This story is a sequel to Rainbow is Magic S2: Love Hearts and Bug Eyes
Princess Cadance's past is a mystery, especially to herself. After Celestia and Luna sense a surge of Dark Magic in the far frozen north, Cadance and her wife go to investigate along with Rainbow Dash and the other bearers of the Elements of Harmony in order to deal with it, and hopefully uncover the truth of Cadance's hidden past.
Unfortunately, waiting for them is a dangerous new enemy, one with one goal in mind: revenge.
Chapters (5)
Candace has a wife in this universe? Or is it supposed to be husband
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wife, detailed in the direct prequel to this story ;3
Okay guessing time,
Sombre either jealous-brother
Or ex-lover
Or or evil dad/step-dad
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and remember that SOmbra's a dragon in this story
9627319
True
Okay WTF and
Spike: I need an adult
Sombra: I am an adul-
Spike: who isn't insane
Also looks like I was wrong about the whole Cadence brother/Dad/Step Dad/Uncle twice removed thing.
9640239
XD yeah SOmbra dn Cadance's connection is basically supposed to be purposely mirroring rainbow/canon!twilight's relationship with spike
hope you liked it!
Well, this is looking fun and interesting, but it is seriously let down by your first major plot hole in this AU. The Elements vanished. They very clearly had them at the beginning of the story, but they mysteriously disappeared once the plot got going. Instead of pulling on the Elements after the train got tossed when things were looking like they were about to get ugly and blasting Sombra the moment he proved himself an asshole, they just sort of cease to exist.
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yeaahhh uhhh I...I'll be honest, I forgot and didn't think to recheck (a problem I still have trouble dealing with as a writer). MAYBE I can write something in a later chapter about it that'll fix it (or go back and edit earlier chapters to mention why the Mane Six don't just use the Elements to beat Sombra).
Granted, the question "why didn't they use the Elements" DID pop into my head before reading this comment, so its not like I'm blind. I'm just dumb XP
9698228
Yeah, I think this is one of the few cases that legitimately calls for editing in fanfiction because it is jarring enough to knock readers completely out of the story.
As for ideas, I do have one although I'm admittedly not happy with it because it's still kinda dumb. Only one car got thrown, so you could say the Elements along with the rest of their bags were in another car. That creates obvious problems with it not making sense to separate themselves from the Elements, but you might be able to get around it if you can very temporarily split them off into a dining car or something to make it a nasty coincidence which powers the story.
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I finally got around to fixing it so it should be a bit better now, gonna look through the third chapter now to see if anything needs fixing there too. sorry for the long wait.
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Well, this does correct the immediate problem, but you need to be aware you created a narrative obligation to explain why the Elements got shut down at some point in the story.
Given the power of the Elements, my preference is that the extreme load of dark magic put them in a semi-dormant state half way between their normal idle and the rocks they started as. As such, they're still perfectly usable and will fire up just fine when needed because Sombra unambiguously does not have the ability to overcome them. That means the biggest functional difference is that Sombra can't sense them until they activate, but the protagonist's perception of the situation still adds narrative tension. From a story structure perspective, I'd have them go for the heart, fail, and then pull out the Elements as last resort for a maximum tension clutch win. Also, it sets up an amusing epilogue when they realize they could have won easily by pulling them out in the first confrontation.
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oh don't worry, I already have ideas, I didn't just pull this out of my butt to handwave things XP this falls in neatly into things I already planned for this story anyway
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Yeah, I figured that was the case. I just wanted to bring it up now to make sure we don't have to repeat this process later on.
...Well, I downloaded and read this on my Nook, and when I got back fimfic had just gone down so I couldn't comment. Add in a bunch of other stuff popping up in the interim, and I only half remember this chapter. As such I can't give the best feedback on this, but my general memory is that this chapter was more about laying the foundation for the story to build on than progressing the story and did it well so I have no complaints there. Sorry I can't leave better feedback, but life happens and leaves us here.
