Non-Canon just so you know.
Fluttershy knew Elder Gods. Apparently, she hooked up with a few of them and they taught her some neat tricks like ‘The Stare’ and how to tame any animal. She managed to become a part of Gruff’s network after being tipped off by a certain omniscient being that the fate of the world apparently was held in the balance on my own two hands.
“Quick!” she squeaked, waving an urgent hoof at me. “Over here!”
She pointed to a black hole that had formed to our right.
“Luna, are you seeing this?” I asked her, my words coming out measured and slow.
Luna was too busy gaping at Fluttershy.
“How-“ was all she got out before we were dragged into a different dimension.
“Woah, what the-“
I was interrupted by a deafening roar as a ten metre tall cougar carrying a massive chainsaw clashed with a gigantic tiger dual-wielding two katanas.
“This is just too weird”, I commented, unable to think straight.
The two massive predators clashed with each other sending massive sparks flying around and bathing the region with an orange glow. It was strangely beautiful and terrifying, kind of like looking at a nuclear explosion.
Luna tugged at my arm.
“Isn’t that going to drain the Tree?” I asked her.
“Different universe, different rules”, she shot back as we were sucked through a portal again.
We arrived at a desolate scene.
Buildings were dilapidated, wood was rotting, and cars were wrecked and abandoned everywhere. I would have been excited because it looked so much like Earth, but the abandoned abodes were creeping me out.
I heard a distant scream.
“Ah!! They’re coming! They’re coming, run for your lives!” I heard, as a pony dashed out of the alleyway followed by a horde of the undead.
You heard right. Zombies.
Nope, nope, nope! I thought to myself desperately shaking Fluttershy.
She was muttering to herself.
“I can fix this, I can fix this, I can fix this, oh my, oh my, oh my”, she repeated to herself.
“Fluttershy!” I screamed as the undead were rapidly gaining upon us.
“Got it! Fluttershy yelled, as much as the timid pegasus could.
The strange rip occurred again and we were flung into a different world.
“Hey, thanks for saving my hindquarters”, I heard a voice say.
I groaned. We’d picked up a passenger.
“Thou didn’t even charge thee”, Luna grumbled somehow blaming me. She was strangely okay in most part for a pony dragged on an inter-universal adventure but she was slipping back into her old speech. I think it’s a stress thing.
“Well we can’t send her back”, I said, as the mare relaxed.
“What’s your name?” I asked, addressing the panicking mare, I’d talk to Fluttershy getting us back home but it seems like she was tinkering with causality and the nature of space-time so I didn’t want to interrupt her.
“I’m First”, she replied.
“What?”
“First Aid”, she muttered, looking exasperated.
I chuckled as she gave me a look that could have evaporated bitumen.
“Okay, okay, First”, I consoled. “Tag along, I think you’re in for a heck of a ride.”
And that was how Equestria was made.
I can't even tell if this chapter is supposed to be canon.
I'm hedging towards 'no'.
4942111 its a bonus chapter. Bonus chaoters are also called side chapters. Those are generally never canon chapters
4942211
Some fics I've read make them optional but canon.
4942218 I usually leave a note in bonus chapters to denote whether or not they are canon. This chapter in particular is non-canon and won't affect the story. I apologise if it wasn't clear enough, I beefed up the text size and made an additional note in the AN. Thanks for reading!
4942240 Thanks! I try.
This should have come to my attention much earlier. The premise looks interesting enough.
First of all I'd like to thank you so much for giving some feedback to my story. If you do not mind, I would like to address the issues that you have brought up in your comments.
4946715 First up, I'd like to thank you for this, it took me a while to actually come up with the concept and unfortunately as I see in your later comments I may have poorly executed it, I do apologise I'm a first time writer and I need to work on improving my writing skills!
4946739 The Timberwolves were more of afterthought to a prologue that does not exist anymore, thank you for pointing this out, I need to edit these references out in the next editing comb through! The perspective jump is intentional and I was (perhaps unwisely or perhaps I must make it more clear?) backtracking between the past protagonist and the future protagonist. I thought this would be a means to keep a sense of suspense as the perspective switches might tease the reader to continue reading on. Unfortunately, this may have backfired as you have mentioned.
