Reality is a lie. That's the one truth I've learned over the eons as the Spirit of Knowledge. Each life is held by a cosmic thread, and I just so happen to have the scissors. Reality is a lie: it can be bent with but the slightest of efforts. And with one modicum of effort, I can take a unicorn from her five best friends. With one final effort, I can bring her to her own personal hell – a world without her. And unlike Discord, I do this for “knowledge”. But where are my manners? My name is Metus. And you, Twilight Sparkle, are about to know what hell is: where your friends are not who they appear, where sun is forever set, and where there is no such thing as “good” and “evil”. Welcome to the other side of the mirror.
Chapters (3)
looks intresting
gonna read
Intresting summary there, 'Reality is a lie'. That caught the most of my attention.
Story seems quite cool to read!
Oh, and FIRST!
this seems really cool and interesting, cant wait for more!
This is pretty grand so far, interested in seeing how it goes.
Only a few typos
Very interesting... very, very interesting indeed.
I shall be watching closely, I hope to see more of this soon.
583219>>583224>>583296>>583591
Thanks guys!
583389
Can you point out where? We must've missed them
Heh, there ain't much to add to what I've previously commented on the pre-reading.
Expect I didn't witness no changes at all... Then again I did offer you really anything.
Oh, one sort-of mistake caught my eye:
“High-ho, silver, away!” <---- Spike
"Hi-yo, Silver! Away!" <----- Lone Ranger (original one)
Don't know if you intentionally referenced the phrase.
BTW; waiting for the cover with immense anxiousness
Yeah. There are a few typos. I also like this Metus character alot.
“How can you not-” Speak cut himself off to take a deep breath. I think you meant "Spike".
This, and you gave me an idea for a new vilain. "The string weaver". Thanks for the idea!
Stalin asked me to give him a critical review, so here I am with my pernickety paragraphs of curmudgeonly comments. I'll point out a few mechanical and stylistic things, and then try to say what I can about the story itself. This review is brought to you by my new favourite song.
LINE-EDITING
*subjective. Typo in the first sentence... that doesn't make a great impression.
Be careful of these kinds of constructions. They're delicious and I use them a lot too, but in this case the sentence makes it look like the librarian was strolling as he stood up, but I assume you really meant that he stood up and then went for a stroll.
Methinks a comma should go after "muttered". Not sure if I've said this before, but it's a good idea to read your work aloud and use your natural pauses to place commas.
Other? Why "other"? You haven't mentioned any ponies until now.
Comma splice. The word "instead" is not a conjunction.
If I've told you to do this sort of thing before, I apologise, because joining adverb–adjective pairs with hyphens is a very old-fashioned thing that I often did until a few months ago.
Missing close quote.
Try to avoid numerals in narrative. You could just leave out "3D" as it's already been stated, or you could write three-dimensional.
Be consistent about species-name capitalisation! If you're going to capitalise them like Tolkien does, say Dragon, Pony, Griffon and all the rest of that. Otherwise, do the Mass Effect thing and leave them uncapitalised – dragon, pony, griffon, etc...
You're using the interrobang character. Very swanky.
I can't imagine Spike saying that. It really doesn't sound like an expression he would use.
There are probably other errors and typos. You're certainly improving as time goes on, but there's still a lot of room for further improvement. Get together with your editor and give this chapter another sweep.
OVERALL
I always have a hard time of finding things to say about such short introductions to stories, because there's just so little to comment on. That's especially true in this case, and I think that's a fault in itself. This chapter is too short, and that's not because it's only two thousand words, but because of what it does with those two thousand words.
In the first chapter of Dirge of Harmony, you established the main villians and gave Cauterium a complete encounter with Twilight. He walked up to her, talked to her, and then left her ruminate on it and later speak about with her friends. Then, to cap it all off, you revealed the true nature of what Cau was up to in the final scene. In short, that chapter was a complete substory with an introduction, some conflict and a conclusion.
That's not really the case here. We have the introduction of Metus, Twilight waking up in the forest, and then a bunch of things happen in rapid succession and it's all rather confusing. I get that you were setting up a cliffhanger, but the thing about cliffhangers is that they can sometimes be more frustrating than captivating, and that's often linked to how early on in the story you put them. It takes time for a reader to really get invested in a story, and cliffhangers rely on reader-investment. Of course, all readers are different, but I see two possible reactions to the end of this chapter:
1) The reader is intrigued and faves the fic in eager anticipation for the second chapter.
2) The reader is confused and drops the story.
Given the kind nature of the FIMfic audience, you'll probably get more of the first than of the second, but the second type is still out there.
Basically, the only issue I can see at the moment (and this is a quick review done after a single read-through) is that this is a bit short and therefore quite confusing. I'll meditate on it and comment again if I can come up with anything else to say.
585176
Thanks, Ezn! You're a great help! We shall edit all of those and i shall think about prolonging chapter... but it will be oo late anyway
585176
585210
Indeed, as Stalin's co-author, I thank you.
Also, the interrobang is my favorite punctuation mark. I used in my fic, so I brought it over to Stalin's. I think it's super swanky, too! "‽"
Also, how do you create those little indented boxes around your quotes? I want to do those; can you share with me the code to allow me to make those?
