4996283 Oh you got something from Tatsarou's line of books... oh dear, I wonder how well this will go...

Read the Princess and her Friend

Rejecting

The Princess and her Friend is a story about Pipsqueak and Luna, and is possibly among my least favourite shipfic formats. It takes both characters, presents them as liking one another, and then they talk for five minutes and end up together. That's it. There is no tension, no surprise, no complexity. I could replace Luna and Pipsqueak with any other character and the story wouldn't suffer for it.

It doesn't go into detail much about how these two really interract, considering most of the story is actually them apart, and what it does try to explain it does so by telling. Only at the end do they actually do much of anything, but it's short, predictable, and not particularly engaging.

The story throws no surprises or twists or even much motivation for the characters outside of 'they want to kiss'. Which is enough, I guess, so long as you don't want to compete with hundreds of shipfics that attempt to accomplish so much more. I might be a bit pampered by today's standards, but I've read so many romance stories that attempt so much more or attempt the same thing with so much more colour that this feels pretty bland, like it's barely getting past the premise of 'this is a romance story between Pipsqueak and Luna'. There is very little here outside of that. Even the characters feel tired and shallow, and they're not living up to their potential. I'm an absolute fan of characters being colourful and vibrant, so even just that would have probably gotten some appreciation from me, but instead they feel like they're reciting lines off paper:

Finally, taking the silence as rejection, Pip said dejectedly, "Ok... I understand, your silence says it all....... I shouldn't have even thought of doing this in the first place..... I'll... just be going then...."

"Princess, what do you think about relationships?" he asked rather suddenly.

Luna looked at him quizzically before answering, "What do you mean?"

"Like, if a stallion asked you out or on a date, would you say yes, or turn him down?"

There's nothing reminding me that this is Pipsqueak, and if it wasn't for the story reminding me Luna was a princess, there'd be nothing reminding me she was Luna either.

I think you'd really have to ship this pairing to enjoy this story, as it makes little to no attempt to invest you in it otherwise. This story sorely needs some creativity and ambition, or at least the ability to present its bare-bones premise with more flair. It's harmless enough, but highly forgettable.

Reviewing: The Merc With the Moth

Read: Five chapters

Status: Rejected ( reluctantly )

This one took a lot of thought. It begins all over the map, with weird POV shifts that involve fourth wall breaking that I assume was supposed to be funny, but just ended up being confusing. And this from the description:

It is recommended you read this story in one of the Dark formats in order to better distinguish the colored text of the 'other voices'.

...did not help at all. I still have no clue what the "Dark formats" are supposed to be, but on a website that has thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of stories, asking your readers to check some obscure reference before reading is a sure way for one's story not to be read.

I imagine this tale will appeal to anyone familiar with the source material, and that's the problem. No effort is made to give any kind of background into the main protagonist; the reader is thrown into the deep end with no land in sight. I know Deadpool is a character from the Marvel Universe, and he's obviously a mercenary, but that's about the extent of my knowledge. If I hadn't been reading this for the purpose of doing this review I would have stopped reading by the middle of the second chapter, for I had no idea who was speaking when the text changed colors, and it was only after the end of the chapter did I realize these were the voices in Deadpool's head.

Again, this is a problem when you're doing a crossover: if you're expecting your audience to already know the source material, you're taking a big gamble. So this tale is better suited to a niche audience, but it's not suitable for the Bin. And that's why I added the word "reluctantly," for the story does improve by the fourth chapter, and judging from the like/dislike ratio it has its fans. But this is a My Little Pony fansite; make the story accessible to those readers, which are in the majority.

5002060

I still have no clue what the "Dark formats" are supposed to be,

When reading any given chapter of a story, there will be an option menu at the top of the screen that allows you to change the format. Just hover your mouse near the top of the screen to access the menu.

p.s. If you want an interesting experience, choose the "Princess Celestia" format option.

5002181
Well, that was an eye-opener! I had no idea about those formats, but I can see the "Princess Celestia" option giving me a headache. Thanks for the info!

5002219
You're welcome.

5002219 I'm all about the medium dark, but I might have to give amber on dark a go, just to be different.

5002244

Huh. I had no idea about the formats, either. But they do look pretty cool. The Celestia format looks trippy as heck, while the Luna format looks pretty cool, especially when reading scenes where characters talk with each other while staring into the night sky.

I'll stick with the light format, though. Thanks for letting us know about it.

5003496
You're welcome. I also tend to stick with the standard light format, but it's still neat to mess around with the other options once in a while.

The Luna format is pretty cool, but back when it was first introduced you would have had a difficult time reading any Author's Notes:

That seems to be fixed now, thankfully.

Read The Spiral Notebook

Accepted

I suspect this is a road frequently travelled by writers, presenting Sunset Shimmer as someone who doesn't particularly belong in the 'human' world. (I say human somewhat snarkily considering there are quite a handful of differences between EG 'human' and the regular definition of the term)

I'm not as well versed in Sunset wondering which world to live in as opposed to other recurring themes, such as the typical 'character can't bring him/herself to ask another out', 'human in Equestria', and the most tiresome for me, 'Luna and Celestia have a talk', though, and I don't feel particularly comfortable holding something against a story that probably isn't very widespread if I haven't been exposed to it already.

The story itself is actually somewhat creative, using both letters and written diary entries to carry the story. I think it overuses them a tad, however, particularly near the end. This is because the story decided each of the Sunset's friends needed their own entry, and Sunset feels the need to talk about each and every one in her letters. Problem is, there's five of them, which did end up making it feel at times repetitive.

What's pretty interesting is that Sunset doesn't do a lot of talking herself (outside of writing a letter, which I suppose counts in a sense), but still manages to convey a lot of what she's feeling rather concisely. Truthfully, if the story had aimed a bit higher than just going over the diary entries of each character, or perhaps found some way to make the at times repetitive formula more spicy, this would have been very fun indeed. As it is, I got a tad bored by the end and felt it was the tiniest bit hollow, but I still don't regret reading it.

The only other thing I noticed were the odd inconsistency, such as Twilight writing to Sunset saying (in regards to Sunset returning to Equestria) that it wasn't her place to say, but not two paragraphs (or three, I forget) later, she writes 'come home'. I feel they're small enough to overlook, though, considering how the story takes a creative approach to what is essentially just some soul-searching (something I've seen in a lot more ambitious stories).

