Equestria has come unstuck in time and space.
The world that Gilda Redbeak knows has detached itself from reality. The true, Platonic nature of existence has become as thin and permeable as muslin. Strange universes are superimposing themselves onto Equestria, bizarre, hollow fictions with only the vaguest resemblance to the truth. Ponies replaced with crude facsimiles, a swarm of alicorns, hordes of green-headed men, pointless invasions by inexplicably evil leaders, sneering egotists in strange costumes, perception-warpers with vast harems, contrivances on an unimaginable scale, and... humans.
If Gilda can't stop this, the entire world will be replaced by something far more sinister, and also dumber. Or worse, the strain on timespace will destroy existence entirely. Either way, she won't be able to make the loan payment on her new scone cart.
With the help of an attention-seeking showmare, a frustrated draconequus, and a deeply-confused sailor from Worcester, Gilda has to banish these false realities, one by one, before they destroy Equestria for good.
I remember pre-reading part of this! It still looks awesome.
Intense, hilarious and Trixie. I love it when you go for these action adventures, they're always so... big.
I can already tell that this won't be a story. It's going to be an experience. Eagerly looking forward to more.
Why isn't there an OC tag?
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Because it's a story about Discord, Trixie and Gilda. Any OCs aren't a big enough focus to justify the tag.
That was sufficiently awesome. (That's supposed to be impossible, ya know.)
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/37540750/_ponies/like%20this%20chapter.jpg
This was quite the adrenaline-fueled thrill ride... but... I'm kind of hoping the next chapter will slow down a bit. Action is nice, but I want to hear just what in the sam hill is a-goin' on 'round here!
Sick Sour = SIG Sauer.
I see what you did there.
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"Monkeys are dumb at names." -- Gilda
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Dumb cat-bird.
Oh boy. Are you ready? I might not be. In any case, it's time to play the game.
I am laughing way too hard at this
I love Gilda's narrative voice in this. At some point in the chapter (maybe when they fight the friggin changeling army), though, all the fighting and explosions starts to get a little old.
Trixie probably either means to say a gas chromatograph, a mass spectrometer, or a combination gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer.
I do agree with 7308713 that it sort of pushed past a narrative wall with the changeling army, and thinking back on it, it felt like the zombots were a pretty major climax (a "boss fight" of sorts). That felt like it signaled a shift in gears, but President 'Murrica offered only the barest hint of exposition before suddenly it was back to the fighting. A little more time to breathe before the next challenge would have lessened the fatigue of constant action, though I do like the implications of the changelings being in on the wider plan and the uneasy alliance they represent.
Speaking of President 'Murrica, that was just so far over the top it wrapped back around to right again. I mean, someone like Trump or Bush would have just felt like a political cheap shot, but Warren is art.
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I disagree, I think my mistake was letting there be any break in the constant action whatsoever :P
Warren as Teddy Roosevelt tines 200 was pure gold
That description is a thing of beauty.
I'm not sure when the last time I've seen in medias res give this strong a hook or this dripping with personality. The third long paragraph is the kind of thing that seems like it should be garbage, overly expository and dragged down with a ton of jargon/proper names and irrelevant detail, but feels the opposite. I blame the personality.
Between that, my wing boosters, and Sick Sour, I can take care of the rest.
If that's a pun on Sig Sauer, I like it.
Is this Conversion Bureau? It seems like it might be, but I don't think I've read any of it.
“Why the fuck did they do that?” But I couldn’t get an answer out of her on account of her being dead.
Probably different genres, but the last time I think I've felt like this with ponyfic (at least not written by you) was with Horizon's "The Iridescent Iron Rat." Is it the pulp?
Hilarious exchange between Crispy and Gilda.
"Relatively unshot," while a great measure, isn't quite up to the level I'd prefer to reach.
I’ve had too many amphetamines, too many poorly-healed knife wounds, and my missing arm itches like crazy.
"too many amphetamines and" will always remind me of your description of Philip K. Dick.
track down the interdimensional ingrown hair that’s holding this fake-universe together
I love this metaphor.