Good start. It seems interesting, and the idea of the "Librarian" watching over different planes of reality is an intriguing one. I look forward to more
585210
Don't worry too much about a few dislikes. Pretty much all stories have at least one. You can't please everypony.
585240
It's a great mark, if a nonstandard one. I use it in hopes that it may one day catch on enough to be official recognised by everyone.
Super secret BBCode I learnt from a shadowy hacker-poet. I'll forever wonder why it isn't documented somewhere.
[ quote ]Text here[ /quote ] (without the spaces, obviously)
lol, i forgot to reply after i was done reading.
But seriously, this was a very good read; especially for the first chapter. The only faults were, in my opinion, a few grammatical and spelling errors, such as setting something that should be in present into past tense.
Still, i liked it; a lot.
I'm tracking this.
585400
Thanks again, Mister Jameson :)
585663
Thanks! And for a tip too!
585556 Please, call me Mr. Pickles
Some mistakes that I had found:
For it is the Ethereal Plane that scholars argue over, whether it exists it or is a myth.
Is that extra it supposed to be there?
This being was a sculptor of fates, a wielder of destiny, and like all beings from the Ethereal Plane, a bit of trickster.
Maybe put an a after of and before trickster?
“Well if it isn’t Twilight Sparkle?”
Why is there a question mark there? It isn't asking "Is that Twilight Sparkle?" so you might want to make that a period or an exclamation point.
“Yes, yes you would serve my nicely.”
Either change my to me or put something after it.
“You would think being the Elements of Magic would destroy your anonymity, but not so.”
Might want to change that to Element.
“You know? I think you’ve just given me an idea.
First, you might want to put what after know, or just keep it, it's up to you.
Second, where are the end quotations?
THe droplet impacted the left cheek of a mare lying beneath the tree.
Why is the h in the capital?
His right leg swayed in the air, just waiting to be spied by either of his two puppets below.
Might want to make that spotted, but that's up to you.
“Will be!”
Make that I will or will do.
That's all I could find right now.
Time for a quick overview/review!
Originality: 10/10 I don't think I have found any story quite like this!
Descriptions: 10/10 Pretty well done. Giving us both details on all the minor things and major things.
Chapter Length: 9/10 The length itself is good, but the ending is a little lackluster at best for me.
Original Characters: 10/10 Once again you have given me original characters that are original in both design and purpose.
Overall: 9.5/10 A great intro to the story! Can't wait to read more!
586980
Thank you very much for pointing all these mistakes! :)
For some reason, Shattered Reflections sounds like the title of a video game. Cool Story Bro! Just kidding. I wouldn't do that. The description is a wonderful hook, and it certainly drew me in! Great job on the cover picture. The font this time is really cool. Is the guy next to Twilight Sparkle a slenderman? He certainly looks like it. Is the chapter thing in russian? Or is that german? Did I mention that I'm at school right now? Yeah...I should probably get back to my research paper.
590528
Well, if you cant tell russian from german than you have problems bro :) just kidding. It's german. And why won't you read story itself? :)
590730I am going to read it right now. I was just at school...so yeah.
Ah, a new story from Stalin the Stallion is always a welcomed sight.
The idea seems pretty interesting, a single entity who can control fates if he wishes to. And he's going to observe Twilight's reaction to a different reality.
Speaking of which, the antagonist(If he is one) was portrayed very well, showing what kind of character he is. I'm definitely going to look forward to scenes with Metus involved. Twilight and Spike seemed pretty accurate.
Overall, the story is engaging. I'll make sure to keep a look out for more of it.
I haven't found really that many grammar errors, and the people above already covered a lot of them. So I'm not too good at those. I did find one that wasn't mentioned and it looks a bit confusing.
“I... I don’t know.” A pause. “I-we were our beds, then...” She shrugged. “I dunno.” ~~ Not sure if you planned it like that, but normally there should be an 'in' between the 'were' and 'our'. But, as said before, you could of planned it like that to make her sound more nervous, so I'll be quiet.
600991
Thanks!
Oh my stars, this is epic. I mean, by the sisters above, I don't know how to describe how much awesomeness this one chapter holds. You just started and I'm like..."FINISH THE NEXT CHAPTER OR I"LL RIP YOUR LIMBS OFF!"
Sorry, about that. It's just, I'm so excited. This new being, what is he? I know, I'll be asking myself that question all throughout. Is he a being of another universe, was he created when the world began. Is he a being of darkness and why did he teleport Twilight and Spike there? I must know.
And then the Changelings. I love that race and any story with them in it is going to be great. (Hopefully, you won't make them out to be all just heartless monsters. That would annoy me, but thank goodness nobrony's gone that route...yet.
)
Until next time,
Sincerely,
Evo
P.S. Hy-yo Silver, Away....*facepalms* I should have seen that one coming.
601222
Heh, thanks, but how ya gonna know when next chapter will come out w/o tracking the story? :)
This story looks interesting. This new being erased Twilight's known existence in the the universe and put her back(thankfully with Spike) as a complete stranger...for knowledge...I like this guy!
Why do super powerful cosmic entities always choose to mess with 'mortals' live as their primary source of entertainment? Read a book or something.
