'Prepper', is an alicorn who once saw a glimpse into the future. With a vision of disaster, her destiny changed. No longer believing that no harm could ever come to the world she knows, she began to prepare for an uncertain future.
Now a wandering caravan finds themselves welcomed, invited to come join her in her shop, 'Prepper's Place', as she tells the story of how things came to be the way they are now.
This is an 'episodic' style story that follows the dream one alicorn has of bringing love to the wasteland in her own little way. Revel as she recounts her tales, and buy her bargains at brazenly discounted prices.
Cover art was done by the magnificient Grypher, who can be found on Derpibooru. (No link this time, you might see why if you check!)
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Authors note: I had planned to keep this hidden until completion (it isn't going to be a long story, I swear!) but the fact that Grypher finished the cover art and plans to release it prompted a change of pace. Current events in the world (a certain virus) have slowed down my writing efforts, but I promise, this WILL be complete before long!
Also of note: although this is set in the same canon as Broken Bonds, the two stories will never meet, so knowledge of one will not affect the other.
Green Luna wants me in her shop. Damn, this artwork just makes it for me.
big grene
will give an in-depth read later but this must be said
Adorable.
Oh my god this is great
Loving this story so far. Eager for more!
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Just want to thank all of you for the support! Sorry I hadn't said so sooner, I just figured I'd do it in one big go like I am right now and kept putting it off because I don't have my phone logged into FimFic and every time I think about doing it? Phone. lol.
But yeah, I really appreciate it. Thank you everyone. The support means a lot to me, it's felt really great to release this and get so much positivity.
Most of all though, I'm glad I could produce something that so many can enjoy!
Just found this, and want more!!!!
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More?! MORE?! ...Well dang, guess I'll have to oblige and keep writing then!
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gasp! much huggles!
Got some art! There's more coming, one piece which is already done but I need to double-check the artists name on Derpi, and two more pictures that have been requested. But here's the one I've got to show off for this chapter currently!
derpicdn.net/img/view/2020/5/29/2361370.png
edit: second image now available!
derpicdn.net/img/view/2020/5/29/2361380.png
I see she has encountered a veteran of the toilet wars
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I knew it had to happen. And soon there will be art of these scenes.
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Hahahaha, oh no, don't say that! You'll upset Fluffy! Hahahaha. As Prepper says; she's different, so why shouldn't her pet be different too?
Seriously though, thank you.
Go back for the tp the pranks that could be pulled with it are numerous
This is a big spoonful of sugar.
I hate for the only comment on this specific chapter so far to be one of technical and stylistic quibbles, but quibble I must. The band-aid must be ripped off! Onward!
Because this is first-person narration, stream-of-consciousness is completely okay, and expected, but the second half of that quote is a sentence fragment
directly related to the preceding sentence, which could be set off with a colon from the first one, ideally.
"...whatever I might find: Bottlecaps, a couple rounds of ammunition..."
You can also lead into it with a concessive subjunctive clause: "... searching for whatever I might find, be it bottlecaps..." "... searching for whatever I might find, whether it be bottlecaps..."
Those, however, may come across as archaic, because they sort of are, but I like them. They're all fancy-like.
I wish FiMFic supported traditional editorial notations. *sigh* Okay, "would surely know" is the same as a split infinitive, i.e., "to surely know," which would be infinitely better as "to know for certain," keeping "to" and "know" together, as they should be. The tense-modifying word needs to be next to the word it modifies.
Honestly, you could leave it as is and nobody would complain, except for arseholes such as I. But! It's still bad, and you should feel bad.
Same thing here: Keep the tense modifiers together with the verb so that it becomes "normally would have known." When in doubt, place the adverb before the verb, but definitely don't put it between "would" and "your verb here."
While it is possible to have a sentence in which differing tenses can coexist, when those tenses refer to the same thing in the same context, the tenses should be the same. Also, this is what is known as a comma splice: a separation of independent thoughts with a comma, but without a conjunction to join the next thought. Try "The sound hadn't stopped: It had changed." Or "The sound hadn't stopped; it had changed." Either a colon or semicolon works perfectly. A colon indicates that the following phrase is directly related, and a semicolon indicates that it is a followup thought, or that it is still related, but not as importantly. In other words, a semicolon is a colon who has shrugged.
Read it without those and it makes sense. Alternatively, to correct what is there instead of removing words, you could make it "his mass was great enough that it managed to knock me down!" That comes across as clumsy, though, even if nothing is technically wrong with it.
She is doing the aiming, not her horn.
Firstly: The past tense of lie is lay. Yes, it sounds weird, but only if you are unfamiliar with it. You can lay your head on your pillow, but you cannot, yourself, lay in a bed: You must lie in a bed... and then that logic is thrown on its head when the past tense comes knocking. The past perfect tense is even weirder (It is also called the pluperfect, and the past perfect form of a verb is called its past participle). Then, lay becomes had lain.
Secondly: Separate each adjective in a list with a comma, but do not separate the last adjective in the list from the noun it describes. "Vile black ooze" should be "vile, black ooze."