I peck him in the face before he can stab a second time,
I'm surprised how rarely I see someone have a griffin use its beak.
Cool?”
“As ice.”
--Damn it. God damn it.
Couple points here had me thinking to the chipped blade part of "Why Does This Always Happen to Me?"
“This is one of those old Big Frame Revolvers, isn’t it? Sam, get Magnum Research on the line as soon as we land, I want one of these babies in every room of the White House, and a spare in the Oval Office.” She’s got a funny voice. The words are casual, but the accent is kinda prissy. Like a drunk librarian.
That may just have had signifiers for Applejack, Rarity, and Twilight all in one paragraph. Depending, might throw Pinkie in as well.
And please, it’s Liz.”
Nice as it might be, never gonna happen.
I’ve even sat through Joe Biden’s sex tapes,
"Onion" Biden?
This Warren is reminding me of how "Badass Hillary" was a thing a couple years ago.
One merry fellow asked me to transform myself down to a twentieth of my size and weight, and render myself entirely insensate for the next twelve hours. He seemed on the level.”
Opium's a hell of a drug.
My god, 15k words of solid or damn near so action scene. That was exhausing, but between everything, no way I'm not tracking this.
****
Some possible editing things:
It’s the ponies fault, but good look getting those shiftless pastel weasels to do a damn thing about it.
"ponies' "
The Skylab is a big bastard
...
AC-130s have all fired grappling hooks into the Skylab.
--think the l's in the "Skylab"s should be capitalized
I press ‘Eject.”
Should the quotation marks match each other?
throw it in the face of the shooter as he tries to reloads
"reload"
By their side, there’s a pair of armed males who aren’t in uniform but are definitely soldiers”
Should have period, shouldn't have closing quotation mark
way of dinner with the Belgian PM and Bernie Sander’s Disembodied AI.
"Sanders's" or "Sanders' "
the Sick-Sour at his helmeted face
-"Sick Sour"
ETA: My desktop at the time I navigated to the story page, relevant due to the chapter title and all:
i35.servimg.com/u/f35/19/20/85/73/deskto10.png
Welp, it's going to be hard for anyone, ever, to top this for sheer madcap runaway express train reckless action
scenechapter.Horizon stole my joke about the action in this one going over eleven, so I'm just gonna say this was an insane read. President Warren, in particular, completely and totally blindsided me.
Looking forward to more of this, though if I may ask, maybe with a bit more relaxed pace? My adrenaline reserves can't up with much more of this.
Hey CF, by god can you write the action cheese as well as you write the smut and SciFi cheese...
Loved this so much. Can't say the action got boring at any point for me.
Bought your book by the way. Looking forward to something longer and novel length from you though. Will give you the review on amazon when I've read it.
Also yay British reference. Wustah!!!
Used to work there...
This was fucking magnificent. You are fucking magnificent for writing it. I feel fucking magnificent for having read it. MAGNIFICENCE ALL AROUND!!!!
I'm slowly making my way through your book as well. Good job on making something that makes me feel as though I should be confused (as a foreign world such as that one should make me) without actually confusing me.
This was so good it's insane. You had me at "with my non mechanical arm", and it just kept getting better.
Do you have a Patreon or something? I already bought your Amazon book, but I want to send money addressed directly to the concept of finishing this story.
God damn, this is several dozen kinds of awesome right here! Quite the beginning to a story! I wish I gotten around to reading it weeks ago, but that just means there'll be less wait time to the next one.
I do hope that gives us some back story on the media res mess you dropped us all into. I'm quite interested in learning how Gilda went from scone dealer to cyber-birdy for instance, as well as who threw a spanner into the workings of the multiverse. (I'm betting it's Twilight. Gotta be Twilight.)
Action was well done. Only points I'd like to make are first I found the use of "their" during the changeling boss battle a bit confusing, as it seemed to suggest more than one of them. Using "it" and associated pronouns would work better. Second:
Shouldn't that be "good luck"?
That was all that stood out. As I said, rest is incredibly fucking awesome, looking forward to more whenever that may be.
Please