Is ready for review!!

Please come and check out this complete overhaul of the chapter.

* A whole lot of prose has been improved, added, and otherwise rewritten.
* The entire Ministry Tour which Luna takes has been removed from this chapter.
* Everyone's characterization has been updated to give a much more clear sense of urgency.
* The scenes from True, True Friends having to do with getting Nyx flown out are bumped to this chapter.
* The scene with the mayor going crazy is in this chapter now as well.

All changes are highlighted in grey for ease of editing. Please look the chapter over and comment as you see fit. All previous comments made by onlyanorthernsong, Pawz, and Questionable have been addressed.

When you're done and I've given the chapter a second pass, I'll post this in the public forum.
Thanks!

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Overall I'd say the restructuring has been a complete success, the chapter has really benefited from the improved focus and the characters have greatly benefited. Rumbles desperation is palpable and Flitters despair over their failure is far more pronounced, I feel this is going to linger within her as well as Nyx for a long time to come.

Adding the mayors section in this chapter really helps build up what's coming, Chocolate knows something is wrong but for the moment getting Nyx somewhere safe is their top prority and so the chance is lost.

Also nice addition regarding her armour, nice to see it wasn't window dressing and that Luna pulled out all the stops to keep her friend safe. That and Rumbles reaction to it... he's really warming to me as you add more dialogue to him.

One minor nitpick which might not really be a problem, but they're burying Lily within the irradiated blast zone. I understand why they're doing it and I assume balefires radiation dissipates pretty rapidly but short term her body is going to be out of reach for her family. Its not anything major, just thought it was worth mentioning.

It does bring up an interesting question regarding balefire. Is dragon fire in herently radioactive? If so it would mean Twilight was getting a dose every time Spike sent off a letter to the Princesses. Unless that was Celestias plan all along

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Good to hear the changes have had the desired impact. A lot of the characterization improvements are hopefully going to continue along those lines. Daisy's "take charge" moments here should make it clear how much she's changed since the show, but also demonstrate the importance of staying disciplined during an emergency. Even level-headed Flitter is susceptible to poor judgment when tragedy strikes.

And Rumble, I'm still trying very hard to flesh out. The template I'm using is Michael Garibaldi from Babylon 5 although obviously I won't be just copying the personality. He's still his own character, but that's kind of the direction I'm going with him.

I'm not sure how much the current tragedy will be overshadowed in the upcoming chapters, but it is inevitalbe that things will just keep ramping up. I'm hoping that it doesn't feel cheap to do it that way. It would be a shame to simply "level up" the tragedy to the point where early tragedies like this one are no longer affecting anyone.

But the fact of the matter is that they've got a lot worse stuff coming, and soon. Once we get to chapter 13, the reader will have a real clear picture of how bad things are going to get.

Regarding Lily's family, the sad part about that is they are probably all going to die in chapter 14 anyway... So it doesn't really matter that she's buried in a rad zone. I suppose if we wanted some macabre humor, I could always reanimate her corpse thanks to radiation!

j/k I wouldn't really do that. But imagine how crazy that would be.

As for balefire and dragonfire... I know Fo:E made them the same thing and all, but I'm just going to go ahead and say that the artificial balefire spells from the Black Book are a weaponized version of this which has radiation as an intentional byproduct, because Evil.

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I think this will add to the coming tragedy rather than it be a stepping stone to it. When confronted by the horror of what's happened and what they've had to do Lilys death will come back to haunt them, especially for Flitter I think.

This could actually help build on the loss of Flitters family, she resent of herself for "not being there" when her family vanished and losing Lily and later the town will only reinforce these feelings within her.

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Yeah, aftermath for the ch14 stuff is going to be real interesting. I need to balance it with the new act 2 stuff which... I haven't really fleshed out yet. Perhaps act 2 can be a place where we spend a lot of time growing the characters rather than it being all mission stuff. Like the mission can be there but maybe it's just things they are doing rather than the focus. Almost like when you have a scene in a movie and the camera switches to focus on the character standing behind the one in the front, and the front guy goes out of focus but is still there, you know?

