Set in my own take on the concept of the Cadence-Verse.
Lighting Dust and her friends, the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, have a race against time to save the restaurant district form the hungry all consuming, but adorable, plague of Parasprites.
This is an AU where Cadence is the primary princess after Celestia and Luna fell to corruption, this episode is set after the pilot where they returned and where defeated. This is separate from Grass and Clouds works.
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Well, that escalated quickly. Nothing like diving straight into an intense action sequence right from the get go. Speaking of which... it's happening, it's finally happening; I'm so nervicited!
Anyway, on to my thoughts and opinions…
First off, even though this isn't technically the character's origin story, this is still effectively your pilot fic, so throwing around extra names beyond your mane six might not have been such a good idea. The scene with Rarity, Carrot Top, and Photo Finish while amusing was also distracting and might even have been confusing if I didn't already know who the actual important ponies where here. Admittedly a little confusion is perhaps to the point here, given the chaos the parasites are causing, but it's still something of an issue with this being a first outing. Oh and, on a minor nit pick, why would the parasites even be attacking Rarities fashion line in the first place? They only did that in the show AFTER Twilight cast the spelt o make them stop eating food (unless of course this is fashion akin to the emergency edible boots Sweetie once mentioned on the show). For that matter I was a little surprised to see Rarity in Everfree City, asI thought she was a Manehattanite in this verse, but I guess that either changed or I was Mistaken.
Back to the issue of throwing around so many names all at once. It might have been overkill to introduce ALL of your mane six in this prologue. It gives te reader very little time to get acquainted with them, especially since the reader is also meeting them all under unusual circumstances (most notably the fact you actually have Lighting exposit that Strawberry Sunrise is supposedly acting OOC in her very first scene). Contrast something like RDD's Boast Busted Which starts the reader off with Trixie and Lyra, adding in Ditzy (or more so Dinky) shortly their after, with Raindrops and Carrot Top not coming in until much later, and as each shows up the narrative takes time to highlight the character's importance and show us how they relate to Trixie. Admittedly, Cheerilee barely more than mentioned, but her place in the circle of friends is still clearly established.
Conversely, her in your fic, if I'd not been following all your preliminary work, I wouldn't really be able to understand the significance of most of the characters or why I should care about them (and since about half of these are more obscure background ponies I might not even be able to get a clear mental image of them at all). Again, this is where the time spent on that side gag with Rarity might have been better spent establishing the identities of the ponies we are actually supposed to be paying attention to. As it stands though, the fic initially does a better job of introducing the reader to AU rarity, whereas Strawberry Sunrise gets little more than incidentally mentioned. Having read your character bios, I understand the significance of her being highly protective of her culinary cuisine, but to a first time reader it'd likely just comes off as random. Speaking of random, Mjolna just kind of appears out of nowhere, I don't recall her being involved in the action scene and her arrival during the celebration is never mentioned, instead suddenly there is just this seventh pony who I only know who is because I've read your bio for her.
Speaking of background info that doesn't come across very well, the fic could do a better job of introducing the reader to the city itself. Admittedly the eclectic nature of its population does eventually come across, but initially it seems little more than random to keep mentioning different races. Maybe you could have taken a bit more opportunity during the initially quiet intro when Lightning and Quick are just relaxing to mention passing members of the various races while using the narrative to explain that this is the norm for Everfree City. The bits about adventure tourism though might be fine as is since Lightning herself as the perspective character is still unaccustomed to it and so is as surprised as the reader to see how quickly everyone goes back to business as usual in the aftermath.
The parasites themselves though come off a little wonky, initially they seem like an unfamiliar mysterious thing, just like on the show, but about half way though they are being clearly identified by name. Now some of that I'm guessing is because Lightning, being new to town is the only one who's never seen them before, but the transition could be handled better, since no one ever stops to explain it to her. Though if they are a known pest (albeit one that might rarely get this far into the city), I'd think the local guard would be more adept at handling them, and that there'd be contingencies for this kind of outbreak just in case a foolish tourist brought one back from the forest.
Aww... now I'm maybe disappointed.
For all the nits I picked with it, I really did enjoy this chapter and was looking forward to more.
You could have asked me. As the above shows, this is something that I was willing to offer up voluminous advice on even unsolicited. As to specific editing work though, initially read this on my phone's browser, so I couldn't easily mark errors as I went, but I did noticed a lot of missing apostrophes on possessive nouns as well as a few instances of presumably unintentional double negatives that seemingly reverse the intended meaning (notably this amusing little gem from Sunny, "None of you will not touch my crembrulet!").
Works for me.
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It did, din't it? That idea was inspired by a review of RTOH, where the reviewer noted the snappy intro with the cast solving a problem was really good. I don't think I got it right though as that did a better job showing their individual, and more normal, personalities. Still In media Res seemed like a good idea from what RDD said and I don't think I could pull together a pilot episode yet anyway, not till I have mroe practice with this crew. Glad you're excited, TY!
"Long whistle" Whew, you really cut loose didn't you? And I appreciate it.
As it stands it seems the main issues are too many character introduced too quickly and out of context, not quite enough set up for the city and a poor transition with the Parasprites. As it stands, I had most of those concerns as well, though obviously to a lesser degree otherwise I wouldn't have posted it.
