1038571
According to the email chain I have, your story was rejected for a first chapter that was entirely exposition in interview form and dull writing overall. It's too much for readers to try and slog through to get to know the OC and care about them, then keep going with the rest of the story. The phrase you found quoted wasn't sent by the ficbox or any of the pre-readers, so you did some pretty hefty paraphrasing.

1038934
We usually send more details than that if a fic is rejected without going to the pre-readers; a small list of three issues at least. I apologize that one of those wasn't sent. In the meantime, I'd suggest you go to one of the editing groups here on Fimfiction and get it looked at, then resubmit your fic once it's been edited.

Also god forbid you write a story in anything other than American English

1039103
British English is also acceptable, unless you're referring to other languages entirely. If that's case, I'll point out that Fimfiction only allows English as well.

1039055 Hate to break it to you... but that is not a quality image. Just from taking a cursory glance I see at least five gigantic problems with this particular picture- the giraffe neck, the itty bitty horn, (should be visible from profile view) the floating glasses, the floating headphones, the tiny ears, the cyclops eye, the vaseline-smeared background that melds with what I can only assume is a window frame he's resting his arm on, the sun is larger than several mountains... I guess that's more than five but you get my point. If you honestly hold up this picture (that I'm assuming you drew because it is a hotlink to your... quality deviantART) to the art that does get posted and think it the same, you still have a long way to go. (also using your own picture as an example comes off very narcissistic. I don't think EqD is the one with the inflated ego, here.)

The fact you use a crappy picture you drew yourself actually perfectly illustrates why we have that rule- and quality checkers- in the first place.

I'm not saying you shouldn't try, because every great artist started off drawing bad pictures, but if it gets turned down and you whip it out as an example of arbitrary judgement of content in spite of quality, instead of sitting down, thinking about it and trying to improve... well, you become Tom Preston

(for the record, i represent about as much of EqD as the janitor in your school represents the school board. I don't have any say over what goes into anything or what rules are made or /anything/ like that. The most I do is check emails and sometimes do roundups if everyone is busy. and I've known many artists for many years.)

PS- there's no rule about no OCs. Just no Anthro/Humanized. OCs are fine if they're ponies.

1038277

A) Listing vs Telling - Why don't your pre-pre readers give me examples of what to fix in my story, rather than listing it off? Who the hell knows how to compound word hyphenate everything properly? Every word can compound word hyphenated without being wrong. Watch: dis-figuration. Lol, no red underlines!
Hell, lookie-here. I can do that. I can also do-this or-this. I can hyphenate everything! (Don't point me out to a site that says otherwise. I'm joking with you).

B) Three Strike rule - I like it. But, it needs re-working. IE: I just fixed a tenfold of errors and sent it to the pre-readers again. It gets denied because there are more errors. Shouldn't the pre-reader have thoroughly read through my fic to find all those errors? Stop being a lazy asshat and actually read. Sure, you're a volunteer, but you have an image to uphold. If you won't read it, then have someone else read it. Hell, have two pre-readers read the same fic.

C) Double pre-reading - pre-readers tend to base all of their judgement on what they like, rather than a general unbiased opinion. So, have two pre-readers on one fic, rather than just one. Sure, it's more work, but maybe one pre-reader may like the fic and the other won't. This helps remove that little dictatorship over there.

D) Trixie - lolseth.

E) Lolsaidism - this is the first time I heard about the saidism stuff 1038290. Seriously? I think EqD should, rather than sticking to one style of writing, allow multiple styles. Here in good ol' Canada, a lot of the educational systems will teach MLA/APA. While in 'Merica, it's Chicago, Oxford, Harvard style writing (whatever the hell that is. Don't even want to know). Also, in literature, you're taught to remove the word "said" and replace it with more interesting words.

IE: Jason bellowed to the man in anger, bringing his fist down upon the table.

