A stranger from a strange land puts the hurt on the Princesses when they threaten to kill him for grinding the citizens of Canterlot for cash and items. Just practicing writing action scenes, and this little idea popped into my head involving th
4454346 Yes, the Commando is a character from the game Risk Of Rain. In the game character's can aquire various items. If you know the background, you'd recognize the items he's using are the repulsor armor, shield generator, timekeepers secret, tough times (the teddy bear) and ukulele, all of which I reference inside the story with the commando's dialogue. Head over to the Risk Of Rain Wiki to learn more and vote on the next character you'd like to see in a fight scene by leaving a comment. Also, all of his moves are shown in the story as well (Double tap when he shoots the two guards right after breaking free, Tactical Dive when he backflips behind the pony, Full Metal Jacket when he uses a piercing shot, and Suppressive Fire when he kills the guards whilst theyre time locked. The more you know ^-^
Hm...honest opinion: While this story is well written, the dialogues are dynamic as well as the scenes, I feel there is more to this story and the Commando character especially. So far, all the readers are shown is one overpowered guy whooping everyone's plot as if it was simple walk in the park which is too little to say if the story-line is good or bad.
So far its good and flows smoothly, definitely keeps readers interested in what is going on next. I assume it will be second chapter that will determine if the readers will continue to read or no. It needs some serious story development in next chapter, some foreshadowing as to how did the commando end up in their world etc. Simple plot whooping won't cut it in the long run. So far its good and I hope you'll keep it that way
4454495 Duely noted, and if people decide they want a second chapter, this story will bring in more characters from the source material while also having cool fight scenes. This story wasn't intended to be a coherent body of work, but rather a bunch of shorts involving characters from the Risk of Rain games being awesome. I'll find a way to relate all of the scenes into one coherent storyline, just keep an eye out for subtle hints. Knowing the source material is also helpful.
4454532 Well in that case awesomeness level is off the chart in this story although if it will end up with characters from different world killing off MLP characters this story might receive some flames in the near future so also keep that in mind. A solution might be to let MLP characters win from time to time but that's up to you actually, I'm only here to answer if the story is good or no
Not sure if "The Commando" is from some other work, but even though I'm not a big fan of ultra violence like this his dialogue is great. Ultra hammy, almost like a player in a FPS hamming it up and talking about his exploits to his fallen foes.
The action scenes were very descriptive. In fact, they helped cut down a whole lotta barriers for my future stories. The "torrent of bullets" was a simple yet divine way of puttin' out the attack he made and rememberin' to keep up with the senses also made the chapter feel closer. It never ends to surprise me on how many ways you can make a scene more entertaining, and fun! And the monologuing: goodness that cleverly executed end. Brilliant, and the small childhood trinkets gave him much more personality than I expected. It jus' screams, 'horrid childhood.' On to the next chapter another day. Oh! And the healing parts made me a bit confused. Seeing the bullets are supposed to be lead, healing the gunshot wounds would just trap the lead under their muscle, unless they pull out the bullets, then this case is closed!
Your story description leaves something to be desired. While it is a story description, it doesn't hook the reader very much. Also, your art is deterring. I made better art for my most recent story, but discarded it because I couldn't get the feeling I was going for.
The doors to the royal throne room violently swung open. Four royal guards trotted in, escorting their captive. A unicorn guard held a black crate filled with odd and mysterious items in the grip of his magic.
Already I can tell things are a little awkward. "Violently swung open" would sound better if you used a shorter phrase like "exploded outwards". You also don't need to say "held in the grip of his magic", when you can just say "levitated". And instead of "a black crate filled with odd and mysterious items", you could instead say "a mysterious black crate filled to the brim with various odds and ends", or just go for "a mysterious black crate" and let the reader assume the crate is full since it's being brought to the princess. But this is all really a matter of show vs. tell. Here is a good site to learn more about that, because honestly, it's a tough thing to wrap your head around.
The guard’s concentration broke, the crate’s lid sliding off, and items spilling out midair.
This sentence doesn't work. It seems to imply the crate's lid is part of the guard's concentration or something.
