• Member Since 11th Jul, 2011
  • offline last seen February 25th

OmegaPony11


Writer of fics large and small

T

Join an adventure in the skies above as the Mane Six journey past Equestria's borders, across oceans, and into new lands of wonder and technology. Follow their journey as they learn about these frontiers, the ponies that live there, their ideas, and about themselves as they travel the world in Pinkie Pie's Wonderful Flying Machine!

Chapters (5)
Comments ( 14 )

One of the best fanfics I have read also why sweetie belle?I hope she's fine

Hope for more . epic

I rarely feel compelled to comment on anything, but this just has so much potential, I could not stop myself - keep up the good work sir! The pacing somehow feels just right, the plot has loads of potential (as stated above :twilightsmile: ), the characterization is very on-canon but not annoyingly so, etc etc. :pinkiehappy:

Just one question - what about the romance tag? I'm guessing this will predominantly be an adventure story, but how major/minor role will shipping have in this fic?

I've only read one chapter so far, but I intend to keep going. This is looking exciting. My only real criticism is that you tended to over-explain Rarity's thoughts. I'm sure you've heard of "show, don't tell". Telling is certainly a good thing, but doing it too much makes the story seem more like a list of events than something mentally engaging. Though so far the story's been interesting enough to where that isn't much of a problem. I'll try to get to the rest :pinkiesmile:

I'm not sure if I would get on any vehicle designed by Pinkie, though she does have many of the qualities of a genius/mad scientist.:pinkiecrazy:
A+ thus far.img.ponibooru.org/_images/451c290cf8230fd44f22896e99d8ada6/84126%20-%20caption%20dis_gon_b_gud%20spike.jpg

YES UPDATE, I Can Feel Problems In The Future....

Ok, so you asked for a review, and here I am giving it to you. I'll go over the first chapter first (because why not) and then move onto the others at a later date. I may take some time going between them, so I can only ask for your patience. I promise that I will get around to them. Feel free to pm me if I'm more than three days tardy.

Oh, it'll be best to mention this bit too before I start. What I won't be doing is proofreading your fic. I will only point out mechanical errors (aka, an error repeated three or more times) and areas for improvement; this'll mean that some errors will remain unmentioned in this review. I'm also not going to waste time in saying what I like about your fic. That doesn't mean I hate it, or that I'm going to start saying mean things about you. It's mainly just because you asked for improvement, and I'm not going to waste both my time and your own by saying nice things needlessly.

And with that out of the way, let's begin.

I'll tell you what. I'm going to make myself a liar and proofread the first section of your fic. Here we go:

> so long as the battle below continued to be waged.

Awkwardly structured, both in word choice and tense. I'd deeply consider something along the lines of "so long as there was a battle going on below".

> She walked over to Pinkie

Walk is a strange verb choice here, especially when Rarity's on a disintegrating ship. It feels too calm and (excuse the pun) pedestrian. I'd consider staggered.

>Rarity pulled against Pinkie in an effort to let go,

Does not mean what you want it to mean. You need it to be "in an effort to get her to let go".

>only for now to be the time that Pinkie decided to use her earth pony strength

Awkward construction. Consider "only for Pinkie to choose now, of all times, to use her earth pony strength" or something similar.

>since the battle erupted.

AC. Just say since the battle started. Erupted feels weird without some qualifying imagery attached to it.

>the dressmaker’s shop where she received her new clothes as fitting the locale set on fire

Your appositive phrase is too big here to not be made parenthetical. As it stands, it's just plain confusing. I'd also recommend switching 'she received' to past perfect.

Write: "the dressmaker's shop, where she had received new clothes more fitting to the locale, set alight" or something similar.

>The sky was now in overcast,

No in. You cannot be 'in overcast'.

>cloud cover. Only the shroud of smoke

I would recommend rewriting this as "cloud cover; a shroud of smoke [...] blocked out the sun [...]"

>Rarity also saw a bolt of black magic zoom towards them

You really want that last verb to be in past participle (aka, zooming). No sudden switching to present tense.