Probably not the best line I wrote - I know there's mistakes, but it's just an example. But, you get my point - EqD shouldn't really worry that much about the word "said". It's a boring word and hearing it over, and over, and over again is repetitive (another thing to avoid in English practice). This can tie into this bullshit L.U.S.

F) Pre-reader treatment to authors - the way some pre-readers treat us authors. Not me specifically, I never made it past the submission stage (had too many errors to count in the story. Was not going to fix it for the sake of how many there were. Story would've been rejected for violence, anyways) but some authors have been treated like mere dung. To provide an example, lookie here 922631 (If it doesn't show, click this thread link and scroll down to Shinzakura's first comment: linky). This guy and/or girl was talked down by a pre-reader and brought up some valuable points your pre-readers could look at.

G) Teen fics - for the love of God, just accept these already. I'm all for making sure the little kids don't read the gore fics and such, but if you don't want them reading it, then make a section labelled "teen" for those who do want a medium-maturity fic without the hassle of searching through garbage to find it. I know you guys have accepted teen fics, because the language can be borderline "bad", but I mean accepting fictions with blood and gore (not extreme blood and gore. I just mean heavy use of it or some crap) and some minor-adult themes (sexual innuendos and stuff.) Like, we're humans we can tell when we don't want to read a fic based on rating. If the fic belongs in the "everyone" section, then put it there. If it belongs in the "teen" section, put it there.

Sure, this requires a lot of coding and too much work little Sethie may not be able to handle. But, you guys have the image of "le best fics, brah" to uphold, and people may want to see the best of the teen genre. Not everyone will be young forever and you need to fix this now, rather than later.

Also, EqAD already upholds the mature end, so, that's why I don't suggest that as an add on.

A lot of my comments may appear bashful and you're more than welcome to stab me with a sharp object. But, you wanted to know how to improve the pre-readers and this is what you need to do. Now, like a lot of people suggest to those who want to get on EqD and have to fix their errors do it and do it right.

Now, excuse me while I ponder over the concept of buying EqD from Seth for $10K and then making the site useless.

1039104

I think he meant how America uses Chicago, Oxford and Harvard styles of writing. While some countries (Canada) will use MLA/APA.

1039140

So... No Equestria Girls? Well, that'll be the day.

1039188

A) Listing vs Telling - Why don't your pre-pre readers give me examples of what to fix in my story, rather than listing it off?

So, have two pre-readers on one fic, rather than just one. Sure, it's more work, but maybe one pre-reader may like the fic and the other won't.

There is a trade off between Feedback Given To A Single Story and Number Of Stories That Can Be Pre-read. The pre-readers chose the latter, and at wait times of three-plus weeks for a story, I'd say it's an understandable decision.

As for hyphenation, I'm going to guess the pre-reader meant something like hyphenating compound adjectives before nouns. That's like "blood-red moon". The <moon> is [blood red], so when you want to move the [ ] adjective phrase to modify the < > noun, you need to hyphenate it. [Blood-red] <moon>. [Dusk-lit] <terrace>. [Lavender-coated] <unicorn>. Just a guess, mind you, but it's the most common case.

Shouldn't the pre-reader have thoroughly read through my fic to find all those errors? Stop being a lazy asshat and actually read.

There are a lot of places you can go for in-depth criticism. Fimfiction's WRITE group, Reddit's /r/mylittlefanfic, or where I come from, Ponychan's and MLPChan's /fic/s. EQD is not one of these places, as they've stated many times. Again, the tradeoff between feedback quality and quantity. They're already choosing quality, and the wait time for any given story is suffering for it.

(the stuff about "said")

Here is a link to Stephen King begging you not to use words that aren't said in his book about writing, aptly titled On Writing.

Now, excuse me while I ponder over the concept of buying EqD from Seth for $10K and then making the site useless.

That isn't nearly enough.

1039221

That isn't nearly enough.

The site isn't worth anything. I could buy it for a Trixie doll if Seth was that easy.

