Title: The Unicorn and her Boy by ChudoJogurt
Amount Read: All
Verdict: Reject (5/10)
Reason:

Not much really stands out that much in this story (good or bad): the characters are okay, the plot is okay, the writing is okay, and so on. Therefore, I have to focus on the two things that really do stand out: the pacing, and Sunset’s role in everything.

First, I’ll go with the pacing. It starts okay, like everything else: the chapters are short and while they are a little quick, they’re nothing bad. Soon, however, it speeds up. The story skips half a year to get to the main action which can be done, but usually you want at least a little glimpse into life before the jump so you can appreciate it later. Instead, the story sets up the setting and some of the main conflict, then skips the whole process of Caspian and Sunset building their army. And even then, once it completes the jump, there’s not a ton of buildup to the fighting itself, and that resolves itself pretty quickly.

Speaking of Sunset, she’s the other main problem I had with this story. After reading this, I don’t feel like I read a crossover between My Little Pony and Chronicles of Narnia, I feel like I read a Chronicles of Narnia fanfiction. Sunset does very little in the story, mostly just sitting back and letting all the characters from CoN do their thing and just being along for the ride and for narration purposes. She’s demoted to a background character in her own story, and what little interaction she does have in the story seems overall very insignificant and the kind of role that could very easily be filled with any character, regardless of their origin. A good crossover should weave the two worlds together to make the two or more sources inseparable and in the type of crossover this is attempting, Sunset should feel invaluable to the story. But if she was replaced with an OC, a CoN character, or a character from most any other source it would feel as if very little changed. For those reasons, I have to reject this fic.

Story:Defect by CroakyEngine
Amount read: Chapter 1 and 2
Verdict: 7/10, Accepted after consultation with Aeluna

Premise
I think I already stated my love for science fiction, somewhere. The reasons for it are outside the scope of the review, but I think I had to point it out as it means I came pre-set with expectations and goodwill.

I can't say I was disappointed. I'm also not overly enthusiastic.

The story has a lot of good things going for it, and some problems that keep it from truly flying. And yet it is unfinished, which means it could still recover and rise. It also means my evaluation of it can't be anything but an assessment of what we have until now, which while brimming with potential, is still a bit on the meager side.

Summary

In a future of war and despair, the rebels try to resist the crushing might of the artificial army of the Equalist Empire. Amidst the horror of war, something moves in one very special construct. Emotion, strange memories, and, most important of all, hope.

Technical aspect

The prose is the most glaring weak point of the story. It is never obnoxious or bad, but it lingers on the border of functionality without really rising to the challenge of this fic.

We are seeing a new world here, a place full of horrors and wonders, and the writing needs to be evocative to give us a sense of place. The fight scenes lack viscerality, which is acceptable when seen through the eyes of a machine or maybe some distant officer removed from the battle, less so when we are seeing ponies fighting and dying in the trenches.

Where the writing quality meets the demands is in the more intimate sections. The author handles introspection well, and the curiosity and confusion of the main character come through, giving her a personality we can relate to. Here the story is at it's strongest, and it gives me hope that before it ends it will truly shine in all its parts.

Story

We have a mystery and hints of a larger world we don't understand yet, and a promise that it will be gradually revealed. A voyage of discovery we take along with the Main Character, and which starts with cold metal and blood.

As far as incipits go, this is a pretty solid one.

Technical issues aside, this story brims with possibilities that beg to be explored, things happen and characters are challenged. So good stuff.

Sadly, with only two chapters submitted, I can't really give an opinion about the larger structure, hooks or story threads. What I can say is that my curiosity was piqued. It can still become a masterpiece or take a deep dive, but my hopes are on the former.

Characters

Our dear Main Character starts as a literal blank slate and discovers herself along with the reader. This is an interesting approach, and it helps to make her relatable.

Again, there is not much else I can say here as we are looking at the beginning of something, and any perceived incongruencies may be a ploy or explained later.

Conclusion

I see tons of potential here for an interesting adventure with or without exploration of some deeper questions about identity, life, and free will. I will follow the development, as I'm truly curious how it will evolve.

I can recommend it, with a little caveat that there is not yet enough to classify it without a doubt, and the issues with the prose weaken a story which otherwise has a really strong start.

So, good job in getting me as a reader, but for a full review, it's a bit early.

Title: The Republican

Author: Jackelope

Plot: 5/10
Characters: 8/10
Structure: 8/10
Mechanics: 9/10
Grammar: 8/10

Verdict: 38/50 = 7/10 Rejected upon Second Opinion By: An Alternate Universe

So, to start out, I want to extend my condolences to the author for making a successful return from a rather tough point in his life. Now I won't feel bad tearing his stories a new one

Plot One professor Coattail has invited Celestia to his home to discuss an article he wrote about her possibly being a tyrant.

This got the lowest score because of how boring it is, and Jack? I know you were trying to go for a thought provocative piece here, but outright saying that your story may be boring in the description is just, no. If you wanted to get the wheels of cognition running, you could have added more to the narrative. Not all intellectuals are stuffy narcissists.

Characters Aside from being as boring as live golf, I love the banter between Coattail and Celestia. They are both aged and well versed in what they have come to learn in life, and you represented that very well. Also showing Celestia losing her cool faster than Coattail further adds to his reputation as a respected professor.

“But I don’t propose violence, Princess. I propose a peaceful solution, where the citizens can nominate their leader through voting and elections. Just like we do locally, but on the national scale. I can’t comprehend why you see fault with that idea.”

“Because it is heavy with flaw, Professor.” Celestia reined herself in, stopping her voice from increasing in volume.

You can obviously tell that the professor's argument pricked one of her nerves. Throughout this, they have this quippy banter that goes back and forth that's just fun to read.

Structure Not much to say since there wasn't very much wrong. The story presented Coattail’s argument, further expanded on it with his back and forth with Celestia, and ended with them coming to a mutual agreement and even friendship; move along.

Mechanics Man, I hate it when a story is well written…

Other Guy: Why? Isn't that what you want?

Me: Of course it is, but then there isn't much to talk about. You can clearly tell that he and his editor put in hours of work picking out even the tiniest of flaws. It’s no fun…

Other Guy: Riiiiight…

Grammar Just about the same as the mechanics really, though I did note some odd phrasing, but I won't hold that against you. You're British, I'm African American, it shouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out our english varies.

In the end, it was an interesting read, but I feel that the message would fly over common folk’s heads, unless that's what you were going for. I'm not the sharpest crayon in the cookie jar, but I was able to grasp to a certain level what they were debating about. With that all being said, it isn't a bad story, I just don't see it gripping many people. Keep on keepin on bud, and welcome back.

Title: Nightmare and Dragon by alfonso_rd_33
Amount Read: All
Verdict: Reject (1/10)
Reason:
 
To put it bluntly: this story is messy.
 
I’m not really sure what’s going on, because not much is really ever explained. The writing is awkward and hard to read, and things happen so quickly that before you know it, the entire town is fighting some mysterious force. The story also suffers from a glut of characters; there’s Luna, the Mane 6, some guy wearing a PipBuck who turns into a Japanese-speaking dragon (or maybe he’s fighting the dragon? I don’t know), and they’re all only followed for a few hundred words, not nearly enough to give them any impact or influence on the story as a whole. Most of their scenes are over the top fight scenes as well, meaning that most of the characters in the story really only seem to be included to add to the drama and look cool as opposed to tell a story that they’re a part of. For those reasons, I have to reject this fic.

Title: Big Brother by Free Shavacado
Amount Read: All
Verdict: Reject (5/10)
Reason:
 
Short story, so bit of a shorter review.
 
To start: the dialogue. It’s kinda rocky and awkward, and the exposition around it doesn’t help either. For example,
 

“Hey guys!” Scootaloo enthusiastically greeted.

“Mornin’ Scootaloo!” Applebloom Jeered.

“Hey Scootaloo,” Sweetie Belle greeted.

Writing both of them responding with little more than a simple hello and then a short sentence after them makes it awkward to read, because then it’s reading more like a script (where you might have every character respond) and less like a story (where you would want to focus on the readability of it).
 
The second main issue I had was with the length. I’m not going to criticize it for being short, but I will criticize it for what it does with its length. A large portion of the story is spent essentially recapping the events and lesson of Brotherhooves Social, and most of the essay/speech Applebloom gives is something already covered in the show. Going over it isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but when a large portion of a 1200-word fiction is devoted to it, there’s very little space left to expand upon it and turn the story into something unique.
 
Overall it’s not a bad story, but some awkward writing and not doing much with the concept that the show hadn’t already done is going to make me reject this fic.

Story: Sunset Over the Wasteland by Thunder-Bolt
 
Amount read: 3 Chapters
 
Verdict: 5/10
 
Premise
 
I love the Mad Max movies. Even at their worst (*cough* Beyond Thunderdome *cough*) they are an interesting way of telling stories despite a parsimonious use of words. But this is not the place for raving about post-apocalyptic mythology put into a movie. I'm here to give my opinion about how the reviewed story manages to weave it together with colorful equines (or equally colorful humans).
 
Despite my hopes, it doesn't really succeed.
 
There are some major problems and a distinct lack of polish, mainly in the first chapters, that drag it down. Put that together with some character issues and you have something that will need to be overworked before it can be accepted in the group. The issues are critical enough that the first chapters are a sufficient sample to determine that the story isn't really a good fit for us, at least in the current state.
 
Summary
 
Twilight needs some well deserved relax and decides that a visit on the other side of the mirror would be the ideal way to pass her vacation. The problem is, things have changed quite a bit.
 
Technical aspect
 
There is a distinct lack of polish. The author is well aware of it and even pointed it out in the notes while guaranteeing that he got an editor later. This is well and good, but that alone would also be enough to not accept it here. Glaring issues that could be solved easily are inconsistent names of characters even in the same paragraph, typos and a couple of homophones.
 
The prose is more on the tell and less on the show side, which isn't a mortal sin per se (writing rules are not exactly laws, they are more useful suggestions), but can make the reading far less engaging.
 
Now to a purely personal annotation which I didn't consider in the vote I gave. The moment the author started a detailed list, model and all, of the guns the characters had my eyes began to glaze over. While I may understand that people with knowledge in the field may get something out of it, those who are less cultured, like me, will see a couple of paragraphs of almost gibberish that adds nothing to the story. Again, I may not be the target audience and for that reason I didn't detract anything for it. If the author wants to reach out to more readers they may reconsider how they want to communicate that kind of information in the future.
 
Story
 
There is not much to say here. The setup could develop into something quite interesting, but I can't judge that at the point where I stopped. There is a ton of stuff to explain, but I trust the inconsistencies have reasons for being there-
 
Characters
 
My greatest issue is with Twilight here. The same Twilight who habitually fights monsters (explicitly so in the story) and who becomes a helpless victim the moment she walks through the portal. While she may have been unable to escape, I still would expect her to scheme, plan, and at least try something. And yet she sits there for days, submissive and accepting of her fate.
 
Conclusion
 
There's much work to do here. The first, unedited chapters are a slog to go through and are enough to disqualify it for the moment.
 
The story could be improved, but it would require rewriting some sections.

Title: My Little Fonzie
Author: No One and Nobody
 
Amount Read: 11% or 2 Chapters (Total Words: 26,665)

Rating:

Plot/Theme: 1/20
Technical/Structure: 7/10
Characters: 2/10
Subjective: 1/10
Total: 11/50

Verdict: 2/10 - Recommend Rejection
 
Overview:
 
With any crossover stories, there are any number of tangible points of narration to take into consideration. A few aspects one must consider are how well the two fandoms mesh together, what are the similarities and the contrasts between the two fandoms are you aiming to highlight? On a broader scale, is the crossover story you create operating under the principle of self containment so that readers don’t have to have existing knowledge of the other fandom?
 
In this story, we’ll be going looking at a Happy Days and MLP crossover. The limited knowledge I have acquired for the purposes of this review lends me to believe that they have the potential to mesh well together. There are a great number of life lessons to be had within both media. Whether or not this particular piece leaves the satisfying impression that we are looking for, however, remains to be seen.
 
Technical/Structure:
 
Aside from a few missing commas and one or two comma splices, I did not notice much wrong in the way of mechanical structure. This did not, however, prevent me from getting lost at times during the narrative because the content itself was sometimes confusing to follow due to how disconnected everything appeared to be. In nearly every paragraph, we were jumping ahead to the next plot point without giving the events apt description. This created a jarring experience that left me befuddled as to what was going on for much of the story. As a result, the pacing was far too fast to create a satisfying experience.
 