>driving the airship in an attempt to dodge the arcane assault.

As you have not stated a direction, this implies Pinkie was not already driving the airship, which is highly contradictory to early parts of the fic. Add a direction to remove that - a la driving the airship sideways - or use a different verb.

>The ship quaked as the bolt struck the starboard side, another console exploding in a hail of sparks.

No other consoles have exploded. I would suggest changing the tense in that second clause, making it independent and using a semicolon to connect the two.

>Pinkie blanked as she looked at the ruined console.

The verb 'to blank' means to ignore, and requires a second subject in order to work. I believe you mean blanched or blinked.

>She stayed like this for a moment before finally looking to Rarity.

Rarity is not a position, no matter what cloppers may say. 'Looking over' is what you want here.

>she pointed a hoof

I'd prefer her hoof here, if only to remove the idea of Pinkie pointing other pony's hooves at things. That's a personal choice, though, and technically the sentence is fine as it is.

>“That... that was the starboard stabilizer,” she explained, “Without it,

No. You do not make your dialogue tags parenthetical unless they can be removed from the passage without changing the meaning. You want a period after explained here, as the part after the dialogue tag does not run on from the bit before it.

>“You can still make it out of here,” Pinkie said, looking Rarity straight in the eye. “There should be another parachute. Rainbow Dash should be able to catch you. I need to make sure the Harmony doesn’t hurt anypony when it hits.”

I'd prefer it, seeing as the para. starts off with Rarity, if this was made into a new paragraph.

>Rarity looked into the eyes of her dear friend, laying her hoof down on top of Pinkie’s.

Extra space between down and on. I'd also switch the tense of the second clause into past simple and make it independent because otherwise there are issues with the order in which events happen. Something like: "Rarity looked into the eyes of her dear friend and laid her hoof down on top of Pinkie's" would do nicely.

>This was supposed to be a simple trip of discovery, wonder, and good hearted adventure.

Tense issues. I'd suggest using "This was supposed to have been [...]".

>Nopony said anything about battles or treason.

Nopony had said [...]

And now on to the rest of the chapter...

>It seemed all her friends save Fluttershy were busy with something.

Missing commas around the 'save Fluttershy' part. Add them in.

Lack Of Sense/Words

>To the east of Sweet Apple Acres was a large tent, almost as if the circus had come to town.
>The tent was massive, bright pink, and emitting various loud noises at all hours of the day, whether it was the sound of a machine or heavy construction.
>Each pony went into the large tent with some form of construction material whenever Rarity caught a glimpse.
>So much work the ultimate expression of party ship!”

1) Needs extra words in it to make sense fully. "[...] was a large tent; it looked almost as if [...]".
2) Means the tent is making noise whether or not the tent's the sound of a machine or heavy construction. Makes no sense.
3) Means they only ever go in when Rarity looks. I very much doubt this is what you mean.
4) I don't think I need to say what's wrong here. Sentence needs more words in it.



Dialogue Issues

>“Um... I haven’t heard much from them either,” Fluttershy said, “Whatever it is,
>“You aren't upset not to be involved?” Rarity asked as she opened the door to the spa, “You don’t feel left out?”
>“Of course not, dear, that’s silly,” answered Rarity, “I’ve used my time constructively.
>“Um... Pinkie Pie? I-I don’t understand,” Fluttershy said, “We never see you invent machines or anything like this, though I’m pretty sure you are very good.

You do this a lot. Enough times, in fact, for me to be surprised that I'm the first one mentioning this to you. Placing a comma after your dialogue tags when they do not interrupt a sentence is wrong. Commas are only used to offset them when the tag is acting as a parenthetical phrase. If you feel the need to capitalise the sentence after the dialogue tag, and it does not start with a proper noun, then you end the dialogue tag with a period. A comma is used for when the sentence composing the dialogue continues from where the previous quotation left off.



