I hate to break your heart, but people are going to deride this as "edgy". And general wisdom is that if you have all the chapters of the story written out ahead of time, to release the first three or four at once, and then release another chapter every couple days or week. That way it doesn't seem too intimidating when it's first published and you can keep interest hi I having it continuously update.
Also, you should get yourself some cover art.

Best of luck!

7800647

Thanks for the comment.

1. I realize that many consider human stories as 'edgy' - and human + sf will probably by even more 'controversial' - however I just hope people who down-vote will let me know why (and that the only reason for down-vote is not 'it's human, it's sf - so let's shut it down'), it's hard to improve any possible further stories otherwise :)

2. Actually it's funny - this story was finished about two weeks ago, and I postponed the release until I revised all chapters (which took those two weeks) - I thought it's better to release the complete story at the same moment, not few chapters at a time - good to know it's the other way around.

Best regards.

Great story. !!!

A decent story, but I have one question. How in the hell did nobody important die?

~Crystalline Electrostatic~
18:49_12/17/2016

7800912

Now I don't know if this was meant as edgy-good (as in - this think is trying to be ambitious and breaking new ground) or edgy-bad (as in - this thing is mishmash of knickknacks, characters are shallow, grammar is bad and story is unreadable) ? If the latter - could you elaborate some more why is it too edgy?

After reading this:

https://www.fimfiction.net/group/50/the-writers-group/thread/193349/whats-wrong-with-dark-and-edgy

I can understand that some people simply don't like dark/gore/mature content related to MLP - but that shouldn't be the only criteria to automatically mark the story as bad.

7801171

Thanks, I'm just glad somebody enjoyed it - and thanks for the following - perhaps I will try to write some more in the future, but I doubt it will happen soon (including all reviews and grammar fixes - this story practically took me 2 months).

7801189

Thanks, as for the question - three reasons:

1. If you read the whole story than technically the princesses died... OK for a few minutes but still :)

2. I'm a strong believer in continuation - this is possible the 'intro story' for the OC and if I'll decide to write some more stories including him, it could complicate matters to have some of the main characters dead - don't get me wrong, I know it can be done - but I'm afraid that - to do it 'right' is simply beyond the scope of my limited abilities at the moment (perhaps I will try in the future though).

3. I don't know why, but I usually don't like stories where some of the main cast dies (unless the story is directly driven by the death of that character - like in suicide stories) - just personal preference I guess (this may change in the future).

7801272 I like good stories. Find a good proof reader! Besides that I saw nothing wrong I like the flow and pace. I hate to ask but are you writing to tell your story or to get likes? I saw some of the advice you some you got. So I had/have to ask.

7801283 I get you, but still, maybe not death but some kind of injury or something...

~Crystalline Electrostatic~
19:48_12/17/2016

7801293

Find a good proof reader! Besides that I saw nothing wrong I like the flow and pace.

Perhaps I will try that with the future stories, right now I tried following the Ezn's guide from FAQ.

I hate to ask but are you writing to tell your story or to get likes? I saw some of the advice you some you got. So I had/have to ask.

Let me answer like this - the story you read was something I had to write, the OC was actually bugging me long before I was introduced to MLP universe - after reading some of the stories on this site I decided to write something of my own, just to find out how 'readable' it will be.

Of course I would like my story to be enjoyable to as many people as possible but I'm not planning to try to adapt to be less 'edgy' just because some people don't like human/sf. If somebody want's to down vote it's fine, I just ask to give me the reason in comments so I can try to improve if possible - constructive criticism is always welcome :)

7801295

OK, let's just say that injury of the main cast - is much more likely in the future stories :) (actually - there are a few story drafts in my mind that include heavy injury to one of the main characters, but for now that's all there is - drafts , if they ever materialize that's a different matter).

For anybody who read the story to the end I would like to ask two questions:

1. After reading this - do you think it should be marked as 'gore' or would 'mature' tag be enough? To be honest, I marked it as gore to be on the safe side - but now I'm not so sure anymore.

2. How would you describe the OC? Was he likable or dis-likable? Funny or boring? Please use the spoiler tag if necessary.

Thanks in advance for the input.

