't know what to do anymore. The door was already open so he ran inside. Slowing he tried to control his breathing as he walked towards the throne room. Inside was the grand map of Equestria and beyond. Twilight sat in her chair looking at the map, as did Rarity.

The final thing that I'd like to bring up would be the OVA specials. They are more of a mixed bag of good and bad for me. On the one hand, the inclusion of said specials provides a sense of completeness in that we get to see the protagonist grow with the change of the seasons.

On the other hand, they seem to be interjected at odd times within the narrative. I couldn't help but feel that these specials could stand to their own separate entities. None of them seemed to have a specific timeline in which they occurred with the exception of the last one.

I found myself having to go back to the previous chapters to jar my memories of what happened. Sure, I could skip all of the 'OVA' chapters entirely, but since they are a part of the rest of the narrative, I must treat them as such.

Conclusion:

By no means does this mean this piece doesn't deserve a read. I fully recommend it. There were a number of redeeming qualities to the narrative; the characterization in it was phenomenal, and the overarching theme was well-defined and remained prevalent throughout.

I felt, however, that the mechanical issues and the issues in scene flow were sufficient to reject this work at this time. Additionally, I felt that the 'OVA' specials could have been standalone one-shots, perhaps touched up to stand a little stronger as separate entities from the main work.

Review of "DiamondBloom’s Hangout Time" by Princess Amore Dudette

Amount Read: All/~6000 words

Verdict: 5/10 rejection

Rationale:
Bit of a weak opening, as the narrator struggles to describe what Diamond Tiara is thinking in a clear and concise manner, but perhaps that is the point. Either way, the clumsiness of the opening can be forgiven if the story picks up soon enough, which it clearly does. The scene delivers a crushing punchline and then resolves the joke nicely at the end of the chapter.

As the story goes on, however, a problem appears with Diamond Tiara’s character. She feels like a wooden prop, inserted into the story to suit the author’s needs. There’s no subtely or substance to her emotions, she just wants what the story wants, and screw anypony who tries to stand in its way. This story could be a cute series of interactions between Diamond Tiara and Apple Bloom as they grow close to each other, but instead all we have is a series of cheesy, hackneyed, ridiculous, over the top encounters that draw more gags and eyerolls than heart flutters, and stretch suspension of disbelief beyond the breaking point.

Several proofreading errors slipped through the cracks. This could use another pass.

but there was no doubt in her mind that she would one day rise to Greatness second to none.

Awkward phrasing, and a misplaced capital

Even princess Celestia would have to bow to her

Princess*

Diamond Tiara cackled at the thought of ruling over princess Celestia.

Princess

asking her to come out her to this parking lot

what?

"What's eating her?" she asked to no one in particular. She then gave a shrug and walked back over to her play set.

Who?

Things continue, and this all starts to feel less like a well thought out plot and more like something you dreamt up while drunk. Oddly enough, the sequences written by Diamond Tiara actually do seem almost adorable given that they were dreamt up by a child’s imagination. It’s like the lego movie effect. It seems like a poorly thought out story until you realize a child wrote it, and then it’s just impressive. Sadly that’s not the case here. I want to be able to call this cute, but there’s not enough time and effort put into it for the effect to come across properly.

I could almost forgive all of this, if the you had maybe gone one step further, and delved into hilariously bad territory. Some things are funny just because of how bad they are, and if that’s what this was supposed to be, I say you didn’t try hard enough. Put some real thought into the construction of your story, add a heaping serving of TLC to this story, and resubmit.

5/10

I hope this helped. Feel free to ask any questions via PM and as always, Never Stop Writing.

Title: An Angel of Grief

Author: Nugget

Amount Read: 100% (Total Words: 2,121)
Rating:
Plot/Theme: 15/20
Technical/Structure: 10/10
Characters: 6/10
Subjective: 4/10
Total: 35/50
Verdict: 7/10 - Recommend Rejection (Second Opinion by MidnightChaos)

Overview:

It's not often I read a fanfiction inspired by the work of Edgar Allan Poe, specifically "The Raven". The tale did an excellent job of capturing the macabre tonality of the inspirational piece with its descriptive scenery and flamboyant stylization. The following sections will highlight what I believe to be the specific merits and detriments to the narrative.

Technical/Structure:

I want to start right off by saying that I spotted very few, if any, mechanical issues within the body of this narrative. There is a very elegant stylization to this writing that leaves quite the impression. It really is quite exemplary.

Characters:

This short story, which only features the protagonist, has adequately designed characterization for its length. The protagonist is very quickly established as a somber individual, who is at a low point in his life after the death of a loved one, which is later revealed to be his wife. As a shadow of his former self, he scrutinizes the state of the cemetery he walks into, which reflects the state of his shattered emotional state.

My main gripe here comes in the form of his development as a character. The only discernable character development that I could place comes at the end in just a few short paragraphs, which I felt didn't adequately express his epiphany that allows him to move on from his wife's death.

Subjectively, I felt the development also presented a tonality shift that was slightly jarring. I would have sooner expected him to see his wife's grave and then live the rest of his days knowing only bitterness and cruelty. However, broadening the scope of the narrative to include subtle cues toward his ultimate revelation with his wife's wisdom would have worked as well.

Areas of suggestion to execute said cues could be in the form of scenes or snippets of dialogue that could have double meanings. At face value it could have negative connotations that, only upon revelation, would take on a whole new meaning. Incorporating that into the narrative without disrupting flow could come in the form of reminders from the scenery that lead into the cues.

Plot/Theme:

The thematic concept presented in this story, inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's work "The Raven", is overall well executed. The scenery does an excellent job of reflecting the protagonist's emotion, and the tonality set by it was clearly defined to drive that emotion.

There wasn't much in the way of focal plot points, but I don't feel that is a detriment for the purpose of this piece. Too many would only serve to disrupt the established tonality, given the nature of the scene.

Below are a few highlights that I wish to depict in this review:

I could think of a time when this place was lively, full of color from the roses, pines, and bushes surrounding the site in nature's own tight, warm hug. I remember on any given day, you could, ironically enough, take a relaxing stroll through this place, see the graves, and honor those who have passed. Now, any ounce of joy or happiness seemed to be shriveled up and gone. What now remains are the memories of those chiseled on their own stones.

I felt this passage was a nice bit of a show because it came at a moment before it was established that someone had perished. The protagonist's entire perception of life has changed with the death of a loved one. His whole outlook on life seems more bleak as a result.

I drew my head down and covered it with my hooves. How could I have been so naive? How could I have let this happen in the first place? I was her husband for crying out loud! Why did I leave her behind before she died?! It wasn't my fault, yet I felt like it was! It's my fault she died! It must be! Right?

This particular passage has me slightly unnerved. On the surface, it looks quite alright to have this inner dialogue. I feel, however, that this disrupts the overall flow of the scene. If the protagonist's doubts, fears, and inner frustrations must be vocalized in the narrative, I feel it would be better suited for them to be sprinkled throughout, which would improve scene flow. If that advice is taken, then the above quote can be exchanged for a singular, unifying declaration. An example of what it could look like is shown below:

Her death wasn't my fault, yet it cannot be anything else!

There is one other complaint voiced about this piece; there was very little direct to My Little Pony. With just a few minor changes, it could have very easily passed as a story for another fandom or as an original work.

Conclusion:

The mechanicals of this narrative are excellent; its stylization is flamboyant; the execution of its thematic concept is excellently done. The story very nearly passes our inspection, but the fact that the story wasn't explicitly grounded as taking place in Equus, in addition to the few minor issues I had with the flow, were sufficient enough to reject this story at this time. A second draft with all this in mind is highly recommended for a resubmission.