Kidding aside, I like where this new story is heading. Keep up the good work man.
603222>>605030
Thanks!
So, you officially gave me TWO ideas for new vilains thanks to Metus. I already have the name of the first one on my previous comment, and a musician. Maybe I'll ask you to draw them in the near future?
By the way, WHY DOES EVERYTHING KEEP GIVING ME IDEAS?! Thank you.
606496
Happy for you :)
Welp, time to pop in my copy of "Shattered Reflections" Into My Fimtendo! Hopefully, the wait was worth it.
Alright, start the game, new game. Nice title screen! I like it. Hey...that character in the middle reminds me of ANOTHER character...What was his famous quote...
shigeruslist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/fawful.jpg
"I HAVE FURY!"
Must be the face. That smile dont help neither. Actually, I like that guy's cool.
Now then, time to start the game!
So okay, Starting off the game with the character I just saw in the title screen! Nice! Now show me what you're doing,...Mr. Spirit of Knowledge! Oh wow! Okay, NOW I know WHO he is...hey, what're you doing with Twilight?
He talks to himself....does he hears answers back? Hope not, 'cause I already have that problem.
Although he's nothing like Cau is in my favorite Fimtendo game "Dirge of Harmony", with a whole mystery behind him, he's still pretty cool. But not all characters hafta be mysterious. So I'll leave it be for now.
----------
Now we start the game As Twilight Sparkle and Spike. Okay, I'm stuck in Everfree forest I'm guessing and--Oh crap! Changelings off the port bow! Trying to Spawn camp me, you little--
Oh crap! Who're these guys? Are they both trying to kill me? I gotta get Twilight Outta here! Only got three lives!
PAUSE GAME.
Before I play the game, lemme hit the Bathroom...
I'm here, expect the same deal as last time. I'll tell you what's bad and what's good in that order. The bad, grammatical errors first:
Above the Ethereal Plane, the skies are locked in eternal twilight; beneath it lies an endless field of blackness and shadow. Here in the Ethereal Plane there are no gods, only being – or rather a being.
That first 'being' should be 'beings' I think.
This being was a sculptor of fates, a wielder of destiny, and like all beings from the Ethereal Plane, a bit of trickster.
That last part should be 'a bit of a trickster.' Also, the comma after Ethereal Plane should be removed or a comma should be put after and. It's better to use less commas, though.
The librarian was vaguely hominid but build like a spider.
Built like a spider. Or 'with a build like a spider.' Whichever one feels better to you.
“Yes, that would make sense. But what about ‘The Divide Comedy’?”
I tried searching for The Divide Comedy, but I found nothing. Are you sure you didn't mean The Divine Comedy? Or it may be a story related thing. Either way, titles of books, plays, and publications should be be written in italics, not in quotation marks.
The image swirled about as if attached to a fly
This isn't an error so much as it just doesn't make sense. If I stop to think about it, I guess it makes sense. But the description really brought my brain to a halt. I'd try to find some other way to say the image in the ball swirled.
The librarian's eyes sparkled like a thousand sound glistening off the surf.
I've never seen a sound sparkle. Also, it should be plural if there's a thousand of them.
"Well if it isn’t Twilight Sparkle?”
There should be a comma after 'well'. General rule of thumb with commas; if they're not being used in a list like this, this, and this, you use them to separate ideas or unnecessary words. Do you see how 'If it isn't Twilight Sparkle?' is a sentence by itself? The addition of 'well' is technically unnecessary. It adds flavor, true, but that's just how it works. Or like this: 'The stone was blood red in color, he noticed with some anxiety.' See how the first part is a sentence alone? The comma is used here because of that. I don't know why, that's just the rules of English.
Another example of proper comma use: "You would think, given how many bad things have happened, we'd be dead." See how if you removed what's in the commas that what's left would still be a complete sentence? That's how it works. Even then, there are times when you wouldn't use a comma in that circumstance. Usually those are longer sentences. I must once again recommend a third party beta-reader to deal with this issue.
You also use commas like this; 'I see what you did there, my friend.' When the speaker refers to another person while talking to them, you use a comma. Other examples: "Tell me, Book of Time, will I succeed?" "This is delicious, wouldn't you say, Terry?" "This is all your fault, Jeb."
The final way you use commas you already seem to understand; "I'm not sure," he said with a sigh. I don't know how to explain this one, but you already grasp it. However, try to avoid as many commas as possible. You're already forced to use them to make it readable, any more will irritate readers, by which I mean the ones at Equestria Daily. Try to make sentences that don't use commas, but don't go out of your way to do so.
His eyes darted about her body as if either a starving predator of a mentally-unwell stalker. “Yes, yes you would serve my nicely.”
That 'of' should be 'or' and that 'my' should be 'me.' Unless you say 'my purpose,' in which case it would be fine.
“You would think being the Elements of Magic would destroy your anonymity, but not so.”
I think Twilight is only one Element, not multiple Elements.
THe droplet impacted the left cheek of a mare lying beneath the tree.
If you look hard enough, you should see the problem here.
Head almost imperceivable trembling,
That should be 'imperceivably.' Watch your tense.
it bark almost indistinguishable from the rows of moss and lichen on its side.
'It' should be 'its' since it's possessive.
