• Member Since 23rd Jan, 2013
  • offline last seen February 12th

CoAlFire


Honestly I have no idea what to say here. Chat with me if you want to get to know me. I don't bite. Skype is co.al.fire, Discord C.A.Lovett #0142

Sequels1

T
Source

Echo is a high ranking changeling officer. The Canterlot invasion was going perfectly, and her battalion had personally defeated the Elements of Harmony. Suddenly, she finds herself far flung from Canterlot, crashing into the Everfree forest. Now she is faced with a difficult reality - her hive, the only family she's ever known, no longer exists, and she must adapt to life as a pony. What she finds out about herself, though, will surprise her.

Rated Teen for occasional suggestiveness and language, tagged gore for brief violence, particularly in later chapters.

Dark because later chapters get pretty ... well, dark.

---

Addendum 5/29/2018

This story is now, as of this addendum, five years old. It is getting more attention as I put out new chapters on the sequel.

I recognize that this story has problems, and that some of them by their nature carry over to the sequel; please remember that when I started writing this, I was not yet even old enough to legally drink in the US. A lot has happened and a lot has changed, and there are many things about this story I regret including, but which it is now too late to change. Some of those things I have simply done my best to ignore and make irrelevant, but some of them are errors from a 19 year old me that will haunt me until the sequel is finished.

In short, please be gentle.

Chapters (11)
Comments ( 845 )

You should accent somehow that she was blackout for quite some time.

Phew, up until the AN, I thought you were a mind reader.
Seriously, I started reading and my only negative was the formatting. Then I went away for a few minutes, came back, and IT WAS FIXED. :pinkiegasp:

Apart from that, I liked it. I award you cuddles. Looking forward to more!

2094396 Sorry, I'm not quite sure what you mean. Explain? :twilightsheepish:

2094428 Thank you kindly, sir or ma'am.

2094434 Terribly sorry about the formatting bit. I'm new to this FiMFiction nonsense, and having to type the brackets is not something that I'm used to.

Thanks for the compliments!

2094442 uh yea sorry exams time etc my brain is dead

I mean you writed that like it was just after failed invasion, there is no information how long she was out (or i missed it).

2094471 It's cool, I get it. Exams do that to people.

My idea is that she wasn't really out for much time at all. In fact, when I wrote this initially, it was my thought that she had not been unconscious whatsoever. The trees kinda broke her fall a little. :facehoof:

2094481 You.

I like you already.

Keeping an eye on this

2094511 Thank you very much. I'll try my best not to disappoint.

2094449
Um... you didn't go through and manually add all the italics tags, did you?
You do know there's a big ol' 'italics' button at the top of the edit pane?
Please tell me that's not what you meant - I'll feel so sorry for you! :applecry:

2094554 Hahaha, I may be stupid, but I'm not that stupid, thankfully.

I'll admit that posting this thing has put me a little on edge. I rarely share my work with others at all.

So... when I posted this and then saw that the formatting hadn't translated, I kind of lost my *buysomeapples* and tried to edit it as quickly as I could.

In doing so, I edited it poorly about 4 times before I gave up and unpublished to fix it.

I'll be a little less ... spastic in the future. :twilightsheepish:

2094612
Phew, crisis averted.
As for being on edge... heh, join the club. Post an update, then spend the next few hours too anxious to walk away, too nervous to read feedback. :fluttercry:

Congrats on posting. The cover image is gorgeous and intriguing. I am happy this has been so well recieved.

2094645 Indeed, crisis averted.

I've got another 20K words lined up and ready to be posted as time progresses. :ajsmug:

I'll be refining my chapters nicely before posting them, and also giving all you nice watchers time to squirm. :scootangel:

Yeah, the feedback makes me nervous, but it's also fun ... in the same way that a roller coaster is fun. It makes you feel like you're going to die, to give you respect for being alive. :pinkiecrazy:

2094649 I know, right? I love that cover image, and the guy's a miracle worker to get it done from scratch in just about a day or two.

I'm happy it's being so well received, too. Thanks for the comment! :pinkiehappy:

Not bad, action went forward a little to fast, but story seems ok.

A very nice start to things...

Can't wait for more :raritywink:

And give the artist of the story cover my compliments!

2095026 I was worried if that might be the case.

I'll pad the future action a little bit before posting it. Thanks!

