This is where you can go to get help on stories you're working on. Note that it's distinct from the Brainstorming Thread as that's for back-and-forth generation and vetting of ideas, with no progress necessary; the Writer's Workshop will be for story ideas that you are actually working on and writing, and you're looking for feedback, criticism, and editing help.

Rules for Writing an Episode
Each story in the School of Friendship series is meant to feel like an episode of a TV show. As such, there are a few basic rules you should keep in mind when writing. There’s only six, and they're easy.

1. At least one of the Student Six has to be a main character
Pretty straightforward and self-explanatory. This is meant to be their series.

2. Teen Rating Maximum
We’re trying to create something that feels like an MLP series, so that means no Mature stories. At the same time though our audience is FiMFic readers and so most likely adults, not kids, so we can push boundaries a bit more than the show did.

3. 25,000 word maximum length
This is long enough to draw in reader investment but short enough to require stories to be sparing with details. 25,000 words is specifically to give a fair bit of breathing room if needed; 20,000 words is probably more ideal.

4. Must conform to the established continuity
Of both the show and other stories in this series. Since we’re trying to make this feel like a single continuity, this seems straightforward. This also means that we won't be doing any retconning.

5. No Bashing/Author Tracts/"Fix-fics"
Of characters, episodes, or whatever. Minor, good-natured poking fun at something is fine, for example, an offhand comment about how often Fluttershy has had to learn to stand up and be confident. But there shouldn't be an extended sequence of, say, a mare coming up to Starlight Glimmer and saying why she's awful, or a fic that exists for no other reason then to bash turning the Trio to stone.

6. Any or all of the above rules can be waved
If the story idea is good enough in concept and if the group generally agrees, then the above rules shouldn’t be a straightjacket preventing a good story from being told.

A while back I started working on a story for a Student Six writing contest, but it ended up exceeding the maximum word limit before I was even half-way done so I set it aside. When RainbowDoubleDash told me about his plans for this series, with his blessing I went back to finish that story and rework it so that it'd fit here. It's presently about 95% done in terms of writing, now requiring pre-reading and editing. The only other issue would be trying to preemptively smooth out any continuity issues and establish other writers may want to do in their own stories for the season.

That story, "Art of the Dragon," is kicked off when it's proposed that the School, and specifically the Student Six, put on display at a Spring Exhibition to convince the visiting leaders of the dragons, changelings, yaks, etc. to send more of their subjects to the School in the future. This is a Smolder-centric story as she's left grappling with her de facto status as an example or role-model for other dragons and whether or not she can fit that role given her own uniqueness. Rainbow Dash learns of Smolder's problems and tries to help. After a bit of a set-back, Rainbow hits upon a unique way for her and Smolder to bond while they thrash out the issues Smolder is dealing with (as well as rehabilitating Dash's role as a teacher after her character assassination in "Non-Compete Clause" and "2, 4, 6 Greaaat"). It's a bit of a character piece for both Smolder and Rainbow Dash.

Except for Ocellus, who has a minor role in one or two scenes, the other members of the Student Six, while mentioned, don't actually appear. The rest of the Mane Six are also present in one scene, but don't have a speaking role beyond that. The story is mostly focused on just Smolder and Rainbow Dash, alternating between their perspectives.

In terms of the overall plots revolving around the redemption of Cozy Glow and the return of Lavan, there's very little here that has any direct bearing on either. There's really only the barest of mentions of either subject, though depending on how other writers want to tackle those subjects, there could perhaps be more tie-ins set up here.

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"Art of the Dragon" link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15BauYl49FoalUyJsb4Ez3FRct8xjjBHojrkKufU1Z1w/edit?usp=sharing

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Would be very interested in hearing folks' thoughts, especially as relates to other stories or events for the season that can be developed or set up here.

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I liked it, personally! I think the only potential issue will be the Smolder-Ocellus hints of shipping. I'm not quite sure where we as a group will land on that.

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I've been operating on the assumption that, save for the canon Yonabar, we were keeping shipping things neutral.