Tense Issues

>Rarity forced a laugh, Fluttershy raising an eyebrow in reply.
>and it made me super sad not to tell you or Fluttershy,
>She was enjoying the quiet work, and Rarity wondered why she never asked Fluttershy to be her assistant before now.

There aren't as many in the rest of the chap. as there were at the start. At any rate, I didn't pick up on 'em. Either way, the first one has the wrong tense in the second clause and is - when corrected - a comma splice. The second one should be "not being able to [...]". The third needs to be "why she'd [...]".




Assorted errors/Opinions

You don't suffer from LUS, but you do come close several times. I'm going to say straight out that this is my opinion, however, and that your millage is allowed to comfortably vary. I just hold that, unless relevant, you shouldn't really swap out a characters name for a short description. We have pronouns to do that for us.

>"Oh come on, girls! Popping out of hammerspace all the time takes energy! I need to focus my energy on what's important."

Straight up no. This clashes massively with the tone you’ve set so far. Any and all immersion will evaporate right here. Lose the hammerspace part.

>taste in mind — and after calling a few favours — Rarity had managed

Spaced em dashes? Some people are going to kill you for this, and using them isn’t going to buy you any favours. I’d honestly suggest using either unspaced em Dashes or, if you really like the idea of spaces round ‘em, use spaced en dashes.

>Rarity tried not to look into the glassy eyes of the toothless reptile, but found herself getting lost in the milky eyes.

Really, really weird. Are you starting a RaityXGummy ship here or something? A description of Gummy getting lost in Rarity's eyes feels... well, it feels weird and unnecessary.

I really don't know why it's in here.

>Anonymous:
>Mr.Shockwave, I'll insists on meeting you in one way or another. I believe you might find it useful.

>Anonymous:
>Who is this?

I agree with that last anon: What is this and why is it here? I’m going to head out on a limb and guess this means you’ve had a review from Shockwave on /fic/. If so, I still want to know why the... You downloaded this from a Gdocs file, didn’t you?

Always double check before publishing. Stuff like this is obviously not meant to be here, but more some of the more subtle formatting differences between Fimfic and Gdocs might not be so crystal clear.

Pinkie's reasoning for not telling Rarity and Fluttershy what she was doing feels weak, massively OOC and a bit like a plot hole (not the sexy kind). I'd have expected a better reason for her keeping it a secret than 'I didn't want you to start decorating it'. That's a reason for Pinkie not asking her to decorate it, not a reason for her to keep both Rarity and Flutters out of the loop.

You also tell frequently throughout this, and not in the cool, groovy god-level way of telling. Your opening sentence starts off with telling us that an explosion's thrown Rarity across the deck. Make it more exciting than that. Make me feel it. Describe the way something happens rather than just mentioning that it happens.

And that's that. I'll be back to do chapter two at some point (if you still want me to after all this defecation I've done on your page, that is).

Ok. Part two, coming up. I've got a mug full of tea, it's a bright sunny day outside and I've just woken up. Perfect reviewing conditions. Here we go:

>Rarity was able to make it comfortable even to her own standards.

Needs a comma before even (I'd also add suggest changing it to 'high standards').

>Only the quarters where her friends would be sleeping in as well as the lower decks were untouched.

You need commas around 'as well as the lower decks', mainly because it's a parenthetical phrase.

> As for the quarters, as much as

The number of as's in this part makes it feel off.

>her home, including her favourite lounging chair and several boxes of supplies for mending and creating clothes, in th

Given the sheer size of that phrase, I'd suggest using dashes instead of commas.

>consider leaving

double space.

[color=greem]>ust look. ‘Flora and Fauna, Exotic and Engaging.’ ‘All Things Nautical.’ ‘What to do in the event of disaster’, that’s a key book. ‘Discovery for dunderheads’, won’t be needing that myself, but you never know.

This bit could be better punctuated with a colon, commas and a selection of dashes. Also, you don't need to place apostrophes round the names. The italics show us that they're titles just fine.

[color]>It felt strange looking at it

Means the map felt strange when it was looking at the map (understandable, really). Either change it to I or change looking to "to look".

