Hello, friends! I know I’m kinda late on this one. I’ve just been playing Hearthstone Battlegrounds uh, very busy lately.

But hey, I’m sure it’s still Friday somewhere in the world, so I’m technically not late?

[Unpublished stories cannot be embedded]

I actually saw this story hovering around my feed like, a month ago, thought it looked pretty interesting. So… let’s see how it does!

This story centers around a group of six changelings who still follow Chrysalis after the changelings changed at the end of Season 6.

”Get a job, gang.” That’s what the majority of drones tell Venom Stinger and his siblings, all of whom are known as “The Change Gang.” All they want is an actual role in Chrysalis’ hive, while the last thing they want is to end up turning into those eyesore reformed changelings. That changes when they’re sent as spies on a mission to retrieve information about the current condition of King Thorax, who has fallen gravely ill.

But when an unexpected transformation occurs at the wrong time, and the group of drones are suddenly discovered in their new states, Venom Stinger, Cricket Cluster, Flutterwings, Spiny Spectacle, and Scorchin’ Heat, along with new gang member Thistle Thorn, all have no choice but to struggle to adapt to their new lifestyle as Thorax’s subjects—and to struggle even harder to keep their secret of who they actually work with.

But can the newly-transformed Change Gang protect their new “friends” while trying to hide their biggest secret? And will they ever uncover the reason why they suddenly went through these changes?

The story is currently incomplete. In fact, the story so far has barely started to cover the events mentioned in the description; so for anyone who’s hoping to read about our changelings trying to disguise themselves in a changedling hive, you’re out of luck for now.

Still, I guess I should still go into what’s been written a little, since it’s like, my job or something. So… how does this story do?

Let’s talk about what was done well first.

I really, really like Bezier’s characterisation of the changeling protagonists. The way they behave and interact with one another has a really natural, snappy feel to it. It's definitely the part of the fic that I enjoyed the most.

“We all know how much our kind’s population has been decreasing,” Scarab continued, unintentionally lamp-shading Venom’s insult.

“And what do I have to do with it? I’m not part of any of the armies, nor do I get sent to go hunting, and there is NO way I am stepping back into that stinkin’ grub nursery again. It took me 2 hours to fully clean the gunk out of my holes!” Venom hissed in disgust, shaking his front hooves.

“Venom, that took you 5 minutes-”

“Two! Dreadful! HOURS!” Venom shouted as he suddenly slumped onto the hive’s floor, his annoyedly complaining tone suddenly whiplashing to melodramatic. He would’ve pretended to wail for good measure, as he recalled seeing a certain white unicorn doing it a few times, whether it was genuine or not. For personal reasons, Venom decided not to. For he always despised the very concept and existence of crying itself.

Moving on from that, though, there are a ton of other errors in the rest of the story. I'll start with the least important and slowly work my way up here. 

First, there are noticeably many grammar errors and general technical mistakes here. It's not enough to make the story unreadable, but it's definitely enough to stand out to me when reading.

Here are a few examples.

Wrong word

On the silent, dreary train ride to Canterlot, Pharynx speechlessly watched through the window beside him as the nighttime scenery of Equestria’s locations moderately passed by.

Tense errors

However, while Queen Chrysalis had managed to retain a strong army and swarm, the hive had lost many drones over time.

He may not have been there in person, but thinking about how Starlight had actually saved his brother’s life by telling him to share his love, plus the many times Thorax had told him this story of how he and his friends had achieved these “medals,” he deeply wished he was there to at least... Well, be there.

Lavender Unicorn Syndrome (This one is especially bad!)

Scorch only rolled his eyes at his brother’s rather childish reaction. “Oh, knock it off, Cricket. You’re always such a baby when it comes to moments like this. I don’t see what you find scary about... silence,” the red-schemed changeling mocked him playfully.

“WRONG!” The changeling queen pounded her hoof again, making the teal-schemed drone jump.

Plus, there’s lots of more specific errors that result in many, many awkward sentences. Things like unnecessary word repetition, too-wordy sentence segments, and splitting related sentence segments into two sentences. I’ll not go into more detail, for the sake of keeping this short-ish. There are a lot of awkward sentences, though.