Characters:
 
Of the chapters I read in the story, I was never able to connect with any of the characters motivations or faults. There was little to expression to their actions, and the dialogue fared no better in developing the characters beyond the archetype that they assumed.
 
As far as a crossover is concerned, the characters from Happy Days played a more passive role than I had anticipated. Sometimes they reacted to what was happening around them, but most of the time they stayed silent. It was as if they weren’t even there, only that they were because they were the subject of most of the conversations, which seemed heavily forced to expedite plot progression.
 
Plot/Theme:
 
The plot was extremely difficult to follow at times. I understand that this is tagged as being random and comedy, but it was as if there was some predetermined quota of random events was being shoveled into the narrative. More than half of the time, I was either trying to figure out what was happening, or why it was happening in the first place. More onto the point, this level of randomosity, along with the numerous oblique cultural references that were woven into the narrative in rapid succession, do not necessarily equate to funny.
 
Additionally, there seemed to be no overarching theme driving the plot forward, which renders everything that happens in the story little more than a sequence of events.
 
Conclusion:
 
While there were a few points where the story did make me laugh, the overall experience in just the first few chapters of this story did not align up with the established requirements for acceptance into this group. It doesn’t really feel like My Little Pony, nor did it feel like Happy Days. It appeared to be more of a cacophony with references to both fandoms. Toning down some of the randomosity, adding more description, and giving the characters time to take on life and develop naturally through plot progression would have provided a more fulfilling experience.

5988013
Nothing agaist you my guy, but this thread is reserved for reviews only, even though this was posed about a week ago, just a heads up for any future discrepancies

Title: Lateral Movement
Author: Alzrius
Read: 100% available at time (116chapters / 276360words)
Decision: Accept

This story gets a 9/10, and I initially thought it had all the obvious external hallmarks of a badfic.

I have to complement it for two outstanding strengths. The first is character. Lex Legis at first looks like a stereotypical edgy wannabe badass Sue character. He is actually a badass edgy character who is written to be complex and compelling. His amazing magical and logical abilities are contrasted against his absolute inability to deal with ponies or social situations with any kind of grace. Through this story, we get to know him very well. I have to say that if not for the high caliber writing of his inner world as well as elaborating on his personal philosophy, he would indeed come off as an intolerable Sue. Instead, we know and understand him, meaning we can see his strengths and weaknesses, and by God does he have both. The two best things are that he has to work very hard to be as awesome as he get to be, and secondly that even in things that are well within his ability, he seldom gets them 100% right just off the top of his head. The difference between him and a Sue is that while he and a Sue could defeat an army mostly on their own, the Sue would stumble into the army unprepared, take a gun from the first soldier, and shoot the rest while not getting hit once. Lex, on the other hand, would plan and prepare intensely in advance for as many contingencies as he could think of, and then he'd go in leveraging everything he had. And he'd win, but only after being pushed to the very limit and beyond, barely scraping a victory and nearly being defeated at several points, but never relying on luck or enemy incompetence. Lex's adversaries are every bit as mighty and competent as he is, and every victory is extremely hard won. And the rules of your story are extremely clear and consistent, and you never break them or let them just exist to serve your protagonist. Lex triumphs and makes mistakes and gets blindsided, but he overcomes always, not because of luck or some bull superpower he pulled out of his butt at the last second, but because he's got the brains to ultimately leverage advantages and outwit his enemies, and the power to compete. He also lacks any BS advantages like being a chosen one or prophesied hero -- he has earned every little bit of his success the hard way. Nothing is certain for him. He also has a moral code, a strange one that almost everyone finds baffling, but he sticks to it. He is also wonderfully awkward, and I feel like this balances out his amazing power. He wants to be a ruler, and he could carve out a kingdom, but I can't think of all that many who would be glad to support or obey someone like him; he does not really inspire love or loyalty, sort of like a Stannis Baratheon character. I've forgotten how many times I've facepalmed at his utter inability to read people and situations and emotions, as well as how many times I've groaned, "Just bang her alrelady!" when dealing with Sonata. Other characters are interesting and compelling. I feel particular affection for Sonata and Fireflower. You do a great job of giving every character a unique voice and personality, even if they are only bit parts. I also must congratulate you on character development. Lex and everyone else is changing bit by bit. Lastly, congrats for making many other characters have problem with Lex and emphatically not wholly embrace him or understand him. Lex is one of the only true renegade characters I have ever encountered.

The second thing you do really well is bringing the reader into the story. Even if they've read nothing else of this series or yours, they can understand it with a bit of patience. I was very hesitant to start on the sequel of a sequel of a sequel, written by a different author to boot. I've read harder to grasp semi crossovers where I did know the source material. While I don't fully get what Everglow is or what it means, and a lot of the world structure, ecology, and so on is clearly derived from Dungeons And Dragons, only it's an MLP ripoff of D&D. And now it seems as if the D&D is about to get somewhat shoved out of the way for more pone stuff, which I think is good. It's about time Lex got around to making his kingdom. Amazingly, I think this story could be a very weird but actual D&D campaign, according to what I can infer from the comments.

Your mechanics are fantastic. It took 77 chapters for me to find the first error in your prose. And all that without an editor. And you're releasing a chappy every three days. Amazing! The only issue I have with your prose is that the paragraphs are by and large the same size, leading to a flat reading experience and a bit of a dull flow. This is compensated for by your characters.

Your pacing is very good. Your chapters are mostly similar sizes and contain 1-3 scenes. They are all about 2K+ long, which is slightly short but snappy and not at all an issue. You keep things happening, I'd say with at most no more than 4K words between plot points, meaning that the reader never has time to get bored or too comfortable. I once reviewed a story that went 80K words between significant plot points -- damn near drove me to insanity with boredom.

Lastly, I recommend adding this to more groups and adding some cover art. It would get this fine fic far more attention. Keep writing; at some point, this story is going to explode. Odds are I'm going to write a personal blog post about it.

You made it. Keep up the awesomeness.

Title: Herding Instincts
Author: Sparky Brony
Amount Read: 100% (Total Words: 56,141)
Rating:
Plot/Theme: 20/20
Technical/Structure: 9/10
Characters: 7/10
Subjective: 9/10
Total: 45/50
Verdict: 9/10 - Recommend Acceptance

Overview:

Humans in Equestria has always been a fascinating genre of storytelling within the MLP fandom for me. Some of its more intriguing qualities pertain to a disconnect in the communication between two vastly different species and the mannerisms and ideologies that make up those individuals. The resolution that comes after might be the struggle of those individuals overcoming their differences or their failure in doing so.

We have already seen this facet of storytelling unfold within the show, particularly in the form of one the more recent episodes involving Pinkie Pie and Yakyakistan. What further enhances the intrigue that Humans in Equestria genre provides, however, is the unique perspective that comes with humans, specifically, interacting with the living denizens of Equestria. Varying degrees of the knowledge and understanding from our world can immediately be applied to Equestria.

We can see some of those same qualities present in this story as well. The citizens of Canterlot are initially terrified by Tim’s presence, and his unfamiliar mannerisms send mixed signals to his love interest, Citrus, who takes a full year before she realizes that she’s in love with him and that he might feel the same as well. In the following sections, we’ll go into detail as to how exactly this story handles those qualities and the storytelling that subsequently unfolds.

Technical/Structure:

The first thing I noticed was the tense that the author elected to use. Most authors tend to stick with the past tense in their storytelling for the simple reason that it is easy for one to mix up their tenses in the attempt to use the present tense. To see this story pull it off so efficiently is nothing short of commendable.

I did not notice any major mechanical issues with the story’s narrative. The only minor adjustment that I can recommend are how the beats preceding the dialogue tags are punctuated with commas instead of periods. However, the story’s strength in its sentence structure and excellently executed clauses make the narrative highly easy to follow along.

Characters:

Most of the characters in this story are very impactful. They have a level of depth to them that goes beyond their occupation or status. Citrus, for example, didn’t just go into cosmetics. She volunteered at a hospital, where she hid pony’s scars with her skills as if to heal them in her own way.

Perhaps the least impactful of the main characters to me is the human himself, Tim. His kindness was presented time and again, both verbally and through his gestures with the ponies, even to a fault at times. However, other than what we are told from his previous life, I know next to nothing about his aspirations and traits that makes him up as an individual. We are told that he wants to live outside of the Castle and to get a job, but his lack of action in fulfilling those desires suggests to me that he was compliant with the way things were. It took Citrus confronting Princess Celestia before he was able to leave the Castle, and that took a full year. More onto the point, he seemed ready to return Citrus’ affections rather hastily after finding out about them. I didn’t sense much of an internal struggle over whether or not it was time for him to move on from Karen. A part of this stems from not really knowing how close the two of them were before he came to Equestria.

Other minor complaints come in the form of the princesses’ disbelief to him having little to no magic. He said as much several times, and Princess Luna had even probed him for his magic and found the same evidence, but still didn’t seem to fully accept it. Much of this seems to stem from their worry for his safety; perhaps they were hoping against hope that there is some magic at his disposal to protect himself, but the plot device wasn’t quite driven home in a satisfying way.

Plot/Theme:

The concept of herding in this story, which has roots to herding in real life, makes this story stand out from the typical romance story. The contrast between Tim’s monogamous lifestyle and the pony’s polygamist lifestyle provides a Tim a real issue for him to overcome and adapt to during his stay in Canterlot. The progression of the plot that follows as a result is seamless and natural.

Conclusion:

While Tim fell somewhat flat as a character for me, I still found him likable as a character, and it wasn’t enough to detract from the enjoyment that I got from this piece. From the strong characterization of the rest of the cast to the strengths of this story’s structure and scene flow, this story remained thoroughly riveting to read.

Title: Frame of Reference

Author: Minds Eye

Amount Read: All

Rating: 9.5/10

Final Decision: ACCEPT!!!

Review:

From a technical perspective, this story is quite well written. I didn’t notice any real typographical errors that did anything at all to detract from the story. The same when it comes to grammar and diction. I have zero complaints there.

Length wise, the story is long enough to be engaging, but isn’t so long that it feels as though the author padded it. The plot is concise, the story moves along at a good clip, not too fast, not too slow. Celestia, Twilight, and the additional characters in the story stayed consistent and in character in reference to show and author created canon.

Okay, technical details aside, I love this story, it’s sweet, it shows a mothering side of Princess Celestia that we all suspect, and was also canonized into the show in the episode “Celestial Advice”. Twilight isn’t just a student to Celestia, she feels motherly towards Twilight, and it shows very well here. Add to that, Filly Twilight Sparkle is soooooooo cute! Her characterization was handled beautifully and the entire interchange between the two was immensely entertaining. I’ve not read all that many filly Twilight stories, but this one is top notch. Thank you for writing this, and keep it up!!!

In conclusion, yes, yes, yes! This is the kind of story that I was hoping for when I asked to review for the Reviewer’s Café. Entertaining, cute, and really goes into why I became a fan of the show, and what drew me into the brony fandom. Frame of Reference is an adorable story, and I’m glad to have read it. Thank you.

Title: Impossible Chance

Author: Battlecat

Amount Read: All

Rating: 9/10

Final Decision: Accept

Review:
Starting off with the technical assessment, well written, no typographical or grammatical errors that detract from the story that I was able to find. The pace and diction is quite well done. The story is divided into little sections that delineate between both time and place changes. It works quite well, and helps with the strengths of this story. The author keeps the flow moving along, and the story has an excellent hook, the buildup is done well, and the payoff is satisfying. The little twist works quite well also.

Onto the subjective… I’m not a fan of the Rarity x Twilight ship. I don’t think they are compatible in a romantic way. I actually see Applejack x Rarity as being a better ship. That being said, I can definitely give this ship a bit more credence after reading this story. Also, the idea that female and female relationships in Equestria being outside the norm for the ponies isn’t something that I subscribe to. Given the male/female ratio shown in the show, I don’t see how such relationships would be considered unusual, I had the same issue with another excellent story called Hard Reset. As with that story, this story is good enough that my head canon for this is easily dismissed for this story. Yes, it works that well.

The story starts off with some Twilight introspection, and she stays quite well in character as she really tries to deal with her feelings for Rarity. And her finally succumbing to sleep works very well. And it opens to the scene with Rarity joining her on the train. Their conversation is believable and really cute. Twilight opening as to her orientation, and how Rarity responds is spot on in character for her. And Twilight’s own fears are also quite well handled by the author.