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no worries
Well, I just finished this, and you failed to make good on the narrative obligation with the Elements you created earlier. That's a serious hole in the fabric of the setting with implications beyond this story. Once again, I think you need to make edits to fill this plot hole.
If you don't want to rewrite this entire chapter to go back to your original plan and show it directly, you might be able to get away with a short scene that invokes my earlier idea that there was nothing wrong with the Elements. This would probably involve having a princess question them about the Elements, find out that they never tried to use them, and suggest that they probably could have just broken out the rainbow laser in spite of the recolor for an easy win.
Beyond that, I also wasn't particularly thrilled with what you did with Sombra. He was just fine being dead at the end of this, and the way you had him immediately hatch, say nothing changed, and fly off with no consequences really cheapened the ending. This is another area I think needs some serious rethinking, although my preference would be to have Flutters turn him into an omelet for a fun bait and switch.
Finally, this really needed another editing pass because there were a lot of glaring grammatical errors that made it hard to read, especially in the second half of the chapter.
I'm sorry I can't be more positive since these stories are generally rock solid, but this one has some serious flaws that need to be highlighted.
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it's fine, I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it that much, I hope what I have planned for alter well make up for it and I'm not going through a period of 'seasonal rot' as Tvtropes calls it
however, It should be noted that 1) the group only brought the Elements because they were explicitly a precautionary tactic and they always bring them along when they go out together now 2) I have always planned for SOmbra to not die (as his giant form is largely construct of made from the Shadow) and 3) there's actually a reason I didn't simply kill off Sombra here which you'll see in a bit.
Whether or not any of that helps is another matter, I'm just saying I have reasons and didn't just make arbitrary decisions.
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No, that really doesn't help. This is exactly the kind of situation the Elements are a precaution for, and the way that you sidelined them felt very arbitrary. There are ways to do that right, just like there are ways to do Sombra surviving right, but this was definitely not it.
Remember, if you have to break out the "I planned to do it" excuse, it means something has gone horribly wrong.
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well sadly, it's not an excuse, just an explanation. If I think of a way to change it to a better way, I will, but I need a bit of time to think because I need to be sure of how to go about editing things cause it'd require me to shift a lot of events, and I also wanna wait and see if it's a problem for anyone else before I go about meddling with the story (don't wanna fall into the same trap the Lunaverse has fallen into with regards to editing stories for no reason). As of right now, I'm sorry I disappointed you and hope this didn't put you off my stories :c
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That's fair, and for what it's worth, I'll definitely keep reading. It takes a truly spectacular fuckup for me to completely abandon an author over a single mistake, and this is nowhere near that line.
As for the lunaverse, their problem is groupthink. I was briefly active on their forums and got caught in one of the most spectacular balls of idiocy I've ever seen. The short version is that RDD said something that didn't match the setting (specifically, he claimed it was after the industrial revolution instead of the dawn of it where it's consistently portrayed), I pointed out he was wrong, and I got dog piled with a mountain of hilariously nonsensical shit because no one could admit he said a silly thing. To give you an idea of the scale of stupidity, RDD tried to ignore the fact that Trixie was Luna's student and I had to repeatedly rub that basic pillar of the setting in his face before he shifted to assassinating Luna's character rather than admit he said one thing that didn't make sense.
Oh, and regarding the scale of fuckup it takes to turn me off, I still read the Lunaverse even after that. I just don't comment any more now that the largely inactive GrassAndClouds2 (who I gave leeway to because he was not part of that discussion and got similar abuse over the gala story) ignored my feedback on his latest story after explicitly saying he was open to it and willing to make edits to fix the kind of issue I pointed out in blog comments.
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I sees o3o
I'm just imagining Cadance face-hooving at Sombra's motive.
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she might were she not overhwlmed by horror over everything else
also HI! haven't heard form ya in a while : 3
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I know! Hello😸
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hope you're doing fine : 3 also responded t your emssages in the forum, sorry it was a little late but you know Fimfic doesn't notify on forum posts.
anyway hope you're enoying this installment in the AU!