December 5th, 1945.
A day that the world forever remembers as the day that Flight 19, a squadron of TBF Avenger torpedo bombers disappeared off the coast of Florida. Their disappearance was the spark that ignited the fire of one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of all time, as well as a name for one of the most mysterious places on Earth, the Bermuda Triangle. Ever since Flight 19's disappearance, many people have tried and failed to uncover the truth of what happened on that fateful day. All have failed. All that is, until the leader of Flight 19, Lieutenant Charles Taylor, decided to tell his story....
Come along for the ride of a lifetime! Join Lt. Taylor as he struggles to adjust in a strange new world, makes new friends, finds true love, and even helps defeat an evil she-villain!
Note: This story begins in the year 1945, roughly 62 years before the events of MLP FIM start, which was in the Earth-Year 2006. (Yes, I know that it was 2010. However, their story BEGAN in 2006, it wasn't TOLD until 2010, when....well....I'm getting WAY too far ahead of myself!)
First person "I found a puppy abandoned on the street."
Second Person "You reach out to pet the puppy."
Third Person "John took the puppy home to become a new member of his family."
This story is Third Person, not Second. Please remove the '2nd person' tag.
Other things of note.
Your chapters should be at minimum 1k words for readers to take you seriously. You could easily squish the intro and first 4 chapters into a single chapter. Simply leave a blank space of several lines and/or a line between 'scenes'.
More detail in your writing would be good, but I will wait for others to roll in on critique for that.
Don't forget you can always ask for help from groups like "looking for editors".
Simply click on "groups" in the fimfiction navigation bar and then search the list.
Good Luck.
Ok, thank you. I removed the "2nd person" tag. And at some point, I'll look into compressing the first couple of chapters. However, if you're worried about the lack of detail, don't worry. As I started writing the original manuscript a while back, I only finished it fairly recently, and it got better as time went on. So don't fret, I'll be getting into more details on everything, including how the portal to Earth came to be, and more importantly, why.
Anyway, I hope that you keep reading my story, and if you feel inclined, please spread the word about it as well.
good story
The first contact seem rushed. He just go with it to quick. The only reaction is woooaa pony and i'm not dreaming so i just roll whit it.
It was like that, because he was still in a state of shock. Not only from what he was seeing, but also from his minor injuries. He didn't know what to think or do, so his mind just rolled with it. "Ok, so this is real, recovery comes first, then questions." That's what was going through his head.
Brief suggestion: Change your short description so it tells us a few things about your plot instead of saying it's part of a series and what that series is called. Those few sentences are the only thing you get to win over new readers when your story updates. Those words and characters are precious--each one can convince someone new to come take a look.
The fact you're writing it is self-evidence, no need to state that. That it's part of a series can be determined by site metadata by anyone who clicks on it. You have only a few seconds to win over people as their fingers skim the list of new stories. Make them count.
Thank you for the suggestion Starscribe. I corrected it. I'm still learning how to use Fimfiction, and since this is my first story, I'm learning through trial and error.
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That's much better! Oh, and one more tip while I'm at it. See those two arrows at the top of every comment? When you want to respond to someone, click those and then type your message. It will send them a little notification so they know you wrote them back. Very helpful.
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Once again, thank you for the suggestion Starscribe. I'll remember that for the future.
Also, I really like your avatar pic :3
So, going through this story one chapter at a time. (might take me awhile, so don't expect these very fast). First chapter--this reads like it belongs in the story description, not as a chapter. I suspect this has put off many readers--we expect the narrative to start immediately, but this isn't narrative, this is telling us what we're about to read.
I suggest putting as much of this as you feel you need to into the story's long description, not as a chapter.
So, chapter starts off, and it sets the tone right away. That's good, but I think the narration is a little too thick--two paragraphs so large that they're really hard to get through. You change between past and present tense a few times as well, which I know can be a little tricky to keep straight. But this is the beginning of your story, the very first thing anyone will read. This is your chance to win your audience over, so you've got to make this the most polished, most perfect it can be. Keep that tense in line.
So you'll notice your character is taking two separate actions here. One is dialogue to the crew, the other is talking on the radio. Some narration in-between would really work better to help us understand what's going on. Like this:
"Oh boy, this could be bad, I'm going to radio HQ about this." Talyor's hand fumbled a little as he reached up to press the transmit button on his controls. "Lauderdale Base, this is Eagle One. We're caught in a storm out here, and it could get really nasty really fast. Requesting advice on how to proceed, over." Stuff like that. Don't shift to talking to someone else in the middle of dialogue without telling us who you're talking to.
Missing open quotes, also a typo. "returnto"
Is this a realistic attitude for someone in the navy to have? The Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard have soldiers in and out of there all the time and none of them die. Literally thousands of our ships have been through there.
This is an example of an old writer's maxim: Show, don't tell. Notice the first paragraph here? It says pretty much the exact same stuff as the second paragraph. Why does the narrator need to tell us that Taylor is annoyed with the Torpedoman when his dialogue does a much better job a few lines later? In general, it's always better to show us something in the story than to have the narrator tell us things. Have characters act and speak in a way that shows their feelings, rather than just saying. "Talyor felt angry" you can say "I'm tired of your carrying on, Ensign James!" he yelled, knuckles white on the steering column.
Yeah, your author's notes are right. A chapter worth of story has a job, and that job is to advance the drama. There is no "right" or "wrong" length for all chapters, every story is different. But this chapter isn't a chapter at all, it's a scene. And not even a whole scene. This reads like the first five minutes of an episode of whatever popular TV show. We should keep going until the drama of the scene is over, and in this chapter you only got five minutes into the drama before the chapter ended. If the chapter is too short, don't submit it until you finish writing it!
Talyor was frustrated and dismissive towards his fellow pilot who believed this legend in the last chapter. Now suddenly he's really afraid?
So what I'm gonna say next is a little bit of a matter of opinion, but I don't think doing omniscient narrator things like this is a good idea. As a reader, you sucked me into the drama of the scene--the pilots are about to brave the dangers of the storm to make it home before their fuel runs out. I can hear the thunder, see the planes rattling with the wind, and I hope that the brave crews will make it.
Then that narrator comes along and spoils the ending in the middle of the scene! Seriously, don't tell me how the drama is going to resolve in advance! Then it changes from seeing something awesome to watching a re-run of a show you've seen a million times. Now I know how it's gonna end, how lame.
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I took your suggestions seriously, and I expanded on this chapter to make it the proper length. You were right, this chapter felt so incomplete. I hope that I did a good job to correct it. Well, I guess now I wait for you to read some more of my story.
8511787
Again, I took your suggestions into account, and rewrote this chapter a bit. I did the best that I could, at least for now. The chapter is up to an acceptable word length, and it should be better for readers to read now. Anyway, I hope that you continue to read my story, and that you enjoy it.
Liked the changes on the last chapter, some real improvements.
First paragraph of this section does not belong at all--at least, not there. Nonlinear storytelling is the kind of thing reserved for arthouse movies only, or if you're a director with lots of time in the industry. I don't think I've ever seen it done well in a book (though it probably could). Even so, for writers like you and me, it's best just to stay as far away as we possibly can. This paragraph summarizing what just happened from an outsider perspective probably doesn't belong in the story at all--but if you want to keep it, at least move it to the end and rewrite it to make sense there.
As previous things I've said about the narrator, telling us in advance that he other planes are doomed ruins the action in the rest of the chapter and makes it super lame. If the narrator EVER tells me how the drama is going to end before it happens, I immediately check out during that section and just skim--you told me how it's going to end already, so why bother reading it?
Another section that makes no sense is Taylor just apparently freezing in place at some time in the indeterminate future to tell us what the portal was like in retrospect. This spoils the drama again because we now know he survives it, along with other details about how it went.
Instead, consider rewriting this section from his perspective. Describe what it's like inside the plane as he's going through the portal, describe his desperation to hold the plane together, maybe some of his internal thoughts IN THE MOMENT. Don't skip ahead to some time later, stick with the action. While it's happening is the most interesting time to hear about it.
Three problems here. First is "I can say". You've slipped for a moment from an omniscient narrator to an embodied narrator--one with a character and role in the story of their own. This is another of those tools reserved for expert use only. More importantly, it's inconsistent with your omniscient narrator style used up to this point. I'd cut it.
Second problem: "just crashed outside of a large forest, known to the locals as the "Everfree Forest", which is the name that also defines it on a map." We have tense disagreement here. "defines" is present tense, and the rest of this is past tense. Third problem is that this whole narration at the beginning is far more verbose than it needs to be. Just end it at "had crashed outside a large forest known as the Everfree." Bam, done. The bit about the map is just repeating yourself.
