• Member Since 5th Jan, 2012
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CHeighlund


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Just before the invasion of Canterlot, a small waystation in the Badlands is taken over by changelings to serve as staging point. Sheltering Heart, the hapless hostess of the place, is locked up in a storage cellar.

Little does she know, her nightmare has only just begun...


Cover art courtesy of thresha8

Chapters (1)
Comments ( 14 )

Whooo! It's here :pinkiehappy:

This is a brilliant and chilling look into the background of Queen Chrysalis. Absolutely horrifying, and masterfully executed.

I salute you.

Its interesting for sure. Nicely writed

This story comes highly recommended.

R.I.P. Sheltering Heart, all hail Queen Chrysalis... :fluttershysad:

I am intensely interested about the relationships only hinted at in this story, and the unique Changeling lore behind it. But despite the questions left unanswered, this story stands on its own. It joins the list of my favorite Changeling fics. :twilightsmile:

I do wonder about one thing, though. Near the beginning, Heart's memories have been blocked; but it is neither explained nor mentioned again, with the obvious choice for who did it, Queen Corundum, behaving as if she doesn't know. It's the one loose end that seems frayed. (Ignore my strange metaphor, I'm tired.)

I may check occasionally for more of your stories. :moustache:

3048212
I took it as just a technique to unbalance her, to make her easier to break...

3050142 Well, that could be, I guess. :applejackunsure:

That was excellent, good job!

Gig

EXCELLENT! One of the best one-shots featuring changelings I have ever read! :pinkiehappy:

Greetings, CHeighlund!

Here commences the review you requested from WRITE.

So, you want to know what it will take to get this on Equestria Daily, and you assume a grammatical focus is what's needed. Well, to be honest, if grammar's the only problem, an author's in good shape, usually. We reject on grammar alone only if there really are a lot of problems. If it's relatively close to acceptance, we'll tell you exactly what to fix. But the storytelling itself is just as important, if not more so; don't assume otherwise, despite the common lament that many rejected authors make along those lines. (I also pre-read for Equestria Daily, by the way.)

Title:
It really depends on how you'd envision it being used in a sentence, I suppose, but since the large majority of usages would have it hyphenated, I'd suggest that.

Synopsis:

to serve as staging point

Looks like you missed a word there.

Little does she know, her nightmare has only just begun...

Minor point, but I don't see the need for the ellipsis. The sentence leads into the story as is, and it's not incomplete.

Story:

The darkness around her, however, seemed to swallow the sound, muffling it and quickly killing it away.

You always need to be mindful of what you're doing with participial phrases. The first issues is that they're commonly misplaced modifiers. They like to describe the nearest prior object (unless they start a clause—then, they describe the subject). By proximity, that means that the sound is muffling itself. We have to go back through "her" as well to get to the correct object, "darkness." Now, we can certainly apply a bit of logic to decide what you meant, but if you don't watch yourself, you will get into scenarios that are ambiguous or outright misleading, or just plain sound awkward. Another issue with participles (which isn't a problem in this instance) is that they imply simultaneous action, yet writers often use them to tack on actions to a sentence that couldn't possibly happen at the same time.

Following that, the gray-colored unicorn

Now you've got me in a narrative dissonance. You've just said it's too dark to see anything in here, yet you're describing her color. Not that the narrator couldn't know that, but you've given me no reason to believe he would, either. More to the point, you're simultaneously asking me to imagine her color, but imagine her somewhere that I can't see her color.

Each hoof appeared to have a thin metal band dully glinting on it.

First, in my browser, this line is offset by a blank space. This is one of the dangers of double-spacing after sentences. The line break may split the double space and throw off your margin. This happens quite a bit in your story. Second, she's looking right at her hooves, and yet has to resort to "seem"? She should know exactly what she sees. Maybe she doesn't know what purpose the bands serve, and that's where a "seem" might come in, but you have to be careful with her mindset.

and appeared to have been specially crafted

This is the second sentence in a row to use "appeared to have." Watch the repetition of words or phrases close together. The more unusual the word or phrase, the longer a space "close together" would cover.

Heart lifted her head as high as she could and looked around, taking in as much her surroundings as she could.

Same issue. You've repeated "as she could" within the same sentence. I'm not going to point out many of these. They're up to you to find.

familiar - although

Please use a proper dash. The most common systems are to use em dashes (with no surrounding spaces) exclusively, or to use these only for interruptions and en dashes (with surrounding spaces) for asides. Em dash = Alt+0151, En dash = Alt+0150.

if her memory served correctly

Most times, you'll need to set off a dependent clause with a comma.

Some time had passed.