Title: A Cake for Discord

Author: Silverintuition

Amount Read: 100% (Total Words: 6,482)

Rating:
Plot/Theme: 14/20
Technical/Structure: 6/10
Characters: 8/10
Subjective: 5/10
Total: 33/50
Verdict: 6.5/10 - Recommend Rejection

Overview:

Pinkie Pie has a new order to fulfill, and this one was made by none other than Discord. It is now up to her to bake the cake, only she... needs to go around town and gather the ingredients?

Okay, I know it sounds crazy and completely random. Well, that's because it is random, and that's essentially the point in this endeavor.

How well the narrative is executed will be highlighted in the following sections.

Technical/Structure:

I didn't notice much in the way of mechanical issues. Grammar and spelling seemed to be pretty solid.

In terms of flow, however, paragraphs erred on the side of being a tad too long at times. Some of them could have been broken up into multiple paragraphs to make it easier for the reader to digest the content.

I additionally felt that there could be some concision made in the work to polish the tone some, but I could see why one would want to go the extra step to spell everything out, as it is with this case:

Pinkie spun around, pulling flour, eggs, butter, sugar, bowls, and other various items from cabinets, cupboards, and the fridge, getting everything ready for the day's baking, again.

Here you're appealing to Pinkie's sense of being thorough when it comes to baking. We're seeing her thoughts on the page, and therefore we see these items being listed.

I do note for future reference, however, that overdoing it can dull the reading experience. In this given passage, for instance, it is understood where she's getting her ingredients from, so I posit that we wouldn't need to list out 'cabinets, cupboards, and the fridge', to get the message across to the readers of her thoroughness.

Characters:

The narrative's characterization seemed to be mostly natural. At times, I felt their dialogue was a little too extensive, but there wasn't anything that jumped out at me as being too off-putting for me in that regard.

There were a few spots, however, where the characterization was a little out of sync. Take these following passage, for example:

"...She will be so excited when I show it to her, and I know you will do a wonderful job making it Pinkie. I hate to admit it, but your baking skills far outshine my own..."

The phrase 'far outshine' is slightly off putting coming from Discord. 'May surpass' seems more apt, given his tendency to consider such himself above such trivialities in the first place, and thus would likely not outright state her skills being superior to his.

Plot/Theme:

Although I want to like this story's plot, I can't quite fully get behind its execution. It does its job of coming off as random rather well, though much of it lacks the comedic tone that it was tagged for.

Perhaps the funniest moment came at the punchline--the final line in the story--where Pinkie Pie is forced make the cake yet again. Having already made it twice before, both times being rejected by Discord and then sent back in time to remake it, the punchline implies that Discord is sending her through an endless loop of remaking his cake over and over again.

The idea of her going out and getting the ingredients for the cake is good, but perhaps depicting them as a little bit more painstaking to obtain and forcing her to retrieve the items each time she had to make the cake would have generated more impact on the punchline.

Conclusion:

While the dialogue was a bit long at times and minor details that lead it to being slightly out of sync with the speakers, this story did have good characterization.

There were times where paragraphs could have been broken up into multiple paragraphs to create a better flow, however. Additionally, I felt that some of the passages could be a bit more concise.

Finally, while it was clear that the tonality allowed for randomness, I did not sense a comedic nature to the piece, whether it was supposed to be as an undertone or an overtone.

It is with these grounds that I don't believe I can accept this piece at this time.

Title: Stolen Soul on the Passage of Home

Author: MidnightChaos

Amount Read: 100% (Total Words: 21,510)

Rating:
Plot/Theme: 12/20
Technical/Structure: 7/10
Characters: 7/10
Subjective: 5/10
Total: 31/50
Verdict: 6/10 - Recommend Rejection

Overview:

I have always considered the displaced genre to have interesting quirks. Like any genre of storytelling, it has its strengths and weaknesses that lend its appeal to a subnet of individuals.

Like with any story, however, it is the narrative's flow, diction, and characterization that will determine whether or not the story can appeal to a broader audience.

In today's displaced work, we will be following along with Aranea, who was transported over to Equestria. We will analyze the different aspects about this narrative and see what stands out about it, the good and the bad.

Technical/Structure:

From a purely mechanical standpoint, I didn't notice many significant errors. There were a few places that could have used commas, some others without, and only a few comma splices found in the work.

Spelling and grammar seemed to be mostly adequate, although there are a few times where it could have been cleaned up. Below I have listed a few instances.

The oppressing prisons of Tartarus, prison of the damned, the defilers, and the darkest creations the country of Equestria had seen in the past millennia.

There seems to be a word missing somewhere in this sentence. Perhaps 'The oppressing prisons of Tartarus was a...' was needed.

Silver-hair covered a face of elf-like complexion, lacking the flaws and faults of the normal human.

This passage is a bit awkward to me. The flow between the independent clause and dependent clause doesn't feel smooth. Perhaps '...complexion, which lacked...' would have been smoother.

Additionally, this has a bit of tell to it that doesn't quite sit right with me; elf-like complexion doesn't actually describe what her appearance is like. What about her complexion is elf-like?

Aranea sighed aggravatedly, muttering about being founded out when they all met up the next day, for work.

I think you mean 'found' here.

"The only way to fix this," the girl pushed up her sleeves, "is through evaporation, and you're quite lucky. I'm a pretty talented evaporationist...or was it condensationist?"

The exact meaning of the terminology 'evaporationist' and 'condensationist' escape me. The protagonist is drunk, and her friend is trying to help her out here, but beyond that I'm not entirely sure. Is she comparing alternative methods of getting over one's drunkenness by either up-chucking or allowing it to pass through?

This story helped me learn a little more about mechanical flow in writing, as well:

"It's a costume party, Aranea," the girl answered, "besides, no one will recognize you!"

Here, the dialogue is interrupted with the dialogue tag. Therefore, there are commas separating the dialogue both before and after, rather than periods for punctuation.

Characters:

I didn't note any particular lines of dialogue or particular actions that popped out at me, but the flow with characterization seemed natural enough, for the most part.

There were perhaps a few moments where they didn't quite fit or believable. Take two following passages, for example:

Both parties froze, and Aranea gulped. I need a distraction. Why am I thinking of Gangnam style? She pointed off past the guards, "Look, a distraction!" The guards turned and she sprinted around the corner.

This moment is comedic in nature. It's fine to have a comedic moment or two in story without a comedy tag, but I believe in this instance, it provides a detrimental shift in the narrative's tonality; this sacrifices the characterization of the guards because they must sufficiently gullible to fall for that, which makes me question how they've become Princess Celestia's guards in the first place.

"...I shouldn't have given you your weapon."

The passage above comes at a point just after Aranea breaks out of her imprisonment with the aid of her weapon, which was apparently given back to her by Princess Celestia.

Having just fought her, and therefore knows her full capabilities, I find it a bit odd that Princess Celestia would return her weapon to her so easily.

I don't think this is necessarily a violation of her character, but perhaps some more inference into her reasoning was needed here. At least, as far as I am aware at this juncture of the story, Princess Celestia considers Aranea to be a threat to Equestria.

Plot/Theme:

After reading through the entirety of the published chapters of this story, I have some idea of the direction the story is headed in. The heavy action, especially in the later stages of the story, are particularly noteworthy and provide an appealing experience for me.

I feel like the earlier chapters, however, could use a bit of work, at least with regards to how the scene flows. The pacing and jumping back and forth from one scene to the next was jarring for me.

The entire party scene felt entirely disjointed from the rest of the narrative, at least upon an initial inspection of the work, and the subsequent scenes only served to further confuse me as to what was happening.