Progressing through the story, Twilight shifting the subject to more mundane issues and them having conversations as friends do was well done. And then Twilight taking a chance, feeling rejected and blinking away was right in line how I would think she would act. Then having Rarity come and find her, and say that she’s open to such thinking. It just works very well. I’m very pleased with this story, even though it trots all over my own personal headcanons.

In conclusion, this is an excellent story, well worth reading and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I like the way the ship is presented here, and the story is a very pleasant and enjoyable read. Thanks so much!

Title: DEATH BATTLE: Eder Vs Foxfire by Dragonborne Fox
Amount Read: All
Verdict: Reject (3/10)
Reason:
 
Not entirely sure what to say about this fic, honestly.
 
It’s hard to judge a crackfic because by nature, they’re so ridiculous and over the top, so I’ll go on that. And while the story is ridiculous and over the top, it’s not a particularly funny execution of it. I did go look up the event this story was making fun of which did make it a little better, but overall, it’s isn’t that funny and is a very short story, so it’s a handful of references to a particular shitstorm all right after another. Overall the story is slightly amusing, but only slightly. It was clearly cobbled together quickly and not given much polish before being released, and for those reasons, I have to reject it.

Story: Of Love & Friendship by MV
 
Amount read: All published chapters. Chapter 11 at the time of the review
 
Verdict: 8/10
 
 
Premise
 
When I claimed this story I wasn't very enthusiastic about it. There were a couple of elements that made me wary, and, coupled with the fic being on hiatus, kept my hopes in check.
 
I'm quite glad that my first impression was utterly and embarrassingly wrong.
 
Of Love and Friendship is an interesting story, which does a lot of things well and very few wrong (and most of them are probably a matter of taste). It's main defect, aside from not being for everyone, is that the author seems to have paused writing it.
 
Summary
 
Luna's return has been far more difficult than expected. An economic depression caused by international resistance to the Moon Princess has brought Equestria to his knees, and amidst conspiracies, betrayal, and a rot that seemed to affect the heart and soul of ponies, hope is becoming a far-off mirage. And yet ponies fight on.
 
Technical aspect
 
Grammatically the writing is solid. There are a few issues here and there, and because of the relative rarity, they tend to stand out. Still, there is nothing that would disqualify this story from being recommended. Getting an editor to comb through it would be a good idea anyway.
 
As for the prose, it tends to be on the expansive side of the spectrum. While we don't dip into purple prose territory, it tends often to focus on nonessential details that could have been cut or summarized every now and then. The upside is that a strong sense of place transpires from the story, with a couple of very evocative paragraphs that paint the decay of the world in heartwrenching, vivid strokes.
 
Story structure
 
The story is told through different point of views, each following a different character. The sections are quite long, the switches from one character to the next are few and far between, and focus on the inner world of each protagonist and on how they relate and react to what happens around them.
 
Most of the world building happens through differences from the expected. Exposition is rarely direct, the characters don't repeat things they already know (usually), but it is possible to infer a large and living world. One which superficially is similar to the Equestria we already know, but which, in time, differs in intriguing ways.
 
This concentrating on the soul and mind of the characters is probably on of the strongest points of the story. It gives us a filtered view of the reality, and through this, it sells us a world that deserves the Dark and the Alternate Universe tags, both difficult to use and both perfectly integrated into the story.
 
What we have here is a frail Equestria, ready to break apart under the rot caused by a fundamental moral failing. I'm well aware that the previous sentence may turn some people off, but it is the base of a well thought out what-if. The decay that is the consequence is felt everywhere, it hangs heavily, is omnipresent and gives so little hope, yet isn't a gratuitous tonal change respectively to the source material. It sometimes may seem a bit over the top or exaggerated grotesque, but there are hints through the story that more is at work and not all is as it seems.
 
The Gore tag, in my opinion, errs on the side of caution, as the horrible things that happen are usually implied more than shown directly. I can't fault the author for it, though, as the scenes, even if not described in graphic detail, hit pretty hard and left me queasy on a couple of occasions.   
 
Characters
 
I guess here lies the source of my enthusiasm.
 
We follow a mix of OC and canon characters, both interesting and compelling for different reasons.
 
The OCs have a rich backstory, motivations, they have wants and dislikes. They are well rounded and, even if we may not like them as ponies, they are interesting.
 
The canon characters have been twisted by the world and the previously cited moral failing. We still recognize them, but it is like looking at them reflected in a distorted and broken mirror. We see them at their worst, and knowing they could be so much more we ache and long for them to have a happy ending, one which isn't guaranteed by the world.
 
I may have some reservations about this version of Applejack, but I will delay my judgment about her for a while, as the author has gotten enough of my trust that I'm convinced they know what they are doing.
 
Highlights
 
Twilight's train ride, which puts so much in context in a pretty natural way.
 
Conclusion
 
We have a great story which has still the chance to become even better. It seems consistent, the author gives the impression they know wat they are doing and where they are going. The characters are compelling, the situation is interesting and I'm curious how it will further evolve.
 
The downsides are sparse grammatical errors, some overwritten descriptions here and there and that the readers need to trust the author in certain points.
 
The slow rhythm feels right for an adventure told through the inner world of the characters, but, in combination with the darkness and the misery that permeates everything, can be off-putting for some readers.
 
Also, it is on hiatus, which is a bit of a sore point for me.
 
While it is not for everyone, it is well worth reading if the well-chosen tags are genres one may appreciate.

Title: Sweetie Bane

Author: TriggerWarning

Plot: 5/10
Structure: 8/10
Characters: 5/10
Grammar: 7/10
Mechanics: 7/10
Verdict: 32/50 = 6.4/10

Rejected

So, this was weird… very, very, weird. I’m not quite sure of what to say about this, honestly.

Other Guy: Get to it already. You haven’t reviewed in weeks, and now you’re wasting time.

Me: Can you kindly piss off, and have some patience?

Other Guy: *grumbles*

Anyway, this is Sweetie Bane.

Plot Sweetie Belle has awoken with a weird mask like growth on her face, and now she’s speaking like a bad Sean Connery impersonator.
Now, this has a very good setup for some really good comedy. The story could be told from Sweetie’s perspective, and everyone else could be oblivious to her anarchist, and city destroying ways. Or, since later in the story it is revealed to be a *ahem* virus that came back with Spike on Twilight’s visit to Przewalskia.

Other Guy: What and where the hell is that?

Me: *shrugs*

Anyway, this could be a jab at horror flicks since this appears to be highly contagious, and Rarity contracts it at the end. You could make fun of horror tropes with the anarchy cries of Bane.

Structure You can't go wrong with structure. If your fic has a beginning, middle, and end, with the rising action, climax, and falling action/resolution falling along with it, you’re in the good. And that Shyamalan twist at the end isn't that bad, even though I saw it coming from half a galaxy away.

Characters Just, meh, really. Sweetie Bane (Belle) was just spouting lines from the movie, and even though the story is about her, she isn’t the focus for most of it. That comes from her mom, Cookie Crumble. All she did was act like a concerned parent…

Other Guy: What’s wrong with that? She was afraid of what her daughter had became.

Me: It’s boring.

Cookie Crumble acting like a good parent in a story that is tagged as a dark comedy is not entertaining. I understand that there was a dark tag, but this wasn’t dark, except for the lines that he stole from the script of The Dark Knight Returns. And it wasn’t that funny, to me at least. I can’t even point out a scene where I cracked a smirk at what Sweetie Bane was saying, or how Cheerilee nonchalantly explained that Twilight’s assistant could have brought a hyper infectious disease from a foreign land. This would have been an AWESOME contagion story!

Grammar There aren't very many typos or misspellings. Prose can get a wee bit jumbled and repetitive at some points. Moving on

Mechanics I should have scored lower. I really should have, because of this…

It was when was used to hearing all kind of sounds from upstairs: Charging downwards, bouncing, a deep silence...but not for the sounds that
she heard…

Sweetie's cold, hard expression didn't change, but a muffled, masculine voice emerged from the mask: "No one cared who I was until I put on the mask."

Sweetie Bell's face finally changed: Now it meant business.

Do you see it? Too damn many colons! The whole story is perforated with ‘em. Now, I’m not the sharpest crayon in the oven-

Other Guy:

-but, I have a little bit of knowledge on when a colon or semicolon is needed, and when writing into dialogue, a comma would suffice.

Sweetie's cold, hard expression didn't change, but a muffled, masculine voice emerged from the mask, "No one cared who I was until I put on the mask."

That’s much better :3

Now, I said I should have scored Mechanics lower, but I didn’t because that was really the only problem I had with this. Commas, periods, even dashes where were they were supposed to be. All except for that damn colon.

In conclusion, this isn’t a bad story. I don’t think it relates enough to its tags to be an effective story. I don’t have any advice to change it. It’s fine the way the author write it if you ask those in the comments and the over 100 people who liked it. But it missed the mark for what we accept here. Don’t let that discourage you though, buddy, ‘o pal, ‘o comrade, ‘o chum. Keep on writing no matter what this guy has to say.

Story: Crystalline Fragments by Dragonborne Fox
Amount read: All
Verdict: 6/10, against
Reasoning:
To begin, I would like to say that this story was very well written, grammatically speaking. I didn't notice a single spelling error and only the odd case of arguable punctuation use, and even then that was nothing that really detracted from the story's overall quality of writing. However, this story didn't quite meet its potential.

One mark of a good crossover is the ability for readers to understand the story's content without needing prior knowledge of the crossover material. And, unfortunately, this story doesn't quite meet that standard. Throughout the story I was left trying to catch up and piece together the pieces of this new world, and not in the good way; I wasn't left curious as to the state of things as opposed to merely frustrated and confused. Furthermore, the writing swings freuently from being well written to trying too hard to sound sophisticated, which in the end just comes across as somewhat amateurish writing. "Too much of a good thing", as they say. Perhaps this is related to the crossover material, I'm not sure, but without the writing being constant in style it ends up having an odd effect which breaks the reader's immersion.

One more issue is the plot. Everything seems too rushed, with the characters we hardly know being thrown into dangerous situations. We have little interest in the characters at the start and so their struggles are not as impactful as they could otherwise have been if we had spent longer getting to know them. We also know next to nothing about the gem that they are fighting to protect, and while this was initially something that triggered interest I soon lost that curiosity after reading the characters' struggles to protect it.

All in all, this story appears to have potential to be a highly developed and well written novel—but at this stage, it really needs a good edit.

Story: Equestria Girls and the Golden Bell by Sparky Brony
Amount read: First four chapters (15,500 words) plus chapter nine
Verdict: 5/10, against
Reasoning:
I must say, I like the idea behind this story. The execution—generally—was very well planned, with the introduction of the Mane Seven into the wizarding world of Harry Potter being mostly seamless. There were, at times, a few instances where the story quite obviously uses plot devices, despite its best efforts to hide this fact with questionable reasoning. However, overall, the plot was fairly good and, critically, a unique take on the Harry Potter the likes of which I have not seen before. On that note, the present tense nature of the field was, in this case, a refreshing change—although I do recall there being a few slip ups into past tense at the start of the fic which need addressing.

However, this story falls down greatly in one very critical area which means there can be no way for it to be accepted into the folders at present, and that is the story's grammar. Whilst the spelling seemed sound (I only noticed a few typos) the punctuation and formatting was poor. The author needs to revise how to format speech and how to structure it. Furthermore, the author incorrectly uses commas frequently which can really break up the flow of the reading.

Title: Memorial of a Lost One
Author: The Chill Dude
Reviewer: Kalash93 (Second opinion by An Alternate Universe)
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject
Score: 6

Okay, good story, but not quite good enough. It's a quick letter from someone dying of an ambiguous disease to a friend, written as a tribute of sorts to another story. It's very poignant and bittersweet. Other than the highly emotional and well handled subject matter, there isn't much here. It's a quickie. By no means bad, but not a 7.62 millimeter story, if you get the analogy.

Title: Caliber's Party
Author: Colt Alchemist
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject

This story is far from sufficient for acceptance. There are numerous mechanical and technical issues with the story. Grammatical errors abound, problems with spacing, commas, and other punctuation. Typos to the extent that one character seemingly had 5 names: Vlardo, Valdro, Vladro, and Vlad. The story also does a terrible job of selling the idea that Caliber and her mercs are competent enough to be trusted with watching paint dry. There are far too many characters in the story, meaning that we don't get to know or understand any of them well. The whole thing is a mess.