Otherwise, Celestia and Luna were a bit weak. Keep in mind, they've fought magic beings before, like Sombra and Discord. They'd probably have some knowledge of battle, and might just destroy the ground beneath the Commando to seal him underground until he suffocates. And I don't think Celestia and Luna would just throw their soldiers' lives away. So the whole battle seems a bit unrealistic. Also, I have no idea why anything is happening other than violence and murder.
Since I don't like watching the characters I've come to love get hurt by a faceless thing for no reason, and since I never heard of the Commando, I'm inclined to stop reading. But I'll give the second chapter a chance since he hasn't killed everyone yet. I do like watching battles, but not slaughters.
I love the story so far. Nice armor, nice battle, powerful weaponry, and a suit of armor to go with. However, I spotted a few mistakes. 1) No storyline. A random person being executed of a crime I never saw seems highly unlikely, and no evidence against him makes Luna seem more evil than reformed. 2) Celestia is in charge, not Luna. Luna is more passive aggressive than most people know, unless you hurt her 'Little Ponies'. 3) Couldn't really thing of something wrong for a third. Hope this helps out.
Wasn't very interesting to me. . .The story itself seemed a bit bland. The main character is the Commando who just starts to speak to himself in third person while fighting, which would work if it was Trixie. But it's not her, a character who we have grown to love to hate. We barely know him, so I feel this dialogue is out of place, and shouldn't be there. In the action scene, while it would work in a movie and a more descriptive book, it doesn't seem to fit here. It's like you took out a puzzle finished all of it, then took one out and replaced it with a different puzzle piece from a different puzzle. I'm still going to give it a like though, it did keep me reading during the beginning, but the action scene made me want to skip the entire thing.
You write action very well. Nicely illustrated motion meets the dramatic weight of your crossover character's words. My only concern is how this scene's framed. I get that we're looking at this from Celestia's POV, but I don't feel anchored in the story until the action begins. What is she thinking or feeling as this strange armored being is brought before her? What's going through her mind now that several of her beloved subjects are dead? And what's her reaction to the Commando breaking loose?
I hope I'm not coming on too strongly here. It's got potential, but I feel it needs to balance emotional weight with the physical actions taking place on the page.
There was so much potential, but much like the Night Guard, all of it was blasted away by the end of the chapter. Going into a crossover story, you have to assume your audience knows nothing of the source material upon which your story is based. Especially when said crossover contains a character who (apparently) can withstand any attack, and is a powerful fighter to boot. Especially when drawing on an obscure game. Were this a crossover with, say, Pokemon, then one could reasonably assume that the audience has some knowledge of the source material, since it is so well-known and culturally engrained. Since it is not, one must assume that the reader is coming into this with no knowledge of the other source's canon.
Say I were to write a crossover fiction of El Shaddai and My Little Pony. If you are like the majority of the pony-word-reading crowd, you are probably wondering what an El Shaddai is, yet you are too lazy to Google it and familiarize yourself with it before reading my hypothetical story. Hence, I have just lost a reader unless I integrate details about the source material with whatever the fanfiction happens to be about. Even if it's a relatively simple story (Enoch eats cake with Celestia), details about the source material are absolutely needed, otherwise, you won't know who or what Enoch is or how he is supposed to act in that situation.
I'm afraid I must give this a thumbs down. Being dropped, with no orientation as to the source material's canon, into a crossover is not my cup of tea.
The first thing I'll say about this story is I have no clue as to the game you are crossing MLP with. That being said, the "Commando" seems a bit OP, suggesting he is either a villain or a Gary Stu. All though I don't mind Gary Stus in general (depends on how the writer portrays them), I prefer to have a little more background on a character, or inner monologue from either him or one of the other main characters. How well you present your characters can make or break your stories.
I'll never claim to have mastered storytelling myself. I'm always experimenting with writing styles. But the main thing to remember is to have a beginning, a middle, and an end to each story arc even as you work your way towards the inevitable conclusion of your story.
Good luck and keep writing! Never be afraid to ask for advice.