Here are a few highlights that led to my jarring experience with the story's opening:

"Quite, I did an excellent job," the other inhabitant of the room answered cheerfully. Unlike her taller companion, the second person had short brown hair. "Besides," the girl's face contorted with worry, "I know what it means to you, with, well..." The girl trailed off and the silver-haired companion nodded and sighed.

I had a difficult time parsing who was who at the start of this scene. It seemed like multiple characters were taking actions in paragraphs of dialogue, and it took me a couple of reads to determine who was speaking at each juncture.

"Are you bloody-well stupid?" the warrior demanded, yelling as she turned around. "She tried to get the night to last forever! Ifrit! The Scourge!" The warrior seemed rather furious.

Celestia's gaze turned cold, "You will not be harming my sister," she stated.

"Sister? Does that mean you... Wait, you're the one that imprisoned me!" the warrior suddenly yelled, glaring. "So, you're on their side then!"

I'm not exactly sure who 'their side' is yet, and it seems entirely intentional and justified to leave that part vague.

What jars me somewhat is the part about Aranea being imprisoned. As far as I'm aware, this entire sequence is a flashback to a time before Aranea was imprisoned in Tartarus.

Perhaps there are jumps back and forth between the past and the present, but I would then be confused as to how she broke out of Tartarus.

I feel like I am missing some critical piece of information here, like how Aranea became Nightmare Moon's Dragoon and a bit of context for Aranea's initial disdain for Princess Celestia.

Conclusion:

The story, overall, was decent. Its grammar and spelling were adequate with a few small bumps here and there. The characterization was mostly solid.

The action was well depicted and the plot unfolded in an interesting way. The Daemos provided a real sense of urgency for the protagonists; they infected the inhabitants of Equestria, creating more Daemos.

I feel, however, that I must reject this story for the following reason. The opening stages of it had a few areas of confusion due to scene flow. Formatting some of those confusing paragraphs to clarify the speakers and providing a bit more context for what feels like disjointed scenes could clear up some of the jarring sensation I got from my initial inspection of this piece.

Title: Equestrian Alliance: Project Oblivion
Author: Jack Hammer
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject
Score: 4

I took up this story because it's been pinging away in out submissions folder every single time we've opened it for month now. A few things to say about this story. Firstly, the scifi parts with the cultural exchange and the science were pretty cool, as were the developments of the pony characters. Sadly, much of the rest of the fic just was not that particularly well executed. Your human characters all feel flat and are at best, dull, and at worst, jackasses without anything to redeem them. I genuinely had a hard time telling them apart or caring about them. You also had a serious problem with pretty much everyone speaking the exact same way -- diction, structure, and so on. You also supplied a lot of memes and references which did not help the story, seemingly just for the sake of having references. Second, this fic did not really need a mature or a sex tag, since sexuality played no part in the story beyond just being included for the sake of its inclusion, and with a few modifications to the abomination, there would have been no need for an M rating without meaningfully changing the themes or plot. Thirdly, the action wasn't particularly well done. Your prose and how you arrange it does not lend itself to engaging battle scenes. Fourthly, You have lots of trouble with depicting battle well for people who are supposed to be elite operatives, and the training scene made me want to yank my hair out. You did okay on firearms, but two big mistakes to address. #1: no military uses an AR15 -- it was once upon a time the M16 series, now it's the M4 series. #2: No rifle has a slide! Lastly, why did you put a horror tag on this? It really wasn't a horror story except in a few places, and the fact that the evil can be fought and defeated undermines so much of the cosmic horror you tried to have. And making the eldritch abomination talk and act like a cartoonish villain made the villain ultimately into something that could be laughed at and treated as something that would in the end be doubtlessly defeated instead of some threat so beyond our scale that our survival hinges on its disinterest and failure to notice us and that it'd just pass us by carelessly. You also made numerous grammatical errors with regards to commas, consistency in line skips, changing paragraphs for speakers, and capitalizating things that didn't need to be capitalized, especially in the first half. Overall, you got better over the course of the story, but it was difficult to engage with and I overall found it boring. Keep writing and get an editor. You've got some genuinely good ideas in there.

6115331
This thread is used for reviews only. You can contact me about your complaints, or take them up with the one who reviewed your story, Kalash93

Title: Prodigious by CroakyEngine.
Amount Read: All currently published (up through Chapter 1 - Wake Up Call)
Verdict: Reject (6/10)
Reasoning:

Normally I write some intro to frame my review, but it’s 3:15 in the morning and I barely managed to pull myself out of bed this morning at 8:30, so right into it this time.

A big thing I wasn’t a fan of was the description of all the technology in the world. It’s understandable—you’re writing an AU, you have to do some worldbuilding to get people acclimated to it. But do you need 5 paragraphs about the system Twilight built to get books from her library, and the fact that she used the Dewey Decimal system? Answer: not really. A good portion of Chapter 1 - Wake Up Call reads like this, mostly the first half. It made it hard to get through the chapter, honestly, which was unfortunate because the latter half has some good writing. There was just a great deal of condensing and trimming that could be done, because so much of what’s currently in the story felt extraneous.

The other big thing that really made the story a difficult read was the exposition. It’s kind of hit-or-miss, honestly, and even when it hits it’s nothing special. The prologue has more of the dry, telly writing, although it’s peppered throughout Chapter 1 as well (mostly in the scene in the laboratory, which related to my earlier point, could have been cut considerably). It does improve by the end of Chapter 1, but unfortunately, that is near the end of what is currently published and so it feels overshadowed by the rest of it.

Finally, I saw Twilight as a little out of character in some spots, most especially the ball in Chapter 1. The main piece of dialogue that stood out to me, for example:

“Frankly, sir, I would rather flag my tail in front of everypony present than agree to marry you,” said Twilight flatly, before smiling sweetly.

Putting it bluntly, that’s a lot bitchier than Twilight usually is. She’s not in her element in a large social gathering where she’s expected to act a certain way, sure, but she’s still very mindful of her manners and would try to politely find some excuse to exit. She does in the end, but some of the things she says to both others and herself don’t exactly seem like things I could hear Twilight saying.

There are some merits to this story, though. Seeing the alternate universe tag, I was a little wary going in that it was going to try and throw way too much at me and expect me to handle it all at once. There was a decent amount at the start of the prologue, but it was by no means unreasonable and was executed pretty well throughout the rest of the story. It got a little infodump-y at the start of Chapter 1, but I can’t exactly call the author out on that (at least, not from the stone collection inside my glass house). I would have preferred maybe a little bit more on the historical background, but for a prologue and a first chapter it’s a reasonable amount.

One final note I’ll touch on is the plot. Because there’s just a prologue and one chapter of a multi-chapter fic, there’s really not a whole lot of it to go around, but what I saw is good. Starting in Chapter 1 with Twilight attending the ball, I was legitimately interested in seeing where the story would go and how the world was going to play out. Alas, with only one chapter, I’ve been left hanging.

In the end, I feel as though this story has a lot of potential, but with how much is published, it just hasn’t been realized yet. A bit of dry reading along with what I perceived as an overemphasis on the technological and nuts and bolts (pun totally intentional) rather than the historical and societal aspects of the AU are the main reasons I have to reject this fic.

Title: A Shining Moon Affair by Kuairu.
Amount Read: All
Verdict: Reject (5/10)
Reasoning:

Romance one-shots are a dime a dozen. This one, however, does do something different with the concept, and something I actually liked. However, there were other issues throughout the story that kept it back from being an accept.

The premise of the story is interesting: unrequited love. It’s a neat and interesting concept, one I’m pretty sure most of us can (unfortunately) relate to. But the actual love, Luna’s feelings for Shining, have such a small role in the story. The vast majority of it is just Cadence pacing and worrying that Shining is falling for Luna, which I think detracts from a lot of the story. Additionally, a lot of Cadence’s portion seemed to be describing just exactly how her powers as the Princess of Love work. There was a lot of infodumping, and in a smaller one-shot about the relationship between Luna and Shining Armor, having a lot of information about the details of Cadence’s powers are out of place and distract from the main plot.

