A Minty What If
What if things had worked out a little differently in Minty Christmas? What if the three G3 ponies weren't the ones we all knew? What if the secret about the Green Pony and her two friends was revealed, rocking two worlds?
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Additional Tags: [G3], [Minty]
An AU of FIM, G3, concepts from Pony POV Series Season Four: Generation Transitions & Origins, and concepts from Mirror's Image, all at the same time, by a new author as his first major project so buckle up.
I must request that any edits or writing recommendation be sent to me as a PM, not in the comments
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Cover art commissioned, with special thanks from Spirit Shift (deviant art: http://thespiritshift.deviantart.com/)
Chapters (48)
Well, now that I've read the title, i don't need to read the fic.
Minty's secret is that Minty's a changeling. Whoop-dee-doo-da.
Change your title.
Fair enough. I'll put some thought into it and If I come up with something I'll change it for you.
5262376
As promised, tweaked. Hopefully this will work better.
errypony's a changeling
5385117
I won't say either way.
But I'm glad to hear that you are reading it. And I'm hoping that I'm doing a good job for you.
Feel free to comment on any improvements I could make, or any suggestions you have for consideration.
I love the new cover art.
6219861
Thank you, I think the artist did a really nice job on it, and I'm really happy with it, so far.
I'm confused what is going on here?
6228126
What are you confused about? Maybe I can clear it up, or fix it in an editing pass
(some passages are meant to be confusing -- due to them being dream sequences --, but I don't want them to be so intellectual that they lose all meaning. 
)
Oh and thanks for the favorite.
*sees cover image* YES YES YES YES NATURAL SELECTION HAS FINNALY HAPPENED AND SHE'S DE- *looks closer* oh she's a changeling not half her body burned to a crisp
note: my actual reaction to the cover
6418464
(Ok it's so irreverent, but it's still funny anyways.)
Also, feel free as you read through it to give me any improvement suggestions you come up with, I'm always trolling for those.
I think the overall flow of this chapter was pretty good. I also think the characterization is pretty good, as well.
Also:
This made me laugh.
I think the characterization in this chapter is pretty good as well.
For example, I felt like I could see this:
Plus, I thought some of the lines were pretty funny, such as:
Also, I dare say this was the best line of the chapter:
6462939 Thank you. I actually liked that line as well. It seemed, to me, like something Rainbow might acrually say.
6462992 Thank you.
I needed that. 
I've kind of been struggling with the dread writer's block while trying to write the two newest chapters (I have outlines for them, but the words to fill in the sections are comming slowely for me. 
Good news is that chapter 11 is 3/4 written now, but chapter 10 is comming very slowely.)
6463015 You are welcome.
The characterizations in this chapter seem pretty good, and I like the final bit with the Everfree Forest:
However, I can see how confusing the dream sections can be, especially if you don't know they are coming. I'm not sure what can be done to improve the readability of these sections.
6464203 I'm glad that you liked it.
Definitely let me know if you run into any improvement suggestions, or errors.
Capitalize the "O" in "oops"
Best to change to "Gee Minty, I know Christmas is important to you and all," said Pinky with a chuckle. "You are aware that it's three in the morning, right?" she said as her voice got softer and more serious like she was talking to herself.
Put comma before quotations. (Unless you're British)
Just go through the story and put all of your punctuation inside the quotation marks. I'm not gonna harp on that too much.
This is just one long run-on, so change it to:
Now there was still few hours till everyone would be up, but there was still plenty of holiday decorations that could be put up! Even though she had almost all the decorations for the season. Minty had garlands of pine hung with lights, stars, hearts, and socks. She even had a bright cheery candle hung over the mantle, with a giant pile of socks right in the middle of her table.