As for grammar, there was nothing my untrained eyes could spot, so at the very least, you'd have to be very grammar-savvy to get irked by anything here. The voice of each of the characters, even in epistolary format, was also very strong and refreshing (although Pinkie using emotes on paper? How does that work? Did she literally write a less than sign then a three?)

At the end of the day I think this was perhaps a missed opportunity for something really impressive, as it had the creative and stylistic chops to be very entertaining and had strong character voices and concerns. As it is, I think it's still a strong one-shot, and a decent addition to the Bin.

5002060 You're not familiar with Deadpool? Then you, my friend, are in for a treat. There's a reason this guy is popular enough to have his own movie coming out next month.

Deadpool is a mercenary who, through his insanity, has become aware of the fact that he is a fictional character. Take Wolverine's healing factor, Spiderman's snark, Punisher's love of weapons, Discord's and Pinkie Pie's fourth wall antics, and enough stupidity to power an infinity engine, and you'll start to get an idea of what he's capable of. Notable appearances include the time he murdered the entire marvel universe, then proceeded to go after the comic writers themselves.

For more information, check out this death battle, where he goes up against Slade Wilson, a.k.a. DC's Deathstroke.

Edit: I mainly added this one because it managed to make me laugh out loud in just about every single chapter. If you don't find it funny, that's just you.

5004499
Thank you for the video, which helped explain the character quite well. Which however, proves my point: one has to be familiar with the source material in order to enjoy that tale.

While browsing through the folder I found a few stories I've already read, including some that I've already added to my bookshelves.

Reviewing: Twilight Hears the Narrator

Read: The one chapter

Status: Approved

This is a clever little one-shot that is exactly what it says on the label. The twist is that Twilight is the only pony who can hear what's going on with the narrator's voice. As can be expected it causes her no limit of embarrassment, besides kicking her OCD into overdrive as she tries to figure out just what the hay is going on.

Usually tales that involve the author speaking to the characters do not end well, for they mostly involve trying to make some tired point with the reader. Not always, of course, though I can think of few that were actually as funny as this one. The banter between Twilight and the narrator was quite enjoyable, although I do have to point out the misuse of proper dialogue punctuation:

"Hello?...Narrator?...Come on, don't leave me hanging." She called out, in her sweet pristine voice. Twilight stretched a smile across her pretty young face. "Well now! What's with the compliments all of a sudden?" she blushed.

...which now that I think about it, may have been deliberate ( eyes narrow with suspicion ).

****

Reviewing: You Lose Some, You Winsome

Read: The one chapter

Status: Approved

Here is another one-shot from one of my favorite authors, who uses few words to invoke emotion and scenery. This tale is no exception.

This a very sweet story about Rainbow Dash and her surrogate sister Scootaloo taking a camping trip. The setting is some time after the events in the episode Sleepless in Ponyville, so it is to Winsome Falls they once again travel. The author conjures up the characterization of both RD and Scoots quite well, and is much in canon. But it sometime during the night this tale truly hits its stride.

Scootaloo would be, I'm guessing, between eight and ten years old, and at such an age she has the most embarrassing thing that could happen to a child of her years: she wets the bed. Or rather, her sleeping bag. She of course tries to hide the fact from Rainbow, but she is so distraught Rainbow quickly clues in something is wrong. She truly shines as a big Sister in this tale, and as such the story is all the more heartwarming.

****

Reviewing: Princess Celestia's Newest Arch Enemy

Read: All

Status: Approved

This was one of the most adorable tales I've read in a very long time! It begins with the Princess reclining behind her desk one afternoon, when she is informed by one of her guards that she has a quite insistent visitor. She at first refuses the visitor, until her guard adds a curious description: he's so cute! Here's what I mean:

Someone quietly knocked on the door.

Celestia tightened her jaw. “Come in.”

A pregnant pause followed. A small voice outside the door asked, “Can I come in yet?”

Celestia rolled her eyes. “Yes! Come in!”

Another pause followed. “I can’t reach the doorknob! Can you… can you open it for me?”

...hnng...

Where was I? Oh yes, in walks a little colt...hnng...wearing, wearing a cape...and he's soooo...I can't stand it! I need a minute...

(ahem) The story is also unique in that there's another player involved, whom Celestia only discovers after she has used the, and I'm not kidding, "secret soup phones" to summon her sister. Thus the true plot is revealed, which is the twist at the end. I won't spoil it.

Suffice to say this story has many levels, all of which are enjoyable!

****

Reviewing: The Mare of the Night

Read: The one chapter

Status: Approved

I saved the best for last. Here is one of those dreaded HiE stories that I almost rejected out of hand. In this universe, Humans have made peaceful contact with Equestria, to the point where there are now embassies from each government (Human and Equestrian) in their respective cities. At this time, there is only one Human ambassador, a Daniel Habbuck. Through his eyes we are shown a much seedier side of Equestria, for he is mostly fed up with the backstabbing and condescension that make up pony politics. So one night, en route to his home, he decides to pick up some female company. When he first came to Equestria he saw no further than the ponies' cute faces, so it was a shock to him to find out they are "just as sexual and can be as perverted as Humans, if not more so." This all sounds like the setup for mindless clop. It isn't, and that's this story's charm.

The prostitute he picks out turns out be much more than that, for she is one with a tragic backstory, and the accompanying feels are not at all forced or contrived. The thestral "Starlight Dockkya Sim’ya NightFlyer" is one who makes no excuses for what she does, but neither is she proud of it. She and Daniel simply have a conversation, and like a flower slowly opening to reveal its beauty she lets slip the mask she wears, revealing the true person underneath. It is a tale that is by turns sad, enraging and wonderful, and an excellent addition to The Goodfic Bin.

5006126 I don't care about the story making it in anymore. I just care about you not being able to enjoy it. Once you understand what's going on it's easily some of his best work.

5006398
I love to see this kind of passion for stories, and the only way it could be better would be the author him/herself speaking in defense of the story. I will certainly give the tale another look, if only for my own sake.

5006782 Actually, I think this kind is better. You know you've got something special when someone who didn't have a hand in its creation went out of his/her way to defend it. Author defense is self defense, to an extent.

Also, this story managed to make me laugh and dawwww at the same time while reading about torture and murder. That is not an easy task.