Also, much more minor (and I'm sure it's too late give how far in the story you are), on the show, Fluttershy's whole family lived in the sky and had never taken her to the ground before. It would be quite a convenient coincidence for them to have an earlier pegasus relative who moved into the same random earth pony town, then moved to cloudsdale again only to have their own future relatives move back to Ponyville. Could just explain that away as a weird coincidence I guess. What is harder to explain away: Flutters isn't fluttershy's family name, the family name is "shy." (see the wiki article about them from that episode). Not really sure there's much you can do about that this late into the story, but I did think I ought to point it out since I noticed the error.
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Hello again Starscribe. With that first paragraph, I'll look into changing that. I do touch on it again in a later chapter, so maybe I'll just delete it, or maybe not, I haven't decided yet.
However, in regards to your second statement, if you didn't notice, I rewrote it. Before it said, "The deaths of the rest of his squad-mates". Now it says "The deaths of many of his squad-mates". I actually did this on purpose, as spoiler alert, another crew member, Ensign James, actually does survive! I'm intentionally trying to mislead the audience, so I rewrote it to sound bad, but not totally bad. Does this make sense now?
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Hello Starscribe, I fixed the first error, and corrected the second one.
However, in regards to Miss Flutters, (her first name is Flutters), I actually wrote this part of the story about 1 1/2 years ago, long before Season 6 aired. So technically, I could just pass this off as coincidence, but, now that Season 6 has aired, and knowing that someday, somepony was going to ask me this, I came up with an answer. Here's the deal. Like some, if not most ponies, Fluttershy had two sets of grandparents, her mother's parents, and her father's parents. Her father's side of the family, since they helped in the weather-making process, always lived in the clouds. This was also true about her mother's side, until Miss Flutters came onto the scene. True, for most of her adult life, Miss Flutters lived in Cloudsdale. Her passion was caring for birds. However, one day, a number of years after her daughter, Fluttershy's mother, was born, her husband passed away. She became so grief-stricken, that she closed herself off from the rest of the world.
Eventually, after Fluttershy's mother grew up and moved away, birds once again became her passion. She became well known for taking care of them, however, some ponies began to make fun of her. They kept being so mean to her, that one night, she finally couldn't take it anymore. She left Cloudsdale for the surface, and finally settled into Ponyville, taking care of animals.
Back in Cloudsdale, Fluttershy's mother believed that her mother had ended her life, and as such, refused to speak about her. Eventually, she married Fluttershy's father, and to honor her thought-deceased mother, they named their daughter "Fluttershy" After her. Fluttershy grew up never knowing the truth about her grandmother. She was always told that she had died before she was born, and that her passion for animals came from her grandmother as well.
Will Fluttershy ever meet her grandmother, Miss Flutters, in this story? Well, I guess that you'll just have to keep reading this story now, won't you? 😏
So, a few things stick out as primarily worthy of notice for me. Largest of those is the relationship with Redheart. Sorry to say it doesn't come off as authentic.
For a relationship to feel "earned" on screen, the characters need time to get to know each other. They do things together, they see they have things in common. Maybe hobbies they share, interests, beliefs. Goals.
When you're dealing with two members of the same species, there's another kind of relationship--the quick hookup. you see someone you like, you find out if they're a good canidate for a hookup. You have your physical relationship, you separate. But that predisposes a sexual interest in that sort of person--as I was reading the chapter, I found myself asking "was Taylor raised in a barn?" An instant attraction to a creature that looks for all practical purposes like an animal to him did not cast him in a flattering light.
And then we learn from Redheart that it wasn't a hookup. She talks to him as though it's a genuine relationship, one founded on shared interests and love. She even says "I love you" at the end. This is not realistic at all given they know nothing about each other and were only together for a few minutes. You're much too far into the story to alter course now, but really this sort of moment should come after a long time in the story--after the characters have weeks to get to know each other. I could see Taylor struggling with his sexuality after coming to love the character on an emotional level first, and having to confront the fact he's attracted to an animal-looking person. But given there were only a few lines exchanged between them...
Well, let's just say that isn't how it happens in real life. To say nothing of how instantly fired that nurse would be if she acted that way.
Okay, two things. Smaller thing first: I think you have your "epiphanies" in reverse order in this chapter. Taylor should learn about the second one first since it contains the information he needs to understand the first one.
There is some bigger storytelling advice, though. Advice that is probably too late for this story, but might help you in the future. It has to do with the explicit inclusion of the God stuff. And no, I'm not going to approach this the way you're thinking. I have nothing against a religious story. So let me start with a question: What makes a story entertaining? What is a story?
Since this isn't a class, we'll skip to the answer: A story is about a person struggling to achieve something. To get something they want. Sometimes that means they have to discover what they want along the way. The drama of a story is what makes it interesting. We believe the person might fail, so we root for them at every step of the way.
When the audience knows how it is going to end, there's no longer any drama. If you tell me at page 1 that your character saves the day on page 200, then I can close the book and check out another one that has some more drama.
So here's the first problem: Creating a character that explicitly promised by God to show up and accomplish something spoils the drama. It ceases to be interesting as a story and becomes a faith-affirming moral lesson, like a bible story. But a pony fanfiction can't be some morally affirming thing, because, in the case of bible stories, we learn from them because we treat them like they actually happened. Obviously, nothing in this story happened, so it can't be faith-building. So what does that leave us with?
Let me explain this another way. The religious elements you've included are so "powerful" in themselves that they're going to dominate the story. You only have some much room in each chapter. You can tell us about ponies being ponies or you can tell us a story about the mythical pony history you've come up with, but it's very hard to do both.
In this chapter for instance, the religious stuff comes out of nowhere, has no connection to what has happened so far, and is unlikely to have much bearing on what does happen. And the parts that do--about someone with God's favor coming to Equestria to right the balance or some such--that was only a few lines in the pages and pages of stuff about Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden that just don't matter to this story.
If, on the other hand, you were telling a story about an archeologist who was searching out mysteries, and he was discovering this over the course of his investigation, that would be one thing. But this--ask yourself, would the chapter be any harder to understand if you took out everything about the garden of Eden and god in this chapter? The answer, obviously, is no.
That's not a knock against God, the bible, or the story of the garden of eden. The problem is that it isn't nessisary, not that there's anything wrong with it. It would be exactly the same if, instead of Eden, the other nurse had instead spent a few hours lecturing Taylor about how cheese is made in Equestria. It's what we call a non-sequitur, something the Editor's pen should remove.
If you want to include religion in a story, the best way to do that is with subtlety. Instead of having the narrator explicitly confirm "this is what happened the bible is true guys," instead you have a character who has faith, and that character's faith carries them through. Maybe they slowly learn facts and those facts support their faith. Then in their darkest hour, that character's faith gives them the strength to endure and win in the end. It can be worked in as a subtle part of a story, rather than making it "dominate the page."
Lastly, the chapter seems to imply that Taylor is "favored of God and his son." which is another kind of red flag--the mary sue. Basically, a mary sue is a character that most people in the setting will like for no reason, often without explanation. And the only characters who don't like them are antagonists. Mary Sues in MLP typically manifest as characters that the Mane Six instantly love without explanation, but you've found a way to trump that by miles. Instead of explicitly saying the main character is loved by some ponies, they're loved by God himself. And not in the vague sense of "yeah god loves everyone," but in the sense of having been sent to Equestria on an explicit mission from him.
Sorry if that comes off as harsh. As I said, I've got nothing against religious elements or religious stories. The problem I have with this chapter is that your religious elements don't serve the story. They seem like they're put there just to be there, taking up tons of page space without advancing the narrative or enriching the story.
The typical defense to this is "Oh, but they will later." If that's the case, then tell us later. And tell us exactly what we need to know when later comes. Don't waste our time now with things we don't need.
(History remembers her as the grandmother of Ditzy "Derpy" Doo.)
--these remarks don't really belong. They don't provide anything to the narrative, and they give us as readers the feeling that the real story doesn't even take place here, but sometime in the future. We don't need to know who will one day be related to everyone else.
"alone fro the time being,"
"A few unicorns were able to create a small magic force field to protect it from the elements, and a few others agreed to stand guard until Taylor returned from Canterlot."
Don't these ponies have lives? Why would they agree to guard his plane? If the world is so nice that anyone will do anything for a total stranger, then surely it's nice enough that he doesn't have to worry about vandals.
Redheart then asked Taylor a very serious question. "So I take it, given that you mention him so much, that you worshiped the Creator back on Earth?"
