Stelimus and Grimliss had returned to the capital after a long trek through the snowy wastelands. The undead deer suggested only going through the tundra with a small party comprised of only him, his nephew, and his four guards, in an attempt to look like a small and insignificant target to the giant in the snowy lands. It worked. They all returned behind the safety of the massive walls of reindeer architecture.
Stelimus was expecting everyone to welcome him, perhaps not with open...forelegs, but at least with a simulacrum of joy at seeing him again. Instead, he was met with alienating gazes from the civilians in the streets and the soldiers during their patrols. They all seemed none too happy to see their prince again when they didn't seem to have much of an issue with him before his departure.
"What's wrong with them?" Stelimus whispered to his uncle.
"They most likely think that your elongated stay meant you were preferring the ponies or some other, nonsensical thing such as that. Your father isn't exactly that well versed in diversity, as you well know."
"Wow. So he really has brainwashed them. That's pretty sad and, quite frankly, a little pathetic."
The two arrived in front of the palace where King Anglacite and his Queen, accompanied by a cohort of guards, awaited Grimliss and Stelimus' return. When Anglacite saw his son, he calmly trotted over to the stag, an air of certainty muddling his view.
"So," he said as he approached his son. "did you see the pony song?"
"Yes."
"Horrid, aren't they? They consider themselves superior to others because of how vast their empire is." Anglacite wrapped a foreleg around his son.
"That's...not what I observed upon further analysis."
The God-King slowly moved away and narrowed his gaze. "What are you talking about?"
"As any creature, many of them have their faults, namely the 'artists', but I did not see anything pertaining to what you have mentioned thus far over the years."
"What are you..."
Anglacite looked down and Stelimus could see his eyes darting left and right as if trying to comprehend what he just heard. His own son? Every child he had up to this point believed in his truth. After all, he shared it with them since their birth, and he did the same with this one. So what could be the cause of his thoughts?
"Wait...The others never had much contact with my siblings, which means..." Anglacite looked up and his gaze almost immediately darted towards Grimliss who seemed dispassionate about the reunion. "You! It's YOUR fault he's adhering to the wrong methods of thinking!"
"Hm?" Grimliss hummed.
The undead stag found himself being punched hard in the chest and sliding back several feet from the resulting shockwave. Unfortunately, the strike did not do much to Grimliss save for creating a thin sheet of frost on his chest.
"What's wrong with you, fool?" Grimliss chastised.
"You're the cause of my son's wrong upbringing!" Anglacite accusingly pointed towards his brother.
"I've barely had any contact with him! And you're the one who asked me to escort him personally!"
"No!" Strong winds started to flail around, creating a blizzard with the particles of frozen air within the city. "I've done my best to raise the children I have had over the years, and all was fine, yet YOU always had a preference for the pony song rather than your own kin! You're a traitor of your own species!"
While Grimliss was usually always of a calm nature, his brother always knew what got under his nonexistent flesh. While he did not express his emotions facially, his essence started to seep out of every part of his body, causing the few living plants to rot immediately and the stones around to crumble and decay.
"So you want to fight just to feel better about yourself? You wanted an excuse to tussle with me, brother? Then so be it. We'll do it right here in front of everyone and maybe even wipe this entire city off of the map due to your inflated and corrupted ego."
Anglacite was loathe to do so, but he agreed and calmed down. "Apologies, brother. I did not think well. I have...been on edge, lately. I know that you would never betray me, let alone your own kind. The thought that it even crossed my mind sickens me."
Grimliss calmed down and let his energy seep back into his decayed body. "Right, but don't do that again."
Anglacite turned to face his son. "As for you, I want to know everything you saw at the pony-song's city. I am...Curious," he trailed off.
Stelimus' mother brought him with her into the castle, where many guards followed them. Stelimus was used to his father's capricious attitude by now but he did not approve of his attitude, hence why they never really got along.
"Say, where is my 'sister'?" Stelimus wondered.
"Out. She's at your aunt's home."
"What's she doing there?"
"Learning to control her anger issues, among other things."