Also please spell out your numbers.

Second, also on the technical side: the writing here seems to be very reliant on 'tell'-ing. 

Venom Stinger couldn’t blame her actually. He himself hated being seen as weak and emotional like that. There were, however, several instances he could recall that he was exactly in that state, just succeeding in keeping his internal dam from bursting and flooding.

Overall, he found the Queen someone he could relate to.

Thistle looked at Venom, raising an eyebrow in bafflement. “Fatter?” she asked, noticing his word choice.

Now, I won't go into this too much, seeing as I've already written another review targeting this very topic. A note to Bezier, though; do try and check for this when you're writing! Some of these over-telling things do get kinda annoying when they show up consistently. Especially when they’re totally unnecessary, like in the second quote above.

Third, the major events that happen in the story seem to be a little… random. It feels like some of them just happen whenever Bezier feels like putting them in, and they feel out of place as a result. I suppose an example or two would help to clarify what I mean, though. 

“We went over that already.” Spiny raised a hoof, as if he had pressed a pause button that suddenly stopped the Queen’s incoming speech dead in its tracks. Scorch only let out an exaggerated yawn in agreement.

Chrysalis slapped a hoof against her forehead in exasperation. Ever since her dethronement, she has been hiding the fact that she was genuinely devastated of the mere fact that her own former subjects not only overthrew her, but they actually chose to overthrow her than stick to her side like they were supposed to. Like they promised to...

There she was, with her foreleg still covering her face, trying to hide her sullen expression. Though even the Change Gang could see her struggling to do so, though none of them dared to say a word about it though.

Venom Stinger couldn’t blame her actually. He himself hated being seen as weak and emotional like that. There were, however, several instances he could recall that he was exactly in that state, just succeeding in keeping his internal dam from bursting and flooding.

Overall, he found the Queen someone he could relate to.

It had been a long moment of silence that was finally broken by Cricket. “Um... Are you alright my Queen?”

This segment takes place in the middle of a snappy dialogue session that seems pretty light-hearted until this moment. Because of that, this part really seems forced into the scene and doesn’t really belong.

On the subject of things that don’t belong: the entire first chapter.

Why’s it there?

For those who haven’t read the story, the first chapter is basically just a prelude that tells us about how Thorax has fallen gravely ill, and Pharynx and the other changedlings are making a pilgrimage of sorts toward Canterlot to seek help from Celestia. Problem is, I really don’t see how this chapter is necessary for introducing the rest of the story, and its placement here just seems very random.

Lastly, and most importantly: the pacing that this story moves at is too fast. There’s not much time for any important information to sink in before the next thing.

Have an example: in the second chapter, Bezier introduces the Change Gang, a group of (as of Ch 2) five changelings who serve Chrysalis. All of them are introduced at once, in the same scene, in a chapter which also contains a few more side characters. All that in a chapter of a little less than three thousand words, shorter than the prelude chapter. This is just not enough time for people to get introduced to the characters in a proper way.

In another few instances, Bezier tells us stuff that is not relevant to the story at the time, which makes that exposition feel very out of place.

Scores

Grammar and Use of Language: 6/10
Not bad enough to ruin the experience, but there were numerous errors, enough to be noticeable. Also, many of the sentences had some kind of weird, awkward phrasing that don't really work and just sound odd. 

Character and Characterisation: 7.5/10
The characterisation of the six protagonists is pretty well-done, and fits the comedic tone well. 

I'm reluctant to give this 8 or higher, though. Even though I’m sure that all six changelings have a unique personality, I couldn’t name the six if you asked me to, other than Venom Stinger, the first new changeling that we’re introduced to. In other words, the story is written in a way that makes all the characters forgettable, other than Venom Stinger. I’ll go through this issue a little later.