If not, then be aware--that's only opens the door for me to do some Gallus/Smolder, so keep that in consideration.

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Much as I’d like my own best ship (Smocellus!) to be front and center, it might be for the best to keep out shipping beyond what’s in canon. Though that being said another part of me kind of wants to lean in on the teenager angle and have the cast caught in a never-ending love dodecahedron of breakups and makeups. But that would probably be too complicated to handle.

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And too cliche! I agree, probably better to just not go down that route.

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Smocellus 'til death.

But fair enough, I'll take out those bits before publication.

Teen romance, especially with multiple potential ships, complicates things far too much; often at the expense of being enjoyable. I'd cite Season 2 of Legends of Korra and the latter seasons of Star vs. the Forces of Evil with Marco/Star/Tom as examples. To quote Kitty Forman from That 70's Show. "You kids change partners more than square dancers."

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Smocellus 'til death.

Well, that can be arranged. *picks up axe*

(I kid, of course)

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Okay, I'm going through taking out the overt shipping stuff. A quick question which maybe should be taken up in brainstorming: what are the dorm arrangements? I was leaning a lot on Tiatarta and writing Smolder and Ocellus as roommates. The show, I think, had them mostly in their own rooms. How should we handle that in the season?

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It isn't too big a deal, it's just that there's some nice character stuff I did with Smolder being Ocellus roommate and how it ties into her draconic instincts here even without any shipping material being involved, so I'd hate to lose it, but it depends on what we want to do with the rooming arrangements.

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I just put this same idea out in the Brainstorming thread and so, naturally, I'm all for it and for these specific (non-romantic) pairings.

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The show actually wasn't consistent on this, and it seemed to vary on the situation of the given moment. However, I strongly believe there is a roommate arrangement on the grounds that every dorm room that was shown had bunk beds, suggesting two occupants.

As for who is rooming with whom, only the episode "2, 4, 6, Greaaat" showed a specific example, showing Ocellus and Yona actually bunking in the same room. The rest were never shown, but if we assume they're all just bunking with another of the Young 6 (though it could be fun to break the trend and have them bunk with some random schmuck background character) and that the dorm rooms are gender segregated (e.g. only guys in one room, only gals in another), then presumably it'd be Gallus and Sandbar in one room, leaving Smolder and Silverstream to occupy another.

For these reasons, this is how I've personally been doing the bunking arrangements as of late.

This also assumes the room assignments don't change with every new semester, in which case all bets would be off and we could literally do it anyway we wanted at that point. But at the same time, I don't see too much need to reinvent the wheel on this case.

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What, the show was inconsistent on something? I've never heard of such a thing!

Taking this discussion over to Brainstorming.

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Good idea--best let everybody else chime in on this too.

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Okay, so I went through and removed all the Smocellus ship-tease stuff. The only thing is that I need this story to take place during a semester when the two are room-mates, since that seems to be the direction we're going with room arrangements. It doesn't especially matter which season (I can easily change the Spring Exhibition to a Fall or Winter one) just as long as the two are room-mates at the time.

I'm still operating on the assumption from "What Lies Beneath" that Smolder's only shared her cutesy side with Ocellus (the dresses, secret tea-parties, etc.) and so is her confidant in such matters, hence her importance in the story (yes, I know Gallus saw the dress but she threatened him into silence. I'm also aware that the others briefly saw her in a dress in that shared dream from "Uprooted," but I'm choosing to assume Smolder still hasn't opened up to the others about that. Could be a story for later on in the series, but for now, I'm operating on the logic that Smolder has only let Ocellus into her confidence about this).

And I'm off to the races! Only just started but I'll keep y'all updated as I go.

The Return of Cozy Glow

And that would be chapter 1 done, at least the draft of it.

The Return of Cozy Glow, part 1, chapter 1

Just establishing where the Student Six are at in terms of their mutual relationships with each other for the most part. Sandbar barely features in this chapter due to the framing device and how I knew I wanted to end the chapter, but I'll give him some more focus in chapter 2 to make up for it. Gallus is going to be the main character, though.