"Or learning how to kill me from her aunt considering how I treated Effervescence at the Crystal Kingdom."
When everyone was out of sight and Anglacite was walking back to his palace, Grimliss walked next to him and spoke rather eerily:
"You know, brother, in the past, I wasn't as strong as you."
"This is true. You were far from being the weakest, but you could not reach my power."
Grimliss walked in front of Anglacite, cutting off his path. "However, your sister and I both have our own essence now and can no longer be compared to you."
Anglacite cocked an eyebrow, inciting a devilish curiosity within his mind. His slightly evil grin attested to this. "So, you're saying you're stronger than me?" Grimliss did not respond and remained stoic. "Fine then. Your silence speaks tomes. Would you be willing to have a little...sparring match with me in the tundra?"
Grimliss grinned just like his brother, and both decided to take their leave, the people bowing to them and their presence while others cowered at the sight of Anglacite's sibling. It took them a while to finally enter the tundra and get to a safe distance away from the metropolis.
"Ready?" Anglacite poised himself.
Stelimus sat in his room, as wide as it once was but filled with many an empty shelf rather than toys, playgrounds, and, maybe, a nacho fountain complete with cheese and salsa. He was sitting at his deck, reading through some notes left by the creepy spirit that served as his teacher. He even got a few pieces of mail from the two ponies he met before leaving with his 'uncle'. Gregary was really starting to hate his brain for conjuring up such a weird reality.
"Ugh. Homework? I didn't think I would have to suffer through it again. Nearly thirty years of torture just to get a worthless degree, then I have to study again..." The room started to vibrate gently, making Stelimus' pencil holders topple over after a brief clogging session. "Woah. Feels like there's an earthquake happening." After the shaking stopped, at vicious wave of discolored energy flew over the capital, knocking the young stag over briefly and nearly causing him to enter yet another form of unconsciousness. He put a hoof to his head and shook it. "No way am I going to pass out yet again. This isn't inception, and I sure as hell won't let it become like it."
Another wave blasted over the entire capital, but this wave was even more vicious than the last. The walls were crumbling and the windows were starting to crack underneath the massive pressure being created. Another wave tore the doors to Stelimus' room off its hinges and threw one side through a window and into the courtyard in one clean movement. A dark flash coming from the hallway caught the young stag's attention, flash which immediately captivated Stelimus' attention and made him try and determine the source. Throughout the castle, guards were collapsed onto the floor, furniture had toppled over, some bricks in the floor had cracked into a small, uneven hole, and paintings had fallen from the walls.
Trekking further through the waves increasing in intensity, Stelimus pushed the castle doors open as best he could and immediately regretted the decision, what with him flying backwards and slamming against yet more wall.
"Too many damn walls in this place. Couldn't have an opening with support pillars or something? Gothic architecture is a thing, you plebeians," Stelimus mumbled under his breath.
The stag adjusted his shoulders and massaged his neck while looking outside. The sight...He immediately realized what was going on. Grimliss and Anglacite were fighting outside of the city and were practically destroying everything around them in the tundra. Several of the young 'mountains' were razed and no traces were left. The stag gulped loudly and started to shake for a reason he did not understand.
"Wh-what's wrong with m-me? Am I scared? Why would I b-b-be scared? Th-this is just a coma dream...but the more I go through it, the more everything starts to feel actually real. I can feel the pressure of their powers crushing me. Is this what it is like to...Are they truly gods?"
Further away, the two god-kings were acting quite casual about the whole affair and were oblivious to the damages they were causing around them.
"I have not had the pleasure of releasing my full potential in so long!" Anglacite shouted.
The king jumped around his brother and flicked his head towards Grimliss, causing two icy vortexes of tremendous size to smash into each other like drills, but they met with a deathly mist that decayed them in seconds.
"Quite. I have not been able to test the extent of my new essence since changing like this. Perhaps your childish outburst was a boon rather than a bane?"
"WHAT?!" Anglacite was outraged.