She cough hard as she rolled onto her stomach,
'Coughed.'
As if launched by a spring, Spike leap to his feet.
'Leap' should be 'leapt.' This is a little confusing because most people use 'leaped.' It should be 'leapt, but like the 'lie vs. lay' problem a lot of people have, most can't tell the difference. In fact, the web browser Firefox doesn't recognize 'leapt' because it's so bad.
A, how do you know that; and B, why’d you ask if you already knew?
More of a formatting problem. It should be: A: how do you know that? And; B: why’d you ask if you already knew?
Their bodies make clicking, screeching noises
'made'
“Hold fast, stranger! You shall not stand alone!”
Is this meant to be a threat? You shall not stand alone actually sounds like somebody's going to help me out. If it is supposed to be friendly, then it makes no sense that Twilight and Spike would run from that. It doesn't sound like a threat at all.
"Liberty eternal!"
I'm making a wild guess, but I'm assuming this is a shout for some sort of regime. In that case, the word eternal should be capitalized.
And that's what I can find. Now, story/descriptive issues:
There is a HUGE problem with the first section of this chapter that can be noticed from the very first sentence: The nature of reality is subjective; it is a different animal to each individual pony.
Big red flag, right there. You are having the narrative tell me opinions, things that can't be proved immediately. DO NOT have the narrative tell your readers things like this. It would be one thing if Metus had been saying things from his point of view, or even if the third-person-perspective was extremely close to his point of view. As it it, the narrative is telling me how the universe works in your world. The narrative should not do that; the characters or the most basic descriptions should. The narrative should only tell the most bare facts, and even then you should try to avoid doing that as much as possible. Admittedly, this take a lot of skill to get absolutely perfect. Your characters' actions and dialogue should reveal as much as they can about your world without directly doing so. Describing color, size, placement; these are things the narrative can described without it sounding lazy or odd. Your narrative for the first fifteen or so paragraphs tells me things that can be argued with. Lines like 'Where one might have expected feet,' are hard to read because that's telling me how I or some other person not related to the story think. Don't do this. Telling me something is called the Library of Babel or where it's located is okay, but feels a lot better if a character reveals the information. Telling me Metus can't speak and uses his mind to do so is utterly pointless in the first part of the chapter; this fact should be brought up, if at all, while talking to another character by describing it from the character's point of view, however slightly in it we may be. Characters should reveal knowledge while the narrative merely organizes it.
However, this is seriously only a problem in the first part of the chapter. The rest of the chapter is decent, but could still be touched up. As I said in the other story, Spike and Twilight should be revealed to be a dragon and pony, respectively, through their interactions. Since they were unconscious when we first met them, you can get away with revealing Twilight is a pony. In fact, you do this surprisingly well by only saying she is a mare and not mentioning any of her physical features like her fur or mane color. Saying she used her hoof to wipe her cheekbone is a perfect example of doing this kind of thing correctly. But then you just out and out say Spike is a dragon, which grates on the mind. At the very least, the narrative can say he has reptilian features. The best way to do this, however, is to mention his feet, claws, and size as he's moving about or getting up. Using the mushroom the way you did was an excellent way to go about doing this. The first paragraph of second part of the chapter is a good example of how much information the narrative should reveal. Look at that for reference.
Another issue that you've fixed since working on your Pokemon story, but still need to fix here, is perspective. As I said, the narrative should really be used to organize information. Since the second part of the chapter is technically told from Twilight's perspective, Metus's name should not be known to the narrative. Don't use his name in the narrative until Twilight knows it if its in her perspective. Mentioning he's there and watching is fine, but don't do it as if it's already known who he is. Reveal it as if Twilight or Spike doesn't know
Speaking of Metus, before you revealed his name in the first part, you called him the librarian. This is okay, but the narrative just says he is the librarian. Show me he's the librarian before calling him such. Have him act like a librarian before saying he is one or calling him one. This will make it so that I already believe it and the narrative simply organizes it. However, this advice isn't very applicable in this situation. Given that Metus is a god-like librarian, there aren't many ways to show this without it being confusing. As such, you don't really need to change this, but it would help the story a lot if you could. This advice applies much more to normal situations, like in the Pokemon story with the library jokes that showed Twilight works in a library. Another issue with Metus is why he is doing this to Twilight. I can assume he's feeling as if like has little meaning to him and/or he's bored, but this should be a little more obvious or hinted at better. The reader needs to understand why Metus is doing what he's doing, though we don't need to know the reason. You do hint at his troublesome nature, but his desire to use Twilight for whatever he's doing is quite sudden. One minute, he's doing what I assume is his job, the next he's pulling Twilight out of her reality. Go into more detail about his transition into deciding to do this.
Sometimes, you have phrases or words that are too similar too close to each other. Two of Metus's lines are like this. they are:
“Look at me, talking to myself,” he chuckled. “Me, the Spirit of Knowledge, talking to myself..."
“Let’s see what it’s all about; let’s find out!”
The first line has the phrase 'talking to myself' too many times. Same thing with 'let's' in the second one. Be careful, as this sounds awkward to most readers. I know real people talk like this, and you even hear these kinds of lines in movies. On paper/written word, though, it looks weird. One exception would be Twilight's "Calm down" line. Since she and Spike are obviously frazzled, it makes sens she might do this.