-What makes him think it's the same creator? There are many monotheistic religions out there, that believe their monotheistic god created the world. Why would she think he's talking about the same god she is?
"Later, at exactly 3:00pm, the train arrived in Canterlot."
-I'll be as gentle as I can with this one. Readers don't need to know the times things are happening. it's important to some authors, many of which are neuroatypical, to show how the world follows the rules. This chapter is full of characters precisely following their time constraints.
This is too much information. We basically never need to know what time it is. It's much more elegant to say "it looked like late afternoon." and then have a character ask something like "Well, are we going to make it on time?"
It's not that strange to have a character who insists on being on time. But when the _narrator_ does it, it's annoying.
"They built it for the first princess, and it's been a thriving city; a center for art, science, culture, and beautiful libraries ever since.""
I probably don't have to tell you that the headcanon of the first princess isn't consistent with show canon. Even from the first season we've known that Equestria isn't that old--that it was formed when the three tribes united sometime in the past. Evidence suggests that the alicorns weren't even alive at that point. But this is a fairly minor detail. There are lots of AUs out there.
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Hello again Starscribe, it's been a while!
Also, yes, I thought about this dilemma, and don't worry, I have them work through their relationship as the story progresses. This bit is between Taylor, who's still suffering from shock, as well as a few minor injuries, and Redheart, who's trying to comfort him, and help him adjust to his new life. This was how their unlikely relationship began. I know that it might not be the most realistic scenario ever, but this is Lt. Charles Taylor of Flight 19. He almost died, so I decided to cut him a break.
What really held Taylor's attention though, was the pony seated seated on the throne; a beautiful, white-furred mare. She looked like a unicorn, but she had wings as well. "She really is an Alicorn", Taylor thought to himself.
-Yeah, but so what? He's not from their world, they're all aliens to him. Why should one kind of alien be all that different from any other.
"All worlds that we did find were either uninhabitable, incredibly hostile, or non-sentient."
-I think she means "Hostile to sentient life" because _worlds_ aren't sentient (or sapient for that matter).
"Your comrades, the ones that you flew with, well", Celestia had tears forming in her eyes, "They're not coming home."
-See, _this_ could be a really powerful dramatic moment. This could be a powerful, sad reveal. Unfortunately the narrator has told us like three times over the course of the story that his comrades are already dead, so that powerful emotion doesn't get to pay off.
""Four of them crashed trying to follow you, one more made it to the portal before flying to pieces, and one final plane did make it through, only to burst into flames. The whole plane burned up before it could crash. I'm afraid that......that......you, are the only survivor." Celestia then broke down crying, and Taylor was not too far behind her."
-Also, how does Celestia know this? She had to be told but the Ponyville hospital guy that Taylor had arrived. Before Dr. Stable reported to her, she thought the experiment had failed. How can she know what happened to his comrades in intimate detail without having known that Taylor himself survived?
""Maybe, but if you hadn't created that portal, all of us would surely have been lost to the sea, but because you did, I survived, but....." Taylor then began crying as well, "I wish to God that it didn't have to be like this! I lived, but all of my squad-mates died!"
-She's right to be upset. The portal itself destroyed two of the planes. Without her three of the planes might've made it.
"For the longest time, neither of them said anything; they just kept gently holding the other while they cried. Eventually though, Celestia leaned in close, and kissed Taylor gently on the cheek."
-woah woah woah. Not only is that extremely creepy, it's also really bizzare coming from Celestia. She's always been a confident ruler, and she's never shown sexual-type affection to anyone. A hug was appropriate, but that was real weird. Also the pet name in the next line. "My Sunshine? They literally just met!
""She looks like a very sweet soul, and I feel more than awful that you have to say goodbye to her from here, instead of Earth, but the portal was sealed after I closed it due to a lightning strike. It may not be able to be opened ever again."
-This reads very much like "because the plot says so you can't go home" and is completely inconsistant with what she said in the previous section.
She was talking about exploring other worlds for Equestria, maybe settling them for ponies one day. Yet a single lightning strike makes it so a whole _planet_ is out of reach fover? That would be if we started exploring space, but knew we could only ever build one rocket no matter what. It doesn't read like "this is what would really happen" but "this is what I wanted to happen in the story"
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Hello Starscribe.
Yes, I was wondering about that too. I should also point out now that Taylor's successor, Roger White, contracted "The Author", to write not only Taylor's biography, but also his own, and the one of his cousin, Evan Young. Taylor left very specific instructions about how he wanted his biography written. Even though it's not mentioned in the story, Taylor developed a rather eccentric personality towards the end of his life, and he wanted things left in that maybe didn't quite belong, but Roger didn't have the heart to tell The Author this before he began writing.
Second typo fixed.
That was just a lucky guess on Redheart's part, based on what Taylor had been saying.
I'm a little bit OCD. This carries over to my stories as well. Things tend to happen precisely on the dot, in regards to both time, and the amount of something. This is how I've always been, although I guess I could try to unlearn that.
And finally, yes, if you haven't guessed it already, my headcanon is different than that of the show. The vast majority is the same, but some details have changed. Sometimes subtly, sometimes not so subtly. It's a very interesting AU, that's for sure!
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Well, as fun as stories are, don't forget that the chief purpose of something like this is to entertain. I may not know what fictional people want or don't want, but I can tell you what makes for a good story and what will bog it down.
For my part, I'm trying to give the advice I wish I'd been given when I started writing. Those lessons that were so hard for me need not be so for you.
8535256
Hello Starscribe.
Yes, I fixed the epiphanies scene.
In regards to everything else, I knew right off the bat that when I wrote this into my story, I was playing with a box of dynamite. Christianity is a somewhat sensitive topic, and maybe I should have put a warning about it when I started writing. However, this does get better, and more subtle as time goes on, (With the exception of Chapters 13-15, but that's a whole different topic for when you get to those chapters.) Truth be told, 2 years ago, when I began to write this story, I used chapters like this to show my Christian faith. I left it in when I posted it here as an experiment, however, not long after, the downvotes began. These dealt a blow to my story, and my morale. I continued to write, but with more subtly this time. I learned my lesson. Don't push Christianity into a story like this. I now see that it was a nice idea, but one that was met with criticism. For the sake of my original manuscript, which is the foundation for this entire story, as well as my personal preference, I'm going to leave this chapter as it is. I took my beat-down, learned my lesson, and made the rest of this story better, with only mentions of God here and there, with the exceptions of Chapters 13, 14, and 15, but that's a topic for when you get to those chapters.
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Well, thank you for the encouragement Starscribe. However, you just made a massive jump from Chapter 9, all the way to Chapter 23! That simply cannot be done! You'd better get back to Chapter 9, or Chapter 10 if you prefer, and keep reading and commenting on my story from there. If you don't, then I just might have to send Princess Luna to come get you in your dreams! 😏😝
Only a few things to say about this one.
"my sweet" coming from Celestia is super out of place. Again, they just met today. That's the kind of pet name that might be used for a romantic partner.
Celestia stayed with them the whole time they were fixing the plane. Doesn't she have a country to run?
More to the point, for all the last chapter harped on about times and forced me to learn train schedules, I now know that the plane being here so fast is quite unrealistic. They would've been hardpressed to have a _box_ waiting here from Ponyville, given how little extra time there was after he left Ponyville. We know when he left, we know he went straight to the train station with exactly ten minutes to spare, we know that trains are the fastest way to transport things in Equestria.
We also know his aircraft has a wingspan of 54 feet. What the heck kind of train is going to transport this? The average train is ten feet wide or less.
The obvious answer is disassemble it and reassemble it at its destination, but that would take weeks for someone who knew what they were doing. The ponies were staring up at his thing like they clearly didn't have a clue. No way they diassembled a plane they knew nothing about in... what, maybe an hour, then got it on the next train and reassembled it in about an hour during Celestia's conversation with Taylor? The timelines just don't add up.
"Because", the doctor spat again, "They're nothing but a bunch of inbred, rednecked hillbillies, and they're a disgrace to our community! Sure, they provide our towns and cities with the best apples that you've ever seen, but at the cost of teaching our colts and fillies that it's ok to have foals with their brothers and sisters!"
- Uh oh, my "Mary Sue" senses are tingling again. The only character who doesn't like the protaganist is a huge jerk. This is one of the strongest signs of a mary sue. Danger, danger will robenson!
"He then clapped his hands, and a few moments later, 6 ponies all dressed in chef uniforms appeared, pushing carts with covered silver platters on them."
The unciron waiter has hands? That's freaky.
"It was certainly a feast to behold."