The deathly stag planted his hooves into the ground, creating two bizarre black vortexes that bubbled like sludge and emitted semi-transparent rings around them. Pulling outwards, Grimliss extracted two demonic, black spirits and unleashed them onto his brother. Anglacite reared his head in surprise, and maybe some hidden terror, and kicked the ground below him. He started sliding backwards at high speeds on a path of ice that formed behind the reindeer the further he went. Standing on his two hind legs, the stag put his two fore hooves together and started to mumble an incantation. When he released his hooves, the world seemed to warp briefly and both Anglacite and Grimliss found themselves floating on a block of ice within a starry abyss that was illuminated by a purple nebula. The black spirits had turned into ice, and the encroaching frost was being kept away from Grimliss by his deathly miasma.
"Quite impressive. You've learned some new tricks, but dimensional shifting isn't as easy as you think," Grimliss said.
Grimliss narrowed his gaze and smiled at his brother's apparent, increasing exhaustion.
"I thought so."
It has been a while since i last read a chapter from this story so i had to re-read the front page, and i wondered what the heck is a artificial coma? I know what a coma is but how can you have a fake coma. Kan somebody explain this to me?
6742573 Artificial Coma/ Medically Induced Coma
My uncle had to get one when he was flattened by a car-carriage truck, so I know what those are.
Father Dearest is not pleased at the heretical words Stelimus shared. Imagine, his own son speaking against him! Deer society is a rather interesting one...
6742573 Likely a medically induced coma. It's basically using drugs to put the body into the same state as a coma. Commonly done to give the body time to recover from brain injuries like swellings or things like seizures.
I think you missed a word.
6742596 quickmeme.com/img/2b/2b8ada4d86dd243e6f777c889549d9ccdfbb9b14c47d64e83f170569f7cb79d3.jpg
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Aaaa intresting, i think i've read something like that a while ago doctors everywhere are starting to induce hypothermia or something to treat a specific kind of injury. Thanks for the knowledge guys.
wow, Anglacite has issues, Major issues. that so called *shudder* god-king is like an egomaniacal manchild with tremendous power. hmm, so this "essence" the two brothers speak of, did they become what they are after acquiring it, or were they above average deer before the essence?
6742821 They all have that 'essence'. It's a deer's formof magic, hence why they talk about spirits and frost. The God-Kings, as mentioned before (I'm certain I mentioned it), all started out with frost essence. Later on, they all went separate ways, with Anglacite being the only one to stay in the tundra. How the other two came to be like they are, well, that'll be explained in the future.
Why is it that in so many stories and myths so many immortals have the mindset of Children? Is it a thing?
It sure does seems to be that way in Anglacite's case, "If you do not Think like me you have betrayed me!" "I am the biggest and greatest you should all be thankful i let you be in my precense!" "Raaah raah raah! i am the alpha and the Omega! Liiiiiisten to mmmmmmmmheheheee!!"
6744325 Grimliss isn't like that, but Anglacite's issues lie deeper than simply going mad with power.
You see that deer yonder? Yes, that cream coloured deer with a braided auburn hair? They way her blue eyes, carried by that nonchalant grin on her face? On how she love to tease and joke around with deer references. That independent nature where she would rather do stuff by herself and jokingly tease when asked to help. Yes, that doe is called Agatha Evensong. Came from a family who owns an inn, I tell you. Oh! How she loves to listen to the deerfolk's bards when she was young, now she's the one who sings in their warm and comfy inn. She's quite a cook too, I must say. Their inn always filled with the smell of bread and coffee. Pots always hang from the fire pit.
Nice chapter! Can't wait for the next!
Keep it at 'em Stelimus you old man. Stay strong.
6744541 I don't get it.
6744617 Indirectly describing an OC.
You know this story had me thinking, what if you or I, is in a coma right now and we don't even know about it?
6745456 Already thought about that, amongst other things.
6750217 Eugh. Not my cup of arsonic, but it's sure to please other readers who like that kind of music when they read the chapter. Thanks for appealing to them.
6757432 Females can also have antlers. I mentioned that in the author's notes in a chapter somewhere.
(I'm new to this story) will there be any scenes where he wakes up in the hospital again for a short time?