Finally, as many others said, the chapter is too short for the amount information you give and stuff that happens. Though it's not really the length that's an issue, the sudden end to the chapter is really what makes this a problem. When first starting a story, you shouldn't have the first chapter end in the middle of some action. It's kind of along the same lines as to issue of assuming your audience already knows the world in the story. Things have not been established enough for there to be an action scene. I would seriously consider rewriting the end of the chapter.
There. That's what's wrong. Here's what's right:
Characterization. You got it, you nailed it, it's great. What you do reveal through the characters' speech and action is revealed nicely. Metus's trickster nature is easily seen through his speech and quirks. I feel like Twilight is Twilight and Spike is Spike. One thing I constantly stress to people is notice how character talk. Some are more likely to use certain words than other. Some use conjunctions more. Characters can have a way of talking without having an accent. Metus, Spike, and Twilight have diverse ways of talking, and that is very comfortable to read. Spike is much more likely to say "ya know" than Twilight is, and you seem to have noticed this.
I've only seen you write conversations between Twilight and Spike, but you really seem to have their dynamic down. Their conversation feels natural and keeps that story going while showing us more about them. I hope all you character interactions are something like this, even when two people are strangers. You seem to understand and write believable responses to what the characters say to each other. Like anything, practice makes perfect. It's not the best, but I'd be hard pressed to find something better that would take ages to read through. I assume you wrote this before the Pokemon story. You definitely do it better in the other story, but that's probably because you've practiced some since writing this. Considering this is already good, consider yourself without need to improve too much in that department.
Unfortunately, that's all I can say that's great about this chapter. Do not take this the wrong way: I'm an honest reviewer who says what he can about a story. What I bring up has far more to do with structure than anything else. Plot, silly as it is for me to say, is worthless without the nitty gritty details to bring it life. View plot as the skeleton and the details as meat. By that I mean your story is nice and I'm attracted the the idea and how you go about presenting it. I am interested in what happens next and want to see Twilight deal with this interesting problem. I hope to see that you handle it well.
By the way, a note somewhere about what the chapter's name is would by nice. Not necessary, but nice. I assume it's Russian, but I don't trust Google Translate to give me accurate results.
Sincerely,
The Conflicted Writer
Ah, now that's a feels good pony. This is much easier to read. So, there's a couple grammar issues and still one problem:
“Yes, that would make sense. But what about ‘The Divine Comedy’?”
Okay, you made it The Divine Comedy, but you still need italicize it and and any other title. They'll nitpick about this a EQD. Both The Divine Comedy and The Preeminence of the Ghojkin Race need to look like as I've just typed them.
“You know? I think you’ve just given me an idea.
Missing the other quotation mark.
High above in the tree was a particularly spider-like spirit,, his painted face still locked in a maniacal grin, who watched her stand up.
There's double comma.
His breaths became heavy and fast, until they morphed into full blown hyperventilation.
You can remove the comma there.
A, how do you know that? B, why’d you ask if you already knew?”
Use semicolons- the ';' symbol- instead of commas and you got it.
This new ending isn't exactly what I meant... how best do I describe the problem? The issue isn't that it's got too much action; it's that it's too soon for a cliffhanger like this. If you wanted my honest opinion, you should combine chapters one and two into one chapter. The flow would be a lot better. The problem is that the cliffhanger/transition to the next chapter is an interruption in the action. It's way too soon in the story for an interruption. You're actually kind of pushing it to have action like this so early, but you're handling it well. Either rewrite both chapters so the transition doesn't interrupt the action, or combine them both.
Now, here's what feels good;
The first part flows MUCH better now. It's still telling instead of showing a little too much, but that's really only the second paragraph and even then it's not terrible. This is something that requires practice to do perfectly, and this is a great improvement. Other than that, its much more enjoyable to read. Gah, that's a phrase I should have been using this whole time; showing against telling. Try to show more instead of directly telling. You've fixed this chapter so there's a lot more showing.
I see you revised Metus's dialogue, and it's great. I didn't even tell you to redo most of it, but you did it anyway and it feels good. This does a much better job of showing Metus's quirks and personality without shoving it in my face. Awesome, very awesome.
You fixed all the issues I talked about as this just flows a lot better. Good job!
Sincerely,
The Conflicted Writer
762545
You're just priceless :D Check out new chapter btw :D
763076
Can't wait for you to read third chapter :D
And i will follow your advice and fuse first two chapters tomorrow
763076
Funny. I wrote that line since it makes sense to me. I guess I'm just a goof.
Though perhaps it only works for me 'cause I'm a southerner/midlander
And I have replaced Princess Celestia with a lengthy allusion to Aphrodite. Hopefully, that will work better given Twilight's nerdy nature.
This is getting pretty confusing.
Could you throw us all some rope in the next chapter, so we can climb out of the quicksand?