7801376 I will be looking forward to more of your stories.

7801389

Well, we shall see

7803498

Thanks for the clarification... although I must say I'm a bit surprised...

1. I marked this story as 'dark' because it's a bit darker then usual MLP universe, however it was never my intention to go with 'it will be so dark, people will think it's cool' - if that's how it was received, than it only proves I've got a lot to improve in the future...

2. I can totally understand how people see Shadow as 'edgy' (although I would argue that the original from SA2 was actually balanced, only later Sega in their 'infinite wisdom' - messed him up... just like every other character in recent Sonic games :( ), but I never intended my OC to be view as 'dark' himself - sure he is suicidal after living alone for so long, and hunted by nightmares, but other then that he is pretty normal (or as normal as he can be) - at least that was my intention...

Anti human for the sake of being anti human

3. Where did the above came from :) ? Where in the story is OC anti human ?

Anyway, thanks for the comments - as I said earlier, constructive criticism is always welcome .

7805915

This site may not be the best place for such discussions and what I'm about to say will probably be controversial to some(most?) but...

It's pretty much being racist to your own race. It makes no sense. I don't know if i'm the only who sees it as "being cool by being dark", but it's pretty much the only way I can interpret it.

I'm sorry, but you are way off there. What you quoted actually represents the feeling of many real people - I won't deny that this part of OC psyche, was actually based on my own feelings towards 'humanity'. If that shocks anybody then look up: Aleppo, Ukraine conflict, world hunger or one of many recent terrorist attacks in your favorite search engine and then tell me you are still shocked - and this is just a tip of the iceberg.

The more I live (and I will soon hit 30), the more depressed I get by what's going on around the world, and the less respect I have towards 'humanity' - the worst part is, that there is nothing I can do about any of it :/

I think, this is actually one of the reasons I like MLP universe so much - ponies living in harmony without fighting each other (most of the time) - unfortunately, real world is far from Equestria... just like in this little gem:

Sorry for going philosophical/political - but I wanted to set things straight, no matter how controversial that might be - this is simply how I really feel about the subject.

7815691

I'm sorry to hear that - perhaps it will get better in the later chapters (if you are willing to read them) ;]

Well I finished the the story. It was ok. Ponys dining for no randomly. I was like awesome can't wait to find out who or what did this! Than I lose interest cause it was ninja shadow ponys and it was there ponys who where dieing, you could went in more detail in the action sence or have it not them mowing down the enemy like , but 4 powerful ass alicorns yeah the shadow ninja are just cannon fodder. Cool idea with magic going missing. shadowdancer really? Replace dancer with something a bit more empowering. Honestly the name is funny. Whooooooo I'm shadowdancer fear me as I dance around you this story beginning 10/10 (prefect hook) middle 7/10 ending 7.5/10 this is a good story but not good enough for favorite. Honestly how only 204 seen this more people should read this just because I'm not a fan of ninja plot doesn't mean thAt others won't

Ps im writing this on my phone and I find this pointless to fix the grammar mistakes so grammar nazi get attack me

7856718

Thanks for the opinion... and yeah I know the story was a bit (or a lot - depending on how you look at it) cliche but that I realized after I finished writing it

But since this was the first thing I ever wrote, I am still pretty pleased that so many people enjoyed this.

I'm trying to created a plot for new story - if I manage to do it then hopefully it will be less predictable and less cliche then this one was - but I have a hard time finding a good, non-cliche motivation for a villain :(

As for the villain name - I guess you are not the eighties/nineties guy are you :) ? Otherwise you would probably know this:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Dancer

or this:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFGixf70oLI

Good old times :)

7989132

Not in this story I'm afraid ;]

8037543

seeing as there was no comment this is juan now

Since this was released as a 'full package' - all 18 chapters at once - most comments are in the last chapter :)

watch him say he is still not a hero

Bah! He is just a fan of this guy (spoiler warning!):

http://youtu.be/GaYoLTgOzEI?t=4m4s

8038378 i was posting that comment on any of the chaps that had no comments to see your reaction i would say it is rather positive

8057450 no

8057967

Well if you expected that I would start deleting comments or something like that then, no sir Unless somebody goes REALLY overboard and/or starts throwing trash at other users - I don't plan anything of the sort

8057450

At the end of this chapter? I thought such ideas would come at the end of Chapter 8

8059015 not really delete them more of stop say the same comment if your going to comment. comment something different

8059288

Of course, I would prefer more constructive comments per chapter if possible - for example:

- Was it interesting to read or was it 'meh.'
- Was it easy to read and understand or was it 'fubar.'
- and so on...