Yes. This is what a scene break indicates. You don't need to tell me. However, this was an incredibly jerky scene transition. She's fully conscious, looking at the door, and then it's hours later. You have to be smoother than that. Bring us to a stopping point; don't cut off in the middle of something, unless there's a reason for such an interruption.

(not open, just unlock)

There is a place for parentheticals like this, but an objective third-person narration in a serious story really isn't it. Make this an aside with dashes.

Given that

Beware using demonstratives (this, that, these, those) as pronouns, particularly in objective narration. They have vague, broad antecedents, and they reference the narration itself, which only prods the reader to remember he's reading a story and not immersed in it. Fortunately, the fix is easy: find an appropriate noun to put after it.

what captors had done

Missing a word again.

Her last clear memories were of speaking with a caravan master heading for Llamrei’s Haul, listening to the stallion complaining about some others travelling with him.

Another misplaced modifier. It sounds like the caravan master was listening.

Whenever she tried to recall anything beyond that point, her thoughts went fuzzy again, preventing her.

While this does make a sort of sense as written, it just feels like it's cut off.

In the midst of her pondering, Heart’s attention was caught by a new noise.

The passive voice is really unnecessary. First consider that it transfers the focus onto her attention instead of on the noise, where it should be. Second, it places the effect before the cause.

bound in the manner of a Canterlot serving pony

This detail feels oddly out of place. It's rather specific, given that this train of thought would be about the last thing on the mind of someone getting her first glimpse of her captors.

glaring with contempt and disdain at her employer

It's better to get me to deduce her emotion through your description of how she looks and acts. This is the classic "show, don't tell." Don't just give me the emotions explicitly. Also, regarding your next sentence—This new arrival is glaring, i.e., looking right at, Heart, yet takes a moment to realize Heart is looking back at her. Does, not compute. And go back to my last comment. Wouldn't she assume Heart would be looking at her? And even more to the point, why don't we get a reaction from Heart? She doesn't do anything. It would seem she expected this, despite the narrator's protestations.

looking disdainfully down

startled

C'mon. Show me how these look. You're making me do all the work. This is your job.

Despite the pain

The only reason I have to believe she's in pain is that the narrator says these three words. Certainly, it deserves more mention than this while it's actually happening.

after many pounding blows

Dude. Third instance of "blow" in only four sentences.

So what’s next on your list of nefarious plans?

That's rather forced dialogue. When she's trapped and in pain, she's really going to break out the fancy language?

And yes, it is ‘souls’ plural, my dear.

Missing some punctuation in there.

Even that coward of a watchling... he, it seems, chose to fly away

Capitalize after the ellipsis when it must necessarily begin a new sentence.

elytral sheaths

Again, the specificity here is in opposition to the pace of the action. Would she strive to use the proper terminology (and for that matter, would changelings have the same terminology that we do?). For instance, if a character slips and falls, as he's lying on the floor in pain, is he more likely to think: 1) "I bruised my back." or 2) "I received a contusion to my second intercostal vertebra, resulting in a subdural hematoma."

Sometimes, it would be one of her own coming in and offering abuse to her, others would see one of them ‘dropped’ into her chamber radiating fear, only to have it turn to hatred and an emotional attack as soon as she dared try to comfort them.

The second comma is a splice. You have independent clauses on both sides.

The creature did so, actually going so far as to step outside and close (and lock) the door.
At the stallion’s voice, Heart’s eyes went even wider. They couldn’t... surely they hadn’t...

I'm getting a bit of narrative whiplash here. Look how quickly you go from a very objective viewpoint to having the narrator deeply in Heart's perspective. You have to do these things smoothly. Imagine a camera gradually zooming in or out.

your majesty

The honorific would be capitalized.

Heart smiled, an unseen tear running down her face at Aurora’s words.

Okay, the single tear is about the most cliched thing you could have done. At least I'm getting some indirect evidence of emotion here, though. For the previous 17 paragraphs, there were either no actions or just a single one that conveyed no emotion, except the one where you conveyed it blatantly ("Genuine confusion underlay the question.") this is what we call "talking heads." We get no indication of their surroundings or what they do while they talk. Consider how many nonverbal cues there are during a conversation. They easily carry half the emotional content, and you're skipping all that. Now, there are time that talking heads are appropriate. In this case, Heart can't see Aurora, so if you have the narration in her perspective, she's limited on what she can get from him besides what she hears, for instance. But she'd be well aware of what she's doing. You need to give this some more thought.

Once this whole mess is settled down, will you please be my special somepony?

This is awfully sappy and trite for the situation.

White light and pain

Why is this entire sub-scene in italics? I don't see it as a dream or flashback or anything else that's typically rendered as such, and even then, only when they're woven into a scene. Italics make things stand out, and when everything stands out nothing does.