763151
And once more, I have insulted Texas. I swear, I'm not doing this on purpose. But, that nicker issue applies here. Since I'm in California, it looks weird to my eyes. In the same sense, we don't know where Equestria is compared to... anywhere else in their world. Although, The Underworld is apparently a day's running time from Ponyville... Anyway, I'm sad to say that terminology such as this doesn't fly so well on the internet. You SHOULD be able to use your own phrases if they relate to your home or upbringing/ancestry, but that's not something we get to use here. It stinks because I actually really like the 'four corners' phrase, but everything has to be universal here. A way that you can use phrases like this is by figuring out whether or not it's uncommon enough, having a character use it, and then have the character briefly explain it.
I looked over the description of Chrysalis, and it's wonderfully creepy... but It still says she's like a corrupted Celestia.
763151
Actually, a better way to use phrases; just let characters use uncommon ones without explaining them. The narrative has to be universal, not the characters. Lucky from the second(soon first) chapter is an example of of you doing this properly. Since Lucky is obviously deranged- *punched in the face*-raised different than Twilight, we can let his dialect slide. Remember; you can do practically anything with the characters, but almost nothing with the narrative.
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I don't live in Texas nor have I even been there. I lived in the Midwest proper, now I live in the land of Sunshine. But since Applejack's accent is technically a Texan one, I figure that maybe Twilight or Spike might have pick up on a few phrase (Or maybe it's just that I have a very weird vocabulary – people constantly ask me what country I'm from 'cause my normal accent is so weird). My IRL friends never understood my "four corners" stuff, though, so I dunno. It's something of a joke base on the flat earth farce, the four corners essentially meaning, in the way I used it, dispersed to all hells (I also like saying "What in the nine hells‽" as an exclamation, so I'm trying very hard not to write that).
Yeah, Stalin was too lazy. So he went to bed (Living across the world, you see) and so he'll change it tomorrow. Let's hope that Aphrodite (Assuming, that is, that ponies picture Gods as alicorns, thought; otherwise humans might think Twilight's comparing Chrysalis to a human).
Luck is actually speaking in a thick Northumbrian accent (North English/south Scottish – though, for the story, we'll call it an uber-thick Trottingham accent). It serves only to confuse Twilight to no ends.
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My leaps in logic suck. I guess that's why they say look before you leap. I guess I'd always thought Mid-West was Texas. I got that idea because some Texas relatives of mine always said that.
Whether ponies see alicorns as Gods/Goddesses or not completely up to the author(s). If anyone tries to tell you it's supposed to be a certain way, say it's a cartoon for little girls, the creators wouldn't worry about it. This is something EQD is very cool about; personal head canons. As long as there's a line of logic leading to your assumption, EQD lets stuff like that slide.
Lucky is best failed cavalry, by the way.
There is was again, that sound. Discord glanced left towards the sound, towards the Everfree forest. “No,” he muttered under his breath, “it couldn’t be.” Thump-thump-thump-thump came the rapid sound once again.
That 'is' should be 'it.' Also, the second 'sound' is unneeded. just say 'glanced to his left.'
“But yet...”
'But' and 'yet' kind of mean the same thing, so it's almost a double negative. Replace 'but' with 'and.'
“-And so then the chocolate rain, out I had to find other sources of chocolate,
I think you mean “-And so then the chocolate rain ran out and I had to find other sources of chocolate," or “-And so then the chocolate ran out and I had to find other sources of chocolate,"
Once a pointless backwater of the edge of the Everfree,
There should be a 'town' in there somewhere.
With a snap of his talon,
'talons'
“Metus, Metus, Metus, wherefore art thou?”
If you're trying to make a Romeo and Juliet reference, it should be: “Metus, Metus, wherefore art thou, Metus?” I think. I'm pretty sure, but I'll admit it if I'm wrong.
a rather gravelly voice from behind Discord,
There needs to be a 'said' somewhere in there.
There, sitting on a fence, was the gangly form of Metus, whose painted smile and nigh faceless face stared back at him.
Not a huge deal, but EQD will rag you mercilessly over commas. Remove that one after Metus. Another rule of thumb with commas; you can have a couple extra in the dialogue because of the way some characters talk, but try to use as little as possible in the narrative. Even in dialogue, try to avoid them.
You shouldn’t be able to get past my shields.”
Another 'lie vs. lay' issue: past vs. passed. It should be 'passed' here. Look up the difference to know how to use them.
, in the tones of one who knows for a fact that is his smarter than anyone else within earshot.
First, there's a couple typos you should be able to see. Second, too much showing vs. telling. This sentence should be simpler.
See, I didn’t just find you at random, I hunted you down; and now I’ve got you marked for death.”
You could separate this into two sentences and it would flow better.
Er... well, it's kinda hard to point out, but that huge section of italicized quotes Metus is saying? There's a 'Discord Blinked' and a 'Metus giggled' in there that shouldn't be italicized.
And thought I screamed ‘till my soul was numb,
'though'
It’s not like that time gonna make a difference.”
Need an 'is' in there or the contractive word 'time's.'
“I’ve finally trapped you in my own little Xanatos Gambit, brother.
The use of 'Xanatos Gambit' is strange here. I know it's become a writing term on the internet and even beyond that, but you do know who Xanatos is, right? He's a character from that cartoon show back in the nineties, Gargoyles. I'm not ragging on you for using literature terms; that's Metus's thing and it works for him. But this term isn't applicable here considering the context of Xanatos.