Here is a link to Stephen King begging you not to use words that aren't said in his book about writing, aptly titled On Writing.

So, Stephen King is the master of all? I understand your point, but, having repetitive uses of a word is boring, I don't care who says otherwise. Would you read a fic that did this?

"Hello," Twilight said.
"Hiya!" Pinkie said.
"So, how are you?" Twilight said.
"Good, yourself?" Pinkie said.
"Doing good. Struggling a little," Twilight said.

No emotions with the word said, and adding anything to it like "with a sigh" is still boring. I still use "said" every now and then, but never in heavy doses. Now, I've never submitted a fic beyond the pre-pre reader stage and thus, I don't know if I were to get the pre-reader who wants said to live (even though school says "said is le dead".)

As for the rest of your comment, thanks.

1039232

The site isn't worth anything.

Hoohoo, someone hasn't seen Seth's adsense numbers.

I understand your point, but, having repetitive uses of a word is boring, I don't care who says otherwise.

The idea is that you shouldn't need to use a speaking word a lot of the time. For instance, let me take a paragraph from Iron Mare:

“Snazzy setup you got here, Twi. This is more high-tech than most of the stuff we got at HQ.” She flapped her wings a few times, lifting her across the floor and over to Twilight’s drawing board. She looked around the room before spotting the Wonderbolts poster hanging on the far wall. “And you still have my poster. Nice.”

Dash is saying things, and I don't need to say "she said" to tell you that. However, when I do...

“Somehow, I’m not surprised you put this together, egghead,” Dash said, elbowing Twilight in the side. “But isn’t it a bit, uh...” She scratched her head, looking for the right word, then motioned to the loadout of weapons. “Excessive?”

Of course, I am still guilty of using saidisms, like "roared" or "commanded." The way I see it, it's sometimes appropriate to use those, but they should be used seldomly. Too much and it starts to look bad, and in a many situations, tell-y.

1039232
Compare:

"Hello," Twilight said.
"Hiya!" Pinkie said.
"So, how are you?"
"Good, yourself?"
"Doing good. Struggling a little."

to this:

"Hello," Twilight said.
"Hiya!" Pinkie exclaimed.
"So, how are you?" Twilight mused.
"Good, yourself?" Pinkie replied.
"Doing good. Struggling a little," Twilight sighed.

Or, since you don't like the concept of LUS:

"Hello," Twilight said.
"Hiya!" Pinkie exclaimed.
"So, how are you?" the lavender unicorn mused.
"Good, yourself?" the bubblegum mare replied.
"Doing good. Struggling a little," the princess's star pupil sighed.

I will certainly agree with you that lots of "said" = bad. However, though repetition is boring, it would be terrible were I to replace them with "grated" or "gasped" or "jerked out." Doing so detracts from the dialogue and that defeats the purpose of dialogue. It's like putting too much sauce on your steak to the point where you can't actually taste the steak itself anymore. (Were it not obvious, I would say that the first is much better than the other two.)

But this steak is kind of bland to begin with, and there's not much helping that.

"Hello," Twilight said. She broke out into a weak cough, and her bedside nurse brought her a glass of warm water.

"Hiya!" Pinkie said. Twilight smiled. Pinkie, in all these years, didn't seem to age a day.

"So, how are you?" asked Twilight, watching Pinkie set her get-well-soon basket on a shelf by the door. The flowers in that basket reflected through her glass, painting it a blur of blue and yellow--a stark contrast to the hospital's dreary white walls.

Pinkie walked up to the bedside as the nurse stepped aside. Her eyes fell on where Twilight's lustrous mane once was. "Good, yourself?"

"Doing good." The two of them looked each other in the eyes, Twilight's eyes tired and muted, Pinkie's eyes vibrant and full of life. The clock on the wall ticked the seconds away in silence until Twilight broke into another short cough. "Well, struggling a little."

That's my attempt at making this steak less bland without soaking it in off-the-rack A1 sauce. Whether or not I succeeded is a matter of opinion, but I hope you agree that this is still better than the mused/replied/sighed combination.