Such feedback would be helpful for writing future stories

But at the same time - I'm simply not one of those people who react 'allergically' to other types of comments - I answer only to comments I find constructive - that's my philosophy, and I'm sticking to it

8059385 it was a good read i just like to comment on any chapters on any story i see with no comments on it with "seeing as there was no comment (there is or this) (juan or one) now" i put "this" before juan or one there sometimes just to see if someone will correct this not so accidental error so far no one has

8061006

it was a good read

I'm glad you like it - hopefully, someday there will be more (well... there should be one new experimental story soon but without the OC).

I just like to comment on any chapters on any story I see with no comments on it with "seeing as there was no comment (there is or this) (juan or one) now" i put "this" before juan or one there sometimes just to see if someone will correct this not so accidental error so far no one has.

When I read the comment for the first time, I was like: " WTF is 'juan'?" but then I found this:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Juan

And got the message

8061473 troll.me/images/monocle-guy/very-good-sir-very-good-indeed.jpg

8083791

I see the story is getting flooded by comments again

Anyway, I'm happy another person enjoyed reading that damn thing

Damn good story a like for you

8111191

Danke, glad somebody likes the damn thing

8111416 thare are other people who like this story to just didn't want to like it. like me

8194120

In that comment, I meant 'like it' in the sense of 'enjoyed it' not 'giving it a like'

So, allow me to rephrase: I'm glad somebody enjoyed reading the damn thing

8194326 well that makes to amount of people even larger as im pretty sure many more people like ( aka enjoy) this story

8195809

Thanks, the more views, the more motivation to write some more in the future someday

8434255 well I was dismissing it as something else until I could get a little more info, but what did she mean by 'My Subject', I mean the man isn't exactly one of her citizens, so what led her to that?

8434711

[...]but what did she mean by 'My Subject', I mean the man isn't exactly one of her citizens, so what led her to that?

In that story, Luna is still in her older, more socially awkward and 'stiff' mode. Like in 'Luna Eclipsed,' she uses 'We' instead of 'I' most of the time for example - so she calls him 'her subject,' out of habit (since most of the dreamers she deals with are her subjects).

8434800
Oooohhhh

Very nice, I like it.

I read this because I knew James from "Dashing to Dirty Conclusions" had to be a fleshed out character. Still like him lots.

9090437

Thanks and sorry for the quality of this story, I know it has a lot of grammatical errors, not to mention other things (dark, edgy, cliché etc.) - I need to fix it one day

But no matter what, I think James as a character, turned out pretty well. I will definitely use him again

Finished reading the whole thing. I liked the story, even if plenty of eye rolls were had with the alicorn villan and the boring fights with the cannon fodder. I liked/scoffed at the one liners, but the action movie is strong in that one. I liked the dude even if i preferred him in dashing to conclusion. I still have to read the rest of your catalogue, but Jesus Christ man, fix the grammar. Are you serbian by any chance? You missed most of the articles and a lot of the verbs are all over the place. The flow of the story is ok, but it feels rushed at some points, and i hope to see some relationships expanded if there's a sequel. A thing of note: i found odd that neither Rarity or Belle ended up scarred by their experience in the beginning. Slave labor and abuse should scar a child for life, me thinks.
Again, i generally liked the story, i think the dude carried it adequately, but there's a lot of room for improvement, especially the grammar.

9094138
9094146
9094153
9094159
9094217

Thank you for the feedback.

Yes, I’m aware this story needs a major overhaul. I’m not a native English speaker (as you probably guessed by now) and when I wrote this, I didn’t even know that tools such as Grammarly or Reverso exist, so I did the best I could at the time, with the knowledge I had.