2096040 Thank you very much! There will be more coming, I promise.

This is Fantastic!!!!!
Please continue!!!
All The Best to You,
Brony and Dashing Proud :rainbowdetermined2:,
Lightning Flash

2097556 Thank you kindly, good sir / ma'am. I'm very glad you enjoy it. :pinkiehappy:

I just read the most amazing piece of MLP Fanfiction I've ever read, though, and holy bejeebus, I feel inferior. :rainbowderp:

Thank you for your praise though, it's encouraging. :ajsmug:

Actually that nexus is a bold face liar. the changelings are doing well. THRIVING in fact, cause of where they landed (See the official idw comic)

Heres the comic in question (IT show where chrysalis and most of the hive landed

http://issuu.com/idwpublishing/docs/mlp_003-pr?mode=window&viewMode=doublePage

this story is amazing so far keep it up:pinkiehappy:

2097723 I emphasize, Fan Fiction.

However, that's an interesting point to make. Kind of a pivotal point of the story, or I might be inclined to change that around a little.

Thanks for keeping me honest, and thanks for reading.

2097774 Thank you very much, I promise that there is more Echo coming your way. :pinkiehappy:

How the fuck am I suppose to resist reading a story with a cover that is this heartwarming?

2097838 My money to commission that piece was well spent. Check out the artist, he's got talent!

The image depicted does have bearing on the story, too. Pinkie Swear.:pinkiesmile:

This looks an awful lot like lightning strikes.

2097983 What does that mean?

2097992 It means that I haven't read this yet (although I plan to, it looks good) but it looks very similar to the plot of another fic, one called Lightning Strikes.

Not too bad, but your timeline seems really, really off. You have Echo crashing into the Everfree right after being catapulted from Canterlot, all well and good... But she's only there a day or so, and then all of a sudden the CMC are there? When, in fact, they were in Canterlot for the wedding to be flower fillies. Even accepting a fast, overnight train (which doesn't make too much sense as most of the characters were there late into the night celebrating), that's awfully quick. But, acceptable... However, it really falls apart when you have that changeling tell her about the Empire being destroyed. She's only been there two days, and that's really not long enough for an entire civilization to collapse and devour itself utterly. Wars, especially brutal, fratricidal civil wars, take a good, long time to complete. The only ones that last less than 2 days would be border skirmishes, or one fought with modern WMDs like nukes. (20-minutes to turn the Northern Hemisphere into radioactive ash.) Even if you supposed some sort of magic WMDs that somehow don't get noticed (you'd think that kind of energy rippling out would be noticed by someone) you've got the fact that this guy in the cage is a seeming survivor, and he's there in Ponyville the next day. Either the Changelings' "empire" was next door, or he traveled at a mach number to get there. Basically it all feels like you're over-eager to get things on, and you're not laying a solid timeline out and instead are rushing things really quickly.

Echo is also acting out of the character you've established for her. She's supposed to be intelligent, have a strong tactical mind, and is some highly ranked officer—she orders a colonel at one point, and generally the only ones above them are usually generals—who has a full dossier on Twilight given to her... yet she doesn't remember where Twilight's from and has no idea who Pinkie Pie is (you'd think ALL the element bearers would be important enough to at least be given a mention in the documents and intel leading up to the invasion, not to mention she had a perfectly good look at watching the Mane 6 barrel through a large mass of her brethren).

I don't write to tear down; I can see potential in this story. It has good, even unique elements, given the whole "changeling into Ponyville" thing has been done quite a bit before. But it needs work, especially in the timing department.

2098027 Wow. That's pretty much the best bit of critique I've ever gotten. Thanks!

I might have to retool this story at some point in the future. For now, though, it's really just something I'm writing for giggles. I have another 17,000 words lined up now, and all of this was written in about the last 5 days or so. Forgive my glaring errors. :pinkiecrazy:

2098018 Well, unfortunately, it's hard to have a genuinely original idea. I didn't plagiarize, and I've never read that fic, but it's inevitable that some of the ideas I have will be reused without my intending them to be. :twilightsheepish:

I hope you enjoy it, when you read it. :ajsmug:

2098076 Never said it was a bad thing :pinkiehappy:

2098133 Sorry. I come from Reddit, where the cardinal sin is the dreaded repost. :twilightsheepish:

2098154 Funnyjunk. I know the feeling.

DAMN YOU AND YOUR FEELS FOR COVEART! Anyway nice work I WANT MOAR! :flutterrage:

Congratulations on your first MLP:FiM story. The fact that your first story here got on the feature box is something to be proud of :twilightsmile:.