Edit: What 1039258 said.

As for the worth of Equestria Daily, ad revenue nets Seth well over 10k a year.

1039102
. . . My story? That's actually pretty funny. You didn't even click on the story link to find out if I was the author or not.

No, I'm just one of the fans. The fan who, by the way, encouraged the author to send the story into Equestria Daily because I thought the story was awesome and wanted it to be hosted among other awesome stories that I used to read when the fandom was young. Guess what I'm not encouraging authors who I review and beta read for to do anymore? . . . And yes, I was paraphrasing. I was paraphrasing because it's been a year, I don't have e-mail chain in my possession, and I'm only a human.

But you know what? Your reply doesn't discount what I was saying either. In fact, it only reinforces it. That's because AAG has gotten, since the start of 2013 something on the order of two hundred new favorites. That means that there are at least 200 people who went through that interview that you said readers can't be bothered to go through, kept on going through the next 13 chapters, and decided at the end, "Hey, I want alerts sent to me on when this story updates, because I want know how it ends."
And that's not counting the people who read the story on sites other than FiMFiction, or those who (like I used to do) don't favorite a story till it's done.

So, yeah, readers can be bothered to "slog through" a interview with an OC to get to know her, and they can find her such an interesting and refreshing (albeit controversial) character that they'll stick around for the next chapter, and the next, and the next, and maybe go off to read the sidestory anthology or the prequel, all because of that first chapter which Equestria Daily so readily dismissed. Thousands of readers, in fact.

Can I complain about music submission as well?

1039480
I'm just going to reply to this with "Alright," because it's 10am, I haven't slept yet, and any kind of point I could try to argue in that post, I don't have the will or the motivation to try.

So yeah, all that stuff you said, that's fine. You can think that. You're entitled to your opinion.

1039506
Oh, I already have a pretty good idea of what you're going to say, because it's an argument I've already had from the other side. You're going to say that "just because something is popular doesn't mean it's good, and we have to be more discerning than marketability with features," and you'd be absolutely correct in that statement. However, that argument falls apart when a fic is rejected based solely on it's marketability -- whether or not people will read it. Once that happens the door is opened for things like favorites, likes. hit counts, comments, and the like to be used as a counterargument.

1039499
Dude, even the people who work at EQD complain about the music.

Hey, since we got two EqD pre-readers here, I want to know... what did my rejection actually mean? Its pretty vague for me. I wouldn't mind seeing an explanation

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you, but the pre-readers feel this touches on too much questionable material not allowed under our content guidelines for it to be posted to Equestria Daily. We wish you the best of luck on Fimfic; feel free to send us any other stories.

Story's Feathered Heart.

On topic, I do not have facts, but I do want to point out things that I believe makes EqD not really worth elevating on a pedestal. If you want to submit your stories there, its all good. If you get rejected, that's all good too. Just... don't buy into the bullshit that it is the holder of the best that the fandom has to offer. Its narrow rules in rating (you have to be consistent of being... somewhat kid friendly) limits and stifles the creativity enough that the claim of 'holder of the best' is nothing more than hot air.

I also find their strike system quite unfair for authors. If the first pre-reader apparently missed something, and the second pre-reader spots it, that's grounds for another strike. So, the price of two instead of one.

Other than that, go nuts.

I don't like it cuz they're missing the good fics.

1039541

I'll just link to a thread on My Little Remix.

http://mylittleremix.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=7375&hilit=eqdmusic

Read through it and you will find lots of biatching.

1038290 Listen to this person. He is a gentleman shark with a bubble pipe and a monocle. Quite dashing.

EqD lost favor with me when I started to find other news sites that were more informational than EqD on just about everything. The situation with the fics is a main issue, though.