Secondly, while I did like the unrequited love portions of this fic (see next paragraph), there was just so little of it. Even outside a good amount being devoted to the nuts and bolts of Cadence’s powers, most of the story is just framing. Explaining Shining’s close relationship to Luna, a little scene with them, the next day with Cadence worrying about what she saw, all of it building up to just say “Shining Armor doesn’t have any feelings for Luna”, which could have been implied or at the least left open-ended by fleshing out the scene with Luna and showing her feelings towards him and the situation.

The main thing I liked about this story was the idea of unrequited love. It’s an interesting take on the very common romance genre on FiMFic, made even more interesting by Shining’s obliviousness to the whole situation. It portrays it in a much more realistic light than I think a lot of romance on this site does; he truly is oblivious to the entire situation and only has feelings for his wife, and Luna recognizes that she missed her chance and is stuck with feelings she can’t act on. The fact that it ends on such a note gives it a good amount of power and shows good storytelling from the author, because not every story is going to end happily. It’s just not how life works.

So, while I think there was a good premise in this story, a lot of it was diluted by trying to explain how Cadence’s powers worked and giving the story some framing, leaving the actual good, well-executed content buried at the end. Because of that, I am rejecting this fic.

Title: Out of the Loop by OkemosBrony
Amount read: 100%
Verdict: 8/10, accepted
Reasoning:

This was a cute little read with very few errors and an interesting, but still believable, plot. Though the plot drags itself out just a little too long and reading the story requires some suspension of disbelief—there is no way that our studious Twilight, of all ponies, would not notice that the majority of the population were changelings, or otherwise related—it was still an enjoyable way to kill a few minutes. If you haven't read this and want a light fic, I would definitely recommend it.

Title: The Principal Effect
Author: Kitsy-Chan
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject
Score: 6

As much as I liked and enjoyed this story, I had to reject it. This is for two primary reasons. Firstly, there are numerous technical issues. There are comma splices, missing commas, runon sentences, sentence fragments, and homophone mixups. I just cannot allow anything with a high density of technical problems in; it keeps the reviewing process more fair and objective if there is a mandated minimum standard. The second issue is your pacing and lack of focus. It's a 7K word fic, but there are three principle (huehuehueh ) sequences. The first is the long initial stretch of Cellybeans being in Ponyville. The second is her captivity. The third is her meeting with Princess Luna. All of these sequences are 2.x K words, making them all too brief to convey the thematic and dramatic weight you intend. Imagine this fic like a cafe -- you baked too little cake for too many people, and you didn't bring enough frosting. And by frosting, I mean thematic heft. Nothing was discussed to the depth you needed it to for there to be a strong impact. Also, personal bug, Celestia somehow was not furious at being at the butt of a multiversal joke wherein her alternate self gets to be an adored goddess, but she's a middle aged educator.

Thematically, this is a good story. It has some depth and complexity. It brushes on issues like morality, convenience of power verses need to do so, worth of the one versus the many, and other tasty bits that smarter people than me love to ride for miles. And for character, you did a gret job. I think you should take another look at Daybreaker, perhaps write out a oneshot that would be a day (LOL) in the life of her being in the shadow of Celestia's psyche. The characters were well done and illustrated your themes. Celestia, not being accustomed to real power, is insecure, frightened by it, and easily corrupted. Luna, well adjusted to it, can weild it with ease and without fear of corruption. She has already faced power and decided tht she has power over her power instead of her power ruling her.

If you would put in a few hundred more words of hefty conversation about dark sides, morality, and foibles between Luna and Celestia, and give this fic a thorough scrubbing, I don't see why it can't be resubmitted with very favorable odds of acceptance.

Title: The Fox and the Flutter
Author: Nugget
Amount read: All
Verdict: 5 - rejection

Plot: The central plot around this story? Well… Fluttershy finds a fox… she feeds it…

What? You wanted more? So did I! There is this lovely phrase we like to use in literature; narrative. The driving force of a story, the reason it’s a story in the first place! There are narratives all around us! Someone going fishing, someone climbing a mountain, me literally sitting here on my fat butt writing this review is a narrative! It’s our responsibility as authors to pick and choose the good bits. Sadly… this fic was not a good bit. There was no conflict, barely a complication. It was a missed opportunity for something truly fantastic.

I love the idea of Fluttershy interacting with a fox, maybe something happened to the fox, maybe it was a special fox. The story just feels… unsatisfying. Kind of like playing a demo, you just want to get into the nitty gritty stuff, but you are cut off short just as you got into it. I was enjoying it, right until it ended with no complication whatsoever.

Characters: It had… a fox, being a fox. It was not a special fox, or a particularly unique fox. But you nailed a fox, he was fun to read, I just wish I got more of him. Fluttershy, she was written well for how short the piece was, I could definitely see a canon, typical Fluttershy. But every time she called that fox ‘buddy’, it ripped me straight out of the story, it was jarring, un-fluttershy like. Other than that the characters are well written.

Grammar: there were some pretty jarring errors that almost got me at some points. They became more infrequent towards the midway point but the first paragraph was littered with tiny mistakes that take away that beautiful scene you were painting. It felt like looking at a painting of a stunning landscape with black dots peppered around the place. Very avoidable mistakes at that. Using ‘a’ instead of ‘an’ when a word starts on a vowel, making sentences that are too long, using incorrect commas. All in all, not too bad and still quite readable, but an editor would greatly benefit your work.

Mechanics: I really did like the structure of your writing. It’s flows nicely with not too many jarring passages, the writing is elegant and you do well in a third person perspective. I love the flowery language you sprinkled throughout the fic, it really made it pop. Sadly it had nowhere to go with such an average plot.

Overall: Sadly this fic didn’t really go anywhere, the entire premise just felt empty. That was my biggest quarrel, and sadly enough it is enough to fail this fic. I would highly recommend using the same characters (the fox, fluttershy etc.) and use the same style, but make a really interesting story, it doesn’t have to be a 100,000 word epic. But just a really nice story that has a much greater complication than “the fox was hungry”. Maybe Fluttershy learns something, maybe her friends learn something about Fluttershy, give the story a reason for existing! The fox was cute and fun to read, I feel like you could put a lot of power in this fic, making it much more likely to pass with flying colours if you chose to resubmit (which I do recommend you doing following this advice, this story is far from a lost cause).

Story: The Horror of Happiness by CrackedInkWell
Amount Read: Chapters 1 to 6
Verdict: Against, 6/10
Reasoning:

To begin with, I must give the author credit for writing a sequel story which doesn't rely so heavily on the first installement. Throughout my time reading this I was not once left confused due to the lack of context, which is a very good point indeed. Many a story would fail this simple point, so kudos are very much deserved.

However, the story itself is somewhat lacking and in need of an editor. The author is flippant and careless with the use of tense, switching back and forth frequently. Furthermore, I noticed that the author seems to struggle with the correct use of commas and the like in speech formatting, which is particularly off putting for a reader. Typos seem to crop up somewhat too often as well.

As a further point, though the idea of a murderous pony visiting Our Town really is quite intriguing, especially when the populace are conditioned to be so welcoming and friendly, the story could have done so much better a job at conveying the horror that the reader is meant to be feeling if the new characters were introduced to us a good time before their untimely deaths, since any potential impact fizzles out when the reader has no investment in the character.

Should the author require any further advice on this matter, I would be more than happy to help.