Originally I actually was actually seeing this chapter as a montage where we switched between perspectives of each of the Six getting ready to go to school, taking their individual rides there, and then meeting up, but I decided that might end up lacking in focus. So instead it's mostly following Gallus' specific journey to the School, and him meeting up with Smolder, then Yona, then Ocellus and Silverstream, and finally Sandbar.

Pass buggy! It makes sense in context.

Next chapter is...well, first, getting some coffee or something into Gallus. But then bringing in Cozy Glow and THE ASSIGNMENT. Plus introducing kirin, crystal pony, diamond dog and buffalo students. They're very much tertiary characters but I do have a Plan to work them into the overall plot.

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Can't wait for more!

Speaking purely personally, I'm a little leery of just how the Cozy Glow assignment will come down and am very concerned that it doesn't turn into a fiat by Twilight or Starlight to the Student Six. There were a couple (or perhaps more than a couple) of instances in the show where I would've loved it for the character to just stand up and say "No. You're not my boss, you don't get to force me into this. If this is something you want to see done that badly, do it yourself." I could think of several episodes and plot-threads that would've been vastly improved if Twilight had been allowed to say that to Celestia (in fact, was Twi ever allowed to tell Celestia no throughout the whole dang show?), or if one of Twi's friends had been allowed to say that to Twilight.

I just really would like it if Twilight and Starlight exhibited a little growth in this regard, recognized how bad it was that they (and Celestia) kept pulling this stuff in the past and made clear that this wasn't going to be more of the same here. Granted, I know that if it was purely left up to the Students, Cozy would likely never get released at all, but there has to be a better way of handling it than, say, how Celestia blithely dumped ruling Equestria into Twi's lap at the start of S9.

There can be some encouraging of the Student Six, some wheedling in order to get them to go along with it--but I'd hate it if it was simply forced on them.

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(in fact, was Twi ever allowed to tell Celestia no throughout the whole dang show?)

No, but at least for Twilight, there was a valid reason given--she thought so very highly of Celestia that the mere idea of even considering refusing her was basically blaspheme in her mind. It was one of Twi's defining character traits, one none of the rest of the six ever really demonstrated themselves (except maybe Rarity, but rarely ever to same extent as Twilight), so I'd argue it was in line with her character for that and you couldn't really do without it and not also rob Twilight of a notable part of what made her Twilight.

Whether or not Celestia then more or less abused Twilight's unwillingness to refuse her to her own gain, I leave to other fans to decide.

That all said, I get what you're saying and agree--we should be careful to not make it just the Young 6 were asked to do it whether they wanted to or not and just don't ever think to refuse to, since that'd both be redundant seeing the show's already done that more than once, and not very realistic, with consideration how one would expect real-life people to respond to such a situation. Plus, giving them that option of possibly refusing and then dealing with whatever consequences that come with it, good or bad, I would argue would be part of the intended learning experience too.

My suggestion is to have it more Twilight and Starlight petition for a set number of volunteers to help assist with the Cozy project, leaving it up to those who want to. Then, noticing that nobody else seemed to be volunteering and feeling guilty about it, one of the Young 6, lets say Silverstream, decides to be the bigger creature and volunteer. Then, the rest of the Young 6, also feeling guilty to some varying degree (it varies from creature to creature obviously) and not wanting to leave Silverstream to have to deal with Cozy all on her own, they gradually follow suit. We can have the less easily swayed creatures such as Smolder and Gallus be last to volunteer, only once everybody else has done so before them.

That's how I'd approach it, or at least in that general direction. We can expand upon all that however we feel necessary.

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I was thinking, for the first two episodes, that Twilight would limit her pool of volunteers specifically to the Student 6. They have a connection to Harmony, so Twilight probably would figure that if anyone can help Cozy, it's them. I was thinking of having her and Starlight think that they might have to incentivize the Students, though, and so they'd offer extra credit for helping out Cozy. Silverstream or Sandbar would be the ones to volunteer and then the other four would come on-board basically so that those two don't have to do it alone. But even with Silverstream and Sandbar the resentment towards Cozy is real at this point.