This is a kind of line to avoid. You've just told us how to think... instead of using description to show all the wonderful things in the feast. You tell us in the very next line just _why_ it was a feast to behold, so why not just leave it at that? This is common writing advice you may've heard before, "show, don't tell." In your next line, you did show us, so no need to tell us first.
"Because ponies are herbivores, and as such, they can't eat meat, or it would kill them." Taylor thought to himself.
Talor is wrong on many fronts. First, herbivores wouldn't die if they ate meat, they just wouldn't want to eat it. And maybe they would get queezy and/or be unable to digest their food. They might puke, they might starve very slowly over time if they kept trying it.
Tinker gave him a funny look. "Huh, so a navy-pony huh? Well then, let me be the first to tell you, us Royal Guards are superior to all of you 'tin can sailors', and 'flyboys' in every way!"
-How would the guard know what a 'tin can sailor' or a 'flyboy' even is? Particularly the last one. They're concepts that just don't exist in Equestria. A naval pilot probably sounds like a contradiction to him, given that their equivalent of air force ponies are the wonderbolts, which wouldn't have anything to do with the navy. Which they probably don't have if they haven't had a war in 1000 years.
war-trivia
-Huh? They're from different worlds. Trivia makes no sense as an event. Neither of them will know each other's trivia.
Also, Celestia is there? Doesn't she have a country to run? Why the heck would she be here for a dick-waving contest?
8535490
Hello Starscribe my old friend, I've come to comment on your comments again!😂
Anyway, down to business. First of all, Taylor noticed that Celestia looked different from the other ponies that he'd seen so far, so he was curious as to what she was.
Yeah, you're right. I reworded it to make sense.
Next, like I said before, but I'll say it again. I'm deliberately misleading my readers about this. I worded this, and a bit of a previous chapter to make it sound bad, but all is not yet lost. For not all of them died. I reveal this later on in the story.
I probably should have been a bit more clear about this, but after she read the doctor's letter, Celestia had a vision about the fates of the other planes. This is how she knew what to tell Taylor.
Eh, not quite. If she hadn't intervened, all 7 planes would have run out of fuel and crashed, most likely with complete casualties. But because she didn't, Taylor, and possibly someone else, survived.
Yeah, I could see why that could be creepy. My (on the spot) explanation? The kiss was an impulse reaction, as was giving him the name "My Sunshine." However, she was sad, and Taylor cheered her up. he was the "Sunshine of her life", for the moment, if you will.
These last two I will address together. I mentioned this earlier in the story, but here I'll clarify. The portal spell that Celestia used was created by Starswirl the Bearded. According to his notes, the spell would allow the user to open a doorway to another world, which Celestia did to look for other worlds to explore. However, these portals had an unknown fatal flaw; they were one way. If something tried to come through from the other end, the portal would become unstable, and collapse on itself. Because Celestia opened the portal in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in a storm, clouds and rain were coming through the portal, destabilizing it. This was further compounded by lightning strikes. By the time Taylor flew through it, it was finished. It collapsed, and the shock wave destroyed one plane, and turned the other into a fireball. Celestia then decided that the portal spell was unsafe, and was unwilling to use it again. So this is why she told Taylor that the portal couldn't be opened again; she didn't want to have to take responsibility for any more deaths.
8535536
Never thought that I would say this Starscribe, but I'm really starting to run out of steam keeping up with you! I write an explanation comment, and just a few seconds later, another one of yours appears!
Ok, let's get started. First of all, I think that Celestia is having a bit of a motherly disposition towards Taylor, as she blames herself for what happened to him, and is possibly trying to be a bit more like the mother he left behind. (and may be falling into the realm of creepy in the process.
Yeah, I definitely should have specified about this. While Taylor and the engineers were working on the plane, Celestia would pop in every now and again to see how they were doing.
To answer your question, the train that picked up Taylor's plane was a freight train, not a passenger train. This one runs about 30 minutes behind the regular express, and because it's not seen very often, doesn't get a lot of mention.
The plane was in pieces because of the crash. They simply picked up the parts, packaged them up as best they could, and put those on the train. The main body section was missing one of it's wings, and was therefore narrow enough to fit onto the train, although just barely.
Once the plane arrived, the pieces were unloaded, and brought down to the workshop where Taylor was taken not long after. Everything was on workbenches, except for the main body, which was just recognizable as a TBF Avenger.
8535546
Here we go again. Let's get started Starscribe.
First of all, I think that you misunderstand. Dr. Stables doesn't like the Apple Family, not Taylor. He's beginning to grow rather fond of Taylor, although he doesn't show it. He's heard a lot of rumors about them, and drew his conclusions from them. He's not really a jerk, just a little biased is all.
*sees second comment* "HORSEAPPLES!!!!" *fixes it* "Whew! That was too close! Any more slip-ups like that, and ponies will start to think that I'm not a real Brony!
Sorry about that. Like I said before, I can get rather OCD with my writing. I tend to create lengthy descriptions on things to paint as vivid of a picture for my audience as I can.
When I say "they", I mean the ponies, not herbivores in general. Plus, Taylor is a Navy pilot just after WW2. He's not a scientist, doctor, veterinarian, or even a farmer. He wouldn't know any better. Please cut him some slack.
Ok, it's Terminology Origin Time! A "Tin Can Sailor" is what Royal Guards call ponies who serve in the navy, as their warships have some metal armor on them, which shines like a polished tin can, hence the name. A "Flyboy" is a slang term for a Wonderbolt. Tinker heard what Taylor described himself as, and in his mind, he put the two together. He also sees both of these fields as a joke, so he thought that Taylor's military experience must be a joke as well.
Yes, this is why the War-trivia ended in a tie. Both the Royal Guards and Taylor failed miserably at learning each other's trivia.
And, like I said before, she would pop in and out as her schedule would allow. Also, a dick-waving contest? WTF?! I specifically said HOOF-WRESTLING! Or, as we humans would call it, Arm-wrestling.
8535573
" Also, a dick-waving contest? "
Yes, that's the term for a contest like that. Basically when two people who are on the same side have a contest of masculinity for no reason. It doesn't literally mean genitals are involved, though it's named after the behavior of some animals who literally do just measure penises.
-I don't think you need me to point out this isn't possible. Unless one of them is a robot... are ponies robots?
."
-Typo, though I don't really point out all of those. Also, more importantly, the ponies in your world are pretty big. Like, the doctor stood at eye level for Taylor. There's no chance a human could compete with that (doubly so if it was an earth pony, whom we've seen literally drag houses around, but I don't actually remember if Armor was an earth pony or not so I'll give that a pass)
-This kind of thing, again. These asides don't serve any purpose in the narrative. This kind of comment is wanting to have one's cake and eat it too as a writer.
For a human? You know of exactly one human in the whole world, what the heck does that even mean to you? Imagine if an alien called a jeldorf came to earth and you had a wrestling contest. Would it really make sense at the end of the contest to say "Gee, for a jeldorf, you're really strong!" For all you know the jeldorf you met is actualy a super weakling amoung its kind and any other jeldorf would've wiped the floor with you.
-I already pointed out how completely nonsensical this was, right?
- Once again, this kind of remark really doesn't belong. Aside from the fact that it's the lack of harmony among ponies that let Discord escape (Taylor is being perfectly harmonious in this scene), breaking into an aside that explains in no uncertan terms what happens in the future is awful for drama. It makes it feel like, as I said before, the real story is in the future and all the events we're reading about now have "already happened." Not a good setup.
With both this and the Starlight thing, you could easily have kept in some elements by being more subtle. For instance, you could cut out the whole awful paragraph I just quoted, and instead say: "After setting the piece back into place, Taylor then went to rejoin the group. What he didn't see was the hairline crack he had made in the stone."
Bam, done. We as the audience are left wondering what the concequences will be, whether he'll escape in this story or whether he actually caused the escape in "modern times." But by telling us explicitly what will happen, the drama is spoiled.
-This is the throne room, not a random hallway. He's already been in the throne room before.
Holy crap. So remember everything I said a few chapters ago about how there was nothing wrong with having religious elements in the story so long as they helped the story, but how I felt that the last ones you used made the story worse and didn't add anything?
Well, imagine I repeat all that here times five or so. Having a character literally recieve a vision from God takes them instantly out of the ream of "fantasy hero" and either into the catagory of "religious hero" or "parody" depending on who the reader is. Neither one is good for your story, unless you're telling the story of an explicitly religious hero trying to save the day for god with his religon stuff. Given this story is about ponies, this kind of thing really doesn't belong.
-Very clearly a continuity error. You're looking at stained glass windows depicting scenes from earth right now. Also, multiple characters besides Celestia have expressed knowledge about Earth and humans before.