4479474 Against royal guardsmen, he definitely would be OP. However, Risk of Rain is one of those games where you die if you don't become overpowered through a random selection of items mixed with your own skill. It's difficult to put in words, but is definitely a game worth looking at (relatively cheap too. Just 10$ on Steam, and with the summer sale coming up, it'll likely drop down to 5$). A character that was just starting out wouldn't have stood a chance.
That said, there's only the barest hints of a story, and it feels more like an excuse to kill a lot of things, which makes for good action, but not good storytelling. Each of the characters in Risk of Rain only has a tiny bit of backstory, but that's not an excuse, it's an opportunity to build and expand on what you've been given. Take Stardust for example. It's an X-com crossover, but it gives some of those faceless soldiers an actual identity, a personality you can grow to care about. Risk of Rain's playstyle doesn't lend itself to a grand tale without some serious intervention on your behalf.
Mechanically speaking, there were a few errors, just misplaced commas, awkward or redundant wording, and the like. The ellipses were overused, and you should have instead relied on the text's flow to show he was continuing his story. It was a bit telly, but nowhere near as bad as many of the fics I've seen, and the writing felt "natural" as compared to forcing your style to be more epic. They both need some polish, but your storytelling needs a lot more work than your writing.
The description was a bit obnoxious, as most of the extra detail could be summed up by saying "Risk of Rain crossover." Most won't bother following external links, and to be honest, external links in your writing is usually poor form. Linking music, pictures, or supplemental information (pretty much anything other than the most basic of links to what it's based off or follows the continuity of) just tells us you're either too inexperienced or lazy to convey it with words. The really casual readers might not mind, but anyone who's been around for a while will just roll their eyes and go read something else.
This is a fairly good start to a story, but there a few stylistic things I would change in this first chapter. You tend to use a lot of simple sentences which gives the story the feel of a list. Here's an example of what you could change it to:
Luna rose from her throne, as the guards stood at attention. She stopped several feet away from the Commando, looking into his reflective visor.
Instead of that you could say: As the guards stood at attention, Luna rose from her throne, and stopped several feet away from the Commando while looking into his reflective visor.
Also you tend to use words like people or in person instead of using ponies. Because I don't know of the game with which this story is a crossover, I'm not sure of this is necessary or if it is something that could be changed.
You asked me to read this. I have. Gary Stu, I have no idea who this commando is, nor do I care, but he comes across as a Gary Stu put there to slaughter things without any reason other than to cause shock. No story. Any trace of interest I might have had is demolished by the utter lack of anything that could create tension or make us care about the character. Random Slaughter of characters. I don't enjoy gore and hurting of characters in a fic, let alone an MLP fic in the first place, but in something like Stardust, it's necessary to set up the conflict which characters then resolve. Here it comes across as completely gratuitous.
You write action well, but that's the only positive comment I can make about this. It's nothing but action, midless and cruel action.
Alright, you asked me to check it, so unchecked it. I read the link you sent me to check on the game and the proceeded to read the first chapter.
I don't really like stories that have killing without reason, as this one (and the game, apparently) seem to be, so I wouldn't have read much after the first couple of paragraphs. Now, getting out of my own opinion, I think it could be a little more detailed in case of who this commando is, though it is not utterly necessary.
As I kept on reading I noticed that he was not a complex character, with some things that completely just jumped out like saying 'hey! Here I am even though you don't know anything about me. I'll just jump in and make it look like if all of you know me and I don't have anything to explain!'
Woah... Confused myself there... Sorry.
Moving on, I myself wouldn't go reading this story due to who I am and what I like, but, that aside, I would probably had or either just gone after the start or face it a couple of tries on next chapters to see if things cleared out.
It is well written though, and I liked the way action is described, letting readers know what is going on without getting confused.
There are a could of things you can work on, but it's... Fine, though confusing.
Seems good. Is the Commando from a thing? Because otherwise he appears a Mary Sue...
Lost it.
