Alex Weaver’s day couldn’t have been worse; an uncomfortable call from his mother, a surprise visit at work from his ex-girlfriend, and a trillion-dollar device exploding in his lab, transporting him to some frozen wasteland. Damn Mondays.
Good chapter. Few spelling and grammatical errors here and there, though it seems more like you just didn't have a chance to edit it. A quick second read should catch most of them. And still, good chapter.
Alright new chapter. Good work TopQuark and as below comment states, minor errors with easy fixes. (However I did read this and the last chapter together, to get a reminder of what had happened, so the msitakes I noticed maybe in the last chapter. Regardless I only remember seeing one or two and wouldn't worry about it.) Eager to see what the next chapter will include. Good luck with getting rest. Time keeps stealing my sleep, had to binge it at the weekend. 7672433 Literally took the words out of my mouth. Thumbs up.
7673246 As with most fanfic of this type, I'm ignoring the whole Equestria Girls cannon because it makes no sense in this context. And Flash is just here for some things I have planned far down the line.
I was experimanting with placing the italics flags straight into the word editor because I hate going to and from the editor to make sure I got all the formating. Finger must have slipped.
Yes, I'm happy to see the translation spell failed and communication must be done the hard way. It's a delicate balance between not boring your audience and not pulling your own hair figuring out the dialogue. I like the approach where the lesser used language is put in brackets to distinguish when Equestrian is spoken and when English is spoken, the other way is putting gibberish when a language is spoken but not understood, it's up to you. Good luck!
Well, I'm guessing since magic is an alien energy to Alex, his brain can't really handle it. Looks like Twi or the pony linguist is going to have to communicate the hard way.
Or they could pass notes through math, that works too. Well, at least until the ponies burn Alex at the stake when he demonstrates math showing that the planet should be orbiting around the sun and not the other way. Or Discord ex machina.
"Like I said, I didn’t plan any of this. I had no desire to see Twilight’s work go to waste, and I certainly would never intentionally physically hurt a pony
Dude you still need to apologize for hurting her to the point where she cried herself to sleep.
Also good luck being let anywhere near any science projects more dangerous than a fresnel lens in a pitch black room with no heat source from now on.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's been done before, but I'd like to see a fic where the gibberish is actually coded text that the reader could go back and decipher with a key provided when the in-story characters learn to communicate.
Just wanted to say thanks for another great chapter! I know I said I would never bug for ETAs, but I don't suppose you could maybe just shirk any and all responsibilities in favor of writing more, eh? No? Ah well, worth a shot. ;) Just can't get enough of this one!
Instead of bulky, single-jointed pads with a slightly rotated ‘thumb'
I checked several Iron Will pics and it's look like minotaur hand more or less have same overall structure as human one. Yes, they only have four finger but overall it look almost exactly the same as ours.
7709906 MLP:FiM is like the bible; good for source material, but I don't like takeing either literally (weirdest analogy I've made all week). I have no intention trying to make this story line up perfectly with the narrative of the show, so I figured I may as well throw in my own vision.
7775787 With any luck, within a week or two -- definitely this month, barring external forces. I would like to have already released the next chapter, but this one is quite important to the plot, so I've been thinking about it more that actually writing it, compounded by the fact that the semester is nearing an end, so school workload is rising. In short, it'll be out Soon™.
Thank you for your vested interest in my personal delusions.
7848050 I'm afraid I've caught the Star Wars fever that's been going around. I went to see Rogue One when it came out -- fifty hours of KotOR 1 and 2, plus half of 'The Clone Wars' series later, I'm wondering where the Chrismas holidays went.
Hopefully when my normal life recommences in a couple days, I can get back in the habit of writing. I fact, I suppose I'll start now.
Twilight’s head reared back in shock and her wings shot out involuntarily. In her stunned state, she suddenly realized why she had found the device familiar; it bore a superficial resemblance to a Gryphon hoof-cannon, a weapon capable of magiclessly accelerating a metal projectile that she had seen in a military intelligence report per Celestia’s request — to familiarize her with other facets of the Equestrian government, were her words. However, this was no measly lead pellet.
If ponies can make canons, they must know how to make handguns. They already gone through industrial revolution and it would be strange if they didn't develop handguns. Also it sounds strange that gryphons would have handguns. Their anatomy and style of life wouldn't alow them to build industrial society. I bet the maximum they would be able to produce are swords.
7958025 I thought this post was a bit overdramatic, but the next chapter was still stalling, starting out by wasting my time with a low-impact segment of Celestia, Luna and Discord instead of going straight back to Twilight. I don't quite have the same complaints about ponies acting out-of-character, but I have to agree that the cheap suspense generated by stalling and jumping all over the place with the point of view seems a suboptimal choice compared to getting right into the meat of things. That segment with Discord justifying himself could have occurred later in the story, for example, after Twilight gets done with emergency-level stuff and is ready to ask "Discord, WTF?". I see no reason why that snippet could not have been delayed.
