Epilogue: You and Me
Sweet Apple Acres, 7 p.m., 10th August, six years after the Doubt incident
"I got it!"
Even three hours after the fact, Apple Bloom was beside herself with joy for catching the bride's bouquet, and slowly but surely Spike was getting a little annoyed with it. "Yes, AB, you've mentioned that once or twice."
The sarcasm seemed to be lost on her. "Oh, come on. Isn't this the best wedding you've ever been to?"
Spike had to admit that his marefriend had a point. While the official part at the Town Hall had been rather stiff and formal - possibly as a nod to the bridegroom, which just goes to show how little they know about him, Spike thought -, the reception at Sweet Apple Acres was fantastic. Pinkie had pulled out all the stops for this party, as had Applejack for the food, Rainbow Dash for the flight show, Fluttershy for the music and Twilight for the magic show.
Then again, that was to be expected. It wasn't every day one of your circle of best friends got married, after all.
Spike cast a look around from the bench he had plopped down on - never attending anything again where I can't sit or lie down for hours, he swore to himself -, and his gaze fell on the happy couple. Fancy Pants had proven once and for all that he deserved his name with a truly marvellous dark blue suit, but compared to his bride, he was so much background noise.
The dress looked rather simple at first glance, but in motion, a thousand little patterns among the gemstones and different types of cloth were revealed - a little ripple there, a counter-movement there, and the overall effect was nothing short of stunning. But the dress paled in comparison to the mare wearing it. Rarity had never looked this radiant - for once, all her high-class attitude, both real and affected, was gone, replaced with the most infectious and gorgeous smile imaginable. The stale saying about 'the happiest day in her life' had never seemed this fitting.
Spike's mouth curled up into a smile, and Apple Bloom seemed to notice. She followed his gaze and smiled as well. "Aren't they beautiful?"
"Yeah," Spike said absent-mindedly.
"Hey!" Apple Bloom punched him lightly in the side. "Hello? Equestria to Spike!"
"Huh?" Spike turned to her. "Sorry, must have zoned out for a moment."
"I noticed." For a second, he detected an old, familiar undercurrent of jealousy in her voice.
He took her hoof in both hands. "AB, look at me." She did, still with uncertainty in her eyes. "How long have we been together now?"
"Almost six years," Apple Bloom answered mechanically. "With that one-month break three and a half years ago."
"Have I ever said or done anything in all that time to show that I still wasn't over Rarity?" When no answer came, Spike looked Apple Bloom straight in the eyes. "Come on, I've done some pretty stupid things over those six years. Has that ever been an issue?"
"No." It came out almost unwillingly. "Except that one time, when you went crying to her."
He sighed. This again? "AB, we've been over this. You had broken up with me, and I felt like the world had ended." The dragon's lips twisted into a half-smile. "I don't think I ever told you this, but seeing Rarity and Fancy kissing wasn't even half as painful as thinking you didn't love me anymore."
Apple Bloom's breath seemed to catch in her throat. "Seriously?"
"I don't know where I'd be today if I hadn't had Twi and Rarity to help me through this, and eventually clear up the whole affair." He hugged her. "You promised me never to let anypony's opinion come between us again, even if that pony was your sister."
"Yeah, I did. But ..." Apple Bloom looked at Rarity again. "I guess I just can't believe my luck." She snuggled up to him. "Why would anypony give me a second look while she was around?"
Spike laughed. "What, you call yourself lucky? I'm a dragon among ponies, AB. I'm the lucky one here, because I found you." He turned serious again. "And anypony who doesn't look at you is just stupid. You're as beautiful as she is."
"Stop it," Apple Bloom said, though she couldn't hide a smile. "You may be better at lying than I am, but not by that much."
"I mean every word I said." He slowly blinked his nictitating membranes. "I don't care what anypony else thinks. To me, you're the most beautiful mare in the world, and that's final."
Apple Bloom blushed, and Spike smiled inwardly. He rarely let his sappier - or more romantic - side show, and she was always caught unprepared when he did.
She looked up to him. "And you're the most beautiful dragon I've ever met."
"I'm the only..."
The rest of his protest was cut short as she pressed her lips to his.
***
The old weathervane atop the main house at Sweet Apple Acres had seen better days. It was so rusty now that it usually hardly moved even in stormy weather.
