After an entire week of talks, screaming, tears, blood, and other bodily fluids were exchanged, a treaty has been signed and a winner has been chosen. It's always exciting when a single vote determines the entire outcome of a contest, and believe me, it wasn't an easy choice to make.

Here's a quick list of all the contestants, in order of number of sacrifices performed to the dark lord.

Oh Captain, My Captain! by Akashic Brony

Do Nothing Day by ssjgokillo

Remembrance Day by Grand_Moff_Pony

The Festival of First Flight by Kodeake

Now for the winners. So like any other half-baked contest, let's go in reverse order.

In 3rd place: Do Nothing Day by ssjgokillo

Killo's stories are always an enjoyable read, and it shows with him always being a consistent contender for the top spots in every contest he's a part of.

In 2nd place: The Festival of First Flight by Kodeake

Kodeake's story clearly had some thought put into the festival, as shown in the small things like the cloudberries. And like Killo, he always seems to be near the top of every TwiDash contest.

And the horse to beat, the squash to eat, the kid that stole your treat, coming in at numero uno:

1st place: Remembrance Day by Grand_Moff_Pony

Moff's was a very interesting take on manipulating magic to create those memory crystals. Remembrance Day was simply a good story that was engaging to read, well-executed, and actually felt polished for a contest entry.

So enjoy your front page spot Moff, and on behalf of the judges, congratulations.

Oh, wow. I'm just so deliriously happy right now! *runs off to squee like an idiot*

Okay... I'm back, lol. Rampant cheers aside, I'm very honored to be chosen as the winner, and the single vote differential speaks clearly to the top quality of all of the entries. I must tip my hat to the other writers here for doing a heck of a job in their own right. Good show, everyone! :)

Also, a special thanks to Loyal and Silver Flare, whose combined editing skills and advice made all the difference to the final product here. I can't thank either of you gentlemen enough.

Grats Grand Moff! I feel like I need to go into an evil monologue about how I'll be victorious next time, but is sleepy time.

This contest had some solid competition, even if there were fewer entries than normal (At least we didn't get 7 entries again).

Congratulations to everyone who entered, and especially to Grand Moff; you more than earned this victory. But I think we all know that the true victors here are the people who get to read all the entries... damn slave drivers.... makin' us write about cute colourful horses in love.

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Thank you both! :)

Congratulations everybody.

4th TwiDash Contest Reviews (links to individual story reviews)

So this contest gave us four entries, Oh Captain, My Captain, by Akashic Brony; The Festival of First Flight, by Kodeake; Do Nothing Day, by ssjgokillo; and Remembrance Day, by Grand Moff Pony.

In terms of the holidays invented by these four authors and presented to us by their stories, Remembrance stood out to me as being the most original, highly creative, and very believable. Of the four, it fit the "look and feel" of Equestria the most, and struck me as simply the most interesting of the four. While all of them had good points and I'm overall pleased with the ideas presented, Grand Moff Pony's holiday stood out head and shoulders over the others.

Kodeake's Festival of the First Flight was probably the second best of the four. It was noticeably weaker, but had quite a few strengths in spite of its failings. It was fairly well meshed with the story as well, a major selling point.

The remaining two were riddled with problems, and honestly I'll err on the side of kindness and call the tied for third.

In addition to inventing a holiday from scratch, the point of the contest is of course to write a good story. Once again, Grand Moff Pony simply excels in this regard. Despite being a sad story which puts a lot of people off, Remembrance Day was simply a good story that was engaging to read, well-executed, and actually felt polished for a contest entry.

Again, Festival of the First Flight would be my second place. It had its strong and weak points, but overall was a fairly mediocre story. It had some decently strong writing to it, but too jarring, and too much POV-shifting. Some interesting details and bits of scene made for some enjoyable parts, but the whole simply failed to shine.

Do Nothing Day had some pretty serious problems with it, but showcased solid writing talent. I'm not really sure which direction would be better for the story to make it good, though. One direction would be to tone down the exaggeration, build it into a more serious story, and we might end up with a meaty and enjoyable TwiDash story as a result. The other direction would be to go much more light-hearted, comedy route. The jokes that were present fell pretty flat with me though.

Oh Captain, My Captain was really just a mess. It tried to put in a "choose your own path adventure" element in, but that simply was a poor choice, and terribly executed at that. The story tried to do far too many things already, and it felt like a disorganized mess, rushed, then thrown into an industrial fan and scattered all over the place. Of the four, I had the hardest time simply finishing the story, and even then skimmed over some parts.

One observation I noticed across the four stories, is the fewer characters each had, the better the story. Remembrance Day was told entirely from Twilight Sparkle's POV, featured some supporting parts from a scattering of OC's, with only one being prominent enough to have any real characterization to him, which was handled conservatively. Festival of the First Flight Swapped back and forth between Rainbow Dash and Twilight, would have improved greatly were it told entirely from Rainbow's POV, and also featured a small and conservative cast of supporting OC's with Rainbow's coach carrying part of the plot. Do Nothing Day Had Twilight and Rainbow Dash, Apple Bloom, and three OC fillies, as well as a cameo by Spike, and a letter from Celestia. Oh Captain had Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Luna, Lightning Dust, Spitfire, Soarin, Scootaloo, as well as appearances by various other ponies, griffons, and... you get the idea. Character overload is a real thing, and you can see how it harms stories.