6764203 Not that I'm aware of. That didn't even pass my mind.
6784692
1. I have found no misspelling of Gregary's name nor of Stelimus'.
Edit: Found them. Very strange. I even triple-checked to make sure I wasn't misspelling his name.
I also have no examples of poor grammar on which to base myself off of your comment so I can't check the errors in question and scan the rest of the chapters a third time. I've used spell checking many times and did not find a problem.
2. These are already done and are only implemented multiple times within lengthy proses when multiple characters are talking.
3. I use multi-perspective when using other characters. Besides, it's only in the first chapters where Stelimus is a baby. The rest still has him seeing the world on his own.
4. I already do this. When I repeat a term it's by accident because I just write what I 'see' and write extremely quickly.
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I believe my critiques are legitimate, but you either didn't see the errors I talked about yourself or didn't care what I thought, which is understandable. Not every single reader will like every single story or how you write--every story on this site has downvotes or negative comments and the author trudged on and wrote to completion a good fic. Still, I will attempt to continue this discussion:
Changing the start of sentences from "I" to "Stelimus" without warning or a break (usually more than one new line between the paragraphs, a line across the page, or some combination of characters to signify a break, like *** or somesuch) happens regularly throughout your story's first 3 chapters. Your dialogue could use some work in formatting as well, because I often find myself backtracking to see who is saying what. Check https://www.fimfiction.net/writing-guide#Dialogue for an overview of dialogue rules and tips.
Thoughts of each character should, when using italics, not be between quotation marks because these signify quotes or spoken words. Some writers have used both at once, but usually only to indicate those thoughts being accidentally spoken aloud. The difference in text is apparent enough for the reader to understand when the thoughts end and the narration begins. When writing character thoughts while in the same perspective as the paragraph, a new paragraph isn't needed, unless it's between lines of a different character's dialogue.
As for the repeated words, try going back after you've written a few chapters of your story and just read it yourself. The distance in time from when you wrote it will allow you to kind of forget what you meant at the time, and experience the story almost like a new reader.
I've spent a long time reading stories here and found your story somewhat hard to follow or read, and I attempted to elucidate on why and offer suggestions on how to make it easier. Honestly, what I've seen of your story reads like a first draft, and I think it highly unlikely your writing style would have improved in the approximately three months since you started this one.
I won't volunteer myself to edit your story, but you can find one easily in this group: https://www.fimfiction.net/group/97/looking-for-editors Just follow the guide in the forum. A good editor makes all the difference in the world.
If you can't find an editor for this story (should be easy with the potential this story has), try selecting some of the best stories on the site that interest you and read them, paying attention to how their story is formatted, how they handle dialogue, character thoughts, perspectives, and generally anything else related to storytelling, then compare it to your own. The best authors are often the best readers. To learn to write: read. I don't expect everyone to always put out stories that get 6k upvotes and a 90% approval rating, but I believe that every story should be written as best it can, not just posting the first draft.
However, if you don't really want to put that much effort into your story and just publish the first drafts after screening them with a spellchecker, then by all means do. Many great stories have come out with that same technique on the internet's imageboards and forums already. It's just not something I look for or expect on this site, after seeing the works some of its authors can produce.
6789164 I never said that I denied your critiques. It's the implied undertones that I'm brand new at all this and have never looked that stuff up that slightly chaffed my cherry.
Oh. THAT thing with the dialogue. Yeah. It was an experiment that I implemented with the story after following the second dialogue line within the fist two paragraphs of the link you gave. Seeing as I've read up from critics and the people at EqD that it's best to lop in actions from the same character with their dialogue, I do it now.
Never heard about that thing with the thoughts. I used to do as you say, then I was told to put them within quotes and to display that they're saying it out loud, like:
"BLACHUM," the Jon thought out loud.
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I already know about the editor thing. Unfortunately, I've only had bad luck with that group (this does not involve the personalities and attitudes of the editors in question as they've been spot on). While I might've found one guy, he works on many other stories for many other people and isn't very fast because of that.