Thirdly: Don't forget the apostrophe. "sisters' hooves"
Unless it is a name, the noun or pronoun immediately following dialogue should not be capitalized.
If the other is retorting, then another is speaking, and another should get her own paragraph. Also, when the introductory sentence in dialogue is more than a single phrase, you should split it and immediately indicate the speaker, rather than completing the phrase and then indicating the speaker. Try this:
The struck-through words can be omitted. It is obvious that the speaker is continuing to speak. Keep your dialogue neat and clean.
tension
This is like that line from that Spongebob episode: "Do you smell it? That smell. A kind of smelly smell. A smelly smell that smells... smelly."
Unless you are specifically trying to make the reader think of this scene (in which case, carry on), this is exceedingly silly, sir or madame, and ought be ceased forthwith.
Yes, she heard a sound, it was a sound, it continues to be a sound, it sounded sound-y, and WE GET THE IDEA!
Dispense with this silliness. Burn these sentences. Toss their ashes to the winds and start over.
Unless she is referring to a golf ball, she can't hit anything into its brain... or unless she hit it so hard its entire brain became a bowl.
Try "But, what was this, then?" or "Then, what was this?"
That isn't a word at all. It's "deprivation" you're looking for, innit?"
Put a comma after "saying," please. If what follows "saying" is a questioning thought, it should be a comma, to indicate pause.
Final one before I have to go to work. More later.
A grin on its face. When you're referring to a person in conversation and don't want to assume gender, sure, use their, but when you are referring to a "shadow figure" or an object or an animal or anything else not a person or without a gender (express or implied) in narration, always, always use its. Using ambiguous pronouns in conversation is fine, for politeness' sake, but in writing, pronouns must be certain.
Round 2... Fight!
This one is a little complicated, and it took me ten minutes of googling to find out what it was called, as I'd forgotten the term in the intervening years since Senior English class, when I learned diagramming sentences: A participial phrase. You can start yelling at me. I won't retaliate.
"Groaning at the pain that filled my skull," is the participial phrase, which describes the subject of the sentence. Who is groaning? Well, Green Narrator Alicorn yet to be named by Head Voices is groaning, so she must be the subject--but wait, "a familiar voice" follows it immediately and what in tarnation is going on here? A familiar voice can't be the subject; that can't groan! A pony can groan, and is groaning, but she seems to have misplaced herself in this sentence.
I doubt this is the first such phrase in this chapter; it's simply the most jarring one that caught my attention right away. There isn't really an easy way to rebuild this sentence as it is while retaining the participial phrase, except with something like, "Groaning at the pain that filled my skull, I heard a familiar voice fill my ears..." Which, incidentally, is directly narrating that the narrator heard someone say something, and you just as easily can have the person speak their lines without inserting the redundant "I heard her say this" bit.
As an aside, generally speaking, you shouldn't directly narrate anything of that sort, whether it's "I heard this" or "I felt this" or "I smelled this." Unless you want to draw attention specifically to a particular sensation (if, for example, it is a highly unusual sensation or is otherwise out-of-place in context), it is better to skip such description. Rather than describing that the person sensed anything, simply narrate it as it happens, as you did well with "a familiar voice filled my ears." At least in the context of limited-perspective narration, such as the kind typically used in first-person stories, simply narrating the event is usually evidence enough that the narrator has observed the event; the reader doesn't need to be explicitly told that the narrator heard another character speak, as the dialogue itself taking place indicates that the narrator is (probably) conscious to hear it. This principle sort of falls under the "show, don't tell" umbrella, but it also falls under "omit needless words," and the latter is more important. Moving on...
First one, while I'm thinking about it--and I really should have mentioned this earlier--you shouldn't capitalize an article, the, when referring to the Goddess.
The second one is a passive-voice thing: "the one whose head I cut off" or "the one I decapitated" is simpler and more direct, and also in the active voice. You could be implying deliberately that this alicorn didn't take the credit for said decapitation, rather that her shield did it all on its own, but, somehow, I doubt disciples of the Great and Powerful Trixie would fail to take credit for a worthy feat of
bullet-head-itisshield-neck-itis.The third one is a list issue. Try "We need to get out of here, gather the others, and return to the Goddess." Merely making it a simple 1-2-3 list, however, runs the risk of eliminating the urgency. To put more emphasis on the important part, try this: "We must return to the Goddess. We should get out of here and gather the others." How you rearrange it changes which part is emphasized, so be careful. A little shuffling can have great impact.
Four is mostly tense agreement, with a side of slightly complicated. "Things are far more dangerous here than the previous expedition had led us to believe, it seems."
It makes more sense for her to speak of it in the present, as they are still there, amid the dangers, during this scene. If this were internal dialogue, narration by Prepper, the past tense would be correct, since she is describing events of the past, but when it's someone speaking during that described event, it is odd for her to speak of it as though it has happened already and is over with.
