A series of mysterious events leads Twilight to throw a party in Canterlot, one where everypony is invited. But the arrival of an unparalleled evil, older than the world itself, irreversibly alters Equestria's fate.
"Do the innocent pay for the crimes of the guilty? Of course they do. That's the fate of the weak."
Author's Note: This should be an enjoyable read even if you are unfamiliar with Magic: The Gathering. Oh, and the first chapter is the Slice of Life one. S**t gets real after that.
Cover Art Credits:
Wit's End by Chris Rahn
Ailcorn Twilight by the incredibly helpful TheSilentMusicBox of Deviantart
Images poorly edited together by yours truly
Chapters (4)
no, it's terrible. For example Celestia could have easily countered Twilight's claim of never needing friends with the fact everypony would have been dead long before Bolas showed up if she'd never had friends.
And Twilight basically admits she's going to be a tyrant, commanding the citizens into the jobs she feels is necessary. She's making them slaves of the state.
Interestingly I can see Celestia's actions as preparing Sweetie Belle to help her take out Twilight in the future.
5961275
That would make sense, except for the fact that I wrote the chapters out of order. Inspiration is weird like that.
5961685
5961085
Sheesh. I thought the whole point of this show was to promote acceptance and kindness towards others, regardless of how different they might be from yourself. I appreciate constructive criticism as much as the next guy, but there's no need to be rude. Yes, I know that many of the ponies here are acting out of character, and that my writing process in unconventional. One of the themes I was attempting to employ was that of how painful experiences can change a person (or, pony, in this case). Sometimes I get ideas for what should happen later before I finalize what's going to happen first, and I rush to put my pen to paper, so to speak, while those ideas are fresh. But even if you don't like those things, there's simply no need to go out of your way to try and make me feel bad. I'm glad you both took the time to comment on my story, as it shows that my story's premise at least is interesting, but that's about the only thing I'm glad about right now. So, thanks for that.
You lost me after Pinkie got her skull crushed. The opening is dull, there's no sense of tension in Discord's absence, you consistently make vague pronoun references when moving from one speaker to another, you seem to repeat Twilight telling Fluttershy about the search for Discord (Once in exposition, once in dialogue,) you describe happens in dialogue in its own attribution a few times, your characterization is iffy at times (Why did Dash immediately dismiss the party?) and you have no sense of scale. The population of an entire country simply will not fit in one city, especially not one hanging off of the side of a mountain. Also, why couldn't Twilight have just sent a letter to Celestia via Spike?
Then you make an abrupt turn into pointless grimdark, wherein characters are killed just to show how badass the villain is, the entire cast is incapacitated without a chance to fight back, and everything is generally horrible for the sake of being horrible. Yes, Nicol Bolas is a powerful enemy. Yes, he very well could've orchestrated something along these lines. But it makes for a terrible story, especially as presented here, and especially when you neglect the Dark and Gore tags, thus springing it on people without any warning in or out of the story.
On a personal note, you picked one of the worst possible people to look at this. Crossover aside, this is practically the polar opposite of my usual tastes. Even if you refine your technique—which I strongly encourage you to do—I would have no interest in reading this story unless you rewrote it to the point of being a different story. Don't stop writing, but definitely read more, especially professional works. Look at how authors use language and try to improve on your own.
Sorry for raking you over the coals, but you did literally ask for it.
I think the weakest point about your story is the first chapter. Let me tell you a little advice. The first chapter is the MOST important in a story. It's the one that hooks-up readers and push them to read the rest of your story. Most of the downvotes you got are probably coming from people who read only the first chapter before downvoting and going away. The other chapters are quite good and funny to read, expecially the fight between Bolas and Sweetie. I suggest you scrap that terrible first chapter and try to write something presentable. Another thing you could do is fuse all chapters together into a single one (with only 8000 words it shouldn't be too long and the pace of the story would benefit from it). Good luck with your writing!
5962637
It's cool, since you actually explained in detail why you disliked it. Now, I can improve from the experience. Keep writing great stories, and stay helpful. (Oh, and the thing with the pronouns was me trying to avoid 'lavender unicorn syndrome'. I guess I did too well on that front.)
5962981
Yeah, I kinda knew the first one was sub-par. But it's not like I could just have Bolas show up out of nowhere, some sort of lead-in was necessary. In knidsight, the lack of retained tension is the problem.
I'm going to try my shot at a comedy next. That way, I can jump right to the laughs, and worry less about whether or not the ponies are acting in character.
My thoughts on this:
1. I sincerely doubt that all the ponies of Equestria could fit inside Canterlot. Just ponyville, sure, but the entire nation? Even if we only use locations from the show this still includes Manehattan which is at least several times the size of Canterlot.
2. Does anyone else find it funny that Bolas's plan is essentially a suped-up version of sunset shimmers from equestia girls. Also I thought that his ultimate goal was to gain back the omnipotence that he lost in the mending, not to conquer the multiverse.
3. Ok, as a narrative tool, character death is something that has to be handled carefully. Here it seems to be overused for darkness's sake. Guess what? Discords dead, BAM! now so is Pinkie, BAM! there goes Luna, BAM! lets off ALL the earth ponies and pegasi for good measure. Killing off so many characters suddenly without giving them any meaningful chance of fighting back does not make the readers care about what goes on in the story but only serves to emotionally distance themselves from the narrative.
4. Whats up with sweetie belle? Having her plainswalker spark ignite makes sense but why does it make her so powerful? I mean yeah, pre-mending plainswalkers where basically gods but post-mending all the spark does is allow one the ability to travail between planes (Which is why Bolas is so determined to reclaim the power he had). Sweetie belle should be no more powerful than she was the day before and subsequently should have been no match against Bolas.
5.
OK. Lets pretend that Twilight never went to ponyville and that whole thing with Nightmare Moon somehow sorted it self out, granting her what? 1-4 additional years of study, NOTHING WOULD HAVE CHANGED. The trap was set up in such a way that an entire nations worth of ponies, including two 1000+ year old demigods were utterly helpless. Twilight wouldn't be able to do jack shit, less in fact as without that friendship she clams she didn't need she would never have been an alicorn in the first place. That she said anything like this at all is the biggest spit in the face to the memory of her friends and all the lessons she learned from them.
Its a great idea but u really need a(n) editor. Everything is all over the place and I was really confused what was going on. But as what i typed before it is a really great idea.
Nicol Bolas may have a weakness for theatrics... but not even Dominaria's Most Ancient Evil, the Mind Ripper, would stoop so low and petty for 'mere' immortality.
5964261 All this.
Nicol Bolas may be a dragon with a taste for the theatrics, but... here's a thing:
He's a Chessmaster. He spent so many years on the plan of the Conflux of Alara to form the Maelstrom. After losing the great chunk of his initial power he already took out the Spirit Dragon himself, prior to Ugin's and Sarkhan's Retcon Plot.
He doesn't need to brutally slaughter when his merest touch can render the victim a mere vegetable.
Also, he doesn't waste resources. "The best pawns are those that can make pawns of their own." The whole slaughterfest is a waste of resources.
Finally, as said, a Spark no longer makes the Planeswalker god-like. The Old-Walker rules should never be in effect, especially for a mere filly such as Sweetie, whom you, like many before, bent into a Black-Hole-Sue of sorts by having her match Nicol Bolas.