Tonight was anything but a usual night, however.
The weathervane screeched as it started to turn, and a whisper echoed across the farm, unheard by almost all.
Four have been revealed and tested.
Four remain hidden, yet to show their mettle.
Eight will need to stand at the Dawn of the Seventh.
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Hee hee hee ... Surprise!
I have three reasons to write this second epilogue to "Love Will Set You Free".
The first is a wish to include another of my personal favourites from the 2012 ESC lineup as a chapter title, which I hereby consider done. "You and Me", by Joan Franka, is this year's song from the Netherlands. Lyrics here. And try not to judge the song by the singer's accent or that ridiculous Indian Chieftain getup.
The second is the wish that started this fic in the first place - I wanted to try my hand at something a little less adventure-y, justifying that Romance tag a little more. If you think it's sappy and overblown, chances are, it's the effect I was going for.
The third is that little teaser at the end. The sequel is already in the works, but since I intend to conform more to traditional chapter lengths this time, it will take some more preparation. I have a hearty dislike for hollow word ballast, but at the same time, I'm only too aware that my chapters are sometimes too short for what I'm trying to accomplish.
Holy Shitywok dude, That was amazing,
Yay, sequels!
Sweet cant wait for the sequel!
25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqrka5Dcqq1r05905o1_500.jpg
*I see a new update of this story*
*In chapter nine, you said: "Elements can't really be destroyed (the necklaces are just physical representations, same as the stone spheres in "Elements of Harmony Part 2"), but in the case of the lost ones, it would take tremendous effort to get them back from wherever they went after their sacrifice. They're not completely gone, but like the avatars of the Ancient Darkness, they're somewhere very far away."*
*Now you write this prophecy*
img.ponibooru.org/_images/517eeb3f99988d4f6284a23377e333e6/60456%20-%20artist%3Ablimpslap%20Discord%20reaction_face.png
It was funny and beautiful to see that AP catched the bouquet, seeing that she and Spike are still together, even having lived through some difficulties. That was some hopeful and nice background.
I'm eager to see what you're planning for the sequel. Something worst than Doubt? Shiiiiii...
PS: I expect a certain dragon-pony wedding and/or their child
484636
Question what did applejack do to get applebloom to breakup withspike for that month
565771 To quote the great Professor River Song: Spoilers!
Though there is a slight hint tucked away in the story (chapter 10, to be precise), this will be fully answered in the sequel.
565863
ohh i saw the hint
dragons dont belong with ponies or something along thoes lines
still cant wait to seewhat actualy hapend in the sequel
i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/113/203/shutup_spike.jpg AND MAKE MORE
this story deservers my fav and like
hmmm... do I sense a prophecy in the future? hmmm...
That was absolutely wonderful. Fantastic work. Dear Celestia, SOOO GOOD!
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW SUPER DAMN AWESOME FIC !!!!!!!!!! :DD and da end !!! owwwww AB and SPIKE !! :DDD and u gonna write a sequel !!! GREAT GREAT GREAT !
Awesome.
So there are four more elements to be found. Excellent!!!
AND Applebloom and Spike are still together (though they had a rough patch.)
A very entertaining tale indeed. Nicely done.
As to Doubt, all I can say is...Ahahahahahah! Uuuuunlucky, mate, unlucky!
I do so love it when the villains actually get a suitable cumuppance (it's getting increaingly rare in modern fiction...)
I shall look forward to reading the next story in the sequence; thought that may have wait for another time. Keep up the excellent work!
This is one of very few stories I actually compare to My Little Dashie
618021 futurama reference i think it was fry correct? (might have misspelled his name)
also awesome freaking story man. hands down.
1079241
Bad Dog no biscuit you say...
Thank You for giving me yet another reason to use a Youtube clip and make a reference to something I like. I swear, most writer's don't give me that much material to work with usually...
1080578 I don't mean to intrude on your right to comment, but could you do with fewer of the Youtube embeds? They look absolutely awful (I have to wonder why they're even allowed in the first place, when we have a perfectly good "add link" button available).
Wasn't bad. A little bit predictable and formulaic but a decent enough story. Definitely suffers from from descriptives and being more 'in your face' (in a tell rather than a show sort of way) but was cute. I found the romance aspects more compelling than the new elements part though that may be my dislike of new elements showing. Good villains, I liked them. Not good enough for a thumbs up but a decent story.