Truth is, act 2 is going to take some solid design work. I've got act 1 all nailed down in my head, but we're gonna have to brainstorm options for picking the story back up after that.

Nyx’s horn began to glow with swirling indigo colors.

Huh. So, Nyx's magic colour is deep purple.
That was obviously the case in Past Sins, but canon!Nightmare Moon's magic is turquoise, like her eyes. Another minor inconsistency introduced by Nightmare Moon's small appearances in later seasons. Dangit, Pen!
Not sure about the use of a plural on colors, when indigo is just one shade. Meh.

Nyx stared at her in amusement. “Thanks, Pinkie! This is a great party!”

The description of what Nyx is doing doesn't lead into what she says at all.

you big stud

IIRC a stud IRL is a stallion (or whatever pronoun is correct for the animal's species) who is used in breeding to impregnate multiple mares, and may be hired out to surrounding farms for a fee.
Woooooow, Nyx. You naughty filly!
---
Anyway, the chapter looks pretty good, and follows on from chapter six much better now. I think it's ready for public release...

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Indigo -
Yeah, well Nyx's cutie mark is also different than when Luna was Nightmare Moon. We could say that the Nightmare Moon which was in the show was actually a combination of Nyx and Luna, where now it's just Nyx since Luna is a separate person.

Party -
Not sure what you mean.

Stud -
Yeah well... there's a lot of meanings to that word. I'm not saying that he's a board inside a wall either. Stud is not an uncommon term used to mean "handsome/sexy guy".

Anyway, the chapter looks pretty good, and follows on from chapter six much better now. I think it's ready for public release...

Excellent! I'll push forward then, and once we're sure that chapter nine reads well, with the whole Ministry Tour structure, then I'll start posting new chapters for the public.

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We could say that the Nightmare Moon which was in the show was actually a combination of Nyx and Luna, where now it's just Nyx since Luna is a separate person.

That is actually a really good way of thinking about it ,and one I had not considered before.

well I am very impressed for one.

Especially with the complete rewrite of the first part of the chapter ( from the first line until Rumble and Nyx go into the memory.

So just as an aside, the previous version of this was one of the ... two... things that Recon has written that I have meost severely criticized. Basically the characters stood around and talked a lot, which made no sense given that 1 they all almost blew up like just a few minutes previously, 2 they are in an active combat zone that is very hot indeed and 3, Nyx is missing and could be dying at that very moment.

I feel like I have to describe these criticisms now, because they were so fully addressed that these problems are completely gone. Daisy acts like a take charge commanding officer, the characters move and only talk to each other on a " need to know" basis while simultaneously performing vital actions, and the whole scene has the requisite kinetic and breathless feel that is appropriate for these scenes.

Excellent Excellent work.

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one of the ... two... things that Recon has written that I have meost severely criticized

Hahaha... this wasn't even one of our infamous epic arguments. There have been probably seven of those.

But thanks for that. I'm very happy that you like the revision! A big part of what made it work has been a better understanding of dramatic tone, which is something I really struggled with when I first started. And between you and Pawz, you really spelled it out well how the characters needed to be acting in this chapter. Really. It means a great deal to me that what I've written resonates well with you, and I hope I can maintain that level of quality in the future.

In regards to discussions about Nyx's magic. Yeah, I myself probably haven't been the most consistent on it either, since that really only becomes important when you are trying to identify someone by the color of magic being used. A sort of "solving the mystery" kind of situation I haven't had a reason to write yet. Still, if you want a case for the magic color being purple, here is a piece of fan-art to Past Sins where someone, I think, really captured the color well.

Fun Factoid: The reason Nyx's mane is purple, rather than blue, is because of iTunes and maybe my old laptop screen. The original files for the season openers of MLP on iTunes, which is where I watched MLP for the very first time, had color problems. On my display at least, the hues were skewed to the point that Nightmare Moon's mane looked practically purple. A fact I did not come to know until well after Past Sins had been written.

