FlutterDash
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Howdy folks! The judges have read all the stories and the results are in. Drum roll, please!
Eh, close enough.
In third place, we have…
This story ended up winning third place on the strength of a number of its little jokes and good ideas, which helped leave judges with a positive impression of the piece, but everyone noted that it needed more work sanding down the rough edges and corralling the ideas into their best forms and deliveries.
As one of my fellow judges said:
In second place, we have:
An AU fic about a different Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, this story was broadly liked by the judges and consistently placed high on their ballots. It was noted as having solid writing and few errors; one judge said “It hurt to place this anything lower than first, because I think this was the best written story in the contest.” The setting of the piece and the divergence between the canon cast and what we see of Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy here creates questions in the readers’ minds that kept many reading and engaged, and the story’s quick pace helped keep things moving and push us towards a resolution between the characters.
However, this also ended up being a double-edged sword. The dangerous thing about AUs is that AU fanfics lose one of the greatest virtues of fanfiction – we cannot rely on our knowledge of the show for understanding the characters. This Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy are quite different from the show version, and this creates a sense of dissonance in the audience, and for some of the judges, they were left feeling like the unanswered questions raised by the story but unable to be answered due to its brevity lingered in their mind more than the chemistry between the characters.
The story ended up having an additional chapter posted after the contest was finished, and a couple of the judges expressed their enthusiasm for reading more about the world Jack gave us a glimpse of.
On a personal note I have to say that I enjoyed the terrible pun titles, both of the story (A Negative) and of the chapter (Be Positive). I’m sure a vampire bat pony can tell the difference.
And finally, in first place, we have…
I had never read anything else by ToXikyogHurt, and I suspect that is true for most of the judges; this was only the second story that author had ever published on the site, with their previous one having been posted all the way back in 2012.
Yet, this one ended up topping most of the judges’ ballots. It made us smile, and it is hard to beat a story that every judge not only likes, but really wants to like by the end of it.
A silly piece about Rainbow Dash mistaking Fluttershy for a vampire, this story nicely escalates the humor scene by scene, subverting and double subverting the audience’s expectations as it goes on. It starts off a bit slow, but by the end of it the judges all noted they really liked it, and it ends on a strong note that earned more than a few real-life laughs.
The chemistry between the characters was noted by several people, and it was noted as being the best “FlutterDash” story in the contest due to its good characterization and the way the characters work together and bounce off of each other.
This story was a pleasure to read, and I think all of us would love to read more from this author.
I’d like to thank all of our contestants for entering, and everyone who read the stories along with us!
I also appreciate my fellow judges – Dalek Saxon, ChappedPenguinLips, and Tilgoreth – for taking the time to read all these stories. All of us have additional feedback that I didn’t put into this post for the sake of brevity, but which will be included in the thread after this post on the FlutterDash forums. And that goes not only for the winners – I wrote something up about all of the stories in the contest, and there are notes from some of the other judges about many of the contest entries as well.
I will be contacting all of the winners shortly so that they can choose their prizes. Thank you all for participating, and I hope to see you all for the next contest, whatever that might be!
ChappedPenguinLips's Feedback:
A Spooky Date
This story wasn’t great, but it was still very good, and for me, it was the clear third place selection. A Spooky Date is a cute, fun story with good characterization and very solid prose. This entry had all the means to be a “great” story, but I’m stuck saying while it’s better than average, it just isn’t there.
Fircoal is obviously a talented author, and that’s very evident in their grasp of their own style. It’s consistent, and smooth, I enjoyed reading this story as a whole, and an idea, it was reliable. And while there’s praise I have for this story I’ve touched on, I feel the criticism I have for might be a bit more valuable, and for a blanket evaluation, I’d say “great in concept, almost there in execution.” What I mean by that is the author tried to do a lot of great things, but it was a bit hit or miss, and I’ll highlight three quick points with bullet points:
> Lack of setting and physical descriptions of areas, it felt like improv, if there was a door or an object needed, it just appeared. Be sure to have characters interact with your setting more, and establish at least a general setting to help readers visualize. Very talented writer, I have no doubt it’d be hard for you to apply this to your writing in the future.