Gonna fix that one day, but… I don’t know when, yet

9095847

Thank you for the feedback.

As for technical aspects - allow me to quote myself from another post:

Yes, I’m aware this story needs a major overhaul. I’m not a native English speaker (as you probably guessed by now) and when I wrote this, I didn’t even know that tools such as Grammarly or Reverso exist, so I did the best I could at the time, with the knowledge I had.

Gonna fix that one day, but… I don’t know when, yet…

As for this:

Are you serbian by any chance?

I’m a Pole actually, but I guess that is similar in the sense that I’m not a native English speaker.

As for the story… yeah, I know it is full of red flags and errors made by newbies

• Starts with an info-dump
• Written in first person (while this may not be a mistake in itself, it shows I had no idea what I was doing at the time – I would choose 3rd-person omniscient right now)
• Gore for the sake of gore in some places
• Plot holes (it was never explained how James’s ‘magical signature’ matched that of the victims for example)
• Alicorn villain that just screams cliché
• Inconsistent flow (as you noticed)

Just to name a few.

A thing of note: I found odd that neither Rarity or Belle ended up scarred by their experience in the beginning. Slave labor and abuse should scar a child for life, me thinks.

On the one hand, I think you are correct that it would leave some trauma, however on the other… Ponies seem to be pretty resilient to that kind of things. Looking objectively, the whole gang fights some monsters on a regular basis. They were all captured and locked up by Starlight, tortured by Trixie, beaten by Chrysalis, almost eaten by a dragon, had their homes destroyed multiple times by parasprites, Ursa Minor and some other random beasts (or plants from the Everfree). Hell, Ponyville was literally turned upside down when they fought Discord .

And yet, none of them shows any sign of PTSD. Of course in reality, this is because it is a cartoon for children but, when writing a story, one could say that they are just much more psychologically resilient, than humans – just a thought

However, I didn’t use it because I simply didn’t see the place for it. But in the upcoming story, I may mention that Sweetie Belle is seeing a therapist on a regular basis, to deal with the aftermath of her capture – I’m not sure yet.

As for this:

I still have to read the rest of your catalogue[…]

Currently, the only other story worth reading (I hope) is ‘Whispers.’ At least from technical POV, that one is a major improvement (Grammarly + human proofreader). The other one (Luna Claus - a Christmas Story) – um, let’s just say I only keep it to be fair to the people who already read it. It is a POS

turned of the

off

you own me a favor

owe

Parties art the best

are

powers, ale the

all

9155561

Wow, that's quite a list of errors you found (in all chapters I mean), although there is probably a lot more.

I'm finally starting to revise the damn thing, so that list will be very helpful, thank you

9156342
1. Chysalis is definitely NOT your run of the mill gal. And she was just finished gorging on a LOT of love.
2. Discord was the origin of those and they were designed specifically to catch them by surprise.
3. Discord is more than HALF the power of all the alicorns combined and that also means that ALL of Equestria is LESS powerful than two Alicorns. [Tirek full power is All of Equestria + Discord ~= Twilight + Celestia + Luna + Cadance then we have Discord > Celestia+Luna, so it works out that All of Equestria < Twilight + Cadance]

All the point you make below are sensible, but they should be shown in story.
The most plausible is the one on the still wounded by the fight with the Shadowdancer
The nanoparticle explanation is a bit too "greenrocky", in the sense... this stuff is doing whatever is convenient for the plot at the moment...
The elite troop... well... there are MAYBE two or three unicorns that qualify as a threat to Celestia and Luna in the show, and one has already been upgraded to Alicorn, the other two are Starlight Glimmer, and even there it's miffy, and maybe Sunset Shimmer... but there we are in the high hypotetical... To manage to get a WHOLE troop of so high power unicorns... well... no... not probable. [and again the fact that such ponies exist would mean that there would be a somewhat similar distribution on Equestria side, as also the Guards would try and recruit the best... so they would not be that bad in the fights...]