Reviewed A Frosty November Evening

Accepting

This story is kind-of in the same vein as the last one I read through, and it perhaps wasn't a great idea on my part to read a story so similar in length, content, and tone immediately after the last one. Of course, they are different, but it's not hard to see the resemblance between them.

In this story, everypony is heading home for Thanksgiving to see their family, except Sunset. I could pretty much see where the story was going to head, but it was still fun enough to listen to each of the characters talk about what they were going to do. Very mild fun, admittedly, but fun nonetheless.

My real gripe is how the story drags on a bit near the middle. The story make it obvious how it'll play out, so we really just see Sunset moping around a bit until the time is right for Twilight to make her entrance. It's not entirely without merit, as seeing some of Sunset think and exist in her home is decent enough character exploration, but I still have to admit there was no real tension past the introduction of the main conflict.

What I came to enjoy about this most, however, is how the story highlights the relationship between human Twilight and Sunset. It hints at them using their shared experiences as a basis for a growing friendship. Although I do always giggle at the absurdity of someone saying that they 'used to be (pause for dramatic effect) evil', I do think it was a nice touch.

In the end, I'd say this was a mild story that managed to be pleasant enough for me to not want to discourage readers from giving it ago. It may very well suffer from not doing too much to distinguish itself from others, however, and the more I read of stories like these, the more I imagine my patience will start to wear thin (as it does for Celestia and Luna sister stories). For now, however, I remain satisfied.

Reading: Pandelirium

Read The Writing on the Wall

Accepting

The Writing on the Wall is an older story, but it doesn't fit what I've come to expect of stories from that far back. Instead of being mild and unambitious, no matter how charming, this dark little mystery is impressive in scope as well as how it tells such an efficient story, keeping the word count low despite the amount of stuff that happens in the story.

Whilst only being 6K words, it manages to introduce several original characters, each with their own distinct voices and quirks, makes the majority of them likeable (the doc' didn't have as much of an impact on me) and manages to get the reader (in this case, me) to give a damn about what happens to them. In terms of characters, the only real criticism I have is one of their names: Dark Horizon. It just sounds like something from a bad OC romance, which is odd because Horizon was a fun little character.

Whilst the tags and the tone of the story alone tipped me off to what was going to happen, I still was somewhat startled by the scope of the consequences that occur after opening the tomb. I think this was done on purpose, and it really does heighten the stakes set in the story. It might not have been a rewarding ending had the story been longer, and required more investment, but for what it was, I thought it was a stellar ending.

Finally, the attention to detail is quite impressive. I don't usually scour stories looking for kooky little details, but the way the story fleshes out archaeology (in particular, using magic to date ruins) was a nice touch I enjoyed a lot.

In short, this is one of the better short stories I've read in a while, and certainly among the stronger older stories I've read, which so often don't live up to the expectations that their (often much more impressive) rating would have you believe.

So, I've read porn before. They're usually pretty easy to spot. Mature tag, a bit of a suggestive picture and title, and if that's not enough, the description typically does it. Anyway, I decided to go through four of the stories I figured would be very obviously gratuitous clop with nothing much to hold the story together besides sex. Turns out, I was right on all counts but one.

Of course, I cannot link to these stories, but their names are written below. Bearing in mind that we here want more from stories than gratuitous porn, I've handily gotten rid of the following, and given a brief description regarding why.

Peace and Physical Love

Rejecting

After reading this story through, it's very obvious that the porn is central to the 'story'. Fluttershy's 'conflict' serves only to set her having sex with Treehugger up. It's not even really overcome either, just sort of put to the side like it never really happened.

Also, I'm given to understand that boobs cannot orgasm. Bit of a technical glitch there.

The characters are pretty two dimensional and only really scratch the surface regarding who they are, although to be fair the story doesn't run them into the ground or fundamentally misunderstand them from as far as I can tell. Treehugger especially is pretty much exactly what we saw in the show with no added development (aside from being shown to have sex). The story isn't really inventive either, but at least it does preface what it's about and is written coherently, so that's a plus. I suppose if you're looking for Treehugger porn, you could do worse, but since it doesn't really rise above porn in any meaningful way, it's a rejection from me. Still, compared to what came (heh) next, this was a breath of fresh air.

My Little Pony Equestria Girls: A Bare Bottomed Rarity

Rejecting

This one was distinctly unpleasant, and I can't really imagine how horny I'd have to be to get a kick out of it. Psycho lesbian steals Rarity's underwear, and Rarity has to get them back. I honestly couldn't get through three chapters of this, despite it having an actual story to it.

The characters are remarkably one-dimensional. The dialogue is permanently stilted, and frankly, the vast majority of characters are incredibly mean-spirited, and the story absolutely cannot hide what it's trying to do: make Rarity as uncomfortable and humiliated as possible. The actions of the characters make little to no sense, from Psycho Lesbian initiating the mess without real incentive other than 'oh, she's a Lesbian Psyco!', Rarity failing to report actual rape, her being afraid of looking like a pervert when literally everyone else is worse (except a handful of the main cast who simply didn't speak long enough to be perverted), and then there's everyone tying to grope Rarity's ass all of a sudden. Porn or no, my suspension of disbelief is reeling.

Speaking of rape, there's attempted rape. In chapter one. I'm under instructions to get rid of those on sight unless it's treated with due diligence and it isn't. To be frank, my standards regarding the due diligence of rape are surprisingly lax, but here it obviously means for the reader to be 'turned on', which is unacceptable by our standards. Nope. Even if you want to read porn (and after this rather tiresome evening I might) I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.

Fluttershy the Melissophile

Rejecting

Whilst distinctly more pleasant to read than Bare Bottomed Rarity, at best this story remains porn designed to titillate, but frankly I found it rather boring and dull. Melissophilia, for those who don't know, is when you're sexually aroused by bee stings (or other stings, I guess). The story's premise is pretty much what it says in the title, but not much happens in the story, pornographic or otherwise. Fluttershy likes getting stung by bees. Great.

All we see are a few tedious sexual scenes where Flutters masturbates a bit whilst getting stung, and then Twilight watches... I guess? She was cataloguing the pain caused by insect stings. It felt super-contrived. There was a bit of pony-on-pony action there, but again, it was contrived and not very interesting. It wasn't prefaced well.

And that's it. There's a tiny moment of conflict where Fluttershy is afraid of coming out as a melissophile, but it's over pretty quick and the story doesn't make much of it. Unless you desperately want to see some sweet bee-on-pony action, I'd probably just give this one a miss, no matter what mood you're in.