> Comedic timing and amusing jigs need refinement. By, “have all the means” you had a lot of jokes that had all the pieces, but didn’t quite come together. Comedy comes in time, so no worries here. I struggle with this myself.
> Finetuning. Editors/Prereaders are great for this. Just be sure to reread, catch typos, see if anything feels off. This entry is very raw, but even with as raw as it is, it’s good. With some help, and a bit of finetuning, it’s fantastic!
Overall a fun, enjoyable read, that had some really good moments, and by far the best joke of the entire competition:
Cheers!
A Negative
It hurt to place this anything lower than first, because I think this was the best written story in the contest; it had the strongest writing, though it was only arms length away with the winner. Still, the strongest in my opinion.
A Negative was an interesting, but enthralling read. As a reader, I was quickly immersed in an AU well-established by JackRipper, who simply laid it all out there. While there were some unanswered questions, this fic does an excellent job with its quick pace—which suits this story best—at being brief, and action-filled. A Negative doesn’t waste a word.
It’s a complete, well-rounded story with a compelling cast of characters, canon and OCs, best shown through it’s cutting—and funny—dialogue, and well-timed, well-crafted character expressions. And for an AU, while it doesn’t expand much on world-building, it really doesn’t need to, since it’s still well-connected and thriving in whilst a different Equestria, it’s a familiar Equestria.
Like I said, I thought it was the strongest in terms of writing, the author really let his distinct style shine through, and in result, they created an immersive, amusing world that will only leaves me wanting more. Epilogue, here I come~
Something Sweet to Bite
In a narrow fashion, this was my first selection. Something Sweet to Bite, was not only excellently written, and plotted out, using brilliant nuances and devices to subtlety win me over by being the best characterized entry in the contest. I can rant and rave about how great the character’s dialogue and interaction is, it’s that good; and I’m not just referring to Flutters and Dash, but the supporting cast as well.
Touching back on the nuances and devices, Xikyog is probably a better writer than me, and I say that not only because they have very, very pretty, yet easy and flowing prose, but because of their ability to embed subtle hints into their stories, foreshadow so briefly it piques interest, but doesn’t give anyway the rest of the story as it advances, and have a groomed, chiseled plot that cares about the smallest details, and that’s really what wins me over with this story. The small details not only matter, but they’re entertaining as well.
From start to end, it’s a strong, humorous story; and it was the best FlutterDash story in the contest.
Tilgoreth's thoughts
The Costume Contest by Sashimipony:
Overall pretty good. There were some minor errors and certain things could have been phrased better. But it was a sweet story. But it tells to much. It would have been better if the story actually detailed Rainbow and Fluttershy working on the project. It feels incomplete when you skipped past that.
Nightmare Night by RuinQueenOfOblivion:
Had a fe minors spelling and grammar errors throughout. Overall I thought it was good. Thought the colored text representing Rainbow telling the story in the present was distracting. I don't think it added anything to the story. Also the flashback story itself doesn't add much. It's so short if you removed it the flow wouldn't be interupted. It would be better if ou showed more of what happend during the first nightmare night they had with Scootaloo. Besides that it was sweet.
Tales from the Pokemon Universe: The Lights of the Burned Tower by The Bricklayer:
A few minor grammar and spelling errors. Certain things could have been phrased better. In some parts you sort of state the obvious. Some superfluous detail throughout. The flash back scenes could haved used more detail. And Fluttershy realzing she had feelings for Rainbow would have been better if it was less blatant. Overall it was decent.
Something sweet to bite. by ToXikyogHurt:
Some scenes needed more description. Grammar and spelling was fine. I actually really liked this one. I think the twist was nice. And this was a fun story. Also the sotry was fairly funny near the end. And I thought Fluttershy's charecterization was good as well. Good job.
