I wrote a short epilogue for Magic School Zord. The ending felt incomplete to me somehow. Also, it gives me the perfect excuse to show off the story's new cover art.

Epilogue

There you go, generally looks good I wonder if Luna should have a few moments of self awareness to make the whole thing a little more tragic.

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Any suggestions? I will have to think on this.

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Have her recognise that the spell has worked on her for a few seconds before it's overcome. Possible have her interact with another pony, maybe a guard treat them badly then realise she overreacted and forget about it a moment later. That way we can see how rumours of her behaviour will start getting out to the general population.

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I like the guard idea, though it could also be a servant as well. How about this? Luna is horrified at herself for taking Corona's form but shrugs it off claiming it to be for the greater good.

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Just taking Corona's form isn't really that bad a thing, its more what she's planning to do with it, or how she was feeling about Cheerilee and the foals would be the more out of character bit.

I've finally managed to produce the next chapter of Mountain, which makes me more or less up to date with the Hearth's warming stories I produced over a year ago now.

Link to anyone who would like to pre-read and comment.

I managed to finish another chapter rough for The Crystal Empire today! ...Still needs a better working title though. As always, I'd appreciate any thoughts and feedback everyone might have.

The Crystal Empire Chapter 3

I finished the first draft of the first chapter of my next Galaxy Rangers story. It's called A Flutter of the Heart.

Chapter 1

I've finished the rough of another chapter of the Crystal Empire fic! As always, I appreciate any thoughts and feedback that can be given!

Crystal Empire Chapter 4

The first draft of chapter 2 of A Flutter of the Heart is done. Comments are always welcome.

Chapter 2

And I have finished the rough of Chapter 5 of The Crystal Empire fic. I'm not sure how well this chapter and the ending works, honestly, so if you guys could take a look at it and be brutally honest with your suggestions, I'd appreciate it.

Crystal Empire Chapter 5

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Would that be the end of the whole story then? If so I agree that the ending is rather anti climatic, at the very least maybe have a epilogue which has Spikes decision to stay with Cheerilee in it and includes the other dragon so all possible options can be set out to him.

I feel that Corona backs down rather to easily, I think there needs to be some sort of final debate which shows the empire being against her. Maybe have her try to explain away Spikes 'kidnapping' and say she's going to punish her ally and have Cheerilee argue against her?

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Yeah, that was the ending as far as I could think about it at the time.

Those are some possibilities though. I'll think on them and see if I can tighten this up a bit.

So, after taking in some feedback on that last chapter of The Crystal Empire, I have completely re-written the ending (and made a bunch of other minor changes). I'm much happier with this one, but as it shifts a lot of things around, I wouldn't mind some feedback on it.

The Crystal Empire Chapter 5

The first draft of chapter 3 of A Flutter of the Heart is done. Comments are always welcome.

Chapter 3

2,921 words into a new chapter for For a Few Bits More, finally! Progress! Blessed progress!

Dear God I hate how it's been more than a year since I last updated anything...

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Congratulations!

We all believe in you!

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We are definitely cheering you on.

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Keep at it, my good man! We'll all be cheering you on!

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I'm so sorry.

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This is good news to greet me after the last 16 hours traveling back from America.

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All right, RDD! Go, you!

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Yay!

The first draft of chapter 4 of A Flutter of the Heart is done. Comments are always welcome.

Chapter 4

So, here’s an outline for The Marquis and the Mailmare’s Daughter (sorry for sticking it here instead of linking to a Google Docs or whatever, I can’t):
Starts off with Ditzy asking Trixie to come with her. Dinky had been writing to some of her friends from the Gala, and young Marquis Dusk Shadow invited her over to her province. Opening Song! Now they’re in the capital, or just getting off the train or something. There’s a big festival or something happening, everypony’s out and about, and they’re treating Dinky really strangely, friendly but a little afraid. Some colt gets Dinky to follow him while thinking she’s Dusky, and just as she clears it up some servants find her and bring her back to the mansion(?) scolding her about running away when she has guests coming. POV switch to Trixie, she and Ditzy split up to find Dinky. Trixie finds ‘Dinky’ and then they go to find Ditzy. A chapter or whatever switching between Dinky being fussed over and dealing with some craziness (like the servants planning for the play date like it’s a meeting between nobles) and Trixie freaking out about ‘corrupting’ Dinky, since Dusky is going along with being Dinky and is more vain and more of a show off then Dinky. Ends with Trixie and Dusky finding Ditzy, who immediately knows Dusky isn’t Dinky, Dusky admits it and brings them to the mansion. They meet Dinky, and it turns out Dinky and Dusky don’t see how they look exactly the same.