>An uncanny feeling, like the map shouldn’t really exist.

Comma splice as is. I'd suggest using an ellipsis in place of that comma.

>I took a look myself, and no altas mentioned any place like Mechanon.

Feels strange. I'd suggest using "and I couldn't find any references to a Mechanon in any of my atlases." or something similar.

Feel free to ignore, though. I can't quite say why/if it's wrong.

>and no pegasi or ship was been able to fly that far.
>was been

Has been.

>a ringing of a bell echoed through the ship.

the ringing

>This was a vacation for Twilight: to learn and study new and interesting things few ponies would ever have a chance to learn.

Feels off. I'm not sure if it's because of the tense or the use of a colon. Still... my senses are tingling here. I'd suggest rewriting it.

>All crew are to assemble

Crew members? I think it's fine as is, but it sounds wonky to my ears.

>Brought plenty of apples, cider, baking goods and accessories, long enough to keep us afloat until we reach Mechanon.”

Lose the long and shove a semicolon where it was.

>“What about Enterprise?” Twilight suggested. Everypony began to laugh at the idea, leaving only Twilight to fume. After the laughing stopped, Fluttershy stepped forward, much to everypony’s surprise.

Feels rushed. I'd suggest drawing the group's reaction to Twilight out a little.

>I just thought it would make sense; we are the Elements of Harmony

Your second clause explains or rationalises the first, and thus, that semicolon really needs to be a colon.

>A trumpet in the distance [...] towards Canterlot in the distance.

Get rid of one of those distances.

>It is because friendship

You need to put the quotation marks back on when you start a new paragraph.

>friendship, is something

Lose that comma after friendship

>marked “Full”, “All ahead at full power! Let’s go!”

Your use of quotations round full makes this a bit confusing to read. I'd suggest just leaving it as a capitalised word.

Ok. That's the skim read through done. Thoughts.

This chapters a lot stronger than the last one in holding my interest, though it doesn't really begin in earnest until - "But Rarity, I want to go too!” - that part. Much of the start of the fic feels... well, redundant. Sure, there's some setting up of the stage and a few plot details squirreled away inside the descriptions + dialogue (*cough* map *cough*), but the main drive behind the opening seems to be about building up interest over what Pinkie's building/hiding... which then gets carried out perfectly in the scene with Twi and Rarity walking up to de-cloak the ship. It just captures my interest faster, I suppose - and that's even with knowing what's under it.

Another point to make would be over your juggling of characters. You've got the whole of the mane six + cutie mark crusaders in attendance here, and that means you'll have to work hard to juggle all of them at once. There's a trap writers can fall into of grouping their characters together and reducing them from a bunch of people into a group. I'm not saying you have it, but I am saying that it skims close to it at times.

That might also be down to your use of third person limited. We've got the camera fixed on Rarity, which brings with it an almost quantum effect whereby characters only really seem to exist when she's around. It's up to you to make me believe that they have lives when Rarity leaves the room. Throw in a couple of references to off-fic events, and perhaps a few character sub-plots that weave in and out of the dialogue, and any feelings along those lines should vanish.

Ok. That's me. I'll be back for chapter three at some point. Bon voyage!

1349094

I have to ask: How do you get the half-width quote box with regular text next to it? I've never seen that before in any comment thread.

:trixieshiftright: Tell me your secrets, Aquillo.

Late but holy shit, this is epic!

Granted, I'm a bit disappointed that the epic battle scene we saw in the first chapter won't happen but...

Still, I'm not a fan of steampunk (more of a cyberpunk fan) but I like it!

Wow, zero dislikes.

Well, I'm not a fan of steampunk but the world's pretty fleshed out.

Anyways, will we see a cyberpunk world or no?

2952014

Sorry about the late response.

I would like to do cyberpunk world, and even had some designs to do so, but never really found the time between this, that, and the other thing. I'll greatly consider it though, as I am fascinated with ponies playing with tech of all kinds.

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