I submitted my story "A Hairy Problem" to them and got rejected. While most of the highlighted problems were reasonable grammatical issues, many of the "problems" were stupid and/or completely personal to the prereader. Some examples:

- Lavender/Purple Unicorn syndrome. Apparently it is wrong for me to try and use depersonalization to refer to characters such as "the yellow filly" for Apple Bloom, despite the fact that in context there are no other yellow ponies in the scene. I also use "rainbow hued blue blur" at some point and get called out on it being a case of this, despite Rainbow Dash being the ONLY pony who has rainbow anything.

-The pre-reader said that they think Granny shouldn't have a southern accent put onto her when she says "i" as "Ah". Keep in mind that on the show she does actually have a southern accent, just like the rest of the Apple Family.

- "Also, who is Sandalwood? Why are you introducing an OC? Is an OC even necessary here? If you don't need to introduce an OC, it's better not to, since it can be distracting to introduce extra characters for no reason." ~ In the story, I include a character who is an alt. universe version of another author's OC. The reason for this, besides letting them have a side role in the story, is to provide the means for driving the story that wouldn't work with any of the accepted fandom background ponies. In fact, all the pre-reader did was read the first chapter, and in that chapter "Sandalwood" is only mentioned in conversation.

-"You begin by referring to Applejack as "Applejack," but then you start referring to her as AJ. Unless you're trying to show that she's having an identity crisis, you should stick with one name (preferable "Applejack") for her the whole way through your story." ~ This one really made me confused, plus made me wonder if this pre-reader had actually seen the show. Applejack is called AJ all the time in the show, as early as episode three, and she doesn't seem to have an identity crisis there.

- "Do not try to spice up your dialogue by using alternatives to "said." "Said" is usually better than alternatives like "exclaimed," which can be distracting and often fall into the territory of "show, don't tell" issues. If you want to make your dialogue more exciting, put your effort into word choice and body language rather than dialogue tags." ~ Do I even need to explain how not using anything other than "said" would make having to read dialog-heavy parts really boring?

So yeah, I'm not too happy with how the pre-reading system seems to not be geared to recognizing creative writing from College English News Article Writing 101.

1038612

You speak as if what I said in a singular comment was the entirety of the picture. It was not.

I never said that complex diction alone comprised a unique style. Instead, I note how EqD rejects many kinds of entirely valid style variances, regardless of execution.

And burden of proof should not be an excuse to toss things out the window; sufficient isolated testimonials to an event a generally enough to at least make it very possible that the event occurred.
It's interesting how you mention Burden of Proof among your Red Herrings and borderline Tu Quoques.

That fic actually has them going on legitimate dates, whereas I recall the rules saying that you will not accept " foalshipping beyond a schoolyard crush".

Two other things:
1. Stop decontextualizing quotes from me to make it seem like I have a vendetta because my fic got rejected and I want to whine without reason. Making such implications that way so is an exceptionally dirty tactic, whether this was your intent or not.

2. Equestia Daily should not try to function like a publishing house. Publishing houses are abundant, and thus it's alright for them to have small scopes of accepted styles and genres, since there's one out there for most good pieces. Equestria Daily, on the other hand, stands alone as a site that garners such extensive viewership for MLP related fanworks.

I'll not be playing the debate game any longer, as eventually it only serves to obscure the facts, and the winner may not be the side that is correct.

Instead, have fun with this wonderful proof of the amazing professionalism and lack of bias among prereaders. Enjoy, everypony.
I know we can ask for better than that.

1039874

The first point you make is debatable. The others are exactly what I'm talking about. Seriously, why does EqD select prereaders who do this kind of arbitrary enforcement of their own opinions and biases?

1039140 Ouch harsh Anyway, since you seem to know a thing about art, can you tell me why
This piece was rejected. I submitted the piece for critiquing on the mlpdrawing school and fixed everything I was told to, but it was still rejected. Can you also possibly explain what the guidelines are?

1039268>>1039258

And here people told me EqD was non-profit. Lel. (I'm kidding. I understand that you need to upkeep a site somehow. Besides, twas a joke.)