A Negative by JackRipper:
Some lines had superfluous detail added afterwards. Besides that it was grammar and spelling free. Since the second chapter was published after the deadline I'll disregard it for the purpose of this contest. Overall I thought the story was good. I felt like there should have been more interactions between Dash and Fluttershy. I'm okay with a lack of chemsitry between the two since the story was so short. There wasn't much build up. Some parts of the story where funny.
The Titanium Dragon's Feedback
Why I added it: This was an entry in the fourth FlutterDash competition: Nightmare Night, What a Fright!
Review
While this says it is Equestria Girls, honestly this feels more like it deserves the Human tag instead, as the story doesn’t seem to have any relevance to the Equestria Girls verse.
Rainbow Dash is a Pokémon trainer who goes to a tower in search of Entei, a Pokémon who she has a history with, in hopes of catching it. Fluttershy is a Pokéstop Pokémon nurse who goes out after her friend as she goes off to a tower full of ghost Pokémon on the most dangerous night of the year.
I have to say, I’m not quite sure that this story really worked as a crossover. The fact that the protagonists are Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash doesn’t really matter at all; in fact, they could have just as easily been OCs. While some personality traits remained, the situation was so very detached from My Little Pony that I was really left wondering why this was a MLP fanfic.
But I think this is all ignoring a larger issue, which is that the setting itself seemed to be at odds with the story being any sort of romance.
When writing fantasy, sci-fi, or any other sort of story set in a world which is not our own, you often have to spend some time putting the reader in the correct frame of reference. One major advantage that My Little Pony has over many, many other settings is actually how mundane it is in many respects. Yeah, they’re all little horses, but as far as everyday life goes, their lives are not really all that strange compared to our own on the micro level (though on the more macro level, the fact that ponies control the seasons and suchlike is more of a difference).
Why is this important? Well, a lot of pony stories don’t really care about the characters being ponies in particular. What this allows us to do is spend a lot of time focusing on the characters as characters, and their relationships, rather than having our attention drawn away by the setting. That’s not to say that the setting cannot be useful for drawing out characterization, but that, when we want to write a character piece, we actually don’t have to spend a huge amount of focus on the setting – the world is not so different from our own.
This is not really the case with a Pokémon trainer in a Pokémon universe. The Pokémon verse is bursting with Pokémon; in fact, they’re a central part of the setting and permeate almost all aspects of life. In a story about a Pokémon trainer using their Pokémon, battling against other Pokémon, we have to know what Pokémon trainers are, what Pokémon are, what all the involved varieties of Pokémon are, what the various abilities they use are, and various other aspects of the Pokéverse, including Pokémon battles and Pokéstops in this case, as well as what legendary Pokémon are.
And it is possible to explain all of these things; the story explains most of them, though I suspect that people who aren’t familiar with the whole idea of Pokémon battles would be very confused.
The problem is that this story is dripping so heavily in the setting that a huge portion of the reader’s focus and attention is spent just keeping track of all the setting aspects; we have to keep track of a bunch of Pokemon mentally, the story makes some mention of typing (which isn’t explained) and so you have to think about that, we have several OCs in the form of the Pokémon companions of Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy…
The story is, as a result, very complicated. A reader can only keep track of so many chunks of information in their heads at once, and even as someone who has played a couple of Pokemon games (though not to completion), I had a hard time keeping track of everything. Is psychic good against ghost? I wasn’t really sure. And this is happening during a critical scene, where Rainbow Dash is in real trouble because of the bad guys… who I am vaguely familiar with, and which the story explains, but which it doesn’t really create much of a menacing aura around (in part because I’m still trying to remember what Rainbow Dash’s Pokémon all look like in my mind).
As a result of this complexity, the emotional core of the story – Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy caring about each other – was lost. And indeed, it seemed like it played second fiddle to the setting itself, meaning there wasn’t much of a strong sense of payoff when it went anywhere, or indeed, a hugely strong sense of development. And given how important making people want to read about character’s smooching is to shipfics, this is a big problem.