I like your story so far. I like changelings and Scootaloo, and you have both of them on the cover. I'm interested in seeing how you combine the two. It's also nice to see a story get featured that isn't a trollfic or clop.

I also think your story has a lot of room for improvement.

Your spelling and grammar is decent, and your writing is a bit above average for this site. On the other hand, sometimes your descriptions could use a bit of work. I found the scene where Echo was ordering around the other changelings to be particularly weak because of lack of detail. I also picked up at least three grammatical mistakes in this chapter, so you might want to consider a proofreader / second pre-reader in addition to the one you already have.

Really, though, that's a minor issue. The thing that needs the most improvement is characterization.

Sometimes Echo does things that don't make sense. After the Cutie Mark Crusaders ran away, Echo fixed his disguise and then immediately took it off before going to sleep. Maybe he was just practising his disguise, but you need to say that lest his actions seem random.

Another example of Echo not making sense is when he gets caught impersonating Big Mac's marefriend. If Echo were as smart and observant as he thinks he is, he wouldn't have been caught that easily.

Also, people don't go from running to fainting just because they bump into a main character and things get awkward.

When you're showing us a character for the first time, you need to do two things: make him interesting and make him likeable. You make Echo interesting right away. He was a leader in the invasion of Canterlot, and he's good at what he does. He was hoof-picked by Chrysalis herself to be a leader. And here we see him in dire straits. Instead of giving up, he immediately starts problem solving and making a plan to save himself from starvation.

Unfortunately, you fell into several traps that him less likeable.

Nobody likes someone who thinks they're smarter than everyone else. What we like to see is competence, humility, and a little bit of cleverness. Cleverness is like Daring Do, able to find lost treasures and escape the most devilish of traps. But it's not okay when you have Echo come out and say that he was made a leader because he's smarter than everyone else.

You have Echo repeatedly complain about climbing. It would have been better if you hadn't shown him complaining. We like to see characters who can accept a setback with grace and a bit of good humour. Instead of emphasizing his distaste for the task, you could have shown his determination and perseverance in the face of a series of humiliating experiences. The worse things get, the more impressed we are when a character maintains their composure.

The biggest issue for me was Echo's eyes. Coolness must be earned. When I learned that Echo was born with a wicked cool red eye, and it gave him special powers, and Queen Chrysalis personally rewarded him for being so awesome by making him a leader, I became very tempted to label him as a Mary Sue / Gary Stu. If you want to have a character who has special powers, you need to either make him work for it, or have him suffer for being different.

There are many ways to make a character interesting besides giving him/her a unique appearance or special skills and abilities. Reputation, exaggeration, responsibilities, and assertiveness are all characterization techniques you should explore.

Your story has enough going for it that these mistakes aren't enough to make me stop reading at the first chapter. As you said, this is your first story here, so it's not surprising to see a few problems. The way to improve is to keep writing and keep paying attention to your feedback. Keep up the good work :pinkiehappy:

2098863 Thanks for the in-depth critique!

I had the first chapter pre-read, but the second one is going in pretty much blind.

I know there are some problems with the story, too, and I commend you for your eye. I also appreciate your criticisms, and frankly? I agree with most of them. I wrote this whole thing (and several additional chapters totaling more than 17,000 words that have not yet been published) in the span of just a couple of days.

Aside from edits to glaring errors, I mostly just spat this out on the page. It's more of my way of testing the fanfic writing waters than a serious shake at writing.

I'm encouraged by the response, and I think when I start to write a fanfic with a serious approach your critique points will be very helpful.

Thanks for taking the time to make such detailed points! You definitely understand what it means to help an author out.

I feel ... a little undeserving of my front page showcase, to be honest. I didn't expect this story to be popular at all. I was expecting a few upvotes, maybe a favorite or two, and then to have it fade into the background.

2098851 You'll get MOAR, I Pinkie promise. :pinkiehappy:

Congratulations, another changeling fiction. Don't screw it up.

WANT. MOAR. NOW.

Was Time Turner ( Dr. Who ) replaced by changeling, or in this story Time Turner was always changeling ?

Also I am surprised that Twilight did not wanted to talk to Changeling after he kept saying that Empire is gone and that they are not a threat, Twilight would do it from pity or at best from curiosity.

not bad, more?

Hm. You say this isn't quite a serious attempt, sir author, buuuut... *clicks Read Later*

Ima just leave this here.

:moustache:

For some reason when I read the description I thought of this song:

:moustache:

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