4946744 Grooble was a play on the name 'Google' as you have surmised. I chose to make spelling changes to the name because I wanted it to be associated with 'Google' but the companies are in no way related in the story to the actual purpose or Google in this world apart from the fact they are both entities that engage in technology and the Internet.
4946746 Chapters out of order has been addressed in the above point, although I'd like to reiterate it was supposed to be a point of suspense, it may not be right now, I'm going to rewrite the beginning chapters, but please give the remaining chapters a chance, my writing style hopefully will show you improvement!
4946767
Would you mind being specific? I'd really love to know what I can improve on.
Description - Too much? Too little? Excessive or transparent? Are there inconsistencies, contradictions that I should be made aware of?
Detail - Too much? Too little? Is the character not experiencing enough to justify the plot? Are the details fragmented or do they need to flow better?
Pacing - I've received feedback with regard to this. I know I need to work on pacing but unfortunately, when I imagine it in my head it tends to come out like this. What I'd love to know is if it is too fast? Too slow?
Writing ability - I guess the above would contribute to writing ability but perhaps could you be a little specific, would I need to work on grammar? Perhaps the execution, would it benefit from the lack of perspective switching? Should I be explicit?
All in all, I'd like to thank you for at least giving this story a chance, I'll work to improve the early chapters and work forwards.
4946875
The perspective switches don't really make sense. I'm sure there is a way to interleave the progression of a story in two different points in time, but I can't think of it currently. The references to the scenes that were cut probably didn't help.
By writing ability I'm specifically referring to the concrete, as I see many small problems with grammar, capitalization, conventions, and occasional spelling errors. Too many to point out here. I'm not sure how you can attack that, besides running it through some spell-checkers, grammar-checkers, proofreaders, and yourself. Note that your familiarity due to having written the text will play tricks with you; you often read type as you originally meant it to be read, not how you actually wrote it. Reading it out loud can help catch errors, as well as reading it to someone else, or having it read out to you. Text-to-speech might help, I've never tried it. Reading it backwards sentence by sentence might be another way to remove your familiarity with it. Other than that, practice.
Description and detail are actually the same things, or close enough that it doesn't matter here. Oops! And pacing is also related to this. The problem is, at least before the jump to Equestria, the ratio of plot to exposition is very low. Practically all of it is worldbuilding through exposition, while there is very little character building, or any actual scenes, at all. The result makes it feel like a timeline, albeit one formed into prose. What character building there is is done with a similar "outline" style.
There's no engagement the reader can make with the character or the world, because we aren't embodied in the character. We don't know what this world looks like, sounds like, or feels like. We don't know who the character is, what they care about, or why we should care about them. Aside from the nominal difference of Synchrony apparently not being fixed to their Synch motherboard, which is a really strange and arbitrary difference to begin with, there's nothing to suggest that this character's story is any more interesting than any of the other subjects of Synchrony. What drives the character? Curiosity? I haven't seen or even heard that this character's curiosity is sufficient to risk ego death and brain damage just to see what this mysterious applet is.
I kind of got harsher as I went, I think. Sorry for that. This story has a lot of problems, but I think the biggest would be the skeletal chapters composed almost entirely of exposition. Outlines have their own appeal, but not in the guise of a story. Besides continuing to practice writing, you should continue reading. All sorts of stories, lots of sci-fi, things like Snow Crash, Permutation City, Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age, Dark Integers, The Culture novels, all of that good shit. If you want to keep your chapters short, I suggest taking a look at the Austraeoh Saga, one of the most epic pony fictions I've ever seen.
I don't have a strong ending to sign off with. Peace out, bitch.
4947062 I'd like to give you sincere thanks for your time to respond to my comments, I'll continue to try and improve and hopefully you may come back and see something of an improvement. Until then, thanks for reading and giving it a thorough critique!
*Grows beard* waiting even now