Twilight and Starlight weren't intentionally trying to make it a school assignment and force Cozy upon them, but the context around it plus the "extra credit" offer (or alternatively they could phrase it as "this could even qualify as the volunteer hours you need to graduate!") gives off the impression that it's a school assignment and so the Students more-or-less treat Cozy like that, as homework that needs to be done. That they really don't want to do. Cozy herself is also intensely resentful of being treated like a school assignment, which is what spurs her to try and mess things up for everyone.

When Cozy is cornered and does her Motive Rant, then at least Silverstream, Ocellus, and Sandbar will feel bad about the fact that she's got a point about being treated like homework, even if it doesn't excuse her actions (manipulating the student body into turning against itself, also maybe something quick with the Tree, details are in flux right now). Twilight will also be there and apologize for giving off the impression of having forced Cozy on the Students, but also apologize to Cozy for making her think that she's just a problem to be solved and nothing more. The apology will take Cozy aback and be what lets her consider starting over, and likewise the Students will stop basically trying to force Cozy to change as fast as possible.

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Eh, no offense, but I kinda still like my take better, because then you can still do all of those same things, but then it feels less like it's all being forced solely on the Young 6.

But, you know, that's my opinion.

The Return of Cozy Glow, part 1, chapter 2!

Wherein Gallus has coffee and we expand to a cast of thousands.

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So awesoooooome!

Slight update on "Art of the Dragon": I sent it to my usual pre-reading and editor friends for grammar checking and the like. I'm not going to rush it into print, understand.

Also I changed the spring exhibition to a fall one so I guess my story will take place in the first third of the season; seeing as I need Smolder and Ocellus to be roomies in this story and we're apparently going with them rooming together for the fall semester.

The Return of Cozy Glow, part 1, Chapter 3 Progress

Just wanted to put down a progress report, since Cozy Glow's now officially back. I'm trying to find an appropriate balance for her in trying to act like she actually feels sorry publicly, while privately with the Students not exactly hiding her true self since she knows they see through her. Also this is the chapter that has the Student Six being asked by Twilight and company to keep an eye on her. I tried to make it clear to the audience that it's a request while still having it feel like, to the Students, that they're instead being shanghai'd and forced into the role of probation officers.

At this point none of the Students trust Cozy in the slightest.

As projected from here, chapter 3 will close out with a student "war council" dividing their time watching Cozy and basically looking for a chance to pounce on her. Chapter 4 will be an Ordinary Day at School with them trying to catch Cozy in the act of doing something wicked, but failing. Chapter 5 will be some more of the same but with some of them coming around to the idea that maybe, just maybe, she is sincere in her attempt at turning over a new leaf. Or at least sincere in not being up to something.

Of course she is. She'll have been using carefully-worded conversations with the student body, particularly the five new students who aren't as immediately repulsed by her, to start sewing mistrust and friction in the school.

Return of Cozy Glow, Part 1, Chapter 3

Finished the "war council", so the chapter is complete. Also I added a bit covering what's happening vis-a-vis Tirek and Chrysalis.

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I wonder if cozy would play Trixie’s ego against her in the counseling sessions, or is Trixie too smart for that? I mean it works perfectly if you think about it, since Trixie isn’t used to ponies feeding into her delusions of grandeur (besides snips and snails I guess)

The Return of Cozy Glow, Part 1, chapter 4 Progress

This chapter is winding down but I thought I'd get some opinions on it. I'm taking the time to have the new students actually do something, though I'll be saving Long Path the buffalo for the next (and last) chapter. Looks like this story will probably push the 25K word limit hard when all is said and done as well, I'll have to work on that.