The Princess and the Human

Rejected

This one actually isn't porn. I guessed wrong when I looked at it. However, despite not being porn, it is without a doubt the most poorly written story of the four, sporting capitalization errors, improper use of dialogue punctuation, improper punctuation, stilted word choice and massive block-like paragraphs. On those alone I'd be rejecting the story.

But moreso than that, the story's premise is uncomfortably familiar with those premises you tend to assume nobody does any more because they're so overdone and poor. Dylan, the protagonist, lives alone and has a tragic past. Luna and Celestia (who by the way sound nothing like the regal and powerful princesses of the show) pop out of nowhere and just hang around, really.

The pacing is off and there's a huge exposition dump at the beginning, meaning it was a horrible first impression to the story that never really got better. The author also decided to use a whole lot of capitalizations and swear words, which never really felt necessary and just made for ugly reading. Dylan is also supremely basic, and doesn't really do anything but occasionally mope about his tragic past and shout and vandals. He's really dull and the story doesn't do much to make him stand out. The story also focusses on trivial details I never found it in me to care about. Despite being nearly 10K words long, frankly not much ever happened, and I doubt the story has even gotten near the stuff promised by its tags (which were what led me to believe it was porn in the first place).

The best thing about the story was the cat. Even if the story got past its many writing errors, it'd still be a rather bland pony-on-earth without a clear goal, conflict, or much individuality. I'd skip it, and I'm certainly not accepting it in here.

There. I did it. I got rid of four stories most of us knew would be rejected anyway. Jeez, I miss the days when people submitted good porn. You're welcome, Winter. Now excuse me, I need a drink.

5035598
Ah, yes:

To Alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of Life's problems!

— Homer Simpson

Reviewing: Pandelirium

Read: Four chapters

Status: Accepted

Now we come to the fifth and final story of The Petriculture Cycle by this amazing author. Here, as in his previous tales, we have a reimagining of the events of the first season of MLP:FiM.

For those not in the know, here we have the characters Pinkie Pie and Discord begin as powerful imaginary friends created by Twilight and Celestia, respectively. There is a third character eventually named Penumbra who was the catalyst for Luna's Nightmare Moon persona, who also features prominently in this tale. That's a lot to take in, and may even be a bit jarring to those of us who like our favorite characters..."undefiled", for lack of a better term. Still, if one has followed the stories along in order, one knows what to expect.

In this tale we have a reordering of Keep Calm and Flutter On. Normally, I'm adverse to any authors changing episodes to insert their own OCs, for the goal is usually to call attention to their self-insert's "superiority" over the main cast. Such is not the case here, though I didn't like the fact that Fluttershy was set aside. Still, so far it works here, and what is added to the mix is a bit of world building involving Discord's relationship with Celestia and Luna, as well as a reordering of their history as Rulers of Equestria. In addition, there is a conflict being built up with Trixie, as she plots to overthrow the Princesses ( including Twilight, of course ) in order to prove her "great and powerfulness."

So this is a story with many layers, and one that has to be read in order, just like all the tales in this series, or one will be hopelessly lost. But I think the effort is well worth it.

5036315 I actually got through half a bottle of whiskey for that batch. Shout-out to Glenmorangie single malt, btw, who make some pretty decent budget whiskey I'd recommend to any student suffering from an acute case of needing-a-drinkitus. Keeping me sane since 2014.

5036939 Why is it that your current avatar and what's being said in this specific comment reminds me of this video below me?

Also, I believe I was the one that put The Spiral Notebook in there if I recall right... I'm glad it's approved

Reading: A Great and Powerful Heart

Reviewing: A Great and Powerful Heart

Read: All

Status: Accepted

Ah, me. Every once in awhile you come across a story that is a paradox: you wish you'd read it before, but you're sorry you can only experience it for the first time once.

It's rare that a writer can take a beloved character, put her in a completely uncharacteristic situation, yet still portray her accurately. That is the case with this wonderful tale. Here we find Trixie in an unorthodox predicament, one by which she must go against the code she's lived, in order to accomplish her reluctant goal. Maybe I'm biased in my admiration for Trixie, but her subsequent actions did not surprise me, but rather delighted. Even better, another well-beloved pony becomes involved, which was indeed a surprise, all of which set the heroic tone and completed the adventure. It would have been a great story without the aforementioned surprise pony, but her addition made it all the more enjoyable.

But this is not just a tale of adventure, but one that examines the themes of prejudice and indifference, but not in a heavy-handed ( -hoofed? ) way. We unfortunately get to see a darker side of the community with which Trixie is forced to interact. The ending was a surprise, and not all the issues were resolved.

I'm being purposely vague, for I do not wish to commit what I feel would be a crime and spoil this experience for any new readers. Even if you're not a Trixie fan, you'll find yourself drawn into her predicament, and I daresay you'll be rooting for her long before it's over.

That story is already in one of my favorites bookshelves though I was not the one who submitted it.

Reading: Waking up in Equestria

Yeah...not linking this one.

Reviewing: Waking up in Equestria

Read: Three chapters

Status: Rejected

Let's see...how to put this delicately. I'll begin by stating I'm most definitely a fan of creativity and artistic expression. Stories that feature sexual themes between ponies and Humans are a part of this fandom, and so far I've read and approved two of them. BUT, and here's where the line is drawn, those sexual encounters were between an ADULT pony and an ADULT Human. That's not the case in this tale.

Let's get some less obvious issues out of the way first. This story is rife with clunky phrasing ( and a run-on sentence in this example ):

As I swam into consciousness, the first thing I noticed was that I was laying down with a hard surface under my back. I was also aware that I had no clothes on and a clean warm air was touching me everywhere, tickling the hair on my legs and torso. My head was thick, cloudy and wrapped in goo as if I'd just woken up from a deep sleep and I didn’t want to accept that I was awake at the moment, however the fact that I had no idea where I was, what was happening or who was near me was making it hard to sit still as my heart began to speed up with fear.

Misspelled words:

“What in tarnation is a hu-man?” the yellow one asked with a confused look on its face, her head cocking to one side. “Did you come from the Everfree forrest?”

Spike, having seen his matronly friend cause incredible havoc on more than one occasion was nonplussed, floating with his arms crossed and a completely board expression on his face.

