Then Sweetie heard one sound, it was just next to her ear. She heard but one single word, the air and sound of the speaker echoing inside of her ear:
"Boo."
Sweetie stuck the flashlight back in her mouth and bolted forward, letting go of the paper air plane. At this point, the thing would only slow her down, something she couldn't afford to be right now. The only thing she managed to keep in her muzzle was her flashlight. The flashlight flashed on and off, making it incredibly difficult for Sweetie to plan her steps and keep her co-ordination. She couldn't have counted the number of times she tripped and had to scramble up to keep running away from the malicious monsters pursuing her from the woods.
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she was chased. The chill she felt turned into a light frostbite as the laughter seemed to get louder and louder. Her body was beginning to feel weaker as well, as though she were casting another telekinesis spell. Was it exhaustion from running? It didn't matter to Sweetie, as long as she could keep running. As long as she still had the chance to escape.
She heard more rolls of thunder above her, rivaling the laughter for dominance in volume. The storm was getting closer. The things were getting closer. Her time was running out as the world seemed to be closing in on her. She kept running, the fear of falling again and getting caught by the laughing monsters allowing her to keep her footing now.
Just as she thought that her body was ready to give out on her again, salvation, she saw an opening. A dim light emitted from it. Perhaps it was warm? She'd do anything to get away from this cold, and even better, help to fend off the monster she would likely be killed by if she stopped here. She pushed her last ounces of energy into one last sprint. The new light, once she saw where it came from caused the little filly to skid to a stop.
In front of her, was the large, creepy old mansion.
Lightning cracked and thunder rolled, louder than ever before as she gazed upon the menacing manor. Its windows were darkened, but any ones with light seemed to be lit with eerie yellow lights.
The mansion... Sweetie thought, It's so much bigger up close... Sweetie felt a drop of rain on her nose. She then heard the monster in the wood's high pitched laugh, reminding her of the danger she was trying to escape. Without further hesitation, Sweetie pushed through the gate of the manor. The manor wasn't quite as menacing and threatening as the monster that frightened her in the woods. Even if it did look a bit frightening, surely it wouldn't compare to whatever was following her in the woods.
What just happened? Are we doing the time warp again?
3270359 Hm? Time Warp?
3270367
I didn't realize that you were revising the story, so I thought that we had somehow ended up at the beginning again. Also, Rocky Horror reference. Query: Are you going to be splitting chapter 27, 22 part three by your numbering, when you get there in your rewrites? 50000 is incredibly enormous for one chapter. Also, going back and rewriting the whole story when there is a cliffhanger to be resolved is just plain mean.
Yesssssss! I knew you'd be back! I knew you still loved us!
Take your time! Your work is too good to be rushed!
3270372 Ha. Probably, yes. Also, look at it this way. The reason I'm doing this is not only for your benefit, but mine. On your end, I want to re-establish a few facts about the story that I kind of just left hanging. A few holes that I want to sew up, a few characters I want to expand upon (both cannon and OC). I also want to add a degree of interactivity, so I promise you you won't be left without any material over the next coming month. On my end, consider the fact I've been out of the fimfiction community for... gosh, almost a year, with a few exceptions for when I came back. Though I know the story of Sweetie's Mansions, memories have a tenancy to "change" things, so I have to go through the story again rather than haphazardly adding more stuff and making even more holes. Plus, if I'm going to call myself a writer, I've got to at least show some degree of pride in my work. I said I'd do something about those edits, and god damn it I will.
I love you.
3270397 I want you.
It's very rare to see a crossover that adds new material. Most seem to just say "It's X if it starred Y instead of Z" and nothing more.
From the fanfiction end of things, I'd say this is the best crossover I've ever read, and I've read quite a few fine crossovers.
The fact that just a single chapter of this narrative has more story than both its plot source material and character source material combined astounds me, and to see it continue... Considering the rough time I've had for the past few weeks that's nowhere near letting up yet, this made me smile.
Thank you.
3270459 Yes and no. Like I said. I'm going through the story both for my benefit as well as the benefit of some edits and added facts. 3270523 Shaddap ermpashent faker. Seriously though, I know. Hopefully it won't be that much longer before I actually add to the Sweetie's Mansion story oppose to just expanding/sharpening what's already there.
3270627 Oh, if only you saw the first version.
3270615 THAT'S STILL THERE?!
And now time to re-read all of this again!
Re-reading is hard when a person has to force themselves to read something more than once. Despite of how good it the story is, for some people reading again is either waste of time or... I don't know how to say it.