Change to:
"Minty. Minty. Minty! You can't expect to decorate for Christmas when it's still dark outside!" Thought Pinkie, giggling to herself as she started out towards The Tallest Tree in. "But she does have a good idea, we need to get an early start if we are to make this the greatest Christmas in Ponyville"
Change to : It was a good thing too, everyone was busy finishing decorations on Ponyville. As she passed by she saw Wysteria , Forsythia, and Valenshy who were finishing the decorations on their flower shop. On her left Starbeam and Desert Rose were finishing decorations on Desert Rose's house. Need to remove the excess details. Bogs up the story something fierce.
Woah Pinky, don't let anyone see your wark cock
les, by anyway. Change to: Oh it warmed the bottom of her heart to see her pony pals taking such joy in the season. Minty may like Christmas, and Rainbow Dash excitement and fashion, but this pony just loved seeing her friends enjoying themselves.Change to :"Heya Pinkie!" The green pony said with a goofy smile on her face. "Now I can definitely say that today is Christmas! So what do you need me to do? Decorate the castle? The sweet shop? Oooh ooh oooh... The tree again right?" You REALLY need to remove all the parentheses from the story. They offer unneeded details and sometimes confuse the readers.
DAMN PARENTHESES! Change to: "I know... I know... " She responded her mood becoming a little depressing. Minty thought back to last time that she tried to decorate a tree. She somehow ended up breaking all the ornaments, even those that weren't in the bag of ornaments she fell on. "C'mon Pinkie! it's almost Christmas and so much needs to be done! And the Extra Special 'Here Comes Christmas Candy Cane' isn't even made yet! I want to make this Christmas extra special especially since this is the first year we will be joined by our pegasus friends!"
If you have time, go through your story and remove all Double Spaces, Parenthesis Statements, and generally all Excessively Detailed Statements. Also, Change some of the commas to periods and start new sentences. If you are doing any thoughts like
Don't use the double quotation mark ("), use the single quotation mark (') and Italics. If you are going to fill in details that are ACTUALLY IMPORTANT to the story such as
Try to word it as if they are thinking back on something. Try to write it like this:
Cotton Candy replied. "Besides I'd rather you not help decorate after what happened last time" Cotton Candy thought as she remembered back to the last time she tried to decorate a tree. It resulted in Rainbow Dash and Sunny Daze vowing never to speak to each other again! If never actually meant six weeks that is.
Never write any number below 100 as "6 or 2 or 78," write them out like "six or two or seventy-eight"
If you just follow this advice the rest of your story should be good. I'll try to go through the story and see if there are any mistakes, but no promises. I honestly would recommend a REWRITE and just add it to a GoogleDocs. Its honestly a lot easier to just edit in GoogleDocs becuase if anyone suggesting something all you have to do is click a button and it changes to whatever they recommended.
If you need any help just PM me.
6488794
Ok sure. I'll go ahead and take a look, and shoot you a PM if I have any additional questions or issues (I already shot you one, regarding a google docs/process question, but I thought I would also reply here.)
awesome story, and by the way, as a wise old pony told me, don't listen to the haters, they are only jealous
7063959
Thank you very much.
And I gladly submit myself to your wise guidance.
And, as always, any improvement suggestions are welcome.
Minty is a changeling? Why?
7196672 In the story 'verse, or do you mean more of an existensial 'why did you write this story'?
For the first, please break spoiler tag.
She merely assumed the identity of the original Minty since infantcy (blame a failed assassination attempt... by somepony... and Discord's magic), if you want, I can go into greater detail.
For the second, I should write a blog post. But in brief spoilers, I started writing this story when The Generation that even Time Forgot, and both of the sites other major G3 crossovers (both involving Minty) went onto hyatus: A Very Minty Summer Sun Celebration By Zeboid, and A Very Minty Harth's Warming Eve By Violet CLM.
Basically I went through a boit of depression, and decided that I needed to write my own.
It just so happened that my Brother, at that time, was reading Mirror Image, and a couple other mane six is a changeling stories. And since Mirror Image is kind of dark in the early chapters, and I got the concept for this one as a fix fic on that one based mainly on the spoilers I could get from my brother's head since I didn't read beyond the first chapter.