Title: I. What's Past is Prologue
Author: Loquacious of Herd

Amount Read: 100% (Total Words: 115,055)
Rating:
Plot/Theme: 12/20
Technical/Structure: 5/10
Characters: 5/10
Subjective: 3/10
Total: 25/50
Verdict: 5/10 - Recommend Rejection

Overview:

Time and again the development of the human psyche is proven to be delicate. The psychology behind how a person sees the world, how they weigh decisions, and how they even subconsciously operate in the world around them all play into the understanding of that individual. By exploring those behavioral and cognitive processes, we can come to a better understanding as they develop along their upbringing and environment.

Through the art of literature, becoming acquainted with a character's psychology remains, in my belief, one of the most powerful literary devices at an author's disposal. The expression of their traits and characteristics lends itself to the appreciation of the human condition. It continually molds our perceptions of the world around us and our underlying understanding of ourselves.

The question I must raise for this story is as follows: How well does it capture the essence of our psyche? Does it leave the impressionable fulfillment of the human condition, or is it somehow muddled in awkward deviations of such pursuits? We shall soon discover the answers to these questions.

Technical/Structure:

The spelling and grammatical aspect of the narrative mostly meets expectations, which makes it easy to follow along. There are a few missing commas and errors, including a few somewhat awkward phrases, which can be mitigated through a quick edit. A few design choices with regards to the stylization of writing, however, are somewhat more questionable. The abundance of conjunctions at the start of sentences and numerous dependent clauses which are punctuated as stand-alone sentences can quickly become distracting. Though beginning conjunctions with sentences is technically correct, and though expressing the dependent clauses by themselves is used to bring a deeper impact to the conclusion of a thought, the overuse of such devices lessens the impact of an individual iteration of its use.

There are a number of scenes which can be improved upon with regards to its flow. Although the overall pacing of the story is consistent, the scenes could better substantiate the overarching theme through the art of concision. Some of the long-winded passages to convey singular ideas and the repetition of names of places cause some of the scenes to drag on too long. One additional factor that is negatively impacted by this is how well the characters' personalities and traits are perceived.

There is an apparent natural blend of show and tell storytelling within the narrative, however. There are a few particularly deep thoughts expressed in the form of show, and a number of telling passages to keep reader engaged with the emotion behind the characters' actions and motivations.

Characters:

Most of the characters are well established with defining personalities that take on life of their own. Take for example the protagonist, Cantor, who outwardly expresses politeness to others despite his aversion to maintaining contact. Through his development as he journeys along with his new companion, Valentina, he seems to overcome this aversion. Other characters, such as Gunther, don't seem to be as well defined; as far as I was able to surmise, the captain of the Westphalia became incensed by Dr. Fether's presence simply because he was bored.

The dialogue is dynamic and substantial, adding depth to the world's politics and events. There is, additionally, conviction depicted within their correspondence, particularly with Dr. Fether and Jon Quill. Some explanations, however, are lengthy and increase the interval between plot points unnecessarily.

Plot/Theme:

I had a difficult time placing the theme of this story at the start, and there wasn't much in the way of interest that initially grabbed at me. The attention to detail was vivid, however, and the plot was driven forward by the characters' clear motivations. The external struggles between the different groups was, for the most part, thoroughly riveting. The cat and mouse game that Dr. Fether engages with Cantor to thwart and detain him, in particular, come to mind. Other conflicts, such as Cantor's struggle with the Pony of Shadows, were not as engaging because of the few brief exchanges between the protagonist and main antagonists before the climax at the end.

Additionally, the resolution did not end on a note that was satisfactory to me. The brief introduction of a new antagonist, who was motivated to suspend the protagonists' plans, did not adequately give Cantor and party enough indication to be dissuaded, yet they were disheartened by his proclamation despite no prior interactions with him in the narrative.

Conclusion:

While there are a lot of strengths behind this narrative, the lack of concision and lengthy deliveries of the ideas muddle some of the narrative's more prominent features. This somewhat detracts from the overall enjoyment of the piece, and I do not believe the story's better qualities are enough to overcome the detriments to this piece to give it that satisfactory and lasting impression that we are looking for.

Title: The Stallion in the Suit
Author: Raptormon132

Amount Read: 100% (Total Words: 1,957)
Rating:
Plot/Theme: 8/20
Technical/Structure: 4/10
Characters: 3/10
Subjective: 2/10
Total: 17/50
Verdict: 3/10 - Recommend Rejection

Overview:

At some point in every person's life, there is something that they would like to pass down to their next generation. It is like leaving them a legacy, and it is arguably the way an individual to sort of immortalize themselves by sharing a piece of themselves to carry on in the minds of their offspring.

The premise of today's story is themed around this idea. How well it translates into the storytelling narrative, however, will determine whether this is an exemplary piece or if it falls flat.

Technical/Structure:

The technical aspect of the narrative, while isn't too grating, could use some work. Among the list of errors I spotted was the awkward phrasing throughout the piece. Take this statement for example.

My father and I went back inside as the sun finished setting to begin the night.

The way this is phrased makes it sound like the sun is doing work rather than passively drifting along in its course.

I also noted that there were a few missing words, at least one comma splice which I noted, and a few sentences that were a tad too long. Concision and editing could improve the overall sentence flow and purge the awkward phrasing to significantly improve the narrative's mechanical structure.

Characters:

The characters seemed little more than character archetypes. There were not many discernable qualities to capture their likeness. From this relatively small narrative, I could not glean many of their qualities aside from Silver Coin's apparently inquisitive nature toward coins. There was additionally not much in the way of character development; Silver Coin's grandfather can arguably be considered to have development, however brief and implicit it may be, but Silver Coin was entirely static.

Plot/Theme:

The narrative is little more than a premise without much in the way of plot points. While the plot was simplistic and quaint, it didn't capture the message of the theme in a satisfying manner. There was no real discernable conflict, internal or otherwise, for the protagonist to overcome, and resolution is little more than the heart of the message that the narrative is trying to deliver.

Conclusion:

While the story is quaint, and conveys a highly regarded message, there are several areas where it could use work. The technical issues aside, the story could have been longer to include more defining features for the characters, more character development, and a delivery of the message that leaves a lasting impression on the reader.

Story: The Blueblood Chronicles by No One and Nobody

Amount read: all

Verdict: 6/10

Premise

I like Blueblood.

Now, before an angry mob kicks down my door and then takes its sweet time to discuss from which streetlight to hang me, I want to make clear that I like him for his storytelling potential. He is a wonderful, empty shape that waits to be filled with all kind of ideas. It's a bit of a let down for me when I see him reduced to a simple jerk to be kicked by the current protagonist, which is why I was quite happy to take this story for a review.

Here we have a Blueblood who had a pretty long life, who has an explanation for his title, and who tells us the story of how he became the stallion everybody loves to hate.

This is a quite interesting idea with a lot of potential, which sadly fails for technical issues with the writing and the structure. There are also some unexplored implications that weaken the whole plot, which means I can't truly recommend it.

Technical aspect

This story needs an editor. We have typos, homophones, and a couple of misused words here and there. The prose is mostly functional but shows it's weak side during action scenes. Those are purely descriptive, which may work in a storyboard but doesn't really give us the visceral experience they call for. As they are, they feel a tad too clinical and distant as to involve the reader in what happens.

Now, to be fair this is mainly a story about character development, and the action scenes themselves are few and far between. Still, they are noticeable and represent low points in the fic.

Story

The story is told through flashbacks as Celestia and Blueblood remember the past with the Mane Six after another less than successful Grand Galloping Gala. The framing device is a well known one, and it actually works in this context. It gives us an anchor and allows some pretty large time skips that still feel like a natural progression of the narrative.

There are tons of missed opportunities, though. Blueblood doesn't show his age, nor does any other character react to it. Equestria doesn't change at all in a millennium, which in itself could be an interesting plot point but which sadly doesn't go anywhere. This seems to be a bit of a recurrent pattern.Cool ideas around which you could develop an entire story, but that won't go anywhere.

Characters

We get a pretty complete portrait of Blueblood, and thankfully he isn't simply a jerk for the sake of being a jerk. While the character arc is complete, some of the transitions feel rushed. More focus on the critical phases would improve the story, as some more subtlety in his redemption.

Secondary characters, on the other hand, seem to exist (with a couple of exceptions) only as something to which Blueblood reacts. A bit more depth there would reflect positively on the rest.

Conclusion

We have here a good seed for a story. Interesting concepts, lots of ideas, and a ton of potential. Sadly, it lacks in the execution and is not yet ready for being recommended without reservations.

Title: Who's the Hottest Stallion?

Author: Kuairu

Plot:  8/10
Structure:  9/10
Characters:  6/10
Grammar:  5/10
Mechanics: 6/10
Total: 34/50 = 6/10 Rejected

This one was certainly a surprise to say the least. I’ll be honest, after looking at the cover I thought this was going to be a weak yaoi fantasy. Welp, I’m a wrong bigoted idiot…

Plot Big Macintosh, Shining Armor, and Braeburn have all been corralled into a single dream conjured up by the crystalline lord of darkness, King Sombra. He initially planned to get revenge on Shining armor for what was done to him when he was blown to bits back at the crystal Empire, but after scrolling through his memories he had something much more… interesting in mind…

Like I said, going into this, I expected little, barely even expected to like it, but it was the unique ways that they took Sombra’s contest that drew me in and even made me laugh. Mainly Braeburn; Braeburn is goat.

Structure I don’t even know why I have this section here, to be honest.

Other Guy: Because there are people out there who forget that a story needs to have a beginning middle and end.

Me: This guy obviously didn’t. Why are we doing this?

Other Guy: Hey, you’re the one who likes to talk to himself. I don’t even exist *fades away*

Anyway, structure is solid… I need help….

Characters I am more than torn with this, because I liked how everyone spoke and acted --especially Braeburn--. Well, everyone except, Big Mac. He was waaaaay too talkative for me. I don’t mean that he needs to be the quiet “eeyup” stallion that he usually is, but his dialogue could have been toned down more than a smidge. Maybe witty one-liners would have worked better.

Shining armor was better than what he’s usually portrayed as, even though the whole story he was looking for ways to buy them time so Luna could bail them out. I especially liked how he didn’t know what to do when he was placed in front of a crowd of hungry mares, and he had no idea how to excite them. Married men don’t know how to work the game anymore, I suppose.

Sombra was pretty okay as well. He was acting a little snarky and jealous as the mares cheered louder for our titular stallions as opposed to he who fabricated the dream. That and he fainted after Braeburn’s sexy ass stole the stage.

Other Guy:

Me: What?

Other Guy: I didn’t know you swung that way, Freesh.

Me: Hehe, that Jawline doesn’t lie and neither do I. And, I don’t swing any way, sir.

Other Guy: W-What?

Braeburn was the highlight of the story. From beginning to end the others harped on him being a clueless “Dumb Cowpony”, even hinting at the fact that he might be gay since he was cheering for Sombra when he presented himself. That and, Apparently Pear butter bucked him so hard in the head it screwed him up something fierce. This has made me want to read up more on Brae. I haven’t seen much of his character outside of the show, and even though he was being an adorable and clueless loon. Yes I said Brae was adorable. Cute is cute.

Grammar No, just, no. The main issue I found with this story were typos, comma placement, and oddly placed semicolons. Nothing that a good editing pass can’t handle, but there obviously wasn’t one.

Mechanics Same issue as grammar, though this is more focusing on the prose aspects of the fic. It wasn’t rushed, but there are some moments where it feels like the characters are talking too fast, or over-explaining certain things that don’t need much depth on. Like, where Mac explains that Brae took Pear Butter’s hoof to the head, and that’s why he acts… questionable and ditzy. Though it got a chuckle out of me, we didn’t need Mac to elaborate on it. Brae got the shit kicked out of him, so he’s a little gone in the mind. That’s all. Also, sentences go from flowing fairly well, to jamming together like rush hour in Hong Kong.

All in all, this was a fun read that surprised me in a very good way. I mean, look at the cover art. I thought this was going to be some Magic Mike kind of gig This was entertaining, but the nitty gritty of the finer details holds it back… for now.

~Freesh

Title: The Devil's Curse

Author: Calming Moon

Amount Read: 100% (Total Words: 2,252)
Rating:
Plot/Theme: 16/20
Technical/Structure: 4/10
Characters: 8/10
Subjective: 7/10
Total: 35/50
Verdict: 7/10 - Recommend Rejection (Second opinion by link4)

Overview:

Today's story delves into the inner struggle of caring for a dying relative. This narrative is a sensitive point to broach for many, particularly for those who have watched the fading of a loved one's life.