Love the song, and love the story!
Made notes though.
First thought: When you were introducing the elements, I tried to come up with a name for them, and Elements of Initiative was the first thing that came to mind, then there was Sweetie Belle's element, which just confused me.
Anyway, what are the odds!? All four of them get an element! That's crazy!
Can we assume that since only three of the griffons' elements were distroyed, there are three more out there?
Also, was doubt lying when he said he can never lie!? I bet he was lying!
So, Luna shows up and this happens:
Twilight: Why are you here? I wrote to your sister.
So why didn't this happen next?:
Luna: Wow, gee thanks, I really appreciated that Twilight, makes me feel real special. Celestia thought I'd be better capable of helping you, but after that comment, fuck you, bitch. Acting like I'm a fucking consolation prize? You cunt!
Then, doubt asks Rarity to choose between friendship and love. Which is a bullshit choice. They're both the same thing! It's like asking whether you want to order pizza from Pizza Hut or Domino's! It's virtually the same thing!
You have to love your friends, if you don't they're not friends! Now, if the choice is between platonic and romantic love, then it's also a bullshit choice! There is not a single scenario in which that decision would have to be made. Unless someone asks you to choose, in which case they suck and are not your friends/lover anymore!
My point is, it's not a real choice.
1199621
No. Their elements were the Elements of Virtue, and there were only three of them to begin with: Faith, Hope and Love (or Charity, depending on which translation you prefer).
Because it's a justified question - as in, how did Luna even know of this? Besides, this is Twilight talking. Remember the way she talked to Pinkie in "Baby Cakes", coming across as incredibly insulting without meaning to? Same thing here. It might sound like an insult, but she doesn't mean it that way, and I think Luna would be familiar enough with Twilight to see the intent, rather than the words.
That is precisely the point of that scene. Doubt is turning Rarity's own thoughts about love, especially romantic love, against her by forcing a choice upon her that she could easily deconstruct - were she thinking clearly, which at this point she patently isn't, since she was agonizing about how her friends would react from the very beginning of the story (this is Rarity we're talking about; outward appearances are more important to her than to any other of the Mane Six). Her doubts were unfounded, of course, but she had no way of knowing that, and while Doubt doesn't lie to her (take your pick as to whether he was telling the truth about his inability to lie; I personally think it's actually true, meaning that he's had millennia to perfect the art of the half-truth), he picks out the very worst moments to shatter her resolve. She makes a mistake - and she does get called out for it in-story -, but I think it's understandable, given the stresses she faces.
Also, thank you for the comment. I've had a lot of "this was great" comments, and while those are good for my ego, they don't teach me anything. Comments like this, on the other hand...I think I need to write a friendship report.
Okay, maybe Luna wouldn't react that way, but someone would probably say something. Like:
Luna: MMM...yes...well..
Spike: Twilight, you need to work on tact.
Twilight: Huh?
"(this is Rarity we're talking about; outward appearances are more important to her than to any other of the Mane Six). "
More than Rainbow Dash?
I'm glad you appreciate my critiques. Many don't, and they get defensive and angry. The way I see it, from an emotional perspective, comments that are 100% positive are ideal, but from an intellectual perspective, they're useless. One needs challenge to do better, and you can't have that if all you receive is praise.
By the way, overall, this is a great story. I'm already getting ready to print out the sequel.
1199850 For the first, you can visualize this happening offscreen. I guess Spike wouldn't do this with all the others present, Luna in particular. (Also, Spike isn't exactly a master of the art of tact either; how would he be, considering whose assistant he is?)
Yes, Rainbow Dash also puts emphasis on outward appearances, but in a different way, one that is less relevant to the situation in chapter 9. Rainbow Dash wants to appear awesome; Rarity wants "everything just so". I can't see RD keeping a relationship under wraps because she's afraid how the others might react, if only because it would not occur to her to think something might go wrong with that (think back to "Griffon the Brush-Off). I guess this might be because I see Dash as less able to get into others' heads than Rarity.
Hmmm. Tricky one.
This will be a little more jumbled than my usual review, as much of what I want to say requires considerable nuance to get across.