Step by step and Schritt für Schritt
Again, the narrative is doing too much. The narrative is not a character and shouldn't do things like this unless relevant to the plot or character.
Another blinked,
Just 'blink', given the context of the paragraph.
And all the whiles the voices kept gnawing at her.
'All the while'
“Twilight, we need to get out of hear.
'here'
We. Need. To. Get, Out. Now.”
There's a comma where there should be a period.
“You know what? I agree.” She ran a hoof through her mane. I just don’t know anything anymore.”
Missing a quotation mark in there.
I’m sure that just outside this dumb forest is.”
This sentence cuts off rather abruptly.
With his dark-blue mane and state-blue coat, he looked more like a natural denizen of the forest that a proper pony.
Not a grammatical error, but... well, his coat and mane color doesn't really make him seem like a forest dweller. You need to find a different way to tell me that, or find something else his physical features make him look like. Better yet, the picture can describe that he's blue, so you don't need to.
each with sharp fang and legs capable of stabbing a pony.
'fangs'
A large beast, a new one, jumped in front of the stallion:
This could be restructured to make more sense. Perhaps 'A new, much larger beast'
leathery bat-like monsters charged at me, the stallion responding by charging head-first at them in kind
Seriously, change the 'me' to 'him' and add a period at the end.
Me? Is this a self-insert fanfiction?
“A thousand thanks, miss,”
Capitalize Miss if you're going to do the same with the next one. Also, there is too many uses of the word in this paragraph.
Spike shook his head at Twilight, scrunching up his left eyes.
I believe Spike only has one left eye.
“I used to know a guy by that name, looked just like you too.”
A pause. Spike shook his head at Twilight, scrunching up his left eyes. “What do you mean you don’t know him?”
These two statements seem to conflict. Am I imagining it?
“Smack-dab in the Everfree forest, Spike.
'Forest' should be capitalized since it's a part of a title.
Noteworthy took a step back, looking at Spike.
He's taken a few too many steps back for some people's liking.
Noteworthy held out an arm,
He held out a leg, right?
“Bah, I’m just rambling at this point, sorry. I just don’t know what to say at this point...
Too many points, too close.
“Really, any sort of paternal title, including royal ones, before the capitalized noun
Need a period at the end.
There's an overabundance of commas. Try to weed out the unnecessary
Okay, story issues;
Discord knowing Metus kind of throws things off. No, it's not that they know each other; it's that Discord knows of the other universe. This might be a personal problem, but which Discord is the real one if they know that there's more than one. In that same vein, is there more than one Metus? As long as there could be (i.e. it hasn't been shown that there is only one) multiple Metus's, the exchange will seem weird.
I Am is utterly pointless at this point in the story. Unless she affects the world around Spike, it's pointless for us, the readers, to know about her. Now, I know what you're thinking. Logically, I Am would want to make her presence known as soon as she could. Unfortunately, that won't slide with readers. Unless I Am does something relevant, at least giving information pertaining to their situation as a whole or their current problem, she shouldn't be talking now.
Some readers might say your moving too quickly, oddly enough. Personally, I thinks its moving at a good pace. The real issue is that the story didn't start calm and then get action-y, so things seem to be moving fast. This may or may not be a hurdle you'll need to overcome.
That's it for problems. What's good;
I don't think I've mentioned this, but whoever wrote this comes off incredibly intelligent. Your extensive vocabulary, use of quotes, and interesting use of phrases is very noticeable. A person could get smarter reading this. I have to stop and look up English words every once in a while.
Everything that you've improved on is visible here. The character's dialogue is moving the story along, and you're not using the narrative as a crutch as much. A lot of the good things I've said from before about chapters also apply here, such as keeping them in character and making everything feel believable. I also got a little emotional when Spike was worrying about Twilight, wishing he could do something to help her. It was the powerful, at least to me. You guys keep improving, little by little, and it's noticeable.
Good introduction of Noteworthy. A little sudden, but that can be forgiven, seeing the context of what's going on. Your jokes, by the way, are also more sophisticated than what I'm used to. I liked his clever phrasing about living under a rock, they were... stimulating is the word I want. Anyway, good job for noticing that, despite the fact we the readers know from the beginning, Twilight needing to know that Ponyville was messed up.. You once again intelligently relayed information, both what Twilight and Spike needed and what we needed, through the characters' interactions with each other. Noteworthy was a good character who served a purpose.
As a reader, I must say that I'm drawn in and looking forward to more. I want to know what's going on so very much. You should feel good that your making readers feel this way, because then they'll want to come back for more.
Sincerely,
The Conflicted Writer
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That was done of purpose ,which is why Metus rails Discord for it.
While you make a good point. I must respectfully disagree with you. Discord is used past as an adverb, thus it works in this case. Definition 13. He's remarking on how Metus went beyond his shields, which he shouldn't have been able to (That's what the implication was, anyhow).
Sorry. This was actually a direct reference to Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld. One of the books has a bad guy who is very sarcastic, and "in the tones..." is how one of his lines was described.
This was done on purpose, I know very well who Xanatos is. It was a reference made in the same vain as The Divine Comedy – Metus sort of transcends any single universe is what that line was trying to imply.