When dealing with something like this, it is best to try and minimize the complexity as much as possible. I get that Rainbow Dash is a Pokémon trainer, and thus has a bunch of Pokémon, but bringing them all in when they don’t really matter is a huge distraction from the core plot. When you bring in a lot of setting details to something which is fundamentally about the relationship between characters, those setting details should, ideally, reinforce something about their relationship or allow us to see something about their relationship, or alternatively, in this case, further Rainbow Dash’s goal of capturing Entei, the other plot thread in this piece. But here, a lot of those details are ultimately extraneous to both the relationship between Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy and to the plot about Entei, and indeed, don’t really do much other than just exist.
I ended up drowning in the setting details here, rather than actually focusing on the plot.
I did like the cover art, though.
Why I added it: The FlutterDash competition!
Review
Fluttershy hates group projects. Naturally, because Fluttershy can never get the things she wants, this means that her class is going to have them all the time each year. One after the next after the next… but this one is different. Instead of being the odd pony out, she has a partner this time around…
And that’s it.
This story’s major problem is that it doesn’t really seem to quite know what it wants to be. It spends almost half of its length talking about the past group projects, and we only really see Rainbow Dash come in towards the end. Then we get a rush forward of the things that happen between Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy in the future, as if some sort of terrible cosmic deadline was approaching.
*eyes the publication date*
The thing about this is that it doesn’t really come together. If the story is trying to focus on Fluttershy’s loneliness and Rainbow Dash coming in to break things up, the story could do more to show the contrast between Fluttershy’s past group projects – where she is just arbitrarily assigned to a group which mostly ignores her/leaves her in isolation/lets her just do her own thing without interaction – and the one where she finally gets a partner who actually cares about her and wants to work with her. As it is, the past projects are just kind of told to us, then we see the assignment of the new groups, and then we see a flash forward again. Having it focus on that moment of transition – going from the old groups, which don’t care about her, to her new partner Rainbow Dash, who does – could have worked well.
Alternatively, the story could have showed us more of how them working together on a project made them real friends, as opposed to acquaintances.
But as is, the story doesn’t really do anything very powerfully, and as a result, I didn’t realize that the story was almost over until it was; I thought I was still in setup mode when it was actually trying to push feelings out the door.
My biggest piece of advice here would be to look at short-form shipfics – something like Donnys Boy’s Friends and Lovers – and look at how they executed their short-form shipfics.
Why I added it: FlutterDash Contest
Review
My biggest mistake in making this contest about Nightmare Night was that there was, in fact, already an episode specifically about Fluttershy and Nightmare Night – namely, “Scare Master”. This, of course, meant that there was a good chance that someone would write a story specifically about Fluttershy coming to enjoy Nightmare Night… which is fine, but I think somewhat forgets the point of Scare Master, which was that it is okay to not like the same things that everyone else likes.
This story seems to center around the idea that one bad Nightmare Night soured Fluttershy on the idea forever, and the resolution is more or less “Just because one bad thing happened doesn’t mean you have to not like Nightmare Night!” But this not only doesn’t work very well with Scare Master, but it just isn’t much in the way of character development – “Oh, I don’t like something,” “Well, it isn’t so bad,” “Oh, okay” isn’t a terribly interesting transition, and while that is not what literally happens in this story, it is essentially what happens.
Conversations can change a character’s point of view, but as Fluttershy herself notes in “Fame and Misfortune”, it is hard to change a person’s entire point of view in just one go, and the transition here feels rather lackluster. Fluttershy’s reason for not liking Nightmare Night is shallow and not particularly interesting, either, and simply having someone else say “It’s okay” means that Fluttershy doesn’t really much agency in her own problem or in overcoming it.