Still, gotta read it again... Hm. Have to endure it. Need new content...
3270634
It's good to see you back, pal, though you could have said in a blog post that you were revising it. Personally, I was starting to get worried about you.
God damn you
Now I have to read it all
How much have you revised / edited so far? And are you going to make a blog post when the revisions are complete?
Also should I just re-read everything all over again? Or start at chapter 3?
Btw. Thanks for updating this fic. I've missed it.
3270631
3270634
great story though.
i know someone already said it, but i opened another tab and listened to the lougis mansion theme song.
Creepy.
Nope. screw this i am not going to read trough a life time of pages again.
Sorry but no.
has the entire story been redone?
I wouldn't mind reading it again.
Wanderer D cross over anyone?
No? Okay then...
--FAIR WARNING: I AM A KIND OF A CYNICAL DICK WHEN CRITICIZING STORIES. NO OFFENSE TO YOU OR YOUR FIC IS INTENDED--
Harsh Critique Inbound
Yeah, I'm sure this is a great fic and all judging from the featured box and positive comments, but major punctuation pet peeve of mine is all over this place.
SPACES BETWEEN PARAGRAPHS.
(like this) ----> <---- (like this)
I can't speak for everyone (as your fic is clearly very popular on its own), but I can safely say the method of paragraph spacing you're using will frustrate a lot of potential readers, especially me. I can understand that in later chapters you extend into the insanely large amount of words territory (50k+? Good grief!) and thus you need to keep the length of the page down, but its getting difficult to follow just in the first few.
I'm also noticing a kind of House of Leaves color formatting going on, but it seems a bit inconsistent, if it's even intentional. In fact, I'm only really detecting it in later chapters, which I can't follow very well due to the spacing.
On another formatting note: what's the deal with the links at the end of each chapter? From the first few, it looks like they just go to the next chapter. I skipped on over to the most recent ones and now it looks kind of like a choose-your-own-adventure-type-thing, but again, I don't see much of an indication that points towards this. I can't tell if it's just poor editing choices or an attempt at a House of Leaves style mindfuck, in which case I take back what I said about the links, you're doing a really great job with them.
I can't say much of anything on the plot and such because, whether due to OCD/ADD or just plain stubbornness, I can't follow the writing too well in its current format, but judging from the positive comments, featured box status, and high thumb ratio, I'm assuming it's alright, if not great. Its just bogged down in formatting issues, IMO.
If I were you, I'd have divided those crazy-long chapters into smaller bits, 10k words maximum, and done the paragraphs in s style like this post. Set up clearly defined rules for yourself regarding the House style color formatting and apply it as consistently as possible. And either explain or do away with the links - unless, as I said, they're there for mindfuck purposes, in which case they're perfect.
TL;DR - It's got formatting problems that turn me and plenty of other people off, but has potential to be even more appealing than it is already.
What is going on?
Do you want to rewrite the entire story, or do you just want to write it better?
I want to know because I don't know if I shoulkd start from the beginning(again) or what that with the choices is now all about.
Answers please.
It's times like these that I wish I understood coding and such. I would TOTALLY be on board with a Luigi's Mansion mod for this, like they're doing with Fallout: Equestria. I just don't have the skill to do it......
3271199 Why, thank you!
3271625 Thanks a lot.
It starts.
I just finished chapter 27. YOU DON'T GET TO KILL OFF A MAIN CHARACTER LIKE THAT IT'S BULLSHIT!!!
3271781
You noticed that more than halve of the characters died at least one time.
3271833 I meant Sweetie but yeah I see what you mean though.
WHOOOOOOOO its on like donkey kong.
PS Glad your back.
Okay... I'm as confused as all get out now.
What just happened? What's with the choice/rewrite/reboot thing?
3272919 It looks as if the author is trying to introduce a choice system now.
3271852 Fkrs. Let me do my thing then yell at me about how much you hate it. Gawd.
3273391 Bingo. This was something that's been on my mind even when I was first actively writing the story. I never knew how to execute it, but I always wanted to implement some kind of... thing that led to different endings for Sweetie. Both good & funny and bad & grim. This choice thing... if it works like I want it to, will not only do exactly that, but it'll also keep me updating and keeping the whole 'editing by myself' thing interesting.
3273565 I never meant to sound like a hater bro. I was just trying to bust you're chops a little but seriously Specter Yield is a bucking son of a whorse.