Best stories? You mean the clop writers? Because that refuse is all I see all the time with tremendous high votes and upvotes. Unfortunately, I only read stories that have creativity and effort put into it, that interest me, or that have promise and I try to help the writer in question. Clop possesses none of these qualities.
As for first drafts...You say that like I plan things out. Where's the fun in that? I 'watch' what I write. I only plan a beginning and end. What's in-between is entirely up to chance and whatever temporal tangents I witness while writing.
And once again, I NEVER make first drafts. I HATE making first drafts. I don't work when I write. I create and look over everything to make sure I didn't do an error.
OH! And I figured out why I did that error with Stelimus' name the chapter you mentioned. I'm currently writing a book whose main character has a very similar name, so I accidentally for the 't' when writing and didn't noticed when I looked over the chapter.
6789315
I've seen your story list. I know you're not new to writing, but even an experienced lifter can still have poor form. I know I do.
Let me be clear: quotes should only be used when speaking aloud, not for thoughts. There seems to be some kind of miscommunication between us on the specifics of my nitpick. I suppose it doesn't really matter, as long as you're perfectly consistent with it.
There are other editor groups out there, I just used that one as an example. Try messaging the editors of other stories you like or stories similar to your own and try your luck there.
>implying clop stories are the only stories with high ratings
I notice you don't have anything in your favorites list. I don't know if you simply keep everything in different private lists, but sweeping away all the best works here by calling them clop writers is a disservice and, quite frankly, insulting. Check my favorites list and sort by rating, and you'll get to page 3 before you find something with anything worse than sex jokes. What I've Become by Knight Breeze, Exchange by getmeouttahere, and Rites of Ascension by CvBrony are all shining examples of some of the best stories here, and none of them have clop. To disregard the examples other have set for us in writing great stories is just ignorant. Just find a few tags you like, filter by rating, and dive in. You're really missing out otherwise. Or maybe not. Personally, I get discouraged when, like other artists, I marvel at others' works and want to delete everything because of the difference. You don't have to read anything you don't want to, I'm just offering suggestions.
Just, ya know, stay away from my stories. If you read my work, you're gonna have a bad time.
>As for first drafts...You say that like I plan things out. Where's the fun in that? I 'watch' what I write.
Then you are doing exactly as I feared you were. I used it in the sense that the first draft is the only draft, without review, revision, or polish. It's great to write and see where a story will lead you, but if you can't be bothered to polish it up beyond spelling, it won't be the best you can make. In the worst instances, this method gave us the Star Wars prequels; in the best instances it gave us RubyQuest. It's ok, though. People write like this all the time and others still get enjoyment from it, and if you have fun writing this way, more power to you.
This, however, is where I depart. I can't continue reading with some kind of hope that things will improve, as I've seen with other authors who write long fics, after this exchange. Perhaps it all boils down to different tastes.
Good luck, I hope your story turns out like you want it to
6789477 I read plenty of other fics, whether they be extremely well viewed or not very well viewed. If you want to see how much I've improved, you should read my very first fic.
I have stories in my 'favorites' list, but that's in bookmark. I did that because I don't want to be swarmed with updates on the fics and authors saying 'thank you for x' on my comments page. When I put something in my 'read it later' page, it's basically me favoriting them.
I never said I couldn't be bothered. I said that I don't do multi-drafts because those are annoying and unproductive and I've already said that I've had bad luck with editors in the past, implying that I've already gone through quite a bit of them.
Also, I like the Star Wars prequels. I don't see the issues with the movies, and don't even say it's the CGI because it's not.
Edit: I'll try and find an editor in the future.
6791248 Whoa... I wanted to read all of that but... TLDR.... yeah...
6789315 I know you wrote that comment 66 weeks and 1 day ago, but when you say that all the "best" stories are all clop, I looked towards the browse button.
I went to "top-all time."
I think that the top 250 stories disagree with what you said.
Getting once more to hurt the MC in one way or another... Damn, that guys is really deep in deniel...