I think the best thing you can do in a story like this is not to try and remove some reason for someone not liking something, but rather to give a character a reason to enjoy something, preferably that ties into the core of the story. For instance, seeing as this is a Scootadoption fic, I would think about how that could tie into Fluttershy finding a reason to like Nightmare Night for Scootaloo’s sake/as a mother, as the story seems to be hinting at that in the summary, but ultimately, that feels very downplayed.
Obviously I’m not suggesting that this particular story be revised, but I would consider, in the future, trying to find deeper reasons for character motivations. Someone having one bad thing that is holding them back often feels trite compared to someone having some deeper intrinsic motivation which makes them want to do something.
Why I added it: FlutterDash contest.
Review
This one genuinely made me chuckle.
After Fluttershy gets bitten by a bat, and doesn’t like her garlic soup at lunch, Rainbow Dash is a bit suspicious. But, well, Fluttershy is her friend. And Rainbow Dash is nothing if not loyal. So nothing could really go wrong, right?
This is a very silly story about Rainbow Dash jumping to a rather amusing conclusion about Fluttershy’s true secret nature, and it made me smile. Yeah, it is dumb, but it is the fun kind of dumb, and there is something about stories like this that can make for a fun ride. Not every joke lands perfectly – some of the earlier ones are a bit awkward in their delivery – but once it gets into the swing of things, it is funny enough, and the whole back and forth between Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy is quite a bit of fun. It also contains a number of subversions and double-subversions, the latter of which are one of my favorite kinds of comedy.
If you’re looking for anything with any sort of deeper meaning, this isn’t that. But I suspect that if you’re in the market for Rainbow Dash being stubborn, loyal, and maybe a bit on the thick side, this might be up your alley, as long as you enjoy stories that have a rather silly premise.
Every judge put this story in their top three for the Flutterdash contest, and it had the most votes for first place.
Why I added it: FlutterDash contest.
Review
Rainbow Dash is a guardspony in the Solar Guard. She keeps spotting this one bat pony in the lunar guard by the name of Fluttershy. She looks familiar, but Rainbow Dash can’t quite place her…
An AU fic about a different Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, this story felt like it was brushing against something larger but didn’t really actually grab onto it. It hints at there being some reason for Fluttershy’s transformation that changed Fluttershy in ways beyond the physical, Fluttershy talks about Luna as being the Night Mother and how she looks after her charges like a second mother, we see a Fluttershy and a Rainbow Dash with radically altered personalities…
AU fics are an interesting space because they allow us to explore characters under different circumstances. The dangerous thing about AUs, though, is that AU fanfics lose one of the greatest virtues of fanfiction – we cannot rely on our knowledge of the show for understanding the characters. This Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy are quite different from the show version, and this creates a sense of dissonance in the audience.
This is not a bad thing, but such things are, in general, done for a reason – and this story hints at there being some reason for it. But we, the audience, don’t learn about it, and as such, the story feels incomplete. Something changed the paths of these characters relative to the main MLP universe, and we’re left wondering what it was and why it affected them in the way it did.
This meant that I spent a good bit of the story focusing on the wrong thing, as the story is fundamentally about Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy reconnecting, but because the universe is so different, I’m left without footing to understand what these people I’m seeing really are like and why I should be rooting for them.
That being said, this story was one of the more polished of the lot. Every single judge put this in their top 3, and I knew pretty early on that this was going to place.
Why I added it: FlutterDash contest.
Review
Rainbow Dash drags Fluttershy off into a magical haunted mansion, full of scary things. But everyone knows haunted houses aren’t real, right?
Fluttershy is terrified. But Rainbow Dash promised to do something together with her afterwards…
I have to say that this story felt disjointed. The first chapter was very heavy in supernatural stuff. The point is to illustrate that Rainbow Dash will always be there for and try to protect Fluttershy, which I guess sort of works. But I was left confused through much of the piece whether or not Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were already in a romantic relationship – in chapter 3, it is very clear that they are, but in chapter 1, that wasn’t clear at all.