3271297 I'll be frank with you, if you stayed here to critique my whole story, you'd probably be here all day...month...yea- YOU'D BE HERE A LONG TIME. Which is why, I'll state again, I'm editing the whole story. To hopefully attend to your issues and many many others.
For example: the links, you noted? That's an indication of the new editing. The reason those are there are to combat the eventual confusion that'll come when I start adding new chapters and there's a shit-ton of choices between them. A way to fix a degree of confusion. How it all works out in the end will be... well, that'll just be that.
Long story short, I know all your issues, and trust me, they annoy me too when I come across them after such a long time and... well, you know, notice them. Hopefully with enough times to go through the story, I can fix these annoyances and make the story somewhat more tolerable.
But to answer the question that's on all of your minds, I DO have ADD.
3273632 But I need my chops to play my pedal tones
3273669
Good to see you take it well.
I was referring to myself with the ADD comment, though
3273765
I can only agree with those who have concerns about that. The idea may be good but it breaks the reading and can get very demotivating very fast. Saw this with some other. It can also get you in trouble because you can run out of coices and then it most likely will get dull.
No matter how many mistakes the story had, it was a good one and was able to keep me reading for many hours at once.
So I too have to say , please keep the story without the choices system. Would most likely be better if you write another story with the choice system.(I would read it)
3273565 I'm not really sure that your going about this the right way... I can understand the choice sort of thing, but the wrapping back to the beginning and writing in new bits in the previous chapters??? i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/286/610/069.gif
Why rewrite the story? I honestly cant find a single flaw in it, it was so good, it even got me back into Luigi's Mansion. And if it's just to implement some unessisary choice system... that's just anti-bueno. It's so unbueno, that if you mixed it with bueno, it would cause a catastrophic explosion.
Author pls
3271723 I can't tell if your being sarcastic or not sooo...
3274911 I think, when it comes time, that MoonShooter will update this with another choice, or just get rid of this chapter and replace it entirely (along with the other choice chapter) so that when we get to it, we'll find a new segment of the story to read
ALSO: MS, if you're going to edit the entire story, you're going to need an editor, and one that can stand looking at things all over again. May I offer my services to you?
3275196>>3275304 Ladies, ladies, please. Let me try again and try to make this straight. I'm not rewriting the story, just editing and adding to what's already there so I can re-acquaintance myself with the story. I HAVEN'T LOOKED AT WHAT I ACTUALLY WROTE FOR MONTHS after all. If I were to rewrite the story, then I'd probably be crazy.
As for the choose your own adventure story, if I were to write ENTIRELY DIFFERENT ROUTES, I'd be even crazier. The purpose of the cyoa style is to at the very least have something new for you to read as I continue editing through, as well as add endings that makes some degree of sense that'll make a little more sense not only story wise, but ending wise as well. Also to justify a little surprise I was hoping to do for Halloween, if not, Christmas.
Consider it... like Walking Dead format, where the decisions exist, but they either don't change the context main swing of the story, or get your character killed.
Though I will promise this. If it gets confusing, then I'll do something about it. I'll either cut the CYOA altogether if a lot of people complain about it and legitimately hate it, or make it so the CYOA can be told which is the right choice to proceed in the story (using those little colored circles or an arrow to the side perhaps).
I only want this to be a side thing. Not to waste anyone's time.
3274984 Also, here's the thing. The answer to that question is no. No to AJfan, no to wildberk, and no to you as well. I'll definitely need your services in the future, but not now. The reason why I need to edit my own story is because not only do I need to learn to notice my own mistakes, but as I mentioned before, I need to get this story in the terms of what I actually wrote, back into my head and sync it with the ideas that's been marinating over the past year. But yes, that's that. If you want to publicly note errors you find in a REBOOT, then don't hesitate not to.
3275445 Side note I completely forgot to mention that these endings will explain things that Sweetie did and didn't do thoughout the story. Some of the things that happened were a little more than luck to which the alternative would kill her. Things that can only be explained if Sweetie died or... well I'll just leave the other things as a surprise.
3275083 No, I'm not. I like that comment, really.
"I think ghosts are kind of like dogs in which they sort of do things arbitrarily."
-Charles Barkely
3273565
This is actually quite appealing.
I do hope you won't take too long returning to where you ceased, however.
3275394
Side note, you switched up which paragraph answered my question, but that doesn't matter. That is alright with me, that you want to do this in your own, but should you need any assistance, you know who to PM.
Well I wanted to Reread this again soon anyways.
*Grabs Proton pack and PKE meter.
Lets roll!
3273677 TOO BAD SUCKER!