Someplace far away...
Avispa walked the path he took everyday.
To the woods.
Away from the hive.
To a place where his kind where not living and he could be himself and show his fanged, bug-eyed, black face.
A changeling could ask for nothing more.
But most changelings stayed out of the woods, due to it’s lack of love.
Avispa, on the other hoof, found nothing but love there.
Not for a pony Avispa was disguised as but for him himself.
He wasn’t stealing there love.
For there love was for him.
All the forest animals that lived out there cared for Avispa because Avispa was Avispa.
He entered the woods.
Dark at first but then soon dappled with brightness from the sun that shone through the leafs.
There was a rustle in the bushes and then a small grey tabby tom appeared.
“Avispa!” The cat called in greeting.
“Dusk-Bright!” Avispa called in greeting to his old feline friend. “How’s the family?”
“Oh! It’s great! Monarch is a great mother to our kittens. Just this morning Birch, Maple and Sycamore all tried there first taste of meat!” The proud tom said.
“That’s great Dusk-Bright!” Avispa said before walking on.
Avispa came across a small meadow.
The rabbits where running around and Avispa was soothed by the scent of daisies.
“Hey it’s Avispa!” “Hello Avispa!” “Avispa!” The bunny’s calls of hello raised as Avispa walked on nodding to the rabbits.
“How are you Avispa dearie?” Said a tan rabbit who had her storm grey husband behind her and there two cottontail sons in tow.
“I’m fine Mrs. Xon. How’s Eddy and Butch?” Avispa said turning to the two little cottontail bunnies.
“Oh there fine dearie! Have you heard the bird’s singing down at the thicket? Oh it’s heavenly! I believe they shall have a concert soon.” The she-bunny said.
“Thank you for pointing me that way. I shall go immediately.” Avispa said in thanks.
In a tall cedar tree the birds where singing in there little band.
The chickadee got of tune when he noticed Avispa.
“Avispa! Avispa!” He called excitedly, throwing the birds song into a tornado of confused tweets.
The blue jay started to say “What? What’s happening?”
The robins tried to continue the song but the beautiful melody was lost in the storm of tweets.
The cardinal unsure of what to do hummed the tune to ‘Here comes the Sun’.
The swallow got thrown off and started singing the bridge while the dove, lorikeet and a few other birds twittered in confusion.
Avispa raised his hole-filled hoof for the embarrassed chickadee to land on.
“Everyone makes mistakes.” Avispa tried to assure the chickadee.
The wood pigeon, leader of the chorus, landed on the ground in front of Avispa.
He gave his feathers a quick prune before puffing out his chest to look important.
“Aaron!” He yelled at the small chickadee. “Chorus was doing great before you made that outburst! What do you have to say for yourself!?”
“Peleus.” Avispa began trying to reason with the puffed up pidgeon. “Aaron just got a little excited to see me. That’s all.”
“Harumph! So your the problem! Go away! No sneaky peeks! You’ll have to wait ‘till the concert to hear our singing!”
“Okay then.” Avispa said. “I’ll get going.” He spread his wings and flew off to the heart of the forest.
“You sure took your time to visit me.” A voice said when Avispa arrived.
“Save your complaining for later.” Avispa said. “At least I came to see you at all.”
Avispa’s companion hissed with laughter.
“You always come.” She said.
“Diamond.” Avispa said sternly looking his companion in her amber eyes.
“What Vispy?” The shadowy shape growled with boredom.
“I sense something wrong over near ponyville. There is a place that before had no life. Now it has life but no love.”
“Well then. Sounds like you need a companion to find out what’s up over there.” Diamond stept out of the shadows, teeth bared.
“Lets do this.” They said in unision.
wat
Hmm... how about you run this through a basic spellcheck and come back with a story that's properly legible, eh? I mean, you can't even keep the spelling of Fillydelphia (capitalised, by the way, because it's a place name) consistent within one paragraph of story description, and from what I saw, the first chapter wasn't much better. For the love of Celestia, describe things! Every sentence is short, and barely stretches across the page, and it's so broken up that nothing flows at all. By the way, your story summary needs work. You need more capital letters on names/places, and your colon use is utterly wrong. Also, spell out numbers. '8' should be 'eight' in prose, because numbers like that look ugly.