This is another participial phrase with an easy fix. "As I nodded my head, a bolt of pain shot down my neck, and I remembered quickly how I was knocked out to begin with."
Or try this: "A bolt of pain shot down my neck as I nodded my head, which quickly reminded me of just how I had been knocked out to begin with." I use "had been knocked out" here because Prepper is describing an event that occurred at a definite point in the past, while speaking in the past tense.
The only odd thing here is that the second sentence acts as an addendum to the first, but is independent. Try joining them with a semicolon, since it comes off as an afterthought to the first. "... seemed to be in working order; everything apart from my mind, still filled with the vision, and my neck, injured and sore."
Are you British? Also, you can spread your wings; you don't have to spread out your wings. It isn't technically wrong, just less right.
This flows more nicely if you switch around "as they fell" to the beginning. "As they fell, I could only thank the Goddess..."
However, as an aside, must always be accompanied by a comma: One comma if at the beginning of a phrase, and two commas if in the middle of a phrase. "The unicorn, however, seemed..."
Another participial phrase that makes an unintended subject of "my blood." You may want to redo this one as two separated thoughts. "As I looked over to the building...--... my blood ran cold: Two corpses lay just inside the building." Or something like that.
"No ghouls seemed present" is a comma splice, and is the ideal type of aside you might put inside em dashes. "Without any doubt" is a negative that can be the positive "with no doubt," instead. That phrase can be shortened to something like, "as much blood had pooled around their bodies, I was certain they had not survived."
One of Prepper's sisters, one of her friends, just died. Make it punctual and impactful, not drawn-out and wishy-washy. Don't say there was no doubt they could not have escaped death; say that death caught them.
Referring to a definite event in the past usually requires the past perfect.
"It's so fluffy I'm gonna DIE!"
If ever harm should befall Fluffy, there will be a reckoning.
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Just wanna say thank you for all of the comments & suggested edits. I've not had the time/mindspace to really take it in properly as of yet, but I'll certainly give it all a proper in-depth look on Thursday. And I'm assuming by the nature of your comments and the fact you read all I've got so far, that you enjoyed it at least somewhat, so I'm really glad you did if so.
I appreciate it, I really do :D
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I only roast the stories I love.
Great story! Added to my read list.
This is the most epically adorable story, I can hardly wait for more!
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Thank you both! Very much appreciated!
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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH I STILL HAVEN'T GOT ROUND TO GIVING IT A READ. But tomorrow, after some stuff I've got to get done is done, I will. Just been incredibly hectic lately.
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I understand it's a lot to analyze; most of my suggestions are based on principles found in Strunk and White's Elements of Style 4th Edition, a very handy guidebook for anyone who writes anything. It's cheap for what it is and quite invaluable.
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I'll have to give that a look. Thank you. It's just the daily grind of life and the trials and tribulations it brings with issues galore leaving me in a state where I get home and I just don't have the mindset to truly appreciate everything you've said. I've glanced at it, and I really do appreciate the effort you've gone to, but that also means I've got to make sure that when I do go to take it all in, that I genuinely do take it all in.
Though I will say, I laughed at the Mr Krabs comment. I didn't realise I'd gone as far as that, but I did somewhat intend to catch that vibe... just not quite as much as I had.
I blame the runaway train that is my mind while writing! Haha
Cute.
>Prepper is almost finished
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
dwE,pwue 8wcmpwo8YPASC<H8 HCEhpcwWPÅC S“W-where… where did he come from? Where did he go?” Opal asked, afraid.`?
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I assume you meant to put a link in there or something and it went wrong?
Though if you're trying to do what I think you are... I have to say right now; it was VERY hard for me not to continue with Prepper randomly blurting "Where did you come from Cotton Eye Joe? "
Don't click me ;)
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I have to admit, I'm kind of proud of that comment.
I loved it. More please ^^
I like the way this one starts already.
Really enjoying it so far. I really like Prepper.
Kip I coomed
Will there be updates?
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I'll be honest; I want to update, it's one last chapter, but I've lost my inspiration and connection with pony. I'd love to finish the one last chapter and be able to call it complete, so I'm not giving up yet, but I'd need to find my spark again.
What's worrying is I've just heard some news that FimFic may go down for good very soon because apparently their Patreon is at high risk of getting killed, so we'll see.
Doesn't help that I've also been chasing after someone and I'm very one track minded, but I'll try my best.
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I believe in you, Kip.
FimFic moved to Subscribestar. There's a button at the bottom right.
We will wait for you!
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And I don't even remember why.
Love the story hope it gets an update soon!
...*looks back at the two dead alicorns*... you sure about that
Congratulations, you have started to grow beyond the limitations of Unity and the Goddess
Sorry if this comment sounded a little snippy, but have... issues, with the Goddess and how she uses Unity.........almost went on a rant there for a moment.
And, since I can't stop myself completely I will say this.
"My issues with the Goddess stem from simple fact that she could have become a being truly worthy of her name.
However, due to her personality, and the limitations she forced on her children, that became impossible."