Missing punctuation:

“Uh... No... I’m just a human. Everyone is human... at least, they’re supposed to be. I don’t know what you are either” I said.

“Oh yeah… Say, we told ya our names now what’s yours?” Apple Bloom turned to ask.

Suddenly I was myself again. Shy, unsure, and reluctant to say my name. “Mason” I said. Hating the way my name sounds.

Let me also state that despite these errors, the story flows quite well at times, but seeing these is like hitting a speed bump without slowing down: it's jarring and frustrating.

As for the subject matter, I'm well aware that underage boys and girls are curious about sex, but this story crosses the line because it is written for titillation. If the CMC are the same age as in the show, that would make them twelve years old at best in this tale, and that is far too young. Pass.

Reviewed (first three chapters of) Piercing the Heavens

Rejected

Because this is the last of this trilogy of stories submitted, I decided to go into a bit more depth regarding things I liked and disliked, even though it becomes very clear very early on that the third story has the same problem as the second in that it needs the previous stories to be understood. However, between what I've read of this one and the first one, so far I definitely prefer the first, which honestly surprises me, considering I expected the added ambition in the third one to impress me much more. However, either I've began noticing more problems or there was more in the first three chapters to grate on my nerves than in the first one, because I struggled greatly with this one.

I've structured this one a bit haphazardly, because I ended up having a lot to say and not a lot of time to organize it, so sorry in advance. First and foremost: the story stands on the shoulders of the previous stories, as I mentioned earlier. Soaring has a 'dark magic' inside him we don't know how it got there, Celestia is missing, and other things make little to no sense without the previous ones. Onto the rest of my thoughts.

I don't think I noticed this before, or if I did, I can't remember drawing attention to it, but watching the ponies swear is one of the strangest, more uncomfortable things I've seen. They don't. Because the show was oriented at young kids, swearing doesn't really go beyond 'darn' and 'heck', which makes the fact that every time one of the mane cast spout a swear, it breaks their voice:

I’m not hyper enough for this shit!

I have a real hard time picturing any of the ponies saying the above. It's easier for an OC or a background pony without as much of an identifiable voice, since you don't necessarily know what they're going to sound like, but for any of the mane cast or pony with a rather defined voice it feels very unwieldy.

We also have:

Rogue commas and apostrophes:

He was used to the stoic, statues of Celestia’s guard during the day.

“Tryout’s?!

Tryout is what? Tryout has what? There's an apostrophe there that shouldn't exist, methinks.

Capitalizations, which are often quite ugly to read just littering the place, especially when they're also in bold or underlined:

“WHARRGARBL!”

“SOARIN!”

*CLANG*

EVERY SINGLE MORNING

Examples of telling:

Dash had gotten used to Rarity trying to barge her way into her love life.

She wasn’t as prepared for this as she thought.

His head had been giving him hell lately. He wished he could figure out why.

Some parts make no sense to me. Observe:

They all flinched as a loud *POOM* came from a window nearby. They all turned to see Pinkie flat against the window with her face pressed to it. They cringed as she slowly slinked off the window, making an ear wrenching rubbing noise against the glass as she slid off. Dash chuckled and shook her head.

...I don't understand? I looked around for some context regarding why this happened, but I can't seem to find any. Apparently, Pinkie just threw herself against the window. I'm not sure if I'm missing something vital, and if I am please point it out, but this section was a mystery to me.

The story also has the unfortunate habit of including fan-art. As I've pointed out for other stories that insist on including art, it's very hard to easily incorporate drawings into the format here. A lot of them simply take up the entire space of the screen, meaning I can't see where I left of when I continue reading. This sometimes means I have to scroll back up just to see where I left off, which is irritating.

I also feel kinda dickish when I say this, but the art isn't always great, either. Soaring here looks pretty pixelated and not very appealing to look at. I understand getting fan-art is a really nice thing to happen (I've had it happen to me once myself) but this makes the story look cheaper and childish, with art hastily made using MS Paint, which is not a look you really want.

More irritating on the shipping front is how the story spends three chapters repeating over and over how important Soaring is and how brilliant a pony he is without ever really doing much to show that. Maybe this is covered in the previous story, since the first three chapters allude to Soaring helping Scootaloo a bit, but if I remember rightly from the first one, his help was pretty much just more exercise, which to be frank, Scootaloo already kinda seems to do if her sporty attitude is of any indication in the show.

This really is my recurring problem with Soaring as a main character. He's recurrently bland and boring across many fanfictions. It's not even that I see people try new things with him a lot. He just ends up being a rather average Wonderbolt male with very little colour in terms of personality. In fact, the story seems to be trying to give him more interesting scenarios to face by making him special in superficial ways. He's been given magic. He's been given this job. Rarely does he every seem (neither here nor in the first of the trilogy) ever do more than be an average male with things, in the same way you might make an OC an alicorn in order to try and differentiate them from the rest... Which, by the way, is uncomfortably close to what Soaring is going through here, as he acquires his own horn.

It's like every complaint I've heard for Flash Sentry and Flashlight got copied and shoved into Soaring and SoaringDash. It's always been a major irritation of mine, and one I've made no secret of. The only real point of interest to him is that he's a Wonderbolt, but how many stories can you really get before that idea dries up? And even then, isn't there another Wonderbolt in the show? One with more personality, more voice, more presence, and actual development across both the show and comics? Who wears sunglasses and talks about academy records a lot?

I'm ranting at this point, and not even against the story, specifically, but it's one of the only pairings that grates on my nerves. As a pairing, it's uninspired and has a very limited reserve of stories that can be told about it without being tired old tropes or highly generic (like a love-bond, which also seems to make an appearance here) ... because Soaring is highly generic. I feel like this story is struggling to keep him interesting, and it draws attention to all the other characters gushing over him even more. This problem might be made so much less glaring if the story had them in the same room from time to time, actually talking and interracting, instead of going on and on about how 'Soaring is Rainbow's love' and 'Soaring needed Rainbow' on and on and on, which became aggravating to me after three chapters.

Finally, the way the story presents information is very basic. It uses a lot of telling, as I touched upon earlier, and isn't very imaginative regarding how to show off what happens. Although I'd say it does have a rather okay dialogue pacing and uses actions to break up the dialogue rather well, it was hard for me to notice these things when everything else feels often just on the verge of being stilted or awkward.