I definitely see where you're coming from and agree with pretty much everything you're saying, i'm currently debating just taking it down and doing a mass edit, or editing while it's up and just recommending people read a new and improved chapter later. Thank you for the critique it managed to zero in on what were for me, hard to pin down concerns, so it gives me a good base to work of, of for improving the story.
Though I plan on keeping the Rarity scene in regardless, sorry it's just too much fun, thou it probably should take a backseat to other stuff. Though in regards to their behaviour, I think that we saw them messing with her stuff in the show after their mass spawning, perhaps if only to check if it was edible though. In this case, they started messing with the dress and started being chased and so ran with it.
I especially like the suggestion to mroe slowly introduce the city, in timeline, that's mroe what the Cutie Mark episode is for, which is why I spend so long on it in the intro, but that didn't seem like the right sort of jumping off point for a series. Plus it needs way more edits.
Thank you, sorry I owuld have asked, but I feel bad running to you almost every time and you've seemed busy as of late so I didn't want to be a burden, plus I was genuinely hoping to test myself. (Sneaky edit) What gem from sunny?
Thanks for the great comment! You've given me allot to think on Emeral.
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Or maybe as an alternative, leave this version for "posterity", but marked with WIP, draft, or test-shot instead of prologue. Basically treat this chapter as a sort of proof of concept piece with the "real" story to be expanded upon at a later date. You're choice though.
However, I will say that the description should probably be modified. As it stands, telling people that this is your take on the "Cadance-verse" isn't very informative in and of itself, especially since Cadance herself neither present nor mentioned here. Also, it could be a bit confusing to people who might mistake it for being somehow related to G&C2's work. For the time being it might be better to just refer to it as your take on an alternate mane-six. Additionally, the part about the "mysterious plague" is currently misleading, since in this semi-complete preview has nothing to do with that and instead features an easily identified and quickly solved problem, so you might just want to edit that out for now, into the fic itself as a "Next time on MLP".
Fair enough, and I understand being attached to a scene. That said, maybe consider dropping the use of names and just trusting your readers to recognize the white-coated and purple-maned elegant fashion pony. She is after all a BACKGROUND pony here and so doesn't need a name while performing BACKGROUND antics, and by not naming her it better keeps the audience focused on your actual cast.
To be fair, I guess I have been less than enthusiastic about some of your other projects, and even my feedback on your EXTENSIVE blogs on V!verse stuff have been lacking. I did, however, say what I was really looking forward to was you actually taking these characters and setting and putting them into a narrative context, and I'd like to think I just proved as much.
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Good idea! I've changed the title to (draft)
Good other suggestions as well, I will see about changing that up. Just gonna leave these here so I don't have to rewrite them later.
[A mysterious plague has beset Everfree City’s restaurants, farms and groceries, all the food is disappearing without a trace. Lightning Dust and her fellow bearers of the Elements of Harmony set out to discover who or what is responsible.]
{A mysterious plague has beset Everfree City’s restaurants, farms and groceries, all the food is disappearing without a trace. Entire fields are being consumed in the night and Lightning’s Dust’s fridge has been raided! Lightning Dust and her fellow bearers of the Elements of Harmony set out to discover who or what is responsible.}
Hmm, good point, if a name is spoken by one of the Rarity, PF, or Ct, cast i'll keep that, but will keep the description more vague.
You certainly did!
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Do you think this is a better intro for the Parasprites?
"Film Reel this is not the time for photos, we have to do something!" Redheart cried, the nurses somewhat short temper already wearing thin at her friends antics.
"Right, right," the photographer replied placatingly, performing a shushing gesture with her hooves as the chaos seemed to fade in into the background around them. Rubbing the back of her head she continued, "I just figured this is the guards job to deal with this. I mean, they're just Parasprites, you know?"
'So that's what they are, cuter than I expect, and a lot more vicious' she thought to herself. The knight in training could vaguely recall having read something about the vicious little creatures. They were responsible for a number of farms put out of business and a few crops disappearing entirely and were... 'something?' about music. Still, she'd never read about them appearing in cities, or in this number.
"Well, they aren't doing well," Lighting muttered. Throughout the crowd she could make out some of the local militia attempting to corral the tiny insect with nets and, magic and wind, but so far they were proving a little to agile and small for the ponies to grasp.
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Looks mostly good, except...
That hilighted pronoun should probably be Lightning's name instead. Since the preceding two paragraphs are between Redheart and Filmreel you want to be certain the audience knows that perspective is back on Lightning again. Alternatively it could, maybe work as is if there was an earlier paragraph prior to this section where Lightning wonders what the bugs are, which might make it apparent enough that she'd be the one to comment upon finding out once they finally get name dropped.
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hmm, good suggestion, I think I can work in a question about the species somewhere, though i'll still add the name. TY!
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Just to be clear there doesn't actually have to be a verbal question. Lightning is musing internally when she finnlay finds out what they are, so her initial "question" could likewise be internal musing.
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I actually went with that, just after the 'This is getting weird" statement, she's not quote comfortable with displaying ignorance on nay matter, yet.