So if I had been able to watch the correctly colored version, who knows, maybe Nyx's mane would be more blue than it is now. A fun little "Glimpse."

Anyway, to more serious feedback regarding the chapter. I've also left comments on the chapter itself.

1)This may be entirely a matter of taste, but the frequency of your perspective changes feels, well, too frequent, at least at the start. Now, I know you've spoken about this before in the previous chapter discussion, that the POV switching helps you paint the "big picture" of a fight. Still, despite the desperation of finding Nyx, this is a lot less frantic scene. Doing a word count check, the first two perspectives of the chapter are ~350 for rumble and ~325 for Daisy before getting into a larger Flitter section.

That's two very quick perspective also come immediately after the reader had to deal with even tighter perspective changes at the end of Chapter 6. Basically, I could see the starting scenes working with one less perspective change to help improve the flow, and if I were pick one to remove, I'd say Daisy's. All the things we learn from Daisy's perspective can be learned, and in fact some are relearned, from Flitter's following perspective. The biggest of which is the fate of the mare they were trying to save.

2) Something "itches" me regarding the fight with the three remaining zebra, though I can't quiet put my finger on why. The key take away from the fight seems to be Daisy getting a new weapon, which means she can have her weapon delivered to the mayor, which I feel is going to be the source of "delightful" things later. Daisy having the better, silenced weapon will also likely play some crucial role in fights going forward. A character's trademark weapon helps define her, just Little Pip and the Little Mac revolver she picks up. All that is well and good.

That being said, I think what "itches" me is how the start of the fight is present. We are in Flitter's perspective when Rumble fires on the zebra's the first time up until the point Flitter starts treating him. Then, we suddenly shift to Daisy's perspective who is the one that's actually going to finish the fight. Again, I think it's the perspective shift that feels unnecessary and... almost makes me feel like there are two fights in quick succession instead of just one. This also leans back somewhat on my previous comment regarding the perspective switching at the start of the chapter.

Having the first, short perspective from Rumble is a great way to start the scene, and after Nyx's memory scene, the POV's only shift with proper scene breaks. The area between the moment's of Rumble's POV before the memory scene, however, feel like we're playing POV hopscotch. Now, again, I know you've commented it in the past.

The perspective switching is something I developed at the end of chapter one. Sometimes, I want the "big picture" of a battle, but my story is bound by Third Person Limited perspective .... So I found the solution being to use a delimiter ~…~ to indicate perspective switching within a scene. The Immortal Game also does this, but they insert a graphic of the POV character's cutie mark instead, which is rather creative.

Having a delimiter is a good thing, but at the same time, it's feeling like a determent in what could, and possibly should, be one continuous scene. There is no big fight going on. Flitter and Daisy are standing right next to one another, processing the same events and being able to react to the same situations. That whole scene after Rumble flies out of the river could be done from a single perspective, I imagine Daisy's, and it would be much smoother.

To phrase it another way. The star of the scene seems to be Daisy. She's the first to find the body. She's there to see Rumble engage the three remaining zebra. She's the one to kill the last of the zebra. Flitter is doing less important things, basically healing Rumble for most of the action. The only really moment she has is when she's clutching the body of dead mare, and her changeling magic causes a few disguise changes. That moment, however, is not an internal revelation by Flitter. It is an external reaction that can be observed and mentally commented on by Daisy.

And with that said, going to post this comment. If I have any further overarching feedback, I'll add another comment to the thread.

3) The memory scene is a nice cute moment of Nyx's 13/3 birthday party. It provides a nice break from all the doom and gloom, and the key take away from the memory appears to be that Flitter was playing match maker for Rumble and Nyx way back then. A cute thing that helps bind our leading trio closer together.

The trouble with the scene is not how it starts, but how it ends. In the span of ~180 words Twilight shows up, has dialogue, then isn't mention again. A 30 minute timeskip happens. The group finishes their lesson, lands, and only then do we get Flitter making the key comment how Nyx should go and talk to Rumble.

That's a lot happening in ~180 words, and it comes off feeling rushed.