My heart goes out for the author of this piece, who has been dealing with this struggle first hand in her own life. That being said, I must treat the work on its own; my own thoughts on it doesn't reflect on the author's personal life in any way, shape, or form.

Technical/Structure:

The number of grammatical errors within the body of the story are sufficient enough that they became marginally distracting. In addition to some oddly placed commas, there were certain points that necessitated its usage but weren't utilized. There was also missed punctuation, a few inaccurate words, and a couple of passages which I had to take a moment to fully comprehend their significance. Take this for example:

Dementia is something I have little experience with, so it's a struggle everyday to provide for the one who provided for me.

It could have been worded slightly different to be clearer that the one who was afflicted wasn't simultaneously providing for and being provided by the protagonist.

Despite these minor errors, which can be mostly expunged with a quick edit, the overall flow of the story's structure is easy to follow. The author makes adequate use of the present tense in their writing style. Although it was well maintained, I did feel it prudent that I didn't quite feel the sense of immediacy that one might expect from this literary device. This wasn't a detriment to the experience of the piece as a whole, however, and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Characters:

There weren't many qualities that I could ascertain about Desert Breeze's personality aside from her caring nature. As the protagonist of the story, I would normally find this to be a detriment so far as to say that she was two-dimensional. Because of the particular nature of this story's theme, however, I must forgo this as having a negative impact on the narrative. That lack of explicit depth speaks volumes about her seemingly endless and futile situation. It is implicit that she has never been able to explore herself and develop as an individual, for all that defines who she is has only ever been the caring of other individuals as they perished. This ultimately leads to Desert Breeze being a husk of a being, which is an interesting dynamic within this scenario. I would have liked to see it alluded to, however, to give a more accurate depiction of how this situation affects Desert even during the more tedious moments of her daily routine.

One thing I did note about Desert is the number of times the sentences started with the word 'Smiling'. This, in and of itself, was repetitive. In order to maintain the implicit quality of Desert's personality while making the descriptions more interesting, I posit the addition of descriptors, other minor friendly gestures, and restructuring of some of the sentences to avoid repetition.

Plot/Theme:

The theme is well defined, revolving around the tragedy of losing one's family to the test of time. There is additionally the undertone of a second theme, one's isolation, present within the body of the text. A sense of routine is established early on. The actions Desert take seem automatic, implicitly suggesting Desert attempting to extricate herself emotionally from the situation, which comes out in full force later on. I feel that her internal struggle was adequately depicted here. I do feel something more could be added to this scene, however. Fine tuning the scene's pacing to draw out more subtle cues in their interactions or to further illustrate how Desert is unable to completely detach her emotional instability could generate a more powerful impact within the narrative.

Conclusion:

The message of this story is handled is well. It shows a clear indication of how devastating it can be to lose a loved one slowly over time. It also depicts the consequences it can have psychologically on the individual who experiences the loss. The narrative, however, suffers from a number of grammatical issues. Moreover, the work lacks a certain umph that leaves a lasting impression on the reader, and this is most likely due to its short length. Due to these reasons, it is unfortunate that this doesn't quite meet the standards we are looking for, but making edits bearing these detriments in mind would make this worth a second evaluation.

Title: Applebloom in the Plains

Author: Time Reaper

Plot: 3/10
Structure: 6/10
Characters: 4/10
Grammar: 2/10
Mechanics: 2/10
Total: 17/50 = 3/10

This was a mess. I’m not sure what I expected from a 2.9k one shot that needed an entire story to expand up on why she’s in this situation.

Plot Applebloom somehow finds herself on the Venezuelan plains. Also she’s a human, and she’s trying to get back to Equestria. Apparently she’s wandering trying to find the city of San Luis? I believe?

Look, I understand wanting a bit of mystery to add to your Equestrian on Earth story (EoE, slapping a copyright on that shit!), but you need to catch the reader up to speed as opposed to saying, “Here’s Applebloom… she’s on Earth… mystical shit happens…” There needs to be at least a tl;dr section.

Structure Why did it get a six? Because of the problem I stated above. I know Cinemasins gives a sin for narration-

CS: Using our name without copyrighted consent ding. Also, I’ll see your ass in court.

Me: Wait? What?!

How in the hell? Anyway, we need narration in reading. The words on the screen/book help us visualize the world that you’re conveying. You can’t just plop a character somewhere and do stuff. There has to be a reason. So, it get’s a six because the cause of AB wandering Venezuela isn't stated, just the effects.

Characters It wasn’t that the characters were bad. To be honest, I didn’t care for them…

Other Guy: That’s good

Me: No it isn’t

Other Guy: How so?

Me: You have to care about a character to be even remotely invested in what’s going on in a story. Not giving a fuck = bad characterization.

Other Guy: Ah, I see

Applebloom didn’t seem like herself, though I could excuse that since she’s now human and in South America, but I’m not gonna. Not because I’m being spiteful, or an asshole. See Plot for that answer.

Grammar English isn’t your first language, is it?

FIMFiction: *points pitchforks at me*

Me: :

*ahem* What I meant to say was, your grammar was just ew. Typos, odd misspellings, run on sentences, sentence jumbling, the works. And I only said the language thing because of where it’s set. Not because I’m an American asshole.

Mechanics Same as grammar. Almost verbatim

So, I hope you won’t take what I said the wrong way. One shot’s usually have a habit of being of poor quality since they were written “in the moment” rather than meditated on. There are very few that the author classed as a “one shot” that are truly good, not great.

Anyways, I hope next cycle you submit something you put a little more work into, or maybe the sequel to this. I’d like to see this more fleshed out, because where this is right now? Nope...

~Freesh

Title: Brushstrokes by Camolot the Creator
Amount Read: All currently published (1st chapter)
Verdict: 6/10
Reason:

This story is good, but falls short of being good enough to be accepted.

For starters, I’ll focus on one of the bigger issues I saw, and that was details. Many times have I read a fanfiction (my own fics included) that skimp on details, making everything much too condensed. This has the opposite problem: there’s a little too much detail given to some things. Sure it’s neat to know that the soil under Sweet Apple Acres is magical or that Lyra studies humans (who, side note, used to live alongside ponies before mysteriously disappearing, which gave me the very big and very obvious question of “So what happened?” that is never touched on again), but is it necessary? Answer: not really. These also tend to come in the middle of conversations or other events, which then just disrupts the flow of the action. Reminded me of when I had to read The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers in high school, although at least this story doesn’t have anything that’s remotely close to being on the same level of unnecessary as the mere concept of Tom Bombadil (review within a review: I do not recommend Fellowship literally just because of him).

Bridging that thought, I would have to say that there’s a great deal of the story that doesn’t seem very necessary, as little is done to advance the plot of Emily and her feelings for Big Mac. After she helps Applejack set up her market stall, there’s honestly very little that contributes to the story, very little that moves it forward. Lyra does give her a little bit of advice, but it could have been done in a lot fewer words and then avoided all the seemingly empty conversation that follows. It is nice to see some world-building and show that Emily does have friends and others that she’s close to, but since this story is to be a longer fiction (at least, longer than it currently is), it makes it seem very front-loaded and dilutes the main story.

My final criticism is the amount of interaction between Emily and Big Mac. Namely, the distinct lack of it. I get that this is not a one-shot and this is just the first chapter, but there’s maybe a third of a page’s worth of material that touches on the subject: he’s mentioned as being there when she goes to paint Equestrian landscapes, she tries to get the courage to talk to him about it but can’t, then asks Lyra about it. If the unnecessary content I’ve talked about was removed, maybe it would be a more appropriate ratio of material regarding the titular relationship:other material, but her feelings for him seem almost like a subplot in a story about a woman living in Equestria.

As I said earlier, though, this story is good. I’m a sucker for clean writing, and I was not disappointed. In ~5500 words, I think I saw maybe one mistake. The dialogue is also written nicely; it sounds natural most of the time, and while it has its shaky moments with Lyra, it’s just shaky and not downright bad or awkward. Overall I did enjoy it, but did got bogged down in extraneous detail and for promising a story about Emily and Big Mac, there is very little Emily and Big Mac. For those reasons, I have to reject this fic.

Title: Dust on the Wind
Author: Sparky Brony
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject

It's a reject, but a high reject. I'm going to break this review down into quick bullet points for pros and cons.

Pros:
* Excellent character study. I used to hate Lightning Dust. Now I think she may be somewhere in line for best pone behind Sunset Shimmer, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Luna, and Maud.
* Involving plot. Well, something was sorta always happening.
* High effort. Seriously, I feel bad about rejecting a multiyear project almost as big as my current career library. It's obvious you cared and worked hard on this.
* Interesting premise. I have never red a PoE story before I actually found engaging or gave a genuine reason for why the earth had to be overrun by pones.

Cons:
* The main issue was solved less than a THIRD of the way through a 347586 word story. Therefore, more than 2/3 of the story, more than enough to be a doorstopper novel, was completely unrelated to what we were sold on. Chapter 25 and later should have been sequels. Imagine if they'd blown up the Death Star by the 30 minute mark of Star Wars...
* Recurring comma issues with direct addresses, dude.
* Should have been rated mature. It gets thematically very heavy. And you do everything but outright name genitals for a number of what are clearly sex sequences. This detracted from the impact, and no, having a secondary story with all t3h cl0p doesn't really make up, though I read all of them and they were hot.
* Cutaway events. And suddenly, someone appeared who needed Dust's attention for something RIGHT AT THAT VERY MOMENT. As is said in NaNoWriMo, and then ninjas attacked!
* Tone issues. You'd go from serious emotional drama to adorable pony piles immediately. And from government drama to Lightning trolling airliners.
* Pacing issues. The initial arc with Discord isn't THAT long. Somehow, the story stretches out for many years afterwards. Healing Dust from her abduction takes just one chapter, but a visit to her parents takes more than one.
* The beginning was confusing. Random cutaways and flashbacks.
* Lot track of who was whom and who had been whom. Who the fuck was Mindy again? And I thought all pones on earth were originally humans, not not all, and then humans can take on pony magic, but not transform, but pony magic is suppose to make them transform?
* Veered between serious drama, slice of life, melodrama, and romance. Too much in one story, comrade.

Final verdict: 6

It does many things right, and it's a fine fic, but it never quite gets enough things right all at once and for enough to push it over.

Title: Sweet Fairytales
Author: Midnight Chaos
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject

Nice start. Unfortunately, there's not much here, and the incomplete tag speaks to that. It's beautiful what you do have so far and I would love to read more. Please continue it; I bet it would be a great story when developed and written. Resubmit once it's done and we'll see again if you like. Until then, it's rejected.

Title: Rhymes of Cruel Mundanity by Unclever Hans
Amount Read: All
Verdict: Reject (4/10)
Reason:

I will give props to the author for writing this story as a poem. I don’t claim to know the first thing about poetry, but I do feel as if the story would have not turned out very well at all if it was not written in that style.

On that, however, I do feel as though there could have been some better execution here and there. Some of the words used to rhyme just felt a little forced, and while about 90-something percent of the story’s flow is good, there are some stanzas here and there that have some awkward syllable counts. It usually is found in the fourth line and often has one more syllable than needed, and I found that a good portion of them could be solved quite simply by the removal of one word. It’s not awful, but it is something that I can only describe as the feeling of stumbling over your own feet while walking somewhere; you get there and intact, but it was shaky.

The next thing, and the one I have the most to say about, is the subject of the story itself. It gave a very strong creepypasta vibe, and I’m not entirely sure if that’s what the author was going for. The problem is that regardless of whether it’s supposed to be a creepypasta or not, it is, and falls into the most common problem I see with creepypastas: it just goes for a lot of clichéd “scary” tropes (toys that kill somebody, an evil child, a suicide that doesn’t actually kill somebody, etc.), which have been overdone and no longer really elicit any response. Additionally, the ending is just confusing and strange, and not to mention the whole story is just meta, ranging from one of the main characters having watched My Little Pony to the end of the story being him being given a DVD set of one of the G1 MLP.

Overall, not the best story. Again, massive props for writing a poem that while it stumbles in a few spots, is overall written well. However, upon backing up and looking at the story itself, it feels like a bad creepypasta, and that is the main reason that I am rejecting the fic.

Title: Dear Twilight Sparkle, Get Fucked!