So basically, I thought it would be a fun concept to play off of: a cross generational crossover where one of the G3 ponies (the most interesting one, in my opinion), is a changeling.
So in short, it's a multigenerational crossover combined with a fix fic that kind of took on a life of it's own.
Does that help? Or did I answer the wrong question?
looks intresting but im gonna the athors opinion to weither or not i read this
8719844
Ruh roe, did I goof? (Definitely if something seems to close to something else then I'll definitely have to fix the issue as well.)
8719858
sorry poor wording on my part i meant do you think i should read this
8719861
I think it’s good, but only if you like long reads. I’m inexperienced so there probably are pleanty of places for improvement, but I still think it’s a good read. Definiately if you run into issues don’t be affraid to let me know.
8719875
roger roger
8719875
i am sorry to report the story couldnt hold my attention
8721232
No worries. Thanks for taking a look for me
Anything that I could be looking into to improve it's readability/retention?
8721302
setng the stake way to high i mean the set up is that minty is this godling and everyone ones her on thier side not exactly a good read if the whole story is just a power grab
8721309
ok. That's what I was afraid of (which is one of the reasons I asked about Sues). So intro and premise need a rewrite.
Do you have any suggestions that you can recommend, or would a complete rewrite be something that would be needed to fix the issue, potentially?
8721315
have the arua (if you keep that) be the signal that the dimensions are breached thats fine but have it be a natrual phenominon or have that guy with the potion instead have a portal to g4
8721325
Ok, I'll start there!
Thanks again for taking a look for me, and letting me know about that issue! (I suspected there might be an issue because the story had the same general interest level as a Daryl Castle presidency, but I could never figure out why.)
Would it be useful to me to look into making a third editor request with a concentration on sue removal and unnecessary content removal?
8721344
i would als look into a prereader to help find faults with the story before it comes out
8721347
ok, I'll look into that as well for next time.
Thanks again for taking your valuable time, not just to do some reading, but also to answer some of my questions!
8721385
no problem and thanks for the follow
8721392
You are most welcome!
I was also probably going to take a moment to take a peek at your continuation of Teaching Lies: Teaching Lies (The Continuation). I have the original in "read later" folder so now might be a good excuse for me to go ahead and take a peek at both stories.
8721403
thanks tho just a heads up im not that good a writing
Chapter numbers and dates are all out of whack. Did you write parallelly several (side)stories, but decided to post 'em all in the same story page? So, next update will be between 7-6 and o4-1? Or between other chapters?
8731349
Yeah, I think you are right, the optional chapter prefixes are kind of inconsistent (I recently tried fixing the notation on chapters to be more clear then Chapter 1 Part 1, Chapter 2 Part 7, etc...)
It also sounds like my notation is confusing with regards to chapter ends: Chapter 7-6 is the final part of chapter 7 (chapter 7 part 6)
What would you recommend?
EDIT: I'll probably change the titles back to Chapter 1 Part 1: ..., Chapter 2 part 7: ... instead of the shorter notation I changed them to.
8731480
No, I understand that Chapter 7-6 means Chapter 7 part 6.
Oh, yes. I was confused there. Thanks for clarifying there. I was confused mainly because chapter dates are weird, I guess that's date of modification, not date of publishing. As for advice... Maybe make general notation, like, "Chapter 4-4: Meet the G4 ponies!" and then "Interlude 5-1: Rarity's story"? I dunno, I'm not a writer.
8731596
Sorry for the confusion
And I'm glad I could clarify for you 
I think I created the issue when I split the bigger chapters into 6-8k chunks. Next time I do chapter splitting, I'll probably replace the original chapter with a new, identical one, so that the modified dates aren't so confusing.
how does santa work in this world?
I wonder why the author vanished in 2018 that is when the story stopped.
The story is so difficult to read, I can't understand what's happening.
AHA-