Eh, this is a habit from my own fic, where the OC refers to forelegs as "arms". In pony terms, it's just easier than saying "foreleg" when referring to their... forelegs. (It's also nicer to say "wrapped in each other's arms" as opposed to "each other's forlegs".) I sometimes forget that my head-canon biology works different than other bronies'.
Not sure if Stalin wants me to say this or not, but here goes. Stalin's idea for spirits like Discord and Metus (and others like Mors and Fate) is that they are trans-universal, an ability which stems from the Ethereal Plane. This is sort of a basic principle that I'm unsure of how to word without being vague (E.G. Discord referencing knowing the other 'verse with Twilight in it).
Yay! (Ego, get off the keyboard!) No offense to Stalin, but he writes his fics in somewhat broken English, calling upon me to make everything fluid. The quotes, vocabulary, and phrases are all my doing
. I do this a lot in my own writing to the point where some people have (jokingly) complained that I'm teaching them too many new words. Stalin tells me that I'm very funny and should write a comedy; I'm glad it comes off as funny to you 
.
Thank you, once again, The Conflicted Writer. I'll get right on those edits.
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YOU the one who help us improve. A LOT. Thank you :D
My happines of working with you knows no borders
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Actually i was intended to uncover entire settin g in this chapter, but things go little off and we have 10000+ words, so we decided to split it on two chapters. Next chapter shall arrive shortly, there we will make things easier to understand :P
There. Unfortunately, it sacrifices about 47 comments, but i still remember all these people pretty well
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Ah, I see. It all makes much more sense now. There's still two things, however;
The Romeo a Juliet quote is funnier now that I understand, but it isn't quite explained properly. This is what Mater says about it:
“And you’re misquoting Shakespeare. Wherefore art thou basically means ‘why are you named as such’. Do your homework before you quote something, dear friend,”
He starts by saying Discord's misquoting, but then transitions to telling him about what it actually mean. The part about Discord saying it wrong isn't explained well enough.
Believe me, I understand the wackiness that is the theory of the multi-verse. I read Sonic the Hedgehog comics. I had actually already guessed that this was the idea. The first issue here is actually a little hypocritical. Readers already know what to expect from Discord, and this information about him being a multidimensional being kind of goes against that given he was able to be trapped in stone. The second issue is that this kind of thing is really confusing for a lot of people. Once you get into multi-verse beings, things got either really strange, really confusing, or really Gary-Stuish. People will ask; if he's a multi-verse being and knows it, why doesn't he go over and free himself in the other dimension? Super Beings like this that I know about are either really evil, really crazy, or have some sort of limitation. The limitations of their powers needs to be known to solve any brain-scratching reader's will have. I mean, being called a multidimensional being really seems to imply fantastic power, and Discord can already warp reality as it is. We need to know that Discord's and Metus aren't all powerful, or at least that there's some reason they don't so things like hop over and help themselves. Or course they have limitations against each other since their brothers, but what about everywhere else?
I do understand the issue with head canon and wanting to call their forelegs arms. I still have no idea what to call clock hands, but most still call them hands. Remember that your readers are human and capable of making small leaps in logic. Saying he used a leg would be fine since the reader knows there's only so many legs he can use and only two would actually make sense. Here's another tip relating to that; it's okay to simply say someone glanced to his side as opposed to a specific direction like left or right. This doesn't apply to up, down, forward, or back, only left and right and other dualities like them. If possible, you want the reader to imagine parts of the scene themselves and not just tell them everything. This doesn't apply to when left and right are important, like when there's two levers to pull or two paths. So many things in writing are circumstantial and hard to keep track of, but these little things make it easier to read
Anyway, yes, you are super smart. Not just with what words you have, but how you use them. Your jokes are the most tasteful I've read in a long time, anywhere. Prepare your ego for this; I compare your humor to something akin to what Shakespeare might write if he existed today. That might be an exaggeration, but your sense of humor and use of words is amazing. Take Stalin's advice a write a comedy.
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People will ask; if he's a multi-verse being and knows it, why doesn't he go over and free himself in the other dimension?
Why? This is dimension where almost nobody can stop him, where he have almost all that he desired. Why he need to "free" himself in other dimension?
Anyway, can't wait when you shall look at our last story :D First few chapters arent have too much humor, but later ones does
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Like I said, the problem is hypocritical. If I could, I'd tell you to leave it as is. People just want to know these things. They crave answers to silly little questions like this, even about omni-potent beings. They'll want to know about their powers and limitations. This doesn't reflect real life at all, but everything in the story is supposed to have a point, even little blurbs. It's crazy, it's ridiculous, it's very unfair. But that's the way it is.
You don't have to describe their powers and limitations now, but maybe it's too soon to force us to know that they are, indeed, multidimensional beings. Since it's only chapter two, it could be too soon. Maybe you should leave it more open ended, so that your readers have to guess whether this is an alternate reality or a rewritten one.
Oh! Something I've been meaning to compliment you on. I don't think many people while see this, but I really like the logic of the villains that aren't Metus. You've noticed something that not many others notice; that the villains exist. By that I mean, you've noticed that even if Nightmare Moon happened, Discord and Chrysalis still would regardless of Nightmare Moon. Some might only see you as just using all the villains, but I can see you thought about this issue.