I did like the Bon-Bon part at the end of this chapter, but I also spent a lot of time in chapter two and three semi-bored, thinking, "Come-on, come-on, get back to the important stuff!" This leads to glossing over stuff / skipping ahead, which I imagine is not what you as the author desire.
I'm out as well. Everything that has occurred in the last 4 chapters could very, VERY easily have been written out in just 2; maybe even 1, if you cut out the 8 billion words of dialogue between Twilight and the various "what's-her/his-face" ponies that your story is currently saturated with. You have no focus. Events that are meaningless to the plot are given just as much attention and detail as the things that ARE important. At no point is it ever made clear to the reader which events are important and which are just flavour text, because you spend as much time painting a scene for when Celestia confronts Discord as you do when you get to the most important scene at this point of the story: where Twilight meets the alien. And you breezed right passed that scene as though you were eager to be done with it. I learned more about Discord's mannerisms when accused of hurting somepony than I did about how Twilight reacted when she saw an honest-to-God alien. I am desperately scrolling down the enormous wall of empty text, trying to find where the actual story is. You said you liked stories with a slow burn, right? Well there's a slow burn, and then there's doing your absolute best to say absolutely nothing with as many words as you can. Padding, fluff, and deflection is NOT a slow burn story, and it is NOT at all entertaining to read.
tl;dr and without me being an asshole: Right now you are giving unimportant fluff just as much attention and description as the important stuff. When everything is described with equal amounts of detail and the story doesn't stop and focus on anything, the reader cannot tell what is important and what is not. And since the attention is divided so equally, the parts where important stuff FINALLY happens feel cheap and like you're barely giving it any attention, since people expect the important parts to be given the lion's share of all that good shit. A scene where Twilight wakes up in the morning and collects the milk bottles from her front doorstep should not be given as many words and as much detail as the scene where she gets into an epic fight with Chrysalis, Nightmare Moon, and Tirek all at once. Don't wax poetically over things that don't matter, and make sure to give extra attention to things that DO matter; that scene where Twilight first met the human could have been an entire chapter of its own if you gave it the attention it deserved; likewise, everything before it in that same chapter could have been compressed into just a couple of paragraphs and everything would have been just fine.
Oh Flash, can't even win in the fanfiction.
Good chapter. Few spelling and grammatical errors here and there, though it seems more like you just didn't have a chance to edit it. A quick second read should catch most of them. And still, good chapter.
7672433 Much appreciated. Feel free to point out specific errors, as I'm rather sleep-deprived at the moment, so multiple sets of eyes really helps.
And yes, this may or may not become The Woeful Ballad of Flash Sentry.
7672461
The word you're looking for is "err." Really easy mistake, but such is the nature of the English language, or rather, writing system.
I'd list more, but I think you may have gotten them already, or I misread the first time, since I can't find any of the ones I was thinking of.
Best of luck getting some rest!
Alright new chapter.
Good work TopQuark and as below comment states, minor errors with easy fixes. (However I did read this and the last chapter together, to get a reminder of what had happened, so the msitakes I noticed maybe in the last chapter. Regardless I only remember seeing one or two and wouldn't worry about it.) Eager to see what the next chapter will include.
Good luck with getting rest. Time keeps stealing my sleep, had to binge it at the weekend.
7672433
Literally took the words out of my mouth. Thumbs up.
Should either be Luna talking or Celestia calling Luna... something else. Lulu maybe?
Superfluous would. Remove it please.
Was and sort should have a space between them.
Other than that, good job! It makes for good reading... Please don't leave us hanging...
Wait. If Twilight has already met Flash, shouldn't she know what a human is? So how come she didn't recognize that?
7673246 As with most fanfic of this type, I'm ignoring the whole Equestria Girls cannon because it makes no sense in this context. And Flash is just here for some things I have planned far down the line.
7673062 Thank you, and corrected.
I was experimanting with placing the italics flags straight into the word editor because I hate going to and from the editor to make sure I got all the formating. Finger must have slipped.
Yes, I'm happy to see the translation spell failed and communication must be done the hard way. It's a delicate balance between not boring your audience and not pulling your own hair figuring out the dialogue. I like the approach where the lesser used language is put in brackets to distinguish when Equestrian is spoken and when English is spoken, the other way is putting gibberish when a language is spoken but not understood, it's up to you. Good luck!
Well, I'm guessing since magic is an alien energy to Alex, his brain can't really handle it. Looks like Twi or the pony linguist is going to have to communicate the hard way.
Or they could pass notes through math, that works too. Well, at least until the ponies burn Alex at the stake when he demonstrates math showing that the planet should be orbiting around the sun and not the other way. Or Discord ex machina.
Dude you still need to apologize for hurting her to the point where she cried herself to sleep.
Also good luck being let anywhere near any science projects more dangerous than a fresnel lens in a pitch black room with no heat source from now on.
7674102
I wouldn't be surprised if it's been done before, but I'd like to see a fic where the gibberish is actually coded text that the reader could go back and decipher with a key provided when the in-story characters learn to communicate.