Chapter 2 is kind of boring – while I get the obvious symbolism of it, it isn’t particularly interesting to read about a play that wouldn’t be very interesting to watch in the first place, and little is done to really make it interesting.
I feel like the piece as a whole has ideas that are trying to poke out, but it doesn’t feel like it really comes together as a piece.
Why I added it: FlutterDash contest.
Review
Of all the contest entries, this was the one where I most thought “This could really use an editor.” Not because some of the other stories didn’t need editing, but because this one had good ideas that often felt like they needed polish to truly shine. This story ended up winning third place on the strength of a number of its little jokes, which helped leave judges with a positive impression of the piece, but everyone noted that it needed more work sanding down the rough edges and corralling the ideas into their best forms and deliveries.
A good example of this is the true meaning of terror that the rest of the Mane 6 got to experience. Pinkie Pie with a megaphone is a truly (amusing) terrifying prospect, but the story’s delivery of this punchline was off. I smirked inwardly at the idea, but had this portion been properly polished, it would have made me laugh out loud. The story also belabored the true meaning of terror a bit by repeating it again a few paragraphs later; the punchline was funnier the first time.
When the humor worked, however, it made people smile. A few judges called this out:
As being their favorite joke in the story, and I’m told at least one judge chuckled out loud.
The plot of the story was passable; the idea of Rainbow Dash bringing out Fluttershy with the idea of showing Fluttershy the fun side of Nightmare Night, only to have all of her friends try and scare Rainbow Dash in revenge for pranks in years past, was a cute bit of comeuppance, and Rainbow Dash trying to carefully deny to Fluttershy all the things that she had done in years past while standing right in front of the ponies she had done them to was amusing. This story felt a bit hurt/comfort, except without the hurt part, just the comforting, and Fluttershy ended up coming off as being a bit more coddled by Rainbow Dash than I’d expect; I think it might have been better if Rainbow Dash’s overreactions to the scares (and trying to shield Fluttershy from them, as clearly Nightmare Night can be all about candy, not about pranks and jump scares!) had annoyed Fluttershy a bit more, as Fluttershy does have some steel in her. The conclusion (and Fluttershy participating in the revenge) was a good idea though, and was a nice bonding experience (because nothing promotes bonding more than your friends’ suffering, am I right?).
This story had the general shape of something that I would have liked, but the lack of polish kept it from being something that I was really enthusiastic about. That being said, the little jokes and the strength of the end saved this for me, and ultimately left me walking away if not with a positive impression, at least feeling ambivalent about it.
Why I added it: FlutterDash contest.
Review
Of all the stories in the contest, this was by far the longest, clocking in at nearly 20,000 words. With so much space, you’d expect a lot of meat.
The premise is that human!Twilight (or SciTwi, as some like to call her) casts a spell in order to make the group’s costumes more realistic. Shenanigans ensue as Rainbow Dash is turned into a werewolf, Fluttershy a vampire bat, Rarity and Applejack into each other, and… not much of an effect on SciTwi and Starlight Glimmer, as SciTwi has already overcome her evil alter-ego that she is dressed as, and Starlight is dressed up as Starswirl the Bearded.
This is a somewhat contrived magical mishap, but let’s face it – magical mishaps in general often feel rather contrived. This doesn’t do much to mitigate that, but a sufficiently interesting story can cover for a flimsy premise.
Unfortunately, this story feels scattered. It starts out focusing on Sunset Shimmer, which made me think that this story was going to be about Sunset Shimmer, as she gets a lot of attention early on. And yet, she is almost entirely extraneous to the plot – I’m not even sure why she’s in this story, as she doesn’t really do anything, nor have any sort of meaningful conflict. She basically serves as Miss Exposition, a role that Twilight herself can serve pretty easily, by figuring out what went wrong with her spell – plus, if Twilight had been alone save for Spike, it would have emphasized her potential vulnerability to her dark side.