4454346 Yes, the Commando is a character from the game Risk Of Rain. In the game character's can aquire various items. If you know the background, you'd recognize the items he's using are the repulsor armor, shield generator, timekeepers secret, tough times (the teddy bear) and ukulele, all of which I reference inside the story with the commando's dialogue. Head over to the Risk Of Rain Wiki to learn more and vote on the next character you'd like to see in a fight scene by leaving a comment. Also, all of his moves are shown in the story as well (Double tap when he shoots the two guards right after breaking free, Tactical Dive when he backflips behind the pony, Full Metal Jacket when he uses a piercing shot, and Suppressive Fire when he kills the guards whilst theyre time locked. The more you know ^-^
Seems good to me
I'll be honest, this isn't really my type of story. But It does seem very interesting. Some of you others look pretty cool as well.
Hm...honest opinion: While this story is well written, the dialogues are dynamic as well as the scenes, I feel there is more to this story and the Commando character especially. So far, all the readers are shown is one overpowered guy whooping everyone's plot as if it was simple walk in the park which is too little to say if the story-line is good or bad.
So far its good and flows smoothly, definitely keeps readers interested in what is going on next. I assume it will be second chapter that will determine if the readers will continue to read or no. It needs some serious story development in next chapter, some foreshadowing as to how did the commando end up in their world etc. Simple plot whooping won't cut it in the long run. So far its good and I hope you'll keep it that way
4454495 Duely noted, and if people decide they want a second chapter, this story will bring in more characters from the source material while also having cool fight scenes. This story wasn't intended to be a coherent body of work, but rather a bunch of shorts involving characters from the Risk of Rain games being awesome. I'll find a way to relate all of the scenes into one coherent storyline, just keep an eye out for subtle hints. Knowing the source material is also helpful.
4454532 Well in that case awesomeness level is off the chart in this story although if it will end up with characters from different world killing off MLP characters this story might receive some flames in the near future so also keep that in mind. A solution might be to let MLP characters win from time to time but that's up to you actually, I'm only here to answer if the story is good or no
inb4 Lordofmyth.
4454557 lordofmyth is the complete opposite of H A S
So far so good.
That plot twist, so far no complaints!
Not sure if "The Commando" is from some other work, but even though I'm not a big fan of ultra violence like this his dialogue is great. Ultra hammy, almost like a player in a FPS hamming it up and talking about his exploits to his fallen foes.
It's great.
Pretty good so far.
Not familiar with The Commando, but fun to read all the same,
The action scenes were very descriptive. In fact, they helped cut down a whole lotta barriers for my future stories. The "torrent of bullets" was a simple yet divine way of puttin' out the attack he made and rememberin' to keep up with the senses also made the chapter feel closer. It never ends to surprise me on how many ways you can make a scene more entertaining, and fun! And the monologuing: goodness that cleverly executed end. Brilliant, and the small childhood trinkets gave him much more personality than I expected. It jus' screams, 'horrid childhood.' On to the next chapter another day. Oh! And the healing parts made me a bit confused. Seeing the bullets are supposed to be lead, healing the gunshot wounds would just trap the lead under their muscle, unless they pull out the bullets, then this case is closed!
Descriptive and detailed, perhaps could use simple sentences less frequently when describing the action, but a very good story.
To....badass......for me!
I call cheats!
Anyway, this is turning out to be a really great story. Keep it up.
It should be
There is an extra space between appear and that comma.
Very good and descriptive, with an excellent vocabulary. Those two minor punctuation errors were all I found wrong.
Your story description leaves something to be desired. While it is a story description, it doesn't hook the reader very much. Also, your art is deterring. I made better art for my most recent story, but discarded it because I couldn't get the feeling I was going for.
Already I can tell things are a little awkward. "Violently swung open" would sound better if you used a shorter phrase like "exploded outwards". You also don't need to say "held in the grip of his magic", when you can just say "levitated". And instead of "a black crate filled with odd and mysterious items", you could instead say "a mysterious black crate filled to the brim with various odds and ends", or just go for "a mysterious black crate" and let the reader assume the crate is full since it's being brought to the princess. But this is all really a matter of show vs. tell. Here is a good site to learn more about that, because honestly, it's a tough thing to wrap your head around.
This sentence doesn't work. It seems to imply the crate's lid is part of the guard's concentration or something.