Eh that is the biggest issue with Discord ever. To get him out of commission so that he can't resolve the issues with a snap of the fingers ^^;;;

9157021

I still believe that the show’s magical system is all over the place, and we really don’t know how powerful the alicorns (or Discord) are. We have real material on the capabilities of individual alicorns only, and aside from the battle with Tirek, none of them, displayed any serious firepower when fighting alone. Heck, even when Luna was Nightmare Moon, her offensive spells weren’t that strong, and that was her supercharged form .

IMHO there is a misconception that if Celestia/Luna/Twilight or Cadance are powerful, it means that they have great offensive spells, while in the show, it would rather seem to be that each alicorn (aside from maybe Twilight) is an expert mostly in her own field. Celestia and Luna both need a hell of a lot of power to move the celestial bodies, while Cadance, for example, seems to be an expert on all sorts of defensive spells – able to establish and hold a gigantic shield around entire city, or health bubble around her and Twilight, during the ‘Three is a Crowd.’ Does that mean that any of them is just as good with offensive spells? That’s a good question…

The elite troop... well... there are MAYBE two or three unicorns that qualify as a threat to Celestia and Luna in the show, and one has already been upgraded to Alicorn, the other two are Starlight Glimmer, and even there it's miffy, and maybe Sunset Shimmer... but there we are in the high hypotetical... To manage to get a WHOLE troop of so high power unicorns... well... no... not probable.

This is another misconception here, I believe… The fact that an M1A1 Abrams can withstand a direct hit from an RPG, doesn’t mean it won’t eventually succumb to the damage if you start bombarding it with RPG after RPG. The same concept applies here. While neither of the unicorns will be able to punch through Celestia’s shield at first, each hit will drain it a little. With enough powerful hits, it will collapse. Otherwise, we would end up with Celestia (or any other alicorn, for that matter) who is unbeatable .

[and again the fact that such ponies exist would mean that there would be a somewhat similar distribution on Equestria side, as also the Guards would try and recruit the best... so they would not be that bad in the fights...]

First – in that universe, royal guards are not pushovers. When Dashie and Shining got there with the backup, they really kicked ass . Earlier, the guards got defeated because when Shadowdancer ‘recalibrated’ the Tree of Harmony, it not only cut off their magic but also made everypony pretty weak (which was noted, during the Ponyville chain scene, as well as when they sent Rarity to get the serum to the barracks). Everypony outside the Clan were strong enough to do simple chores as slaves, but not fighting back.

Second - most of Shadowclan warriors were from Equestria! The Clan was made up of ‘ordinary’ Equestrian citizens. Some of them – if not most – were trained as royal guards, waiting for their emperor to make his move, until then, they were loyal to Celestia – lying low, and living ordinary lives. They were pretty much a secret nation inside a nation. Not only that, in the story, the Clan was accepting ONLY strong unicorns by definition, because Shadowdancer believed that just the strong have the right to rule, while the weak should either perish or serve them as slaves.

All that implies that while those unicorns might not have been as versatile as Starlight or Twilight, I would imagine them as fighters, training combat spells their whole life. Instead of pushovers, they were a force to be reckoned with.

Eh that is the biggest issue with Discord ever. To get him out of commission so that he can't resolve the issues with a snap of the fingers ^^;;;

I will fix that during the revision, already working on it (damn, after almost two years, I can see how cheesy and badly written, that story really is )

9161102
Ok the main issue is that a lot of what you are explaining here is not really apparent in the story.
To just cut to the end as an example of that, Yes, try rereading the whole part after Twilight gets on the moon:
He has right at hand A cavern with airlock and kitted out to be quite comfortable, nanoprobes to solve the issues of magic, A FRIGGING TELEPORTER. Everything made with fundamentally what it is the ground... Yes it REALLY seems an ass pull
About the inspirations... Well Guyver already is quite up there as power level...
The thing about being crushed by the pressure... Hmm not really going to happen, what he seems to be able to shrug off would put him on more or less par with the rock as compressive strength, at that point creating a small cave under there is not difficult and then you just dig your way out.
The amount of pressure a .50 cal is capable of exerting is QUITE high.
When you start crunching numbers it becomes QUITE difficult to stop something like this guy ^^;;

I'm just gonna wait for a rewrite or edit storm before I even try to read this as it's caused me physical pain.