Chapter two is looking a little better on the description front, but it's so disjointed that it's difficult to read, honestly. Tor and Bubblegum don't really sound like eight year olds, I note. One thing I really think you should do is break up your dialogue more, because you've got a serious case of 'Talking Head Syndrome'. This is where the two talking characters, and the scene around them, stagnate through lack of description to the point where all the reader can imagine is a pair of heads talking to each other in a blank void. Conversations are dynamic, in real life. People do other things while talking, or gesticulate, or make little movements to indicate their feelings. It's important to show this, because otherwise conversations become less... human, I suppose. It becomes more difficult to identify with the characters, by a long shot, and may bore the reader over time. Believe me, by chapter two, I was getting sick of talking heads.
Oh boy, chapter three. This made me a little annoyed, I have to say. Avispa comes across as a Sue, because of his ability to gain love from random woodland creatures, all of which apparently love him. He's like Fluttershy, only he looks like a cockroach. And even Fluttershy has problems with some animals, like Angel. I think it's more the fact that he (as displayed here) apparently lacks a weakness that changelings share. He's not just a changeling, he's a sparkly speshul friendly changeling, who plays with bunnies and cats! This is what makes people hate the Twilight vampires so much, because they're powerful and lack the weaknesses that keep normal vampires in check. Same here. He's introduced without fanfare, and everything loves him, and he's special because he doesn't need pony love like those other changelings, because he has all his magical sparkly talking woodland friends... yeah. Do you see why I'm not thrilled with Avispa?
You could fix that by introducing him in a less... jarring way, and possibly making him more interesting as a person, rather than introducing this random segue into Doctor Dolittle.
Ponyville is a place, by the way. It needs a capital P. Also, when you use 'he said', 'she muttered', things like that, it's incredibly jarring when someone uses a full stop in the dialogue beforehand. It's actually meant to be a comma, like
Did you see that comma after Applejack? That's punctuation usage, homes. You use full stops there, and would capitalise 'he'. When you can't consistently capitalise 'I'. You might wanna fix that, bro.
3204459
I forgot to put this in the description but this is a draft 1.
I will fix everything in draft 2 and fix everything wrong with draft 2 in draft 3 and then make a finished official story.
Also. New to the community and I don't know how to get a editor.
You'll find out in chapter 4 that the captive's ages range from 6 to 13 and Bubblegum is a 10 year old.
But I will do a speshal treat and edit everything 4 people.
3204582
Regarding Avispa... this sequence would work better if you'd introduced the character beforehand, and this was a continuation of that. As in, if you'd introduced him beforehand by himself, perhaps in the hive, and this was used as a way to show his character through his interactions with others. Hell, you could use that to show how changelings differ from ponies, and what life in a changeling hive is actually like. Do they take captives, for example, to feed on love in safety? Sadly, you spend more time fleshing out these side characters than you do Avispa (by the way, Vespa would make more sense for a changeling name. Vespidae are wasps). We learn almost nothing about him here, because you introduce random animals, he says 'all right then' and walks on. It's kind of boring, really, because he seems so flat. He does nothing interesting, and has no interesting thoughts about his friends. He doesn't reminisce about good times spent with his 'old feline friend', or wonder how a rabbit ever ended up with a name like 'Xon'. Hell, the only even mildly interesting characters in this extremely short chapter are the birds, and even they are scatterbrained cliches.
