Well this was one baller of a story! I cannot wait for the sequel and felt like my thumbs up was appreciated! Keep going for the gold.

Now I'm curious what is in that letter!

Well, I suppose I must be blunt, the fic as a whole does well enough, but what would have made it stand out has been lost in the later chapters, replaced in favour of a romance between an OC and back ground pony. The original concept was what caught my attention, and I feel that you could have fulfilled it. A romance between Linen and Colgate would not have required such a setup if it is only going to be as irrelevant as you suggest it will be.
Simply put, the end result is good enough, but I believe that you could have done much better than what this fic became.

I hope that your romance fic does well.
BlackWinter

2066749 You are correct: I felt that sometime in the writing, I ended up losing focus on what it could have been, and by the time I had reached that point, I just felt like I couldn't do the concept justice anymore. On top of that, I actually wondered just what exactly I could have done with it without it ending up in just pure smut or outright vitriolic retaliation against those involved. Not one of my best ideas, but then again, I guess every author has at least one.

2066758

A pity, still if you felt that that boundry of your abilities could not be pushed to fulfill the concept I suppose that this was the most prudent solution. I would disagree, I feel that you are indeed capable, but it is better that this was the result rather than a bad fanfic.

Thank you for taking the time to reply and to write the story.
BlackWinter

Personally I enjoyed every bit of this story. I know I'm not the only one to see Linen again, theres some good potential with him and Colgate(plus noone writes about her enough)
Looking forward to any sequel you have in mind

Good stuff right here. Finally got around to reading it, and I have to say that I liked it. Not the best work I've ever read, but pretty good. I really want to know what that letter said, but I know what it's like to have to think up the contents of a letter from the point of view of an author. A solid piece of writing, and a fairly good plot. Both kinds of plot, that is.

Would like to see more of this, eventually.

AVANTE!
-Jet Howitzer

I have to agree with what's been said already. Very strong start, very strong premise; but it loses it all in the second half. Others may disagree, but I think it started as soon as Linen suddenly began thinking differently about Colgate. However, the point where it fell apart was with the apology note and when he allowed Pinkie into his house. Though still shy, he almost seemed to forget he was supposed to be deathly afraid of interacting with others.

From that point on, the story felt forced and rushed for the sake of completion. This is especially true in the sudden revelation of Colgate - who not only lead the events, but had forced herself on Linen repeatedly - had now been very caring and protective during the initial rape sequence; as well as that to Linen, that fact alone seemed to make Colgate's actions acceptable.

There was a lot of potential in this story, but it was lost in shifting to a romance. To be honest, I'd say it was practically wasted, what with your announcing that the sequel will barely even acknowledge what Linen went through. If what you want is a "budding love" between Linen Spool and Colgate, I truly feel you'd be better off removing the rape entirely from this story. Don't get me wrong; having him arrive at the beginning of the estrus cycle, the chase, the capture, the escape, etc. can still work. However, the dark aspect of having Linen actually be raped by the entire town - and especially by his future partner - is detrimental to the lighthearted direction this story seems to be moving toward.

Loved the concept, liked the beginning and quite honestly was disappointed with the end. However, I realize that you had simply lost interest in the story, or at least was unhappy on how it was turning out, and the fact that you still finished the story despite that makes you one of my more favorite authors.

2237231 Yes, I realized I wasn't really too content with how it turned out. It's a dark premise, but for some reason, I couldn't make myself write it, because as much as I thought the idea was good, my train of thought wouldn't allow it to end on a dark/sad/unhappy note, so it sort of... derailed and ended up at this instead.

It was an experiment, a failed one at that, but I'll simply let this sit to show what I had for it. Beyond that I'm not really a fan of writing new stories to override old ones, so maybe some day I'll be in the right state of mind to come back to this story and rewrite it from scratch.

2237296
Like I said, I really liked the idea of the story and you had done a good job in the beginning. I think the main issue was, and I think this was pointed out by another commenter, that you had made him out to be terrified of mares, but he seemed okay with the presence of the six.

Also for not being able to write dark fics, I understand completely. If you are gonna rewrite this though, I would suggest that you keep the him not blaming them part, but make him terrified of the mares. Can still make it a happy ending too.

2237296 well i still think it was good. Even if you did not meet your goal i still think it was a good story. Give yourself the credit you earned good friend.