I don't have much at all I really like in this story, although the scale of it is at least impressive, if you can look past all the other problems that litter the place. There's a mystery in this story, romance (even though it's botched a lot of the time, in my opinion), conflict, lots of characters which, to the story's credit, are fleshed out, and although I personally can't handle long stories, anyone who enjoys lengthy stories will have a field day with this.

But I didn't, both on a personal level and a technical one.

Tempest Arcanius is a primo generatino alterio, and one of the most magical Drakon's to be born within the past millennia. After an attack on the drakon race by Discord, Tempest swears vengeance. With nothing but a single favor from Discord, tons of magic and very few ways to focus it, and his body at his disposal, he must journey through the world, gathering knowledge, power, magic and companions to end Discord.

That's not how you spell 'dragon'.

Reading The King of Storms

Read: first three and a half chapters of King of Storms

Rejecting

I hate this story. I think it's really bad. I had to go check this wasn't self-submitted I dislike it so much. It's about this dragon (oh, sorry... drakon, with a K) who does stuff for two chapters then gets attacked by Discord, losing his entire kind and also some other characters I don't care about. The story is blatantly manipulative, introducing characters for the sole purpose of making me feel bad for Tempest when they die (they certainly don't have any actual personality to feel bad about), tries so hard to get me to take it seriously by exaggerating things and cutting back and forth chronologically, all the while dropping so much 'impressive' and 'legendary' lore like these kings and queens we only see for five seconds just to spend those five seconds saying how great and impressive they are so it's even more impressive when they die.

I've seen stories with a similarly inflated opinion of itself before, and they were mine, written back when I was twelve.

The first three chapters of the story has so little to do with MLP it makes me wonder why it's even on the site. The only references to the show in the first two chapters are the mention of alicorns (but not any alicorn in the show, of course) and Discord, who appears for barely any time at all and is as far as I can tell the only real, tangible link to the show. Frankly, the tone of the story is one of those things that's trying so hard to be somber and grim and artistic, but then shoots itself in the foot by including Discord without making any adjustments to his character, leaving the second chapter a mess. In chapter three, we switch to Discord's POV, but it's nonsense. He fights with scythe's for some reason. Why? Does he do that in the show?

Remember when Discord fought the mane six with farming equipment? When he took over Canterlot with his trusty lawnmower?

I'd read about that, to be honest. That sounds like a good laugh. It's a pity it's not played for chuckles here.

The writing is mechanically unsound, and several errors abound:

I look around, seeing other Drakon's.

Drakon has what? Drakon is what? Rogue apostrophe, methinks, and it's not the only one.

Now, whether the formatting works or doesn't is a question for another time. In my experience, it's generally pretty unnecessary. However, the first prerequisite for, say, a larger font is actually getting it to work and not leave part of the coding lying around:

"First, look at your foes advantages, and your own. Compare them, see who has the upper-hand and adjust your battle-style to fight them properly. Example." She said, waving her claw.

Two illusionary marklings (Ponies) appeared infront of me.

Ponies in brackets, huh? I dun' like it. It's like the story is trying to immerse me in the vocabulary the drakon uses, but is shying away from it by putting the translation in brackets so I don't get lost, which is the worst of both worlds. It's disruptive, it botches the effect, and the alien vocabulary is still weird enough to be confusing. In fact, I'm sure the 'alien' words were made up just to make Tempest feel mysterious, but without making any adjustments to allow easy comprehension, it's just jarring and irritating.

Paragraphing is inconsistent. Sometimes we get spaces in-between paragraphs, sometimes we don't. Consistency is important.

The Female was far faster, being able to cross kilometers in nanoseconds

I don't know how many nanoseconds it'd have to take for this female to not fly several times faster than the speed of light. Maths, guys. If you've gone one kilometer in a nanosecond, you've broken the light barrier (or whatever the smarty-pants physics guys call it). I am reasonably certain that is not what the story is going for.

Also, capitalized F for no reason.

The story doesn't take long to start being difficult to follow. It jumps time period really fast and without much structure, seemingly at random and not giving me any time to learn anything of value about the main character. I don't want to look like I'm not making an effort, but if the story is being unhelpful, I really don't feel like I'm obliged to try super-hard. What's his personality? He acts seemingly at random. Ponies appear, his brother goes in to kill them, he freaks out and stops him. Earlier, he tears apart cow parts and damages his siblings. Why? Maybe there's a reason. Maybe this is what drakons do. But the story never gives any context to his actions, leaving me in the dark.

For that matter, who is his brother? What's his relationship with them? Who's Strong-Red? Nothing matters unless the reader cares about it, so help me care!

I shouldn't have to make a supreme effort just to squeeze some sense out of this story, and most aggravatingly of all, it's like the story is only being this way so it sounds smarter. It doesn't.

The story also prefaces it's flashbacks by stating: Flashback. That's super irritating and clumsy. After all, if I can't tell on my own, the change is going to be jarring anyway.

There are capitalizations too. The ugly kind. The kind I nagged the soaringdash trilogy for across three stories, but at least those were in a story that was recognizably MLP and straightforward to follow most of the time. And c'mon, if your story has irritated me more than SoaringDash, something's gone super wonky.

Imagine a huge cave, made out of crystal, with a single room big enough to house a Titanwing.

Dafuq is a titanwing? It's stuff like this that gets me. The story is actively giving me a hard time, and I hate it.

I wrote some of this on an ipad, so if theres any mistakes...BLAME APPLE (and obama)

>: (

Tempest gets a personality in chapter 4, but it's the mother of all edgy personalities. Sasuke'd be jealous.

No, killing him would be too good for him - He deserved to suffer. I would bound him in chains, and make him watch as I burned his race to the ground. I would break his bones, again and again, torturing him for thousands of years until he begged me to kill him. I would rip him apart, limb from limb and watch the light fade from his eyes. But before that, I would keep him in those chains until they were fused to his flesh - Then rip them off. He would scream as I tortured him, using my magic to make his life a living hell.

Our protagonist, everybody. Isn't he a joy to read about? So witty and likeable. At least it's better than the non-character we had previously, but I can't bring myself to root for the guy. Frankly, I prefer Discord. I hope he kills the bugger, but I'm sure not going to read about it.

I really don't want to go on. This story has grated on my nerves more than any story has in a long, long while, mostly due to how serious it thinks it is without having anything to actually get invested in. Make me like the protagonist. Make the story engaging. This is just a few fights, Discord saying some things, and a couple of names of 'important people' getting tossed around for dramatic effect. It's not a story I care to read, no matter how important it sounds.