Title: Equestrian Corruption
Author: Krieg cormac
Amount Read: All Chapters
Verdict: 4.5/10 Recommend Reject

Plot: Crime Lord Tyber, a star wars character, has lost his "empire" and is now fleeing before finding Equestria.

The plot was well portrayed, but not much beyond this tidbit can be gathered from the story's so-called long description. The plot is slow paced and this serves to adjust the story and make it stomachable and decent.6/10

Grammar: Fairly competent but not quite as good as I had hoped. Many times, just in the first chapter alone, the tense switches between past and present which leads to a slight issue in picturing the events oncoming. Otherwise, aside from small mistakes, the grammar is mediocre overall. 4/10

Structure: A few times, the structure is odd and questionable, especially with the paragraphs where two people talk. 5/10

Characters: This is where it gets a bit lackluster, and it even got worse in the second chapter. There are a decent number of excuses made and furthermore, the characters seem flat. 3/10

Title: Not All Dust by Lightwavers
Amount Read: All
Verdict: Accept (7/10, after second opinion by kalash93)
Reason:

Rarity...what a divisive character. And not just in attitudes towards her, but also in the simple question of how to write her. This story does a lot of good things highlighting her good, often-misrepresented qualities.

The first thing I’ll talk about is the length of this story, which is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it’s a good length: it doesn’t drag on a scene for longer than it needs to go, and it keeps it succinct enough: even some of the more boring descriptions of the spells and machines she’s using at the start don’t bog it down in too much detail. But on the other hand, it felt short: there’s truly a gem in this work, but it’s very buried in the rest of the writing, which is nothing to look twice at. It’s not by any means bad, but part of the reason this wasn’t an immediate accept was because only a few paragraphs really get at the goodness of the story.

What did turn this into an accept is the few paragraphs. While it’s short, it squeezes a lot into it. It really shows Rarity in a very good light, something I always like to see (I say as a take a sip from my Rarity tea mug and get ready to post on FiMFiction, where my avatar has always been some image of Rarity). This story shines in showing Rarity’s true element of Generosity, somepony that is thinking of the individuals when seemingly nopony else is. She expends much more time and energy on making sure every soldier that is wearing her uniforms is safe, instead of mass-producing them simply because she was told to. She sticks true not only to her commitment of uniqueness, but also puts thought into who’s going to be wearing that uniform, and is hurt by the fact that it’s not helping ponies like she thinks it will be.

Overall, a good read. There’s a lot packed into just a few paragraphs that shows some true insight into a complicated, frequently misunderstood character, as well as putting her into a situation where she can’t help everypony because her custom spells aren’t going to those who really need them (which brings some commentary into hierarchy into play).

Title : Lessons in Generosity
Author: Paul Asaran
Read: 100%
Decision: Pass
Score: 8

I hate Rarity. Somehow, this story made me like her. It starts off adorably and hilariously with Scootaloo wanting to learn more about generosity, in a way that shows that she totally does not get the concept at all. The entire story is grammatically flawless. It's well formatted, easy to read, and paced well. The thing you did that really pushed the story's score so high is the amazing character work you did on Rarity by getting into her head with first person POV and actually working the inherrent advantages of that. Combine that with a fun, engaging, intriguing fic, and you have a story I am very glad to welcome into the library.

Title: Festival Love
Author: Rock Slide
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject
Score: 4

I shan't lie, I was bored. The fundamental problem with this story is that there are no stakes. You spell out in the description the entire premise and what's going to happen in the story. And it's only 2K words long. No stakes, no surprises. Why bother reading, therefore? There is no tension, drama, or need to read. The second primary problem, girl, is that this story is only short sequences long. First is couple A having an argument. Second is couple B having an argument. Then we get to the fair and soon reach the foregone conclusion. Nothing gets developed and nothing meaningful is said. Thirdly, author, you forget that you need commas for direct addresses, Rock Slide. Lastly, I've seen other works of yours; you can do better.

Title: Dear Sister, Sister
Author: Harmony Pie
Read: 100%
Decision: Accept
Score: 9

This story is great. It's a really wonderful character piece with a heavy focus on dialogue. It really casts Rarity and Applejack as pseudo parents in addition to just being sisters. As far as mechanics go, I think it's either completly or nearly flawless. This story isn't very long, but it feels a lot more lengthy than it is. Congratulations on exploring a fact of the CMC's growing up which simply gets brushed aside in the show. This could be a genuine episode. Welcome to the Cafe.

Title: Alone by Dafaddah
Amount Read: All
Verdict: Reject (6.5/10)
Reason:

Reading this story reminded me that I, too, need a vacation.

It’s a shame the Thriller tag wasn’t around when this story was published, because I think it really captures a lot of those elements and actually can do them well. However, other issues in the story I believe kept it back and at times even undercut some of the goodness of this story.

Twilight seems almost overly naive and innocent when it comes to violence and killing. What she’s going through is understandable: she was responsible for ending a few hundred lives, and even though it was for the greater good (the brutal calculus of war, as my favorite turian would call it), that can be something that’s hard to rationalize especially considering she admits that the morality of the resort is a complicated subject. She also mentions that she’s not sure she could end any life at all, ever: yes this is after she is told that the hive must be destroyed, but she just seems to be preoccupied with killing the Dire-wasp. This is going to a level of naivety that I think is completely uncharacteristic of Twilight: she doesn’t want to kill anything? She’s never swatted a fly, stepped on a spider, nothing? She also projects a lot onto the other ponies around her, such as Shining Armor, because it seems to visibly upset her that he’s killed before. What did she think the Royal Guard did? Luna? Understandable, she doesn’t seem to be as involved with the day-to-day of Equestria, I could see where she’d be shocked she’s taken lives before. Celestia? Rationally you can expect her to have done it, but I can see where she may be idolizing her to the point of thinking she’s above that. But Shining Armor? Even if she was in denial, you’d think that deep down, she had to know that it was a very real possibility.

When it comes to the climax of the story, the entire situation of the Dire-wasp itself just feels...I don’t know. There was some thought put into it clearly, but I feel like it detracted from the good parts of the story and made it go in a direction that was almost a little forced at times. The idea of some resort island that has some hidden, nefarious purpose is pretty low-hanging fruit for dark writing, but seeing it adapted to the My Little Pony universe gives it some new energy and actually does it well...but then it’s instead changed into a giant morality question centered around a situation that the story just seemed to be forced into.

One final negative, the prose is pretty dichotomic: it’s either very good, or pretty boring. At some points, early Twilight’s personality is integrated into it very well, with her making little notes and retroactive remarks throughout, mirroring what Twilight has actually been shown to do throughout the series. On the other hand, the action-heavy scenes just get very boring, and I found myself just skimming them.

There’s good in this story. As I mentioned earlier, Twilight is done very well. She’s a very particular mare to get down, especially pre-princesshood (when this is set), and it’s very easy to stray too much in one direction or another: either she’s written as too direct (I’m guilty of this), or she rambles way too much and can’t seem to stay on one subject, giving her the effective attention span of a fruit fly. All the times Twilight’s adding her little observations and notes throughout the story, it felt realistic to what she herself would do, almost as if reading a journal of hers or notes she was taking. She’s direct, she doesn’t really pussyfoot around the facts, but she’s adding short little footnotes or comments throughout. More importantly, she doesn’t go overboard, because she didn’t become one of the brightest minds in Equestria by not being able to form a complete thought.

Secondly, as also mentioned, there’s the adaptation a trope that feels more at home being narrated by Rod Serling on a black-and-white TV in 1960 into one that feels perfectly natural in a world of vividly colored ponies that were created to sell toys to children. There were moments where I was legitimately curious as to what was going on (although sometimes the idea that something is wrong gets repeated ad nauseum), and deciding to have the big reveal being changelings, a part of the well-established continuity, instead of deciding to just recycle some other interpretation of the concept or inventing something entirely new and making it fit the mold of what the author needs was a great choice.