Otherwise, Celestia and Luna were a bit weak. Keep in mind, they've fought magic beings before, like Sombra and Discord. They'd probably have some knowledge of battle, and might just destroy the ground beneath the Commando to seal him underground until he suffocates. And I don't think Celestia and Luna would just throw their soldiers' lives away. So the whole battle seems a bit unrealistic. Also, I have no idea why anything is happening other than violence and murder.
Since I don't like watching the characters I've come to love get hurt by a faceless thing for no reason, and since I never heard of the Commando, I'm inclined to stop reading. But I'll give the second chapter a chance since he hasn't killed everyone yet. I do like watching battles, but not slaughters.
I love the story so far. Nice armor, nice battle, powerful weaponry, and a suit of armor to go with. However, I spotted a few mistakes.
1) No storyline. A random person being executed of a crime I never saw seems highly unlikely, and no evidence against him makes Luna seem more evil than reformed.
2) Celestia is in charge, not Luna. Luna is more passive aggressive than most people know, unless you hurt her 'Little Ponies'.
3) Couldn't really thing of something wrong for a third. Hope this helps out.
What kind of nut keeps talking about himself in the third person like that? Is he is own bard?
Wasn't very interesting to me. . .The story itself seemed a bit bland. The main character is the Commando who just starts to speak to himself in third person while fighting, which would work if it was Trixie. But it's not her, a character who we have grown to love to hate. We barely know him, so I feel this dialogue is out of place, and shouldn't be there. In the action scene, while it would work in a movie and a more descriptive book, it doesn't seem to fit here. It's like you took out a puzzle finished all of it, then took one out and replaced it with a different puzzle piece from a different puzzle. I'm still going to give it a like though, it did keep me reading during the beginning, but the action scene made me want to skip the entire thing.
Its a good story.
Never played Risk of Rain.
Good story though. Keep up the good work.
So far, I'm liking it a lot. Great first chapter, it totally hooked me in, and I hope to read more!
You write action very well. Nicely illustrated motion meets the dramatic weight of your crossover character's words. My only concern is how this scene's framed. I get that we're looking at this from Celestia's POV, but I don't feel anchored in the story until the action begins. What is she thinking or feeling as this strange armored being is brought before her? What's going through her mind now that several of her beloved subjects are dead? And what's her reaction to the Commando breaking loose?
I hope I'm not coming on too strongly here. It's got potential, but I feel it needs to balance emotional weight with the physical actions taking place on the page.
There was so much potential, but much like the Night Guard, all of it was blasted away by the end of the chapter. Going into a crossover story, you have to assume your audience knows nothing of the source material upon which your story is based. Especially when said crossover contains a character who (apparently) can withstand any attack, and is a powerful fighter to boot. Especially when drawing on an obscure game. Were this a crossover with, say, Pokemon, then one could reasonably assume that the audience has some knowledge of the source material, since it is so well-known and culturally engrained. Since it is not, one must assume that the reader is coming into this with no knowledge of the other source's canon.
Say I were to write a crossover fiction of El Shaddai and My Little Pony. If you are like the majority of the pony-word-reading crowd, you are probably wondering what an El Shaddai is, yet you are too lazy to Google it and familiarize yourself with it before reading my hypothetical story. Hence, I have just lost a reader unless I integrate details about the source material with whatever the fanfiction happens to be about. Even if it's a relatively simple story (Enoch eats cake with Celestia), details about the source material are absolutely needed, otherwise, you won't know who or what Enoch is or how he is supposed to act in that situation.
I'm afraid I must give this a thumbs down. Being dropped, with no orientation as to the source material's canon, into a crossover is not my cup of tea.
The first thing I'll say about this story is I have no clue as to the game you are crossing MLP with. That being said, the "Commando" seems a bit OP, suggesting he is either a villain or a Gary Stu. All though I don't mind Gary Stus in general (depends on how the writer portrays them), I prefer to have a little more background on a character, or inner monologue from either him or one of the other main characters. How well you present your characters can make or break your stories.
I'll never claim to have mastered storytelling myself. I'm always experimenting with writing styles. But the main thing to remember is to have a beginning, a middle, and an end to each story arc even as you work your way towards the inevitable conclusion of your story.
