This story is a sequel to Three from the Forest
The World of Equestria is a world of balance and harmony. When Discord was released, the balance was disrupted. Even though the Spirit of Chaos was eventually settled, the equilibrium had already shifted. Now, Twilight and her friends will see what form the balancing act will take, and what it will mean for their beloved Equestria.
A sequel to Three from the Forest. It is not required to read the prequel to understand the events of Harmony Undone: The Rise of Order.
A huge thanks to Lab for his amazing editing abilities that has helped polish this story. Cheers!
Currently, this story is undergoing a remastering. By that, I mean the story is getting a facelift to include better showing/less telly language, grammar problems, and other minor fixes to accommodate my new (and I'd like to think better) writing style. Any chapter with a (R) in front of it is a remastered chapter. Once all chapters are done, the (R)s will be removed.
10/8/17: Added the Alternate Universe tag due to the revelations of the season seven finale. Refer to this blog for the explanation.
12/28/2017: Remastering completed and the (R)s removed!
Sorry for the lack of communication folks, but I am attempting to make weekly updates on my story. I welcome comments, thoughts, views, and constructive criticism so don't be afraid to do so.
Slowly getting the re-edits of my current chapters to you all as soon as I can. I know I stated I wanted to post weekly updates, but there is ALOT of work to do to make this a much better and easier read so please bear with me on the delays.
I may like this it sounds good
I'm glad you did (do?). More to come in the next few weeks as soon as my editor gets to it. Look forward to it.
This is shaping up to be a great adventure story. Already, characterization is consistent and realistic. You would not believe how many authors can't keep their characters consistent within a single chapter! Reactions are realistic; I've been on multi-day backpacking trips where we acted just like this (minus spooky temples and plus a lot of gear), and the interactions in this chapter really appeal to me.
Where are you getting your downvotes from?
4150771 I know, right?
I don't mind if readers give me a down vote if they think I deserve it, but I would honestly like to know the reason for the down vote so I can learn to improve my writing.
300 view mark, that is a goal for me!
A huge thanks to all of my readers!
I really need to congratulate you on this story. You raised a villain that pushes the heroes' buttons in all the right ways. He doesn't lie or threaten; he just holds up a mirror and let's them see for themselves. Not only that, I seriously wonder just how they're going to beat him. I do have a feeling that we haven't seen the last of your three OCs though...
I'm expecting a lot of aces up Tyranny's sleeve next chapter.
4600548 Coming from you, Minds eye, that is a huge compliment.
Tyranny has been an absolute joy to write, and he is not done yet. 
And he reformed himself over another being. And at the end of the beam struggle...
Zodiac, you clever bastard.
4934065 *bows* Thank you, thank you. One more chapter to come yet.
That's... going to be an interesing enemy. And you're going to make us wait through a prequel.
5001296 Heh, I've got two reasons for it though.
One: Tyranny is not the only that has an evil streak in him.
Two: It is not yet ready, only one chapter has been written currently. Though the next five have already been planned out, just not put to paper yet. I promise everyone that it will be done in time, and worth the wait.
The prequel will be less far reaching, and light hearted than The Rise of Order, but the sequel will be a bit darker. Not as in requiring the Dark tag, but a bit more mature. It will likely require the Teen tag.
If anyone has questions, feel free to ask!
lh4.googleusercontent.com/OQ7svCsPq1zE_mPTkOZbdav7dxJKwYLIrhKRf9zTWj6Ir7VZfZSV5rIKt_K-71O3z-ZXvRn8yL1ftwsYT1pEg0GiyM-EASPIBOmfeeqIMjYQqgd_qYBZfnDJThiZ8pIi1wNp-yy1Rw
Phew. First comment is about to come in hot here.
Positives of Chapter One
-Characterization is fairly decent. It's not too dodgy and I'm not really out of the loop in terms of who is who.
-Villain in this chapter isn't someone I would expect. How this is a positive? Well, it's fresh, creative, and brings in something to make our protagonists squirm. It's an entirely different canon just waiting to be explored.
-Writing is eye-grabbing. Each transition flowed seamlessly.
Negatives of Chapter One
-Remember when I said the characterization was fairly decent? Here's why the word "fairly" was added in. Each character is not fully established until a certain word count, which wouldn't be a problem if they weren't so confusing to identify during the first three to four hundred words. We don't get a clear look at who is who until a certain word count.
Here are the word counts to let you know:
Tourmaline: 670
Tormod: ~800 (it's in-between 795-803)
Wanderer: - 3,287
Now why am I saying Wanderer isn't clearly identified? Well, according to the word usage (which I found to be one of your major problems in terms of writing), Wanderer's cutie mark is left to be speculated because of the phrase "might have been". This is telling me that:
1. The cutie mark is not really as it seems.
2. It's probably not a spyglass.
However, the spyglass returns when you are describing the villain's appearance, which reaffirms the reader that his cutie mark is, in fact, a spyglass.