The Return of Cozy Glow, Part 1, chapter 4

Complete. Now just to finish chapter 5 (the last one), which I think will be mostly a montage taking place over the course of a week or so. This will also be the one where we show off Cozy's plan, which will basically involve manipulating most of the students - except, seemingly, Bella - into causing or exacerbating problems, even as she maintains a successful facade of innocence. In reality the whole thing is a cover for her working with Bella to get her to literally undermine the school. Resolving the friendship problems - and stopping Bella from collapsing the school into a sinkhole - will be the subject of Part 2, but I think I might take a bit of a break in order to get back to Trouble at Midnight Castle.

Are other people working on stories yet? How are they coming along?

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I really need to get started on mine, but I've been stuck on another project for longer than I expected. Hopefully I can get that sorted out soon and then knuckle in on it.

It's not all bad, though--I had wanted to wait and get a bit of a frame of reference on how others were going to approach the series so to have a preset base to go off of, and at least I've gotten that by now, if nothing else.

The Return of Cozy Glow, Part 1, chapter 5
The Return of Cozy Glow, Part 1, epilogue

There is no word count limit so large that I cannot exceed it. Currently sitting on 26,341 words. I think if I go back through this I may be able to cut it down to 25,000 words, but given that this is the first story in the series it might be okay to invoke Rule 6 on this.

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Finally lol. Was wondering what happened to this!

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Congrats! This is shaping up nicely.

The only concern I have is that these sorts of plots are so well trod that most readers will instinctively empathize and support Silverstream and Ocellus in what they say and tend to dismiss Gallus and Smolder as unreasonable or jerkish.

I'm also wondering about how the teachers should be handled when it comes to Cozy. I can see Pinkie and Fluttershy being a bit too fast to want to give Cozy a second chance, but given how the story had Twilight and Starlight handle this with the Students, it almost feels like they're being set up to fail...especially if the teachers react only to the Students and never to Cozy.

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I think Pinkie indicated that she is keeping tabs on Cozy with the whole library comment. And Cozy knows that she's being watched most of the time.

Sooooooo I totally dropped off the face of the earth! I'm sorry for that, but I think I'm ready to start helping out here a little more and maybe even get started on a story?

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I was wondering if maybe you could compile all of this into one file, RDD. Or, I could do it myself, with your blessing.

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The Return of Cozy Glow, part 1
Full story!

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Thanks!!

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We're on the way!

Well with "Art of the Dragon" mostly done (awaiting some editing from a friend not in the group), I thought I'd start on the other story for the season that caught my interest: the one where the ice is finally (or at least mostly) broken between Smolder and Cozy.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VYYt-tLb0nNz37TMxzaViznSzekxBy2lu3yL4MV8Ie0/edit?usp=sharing

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I was reviewing what you have posted of "Art of the Dragon" just now as part of refreshing myself on the bigger universe we're building and had a question: when Smolder goes to explain to Rainbow Dash how a dragon's fire-breathing works and all that...is it implying that dragons don't "breathe," conventionally speaking, at all? Or do they still breathe air like any other creature, just through some other means, since the typical way is more dedicated to the fire-breathing for dragons?

I ask because the story doesn't make it especially clear, and it occurs to me now that, biologically speaking, even with considering magic potentially filling in the gaps, doesn't feel like it flies logistically speaking (especially as the show has clearly demonstrated a dragon can and will still get winded and still need to breathe air like any other creature). So even if it's just touched upon very briefly, I feel like that should be explained in some manner, if just for the sake of keeping it clear for the reader.

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I was leaning a bit on RainbowDoubleDash's take on dragons in MLP when I wrote that. I'd refer to him for a fuller explanation, which I think tends to make sense.

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Well then!
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You wanna pop in and help clear it up then, RDD? I'm not against the idea in question, I'm just not sure I understand the details of how its supposed to work. And it's the sort of detail that I'd like to be clear on in case it comes up when writing my own series entries.