Anyways, as for both of you, I understand your points completely. I use "said" like any other common man or woman who writes and it's useful in certain situations (as you pointed out Alex). But the use of "said" too much is really boring. I don't care if Stephen King declared it a rule that all characters must have "said" after their name in dialogue (I don't know if he did or did not. I'm just making a point to Filler pointing out something a single credible author wrote down), I'm still not going to use it over and over.

As for that LUS thing, the example you did, Filler, wasn't one I was referring to. I just meant that the use of it shouldn't be considered bad. I use "the blue pegasus" or something a lot when I've said "Dash" or "mare" too much in a thick set of dialogue between multiple characters. Whether EqD likes it or not, it's how I like to write. Half the time, it's revised by my editors. I don't even notice it after it's finished.

Anyways, thanks for little chit chat. I'm sure we have more important things to do than tell EqD how not to run their site.

1038245 can you link me to the video when it's done ^^

1040602
The link also gave a reason for why you shouldn't use those verbs, you know... It isn't arbitrary like Don't Split Infinitives or Don't End Sentences with Prepositions. And King says he himself does it in the next paragraph, but he avoids doing so when he can. (It's not a rule of writing as much as it is a general good idea.)

1040019

Is it odd that I read your text in the voice of someone who is sophisticated and well educated?

1040611

When the video is done, It will be linked either here or in a new thread.

1039506

EqD: "Lol, what's story content?"
Alex: "Fuck if I know. Let people submit shit. Going to sleep."

>Alex x EqD is the next top seller of shipfictions.

1040616
No, no, of course not, old bean! Simply a side effect of my magnificent, shark-like classiness.

Seriously though, it's more likely due to some combination of my shark-in-a-tuxedo avatar, and the formal, pedantic tone that I adopt when I start debating in text.

I can link you some fanfic readings I've done, if you want to know what my voice sounds like. Then again, that might just spoil it for you.

1040633 thank I will be sure to sub to your channel when its' done for more updates ^^.

1040674

I'd feel more contempt if your voice was reading my awful fictions.

Lol.

1039480 I understand how you feel completely. My fav fic Harmony theory was rejected for a very similar reason. Apparantly the prologue was boring. In their eyes, it was a boring 8k word chapter of a conversation between luna and celestia. In everyone else's eyes, it was a bit of important worldbuilding that turned into one incredible fic. Hell look at the first Lord of the Rings book. The first couple of chapters were horribly boring. However, it turned into one of the most famous and well written book sereies/movies out there. So, to what I understand about Eqd's logic, LotR would be rejected because of its slow start. IMO, this should never be grounds to deny any fic. At least the author handled it well. Better than I am ironically.

1040019

Instead, have fun with this wonderful proof of the amazing professionalism and lack of bias among prereaders. Enjoy, everypony.

Lack of professionalism? Yes. We never should have made that mistake to begin with. Bias? No, sorry, there are no examples of bias anywhere in that email thread.

I would really appreciate if people understood what "bias" meant before accusing us of it. In fact, if you really knew what it meant, and knew how we went about picking stories, you'd realize that we're biased in favor of the story. I've had it up to here with people shouting "BIAS!" when they have no idea what they're talking about.

1039874

Lavender/Purple Unicorn syndrome.

I'm guessing you also write things like "the tan human", right? Well, if you don't, it's the same principal. In fact, pulling a book from my small collection here (Warcraft: War of the Ancients Archive by Richard A. Knaak), I want to say 80 or 90 percent of the time, he's using the characters name to refer to them. Sure, sometimes he'll use "the elder mage" or "the veteran warrior," but those are few, mainly because referring to characters by name is usually just the better option for referencing them.

-The pre-reader said that they think Granny shouldn't have a southern accent put onto her when she says "i" as "Ah".

I'm actually with you on this. I personally write Apple Family characters using "Ah" instead of "I". On this point, you could have easily contested it. However, looking at the email thread, you never responded back. You do know you can challenge anything a pre-reader says, right? Hell, tell them "Alex says this is okay."