Next up, I'm gonna read about Deepthroat Cockslut. She sounds like a good egg.

5063996

I love the "Burn his race to the ground". A race isn't a building, or an object. You don't burn it to the ground. At the very least, you say something like "I will burn each and all of your kind, and then spread the ashes over your rotting corpse." Ya know, so much more engaging and actually correct.

This story was hilarious to read, though.

Reading: Ponies and Robot Wars

Story: Not the Hero, by alarajrogers.

Premise: Discord must fight against Anon, a totally average and boring human with the unconscious power to warp all of reality in his favor, forcing everypony around him to play specific roles in his power and sexual fantasies.

Rating: 10/10 (ATM, if I find a better story this might go down to 9.75.)

Holy ****. I barely know where to begin with this one. First, it's a wonderful jab at all the bad self-insert stories on this site, in particular ones where the human becomes a seventh element and/or herds with the main six. However, that's not where this story's strength lies. Its power is in Discord, his characterization, and how he must he must outwit and out-trope an opponent whose mere presence makes Discord predictable and stupid. Also, this is pre-reform Discord, leaving him mostly unchanged from his original appearance.

The story itself is told in a series of journal entries, to be precise Discord's journal, started after he realized Anon had a decent chance of killing him and another might need to take up the fight. If that's not your thing, you might not like it, but it's like Discord himself is telling the story, with everything that entails.

This story manages to poke me in a very large number of my "hot spots," so to speak, including creativity, humor, frustration with morons and bad writing, facing a challenge that I can't think of a counter to almost immediately, rational thought tricks, rock-solid worldbuilding, in particular on the nature of Chaos, Harmony, and Order, amazingly deep characterization, and the utter horror of invisible mental tampering. And that's not even mentioning a scene that was described in the comments as "Gary Stu vs. God," which was one of the best fights I have ever seen. Also, I actually hate Anon, the "hero." That is not an easy task, and it's not because he's overpowered, or campy, or mind-raped every creature in Equestria: it's because he's average, and by that I mean utterly uncreative, unintelligent, and boring. He doesn't even realize how much damage he's caused (which I won't go in to as to not spoil it), and is completely unaware of his power. Although, I suppose I should be grateful for that, because as a clever person once said, "A creative dark wizard is not a threat, it's an extinction event."

Just about the only thing that gives me pause on this story is the tragedy tag, because I want Discord to win, or at least have a Pyrrhic victory, and if he ultimately fails it'll just make me sad. Actually, if he ends up failing, I'm going to call in my 'Discord's Apprentice' versions Discord and Pinkie for a favor. That's how much I care. Also, every time Anon was mentioned doing something I was comparing it to my own stories to make sure I had subverted, avoided, or justified whatever the author was targeting.

Don't just put this one in the accepted bin. Stick it in the high-quality box.

5052867 Ahh, I remember reading this one, and suggesting the author submit it here.

At the time I thought it was quite a good story. Overlooking the errors, it actually kept my attention rather well.

Looking back on it now though... Yeah... I wholeheartedly agree with your review. The run on sentences are frequent and plentiful, as are spelling/grammar mistakes.

The CMC are in fact supposedly aged up a few years, but it's not really specified how many, so it's still a bit of a grey area...

5068870
It would have been better if the author had specifically stated how old they are. As it was, I had to assume they were the same age as in the show. It would have been a good story otherwise, mechanical mistakes notwithstanding.

P.S. LOVE your avatar!

*sigh* It's been ages since I've been here, well I have one that I think would fit in perfectly here. My story, The Ties That Bind us.

So far it is one of my most popular stories, and most requested among the fans that I have. It follows after the events of a mature fic (I'm not putting that up for submission) where after a steamy night Twilight and Spike's relationship is strained beyond all compare as he realizes who is is and what he can do, while Twilight is trying to cope with her decisions.

Why do I think it should be in TGB. Well, I would like to get it out to a broader audience. I want to tell a story that actually happened to me a while back, and I want people to learn from it, maybe laugh, or see themselves in the same light. Hopefully you'll take a look

5071095 If you're out to submit your own stories, you're doing great, exept for two things:

1, this is the wrong thread.

2, when you said 'is is' (which I assume is a typo), I don't know whether you mean who 'it' is, who 'he' is, who 'she' is etc, which is compromising me understanding the point of the story a bit (whether it's self discovery or discovering the inner workings of someone else).

The Self Submissions Thread is here, if you want it.

Reviewing: Ponies and Robot Wars

Read: All of Chapter Two, skimmed Chapter One

Status: Rejected

There are so many things wrong with this story I hardly know where to begin, so let's start at the description:

He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster.

But, sometimes, the only way to fight monsters is to create monsters of our own and show them, we're not defenseless.

Evil has multiple faces and the Mane Six have defeated many of them. But what will happen when the new one is way beyond they can handle?
When a new threat come to Equestria, menacing to destroy everything at their path, the world will change. War will arise and the once peaceful ponies will have to embrace a new way.

Invaders think they can conquer Equestria? Just who the hell do they think the ponies are?!

(Massive Multiplayer Crossover with Transformers, Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, Gundam Wing and Power Rangers)

What we have here is a hodgepodge of ideas that are badly presented. First of all, there shouldn't be a comma between them and we're. Commas are used to separate clauses, not random pauses. That's clunky phrasing, and unfortunately a habit this author repeats. Then there's the improper tense use "When a new threat come to Equestria," that should be "comes." The rest of that sentence has multiple errors as well, but you get the idea. Finally let's deal with that last sentence. I count five different sources being mentioned, and it would take an exceptional writer to be able to pull off such an ambitious feat well. That's not the case here.

I'm getting tired of saying this, but the rules about crossovers should be fairly clear by this point: assume your audience knows nothing about your outside source material, and give enough information for them to understand your references. Why is that so difficult? Transformers are fairly well known, as are the Power Rangers (for myself, at least), but the others are a mystery.

Here is why I skimmed Chapter one. The A/N begins like so:

Again, this is not a fanfic, only the skeleton of what could have been a fanfic. Think of each paragraph as a chapter.

So basically Chapter One is simply ideas the author had about this and I assume other stories, and not to be considered part of this tale. That sort of information belongs in a blog, and I do not know how the author got away with getting this story approved with this first chapter. That, and each paragraph is hidden behind the spoiler font, making it annoying to read. I only read about three paragraphs before I got bored and moved on.