Pacing: Generally very strong. While frequently formulaic, you actually (intentionally or otherwise) stuck to the three act structure, which exists for a damned good reason. The middle felt a little repetitious, and while I could appreciate that it was making a point within the context of the story, I can't let that justify it from a wider point of view. 4/5
Technical: Solid, but I was repeatedly thrown by '-,' appearing now and again. I literally have no idea what this is supposed to be. Beyond that, the structure was functional, if occasionally edging on the side of safe and simple. Still, better that than the opposite, so I don't really hold it as a significant negative. There were a number of very strange word choices that threw me, however. Most notable was 'infodump', which ripped me right out of enjoying the story, but there were several others that felt far too casual or antithetical to the setting to be used in narrative. Also really needs the hyphens to be changed to proper dashes where appropriate. 3/5
Description: Again, I think I'd have to pick 'safe' as the appropriate word. While you very successfully avoided being overly tell-y, it was done at the expense of descriptions, rather than offering an alternative. Very rarely did I have a clear mental image of what was going on. 2/5
Dialogue: A little stiff for my tastes, but generally well executed from an editing standpoint. Vary rarely did I get frustrated by unnecessary adverbs or tell-y attribution, which is a damned rare thing in fanfiction. This is frequently my biggest peeve about the EqD filtering process: they'll get nerdy as hell over grammar, but let truly sloppy style go without batting an eyelid. 4/5
Subtlety: This, for me, was where things went a bit wrong. Most of the emotion was very 'in your face', with little left up to reader interpretation. This made it feel more like being lectured than being involved. This is a major side effect of the lack of description above. On the upside, it wasn't exactly tell-y either, but things like discovering their elements and learning from their encounters set off my 'baseball bat to the face' alarm. Further, I felt that a lot of the emotional connections needed to be explained because they didn't feel natural, or more specifically, didn't progress naturally. I understand that some of it is intentional, like the love/friendship dichotomy, but without sufficient references in the narration, it felt extremely contrived in places. In that case specifically, having Dash mention it being a false dichotomy doesn't really to the job, because Dash is an idiot and can't be used as a reliable explanation by the reader, and even then, the story seems to go on to use the distinction as if it were true. It really made the emotional content feel frequently forced. the other major occurrence was Applebloom's crush on Spike. It just comes out of no-where are a pretext for the whole story, with no apparent attempt at subtlety other than a brief explanation of why Spike might not have noticed it earlier. The characters flitted between extremely self-aware, and oblivious depending on what the story needed at the time. 1/5 + 2 baseball bats to the face.
What really stood out as the pitfall that I felt you failed to avoid, however, was the intrinsic dangers of using powers in place of personalities. Granting funky abilities, either innately or through items, always has a real chance of dramatically reducing the impact of a character. To use the available comparison, Twilight and her friends use the Elements of Harmony and the very end of the pilot, meaning that their characters have been established first. As a viewer, I can speculate as to whether there was some grand scheme involved, or it was pure fluke, because I have those pieces to put together in my mind; however, in this case, the Elements are introduced early, and left me constantly trying to figure how it could make any sense. It leaves far too much time for the whole setup of Spike + CMC to feel incredibly contrived.
The other side of the problem, is that the Elements of Harmony were a pretty shoddy idea to start with. RD, AJ, and Rarity are extremely poor examples of the Elements they supposedly hold. The concepts used for the pilot were themselves extremely contrived, and later actions show they Applejack really isn't honest, Rainbow Dash isn't loyal, and Rarity isn't generous. That was one of the reasons behind A certain Point of View: the main six are far more believable as barely functional misfits than paragons of harmony. In fact, this is why season 1 of FiM was as good as it is, because they struggle against their base natures constantly; so while the Elements don't exactly fit, it's to the show's credit in the long run. Sadly, this is the half-baked idea you're trying to build on, and while the story itself is perfectly good, it suffers for being built on sand. I usually say the same about anything changeling related. They need to be used with excruciating care, because the entire premise is illogical, and thus runs the risk of dragging down any story where they are used carelessly.
Overall: 14/25 + 2 baseball bats. Fun, generally engaging, and easy on the eyes, but a little too rough to maintain emotional investment throughout the otherwise exemplary pacing.
-Scott 'Inquisitor' Mence
1494295 Okay, going in order:
-Pacing: I have nothing to say here. I've been meaning to rework the middle bit of this story for quite some time, but that massive hurdle by the name of "Echo (You and I)" is just too daunting for that.