Author: kalash93
Amount Read: All

Rating: 8/10

Final Decision: Accept

Review:
From a technical standpoint, this story is quite well done. The sentence structure is strong, the narrative moves along nicely and there are no typos or serious grammar errors that I was able to find. So, this story is strong when it comes to mechanics.

But, where this story shines is in the subjective, this story is absolutely hilarious! I had a smile on my face throughout the entire read, and the ending got a laugh from this reviewer. I read this story a total of three times, and have already recommended it to two of my friends. This is genuinely funny, because it plays into what many would think of the thought processes of Princess Celestia. Twilight is a mass of neuroses, and yes, an injection of vitamin “D” via meat spear would be a big help. Remember, there are a LOT of clopfics here on Fimfic with Twilight Sparkle as the one getting fucked. So, if fanon were canon, she’d be that mass of quivering pleasure. So, I can say that a big source of what makes this funny is the fact that most readers can see Celestia making such a request of her faithful student.

And the response to Princess Celestia’s letter was the clincher for me, Twilight took the instructions from her mentor, and didn’t just go and do it, she decided to tackle it scientifically. Which is in line with her personality (especially in earlier episodes of the show) and is 100% believable. I believe we all can imagine the frustrated scream from the Alicorn of the day upon reading such a response.

In conclusion, this is a fun little read. Not too long, not too short, it’s graphically descriptive without being excessively lewd for lewd sake. I certainly am happy to accept this little gem of a story, and thank you so much for writing it!

Title: Barren by The Chill Dude
Amount Read: All
Verdict: Reject (6.5/10)
Reason:

Barren is definitely a good story, and one I recommend to read. However, while it is good, it does come just short of my apparently-high expectations for this group (in my defense, I was once told to only accept “the best of the best”).

The first thing I’ll discuss is the exposition, because it doesn’t do the story much justice. It’s rather tell-y, and some parts in which there is more action that dialogue (such as Twilight going out into the storm to try and find Spike) get bland with a lot of just “She did this. The storm did that. That other thing did this” in it. It gets boring to read, and I’m having to go back and re-read some of the most dialogue-sparse parts of the story while I write this since they slipped my mind rather quickly. It’s unfortunate, because that section does contribute a lot to the story; namely, the presence of danger. It’s one thing to just say or imply that the world around the characters is dangerous, but it’s another to actually put them in danger and make you wonder if they’ll get out of it. It was a nice choice to include it, but since that section is so important to providing that sense of Twilight and Spike being in danger, it’s disappointing that execution on it was not quite on the level as the rest of the story.

Another issue I had, even though it’s not touched on very frequently, was something that definitely stood out to me: Alternate Future Twilight and her relationship to Princess Celestia. Probably not something anyone else has ever pointed out, but it was something I noticed (and I recognize I may be making a bigger issue out of this than necessary, but it’s my review and I’ll cry if I want to). Within the show, Twilight became Celestia’s student because of her magical surge during her entrance exam, causing Spike to hatch and attracting the Princess’ attention. And we all know what happens from there, of course. But the future Twilight is sent to is one where Starlight stopped the Sonic Rainboom from happening, preventing Twilight’s magical surge, which prevented her getting into Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, which prevented her from becoming Celestia’s private student...you get where I’m going with this.

So why am I bringing it up? Because even though AU Twilight has no idea who Spike is because all the events described in The Cutie Mark Chronicles never happened, she’s still Celestia’s student, was mentioned to have been involved with the fighting in Tirek, and was given the Deus Ex Machina solution to the story by Celestia, her old mentor. I’m a stickler for details and consistency, and it left me wondering why the Princess would take such an interest in probably one of hundreds of little fillies who failed their entrance exams (especially since she was not present at the time).

Like I said, though, this story still is good. Ever since the S5 finale aired nearly two years ago (been that long already? I still consider them “recent episodes”), the amount of AU fics exploring the different timelines has basically reached saturation, and no alternate timeline was more popular than the barren wasteland that Twilight landed in. But instead of wild speculation as to what caused that future like most other fics I've seen, the story instead explores life in it. While an explanation as to why Equestria is nothing more than a harsh desert is given, it is not the central theme of the story. Instead, that is given to the danger and emptiness of the world we’ve come to know and love as Equestria, and the best way to do that is to have the only character from that world be another one we’ve come to be extremely familiar with over these past seven years: Twilight. Meeting somebody from the awful AU who helps the main character go back in time in order to fix things knowing their own world won’t ever improve (or simply cease to exist) isn’t new, but having that character be Twilight, the main character in a show that’s never touched on such dark and heavy subjects before, works out really well and just gives some gravity to the situation.

Ultimately, however, the lackluster execution in some places (including a part I thought was so pivotal to the setting) and an oversight that made me wondering for the rest of the fic overshadowed the good concepts, and for that, it is rejected.

Title: Growing Down

Author: Tangerine Blast

Amount Read: All

Rating: 8/10

Final Decision: Accept

Review:
On a technical note, this story is quite well put together. The grammar is solid and the narrative of the story advances at a consistent rate. I really have no issues with this story in the technical department.

Now, onto my favorite part, the subjective. This story is absolutely fantastic! I’ve never even considered such a ship, Pinkie Pie and Spike. And on reading this story, I think I actually like this ship. Spike is trying to be mature, but Pinkie draws out his childish glee. I thoroughly enjoyed their exploits together through the story. Spike started out being what he always is, Twilight Sparkle’s number one assistant. And he is taking his job seriously as he helps Twilight Sparkle with her doing her job. The best thing is it all starts out innocently. She simply wants him to lighten up, and enjoy himself.

As they spend time together, you can see her starting to have more and more affection for him. Starting off, she wants him to get the tickets and share them with Rarity, because Pinkie knows of his crush on the marshmallow mare. But as things progress, you can see little bits of jealousy creep into her thought processes.

Now, Pinkie Pie is one of the hardest characters to get right in MLP, writing her a doofus is something the show writers have done (cough, cough, Castle Mania). Also, writing her with the occasional one line has been done many times. In this story, she shines as the embodiment of the element of laughter. I, myself have struggled to get her right, and the author has succeeded quite well. I firmly believe that Pinkie is the most versatile character, she’s a natural empath, and can feel her friend’s emotions. And her zaniness is an outgrowth of that.

Now, where this story very nearly falls flat is Twilight, while it’s perfectly understandable for Twilight to get totally wrapped up in her research, it doesn’t excuse her for acting so bitchy when Spike comes in after spending so much time with Pinkie. And her blowup is too strong in my view. But, the recovery is well done, and she goes from being total bitch to far more acceptable, so the recovery is enough to save this story from a rejection.

In summary, this is an excellent story, and the premise, along with the ship, is very well executed. I think this is an excellent little story, and it will be saved and re-read from time to time. I’m quite pleased to accept this story into the Reviewer’s Café and I am quite thoroughly impressed.

Thanks!

Title: Barren

Author: kalash93

Amount Read: 100% (Total Words: 4,862)
Rating:
Plot/Theme: 6/20
Technical/Structure: 4/10
Characters: 5/10
Subjective: 5/10
Total: 20/50
Verdict: 4/10 - Recommend Rejection

Overview:

The barren wastelands, aptly named Cemetery, is the ground site for a nuclear waste disposal facility. It is an area in which no life can thrive. The protagonist, Farn Baumrinde, is in charge of defending it. This tale depicts a single day in his life at his post.

There were originally other guards like him, but as they either succumbed to inhospitable environment or external forces acting out on them, their numbers dwindled until it was solely his duty to keep it safely out of the hands of enemies unknown.

Technical/Structure:

The writing style was somewhat clunky to follow along with. The narrative initially takes on the stylization of addressing the reader directly, which seems to be consistent, at least until Farn encounters enemies, in the story. It additionally maintains the present tense well. The sentence flow, however, was not quite on point; there were a number of awkwardly phrased passages. Take this for example:

...a Koran, some red wine, water, vodka, vitamin pills, and an MRE. I read a Surah, pray, and meditate to start the day and clear my head...I scarf these down before I begin.

The flow of this paragraph has me wondering if he was somehow trying to ingest his morning rituals along with everything else. Most of these errors can be mitigated by exchanging words, such as scarf, out for words that fit the context in a more coherent sense.

I noted as well that there were a few sentences were far too long as well, which could have been broken up into multiple sentences to improve flow.

Characters:

The only really defining characterization that takes place in this piece is through Farn. He is portrayed as a somewhat methodical and analytical individual. He's established a morning ritual of practicing his religion, consuming his daily nutrients, and painstakingly donning his gear. After demonstrating his tactical prowess in a skirmish during his patrol, he shows remorse for his fallen victims.

One complaint I have about this character, however, comes in the form of his flaws. I couldn't feel his struggle to maintain his wit in the face of danger, which might have arisen from the telling nature of his agonizing wait prior to his attack. More depth in the action scene could have been added by illustrating how he shapes his decisions in his struggle to maintain his cool.

Aside from Farn, the only characters that appear in this piece are the antagonists, which is some unknown and aggressive group. They have no depth of character to them other than the fact that they serve as an external conflict for Farn to overcome. While I don't find anything inherently wrong with two-dimensional characters such as the antagonists in this piece, they didn't assist much in Farn's personal development as a character.

Plot/Theme:

The narrative's exposition of certain details, such as the way in which Farn fastens his mask or the weapons knowledge, didn't add much in the way of context to the narrative. That is not to say that such details should be avoided, but it is important to tie them back to the character. Perhaps Farn is frustrated by the fact that he has to screw in his gas mask to the left instead of the right.

There are a few awkward moments of transition within the piece. Take the following passage for example:

The scene was perfectly still. No birds chirped. No animals moved. Nothing green grew. Only a few brown and desiccated dead plants remained. They were undisturbed in their faux regal repose. Not even termites came to nibble away at their carcasses.

I am Farn Baumrinde, and I have a most interesting job...

It can be more challenging to give a name to the voice of the protagonist in first person perspectives; this is especially true for short stories where the protagonist is essentially the only character. Reading this passage, however, leads me to the opinion that this wasn't the appropriate placement of his introduction. This is due to a disconnect in flow from one paragraph to the next.

It is implied that the villains are in search of nuclear waste, but it is unclear how they determined the location of said waste or their means of collecting it. The fact that they had so little background and didn't leave a lasting impact on the protagonist yielded a less than satisfying resolution.

Conclusion:

There were a number of interesting concepts outlined here, and the narrative captured some of the interesting qualities of survivalism in such a bleak and inhospitable environment. However, the overall execution of transition, sentence flow, and driving force behind the conflict is what leads me to reject this story in its current state.

Title: Born of Mare and Stallion
Author: Atlas Nebula / No Raisin
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject

You have a fine piece of xenofiction going here. There just needs to be more. Resubmit it once it's done. I think it stands a good chance then.

Story: Cuddle Sweet Cuddles by The Chill Dude
Amount read: All
Verdict: 6/10, rejected
Reasoning:

This was a cute little story about the secret schemes that little foals, unbeknownst to adults, get up to. The execution of the tale was good, and the use of italics to indicate a translation of baby-nonsense to English ensured that the reader was never left confused as to the situation, which could otherwise have gone terribly wrong. Furthermore, the antics were perfectly foalish, despite the twins' seemingly increased intelligence.

However, there simply wasn't enough of a wow-factor to accept this story into the library's folders, unfortunately. Though wonderfully sweet, it was just that—simple, but nothing more. Though the scenario was cute there simply wasn't anything to particularly draw the reader in, especially due to the story's length. If this had been slightly longer and had something of a more complex plot, with the twins scheming something a little more interesting, it could have done really well. The focus on the babies would mean that even a little event could be exaggerated to have a bit more of an impact. However, as it is, it simply misses its potential by a breath.

Also, I spotted a few minor typos which, though not the end of the world, don't help matters (one of which was in the summary). It wouldn't hurt to go through and make a few small edits, just to resolve this tiny issue.

Story: How Could I Forget? by Saberking2012
Amount read: All
Verdict: 5/10, rejected
Reasoning:

I've read a good few of this author's stories, and so I am glad to see that this story seems to be one of the better ones. The author seems to have taken advice to heart, something which I actually see very rarely, so credit must be given for that. However, this story still falls short of its potential.

I love the idea of Silver Spoon's mother almost "adopting" Diamond Tiara as a daughter, especially when one considers how Diamond's real mother behaves. It also gives a nice headcanon as to why Silver Spoon always hung around with Diamond, even if the latter could be bossy and arguably unpleasant sometimes. Indeed, that unpleasant nature is well portrayed at the start of this story, so credit must be given. Furthermore, Diamond's change of heart felt natural and was like a breath of fresh air. However, the rest of the story fell flat.