It's a bit misleading, so make sure the writing isn't hiding things that you don't want to hide.
Now, I'm not finished with the characterization. Overall, they are very nicely thought out, however, Tormod and Tourmaline are way too closely related in name for me to differentiate who is who. At this very moment, I had to reread the chapter twice because I was confused by the names. They are easily mixed up because they both start with the letter t, and they both have similar letters in similar spots. With their names being like this, readers like me would easily mix up their identities. However, the thing that did save you from making me horribly confused is that you established that Tormod is a unicorn, and Tourmaline is a pegasus. So instead of me thinking of them by their names, I thought of them by their pony types.
TL;DR: The character's names are easy to mix up.
Two other tidbits in terms of character and scenes for this chapter that just made me flat out confused (might be fixed in the next chapter, so I may highlight them later if it is established later on):
1. Tourmaline starts out as sassy and almost like a tsundere that isn't in love and what not, yet she does a complete one-eighty and changes her way of responding? It caught me off guard when she defended Wanderer's claim as she did. It's not bad per se, but it did catch me off guard. Yet again, this could be part of her character. We'll have to see if this flip is consistent throughout the story.
2. Tourmaline's wing inhibits her ability to fly, so how the heck was she able to fly out of the temple?
3. Tourmaline asks who has mid watch, and the rules are that whoever gets closest number gets mid watch (from how the dialogue is shown, this is what we see), however, Wanderer says he gets mid watch when he obviously lost? That is a confusing scene in general.
-Word/Grammar derps. I'm just going to highlight a few of them for you (going to keep some for the full review ;)
That "the" doesn't need to be there.
Unless these ponies suddenly turned anthro, I don't think they have hands. They had heads, though.
Remember, same words in same places doesn't help my brain convey the same meaning. In short, word usage here needs to be varied.
Should be "seen".
In all honesty, this error is hard to find because of the contraction "we've" (we have). Sometimes contractions can make sentences harder to read, which is why I am tending to stay away from using them so readers get a full understanding of the sentence. Why am I mentioning this?
Because you use them in an awkward fashion. A more simpler way of putting this could be:
"We have about an hour left before dusk."
This makes it more certain that he knows that its in the range of an hour. With how you stated it, we have maybe an hour left? He's fairly uncertain that what he's reading is even an hour. >_<
-Vagueness. Yikes, this one blurb made me want to mention this.
I don't like vagueness. I want to see the establishment, I want to learn of the establishment of behaviors. So telling me "other adventures" led these two to believe that he is empowering tells me there are two possibilities...
1. The other adventures weren't established at the time of this novel.
2. The author did have them established, but he wants to lead the audience to read more of the story to find out (because they might be hidden in the story, right?).
Honestly, I would avoid being vague like this when you're starting out a story, so we get the full gist of who your character is and why he is such a role model to look up to.
So yeah, that's what I think about the first chapter so far. I might've left some stuff out, but if I find more, I'll surely add it to the review.
Onto chapter two! =]
I didn't know ponies prayed to her too! You probably should change that to bowing.
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Genuflecting is not strictly an act of worship or prayer. It is a sign of respect. This is done to rulers as well.
Source: Merriam-Webster's website.
Incidentally, this is something I've known since watching Aladdin as a kid. "Genuflect, show some respect, down on one knee!" Such nostalgia.
As promised, here is my review for this story.
The first thing I want to say is that I enjoyed the premise. Discord having an opposite is an idea that's been thrown around the fandom before. While it's nothing new, it's a fun thing to read about, and would certainly fit within the show's mythology. Based on the description alone, your story looks like something worth reading.
The story starts with the introduction of three support characters, and I have to say I enjoyed them. They weren't complex OCs, but they're easy to understand, have clear motivations, and genuinely got me interested. Tormod seemed a bit bland to me at first, but I got more invested in him as the story went on. Tourmaline is the one who really came alive for me. I enjoyed her scenes, and felt she added to the story without overshadowing the main characters. Definitely a good job with these characters.
The mane six were also well written. I found the conversations between them, from Rarity's antics to Pinkie's enthusiasm, got me to feel like I was reading a pony story. I would say, based on this story alone, you seem to shine as a writer when trying to emulate the show's tone. Things like the main characters playing on a waterslide, or ancient tomb explorers getting lost in the wilderness à la Daring Do, I could imagine these things in an episode.
The biggest problem with this story, however, comes with elements that clearly exist outside of the show's trappings. I'm mostly talking about Tyranny himself. From his first appearance, to his scenes with Chrysalis, to the endless fights at the end, I wasn't sold to his character. The first problem is that he comes off as too powerful. He can best any other character in single combat without much trouble, as well as being a master manipulator, and being a few steps ahead of the heroes. We're told he lost his original body, but that doesn't seem to stop him from using extremely powerful magic, even as he's in an earth pony's body.