How’s that?

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It's a solid foundation to start with. A couple thoughts:

1. This will have to take place before Treasure Hunt as a matter of course, otherwise Dusky and Dinky's different cutie marks would be a dead giveaway (if Dusky even has one yet, but that too would be a giveaway). So sometime in the early fall.
2. The Prince & the Pauper switch can carry the story by itself, of course, but at the moment it seems to be the only real conflict/drama going on. An additional subplot for Dinky or Dusky (or both), or Ditzy and Trixie, to get wrapped up in might be a good idea. Doesn't have to be huge ("Kidnappers show up to kidnap Dusky but get Dinky by accident!"), but something to give the story a little more meat.

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I was planning on it being pretty early, yeah. I was also planning on it just being a silly comedy, but if I write it and feel it’s lacking I could add something like that.

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Maybe Dusky really wants to get out of her responsibilities for some reason for good or bad.

Maybe she's even due to get engaged to somepony (maybe not a pony thing but certainly something which happened historically) Dinky may not know what is going on and might accidentally agree which could lead to legal / financial repercussions.

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She’s Dinky’s age. I’ve been thinking of foals her age as late elementary school age, and I know that stuff happened historically, but ewww

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What’s wrong with a silly little comedy thing?

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Nothing, although it can wear a bit thin in larger doses. It can help to have something more series to lay the silliness on top of.

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True. Does it help that I’m planning on this being three chapter max? I know this type of thing would get old and repetitive if it takes too long.

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Well, that's what the additional subplot might be for. Like I said, though you don't have to add one.

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Ok. Also I’m sorry, I misread your response as saying Dinky should get kidnapped or something and replied based on that Oops.

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No, that was meant to be a joke.

I would like to know more about Dusky. She's a filly, right? Despite the spelling, marquess or marquis are actually masculine words; the feminine form is marchioness. Is she going to be a marchioness in her own right, or are her parents still around and holding that title, and she's the heir?

A thought I had while at work was that Dusky might possess a baronetcy (the lowest noble holding and title, beneath even a barony) as well as a marchioness. I've previously suggested that in Equestria that the title of baronet/baronetess may be used in Equestria mostly by or for the children of nobility. In many cases the title may be mostly a formality with no actual power attached to it - the heir to the throne of England is styled as the Prince of Wales, for example, but Charles has no actual power in Wales.

However it might be that Equestrian nobles - or at least Dusky's parents - use her baronetcy as a sort of "testing ground" to see if they're mature enough to be granted more responsibility in the realm (with the parents obviously overruling anything inane or insane, like a tax put in place so the kid can get free ice cream). So instead of the capital of Dusky's province, the story could instead take place in Dusky's baronetcy as she's being allowed to actually run a place by herself for the first time for, like, a month.

Which would explain why the commoner ponies are a bit nervous around Dinky/Dusky - with a ten-year-old taking over the place for a month they're sort of concerned that she'll find some way to do the ice cream tax thing mentioned above, or otherwise damage the local economy. Not too worried since, again, the Marquis and Marchioness proper can and will step in to reverse any damages, but it's still a bit nerve-wracking.

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Yeah, I know that now. Reading comprehension for the win! But I might’ve been a bit rude, or at least replied weirdly, because I misread that, so I wanted to apologize.
On a different note, what’re some good Ditzy reference stories aside from Family Matters? I started on the open and I’m having trouble with her.

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Oh, yikes, I'd forgotten that I was editing that comment. I added, like, a million words. Sorry. Sleepy.