There was so much with this idea which could have been amazing. In fact, with work, this could genuinely be a real tear-jerker... but for now, it just doesn't stir up much emotion in the reader. The flashback scene with the death of Silver Spoon's mother was boring as opposed to shocking, lacking in the emotive language it deserves (and needs). Then, at the end, when the pair visit Rose's gravestone, the shocking reveal was ruined by the clumsy writing in which it is stated "Wouldn't it just say Silver Spoon with a period instead of a comma?" before revealing that in reality, there is no comma but an elipsis. If it was intended to be a comma, that is simply incorrect formatting of sentences. If not, and it was indeed meant to be an ellipsis... Well, then it simply feels tacky and forced. The emotion following that big reveal is also hard for the reader to feel, with Diamond's realisation not showing the shock and amazement that she is supposed to be feeling.

To top it all off, the author still seems to struggle with formatting and punctuation use at times, with many sentences feeling awkward and unpleasant to read, be it due to consecutive sentences being consistently short and snappy without variation or otherwise due to a lack of transitional words and phrases, which ruins any flow and ease of reading. The author needs to review the use of dashes and hyphens, too, since there were a few instances in this short story where they were incorrectly used.

Should the author need any further advice or explanation of the matters above, I would be happy to try to help.

Story: Genesis: Silvia by scootalooftw

Amount read: All of the published chapters at the point of the review

Verdict: 7/10 Rejected

Premise
A lot of world-building through unreliable narrators, the problems in confronting otherness, ancient feuds that probably got gangrenous over time, and it all packed in a comedy. What this story doesn't lack is ambition, and that is quite a virtuous trait that I always appreciate.

Summary

Silvia returns to Ponyville after a long trip to her family, ready to go back to her old job and her old home. There's only a little problem, as for some reason a purple unicorn is sleeping in her bed, and even worse, she is the student of the pony that should never, ever become aware of Silvia's secret.

Technical aspect

Grammar is generally solid, and I didn't notice any overwhelming problems.

The prose starts out functional and then becomes a nice reflection of the character being the point of view of the various chapters. Subtle differences help to define the voices of Twilight and Silvia, making them more rounded simply through how they see the world.

Now to the part which pulled the whole story a bit down, the prologue. The form didn't seem to match with the intended para-academic writing, going too much into depth for being an introduction nor detailing enough to be a credible paper. That made it a bit too much of an info-dump for my taste.

The information supplied in the prologue may be important, but, considering the writing we see in later chapters, could be delivered far more gracefully. It isn't excessively long and it doesn't disrupt the flow of the story once it gets going, but it will probably hinder the whole thing in the long run.

Story structure

Prologue aside, the story is told from alternating point of views, one per chapter, switching back and forth between Twilight and Silvia.

It is a slow going story, which quite nicely matches the Slice of Life genre, as it delves into the mundanity and the way the characters approach life.

As an aside consideration, I can't currently judge if this will become a slog later on or if the rhythm will adapt to the ebb and flow of the narration. Considering the uncertainty and what I've read, I tend to a more positive outlook.

The comedy parts are more subdued than in other stories. No riotous laughs her, but often a sympathetic smile as we read about kind characters going through life, without a mustache-twirling villain working against them.

There are a couple of hints of hidden history and I got the distinct impression that neither of the involved parts had a complete knowledge and understanding of the past. Up to this point, this didn't come into play, but it is an interesting plot point that could potentially spice up later interactions.

Characters

Twilight feels quite Twilighty and well representative of her during the first Season of the show, timeframe in which this story is set.

It is quite easy to connect with Silvia, with her worries and with her desire for integration. The secrets she keeps have good reasons to not be divulged, and her way of relating to others is understandable and, more importantly, makes me curious about how the story will develop.

Conclusion

We have a nice story, with great potential. Considering the early stage, it is difficult to judge it as a whole, so my evaluation is forcedly partial.

After thinking about it and a bit of discussion with others, I'm pretty sure it would be better if the Prologue would be cut out. The quality is inferior to what comes later, the information could be delivered more gracefully during the narration, and it feels like a very crude way to set the interpretation framework for what will come later.

It's almost there, I liked a lot what I read, but it can still improve.

Title: Celestia's Tea Conquest
Author: JackRipper
Read: 100%
Decision Reject

Auxiliary opinions provided by The Chill Dude and Sparky Brony

This story is funny. As a lover of tea, I had to take it. I laughed, a lot. The description of Celestia as being Bitchlestia until she gets her first cuppa is hilarious and true to life. I very much enjoyed the jokes and characterizations. I legitimately laughed at Celestia's opinion of what should befall those who make the grave mistake of drinking covfefe. I personally think that only deserves to happen to those who drink sugary creamy Starbucks loaded with more mixers and flavorings than arabica. Technically, your story is flawless. The rejection is because there's not enough content here, and the comedy being the only developed pillar of story, means it all must lean on the humor. Sadly it doesn't quite go far enough. I think a few more scenes showing Celestia sliding into depravity and insanity in her quest for tea, perhaps even being willing to try coffee, would have sold it. Change it or keep it, I enjoyed your submission, and thanks for sending it in to us.

Title: All That Lingers
Author: Ice Star
Read: 100%
Decision: Accept

A Cadance x Sombra fic where one's a widow and the other's a ghost? With microchapters? I didn't think I'd like this one, but well done, it's an accept! All That Lingers is an interesting, minimalistic, dialogue laden love story between two broken dreamers who find that they are more kindred than they would have believed. The romance is well built up and emotionally charged. It's a short yet slow burn story which rewards continued reading and trusts the reader to be cerebrally engaged. It is not a ship fic; it is a proper romance with chemistry, development, and depth. I honestly can't say to have ever read another fic quite like it. Princess Cadance loving the ghost of her dead enemy is quite the sell, but I'm the right sucker for it. The characters speak and behave naturally and believably. I enjoyed the development of the characters, or more accurately, how they dropped their masks and showed their true selves after hiding for so long partially out of necessity and partially out of pain. Technically speaking, this story is completely flawless in every aspect. Very well done.

Title: A Shattered Diamond

Author: Raptormon132

Amount Read: All

Rating: 6/10

Final Decision: reject

Review:
Starting off with the technical aspects, the grammar leaves a lot to be desired… For example,

“She gave her a look of frustration, and unsatisfactory.”

Then leading into dialogue. It just doesn’t work. The word choices at times also have some serious issue when it comes to the readability of the story. Not too many misspellings that I could find, but the occasional typo does detract from the narrative of the story. And in fact, much of the reason this story is a rejection comes from the structure here.

Now, onto the subjective, the basic premise is Diamond Tiara has been put in foster care due to her father being put in prison. There are great things about this story, and bad things. Let’s start with the good news, why don’t we?

The lesson that Hard Ball drives home is done well. Sometimes with bullies, it takes one even bigger to show them the error of their ways. It doesn’t always work, but it works quite well here. Diamond Tiara is shattered (as the story suggests in the title) by the loss of her father. And with her wealth and dignity stripped away, Hard Ball’s words and actions ACTUALLY have a chance to penetrate her thick skull. And they do, when talking to Firm Hoof at the end, Hard Ball has actually made a difference with Tiara, and it works very well.

Now, on to the bad news, I did peek at the comments, and apparently the author was not aware of Filthy Rich’s wife, and as much as I hate her, she would care for her daughter in such circumstances. Though to adjust the story, simply say that both were sent away. That being said, Filthy Rich has money, lots of it, and paying for a caregiver for her to simply continue to live in her home wouldn’t be beyond him. The story mentioned that he was growing and selling the drugs to continue to pay for her lavish lifestyle, and sadly, I don’t buy it. Given the wealth shown in the show, I don’t see him depending on drug income to pay for what his daughter desires. He would have to be a kingpin in his own right to have all of that. And that would be negated by the confiscation done, in other words, the bust would leave him penniless, or would it be bitless? In fact, the drug angle…doesn’t work for me either. The most we have seen in the show is a salt addiction, which was played for comedy’s sake. Now, I know MLP isn’t going to get into drugs in general, but the narrative of why he goes to jail requires too much suspension of disbelief for me.

In summation, this is not a bad story, it’s simply not good enough. I did like it, though. And thank you for submitting it!

Title: Important Wizard

Author: All Art Is Quite Useless

Amount Read: 100% (Total Words: 4,862)
Rating:
Plot/Theme: 17/20
Technical/Structure: 7/10
Characters: 9/10
Subjective: 7/10
Total: 40/50
Verdict: 8/10 - Recommend Acceptance

Overview:

An individual's self-importance is a paramount feature to maintaining the morale of any given society. It gives them hope, a sense of purpose, toward achieving one's personal goals. Clinging onto that hope lends one to explore their sense of individuality. Having a role model of someone who is like them facilitates in discovering their role in society.

The narrative we are exploring today heavily touches upon this thematic concept. We shall see how well the concept is executed, in addition to the lasting impression it gives the reader, in the following sections.

Technical/Structure:

The mechanical structure-that is to say it's grammar and spelling-of the narrative is well executed. Other than minor punctuation errors preceding beats in between dialogue and a few comma splices, I did not notice much wrong in the way of the structure. All of this can be remedied with a quick edit.

I found a few phrases to be slightly awkward. Take this, for example:

A knot in his belly untightened as he flushed his lungs, before filling them with clear and invigorating air.

An accompanying phrase is typically added for clarity to indicate what is being flushed. In this case, you'd see 'of air' come after 'lungs'. There were, however, no majorly awkward phrases that I took note of in the body of the text.

Therefore, my assessment of the mechanics in the narrative were strong overall.

Characters:

The characterization was consistent and easily discernable throughout the piece. The reader is able to immediately connect with Sunburst, the protagonist of the story. He is portrayed as being nervous and antisocial; he has a fondness for technical accuracy, as well.

He initially appears non confrontational, but through his development as a character he eventually faces questions of his own self-importance. The differing opinions of other ponies' views of him clashed against his view of himself.

He perceives his great importance as a lie perpetuating toward an inevitable destruction of their society. This is due, in part, to it being the very same kind of lie which he felt almost destroyed the Crystal Empire once before. His reasoning was that he didn't have the magical power to stop King Sombra himself.

Plot/Theme:

The struggle in Sunburst's views over his self-importance is the main driving force behind this narrative. The overarching theme progresses the plot forward naturally as his initial dismissal turns into regret, then anger, and finally acceptance. The conflict was well established, pulling real concerns already presented in the show and adding depth to them. The impressionable resolution thereafter was satisfying.

There is one thing to note, however, in the following passage:

"There's a reason Celestia chose to aid me and Twilight in our ascensions, she considered us to be deserving. But there's another, too. When an entire country has been ruled by two immortal goddesses for so long, having the everyday pony perform a miraculous feat every now and then makes the princesses feel a little less alien. In other words, if ponies feel like there are regular unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies that can do what the princesses can, and succeed where they fail, they're less opposed to having them on the throne. Our ascension factors into that too, it shows that any pony can indeed become an alicorn, should they have earnt it."

There are a few implications within this passage, which don't negatively reflect the outcome of this review, that I feel must be mentioned. If Princess Celestia chose to aid in Cadance's and Twilight's ascensions, that suggests in her ability to thwart Queen Chrysalis' plans herself. Following that line of reasoning, Celestia would then be putting civilians lives in danger on purpose to instill likeness in everypony.

The sentiment, however, is still powerful in its own right. Instilling self-confidence in normal, everyday ponies through the sheer acts of a few like their own is truly a noble gesture, if albeit a bit flawed in reasoning.

Conclusion:

A few technical errors aside, I feel that the strong characterization, the depiction of Sunburst's internal struggle, and the execution makes this a suitable story to accept.

Story: Glossy Dead by mr_minati

Amount read: All

Verdict: 5/10

Premise
The CMC and their nemeses are prime story material. They are also cute as heck, which helps in gaining sympathies.

We have here exactly the kind of little adventure in which these fillies could shine. Sadly, that won't happen for a couple of reasons.

Summary

Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon take their duty to keep the blank-flanks in their place very seriously and are on their way to do what has to be done. That those three have found something weird doesn't change anything in that.

Review

Grammar wise the story is solid. There are only a couple of missing commas here and there and two minor errors towards the end. Nothing too pernicious, and nothing that pulled me out of the story.