M... mommy?

As a term of address, this would be capitalized on its own anyway, so capitalize both parts of it.

I know honey,

When in the middle of a sentence, direct address uses commas on both sides.

mother

You're missing several capitalizations of this type. When essentially used as a name, such terms are capitalized (Mother, Sergeant, King), but when used more generically, they aren't (my mother, the sergeant, Spain's king).

Mechanics:
This was pretty clean. I didn't see anything particularly distressing, and a lot of what I pointed out looked to be momentary oversights more than consistent problems. Basically, if I had to point something out more than a couple times, brush up on that. No biggie.

Style:
Here's where things start to get off the rails. Interesting that your request for a review seemed more worried about getting the mechanics right, since that's what's most often cited as reasons for rejection. Well, for one, those are also the easiest things to fix. For another, they're the ones most often put on display by rejected authors because it's easier to say they're petty reasons for rejection when the deeper things are conveniently excluded. I assure you, these types of issues are just as important and just as often grounds for rejection. So, what do we have here?

I've discussed a few of these already in the detailed notes, so I won't rehash things, other than to list them. You need to watch the talking heads (there were only one or two scenes where it got bad), close repetition of words and phrases, oddly specific details where they wouldn't seem to be appropriate, and character perspective issues. They were all quite notable. Also prevalent was one more that I didn't elaborate on above, so I'll do it here: telly language. Here's my tasty copypasta on the subject:

It’s better to imply emotional context than to state it outright. Telling can be likened to reading the script instead of watching the play. Showing gets the reader to identify with the character and deduce the emotion for himself, which necessarily forms a connection between them. If the emotion is stated plainly, it’s a cold fact with little meaning to the reader. Consider an actor. Does he simply walk out on stage and declare, “I’m sad”? That would give you the information you need, but it’s not very interesting. Instead, he might slump his shoulders, have bloodshot eyes, fidget, get distracted easily, etc. We’re already hardwired to perceive others’ emotion that way, so doing it in writing makes it more natural. By getting the reader to interpret these signs, the author has made him put himself in the character’s mindset, which creates a connection between them. This includes any sort of conclusion the narrator might make for the reader, including use of such words as “obvious,” “clear,” “surprising,” etc., depending on the situation, of course. The author should place himself as an observer in the scene and present only what he can perceive; we want the evidence, not the judgment. Of course, there are times that telling can be acceptable or even good. Showing is more crucial during scenes that are critical to the plot or when emotions run high, but in an out-of-the-way remark of little importance, it wouldn’t do much harm. It’s up to the author to determine whether it’s an instance where the information is enough, or whether he wants the reader to feel something along with the character. Another good use is when writing something that is supposed to sound like children’s literature. The biggest red flags for telling are outright naming of emotions (sad), -ly adverb form (happily), and prepositional phrase form (in excitement). The last one in particular is almost always redundant with an action it follows and can often be cut without harming anything. Tools for showing include body language, dialogue, thoughts, reactions, facial expression, and actions, and a good mix should be used to avoid relying too much on any one of them.

Watch these other commonly overused words: was/is/were/be/been (150+. This is a really boring verb. You need to choose more active verbs), start/begin (15. Not a lot, but these verbs are almost always unnecessary. Every action begins. Only use these when that beginning is noteworthy for some reason).

Characterization:
So far, not much has happened in the story, so your characterization hinges upon what emotional responses we see from each of your characters. Characterization is often tied to style in this way, and while I don't see any big problems with the personas you've created, by not giving me that strong emotional connection to them, I don't really care what's happening to them. So while I understand what Heart does for Aurora, which is the first half of the battle, I don't see it from her perspective, so it comes across more as a listing of facts than as a heart-wrenching journey for her. That's really all I can say so far. We're pretty early on in the story, so there simply isn't that much opportunity to get to know your characters yet. I'll leave that bit of discussion for the next part, though, so I'll actually have something to say there. And so:

Plot:
Again, not much has happened yet. I could sum it all up in just a few sentences. The other several thousand words are there to get me to care about the characters and understand them, and, well, I've already talked about that. What I'm missing here is the motivations of those involved. Here's where I'd harp at you about that, but you have the very credible out of claiming it will all be explained later, since this is an incomplete story. What is Corundum up to? Does Chrysalis have some ulterior motive to her acquiescence? Did she deliberately botch the invasion of Canterlot to serve some end? I can see the possibilities playing out. Were I to consider this for acceptance, I'd be on the fence about this point. If I was familiar with your other work, or knew someone who was, I could get some supporting evidence as to whether you make good on following through with resolving these plot points, but in the absence of such, I'd recommend getting further into the story before you try to submit, so that we can get a better picture of where you're going with it. And so that's my advice to you on this point, at least.