In fact, all the pre-reader did was read the first chapter, and in that chapter "Sandalwood" is only mentioned in conversation.

Well yes, if I saw a name pop up that had never been mentioned before, I'd be asking questions too. Is it necessary to mention them, and confuse your readers for a second? Would it not be better to either introduce them first or leave them out until they have a place in the story? And I haven't read the fic, but if you absolutely have to include the name, have you described the character while doing so? If the audience at least gets a purpose to the name, other than just a name, it sits better.

Applejack is called AJ all the time in the show, as early as episode three, and she doesn't seem to have an identity crisis there.

She's referred to as AJ by other characters, not the story itself. So when you start the fic with "Applejack walked to the park," and then later say "AJ kicked a ball around," it's inconsistent. Why would you do that? Why not just write "Applejack kicked a ball around"? Now, of course, its fine if Applejack kicks the ball around, then hears Dash yell out "Hey, AJ, what's up?" because it's a nickname. You don't really use nicknames in the prose.

Do I even need to explain how not using anything other than "said" would make having to read dialog-heavy parts really boring?

The solution to that is to not need to use the word "said" all the time. I posted examples earlier, but a lot of the dialogue I write doesn't even have a speech attribute to it, nor does it need one. The audience knows just fine that the character is talking, and I didn't have to slap "she said" after it. While it's fine if you sparingly use something like "shouted" instead of "said", moving into things like "exclaimed" or "voiced" starts to get silly.

Save for the second item, these are all legitimate issues.

1039611

What "good fics" aren't on EQD? Would you care to list a few of them?

1040800 From one artist to another, learn to take constructive criticism. Firstly, take a look at the horns in the show and then look at yours. Quite frankly yours looks a bit like a tiny needle, with or without hair. Make it bigger and not as sharp. Do you want the headphones and glasses to be on his head? Yes? Put them on his head. This is achieved through a bit of shading which this piece sorrowfully lacks. You do not achieve depth or lighing by making the background as blurry as possible. All you have to do is make it lighter with slightly less detail and add shines and darks. Take to mind that the sharpness never decreases (I know cause I used to do the same thing) Take a look at this pic:

It is very similar to what you were trying to do but notice that it is not blurry? Its just lighter. Also, the suns "rays" looks like a window. Is it a window? If so maybe put in a frame or something. Remember, the viewer cant read your mind. If you don't make it clear what the pic is about then they wont understand what you are getting at. The ears should probably be moved to the left and be made slightly bigger. I do like the shine on the eyes, good job with that. And like I said earlier, ADD SHADING! If you are going to have a piece with a lot of light, there is going to be a lot of Darks and blacks. And btw, that whole "perspective genious" thing, dont do that. It makes you come off as a douche. On another note, I highly recommend this reddit group http://www.reddit.com/r/MLPdrawingschool/. Your piece gets critiqued in a timely manner (about an hour). The community is both fair and nice and give very helpfull critiques.

Holy moderator circle jerk

Nevermind. I ain't getting in on this mess. Just go on my user page and look up the obviously titled blog if you want my two cents on why I don't trust the EqD proofreaders. That, and these 'analyses' that have been popping up are nothing more than conjecture, which is irritating to a person like me who is actually into real analyses.

1041583 I will admit, I saw a fine red mist when I learned that digibrony became a mod to do an analysis section. You know what I would love to see? Actual critiques of the show. Not just vids saying "oh this is what I think it means".

1041175 I wouldn't know what fics are on the site, since I don't go on it HUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUEHUE.
But i'd say, Displacement, Slipping through a Sideway's Door, My Little Wesker (I think it's on there),
All of RainbowBob's stories, all of Crowley's stories, and PonyBall GT... there's a whole lot of other stories, but i've been slackin' off and can't remember all 400 of them.