Before I start in on this one, I want to mention exactly what I'm doing in the first place. With these comments, I mean. When I started commenting on your story, I looked for a story that had tons of hate and downvotes but that the writer was working on anyway. I was looking for a writer who had tons of determination and passion for what they did, enough to keep updating regularly despite the reaction they got.
I know a fair bit about this pony word thing. I'm also a professional (albeit freelance) writer for my dayjob. I wanted to see if it was possible to help a writer with tons of passion but who was making some major narrative mistakes to clean up their prose and make something wonderful. Call all this an experiment, if you like. I've enjoyed it so far, enjoyed reading to this point. There's a real gem of a story in here, albeit still very much unpolished and crusted in sediment.
Understand that I'm giving you the feedback exactly like I would give (or receive) for my dayjob. Out in the writing world, there are no "cheerleader" comments. IE: you almost never get complimented for the things you're doing right, unless they're so amazing the reader is blown away. (a rare occurrence even when you're dealing with professional writers). Because of this, I worry that my responses might sometimes come off as harsh. Lots of people on Fimfiction like to complement things they enjoy, and that's fine. But that's not why I'm reading your story. I don't need to compliment the things you're doing right because you clearly know how to do them. I focus in on the errors instead, the weaknesses and flaws, because that's the space you have to grow.
I am not asking you to defend yourself, or asking for explanations. A story doesn't get to defend itself except with the words it contains. Any time an explanation is required from an author, it means the writing failed. It means there's something to revise, to improve. And that's fine! No author is perfect, no story is perfect. There's nothing to feel sad about there. I get excited when people help me fix my mistakes because that means I have fewer of them for the next reader to find. So, with that out of the way, let me get into my feedback on this chapter.
-WE had a real scare back there. Not him. Or perhaps "you gave us a real scare back there."
Why on earth would Taylor expect them to be offended when he asks about Cutie marks? He hasn't observed anyone getting defensive about them during his whole trip to Equestria.
I'm also not understanding the point of going into a long speal about the mechanics of cutie marks and how marks can come back. As a rule, you want to give information to the audience exactly as they need it. Don't tell us a single fact we don't need.
More to the point, for there to be an old wives tale about it, it probably _has_ happened in history before. Otherwise ponies wouldn't know about it and wouldn't tell stories.
The styleistic note of an author writing the story first appears in this chapter. It's a narrative choice, so I can't really call it "wrong." Instead, I'll suggest that you might want to avoid using it in the future--an embodied narrator is a strategy that hasn't really been used since the 1800s, and for good reason. It makes the story feel clinical, and a little contrived. But unlike almost everything I've pointed out in these comments so far, it isn't 'wrong'. There is no objectively wrong narrator. I just wouldn't use it.
This aside, as with all the others, certanly _is_ wrong, though. The way it points out a rainboom is going to happen in many years that has nothing to do with Taylor's struggle and again points out that the real story is many years away.
Also, the "it would be really amazing if it happened in our lifetime" stuff reads as comically contrived, given that we as the audience know the future of MLP on that front. We lose the payoff of getting to see these characters in the future one day and be like "hey, we talked about that."
-Man dialogue like this. Makes me cry a little inside. People don't talk like this now, and they didn't then either.
"He did." Redheart stared at Taylor wide-eyed, before she gulped.
-Nopony in all Equestria knew about the mare in the moon during the first episode of the show. It wasn't forbidden, it was forgotten. Only an ancient book Twilight stumbled into mentioned it.
-I've also pointed this out before. You mentioned you have OCD, but I need to reiterate--normal people do not think or talk like this. They don't use exact dates and times unless they're arranging appointments. I very much suggest learning to realize whenever you use an exact amount of something in your writing--a dollar amount, a time, etc-- and replace it with an approxomation. We wouldn't say "it was almost 1,060 years, 6 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 11 hours, and 14 minutes ago" we would say "it was so long ago"
-Groan. This is another trait of Mary Sues--as if being favored of God, seeing divine visions, becoming an instant friend of Celestia-- as if all that wasn't enough, now he is seeing visions of information that in this headcanon are apparently secret.
-I didn't mention this in the first chapter where Taylor got visions of the past, but it's also a continuity error with the Bible (never thought I'd say that one in a MLP comment). Eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was what made Adam and Eve _mortal_. "For on the day thou eat of it, thou will surely die." They were immortal in the garden before that. Why would eating the fruit that makes a pony mortal make Stardust live for 5000 years and have incredible power. Did Adam and Eve also inherit 5000 year lifespans and incredible power too?
More exact amounts. 55 years. Although "a thousand years" is actually an exception. It's not wrong to use, because it's generally used as an expression to mean "a very long time" and almost never actually means "exactly 1000 years."
Also, this whole bit about Nightmare Moon doesn't belong. About seeing a vision of her, I mean.
Every time something likes this happens, it pulls us out of the narrative. Makes it clear that we aren't watching "real" events, but in fact watching a wish-fulfillment tour of Equestria. In other words, it breaks the suspension of disbelief.
Meanwhile, back in Equestria, Taylor was completely unaware of the hatred that he had earned from Nightmare Moon,
-THEN WHY WAS IT INCLUDED AGAGAHAHJAHHAHJAHH
Oh boy I was afraid this was coming. I can't really comment on the romance stuff except maybe try to base it on some personal experience, or, failing that, read a few romance books.
There's absolutely no reason for there to be a relationship between these characters right now. A few seconds of comfort is not enough for a pair of aliens with basically no biological similarities to have physical interest in each other.
This is especially eggregious coming from Taylor. Celestia is an ancient creature, and she also lives in a world of many species. She's been around griffins, and minotaurs, and dragons, and much else. It's possible her sexuality is alien and strange, and she might be attracted to an alien. We just don't know.
Taylor, on the other hand, is supposed to be our hero. He's a human male. Imagine for a few seconds we move the story to Earth and replace Celestia with a horse out of some farmer's barn. We make one change--we make the horse smart with a magic spell, so it's intelligent like Celestia is.
If we watched our hero fall in love with that barnyard animal, we would not feel entranced by the romance, we would feel absolutely disgusted. This is the hurdle you have to overcome when writing a cross-speices romance like this, in paticular when one of the parties (but not the other) is human.
"You were the greatest thing that ever happened to me, aside from my dear sister being born."
-Completely unearned. They have no special connection, he's done nothing of value for her really. He's been nice and comforting about things, but that's called "being a decent person." A single day of that is not going to be a basis for a relationship, paticularly in Equestria where so many people are so nice. This feels completely inauthentic. Like someone slipped Celestia a love potion while we weren't looking.
Also, there's no deeper connection for Taylor to use as a seed to overcome the natural repulsion we would expect (VERY MUCH) from a human of his time having feelings for a person who looks like an animal. A magical animal, but an animal nonetheless.
Halt! Nopony but Celestia is allowed past us!"
- Celestia would've known this was coming. Wouldn't she have already told the guards (like a few seconds ago) to move out of his way?
"Um, why am I here again Princess?" He was starting to get the very bad feeling that Celestia had more than chatting on her mind. (In his mind, Taylor was technically single, so even if the worst happened, he wouldn't be cheating on anyone. But still, it was one thing to kiss a mare, it was another thing entirely to rut one.)
- He initiated this relationship! Why is he suddenly nervous about it now?
They had these strange things called "morals" and "virtues", which are concepts completely foreign to my generation, the Millennials. One of these virtues had a very strict policy against nudity. Taylor was well aware of this, hence the reason it took him by surprise when he heard Celestia's suggestion.)
-Few things about this. First of all, from what we've heard about the "author" they seem to be in Equestria. How the heck do they know about Millenials and their lack of morals? Also, if they grew up in Equestria, they probably wouldn't think of Millenials as "my generation" given that they were raised somewhere else and have absolutely nothing in common with them.
More to the point, this moralizing about morals is about as (pardon my French) ass backwards as a narrator could be. Why?
Well, the greatest generation didn't take kindly to fornication. Going nude is just a taboo. Sex outside of marrage is a very serious sin.
You know what's worse, though? Bestiality. Fun fact, the USA has executed a total of 15 people for bestiality over the last 200 years. Unlike fornication, this isn't just a sin, this is (in the words of the bible) an "abomination."
I'm not preaching morals, mind you, I'm just pointing out the gigantic hypocracy right here. To have a narrator point out how superior the morals of a character are who is at this moment violating the morals of his time.
At least he does seem to hesitate at some points in this scene. That earns back a little credit, though it still doesn't make up for how unjustified the relationship is. Really, it paints Celestia as a manipulative sexual predator, and Taylor as some hillbilly raised in a barn who cant't say no to anything remotely female-shaped. Not a flattering image for our hero, I don't think... or for Celestia, who we're usually used to rooting for.