Why is Ponyville important to him? Did he see the magical quest symbol floating in the sky, as if this were some sort of MMO? The end part of this chapter needs an extension, to introduce Diamond and set up this Ponyville journey, because the chapter is too short and rushed (same for the rest of the story, actually. You should probably aim for 2k words per chapter, as a guideline to force you to write more. Set the scene, so we know where things are taking place, and doing so really helps give the story an atmosphere (use google, there are guides to this stuff). Flesh out your characters. What do they think about? How do they behave around people they don't know? In what way do Avispa's thoughts differ from a normal pony's? He's a completely different species, with different brain chemistry. He's going to be at least a little alien in the way that he thinks and expresses himself (are changelings actually male/female? They can change form at will, so maybe they aren't?). Characters are people, and the reader needs to identify with them on some level. As it stands, yours are cardboard cutouts. You could make a character out of them, but they need more depth.
If anyone wants more explanations read the following:
1. Q.Why is there bad grammar?
A. This is a first draft as it says in the description.
2. Why does Tor not act like the 8 year old she is?
A. #1 She has an overactive imagination
A. #2: See spoiler comment section
3. This takes place in the time before princess luna became Nightmare moon so things are a little different.
4. Why doesn’t Bubblegum act like an 8 year old?
A. Bubblegum isn’t 8 she’s 10
5. Q.Why is there so much dialogue?
A. #1 In chapter 1 I don’t think I used that much dialogue and when I did I tried to have there be little movements in the story to make it seem more like a regular conversation. If you think something’s wrong with that chapter’s dialogue please tell me. I don’t take offence to comments on too much dialogue or no real character emotion. I take them into consideration and try to change my writing technique so your feedback fits in.
A. #2 In chapter 2 the world is right. I read over it and realised that it has too much dialogue! As soon as I post this comment I will re-write chapter 2 to make it a bit more descriptive and then I’ll post my spoiler comment.
A. #3 I tried to use dialogue to show the connection Avispa has with the animals. Did I use to much? Please tell me if I did.
6. Q.Why is Avispa’s character so confusing?
A. #1 Avispa is a 5 year old changeling, totally naive to the dangerous world he lives in and his duty as changeling. He is technically too young to go far from the hive to get his own food so he is fed by already harvested love. It will be pretty hard to explain without giving spoilers so either wait for more about Avispa to be revealed or go to spoilers. Some people are comparing him to Fluttershy but this is the difrence between Fluttershy and Avispa:
Fluttershy Avispa
Animals are domesticated and her pets Animals are wild and are like . neighbors. You just know them some . . are your friends
She helps the animals The animals are self dependent
She thinks of the animals as her duty to befriend He finds the animals as . . . . people you keep running into on a walk
She see’s the animals on purpose His comfort is the forest, not the . . animals and he knows he’s going to see . . them but he’s not trying to
In other words. Avispa finds the forest comforting and he believes the animals like him so he goes there for a little thing to past the time. Not to hang out like real friends. Avispa is a very polite changeling and just is trying to be polite when he visits the animals but he only does that on there request. When Dusk-Bright is referred to as a feline friend it's just to show that he has no ill-will to the animals. His nature is un-changeling like because he, as you will learn in the chapter Tor meets him, was the first and last egg hatched in the middle of winter when most eggs hatch in spring or summer and he was born a month early. His connection with diamond is different though. He like likes her. Thats all I'll say for Diamond!
A. #2 See spoilers
7. Who's Diamond?
A. That goes under the spoiler section
Hope this helped!
3204852
I just want to say... holy shit, if you typed with this amount of lucidity in your actual fic, I wouldn't be griping nearly so much.
Edit: I think the columns on your comparison were screwed up by Fimfic's formatting.
Edit the second: What spoiler section?
Edit the third: 'people you keep running into on a walk'? In one of the few pieces of his character actually shown, he describes Dusk-Bright as his 'old feline friend'. That implies actual friendship. Consistency, please? Also, if he's five, you should probably make it clear that the cat is old, rather than it being used in the 'old friend' sense of the word. It makes it sound like Avispa is like... twenty, at least.
3204872
I clearly stated that he's called a friend to show that there's peace between the changeling and the animals
also. redid chapter two to have it be a bit more active.
Making spoiler comment currently.