My suggestion would be to try and have the conversation about Rumble happen while the flying lesson is going on, just after Twilight shows up. Maybe Nyx glances down, sees Rumble came out of Sugarcube Corner to watch them fly. She blushes, Flitter comments, and then Twilight can make a counter comment. Perhaps she can go into "my fillies too young to be dating," or she can get melancholy considering the relationship I remember being mentioned between her and the now brutally murdered Flash Sentry. That would also make Twilight's presence in the scene feel a lot more meaningful. Right now, as I mentioned in the doc directly, Twilight's presence there feels like a little throw away.

We get 23 words of generic, store-brand mom, when it feels like a missed opportunity to have a name-brand, Twilight-Mom moment.

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There's so much great feedback here, and in the doc, that I'm going to take some time and comment on it all at once. I'm truly grateful for these insights, and I'm pretty sure that I can either explain or fix most if not all of them.

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In regards to discussions about Nyx's magic. Yeah, I myself probably haven't been the most consistent on it either, since that really only becomes important when you are trying to identify someone by the color of magic being used.

The way I've done it is to go with a dim indigo glow for her normal levitation. There's a scene in chapter 13 where she comes to bed after Rumble is already there. Scene is in his POV. The room is almost completely dark, and she comes in levitating something. Her horn glows dimly since she's not really exerting herself. Unlike MLP which needs to make it obvious for the viewer's benefit when a unicorn is using their magic, I think it's safe to make "normal" everyday magic quite dim.

It's also worth noting that I'm considering levitation to be in a different class of magic than everything else. Levitation is more or less an extension of a pony's "will" rather than a learned "spell" which is essentially a mental computer program which the unicorn executes to achieve a specific effect. Levitation is more like using your arm muscles to reach out and grab something. But mentally. It requires no training - only practice.

Fun Factoid: The reason Nyx's mane is purple, rather than blue, is because of iTunes and maybe my old laptop screen. The original files for the season openers of MLP on iTunes, which is where I watched MLP for the very first time, had color problems. On my display at least, the hues were skewed to the point that Nightmare Moon's mane looked practically purple. A fact I did not come to know until well after Past Sins had been written.

Wow! That's so cool. Yay for a crappy computer?!
Seriously though, I'm glad you made it purple. It gives her a distinct look. I'm also glad she has real hair rather than an ethereal mane. No mention of anyone having an ethereal (or prehensile) mane will likely make it into my story. I find both of these concepts quite silly, but I understand that the fandom is generally attached to the idea. The thing is, Nyx eventually gets more powerful than the royal sisters. If it were an indication of magical strength, I'd need to change her mane as well. Not interested in that.

I think what "itches" me is how the start of the fight is present. We are in Flitter's perspective when Rumble fires on the zebra's the first time up until the point Flitter starts treating him. Then, we suddenly shift to Daisy's perspective who is the one that's actually going to finish the fight. Again, I think it's the perspective shift that feels unnecessary and... almost makes me feel like there are two fights in quick succession instead of just one.

This is probably a good point. I may be able to merge two POV scenes together into one in this instance to make it flow better. I'll address this when the time comes.

That whole scene after Rumble flies out of the river could be done from a single perspective, I imagine Daisy's, and it would be much smoother.

Yeah, this. Probably a good point. I'll play around with that and see if I can make it work.

The trouble with the [flight lesson] scene is not how it starts, but how it ends. In the span of ~180 words Twilight shows up, has dialogue, then isn't mention again. A 30 minute timeskip happens. The group finishes their lesson, lands, and only then do we get Flitter making the key comment how Nyx should go and talk to Rumble.
That's a lot happening in ~180 words, and it comes off feeling rushed.
...
We get 23 words of generic, store-brand mom, when it feels like a missed opportunity to have a name-brand, Twilight-Mom moment.

Absolutely. Twilight was definitely tacked on. The flashback scene has had almost zero editing since I wrote it two years ago. I'm going to have to go back and add some actual quality prose to the scene.