"Whoops! Mr. Taylor didn't want me to write about this!" The author then sees about a dozen or so more pages covering what happened between Taylor and Celestia. He reads them over quietly, then, he takes them, puts them inside a file folder, and stuffs them inside one of his filing cabinets.
--Once again, this strikes very much as a "having the cake and eating it too" sort of moment. Pulls us right out of the narrative, since we know it could've been removed if you as the author wanted to. We could've tasteefully faded to black when the door shut if that was what was really wanted, but obviously that didn't happen.
Also, it strikes as even more incredibly weird and creepy that Taylor would've kept a blow-by-blow account of this sexual encounter in a journal or something to give to this guy to write about. Also a little bit sad--not something someone with a healthy sexuality would do.
I think Celestia taught Taylor to be a manipulative dick. After "cheating" on Redheart, still covered with the sweat of his illicit tryst with another woman, he comes in with her and makes all the advances. This is not a way a hero behaves.
It also isn't the way someone who is in love behaves. Regardless of how Celestia manipulated him into sex, if he really meant: "I, um, I love you, so, so much. Never forget that." then why isn't he maybe feeling enough guilt and regret at betraying his love to react in any way?
Also, it goes without saying, but the love of this relationship isn't earned at this point in the story either. They've had two days together at this point, and he spent a good part of that time forming a relationship with another "woman."
--I think I'm getting conceptual whiplash. I just spent the last chapter reading about a very much not okay from a Christian worldview (and certainly not to somone from the Greatest Generation) graphic encounter with a horse, and now I'm about to get God again?
--Hey some actual regret from Celestia. Even if it's very "Mary Sue" regret (IE: Her regret isn't focused on herself, but whether the mary sue will like her. As opposed to being focused on her own personal struggle and mistakes, the way a regular person would feel regrets) Still, that's at least half credit from me!
--OH NO. Not another "7th element of harmony". I bet this sentence earned you at least 3 of those downvotes you got.
--Also, things like this earn downvotes. Why? Because they're a betrayal of the spirit of the show. Those who read MLP stories obviously care very deeply about the canon, or they wouldn't read in the first place. Adding new places and characters is one thing, but this kind of thing is a _betrayal_ of the canon. WHat does this mean? You're taking the characters we know and love and making them helpless in the presence of some powerful savior (of your own creation, of course). This kind of thing is one of the quickest ways of making readers dislike a story.
Celestia shook her head. "I really don't like these at all, especially this last one, known as the 'Chosen One' Prophesy. It all sounds so awful.
--I agree with you, Celestia. It sounds so awful. Like a draft I would cover in red pen and send back for revison.
--1, we never saw Taylor loan his bible last chapter. If you want an element to be plot significant, you MUST do it in advance. You can't retroactively do it like this, it feels like Dues Ex Machina. I'm sure you've heard that before.
2. Why the heck would Celestia search for comfort in the bible? Presumably Equestria has its own record of God's dealings with their own kind. And if not, why would she even have reason to believe what it says? She might search for answers in it, or search for information, but we don't go to something new and strange for comfort, we go to something old and familiar. A favorite blanket, a favorite verse... Celestia surely has her own sources for comfort.
--Oh boy.
(almost 3 in the morning is a fine thing to say, BTW. I'm not complaining about it. Unlike 1060 years ago, it's the way a person might actually talk)
bed.
--Here's a question. If God really needed ponies to be "made right" with him, wouldn't he have cared enough about all the ponies in the thousands of years in the past to call prophets back then, so those souls could be saved too? If that was a thing ponies needed, why wouldn't he care until Taylor to send help?
Yeah, talk about conceptual whiplash. Fornicating with an animal to Jesus saves in one chapter flat. I'll just say that none of this feels like it belongs in your story. Like you took time out from the story you were actually telling for some religious wish-fulfillment. Helping Celestia find her faith really could make sense in a story, if that's what the story was about and it was earned. It very much isn't earned here, so it just feels like someone vomited bible onto the page. I'm not offended by religion, just bothered by poor narrative choices. I would cut this section completely if I revised the story.
I wondered when I saw this chapter what the huge spike of downvotes was on October 20th. Now I know what it was.
I'm going to share a secret with you, the biggest secret of fimfiction. The secret to why people downvote. I urge you to keep in confidence the terrible power I am about to entrust to you, and to use it only with the greatest care.
First of all, there's a reader or two out there who's just a jerk. They see a tag they don't like and they downvote on principle. Site rumor suggests that someone set up a bot to downvote all stories with the human tag, which is why they all have at least one downvote. ALL of them past a certain age. There's nothing you can do about those.
The vast majority of readers are not trolls or jerks, however. They genuinely want to read and enjoy your story.
They leave a downvote because you break reader expectations. What does that mean? It means you promise one thing and deliver another thing. When that happens, a reader feels betrayed, often enough to leave a downvote. You will always make mistakes, so in stories with thousands of upvotes that generally means you have nothing to worry about if you have a few downvotes. When the ratio gets greater than 20% though, it means that you should be doing some serious introspection.
I believe this chapter was the single moment that happened for you. Why?
Because you promised us a story about ponies doing pony things, and a human from Earth interacting with the ponies we love. For a while you delivered this, and so you got mostly upvotes. Only a few downvotes at first, it looks like. Because you were delivering what you promised.
You broke your promise a little for one chapter when you broke into the garden of eden stuff, but it was in service of the story (in theory) and so lots of readers were willing to forgive it.
This, though... this was a very serious violation of your promises. This wasn't narrative at all, wasn't fiction. Wasn't a story. It was pure unadulterated wish-fulfillment and preaching. Your description didn't say "Listen as I share with you readers my testimony of Jesus" it said come and see Taylor's adventures in Equestria. Readers came expecting the latter, but you gave us the former.
When you break promises like this--narrative promises, I mean--you provoke outrage from readers. This is the kind of thing that gets someone to put down your book.
Not only was there no story here, but it's also a betrayal of the characters we love. This does not read anything like Celestia to us, it reads like a sock-puppet that's saying exactly the words that would be needed to say to allow the other sock puppet to share a testimony with us. It's like a show for children at a bible school.
I'll end this with what I've ended all my feedback with on these chapters. I have nothing against you as a religious person, I have faith myself. What I am very much against is bad storytelling, and this is bad storytelling with a capital B. I would repent this entire chapter right out of the story, literally nothing in it belongs.
Actually, there's one caviat to what I just said. Everything I just said assumes you care about creating an entertaining story and having readers enjoy what you've written. If you don't actually care if anyone reads, if you're only writing for your own enjoyment and don't care if the writing isn't good, then ignore my advice here. If this story was really just an expression of faith and not an attempt to entertain, then ignore everything I just said.
But decide which you want it to be, because it cannot be both.
8536504
Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Although, I did call part of this chapter, "Masculine Stupidity", so it kinda speaks for itself.
8537528
Hello again Starscribe. Well, it looks like we got a long one here, so let's get to it.
First of all, like I said before, they had both been straining for so hard and so long that their arm/foreleg muscles had completely locked up. Maybe this isn't physically possible, except, this is Equestria. As we've seen before, the Laws of Physics don't always apply.
Next, Tinker is a unicorn. This is the only reason that Taylor was able to compete with him at all.
*sigh* Like I said before, Taylor left extremely strict instructions for his biography, which were passed to me by his successor, Roger White. Taylor was almost senile at that point, but orders are orders, so I left things like this in, even though I felt I shouldn't.
Tinker thought that humans were weaker than ponies. Plus, he was a royal guard captain, he should have been the best. He was surprised that Taylor beat him.
Yes, yes you did, but like I said, In Pony Equestria, Physics don't always apply.
Yeah, I see that now. Taylor was senile, and the guy who gave me his instructions had terminal illness. I'll just go ahead and fix that now. Also, I named that nurse Starlight a full year before Season 5 even aired. I kept the name because I liked it. Also, if you're referring to the the other bit with Starlight, yeah, I'll fix that too.
No, I made this a different hallway. It has some of the same windows, but this one was made for castle visitors to see, as the throne room isn't always accessible to the public.
When I said this, I meant it as a generalization. The vast majority forgot, but not everyone, or everypony. Some still remember, but they keep their opinions to themselves, for fear of being seen as loony.
8537555
Hello again Starscribe.