Good luck and keep writing! Never be afraid to ask for advice.
(even if you ask for help from twits like me)
4479474 Against royal guardsmen, he definitely would be OP. However, Risk of Rain is one of those games where you die if you don't become overpowered through a random selection of items mixed with your own skill. It's difficult to put in words, but is definitely a game worth looking at (relatively cheap too. Just 10$ on Steam, and with the summer sale coming up, it'll likely drop down to 5$). A character that was just starting out wouldn't have stood a chance.
That said, there's only the barest hints of a story, and it feels more like an excuse to kill a lot of things, which makes for good action, but not good storytelling. Each of the characters in Risk of Rain only has a tiny bit of backstory, but that's not an excuse, it's an opportunity to build and expand on what you've been given. Take Stardust for example. It's an X-com crossover, but it gives some of those faceless soldiers an actual identity, a personality you can grow to care about. Risk of Rain's playstyle doesn't lend itself to a grand tale without some serious intervention on your behalf.
Mechanically speaking, there were a few errors, just misplaced commas, awkward or redundant wording, and the like. The ellipses were overused, and you should have instead relied on the text's flow to show he was continuing his story. It was a bit telly, but nowhere near as bad as many of the fics I've seen, and the writing felt "natural" as compared to forcing your style to be more epic. They both need some polish, but your storytelling needs a lot more work than your writing.
The description was a bit obnoxious, as most of the extra detail could be summed up by saying "Risk of Rain crossover." Most won't bother following external links, and to be honest, external links in your writing is usually poor form. Linking music, pictures, or supplemental information (pretty much anything other than the most basic of links to what it's based off or follows the continuity of) just tells us you're either too inexperienced or lazy to convey it with words. The really casual readers might not mind, but anyone who's been around for a while will just roll their eyes and go read something else.
4454346 I agree.
This is a fairly good start to a story, but there a few stylistic things I would change in this first chapter. You tend to use a lot of simple sentences which gives the story the feel of a list. Here's an example of what you could change it to:
Instead of that you could say: As the guards stood at attention, Luna rose from her throne, and stopped several feet away from the Commando while looking into his reflective visor.
Also you tend to use words like people or in person instead of using ponies. Because I don't know of the game with which this story is a crossover, I'm not sure of this is necessary or if it is something that could be changed.
You asked me to read this.
I have.
Gary Stu, I have no idea who this commando is, nor do I care, but he comes across as a Gary Stu put there to slaughter things without any reason other than to cause shock.
No story. Any trace of interest I might have had is demolished by the utter lack of anything that could create tension or make us care about the character.
Random Slaughter of characters. I don't enjoy gore and hurting of characters in a fic, let alone an MLP fic in the first place, but in something like Stardust, it's necessary to set up the conflict which characters then resolve. Here it comes across as completely gratuitous.
You write action well, but that's the only positive comment I can make about this. It's nothing but action, midless and cruel action.
Alright, you asked me to check it, so unchecked it. I read the link you sent me to check on the game and the proceeded to read the first chapter.
I don't really like stories that have killing without reason, as this one (and the game, apparently) seem to be, so I wouldn't have read much after the first couple of paragraphs. Now, getting out of my own opinion, I think it could be a little more detailed in case of who this commando is, though it is not utterly necessary.
As I kept on reading I noticed that he was not a complex character, with some things that completely just jumped out like saying 'hey! Here I am even though you don't know anything about me. I'll just jump in and make it look like if all of you know me and I don't have anything to explain!'
Woah... Confused myself there... Sorry.
Moving on, I myself wouldn't go reading this story due to who I am and what I like, but, that aside, I would probably had or either just gone after the start or face it a couple of tries on next chapters to see if things cleared out.
It is well written though, and I liked the way action is described, letting readers know what is going on without getting confused.
There are a could of things you can work on, but it's... Fine, though confusing.
4481342 The characters are OP by the end because they grind and fight something even more powerful.
da fuk...
4537436 Hey, Tough Times. If ya know what I mean ;)