1041707 Thank you! Nearly all of his videos are terrible, and the worst is probably the Call of the Cutie 'analysis'. He lost damn near all of his credibility when he said the party scene at the end was "a badly written scene" because it didn't have the parents yet some ponies who were grown ups. Dude. It's a kid's show. As sad as it is to admit it, they don't put 100% effort in the show's writing because they don't need to! It's a kids' show!

1041583
I must not be looking hard enough, because all I found was one post linking to Geodesic Dragon's page (didn't expect that one!), and a lot of really long blogposts that required a lot of scrolling. Seriously, dude, use pagebreaks. You do them like this: [pagebreak]

1041831 For me it was MMC. I personally thought the episode was god awfull while he praised it to high hell and ignored important points such as it's rushed nature and the fact that it was written rather poorly. But I digress.
Edit: Holy crap I just realized you wrote My Little Glados! Love that fic. If you dont mind me asking, did you ever submit it to Eqd? I cant imagine that a pre reader would decline it with that many thumbs up.

1041945
Oh Lord, here we go...

If memory serves me right, I'm pretty sure we rejected My Little Glados months ago for an... actually shockingly long laundry list of grammatical errors and general writing no-nos. Don't know if it's been edited more thoroughly since then, but I am seeing that we noticed it had been added to this group soon after it being rejected the first time, so... kinda doubt we're gonna see that one show up in the ficbox again, TBH.

Also, bear in mind that the popularity of a story on FIMFiction holds no bearing on our decisions regarding that story's aptness for posting on EqD. We're trying to create a compilation of the best stuff the fandom has to offer regardless of prior reception, and as I sincerely hope you're aware, a story simply being popular by no means indicates that it's expertly crafted, or even (in some unfortunate cases) that it's competently written at all.

1041175

I didn't contest namely because there were plenty of other issues that I recognized as legitimate grammar issues (non-italicized thoughts and more than a few tense confusions) and currently I am planning on fixing them at a later date. The ones I posted were just the issues the pre-reader brought up that I found questionable as actual problems.

As for Sandalwood, the moment the name comes up I do give a little expository spot to give her some character and explain the significance; origin, reason for mentioning, place of employment, etc. The whole point of introducing the character, who actually is a recent transplant now living in Ponyville, is to have somebody tell the CMC stuff without knowing they're actually going to take it to dangerous extremes, which is what kicks the plot off.

The whole "not use nicknames in context" seems wrong, though. People refer to her all the time as AJ outside of the show, so it's not an issue of people not recognizing who I'm referring to. Wouldn't this be more of a problem with an author's style of writing, which is HIGHLY subjective on a personal level, instead of being an actual grammatical problem?

1042154

Wouldn't this be more of a problem with an author's style of writing, which is HIGHLY subjective on a personal level, instead of being an actual grammatical problem?

No, it's pretty much universally incorrect to use a nickname in prose.

Edit: The only time this is acceptable is in a first person perspective where the main character will refer to people they know by their nicknames, or if it's third person thoughts, which is basically dialogue anyway.

1042089 I am aware that popularity does not mean its good but still, over 2500 thumbs up kinda speaks for itself. No story that is poorly written or incomprehensible would garner that much attention. But that is besides the point. Im pretty sure that the author did do a re write of the beggining chapters but I have no idea if that was before or after submiting it to Eqd. All I know is that the newest chapters are quite well written so I would love to see if it is up to Eqd standards. Also, I would disagree that Eqd has the best fics. Maybe best grammatically (and even that is arguable) but storywise, most new fics aren't that interesting (To me anyway). I have seen better be declined (See above post about Harmony Theory). Its really hard to claim to have the best of the best of the best when that is subjective. Best to you is different than best to me. Its like claiming "We have the best coffee in NY" when it is in fact just a cup of coffee. IDK this claim always irked me especially with some of the content restrictions. I think this site will always take that title. Sure there are some real stinkers, but if you know what to look for and where, you wont be disappointed.