First of all, I would like to offer you my thanks for taking the time to read and comment on my story. I really appreciating you choosing me to be a part of your experiment. You could have picked any number of other authors, but you derided to include me, so for that, I say thanks. I enjoy getting feedback from you, as well as fixing the mistakes that you suggest. Also, I don't see you as being too critical at all. I'm not trying to defend my work, and I really don't mind giving explanations for everything. In fact, I really enjoy it. I enjoy elaborating on my work. It not only helps to shine some light on grey areas of my story, but it helps me in my future writing as well.
I fixed that typo.
Taylor wasn't sure if it was appropriate to ask about them. Remember, he was a part of the Greatest Generation. Asking about things like that were, in his mind, most likely improper, but he wasn't sure. The rest of this was Taylor's curiosity, and my attempt at explaining Cutie-Marks, and how they worked. In my AU anyway.
This is Taylor, in his still recovering from shock state, way over-thinking things.
Also, if you're worried about "The Author", and his appearances, don't worry, he only makes a few of them.
"Wowzers Bzowzers". This is an easter egg. This phrase has shown up at least once in every single story that I have ever written. I was simply continuing that tradition, even if it is a little bit odd for a character like Taylor.
This is another minor change in my AU. It was common knowledge, but it was forbidden to be talked about. Taylor's innocent question made both nurses fear for his life, as Celestia had punished some who had talked about it in the past.
*puts hands over face* Yeah, I really need to rethinks aspects of Taylor's character. What seemed like a good idea 2 1/2 years ago when I originally wrote this story may not actually be such a great idea. As, I said before, this story is my first, but still, I should probably really rethink this. Taylor is no Mary-Sue. He's just a human who was spared from death, and was brought to Equestria. He's stuck there now, and is trying to make the best of his existence. *makes another mental note to rethink Taylor's character.*
I probably should have specified this then. Stardust was born and alicorn, and had most of her powers at the time. After the Fall though, Earth was severed from Equestria, and most magic faded away. Equestria still retained it. Also, her new powers became a curse. Because she ate of the fruit as well, God lengthened her life, as well as the lives of the Alicorns that came after her. Because of Stardust's disobedience, Alicorns are forced to lose those that they love to Death many times over before they finally die. This is their punishment for what Stardust did. I'm almost certain that I mentioned this in my story, but hopefully this will make it more clear.
Yes, I'm really starting to see this now. Now that you've pointed this out to me, I see now that breaking with the narrative is a bad thing. I'll try and do better to stick with it in the future.
8537578
Hello Starscribe.
*sees how long this is, and braces for the oncoming storm of this awful chapter. Brain works overtime to come up with explanations.*
First of all, I included it because it becomes relevant to the story later.
*Sees the shit-storm coming in fast. Decided to divide and conquer.*
Starting with the basics. Remember how I said that things written 2 1/2 years ago may not be such a great idea anymore? Well, that still applies here. And yes, I see what you're saying about the "barnyard relationship". That's part of what made this chapter hard to write.
Yes, I see that now. However, it became so commonplace for Celestia to have the guards move for her, that she completely forgot about Taylor having difficulties.
Because he started it on accidental impulse. He's now beginning to realize that there's probably going to be severe consequences.
I'm going to let you in on a little secret here Starscribe, but only because it's absolutely necessary. The truth about the Author. (WARNING: EXTREME SPOILERS FOR LATER STORIES!!!) The author is a young man named Ben "ScarFox" Campbell. He lived on Earth, only to arrive in Equestria very much the same way that Taylor did. He was the fourth human to see Equestria. He met the second human there, Roger White, Taylor's successor, who charged him to write Taylor's biography. He was a Millennial. He's writing this story in the Present. However, Scarfox's story is volumes of stories in and of itself. This story is just about Taylor.
This is also why Taylor was so scared. He knew that bestiality probably wasn't illegal here, but at the same time, it was against his religion. However, he was also up against the Princess of the Land. He definitely didn't want to die. He was scared, and acted without really thinking it all through.
He was freaking out. His mind said one thing, his body said another, his conscience said something else entirely. He was tearing himself apart from the inside out. His conscience would come back and bit him so hard, that now he was torn from the outside in.
Like I said before, the Author's notes came courtesy of Roger White, all written by Taylor himself. Somehow, those must have gotten tacked on unnoticed by Roger, and he included them.
As to why Taylor kept them. As a warning, both to himself, and to others about what can happen when you go against everything you believe. Taylor wanted those papers to remind him of this severe danger again, anytime he felt tempted to sin again.
Taylor came back an emotional mess. This experience became a real eye-opener for him. He saw himself for what he really was, and it absolutely broke him. On his way back, he cried to God to forgive him of the heinous sins that he had just committed. He does tell Redheart about it, but at a later time. It will become relevant to the story again in the next chapter that I write.
Don't worry, it'll all make sense in the end. I've always had a plan for this. Taylor and Redheart will have to work through Taylor's sin.
8537591
Hello Starscribe.
*sees chapter, remembers how I did it, and braces for the repercussions. Mind begins to run through explanations.*
First of all, I already foresaw the Christianity being seen as offensive to some people. I added that warning, because I didn't want to get kicked off Fimfiction because somepony complained!
Next, again with the Mary-sue thing. I see what you mean, and I get it. *makes a mental note that when I write more about characters in the future, to not make characters too shallow, or too deep. Also, above all, NO MARY-SUES!!!!!!!!*
Next, yes I know all about this. For some reason, nopony seems to like the "7th Element". However, this is because those who tried fudged it up. Luckily for you, I have a secret weapon. I actually listened to a panel at a pony convention, Midwest Bronyfest, on how to do this properly. Don't worry, I did it the right way. When I write that chapter, hopefully it'll be a breath of fresh air from all of the other "Botched 7th Element" fails.
*sighs* THAT prophesy was written down by a lunatic. Some "All seeing" wacko wrote that stuff down to scare ponies. It does contain a grain of truth, but nothing more. Just needed to clarify. (I'll also fix it.)
1. I failed to realize this until after this chapter had been written. I'll fix that.
2. I wrote this story 2 1/2 years ago. Looking back, I see now that I may have fatally cross-wired it. I'll explain it as best I can. Celestia knew about the curse that her family had inherited, and after what she had done with Taylor, her guilt really came back to haunt her. This coupled with the prophecies, really began to tear her apart, just like it had done to Taylor. In her distress, she read the book that her mother had given her, and it made her realize the need for salvation. As such, she summoned Taylor. (*bangs head against the wall* "This was a good idea, this was a good idea, this was a good idea.....")
Finally, there is something that I should probably say about my characters. All of them, from my OC's, to historical figures, to Ponies and the like, are all flawed. Even my heroes like Taylor are flawed. They're only human/Pony after all. They all make mistakes. I use this as an anchor to try and keep my stories relate-able. (but yes, I really botched this one. From Chapter 16 onward, I see the error of my ways, derailed plans for future Christian storytelling aside from occasional references, and tried to recover from these massive blows. So far, i don't think that I've succeeded very well.)
8537604
Hello Starscribe.
*is still lost in a world of bad writing, and is searching for a way out. Keeps bracing for impact.*
Bermuda Beginnings was a writing experiment. I tried to see how much of a Christian storytelling I could put in before something bad happened. I knew that it was going to possibly cause problems, but never did I foresee the train-wreck that happened. You've really opened my eyes to how much I botched this one up. I'm going to be spending the rest of this story trying to redeem myself. The next story, "A Quantum Leap of Faith", will purely be about story. I will only make a handful of references to God, and even then, it will only be in a casual conversation, something like "Hey, do you believe in God?" "Which God?" "The Christian God." "Oh, um, well, sorta." I learned my lesson. This experiment failed. I was a fool to think that it ever could work. Way to go ScarFox9700, you botched up your very first story, and now it won't be as good as it was originally. Great job.
On a lighter note, Yes, I really do care about my readers very much. I write for them, because I want them to like my stories. I want to make them laugh, I want them to feel what my characters are going through, I want them to keep reading. I write for everyone, (most of the time, as some of my work is very adult!) and I want them to enjoy what they're reading. One day, once I have a proper storyboard put together, I'll rewrite these few chapters. It won't be anytime soon, but one day, hopefully within a year, I will fix my mistakes, and maybe redeem this story. I'm already hard at work trying to do that now with every single chapter that comes after this one, but I fear that it won't be enough.
All other stories that follow "Bermuda Beginnings" will not share it's fate. They will be rich in storytelling, have good writing, very few mentions of religion, have good, relate-able characters, have at least one "Wowzers Bzowzers" phrase, and, above all, NO MARY SUES!!!!!!!!! I don't think that I can say that enough, so I'll say it again, NO MARY SUES!!!!!!!