As for good Ditzy reference stories, probably her chapter in Tales of Ponyville (which I'm only just now realizing I should have titled Tails of Ponyville). Another good one would be the story Dinky's Birthday, which despite the title is really more about Ditzy. If you want to see her in a more negative light, Exam Jitters is probably when Ditzy is at her worst.

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Wow, Ditzy has a lot of sadder stories focused on her. Anyway, thanks, I'll check those out in the morning.

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Ok, the rest of this comment! So, I was figuring Dusky was a marchioness on her own, with her mom acting as regent (or whatever the word for that is). Basically her grandma or whatever was the previous Marchioness and chose Dusky as her heir assuming Dusky would be an adult by the time she'd inherit. It didn't work out that way, and now Dusky is Marchioness (might take that 'first time getting more responsibility' thing though). Dusky has a habit of sneaking out and walking around in 'disguise' (that's probably just a cloak or temporary mane dye, since she's a foal) and my original plan was that she does the Zeus in disguise, do you treat me well when you think I'm an ordinary foal thing but I was having trouble working with that. Also, while I'm talking about Dusky's family, I was thinking her mom was named Moonlit Shadow and is off doing court stuff as of this fic, and her dad is off bird watching or something (don't know his name or tribe). That work?
Oh, and while I'm here, do you think it'd be ok for Dusky's family to pay for the trip? Might just be me, but I feel it'd be a bit rude not to, since they invited Dinky over and they're a couple provinces away, and since Ditzy is a mailmare and isn't exactly rolling in bits especially compared to a noble.

Sorry for this big old paragraph.

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In addition to the stories RDD mentioned, Ice Hearts is very Ditzy-centric.

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The 'king in disguise to see how people treat him if they don't know he's king' thing is usually done by a more mature adult. A foal might disguise herself to evade responsibility, but I don't think she'd really bother setting up a test to see who was equally nice to her when she wasn't known as a noble.

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I don't see a problem with Dusky's family paying for the trip, no. I do agree with Grass that the "King in disguise to survey his land" thing seems a bit more of an adult motivation than a child one. Which doesn't mean that she can't reward ponies who are nice to her or "punish" those who aren't while out, but her main goal when leaving the castle/mansion/whatever makes a little more sense if it's just to shirk responsibility.

Your story, though, so take it whichever way you want.

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Yeah, it wasn't working for me, so I'm planning on ditching that particular approach in favor of the 'just got more responsibility' plan RDD mentioned.

The first draft of chapter 5 of A Flutter of the Heart is done. Comments are always welcome.

Chapter 5

The first draft of chapter 6 of A Flutter of the Heart is done. Comments are always welcome.

Chapter 6

The first draft of chapter 7 of A Flutter of the Heart is done. Comments are always welcome.

Chapter 7

It's been, well rather to long since the last chapter of Mountain but I just didn't seem to be able to find the time.

The next section has Max return to Nulpar for the new year holiday. I was planning a single long chapter but given the speed I'm writing It's probably going to get split into 2 or three sections.

And here's section 1 for anyone willing to look over.

The first draft of the Epilogue of A Flutter of the Heart is done. Comments are always welcome.

Epilogue

The first draft of the new Lunaverse story is done. It's called Trixie and Prince Charming (This title might change if I come up with a better one). This may or may not be canon to the Lunaverse. We will have to see. Comments and suggestions are welcome. This takes place a few months after Luna took Trixie as her student.

Chapter

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Ooh, potential new canon story. Reading now.

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I've looked it over and put through a few suggestions.

Overall it's a good and fairly fun story but I think it could probably do with being made a bit longer, Trixie generally comes off quite bad in it. Maybe add a section about the foals sneaking out of the castle and avoiding guards so Trixie and Prince can interact a bit more. I think his parents would probably have ordered him to 'play nice' with her so he'd at least make a bit of an effort to start off with and the sand is more of a final straw. Also a think Trixie should be at least a little lonely and want a friend.

Maybe have them talk a bit about their lives, Trixie telling of her family in Neigh Orleans and Prince about his estate.