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Basically it's the result of me overthinking things. It occurred to me one day, I think around when I was writing The Return of Tambelon (so back in 2013 or so), that with all the heat that must exist over lava pools, the air above lava would be exceedingly thin and incredibly hot. On top of that I was reminded later that it's full of toxic gasses. Basically lungs as we understand them to work...wouldn't. So I came up with the idea that dragons just plain don't need to breathe; at least, I found that idea easier to accept then the idea that they do need to breathe but can also be fine when "chilling" in a lava bath.

The idea then is that what we see as dragons "breathing" is actually just a way for dragons to regulate their internal and external body temperatures. A dragon who stops breathing isn't going to die, but their bodies do start to gradually heat up. A dragon who's "winded" is actually just trying to keep their scales from turning red-hot. It wouldn't hurt the dragon but it might burn whatever, or whoever, they're touching. Like with ponies (or humans) lots of physical activity will also make them heat up and so they basically are panting like a dog to cool down. Of course if they're in a naturally cool medium like, say, water, then this is less necessary.

I got that idea - dragons do "breathe' to cool themselves - from Star Trek: the Next Generation, specifically the character of Data, as that's why Data breathes (well, that, plus the fact that his actor needs to, but "internal cooling" is how the series handwaves away the fact that the android Data is very clearly breathing in all of his scenes).

This was of course nixed pretty heavily by the movie; Spike is unambiguously shown to be in danger of drowning the same as the rest of the Mane-6 before being saved by Skystar. Still it's relatively unobtrusive and doesn't really change how any episodes would play out, so for my own personal writing I've kept the basic idea that dragon's don't breathe. It came up in Trouble in Tiatartia, for example.

But I'm not going to push it here - if we don't like it then I'm fine with ditching it. But Trinary seemed to like the idea.

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I'd like to be fine with the idea too--part of why I'm bringing it up now and not before...I had just rolled with it last time I had looked at the story and not really thought it through like I clearly am now--and I don't really wanna make a big hullabaloo about it like this, especially as I have no wish to make Trinary have to go back and revise anything just because I had to go and overthink something trivial. As such, I've actually spent a fair bit of time just now doing research, seeing if there was any plausible enough ways for a dragon to achieve the needed metabolic cellular respiration without the need for conventional respiration, or at least a form of breathing that wouldn't require a set of lungs specifically. I even took into consideration some magic-based "cheats" to help cross some of the gaps. Anything to resolve the problem with minimal need to change anything to adapt.

Unfortunately, despite all of that, believable alternatives are pretty scant--it seems this is one area of nature that, so far as science presently understands, isn't that flexible.

The most obvious alternative is anaerobic respiration, which is a form of cellular respiration that works sans oxygen. Unfortunately, this form is limited exclusively to microorganisms because it just doesn't provide enough energy to power a bigger and more complex organism, much less the presumed biological needs of a dragon, full grown or otherwise.

So I then considered if there were any options of breathing that could be done without the use of lungs...but again hit issues. I thought maybe a dragon could just "breathe" through its skin, like an amphibian...but this would require the iconic wet and slimy skin of such creatures, something dragons clearly do not have, and their ideal habitat wouldn't be very conducive for it either. I then thought maybe they "breathe" through the use of stoma, like with plants, but found this requires such a large surface area in order to be effective that we're back to the breathing through skin problem.

I suppose we could always use magic to handwave away these problems, but I'm finding it'd really be easier in the long run to just assume dragon lungs truly are durable and effective enough to still be able to draw in the needed oxygen despite the low oxygen factors of their environment regardless--maybe they bear some sort of magic "filter" that helps draw in the needed oxygen in sufficient amounts and keep out other toxins and the such that would otherwise be harmful. Or dragon lungs are just ultra efficient, able to make due with such scant oxygen that it can still breathe in such an environment despite the other gases present with it, crowding out that oxygen...which would further explain why they can still function perfectly normally even while living in an environment outside of their ideal one (e.g. Smolder in the clean air of Equestria).

Besides, it does seem odd that a creature would go to all the trouble to evolve a conventional respiratory system, only to not use it for exactly that same purpose too.