For a villain to truly be effective, he needs to have flaws, but to be shown overcoming those flaws. For example, you could have him be limited by his host body's capacity, having to rely on his wits alone. He could then use his knowledge of Equestria to manipulate others into doing his bidding. As it is now, a good chunk of the story is devoted to him beating up one character after the other, being seemingly unstoppable. It got too predictable for my taste.
The shadow theme also came off as too cliché. We're initially told he's the spirit or order, and his power should reflect that. Having a villain use darkness as a weapon is overdone, and makes said villain look cheap.
On the technical level, this story isn't necessarily bad, but still suffers from pacing issues. One good example is the first time the ponies use the element, in chapter 12. A good deal of time is spent showing Celestia trying to stall Tyranny, as the elements charge. We're clearly shown that it's their major weakness, that they need time to charge. However, in the same chapter, they seem to charge almost instantly, with no real mention of how they overcame this limitation the second time. We get this impression because they begin charging at the end of a paragraph, and immediately go off in the next, without any mention of what other characters do in the meantime.
Many chapters also begin with the reader being told exactly when it's taking place in relation to the previous chapter. This seems to break narration. Most of the time, this information isn't important. If it is, there are more subtle ways to pass it around. I did enjoy your dialogues though. They flowed naturally, with the characters being expressive and not just standing around.
Overall, I'd say this story shows your potential as a writer, but also fails in other aspects, such as the main villain's presentation. I definitely enjoyed the more "slice of life" aspects of it the most, while the action didn't feel as inspired. Perhaps having a villain who's more "down to earth" and in tune with the universe's tone would have fixed that.
I hope this review helps.
6150456 I thank you so much for the honest review. Truly I appreciate it. Character interactions are always my favorite thing about writing. Right next to world building. So I'm glad to see you enjoyed my characters as much as I did.
You bring up a very good point in my villain. I realize now that I OP him in a few of the fight scenes, when I had thought I had limited him in many. The Chrysalis fight was his first, so he had to prove the strong for him to be taken seriously. (As my thought was) But your idea of him being limited to the earth pony limitations was something I hadn't (and wished I had) considered at the time. That would have been a perfect angle to go with him and to show case his manipulation abilities even further. I'll have to remember such concepts for future writing.
As for my other OCs, I'm glad you liked them. In this story, I loved writing for Tourmaline, she was my favorite. Tormod was slow to start and Wanderer was absent for most of it. But if you enjoyed them here, might I politely suggest you check out the prequel Three from the Forest as it is their background story.
I am on the final chapter of your story and a review will soon follow!
Cheers!
6154970
I'll keep it in mind. I have a pretty long read later list, so I can't make any promises.
It really shows that Tourmaline is your favorite too. I find that pov characters are also characters we learn to love. My own Silvermane, whom you've seen in my fic, is a character I put way too much thought into, haha. Either way, I'm glad that you appreciated my review. Happy to be of help.
6057654
Thanks for the info! >_<
I really need to use my dictionary more.
Did post my review on this chapter! Just wanted to post to keep you updated!
*come
Wanderer and Tourmaline both confirmed non-clever. Tourmaline for voluntarily going first (and then not picking 11 or 10, which are the only two numbers that ensure equal odds (or better)), Wanderer for not utilizing his advantage.
If you play this "game" and your opponent names n, then you already have only two logical choices: n+1 and n-1. Of those, if all numbers share equal odds, you'd pick the one closer to the mean; otherwise you have the only non-trivial choice at hoof.
that is an... ah, I forgot the term for it, I think there is one. It's a redundancy. Use either just 'ever' or just 'once'. 'ever once' doesn't make sense if you think about it, because it then applies 'once' to the number of consequent times, as in 'I've seen her do it twice before, but never just once'
Wait, wait. An hour? if it was visible from the camp, it can't have been an hour away. That is way too long. Something like two minutes is much more realistic, if not already too high.
Technically two minutes is less than an hour, but yknow.
obsolete whitespace
That should be a dot rather than a comma, since it's a full sentence.
Okay they're kind of idiots. I find myself hoping that one of them gets killed, and then stuff gets real.
Ah, well. That sort of happened.
Unfortunately, you weren't kidding when you said you improved since writing this. Mhh...
7418628 I know, right? I often wonder if it is because of the quality of Rise is why my series hasn't drawn or kept attention. When I go back and read it now, I cringe. It's not a bad story, just badly written. And I'm being honest about my own work here, not really trying to sugar coat it.
Also, I do want to say that I am glad you went back to read it. Even if it is no where near the quality of my work now, it is still kind of my pride. It started everything, you know?