The thing is, though, while there is “conflict” in the story in a way, a lot of it ultimately feels superficial – SciTwi has already beaten her dark side once. Rarity and Applejack switching places doesn’t really do much (though Applejack-as-Rarity is presented as daintier than real Rarity, as, let’s face it, Rarity doesn’t like getting dirty, but her first response to being confronted by a manticore is to kick it in the face). The “conflict” as far as Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash is concerned is not resolved via character agency – and the same is true of Pinkie Pie as well.
And indeed, this is the real issue with this story – of the various challenges they confront, Applejack and Rarity have agency but no meaningful character development (simply being each other) while SciTwi has the same issue (and indeed, given she’s already overcome this same challenge once before, it feels less imposing). The others involve no real agency from the characters at all, more or less resolving themselves, and the ultimate resolution feels unsatisfying because the challenge doesn’t really feel like it has much meaning or impact. The story felt kind of by-the-numbers, rather than ever really pulling me in, and I never really felt much of a sense of threat that I’d expect from a thriller (as the story is tagged, possibly inadvertently).
There were a few jokes here and there, but the story itself kept me at arm’s length and never really pulled me in. It had the shape of a story, but not the impact, as the lack of meaningful agency in the characters and the lack of much of a sense of development until the final chapter where we see the fallout means that most of it is just watching the characters wander around town until they blunder into danger (which they overcome without too much hassle) or each other.
Thanks again to everyone who participated!
6202289
You’re a day late and dollar short! For a second there I thought this was going to turn into one of your stories and this would just be left unfinished. Dragon, we are seriously going to have a long conversation over something called punctuality. That or I’m just going to punch-u-all-day.
In all seriousness, congrats to the winners and thanks to everyone for submitting their entries. We hope to have another successful contest next year and hopefully it won’t take us over a full year to have another.
Thanks once again to everyone!
6202311
Well, that's what I get for saying that the judging would be done by November 13th.
But hey, this way, all the judges had time to write some feedback up for folks after reading the stories, which I'm sure some folks will be interested in perusing.
6202289
Well, okay... I sorta admit that the large number of characters was a bit of a problem in my story. I suppose a few could have been left out and just had the Ghost Pokemon, Raijin, Entei, the Pokemon from the flashback sequence and Sawsback alongside the two leads. Suppose I just wanted to get the feeling of a larger world beyond this fic. (And for the record, Psychic, not good against Ghost. I did that on purpose actually.) And as Tilgoreth did say, the romance was a bit blatant... But then again, being subtle was never one of my strong points.
To be frankly honest, I was never in this contest for the prizes or anything like that. I just wanted an excuse to finally write a Pokemon fic of some sort and write a Flutterdash story that's actually happy, instead of the current on-going piece I have right now with Poison Whiskey... This was just for fun, that's it really. (And yeah, I sorta figured the cover art I borrowed would catch someone's eye.)
But congrats to all the winners all the same.
6202327
That's why they call you The Bricklayer. Because you lay bricks up the side of your readers' heads, eh?
Eh?
...I'll show myself out.
More seriously, thank you for participating. I'm glad you enjoyed writing something different - and I have to admit, I was not expecting a Pokemon crossover in the contest.
6202338
Ah, sorry about that. I just kind of blindly copy-pasted them. I should have probably proofread them first. You'd think I'd know better by now.
6202341
No, I sorta deserved that one. I've gotten that joke told about me a few times before honestly.
(Usually about paragraphs being incredibly wordy.) ...Still, you'd think I would have taken the hint by now.
Hey, that's what writing should be about, shouldn't it be? Fun, right?
6202364
Yeah, I admit JackRipper is one talented author. Hell, I even judged one of his stories once for the Nightmare Moon contest, messy as the entire thing was.
6202391
Yeah, that last bit about you not wanting to give the story a pass just because it was by a popular author and earlier on how it got featured was the exact reason why JackRipper's Nightmare Moon contest entry got third place.
6202300
Wow.