Chapter Two is the actual story, and the problems and errors found in the description are only repeated over and over again. It seems like every error one could make is committed here, as if they are being marked off in some sort of order.

Here's the A/N at the top:

Note: multiple POV changing between sections.

Seriously? Instead of proper POV shifts, there's a note to point them out? How about doing some actual writing? And do I need to point out the improper use of tense there? Moving on...

The next thing that sticks out like a sore thumb is the use of a video imbedded in the beginning of the story. Apparently it is really important to this author his/her story be read with their choice of music, and here's why that's a problem. This is supposed to be a story, which means it needs to written well enough that all meaning is conveyed through words, not other media! If you need other props in order to tell the tale, outside of a few illustrations, you're doing it wrong. Also, there's the very real possibility the reader doesn't care for the author's choice of music, so you've further limited your audience.

Now let's deal with the story itself.

As promised, the POV shifts are confusing, for you have to guess who is speaking through the clues. I do not know why it was so difficult to write, as an example, [ I was in Cloudsdale when the attack began, recounted Shining Armor. ] There is no confusion as to whom is speaking,and the paragraph has the same impact. Then, each speaker's section is separated by a poem, which I do not know if it is an original work or not. Since I don't know, I'm going to reluctantly give this author the benefit of the doubt, but given the many errors already noted I suspect that's someone else's poem or lyrics.

Again as promised, the ponies are suddenly attacked on all fronts by Decepticons, who are the evil counterparts of the Transformers. What I said earlier about source material still applies, but most readers are familiar with the Transformers. I will say some of the action scenes are fairly well written, but again there are so many mechanical errors I had a very hard time getting through them.

This tale needs a rewrite, starting with Chapter one. Move all that nonsense to a blog, take out all the links to different music videos, and just Write. The. Fucking. Story. Find an editor and good proofreader, as they're badly needed. And on a last, personal note, stop saying this:

"Faust helps us."

5075065 I knew it was going to be rejected.

5077036 Oh, that's actually something to take note of.

5077059 Are you, per say, offended? Because if you read it again, it's obviously a joke and says that it's not.

Actually, it proves to be more than that.

It obviously stats that I'm not referring to it in that context. I'm not even being sarcastic about it.

It's defiantly not your average, unsurprisingly low-quality foal diaper fetish fic.

If diaper fetishism weirds you out (I actually have a friend on Facebook whose into that stuff) than you're going have to point out where I say the story is about diaper fetishism. Unless you mean the parts where I say the word "padded." In that case, you should know that padded also refers to filler text. I'm weirded out by diaper fetishism too, but I put up with it.

5077074 This is an audition review.

5077074 Ah, wait, I see what you mean.

5077074 I'll make the changes in the morning. For now, sleep.

Just since this seems the perfect time to clarify why and how we do things...

Any new approver goes through me, usually, and I check them out. Savoured here had a few solid reviews, so I figured he was worth a shot. I told him to come here and post a review. Thing is, you only get added to the list on the front page when the first story is approved/rejected, which is only done when the review is solid. This gives me ample time to iron out any wrinkles, which we're doing right now.

And if there's a legit problem we can't get over, that's no problem. Nothing lost, nothing gained. We go our separate ways and that's that.

I hope this clears up any misunderstanding that may occur.

Read Champion of the Green

Rejecting

There are occasions where I'll read a story and think that it was a well written, well crafted, and impeccably structured story that happens to be dull and unoriginal. I always feel a bit sad when I read those because effort had evidently been put into it, but without the creativity for me to really enjoy myself. However, those are far less sad than this story, which has a great deal of creativity and a nice idea I actually rather liked that was not done justice due to poor writing, grammar, and focus.

Champion of the Green is about Applejack, who has unfortunately died. However, that's not the end for my second-favourite pony, as she comes resurrected as a champion to defend and fight for a parliament of trees. Whilst I was less thrilled at the concept of a rather typical 'resurrect into a hero' story, I did really like the concept of the parliament of trees, which sounded whimsical but also fitting, like something straight out of an old D&D adventure. I liked the concept of each forest having a personality and representatives. These were things I think would have made for a very fun adventure story.

However, it's everywhere else that the story falls flat. For starters, the story tells itself like it's summarizing itself:

They explained to They explained to her that she was indeed dead, killed by the hungry manticore that was threatening the lives of her sister and her friends. After they reassured her that her sister was safe, they then regretfully informed her that her death, sadden all her friends and family, especially Applebloom who blamed herself for causing her death.her that she was indeed dead, killed by the hungry manticore that was threatening the lives of her sister and her friends. After that, they reassured her that her sister was safe. Next they regretfully informed her that her death, sadden all her friends and family, especially Applebloom who blamed herself for causing the death of her older sister.

^^^ that's a summary. Instead of actually telling the story, Champion of the Green is almost giving me a synopsis of what the story could have been. You can also see several glaring grammar problems in that section alone, no doubt, a lot of them relating to the verbs. There are a lot more throughout the story, and it does become frustrating at times.

Then there's the problem of Applejack. Now, at the start of the story, she's presented with a conflict of sorts: she has to give up her family in order to return as the champion. However, this conflict is resolved almost immediately when she goes to see her sister one last time and consoles her. Then that's it, Applejack's personal conflict is resolved. I am left with nothing to be invested in regarding her character. This is made worse since the way the story writes itself makes it hard to be invested in it, period, because it summarizes itself.

That leaves me with the physical conflict: Applejack needs to defeat Everfree, the spirit of the Everfree Forest. The problem is is that the conflict takes around 3k words and the whole second half of the story, and I'm reading about characters who I don't really care about personally. Applejack is just a hammer-wielding pony, and Everfree is a foresty-spirit-thing. I don't really care for their struggles since Applejack's personal problems were resolved.

The story also ties up loose ends that were never loose in the first place, like explaining why the parliament chose Applejack. That question was never brought up in the story that I noticed, but the story decided to explain why they picked Applejack anyway near the end as if it were a question that needed an answer.

The story is very difficult to get invested in, which is a pity. Had it been given the treatment it deserved, I think it might have perhaps been much, much better. As it stands, I didn't enjoy it, although because it at least had a bit of novelty and creativity, I find it hard to dislike.