-Technical: The "-," you mentioned might be a constraint of the website (I usually type directly into the chapter editor, rather than using word processors, which also accounts for the lack of "proper" dashes). Look at the following sentence:
It wasn't very good - in fact, one might say it was absolutely terrible -, but it still had a weird charm to it.
Without the part between the dashes, there would have to be a comma there, so I put one there even with that part. I honestly don't know whether I've violated any rule of spelling or grammar by doing that, seeing as how things are handled differently between languages in this and many other regards. I hope I could clear that one up, at least. The "infodump" issue, as well as the other word choice problems, might be a result of English not being my first language (though as mentioned above, that word is one of many problems with "Echo").
-Description: Nothing much to say here, except that EqD rejected this story precisely because I was too tell-y. Strange how that goes.
-Dialogue: Nothing much here either, except perhaps "thank you". Writing believable dialogue in a foreign language doesn't come easy.
-Subtlety: Yeah, I could have guessed this is where it'd go wrong. However, while I acknowledge that this isn't exactly groundbreaking (or even average) in this regard, a few points do deserve mention: 1) This was originally intended as a short one-shot (the first chapter) that then somehow ballooned into the 14-chapter behemoth you see in front of you, which might explain the entire Apple Bloom issue - I didn't originally feel it needed that much of a setup, because it was only meant to show Spike that yes, life goes on, and you can be loved. 2) You're letting your own biases against the characters get in the way of your criticism (the whole "built on sand" thing). I'm not entirely innocent of that failing (I can't get into The Best Night Ever simply because the very thought of Blueblood/Rarity makes me barf bone marrow, no matter how well executed), but I do believe you're guilty of it here. It might not exactly be a watertight premise, but it's the series' foundation, and altering that would have been the worse option. And if the Mane Six aren't exactly paragons of their Elements, neither are the Mane Four of this story (even less so for the Mane Four of its sequel, but I hope you'll get to that eventually).
So yeah. I'm well aware this story is far from perfect, but I'm glad it still made it out of your mill alright. You wouldn't have any well-known fics handy that would manage similar scores on the scale you used, by any chance? I'd like to have a frame of reference. And as mentioned, I'd like to see you tee off on the sequel sometime.
1494587 Typing directly into FimFiction doesn't limit dashes, but your software might. You can create en dashes with Alt+0150 '–' and em dashes with Alt+0151 '—'. If that doesn't work, it's generally accepted that a double hyphen will do instead '--'. In all, this isn't something I tend to fuss over, but EqD certainly will.
As for the comma, it is overridden by the dash and never used:
It wasn't very good – in fact, one might say it was absolutely terrible – but it still had a weird charm to it.
or
It wasn't very good—in fact, one might say it was absolutely terrible—but it still had a weird charm to it.
As requested, took a look at this fic with critiquing it in mind. Not half bad overall. From what you mentioned I was expecting more romance than plot, but this was decidedly the other way around. I did enjoy the idea of a sort of 'next generation' to the Elements of Harmony, and the elements you gave our heroes were fitting in the context of this story, though some of the referenced but unused elements felt like a bit of a reach in the heroic qualities department ('Fighting Spirit' in particular made me roll my eyes a little). I also liked the idea of a sort of "Elements of DIS-harmony" group in these ancient evils of Doubt, Discord and Envy and so on. Though that might just be because I'm a huge sucker for the "evil version of the heroic team" trope, e.g. the Shadowbolts, the Rowdyruff Boys (Powerpuff Girls), and the H.I.V.E. (Teen Titans).
The three main criticisms I have are thus:
1. The scene-setting headers were overly excessive and distracting, both in their frequency and their needless level of detail. Let the story itself set the scene for us, and unless it's vitally important that we know it's precisely Seven PM on August Tenth, you can probably leave the really zoomed-in details like that out. As they were, it was really jarring to see these big bold THIS IS A SCENE CHANGE alerts two or three times a chapter, and I rarely paid attention to or remembered the details they provided anyway.