7674043
Just wanted to say thanks for another great chapter! I know I said I would never bug for ETAs, but I don't suppose you could maybe just shirk any and all responsibilities in favor of writing more, eh? No? Ah well, worth a shot. ;) Just can't get enough of this one!
Things are getting rather interesting, looking foward to the next chapter.
I checked several Iron Will pics and it's look like minotaur hand more or less have same overall structure as human one. Yes, they only have four finger but overall it look almost exactly the same as ours.
7709906
MLP:FiM is like the bible; good for source material, but I don't like takeing either literally (weirdest analogy I've made all week). I have no intention trying to make this story line up perfectly with the narrative of the show, so I figured I may as well throw in my own vision.
7775787
With any luck, within a week or two -- definitely this month, barring external forces. I would like to have already released the next chapter, but this one is quite important to the plot, so I've been thinking about it more that actually writing it, compounded by the fact that the semester is nearing an end, so school workload is rising. In short, it'll be out Soon™.
Thank you for your vested interest in my personal delusions.
7775880 you are evil. Just read this, now I want more, but there are no more chapters.
More chapters when?
7848050
I'm afraid I've caught the Star Wars fever that's been going around. I went to see Rogue One when it came out -- fifty hours of KotOR 1 and 2, plus half of 'The Clone Wars' series later, I'm wondering where the Chrismas holidays went.
Hopefully when my normal life recommences in a couple days, I can get back in the habit of writing. I fact, I suppose I'll start now.
7851389 please do, I'm sure I'm not the only one waiting for more
Is this awesome story still updating?
MUST HAVE NEW CHAPTER NOW
I mean if that's OK with u
Oh for Pony Sake
If ponies can make canons, they must know how to make handguns. They already gone through industrial revolution and it would be strange if they didn't develop handguns. Also it sounds strange that gryphons would have handguns. Their anatomy and style of life wouldn't alow them to build industrial society. I bet the maximum they would be able to produce are swords.
Rune is a letter in human ancient alphabet. I doubt ponies have runes.
8307982
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runic_magic
Many fantasy stories, runes just mean any sort of magical symbol or engraving. In this case, It is one designed to generate heat.
7958025 I thought this post was a bit overdramatic, but the next chapter was still stalling, starting out by wasting my time with a low-impact segment of Celestia, Luna and Discord instead of going straight back to Twilight. I don't quite have the same complaints about ponies acting out-of-character, but I have to agree that the cheap suspense generated by stalling and jumping all over the place with the point of view seems a suboptimal choice compared to getting right into the meat of things. That segment with Discord justifying himself could have occurred later in the story, for example, after Twilight gets done with emergency-level stuff and is ready to ask "Discord, WTF?". I see no reason why that snippet could not have been delayed.
I did like the Bon-Bon part at the end of this chapter, but I also spent a lot of time in chapter two and three semi-bored, thinking, "Come-on, come-on, get back to the important stuff!" This leads to glossing over stuff / skipping ahead, which I imagine is not what you as the author desire.
I'm out as well. Everything that has occurred in the last 4 chapters could very, VERY easily have been written out in just 2; maybe even 1, if you cut out the 8 billion words of dialogue between Twilight and the various "what's-her/his-face" ponies that your story is currently saturated with. You have no focus. Events that are meaningless to the plot are given just as much attention and detail as the things that ARE important. At no point is it ever made clear to the reader which events are important and which are just flavour text, because you spend as much time painting a scene for when Celestia confronts Discord as you do when you get to the most important scene at this point of the story: where Twilight meets the alien. And you breezed right passed that scene as though you were eager to be done with it. I learned more about Discord's mannerisms when accused of hurting somepony than I did about how Twilight reacted when she saw an honest-to-God alien. I am desperately scrolling down the enormous wall of empty text, trying to find where the actual story is. You said you liked stories with a slow burn, right? Well there's a slow burn, and then there's doing your absolute best to say absolutely nothing with as many words as you can. Padding, fluff, and deflection is NOT a slow burn story, and it is NOT at all entertaining to read.
tl;dr and without me being an asshole: Right now you are giving unimportant fluff just as much attention and description as the important stuff. When everything is described with equal amounts of detail and the story doesn't stop and focus on anything, the reader cannot tell what is important and what is not. And since the attention is divided so equally, the parts where important stuff FINALLY happens feel cheap and like you're barely giving it any attention, since people expect the important parts to be given the lion's share of all that good shit. A scene where Twilight wakes up in the morning and collects the milk bottles from her front doorstep should not be given as many words and as much detail as the scene where she gets into an epic fight with Chrysalis, Nightmare Moon, and Tirek all at once. Don't wax poetically over things that don't matter, and make sure to give extra attention to things that DO matter; that scene where Twilight first met the human could have been an entire chapter of its own if you gave it the attention it deserved; likewise, everything before it in that same chapter could have been compressed into just a couple of paragraphs and everything would have been just fine.