I do often think I should go back and give Rise a complete facelift. Not rewrite the story, just make it more readable. It does bring up a question I've had. Is going back and fixing such stories after they're published considered taboo and something to avoid, or is it okay to do so? I've had some readers who has liked my story, and I really don't want to upset them by changing it, but at the same time, I would like to see it as a better read quality wise. I might even bring in more readers if I did.
Still, thank you for reading. Rise is still a good story, and worth a read, as I like to think. Hope you enjoy it.
7418763
I think it's okay to do that. Fixing grammar errors is I think a non-issue. Restructuring sentences and maybe changing some scenes I still think is fine.
I know that SSE has done it with his magnum opus -- and that involved changing the chapter structure, so probably more substantial than what you would do -- and afaik not a single person complained. Even I didn't, and it happened while I was reading.
I think, if someone is a fan of this story, and then you rewrite it, if anything that's more of a reason to read it again, since now it is a bit new. Why would he stop liking it?
Couldn't Luna give her nightly reports by appearing to her in her dreams? That would be a pretty effective way to communicate, especially during a time when they are both so worried.
It's a shame that you wrote Three from the Forest after this. It left me wishing that there had been a little moment where Celestia recognizes Tourmaline as one of the foals that caused her a bit of trouble during the Summer Solstice celebration. I can see Celestia bringing up a memory like that to get a laugh out of a pony to help them with their worries or fears.
This is pretty good so far. You're building the villain up pretty well, and I'm interested in how Chrysalis is going to play into this. I'm just a little put off with Wanderer getting possessed and Tormond getting petrified, I was really hoping that they would have more involvement in this story, but now it doesn't really seem like that will be the case.
I just wanted to point out how much it drove me nuts when you had Rainbow and Pinkie eating barley cakes. You describe how windy and dusty it is, trees swaying and threatening to snap, and the characters have cloth covering their muzzles. How in the world are those two eating cakes without the cakes blowing away or them getting mouthfuls of dirt? And I thought that maybe the wind died down at that point, but then a couple paragraphs down, you state that the wind threatens to tear the cloth from their faces. So what the hay, man?!
These were some good action sequences here. I must admit, in the first couple of chapters, the characters didn't quite seem like themselves, but you portrayed them very accurately here. Great job with this chapter!
8821306
In fairness, I never said the wind blew constantly. Rather, it was rather gusty, almost extremely so from the way I wrote it.
I also kinda imagined barley cakes as something of a dry ration rather than a cake in the traditional sense. Something like a pancake sans syrup.
Also, dust or no, I’d still expect Pinkie to eat it. Heh
8821315
I’m glad you like it! Other than the changelings vs Tyranny fight, I hadn’t done many action scenes. At the time of this chapter’s writing. Glad it was entertaining and not confusing.
8825163
No, but you didn't need to. The way you kept coming back to the effects of the wind on the characters from the beginning of the scene to the end told me it was constant. I had no doubt in my mind that it was a constant strong blowing wind, that the trees were almost permanently bent over and threatening to break. I just assumed it was some sort of anomaly caused by Tyranny.
Honestly, this was the detail that made it seem like it was constant.
It's not really a big problem, but it should be addressed since it gave me such a different view of the scene than you were clearly going for. I reread the scene and you do state that the wind gusts up, but I just saw that as the wind blew a bit stronger than it already was. You never state anywhere that it stops completely. So, to fix this, I'd say the part where you have Rainbow eat her cake, the wind should gust, she should cover the cake with her wing, and eat it when the gust ends. This little bit of added detail will provide an instants where the wind stopped, showing the reader that the gusts are not constant.
8825166
They were done very well. My only suggestion would be to not describe their facial expressions during a fight. Grinning when a blow hits, or their eyes going wide when someone leaps at them distracts from the action, and just seems like a very Anime-like thing to do.
So, I was really really hoping for a special scene between Twi and Fluttershy, but it didn't happen...
I wish the scene between them had remained private, and it sounded like Fluttershy had just about convinced Twi to tell her. And I wish she had because, of all the characters in the show, Fluttershy is the one who could help Twilight cope.
Fluttershy can speak to animals the way we can speak to one another, and she surrounds herself with them. There is no doubt they are as close of friends to her as the mane six. But the thing about rabbits, mice, and squirrels...they have short life spans. Fluttershy would know exactly what it is like to watch friends grow old and die, and then watch their offspring grow old and die. She would also have come to understand the importance of life, love, and memory. Fluttershy is truly stronger than most realize, and it pains me whenever a story comes close to this, but the author never seems to realize it.
But that's just me whining. This was a superb chapter, and a genius use of the show's lore (though I personally don't believe Twi has a longer life span, I think Celly and Luna are unique) to further to tension and advance the plot of the story.
No! Ah at least Tourmaline got away while her brother's petrified and Wanderer... Was his body transformed and taken over by that thing or that thing has his own body and killed him with the fog?