All in all, it’s not really a bad story. Twilight has some hit-or-miss storytelling, the antagonist is pretty flat and diminishes a lot of the psychological thriller feel it built up until that point, and there are points where the story just drags on. For those few reasons, I am rejecting this fic.

Title: Celestia’s Computer
Author: wildprince15
Amount Read: all
Rating: 5/10
Final Decision: Fail

Review:
I hate to say, this could have been a HILARIOUS story! The thought of Princess Celestia getting caught up with a computer to the exclusion of everything else has the potential for a very funny and intelligent story. But given that fantastic setup, this story fails. Why is that? I’m so glad you asked.
First off is the execution. The narrative is almost…stilted. It reads like the author was told, “Just the facts….please.” No real feeling to that story. For example:

She decided to walk around them. When she did, she looked up, and what she saw, terrified her.

"Princess...Celestia?"

"Yes?" The princess turned around to see Twilight. "Ah! Twilight Sparkle. It's lovely to see you. To what do I owe this unexpected visit?"

The execution here is exceedingly mechanical. Most of all the third line here. The princess speaks, how is she saying it? Is her voice different than normal? If not, why not? She’s in the middle of being totally addicted to tech, she’s going to be acting different from her normal self. I would think she would be how Twilight was during Lesson Zero while talking to the CMC.

Another part that really bothers me about this is Celestia’s rant and scream after the computer is taken away, you don’t get any of what she’s saying. It’s like her being upset is the unmentioned background, with Twilight and Luna commenting on it while she’s raging. That’s not right. You are missing out on a really potentially funny scene. Have Celestia beg, plead, threaten, rage. And have Princess Luna be steadfast, with Twilight backing her up.

One more serious problem with the narrative, I’ll post it and let’s see if anyone can pick this out…

Twilight made her way behind the rectangle, placing a hoof on the top of it and closing it down, right in front of Celestia.

She began walking, picking up the wicked thing with her telekinesis, too afraid to touch it with her hands for fear it would curse her too.

Look at those two lines (which are right next to each other in the text) and…do you see the problem?

I have zero problem with anthro in stories, I have no problem with our beloved characters humanized, but don’t change from hoof to hand within 2 lines!

My final real issue with this story is very simple, Celestia gives up too easily. She goes from raging and throwing things all over the place, to okay Twilight, you can use it and I’ll go back to my duties. Sorry, that simply does not work.

I will end this with one real positive line that I did find very funny.

Celestia walked up to her, her eyes narrowing one last time. "Don't touch...my browser history."

In the end, this could have been a very fun and entertaining story, but it falls flat in execution and the general narrative of the story leaves a LOT to be desired. Either way, thank you for submitting this story and I hope you find other stories of yours worthy to be submitted for our reviewers to check out.

Story: Day on the Farm

Author: Jay the Stormtrooper

Amount Read: All (26,414 words)

Rating: 6.5/10

Decision: Reject

Review:
First off, this is actually a good story. And I thoroughly enjoyed the read. But… there are enough issues with the narrative to say that this story doesn’t quite cut it to be accepted into the café. And my basic reasoning is, you can see what’s going to come in from a mile away. Over twenty-five thousand words for the full story, and the only real sex scene comes in the last quarter of the second full chapter. Now, those chapters were quite pleasant to read, I did not find myself skipping paragraphs looking for the next interesting scene, I read everything this story had to offer, but…it just doesn’t have enough oomph.

Let me explain myself, first off, we are introduced to our protagonist, who is a senior at Canterlot High. He is very much a typical high school student, he’s friends with the nerds, not really a jock, not really in any of the cliques of high school, and he’s got Applejack crushing on him. It’s quite obvious from early on that she’s interested in him. And that being said, he’s typical male clueless. And I must applaud the author for that, making it obvious for someone looking closely the subtle things some women do when it comes to a male they are interested in, but are easy for most of the masculine persuasion to overlook and not understand.

I must also point out that the characterizations in this story are solid, not overly cliché, but not messed with compared to MLP EQG canon. Applejack has a friend outside the mane 6, and that’s not really glossed over, in fact it feels natural that they are friends. Though I must say, some explanation why two very different characters (down home country gal and somewhat slacker partial nerd) became friends in the first place. Did they have something in common? Did their parents know each other? In the narrative, that simply isn’t explained enough.

Moving on to him going to her farm, the scenes of him convincing his parents and going to bed were rather quick, and I understand their brevity for pushing on the storyline. No real worries there. But he gets to the farm, and the descriptions of his first day on the farm are somewhat confusing, he’s helping carry the wheelbarrow? Or is he carrying while she’s picking? And she only kicks the tree once, though that is played up for comedic effect, and his reaction makes the scene. Then through later in the day, our protagonist ends up with heat exhaustion. Heat stroke requires a visit to the hospital, because it’s very life threatening. I’ve had both before, and waking up in the hospital is NOT a good thing. (One reason I moved away from Texas) She treats him, and then he walks in on her with her in the shower. Not a bad scene, but it was way under played. I don’t mind that she didn’t freak out, but the scene just….wasn’t enough.

Again, moving on, the start of the next day shows an increase in the flirting on her part, and I enjoyed that, including her giving him Granny Smith’s work boots, that was good. And the hat, I liked all of that. They did their second day of work, and the start of the swimming hole sequence was quite good, especially when she just shoves him off into the water while his mind is still trying to process her being in a bra and panties. That was hilarious. The scene goes as predicted and the main story ended quite well.

On to the epilogue, I could her joining from a mile away. It was sweet and the surprise of our protagonist was quite adorable. But…it just felt….lacking.

With all I’ve read, and what I’ve written here. It is with a heavy heart that I must reject this story from the Café. Though I must stress, this is a good read, an enjoyable read to be sure. But it just doesn’t make the cut, and I’m sorry to say that. Thank you for the submission, and keep on writing!

Title: Her Own Sky by Spoopy Star
Amount Read: All
Verdict: Reject (4.5/10)
Reason:

Twilight and Celestia’s relationship before Twilight is sent to Ponyville is one of the most readily available prompts for any writer in this fandom, and this story aims to tackle that with their own unique perspective. Unfortunately, for a few reasons, this story doesn’t quite manage to do what it set out to.

Time in this story really confused me, because it’s not entirely clear where everything happens. It’s not really linear either direction: it is a big ball of wibbly wobbly jumps around a lot, going from Twilight just becoming Celestia’s student in chapter 1 to...some indeterminate time in chapter 2 to Twilight’s blank-flank years in chapter 3 to the show’s onset in chapter 4. It’s just a few assorted scenes, and even then, chapters 2 and 3 don’t really touch much on the subject of Twilight and her relationship with Celestia. Chapter 2 only mentions Twilight once (and even then, it’s only a mention), and chapter 3, while a cute scene between Twilight and Cadence, doesn’t exactly fit much into the rest of the story.

The writing as a whole just felt very...loose is the best way I can describe it. It stays together and gets to the end, but it feels almost as if it’s meandering along the way. It makes the writing, particularly the exposition-heavy portions (of which there are many), hard to comprehend fully.

Finally, based on one of my earlier points, the story doesn’t really have a clear aim. It tries to show Twilight and Celestia’s relationship through a small collection of snippets, but it’s pretty unclear to me after reading what that message was supposed to be. They actually have very little interaction, and I couldn't totally ascertain what their relationship was supposed to be after reading. There are some neat and cute scenes presented to me, but I never felt as though there was really anything tying them together.