Plus, dragons can fly--maybe they can survive for periods of time close to the low-oxygen of the ground and then periodically fly up to higher altitudes where the air's fresher to draw in some big deep breaths before swooping back down again--it'd help give an evolutionary reason why they even have wings in the first place as a bonus.

I suppose there's the option of going the extra mile of just inventing an alternative of our own that science doesn't provide...but inventing a totally new respiratory process to achieve these goals and resolve these problems completely from the ground up would require waaaaay more research and planning than I think any of us would be prepared to do, especially for what is really a trivial detail, and still have no guarantees that would actually pay off in the end anyway.

Which, again, makes me feel sort of bad that my dumb brain has to go and overthink it and apparently turn it into a problem like this in the first place. But...there it is regardless.

So I guess now the ball's in the court of all the rest of you. If y'all decide to just overlook my overanalyzing for convenience's sake anyway, I certainly wouldn't blame you. If not, though...I guess this is me throwing my two-bits into the ring for discussing purposes.

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See the odd thing is that for all that the whole "they don't breathe" thing is a result of me overthinking things in the first place, I'm for some reason just perfectly okay with the idea that they don't need any kind of explanation to replace conventional breathing. I think my thought process literally goes something to the effect of, "well, Superman and Frieza don't need to breathe, so why not dragons?"

Yeah, I know, it's totally at odds with how I even got there in the first place.

Sorry I took forever with the reading but I'm done now and WOW

RDD, your dialogue is such a pleasure to read. Seriously. Really great stuff. This feels exactly like what I was hoping it would be: an episode of the show but with more detail and more character-building moments that the show may have left out due to time issues. Speaking from the perspective of this being a "first episode" of sorts, I think that this half does a really good job at setting up the Student Six as characters and establishing the setting. The new students are awesome, and I'm usually pretty sensitive to OCs like that but they blended right in with everyone else.

Some notes I took while reading:

The intro takes a little too long to get to the fact that Twilight is there, though that might be the point, with Starlight getting lost in her thoughts.

Love Yona dialogue and basically the entire train ride, the HUGS my god they’re great

[this is basically what I said earlier so ignore it] Honestly you do a great job at making it feel like I’m watching a real episode. You build up the same kind of atmosphere with the prose but you also sneak in a lot of slife-of-life-y moments that the medium of prose gives you the freedom to do.

“Trixie was queen of the diamond dogs once” made me laugh out loud oh my god.

I like the attention that you pay to each of the students when setting up a scene, but in some places it might be a little prudent to cut down on that and get to the point. When they’re called into Twilight/Starlight’s office so the professors can explain what’s going on with Cozy Glow, for example, it would save a lot of page space to say that each member of the Student Six is unhappy/frowning and get straight to the point of the scene, which is the exposition.

I love Summer Light! I’m gonna do my best not to fall in love with her and want to write exclusively about her but she’s making it really hard!

Love Bella but a little unsure what the scene with her in RD’s class adds to the plot—it definitely establishes Bella as a character, but it feels a little bit meandering when this is only part 1 of this story and it’s 26k words. Especially when that ending with Cozy and Bella does a much better job at giving Bella some screen time and moving the story along.

In conclusion:

It's really great so far! I just worry a little bit about it being too large, especially when the plot itself is basically only in the middle of the second act, but there are very few parts where I didn't feel immersed, so it's possible that's just a non-issue. I'm really excited about this. That fight at the end really tugs on the heartstrings after spending 20k+ words getting to know how strong the Student Six's friendships with each other are.

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Thanks! And yeah, "meandering" is practically my middle name. I'll try and trim things down overall, though right now I'm taking a break to focus on...well, broadly, Trouble and Midnight Castle, but also as of about a week ago some personal issues. I'll probably get started on Part 2 around the end of the year.

That being said the basic conclusion is already laid out for everyone - Cozy is going to try and use Bella to literally undermine the school - so feel free to get started on your own story! I can always adjust whatever I write to add in details later authors come up with.