I'm sorry my story was so scattered. To be honest, since I was strapped for time to get it out for the contest, I had to make it a rush job. I'm sorry I wasted the story's potential, but hey, it was the best I could come up with. Had I given myself more time, I probably could've done more.
Sorry, but that's just the way it goes sometime.
6202401
As long as you learn something new while doing something, and have fun doing it, you've got nothing to apologize for.
6202300
Gotta say, wasn't very clear on what I did wrong in my story. I knew from the views I got, my story would bomb. In terms of views, it seems to be the worst story I've ever written. But I couldn't understand why.
I remember writing it like that for a friend. He likes to read my stories, but isn't a fan of shipping. So I left the romance bit for the ending. I didn't think that'd matter since, if I recall correctly, both Romantic and Platonic relationship stories were accepted in this contest. Would it have mattered if it stayed platonic all the way to the end?
From this, all I'm getting is that my story was just overall boring to read. And I felt like I put in the most effort on Chapter 2 than the others. Oh well. Can't really understand what would pique other's interests.
6202622
I demand the next contest to be Foal related! For Christmas!
6202635
I meant for next Christmas! Or the one after! Doesn't matter which!
6202595
Sorry about that. I wrote that thing up very late Saturday night.
Face Your Fears had three chapters: the first chapter was the haunted mansion, the second was the play, and the third was the denouement where they decide to be all romantic and stuff.
One of the largest issues was that the story didn't really feel like a coherent whole. The first chapter they just go into a haunted mansion which seemed to actually be magical, given all the stuff that happened. Weird supernatural stuff that was very unexpected. But the thing is, it just kind of felt like it was there; the rest of the story didn't really link up with that at all in any way. You've got supernatural adventure/horror, then you've got the play (which is very slice of life), and then you've got the final chapter.
There's nothing wrong with a story having multiple aspects of it, but the thing felt very arbitrarily constructed, like the pieces were just independent things. There was a thin thread between them, but the divergence between the parts felt very jarring. It wasn't just that what was going on was different, it was that the tone was different as well from the tone of the latter two chapters.
It would not have mattered at all if it was platonic or romantic; that wasn't really the issue. The problem was consistency. The characters seemed like they were already in a relationship in chapter 3, but chapter 1 didn't really give me a sense of them being in a relationship at all. Thus, I was lost - were they supposed to already be in a relationship, or not?
It was the fact that I wasn't sure of the answer to that question that bothered me, not whether or not they were in a relationship.
Would you want to go and watch a play like the one depicted in chapter 2?
6202706
First chapter involved Rainbow encouraging Fluttershy to face her fears. Second chapter involved Fluttershy passing that message on to others, namely to fillies and colts. Third chapter was recap, what they were proud of, and what they planned to do for the future.
Is that too thin, or did I just fail to make that clear? From what I got, it was better off making each chapter into its own story.
From the story:
Even after exchanges like these huh? I guess hinting at it doesn't really work out if you haven't been given the confirmation first.
That's like asking what my interests are over others. To be honest, yes. I wouldn't mind watching MLP do a play like that. The Hearth's Warming play was a lot more interesting to me than watching them sing all the time. And I would much rather watch them sing, or do the Show Stopper's play, than read through the 'A Negative' story again.
So yeah... I can't really put my interests as a way to determine what would interest others into being entertaining.
6203462
And it better be foal related! Please?
First of all, I'd like to thank all of the judges for hosting this and putting it together. I do love Flutterdash contests and getting more Flutterdash stories so this is nice. Furthermore, congrats to the winners and thank you all who liked my story. I'm glad that people liked it even with its noted rawness.
Also thank you for the feedback that you all gave me. I do agree with most of it, and as one might be able to tell by my submission right on the day of, I have this problem with procrastination. It's something I really need to fix and work on. Hopefully, for the test contest, I'll get everything sorted out earlier. (I really need to get better at that.)
Also I will say I liked the prompt for this one, it left a lot of room for what one could do.