I will say, however, that the exposition itself, while meandering, is written very well. I was actually just having a conversation the other night in this group’s Discord about how I dislike 3rd person tense for just becoming boring descriptions of what’s happening, and that was not at all what I read in this story. It manages to vividly paint a scene, while not just morphing into a laundry list of what’s going on around the characters.

In short, if nothing else, this story is told very well. However, because of the fact that placing when things happen within the show’s continuity is an issue, the chapters don’t really tell a story but rather just provide a few short snippets, and exposition tends to not really get to the point, I am rejecting this fic.

Title: They're Gone
Author: JackRipper

Amount Read: (Total words: 1,361)

Rating:

Plot/Theme: 18/20
Technical/Structure: 9/10
Characters: 9/10
Subjective: 8/10
Total: 45/50

Verdict: 9/10 - Recommend Acceptance

Overview:

When one loses everything that they cherish, it’s hard to overcome the void that’s left behind. Some might even turn to suicide, either as an attempt to reconnect with what they lost in the afterlife, or to escape the unbearable pain of that void.

For Twilight Sparkle in this story, it appears to be a little of both. In the following sections, we will be discussing any merits or detriments that may come with the thematic concept of loss.

Technical/Structure:

The mechanical aspect of this story is very solid. There are very few grammar issues presented in this narrative; of those that I spotted, they are so minor that I almost didn’t even catch them. They were so few in number, in fact, I opted to highlight all of them for the author’s benefit.

I wistfully gazed at the stain-glass window of my friends and I me, remembering their faces as if I'd seen them only yesterday.

Luna has warned me that dwelling on such thoughts would only lead to the grief festering, metastasizing like an unwanted cancer.

I finally decided that I needed some fresh air, and that I wanted to hear the sounds of the birds chirping to rid myself of this Celestia-damned silence

The bolded area has a slight issue here, which can be rectified by either removing the comma or removing ‘that’.

Well, evidently it was always too good to be true, even Fluttershy couldn't tame chaos

I would either capitalize chaos here or adding 'the' to slightly improve sentence flow.

On a more fundamental level, the structure of the narrative here is phenomenal and does an excellent job of capturing the emotions of its characters, honing its tone, and setting its atmosphere with effective use of language.

Characters:

The only character present in this story, Twilight Sparkle, is reflecting upon the aftermath of her battle with Tirek. In this alternate universe, she has won at the cost of her friends’ lives, and this has ignited hatred within her towards Tirek and Discord. There is even an underlying hatred nesting within her towards herself for failing to save them.

Character development comes in the form of her decision to end her own life. Her title as a Princess has no bearing for her, as it was an empty title without her friends in her life to share it with. Therefore, she inherently casts it aside when she decides to rejoin her friends at any cost.

Though her outward action is to commit suicide, there is another idea at play here. In her mind, it is almost as if she isn’t just dying to end her pain. She is going there to save them from whatever fate death has in store for them, or at the very least be with them as their friend.

Plot/Theme:

The plot, thought simple and short, was all that was necessary to adequately capture the thematic concept fueling this narrative forward. I would go so far as to say that the length of this narrative was perfect for the fundamental message behind the concept.

The only idea that might be worth toying around with is the lasting repercussions on Equestria as a result of her decision. The death of a Princess might be implied to be catastrophic to its political structure and its harmony as a whole, but explicitly defining some of these repercussions might create a twofold revelation.

It could be ‘not only has Twilight decided to stay with her friends, but she has decided to abandon her home, Equestria, to the very Chaos that has befallen her and her friends.

That being said, there is nothing fundamentally incorrect with the story’s plot as-is.

Conclusion:

This story left a satisfying impression on me with its mechanics, which had very few inaccuracies that I could spot, its language, and its pacing. It succinctly delivers the message of its intended audience with astounding effectiveness. There isn’t much, if anything, that I would personally change for its betterment. It is for this reason that I accept this story.

Title: Pinkie Busters
Author: Mocha Star
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject
Score: 3

What did I just read? I have genuinely no idea. It's a quick fic, about a thousand words long. It involves ghostbusting, but with PInkie Pie, and mathematics diagrams lifted directly from a textbook, plus an attempt at some kind of twist ending. At least the grammar was solid. Still, gotta reject it.

Title: A Filly's New Hope
Author: Mocha Star
Read: 100%
Decision: Accept
Score: 8

Second opinion provided by Sparky Brony

Well done, Mocha! Hot damn, I did not see this one coming. You did a fantastic job of writing a touching adventure story with a young protagonist. You interestly set it a long time before the show, and it turns out she's an ancestor of a current mane character (albeit worst one). Points for creativity. The grammar is mostly fine, but there were enough issues scattered about for me to call for a second opinion. Luckily, the second opinion was to pass, so here we are. You did a great job with dialogue; this is perhaps the most dialogue heavy fic I have ever reviewed, and yet it flowed well and was highly entertaining. The character was interesting and you showed up exactly what ended up making Nova so special. I applaud your willingness to confront dark themes without flinching and for handling them well. Congrats, welcome to the archive.

Title: Chryalis the Lost Chapter (A Bug Pony Horse Waifu Conquers the World Story)
Author: Scarheart
Read: 100%
Decision: Accept
Score: 8

Very well done! This was a case of clop serving as more than just clop. I love porn with plot and plot with porn -- my pet favorite niche. The mechaics were flawless, truly. The sex was written as steamier rather than hot, and served to emphasize and underly the relationships and feelings of the characters rather than just get the audience horny. The characterization was natural and on point. I laughed at the bits involving Starlight Glimmer. Thanks to this fic, I may actually go ahead and read the core story it branches from. Keep up the good work.

Title: September
Author: Lightwavers
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject
Score: 6

So close and yet so far. Grammar? Fine. Characters? Weird. Story? What was going on? This story fails for one reason and one reason alone: I couldn't understand it, sadly. It also didn't really work as a horror piece on account of not being scary; horror works best from empowerment, so being in the villain's POV does not naturally lend itself to the feelings of terror and helplessness that horror means to inspire in the audience. Twilight was a dimension hopper, time traveller, transcendental being, or something? The crux of the whole thing wasn't very clear and that counted against it. It was hunting murder experiements, an alternate reality, and then something else. Add a few hundred more words to make it more comprehensible and it has a solid chance of acceptance pending a resubmission.

Title: Equestria Stark
Author: Krieg Cormac
Read: 100% (2 chapters)
Decision: Reject
Score: 3

Hoh, boy, I am not happy to write this. Essentially, everything that could have been botched, got botched. Grammar? Dead as Ned right out of the starting gate, so I was going to have to fail this on technical grounds anyway from pretty much the word "Stark". Characters? Flat and not true to their canon selves. Plot? Sorta there, but there is way too little story to actually say anything other than winter is coming. Plus, it's an AU and a crossover, or as annoyed fans will say, ours is the fury. You didn't go far enough in any direction on this to make it worthwhile, so it ended up pulling a Sansa and being indecisive enough to be annoying. It does neither the proper style nor atmosphere of either of its source materials, making it feel like a lazy attempt at imitating without understanding. All fics must die. And for this one... for the watch.

Title: Advanced Anatomy By Twilight Sparkle
Author: Rock Slide
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject
Score: 5

Grammar, girl, work on it! There were far too many apostophe and comma issues in this fic for me to pass it no matter what. The story was cute. Sonata, as always, was adorable, and Sci-Twi being just as much adorkable as her poneworld counterpart is always a joy. I never thought I'd pair them up, but, thanks to you, now I think I just might. The sex was well written, even though lesbian honestly isn't my thing. I appreciated that Sonata somehow is an idiot, yet somehow simultenously genius. I could absolutely imagine her being like that, especially in bed. Sunset walking in at the end of chapter 2 wasn't needed, however, and there is a major plot hole with how the girls know how to do it with each other despite never having considered it before. The story could have also been 2 instead of 3 chapters, combining 2 and 3 into a big cloptacular, but oh well. The story was competent, but with grammatical issues and nothing done particularly well, though promise does show. Keep trying and I'm sure you'll have something worthy of acceptance before too long.