Oh, it's... complete. Well, that changes things. I like an open-ended story as much as anyone, but not only is the interpretation of the ending vague, but the entire events surrounding the story are vague as well. I have no idea why anyone did what they did or what overarching machinations were going on behind the scenes. I know Heart was tortured to get her to do... something, and she either decided to do... it... because she finally broke or because she's trying to subvert... it... for Aurora's sake, and possibly Equestria's.

So in summary, figure out the show-versus-tell thing (no mean feat—it took me a good year of writing before I understood it well), watch out for the other stylistic things I mentioned, and... maybe this is just me, but I'd like a more definitive sense of what is going on, even if you decide to leave the ending ambiguous.

Keep writing, and have fun with it!

Pascoite, WRITE's mineral

3634167
To be fair, I wrote the synopsis.

...so I'll only be commenting on that.

"to serve as staging point" seems perfectly fine. It's the same as "acting as commanding officer". Doesn't need "a" or "the" between it, since it's about serving the purpose of "staging point".

As for the ellipsis, that's just a sentence trailing off. An ellipsis is perfectly allowed for that.

3824547
When the phrase "serving as" goes without an article, it's because it refers to a specific, predefined function. To wit:

I will serve as moderator.

There's only one possible moderator for this purpose. In this synopsis, there's more than one possible staging point. The easiest way to think of it is that you can often eliminate "the," but it comes across incredibly awkward to eliminate "a." In fact eliminating the article at all pretty much implies "the," which isn't the appropriate one here. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying it sounds weird. I can write something that's grammatically perfect, but if it doesn't read smoothly, I won't get readers. I'm just telling you that it came across that way to me. If you want to ignore it, that's your prerogative.

Likewise with the ellipsis. Your objection is on a technical ground, where I was making no such argument. It's incredibly cliched to end your synopsis with an ellipsis or a rhetorical question or a "read to find out!" You'll come across as much more polished and professional if you avoid these things, but if you're convinced it's a good idea, then have at it. However, you could replace the ellipsis with a period, and it would stand just fine. Why trail off when there's nothing more to say, implied or actual?

3824723

I will serve as moderator.

There's only one possible moderator for this purpose. In this synopsis, there's more than one possible staging point

I honestly can't say I see any distinction. This still implies "a" moderator, and there can perfectly be multiple moderators :unsuresweetie:

it was a fun story to read and I enjoyed hoping there was some sudden happy ending. A way out of the whole ordeal and her good hive would return to her... But in the end the good changelings had fallen and perished under the might of evil. Thus leading to the events of Canterlot. What a shame, and tragedy this story brings us. I do enjoy stories that explain how Celestia received her warning. You've got my like. :)

I have to say, I really enjoyed this, it was an interesting concept, and pretty well executed.

I do feel, though, that it has one weak spot, which is the final resolution of the plot. We've seen our protagonist remain defiant in the face of tortures, go through basically hell, win a nigh-impossible victory... and have that victory rendered completely meaningless by a Deus Ex Machina in the form of what seems to be basically a potion that turns her evil, with no hope for redemption. To me, that robs the ending of its punch.

I feel like it should have gone one of two different ways.

Either the dark way, in which she genuinely breaks. As the story is written now, she really does stay defiant through absolutely everything. She doesn't crack. She doesn't give in, she just loses consciousness and drinks something while delirious. That's cheating. There's no horror in it, all it does is rob the protagonist of her agency. She didn't give in, yet she lost anyway, so what was the point of any of this? It's a stronger, creepier, darker story if she actually does break. If she genuinely gives in, if she consciously and willingly drinks the drink in order to finally escape the pain, that has so much more force behind it than this "let's keep her good while still making her evil" thing that the story has right now. It reminds me of the Star Wars prequels, which suffer from the same problem of trying to keep Anakin good while also getting to turn him into Vader.

Alternately, if this is supposed to be a dark story but with a strong flicker of hope, then we need to see that hope somehow. She succeeded in getting the other changeling out, right? But we, as readers, know that failed. (Somehow, someway, off screen, never explained.) He went to warn ponies, but the ponies never got warned. He went to find a way to save her, but she never got saved, she went ahead and invaded Canterlot. Once again, the protagonist is robbed of all agency. She is acted on all through this, captured, tortured, things happen to her, and the one thing she does manage to do, we know fails completely. There's no hope here at all.

So you're getting the worst of both worlds with this story. Too little hope, so it's all dark, but the dark is weak, watered down darkness, so there's nothing much there either.

I did still enjoy it, don't get me wrong! I just feel that the final ending is weaker than the rest of the story, and could be improved upon. :twilightsmile:

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