2. The character's voices weren't really unique enough for my tastes. A lot of the time it felt like they were talking rather stiffly and overly formal. This wasn't restricted to any one character, I got this feeling more or less throughout the story, off and on, and I particularly noticed it with Derpy's cameos, and with Spike and Applebloom, what with being the centerpieces of the story, but especially with Applebloom. I've seen a comment or two on my own stories about the validity of typing out the Apple sisters' accents, and as you probably remember, I believe they do belong. They don't sound like themselves if they talk in perfectly enunciated English. (neither do Rainbow Dash or Spike for that matter. That's a vocal quality for Rarity and Twilight.) Not all character voices are as OBVIOUS as the Apple sisters' accents, but they are definitely there and definitely important to maintaining believability in how you present these characters. I'd probably suggest working on this most of all of my critiques here: really stress how the characters themselves would naturally talk, and adjust your infodumps accordingly.
3. This one's less important to your future writing but probably a bigger criticism overall: I think it was a narrative mistake to have a plot centered around Elements of Harmony parallels, which by their nature suggest equal focus on all members of an ensemble cast, when your main characters are strictly Applebloom and Spike, with Sweetiebelle and Scootaloo playing very decidedly background roles. Especially when the first several chapters are almost exclusively about Spike and Applebloom, and the other two don't even show up until the meat of the plot kicks off. it does a disservice to your ultimate point of them being the Elements of Unity to have half of them have little to no storyline of their own and to simply be along for the ride. Seeing Sweetiebelle's arrangement to spend time with Rarity and its eventual disillusion in greater detail, for example, might have been something you could have done a chapter about in the early goings. I can't even think of a recommendation for a personal story for Scootaloo within the context of this fic, which is particularly bad, she's REALLY just kind of along for the ride. I realize it's tough to write ensemble cast stories and give everyone equal focus, but when you commit to an Elements of Harmony-esque idea, it's gotta come with the territory.
Still a solid story despite these things though, and considering the sour taste I've had in my mouth lately on the matter of Spike romance, it was nice to read a story that didn't completely castrate him. Thumbs up, sir.
Cheers,
--CG
1515496 I gracefully accept most of what you said, though I still maintain my delusional belief that this fic, by and large, isn't bad for a first-time writer whose first language isn't English (which might have contributed to the character voices issue).
Applejack's and Apple Bloom's accent: I possibly would try to write their accents if they were characters we didn't know (though even then, I don't think I'd go through with it). But everyone who reads these stories knows these characters and the way they speak. This is purely a matter of style and personal preference, I think, and mine is not to write accents, because from what I can tell, most writers who try end up doing ludicrously stupid things with them (I have a personal beef with using "y'all" as a singular pronoun, for one; maybe it has something to do with my first language being German, a language that actually distinguishes between singular and plural in second person), and everyone who reads this will hear these lines in their voices anyway.
1524567
I actually didn't know you were writing this from a perspective of English as a second language, so I suppose that is worth a little extra leniency.
As for accents and voices, I can understand the preference issue, and so I will only harp further on one particular point: don't assume that "everyone who reads this will hear these lines in their voices anyway." The best criticism I ever received with regard to fanfiction was to try not to omit descriptions under the assumption that your audience already knows them; to do so is lazy writing. One thing I didn't really harp on about "Beating the Heat", for example, was the Doctor Who crossover aspect of the plot; the author just kind of assumes the reader knows everything there is to know about Doctor Who, assumes that every fan will accept that Doctor Hooves from the pony side of things is in fact THE Doctor Who, and sticks it into the story without really explaining anything about the mythos or artifacts used, leaving a reader like me who has no knowledge of the Doctor Who universe at all decidedly confused.
That's why I like to give characters as unique and distinct a voice as I can when I write, including written accents. If I simply assume everyone already knows how they sound and will read the lines in their voice anyway and therefore don't bother to make them actually sound distinct, I'm being lazy and taking shortcuts at the very least, and at most, I'm severely misrepresenting the characters to a reader who may not have as good a grasp of said characters as I am assuming.
Sorry, little mini-ramble there, heh.
Cheers,
--CG
1525560 I think that there's a difference, on a site like this, between assuming people know who the Doctor is and what he sounds like, and doing the same thing for regulars of the series the fanfics are based on; that was what I meant by "everyone who reads this". If I wrote Harry Potter fanfic, I wouldn't really have to write in Hagrid's accent (one of the things I found less and less endearing as that series went on), because I could reasonably assume anyone who reads HP fanfic knows what Hagrid sounds like, or has their own ideas at least (for people who didn't see the movies). J.K. Rowling had to write his dialogue the way she did because, in the first book at least, she was introducing someone completely new.