3205016
And I clearly stated that the way the words were used, and what they implied, are at odds with what you're telling me here. It doesn't really matter what you say in the comments, because the way you wrote the story itself, it comes across as them being friends specifically. Perhaps if you showed more of Avispa's thoughts on the matter, this wouldn't be an issue.
SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!
IF YOU WANT SPOILERS READ ON!
I'M WARNING YOU OF SPOILERS! SPOILERS SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!
R U SHURE U WHANT SPOILERS?
read on then my friend
1. Avispa’s relationship with animals.
The animals don’t really love him. The fear him and pretend to love him for who he is just so he won’t hurt them. They are secretly scared of him and they try to get rid of him by telling him something else thats going on in the forest and try to push him away but he being a 5 year old he can’t tell that they don’t want to hang out.
2. Diamond
I want Diamond to remain a mystery but what I will tell you is that she isn’t an animal or a pony but a strange creature that I’m using from a non fanfic that I wrote. Diamond is a female creature of darkness you could say. A she-devil. She, like a changeling feeds of emotions but there favorite is love. She is playing Avispa and using him like an on-the-go unlimited supply of hamburgers.
3. Who is the mare?
Nightmare moon/Luna
4. Why is Tor so special?
She is born with a queer aura and the reason Luna kidnapped her is so she can study this aura. at times though the aura can make her act twice her age but thats only the beginning of the aura’s power.
Hope you liked! Ask away for more spoilers!
3204821
Avispa means wasp in spanish.
I was going to put why the changeling queen named him after a wasp but I decided I had put enough spoilers.
3204872
I will take what you said into consideration but the reason I did the forest scene first is so you can see how Avispa’s real emotions are. In his next chapter you will see him in the hive trying to get packed up for ponyville and you’ll find out how tough Avispa has to act when he’s in the hive and how he can’t be himself and you’ll find out the reason he cares so much about Ponyville and why he’s so excited that there’s life but no love near the outskirts of Ponyville (hint hint someone he likes is missing there.)
3205081
Ah, ok. I don't speak Spanish, but it makes sense. I noticed that it was similar enough to the latin 'Vespid'. You kinda just need to edit your story to fit your stated goals now, imo. Like, before it accumulates enough downvotes that people just stop caring. It's... too skeletal to be a good story in its current form, and once a story goes deep into the red, it's difficult to dig it back out again. I think you have some good ideas, you just need to utilise them effectively, and soon. That second draft? Do it now, before it's too late.
Edit: fridge logic happened... how can he feed off of their nonexistent love? Is it just an illusion, and he's actually going to starve if he keeps this up?
3205101
Oh, so he does know her? Interesting. Again you should show this more. Also, we don't see much of Avispa's emotions. He's quite flat, for the most part. There are hints of a character peeking out, like with his interactions with the birds, but... not enough.
3205064![:derpyderp1:](https://static.fimfiction.net/images/emoticons/derpyderp1.png)
Most of the stuff I say in the comments will be added in the second draft.
3205105![:raritydespair:](https://static.fimfiction.net/images/emoticons/raritydespair.png)
He doesn't know Tor.
His epic back story.
When he was two his father when to ponyville to gather love. He still hasn't come back.
3205208
. The downvote almost becomes a knee jerk reaction, it's gotten so bad.
Oh, one other thing I forgot to mention. There's a real stigma against alicorn OCs on Fimfic, particularly stories with cover art of OCs made in Ponycreator. Basically, there are hundreds of really bad stories out there with cover art almost identical to yours
3205237
Thats not Tor.
3205245
It doesn't matter. People are going to see the Ponycreator image of an alicorn OC and downvote on principle. Literally hundreds of fics. I wish I was kidding. Most of them are utterly dreadful.
Edit: When I said 'knee jerk', I mean they won't read enough of the story to care that it's not Tor, or even who Tor is. They will see the despised cover art, and the (frankly mediocre) description and downvote because they've seen so many bad stories that fit that profile.