Title: All White
Author: Wildprince15
Read: 100%
Decision: Accept
Score: 8

This story was interesting. There's not much to say about a thousand word fic, but I'll try. The grammar is fine and the characters, too, but what got this story in is that it's an interesting exercise in imagery. The frequent presence of white and color imagery, as well, as anthrophomorphising and characterising it, is extremely interesting. It's not every day I get to think of a color as a character and a personality. My only gripe with the story is that the white was Cellybeans snuggling with Twiley. That was genuinely adorable, but it went against the fascinating, abstract nature of the story. If you're doing an offbeat fic, play it to the hilt. I liked also that you portrayed Twilight with her thinking mind emphatically shut down -- we never get to see that, and it's frankly fascinating as well as a touch peculiar to see the manic overthinkinator just existing. You should try writing more of these contemplative, experimental stories. Anyway, welcome to the archive!

Title: Night's comfort
Author: Fedair
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject
Score: 3/10

Your story is a cute little fic which somehow manages to botch nearly everything that can be botched, which is such a shame, because I'm a huge sucker for cute, high concept stories like this. But, to run down the list of ailments -- Grammar problems? Tons. Quick lesson: its is for possession, but it's = it is. Secondly, you must always capitalize i when used to mean oneself. I hope you see what I mean. Then you make homophone confusion. Teinted (if it even is a real word) =/= tainted. There are also occasional problems with tenses and verb-subject agreements, plus some formatting irregularities in paragraph spacing. This story needs a huge editing, or a significant overhaul. Even if everything else had been submlime, I would have still flunked it on mechanical grounds. Your biggest problem is damn near everything is told instead of shown. This makes the reader not a participant in discovery through the story, but instead getting the report of the story. The prose is also highly awkward. You could do with more participles, helping therefore to break up the unending seas of plain prose, which are choking your narrative. Another issue is that you have far too many very short paragraphs. You could have cut your parapraph could down by at least a quarter without hurting or losing anything, and actually to some improvement. Anyway, you're new to this writing. Thanks for submitting. I hope this has helped you learn what you can do better. Get an editor, work hard at improving, and come see us again.

Title: Friends in mind, friends in... sight? by Fedairkid
Amount read: 100%
Verdict: 6/10, against
Reasoning:

This was an interesting little tale with a plot whose dark theme was well concealed, but still hinted at, until the end. The descriptions used in the work were written well, and each scene succeeded marvellously in painting a bright and vibrant picture in the reader's mind of the story's setting. The word choice was good and the reveal at the end was quite jarring, as it should be.

However, the story has its flaws. For one, the short summary seems to have been left as an original version and did not get the same attention given to the rest of the story. On that note, however, formatting also begins to let the author down; some new paragraphs are not given a space between them, which is unpleasant to look at when the others do, and some commas didn't have a space after them. Furthermore, though the imagery was good, the reading itself was dull; the author could do with adding some more complex sentences and some shorter ones to vary the lengths and keep the story from reading like a list. As a final point, the entire opening scene felt redundant and contributed nothing to the story. In my opinion, it would benefit from being condensed.

This story is so close, but a few minor points let it down such that it cannot be accepted into the group.

Title: The Cheese by wildprince15
Amount read: 100%
Verdict: 4/10, against
Reasoning:

The premise for this story was cute. It would indeed be natural for Luna, after so many years of being away, to wonder why her moon has craters (especially since we can assume it was actually Nightmare Moon who formed the majority of them). Equally, it seems wonderfully in character for Celestia—a tired one at that—to try to play a little trick on her sister by telling her of the moon's true nature; that it is merely cheese.

However, nothing was particularly outstanding about this piece. Typos and incorrect capitalisations aside—there were a few—the sisters' discussion didn't seem to be of any consequence and the ending simply fell flat, since I wa expecting something really witty. Perhaps with some work this could be a great example of what a random one-shot can be... but right now, it's sadly not.

Title: Set in Stone
Author: JackRipper

Amount Read: (Total words: 2,262)

Rating:

Plot/Theme: 15/20
Technical/Structure: 6/10
Characters: 10/10
Subjective: 5/10
Total: 36/50

Verdict: 7/10 - Recommend Rejection (second opinion by Sparky Brony)

Overview:

Time Travel has and always will be both wondrous and fickle. When we think about time travel, the first that might come to mind is what events that transpired as a result of that time, particularly when it comes to traveling to the present. In theory, one little change could have a ripple effect--the butterfly effect--throughout the entire timeline.

This story highlights the potential harm associated with altering past events, and more often than not, it’s qualified that mere presence alone is enough to cause change to some degree.

Technical/Structure:

As far as I could tell, the grammar and spelling in this narrative was pretty good. There were a few comma splices and a missed word that I noted, but it was not significant enough to cause ruination to the piece. Highlighted below were most of the mistakes that I caught (again, very few).

Spike drew in a deep breath as he used his dragon fire to heat his claws, he wasn’t going to last much longer at this rate.

I’d change this to a semicolon or a conjunction here.

She stumbled back, her whole body becoming engulfed by ? mountain of snow behind her.

I believe this is missing either 'a' or 'the'.

Spike was lying face flat against the ground, recovering from the unexpected teleportation spell she’d casted on them.

Casted isn’t technically incorrect, but it’s an archaic past tense of the root word cast; In modern English, cast is the conventional spelling, so far as I have surmised.

There is some clunky description present in the narrative, which disrupts the sentence flow. Take the following, for example:

It had landed a few feet away from them; the parchment fluttering slightly in the wind.

The description of what it was doing came after it was retrieved, which somewhat disrupts the flow of the scene.

Characters:

The characteristics of each character reflected the expectations of their interactions with one another. Their dialogue matches their utter bafflement and urgency to resolve their conflict. Additionally, their motivations well defined as the driving force behind the exploration of their environment, both on a physical and psychological level

Their development came as a result of direct visualization of the aftermath of past events. Twilight’s development came first in the form of shock and horror over the state of Equestria, as well as their revelation over her and Princess Celestia’s deaths, and then Starlight’s when she was shown that same horrifying result.

I can’t say, after much deliberation, that there is anything more I could expound upon with regards to their characterization and development.

Plot/Theme:

The plot in this narrative is somewhat analogous to the Barren wastelands seen in the season five finale of the show. In the place of a wasteland, however, is the terminally freezing weather sweeping over Equestria.

There is a certain feel of dependency to the show whilst delivering a darker tonality than what was able to be presented in the show, and this is something that can be greatly appreciated.

The ending, however, mystifies me to some degree. It’s difficult what precisely about it doesn’t work for me. There are a number of different sources of entertainment that will utilize flashbacks, even toward the end or as part of a resolution, to great effect.

The flow of its narration is great, but if we boil it down its basic components, it feels as though we’re missing some opportunity for a clear, profound epiphany at the end, and here is why I believe as such:

We already knew Princess Celestia and Twilight died in this timeline. The resolution also plays out in such a way to prevent this timeline, or so I deduce by Starlight’s realization of the impacts on it due to her decision to stop the Sonic Rainboom from ever happening. I think this generates less suspense overall.

Conclusion:

This story makes an excellent read with the stylization of its narrative, mostly solid mechanics (aside from some clunky description), and the macabre tonality it sets. While it is a good, I believe some of the description and the resolution were enough to reject this story at this time.