Of course I try not to use words, idioms and turns of phrase that a particular character wouldn't use (which is where the "second language" part comes in, and as an aside, don't let that make your judgments any less harsh; I've been studying English linguistics for years), but I think it unnecessary to put the accent in writing when literally everyone who reads the story knows that Applejack has a southern drawl. People who don't watch the show will have far bigger problems with any fanfic than not associating voices with the characters, I think.
2267881 Uh...thanks for that, but I think you mixed up the noun and the verb "resolve" here. His quality is "resolve" as a synonym for willpower, though now that you point it out, the double meaning is a neat bonus I hadn't even considered.
A fast story that at first glance seems to skip a lot of details to get itself over and done with before it needs to. The story slowed considerably towards the end, but it still felt rather rushed.
A closer look does reveal that it has plot hooks and hints scattered throughout, despite its fast pace, showing that it's less of a 'needs to be done' story and more of a 'bare bones' story.
It could definitely use more embellishment and the pace could do with a bit of slowing, but overall it's an enjoyable enough read.
2267889 As the Element of Resolve, shouldn't he be able to encompass all possible meanings of the word? Even if it's just a nice coincidence, it ties in pretty well in my opinion.
2268726 I'm honestly not sure. None of the other Elements can be read as a verb, after all (except Magic, but that doesn't have the divergence in meaning). But I agree most of them can be seen in more than one way - "Laughter" is more than just the physical act of laughing, for one, and I think that Element might be better named "Joy" or somesuch.
Anyway, thanks for the unexpected critique. I always like to hear from my readers, especially when it goes beyond "you rock" or "you suck".
I'm not one to give huge reviews or four paragraph comments about how something is either good or bad to me. But I mean everything I say:
This story, I was a little sceptical at first but I forced myself to go on reading this fic. (Huge SpikeBloom fan by the way.) As I kept reading though I found myself getting lost with every moment, every word of this story. I'm a huge fan of romance in stories but not too much. You, my good author, made it perfect. You focused on the plot with Doubt (by the way, loved everything about it) and kept the romance as a device to move the story along. Overall, I loved this fic, and I honestly can read this over and over again. I'm not one who usually read something more the once but this one is one of my very few "must read again" fics. I have to thank you for this brilliant piece of work and I hope to see more of this.
P.S. Love the fact that Spike and Bloom, then got back together. Nice
2822644 The first chapter originally was a self-contained complete story. I did NOT expect it to snowball into the epic it eventually became (though "epic" is still a relative term here...).
Story Title: Love Will Set You Free
Author: Ospero
Reviewed by: Sirius_Face
A good story will leave an emotional impact. Maybe not everyone will agree with that statement, but it is nonetheless true. If I bring up The Land Before Time you’ll most likely remember the journey of a group of orphans searching for a place to call home, and The Never-Ending Story might make you recall how one young hero stood in the face of a terrifying enemy to save his world, even when it cost him almost everything he loved. With this story, Love Will Set You Free, there is no tragedy of death, but the emotional impact is still present in the form of what death results in – unstoppable change and the ‘death’ of an old way of life. Though this story has flaws that hinder the plot, it is one that does its best to achieve the idea of being considered an epic tale, and it isn’t that far off the mark.
Full Review
Score: 7/10
3862802 That's ... a fascinating perspective on the four elements. I hadn't even considered it that way, but yes, that's true enough. (Oh, and spoilers: you're right.
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I had a wonderful time reading this fic, I truly loved it. I see you have a sequel, so I am off to read that as well.
~Hearn
4069079 Not an anime guy in the slightest - I never got any further than Sailor Moon. So no, this was accidental (and it's not exactly that unique and unusual a catchphrase).
I spent the entire afternoon reading this. And I LOVE IT!!!!
If there's a sequel, consider me there.
5754539
Yes, there is.
5814862 I've already read it and reviewed it.
5814888
Whoops. I had just finished reading Love will set you free, and now I'm working on Out of love. I find it kinda nice.
I very much enjoyed this story. I usually love the combination of roman and adventure in a story. You did decently here. Kudos.
I honestly still see this story as one of my absolute favorites. One that I will never get tired of re-reading over and over again until I practically have it memorized. Really great story