Other than that, it feels like the characters also don’t have much depth to them. Or at least, the way that Bezier tries to create depth in his characters doesn’t really work. For example, it feels like Venom Stinger has some deeper character other than his outer drama queen, but the way that Bezier goes about showing this is by basically telling us directly that something traumatic happened to him in the first scene of the chapter “Change” of Plans (Part 3).

Tone and Control of Atmosphere: 5/10
This story has a Comedy tag, but definitely has some serious moments that aren’t supposed to be comedic at all. Trouble is, a lot of these moments are kinda overshadowed by the comedic atmosphere, especially after the first chapter, when the Change Gang becomes the POV. Best to separate the two moods into different scenes in the future, unless you really know what you’re doing.

Story Structure and Pacing: 4/10
The pacing of this story is way too fast. The introduction of the characters was too rushed, the mood whiplashes between emotional and comedic on the tip of a hat, and a lot of things happen way too quickly for them to properly register in readers’ minds before the next thing happens.

The story has some legitimately enjoyable moments in it. Unfortunately, a lot of them are overshadowed by glaring structural and technical errors, which really affected my enjoyment of this fic. Still, if you look past that, this story definitely has some potential, and has its moments. Overall, this gets a 6/10 from me.

Feedback for Bezier

Control your exposition! I know you have lots of things that you want to get into, like Chrysalis’ feelings about losing her subjects, or Pharynx’s love for his brother, but there’s a time and place to do that. Only explain things when they become necessary to understand the story. Not a moment earlier.

An example: I mentioned in the review that the prelude chapter is not necessary for the story. What made me say that?

Think of the critical information that this prelude chapter revealed. First, Thorax is gravely sick. Second, Pharynx is headed to Canterlot with some of the changedlings. Third, the changelings are trying to do… something to the changedlings, Pharynx and Thorax in particular.

None of this is particularly necessary to understand the story that begins in the next chapter. Really the only piece of relevant information that we get from this chapter is some initial introductions to five out of six of our protagonists, based purely on description and not name.

This chunk of unnecessary story is a problem especially at the start of the story, where you’d ideally want to get people invested in the main plot of the story, or get started with introducing the characters.

The same is true for any exposition and backstory you might want to do. For example, the entirety of the chapter “Change” of Plans (Part 2) is basically just backstory. Is anything that’s revealed through this backstory necessary for understanding the story? Not that I see, at the moment.

Again, only explain things when they become necessary to understand the story. Because when you explain everything, nothing is suspenseful or interesting anymore.

I know today’s feedback is a little vague. Honestly, though, exposition and backstory is a little too broad for me to tackle as a whole, especially for a review that’s already very long. So if you have any questions you want to ask, feel free to reply to this thread!

As always, hope you all have a good week ahead

7055242
Thanks for the review. I was honestly worried you forgot about me to be honest, so I was pretty excited to read this.

As for the review itself, I will be honest; I was surprised about how many errors the story actually had, not in a bad way though, I just hope I’ll be able to improve somehow, I dunno how though. The story itself is still in some early stages, so some details will possibly be fleshed out as it progresses. Though, I do understand the very good points you made in the review.

(P.S. The flashback in “Change of Plans Part 2” is just meant to introduce Venom’s rivalry with Pharynx. Just a sidenote.)

And last but not least, this review helped me address a personal fear that I didn’t even know I had until now; it’s not the review itself that I have a problem with, because I’m willing to take the constructive criticism you have given me. Though, I’m just worried about the future of “Meet The Change Gang.” I’m worried that if I keep updating the story, it will get progressively worse if I’m not able to fix the glaring errors within the story and the pacing and such. Hopefully, I’ll think of something, though.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this. Thanks again!

7055276
Haha, yeah, my reviews only come out once a week, so it takes a while to get to new stories Glad you found it helpful, though!

As for improving... well, don't worry about doing everything correctly right now. Focus on fixing individual problems as you go, and you'll naturally improve from there.

And hey, if you're really interested in finding out how you can fix your storytelling errors, I'd recommend looking for some extra reading on the fundamentals of storytelling, like plot structure and character arcs. You might find it enlightening.

Here's a good one, if you're interested

7056101
Looks interesting. Thanks again!