The prose is the sore point here. It tells us far too much and shows us far too little, an issue that's at its worst in the middle of the story, where we have multiple instances of the author indirectly telling us what is said instead of letting us read the exchange between characters.

The overall effect is that of something distant happening. Connecting to the characters is difficult, and it gives the impression of being more a storyboard than a finished fic.

The story itself has an interesting, if not overly novel, idea concerning the relationship between Diamond Tiara and SIlver Spoon, but the delivery hampers it and it doesn't go anywhere. There is also a hint at a mystery, the event that produced the titular glossy dead, but it never gets solved nor is there a clue to what the larger picture is. Considering the ending, I feel that it is another missed occasion which could have made the story more involving.

What remains is a tale that flies away and doesn't leave much after it's finished.

Conclusion

This isn't a bad story, not at all, but it feels also incomplete and unpolished. A bit more work and it could certainly be improved enough as to be accepted. As it stands, it will leave the reader probably unsatisfied. A real shame, as the good parts we can see here and there are pleasant snippets that show potential.

Title: Beyond Mere Programming

Author: DwarvishPony

Amount Read: 100% (Total Words: 4,862)
Rating:
Plot/Theme: 14/20
Technical/Structure: 5/10
Characters: 7/10
Subjective: 5/10
Total: 31/50
Verdict: 6/10 - Recommend Rejection (Second Opinion by Sparky Brony)

Overview:

What is life? It's a simple question to which an answer can't so easily be ascribed. Some may argue that biological factors alone determine what constitutes as life. Others may argue that sentience--that is to say one's self-awareness--is the defining feature.

In today's review, we have a story that touches upon that very argument. In Twilight Sparkle's scientific endeavors, she creates an artificial being called Realistically Autonomous Reactive Intelligence, or Rarity. From the very start, it becomes apparent that Rarity is more than just an AI. Her self-awareness goes beyond mere programming.

Technical/Structure:

From comma splices to the misuse of apostrophes, there are mechanical issues scattered throughout the body of the narrative. It's not so much so that the narrative needs extensive editing, but it's clearly needed nevertheless.

A few examples that particularly stood out to me were 'its' and 'it's', which seemed to have been consistently swapped, and 'there's' (there is/there has) when the subject was plural. Additionally, there were a few minor punctuation issues, such as missing commas, and a few instances of capitalization issues.

The sentence flow, however, is mostly devoid of awkward phrasing; this makes for a clean and easy narrative to follow along with, at least from a technical standpoint.

Characters:

I found the development of Twilight Sparkle as a character in this piece to be somewhat erratic. This may be due to a somewhat rushed pacing in the story. Twilight seems to go from treating Rarity as a mere machine to an individual with sentience rather quickly.

Furthermore, when Twilight is confronted and ordered to dismantle Rarity by her boss, she doesn't come up with an explicit plan to dissuade her employers from dismantling the robot. She is fired as a result of this action. The entire event, as well as her subsequent actions here on out, doesn't come off as entirely believable because of her shaky development earlier on in the story.

That being said, the emotion behind her actions is consistent with Twilight Sparkle's character on its own. By depicting a more steady growth of personal attachment to her creation, the emotions behind her defense of Rarity's existence could have generated greater impact within the narrative.

Plot/Theme:

The concept of the terms and conditions of life is highly revered. Arguably, there may be no greater means of exploring the human condition in a narrative than through this concept. The very exploration of life shapes our views about ourselves.

The execution of the concept in this story, however, is somewhat muddled by quick pacing, which made it difficult for me to connect with Twilight's and Rarity's relationship. Additionally, as the narrative transitions into the conflict of the story, it becomes challenging to parse out why some things were transpiring.

One example in particular was why Twilight chose to go back to her apartment. It was mentioned several times that she was thinking of a plan, but despite the fact it was mentioned that it wouldn't be long before they barged into her living quarters, they went there anyways. Surely the thought would have crossed her mind.

The resolution was rather anticlimactic, as well. Twilight never really came up with a plan, in the end, yet they managed to escape the clutches of LunaTech rather easily. The romance at the very end also felt forced.

Conclusion:

There is a lot of potential in this story. There are a lot of good things about it that make this a good story. Between the mechanical issues I spotted and the quick pacing, however, it isn't quite polished enough to be considered accepting into the group at this time.

Title: Wildfire: Lighting The Flame
Author: Dusk Melody
Read: 100%
Decision: Reject

You tried so hard and got so far, but in the end, you didn't quite make the cut. What happened? Firstly, this story needs a massive top to bottom proofreading. There are comma issues everywhere when separating clauses and making addresses. Secondly, the story has a serious problem with contrived drama. I originally planned on doing an all in one readthrough yesterday, but the entire second act was just so infuriating and melodramatic that I rage quit. Are you characters mature adult students and workers, or are they petty 14 year olds? Choose! Everything with Blitzwing was nonsensical and ultimately infuriating. Pretty much everything in the entire second act was bad, and could have likely been cut for replacement with almost any kind of maiming facial injury to set up the third act. The first act was heavily laden with fetishes I frankly do not care for, as well as cliches. The third act was actually strong and fixed most of the issues with the other two. If this fic were heavily reworked and made 75% the third act, it could have a chance with some substantial reworking. There are some truly enormous pacing issues. A solid 15% of your entire story is in a single 30K word chapter, and more than 25% of the story is in three consecutive enormous chapters, those three being big enough together to constitute a novel. Chapters generally are best and most reader friendly when kept to 8K at max in multiparters and not too much more than 10K for oneshots. I saw you use Russian, albeit with plenty of butchering. Feel free to consult me on the language if you want to use more of it; I have a degree and lived for a year in Moscow. Your characters were ultimately distinct, but they were ultimately best when not all together; having some in Fillydelphia, some in Canterlot, one in Cloudsdale, and a couple in Ponyville ultimately let them be used best without them trodding on each other. This fic is so British, BTW, that my computer is grumbling something about how this filthy colonial never has proper tea and marmite. Keep writing, rest your stories on characters instead of on drama or sex. Congrats on even hammering out something so large.

Title: Love Like A Diamond
Author: The Chill Dude
Read: 100%
Decision: Accept

What would you get if a tough, misunderstood cat who only really wanted to be petted was a fimfic? This story. This story is simple, adorable, and slightly bittersweet. I found myself tearing up and smiling as I read it. I never thought I'd ever find a reason to smile at Diamond Tiara, unless it involved her on the receiving end of a bayonet, and I even recall a writer interview with someone from the show saying that Diamond Tiara was a rotten person, but Silver Spoon did have redemption potential. Congrats, you beat canon with adorableness, and with perfect technicals, too. Welcome to the archive.

Title: I'm Lost Without You
Author: Famous Last Words
Read: 100%
Decision: Accept

Very good fic! I accept this without reservations; just call off your onion ninjas. The story is sweet, touching, and just the right amount of melancholic. The prose is flawless and indeed polished to a mirror shine. The mechanics are absolutely perfect and I got the subtle joke with the oxen. The only flaw is that the ending felt forced and manipulative. I guess the twist was not adequately hinted at before, other than by the tags. It seemed as if you'd been writing a straight Sparity romance but suddenly remembered at the very end that you had to make it sad, so you just stuck Rarity in a coffin and called it a day. Regardless, welcome to the archive. It's stories like this that make me glad to be a reviewer.

Title: Lab Horse

Author: TheMajorTechie

Amount Read: 100% (Total Words: 4,862)
Rating:
Plot/Theme: 6/20
Technical/Structure: 6/10
Characters: 3/10
Subjective: 3/10
Total: 18/50
Verdict: 3.5/10 - Recommend Rejection

Overview:

In the story's own words, that was... something. Normally I have a more witty intro with some profound message that loosely ties in with the story; this time however, the words simply escape me. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing, but it sure is something.

We follow along with Gadget, who teleports to Earth and gets taken by a group of 'top' scientists to a lab, where she is treated mostly like a pet. Some of the scientists aren't exactly privy to treating her properly, and so they talk about dissecting her or subjecting her to experimentations that 'they couldn't use on humans'.

Technical/Structure:

The technical structure isn't too grotesque. There were definitely some common mistakes, such as capitalization, comma splices, and punctuation issues, but there wasn't anything that particularly irked me.

Odd phrasing was present, albeit seldom (to the best of my knowledge), which was mostly due to inaccurate words being used. Some of the longer sentences needed to be broken up into smaller ones as well.

Characters:

I did have a challenging time connecting with any characters within this piece. This mostly has to do with the super short narration (most chapters were super short), but it also has to do with some of the insane leaps in logic that some characters make.

...the head management thought that it would be best to move all the staff around to different labs. And judging from the letters that arrived in the mail this morning, the lab I live in is scheduled for not only a renovation due to safety concerns, but it's destined to be the future home for biomedical teams, of whom specialized in animal products.

Like as in, those guys that you see bashed on over the internet for their animal testing procedures.

I cannot possibly fathom what was going on in the head management's brains when they were making this decision. Delmar, who was working on an ethanol-based fuel source, somehow manages to consume enough alcohol to get 'drunk beyond recognition' while he was on duty.

I understand them wanting to fire Delmar, yes, but why would they then knowingly introduce another group new to the lab, who were notorious enough for Gadget to know, that would ensure their moral integrity as scientists were compromised? This isn't the kind of decision I would expect 'top' scientists to be making.

Plot/Theme:

The story seems to suffer from a lack of a centralized theme. It's tagged as dark and sci-fi, yet a majority of the narrative seems to take on a comedic tone.

Several events occur within the story, from Gadget being moved to a mental hospital, going to school later on, and finally working on a portal that will take her back to Equestria.

It doesn't feel like there is a driving force behind any of the events, however. They just happen. The story was almost over, for example, before anyone even vocalized Gadget going back to Equestria.

Conclusion:

From the technical mistakes to the design choices made in the narrative, Lab Horse doesn't quite qualify an acceptance into the Reviewer Café. It isn't a story entirely without merit, however. There were some moments that the story made me genuinely chuckle. Overall, though, the narrative didn't leave a satisfying impression, and for that reason the story is rejected.

Title: Love, Laughter, and Funnel Cake

Author: DwarvishPony
Amount Read: All

Rating: 8/10

Final Decision: Accept

Review:
Wow… this reviewer is seriously impressed!

First off, the objective. Story wise, the mechanics are quite solid. There are some issues of comma placement, and an extra “ here and there. But not enough to detract from the story. The narrative moves along nicely, and the story is a good read. So, all there, not bad at all there.

Now, onto the subjective… I was conflicted while reading this story, Pinkie mentioned that Twilight was busy, yet SciTwi doesn’t join them until after Friendship Games, yet the narrative, and what Pinkie talks about with Sunset about her visiting Equestria to talk with Celestia really seems to be set between Equestria Girls and Rainbow Rocks. It feels like a continuity error, and it’s enough for me to mention it. But the rest of the story carries through! This is a genuinely cute and fun story! And the second in this review cycle that I’ve read that had Pinkie shipped with a character that I normally wouldn’t think of with her. And Sunset with Pinkie….wow, it’s adorable.

Where this story really shines is in much of the word play…

Pinkie, on the other hand, hadn't held back on the toppings. Sunset wasn't even sure there was a funnel cake underneath the mound of whipped cream, chocolate syrup, ice cream, and three types of fruit. That didn't stop Pinkie from devouring the sugary monstrosity with the fervor of a college student back home for the holidays.

This kind of work shows up throughout the story, and get some genuine smiles from me! I’m thoroughly impressed with the writing style of this story! And best of all, the budding ship was believable. The trap that some writers fall into is that the one being propositioned thinks it odd, or worse, wrong, for another female to be interested in them. And that was avoided quite well, and I applaud the author for that. This is a very good story, and I’m quite pleased to accept this story into the Reviewer’s Café! Thanks!

Title: Burning’s Ass for Money by Raptormon132
Amount Read: All
Verdict: Reject (2/10)
Reason:

Not much to say about this story, really. It’s rape clop: sure there’s some framing device so it’s not just sexus gratia sexi (my high school Latin’s finally paying off!), but it just seems added to pad the story a little.

I will say, however, that the writing is very mechanical, almost like an instruction guide. I found myself skimming over the longer paragraphs without dialogue because I knew I’d just get bored reading them. Unfortunately, however, I can’t say the dialogue was much better; it’s awkward as well.

Overall, just clunky all-around with no redeeming story to pull it out of that.