*raises right paw* "I, ScarFox9700, does solemnly swear that in all of my future writings, I WILL NOT make these same mistakes twice! I will write to entertain my readers, not drive them away with my botched attempts at bringing Christianity into MLP. My amazing Critic, Starscribe, has shown me the error of my ways, and I hope that he/she, (sorry, I don't know your gender, please don't be mad at me!) and all of you, will continue to read my stories that come after this one, while I plan on how to get it out of the hole that I dug for it. It will be a long road to writing redemption, but i know that it will be worth it in the end." *Lowers right paw*
Well, I hope that this was helpful for you. I'm going to go write the next chapter now. (and hopefully continue on the road to recovering this story.)
8539329
I'm happy to have helped. And I'm glad you see what I mean. It's not that Christianity is a bad thing, just make it serve the story in the future. You can have Christian characters, just don't have a Christian narrator or a Christian plot. If that makes any sense.
8539378
Hello Starscribe,
Well, now that I've gotten over bashing myself over this, I think that I've finally come to terms with all of this. I know that it'll help my writing in the future. Anyway thank you again, and I hope that you enjoy the rest of my story! I really enjoy reading your comments, fixing things, as well as explaining things further/coming up with explanations for things. Hang on though, things are about to get interesting in Chapter 16 onward. I hope that you enjoy.
Everything I said about the last chapter is super true of this one as well, so I won't reiterate the same points. It's wish-fulfillment of a religious nature, it isn't story.
There is one new point to make that builds off the last one: People read pony stories to read about the setting they love. What you've just done is fundamentally transform the setting in such a way that it no longer resembles the setting we love. You've broken canon plenty of times so far in the story, but in ways that were still compatible with the "spirit" of MLP.
Having new princesses like Faust, there's nothing in the spirit of MLP that would prevent that. But a world where the ponies all become Christian and set up churches? That's not the world we see in the show--and it's not the world we come here to read about. It's one of those betrayals that get people to stop reading.
This section doesn't come off as even remotely realistic. I believe the word I'd use to describe it is "cringe-worthy." Accepting god into one's life is typically a long and personal quest for most people. Not something you're told over a magical loudspeaker from hundreds of miles away to do, and then without any context or reason for doing so, you immediately do so. There's the odd exception to this, but in general, it's something that comes only with great difficulty, if ever. Never for a whole country at once.
The diversion to the moon to see nightmare moon doesn't really make sense. If you cut the mass conversion, cut that part too. We really need to narrow our focus so that we're watching the hero's story.
I know exactly what your dream means, Taylor. It means the narrator can't stand to let us enjoy the drama. The narrator is spoiling the drama for events that won't happen for many years to come.
Visions in dreams are a possible thing to put in stories, but they should really be avoided if you can. They're quite overused at this point. And if you do use them, you shouldn't show "this is what will happen" but show what actual dreams look like. IE: Confusing, jumbled, and difficult to understand.
Also, a side-note, the time to repair this plane is completely unrealistic. A refit for a completely undamaged plane by a team of skilled humans who know what they're doing can take _weeks_. Taylor is a pilot, not an engineer. Even if he somehow knows this level of detail, which would make him the only pilot with that knowledge in the whole navy, he still doesn't have a team, or proper replacement parts. The idea that ponies could do in two days what skilled humans with tools and replacement parts would need weeks to do is quite silly.
"moonshine would make a great base element."
Iron is a base element. So is magnesium, cesium, or carbon. Moonshine is not a base element. Also, why would he call it that? Moonshine is illegal alcohol, made either to avoid a ban or to avoid paying taxes. It would make more sense for him to call it "spirits" or "liquor" even. There's no reason it would be illegal. We've known how to make it for literally thousands of years, so presumably, these ponies who can make magical replacement parts for a plane in two days can make it too.
Also, just a note on how alcohol works--I know this is an excuse to involve the apple family, but I thought I'd point out that
a. there's no reason at all that ponies wouldn't have alcohol elsewhere.
b. Cider is about 4.5% alcohol by volume--it would make a _terrible_ starting point for making spirits. It can be done I suppose, but why not just buy some from someone in canterlot? There's no reason there wouldn't be vendors--literally every society has consumed it in all of human history, (even those who theoretically refuse to for religious reasons). There's no reason ponies wouldn't drink it too. It's clearly not illegal.
8539680
Hello Starscribe.
*sees another massive wall of text, and braces for shit-storm impact*
Here we go again. Only this time, for the first few at least, I have no explanations to give. I well and truly f@#ked those up. When I set out to write this story, I wanted to keep it as close to the original canon as possible, with some room for adding in my own AU. Now I see it was like firing a laser in a room made out of mirrors; nothing but disaster and disappointment at every turn. *makes a mental note to rework this story, and give "A Quantum Leap of Faith", a full shakedown.*
Note to self: Steer clear of dreams in the future. Leave those for Luna. *remembers I did a similar thing in Chapters 22 and 23.* Well sh#t.
Can I do anything right in this story, or is it doomed to fail? Anyway, moving on.
Yes, I can see how you would think this. However, I neglected to mention that Equestria does have machine shops, and engineering workshops. Stripped down, a TBF Avenger isn't all that complicated, at least, by standards of both Earth, and Equestria, in 1945. In fact, by the time WW2 rolled around, TBF Avengers were already seen as obsolete. I did a lot of research when I wrote these sections, and I can safely (kinda/sorta!) say that yes, theoretically it would be possible for these engineers to help Taylor fix his plane. However, maybe not in 4 days. (Yes, it was done in 4 days, not 2.) And maybe not to perfection. However, this is Equestria we're talking about. Lot's of magic, and the normal Laws of Physics don't always apply. Is it possible now? Eh, maybe, but no guarantees. Taylor and those engineers must have not only been freaking geniuses, but also speed demons as well.
I'm a college student, not a mechanic, machinist, or chemist. When I was thinking that part through, I asked my dad about it, and he said that it was plausible, but unlikely. As a result, I scrambled to find a solution to the 'moonshine fuel dilemma'. I did so, in Chapter 20. At least, I did it the best that I could. Also, I never said anywhere that moonshine is illegal.
A. Ponies do have other alcohol, just not of the quality that is similar to a combustible fuel.
B. Canterlot does have alcohol, but it's mostly along the lines of wine, and maybe cider and a few assorted spirits. Taylor had it in his head that he needed to get moonshine, mix it with a combination of gear and cooking oil, distill and refine it, and he would have gasoline. If it's in his notes, i write it.
*note to self: be wary of writing biographies that involve a crap-ton of notes, written by a Navy pilot who's most likely gone senile, and given to you by a scientist dying of terminal cancer. The outcome will not make for good reading material.*
May Chapter 17 onward redeem my failed Chapters 13-16.
Specific times again. I'll keep making a note of these things even though I'm sure you've got it by now. It wasn't "about 11:00am", it was "a little before noon" or some similar approximation.
Oh, I haven't talked about these before! If you plan on writing on fimfiction, you don't need to do ghetto scene-dividers like "********". These format badly, aren't professional, and aren't centered. In the future, all you have to do is put in one of these "[ hr ]". It's called a BBC code horizontal rule. Remove the spaces(I had to put them in so my comment wouldn't get a horizontal rule in the middle of a sentence). These are by far the superior option, as they look nice on all screens, will be visually upgraded as the site goes on, and provide divisions ebook readers can use if any of your readers are using those.
Exactly 2:00pm. You know what I have to say about this. No exact times. If it's a point of character that the conductor was on time, you could change this to something a normal person would say, such as "As Taylor had come to expect from All Aboard, the train arrived in Ponyville exactly on time." There. You've said the same thing without giving us more information to remember.
Let me explain _why_ giving specific numbers is a bad idea. I've already said one reason--because it isn't how most people talk, and so it makes the characters feel like beep boop robots-- but there's another reason that's just as important.
Readers have limited attention span. We aren't super-geniuses. As a matter of fact, the average person can hold _exactly four_ things in their short-term memory at a time. Humans are programmed to recognize patterns, and we've evolved to be very good at recognizing important information.
In our daily lives, numbers are very important. We _need_ to know when we need to arrive at that job interview, or how many miles more we can drive our car before the gas runs out. So our brains laser-focus on them.
Here's the thing, though. If you give your readers those numbers, what you're doing is taking up a spot in their brains that _SHOULD_ be used to hold interest in your plot, your characters, your setting, etc. It is far better for a reader to be experiencing your story as they read. Those specific numbers put us into real-world modes, and tell a reader that the time the fictional train arrived is more important than Taylor's inner struggle with guilt and so on.
Another unimportant aside from the narrator about who would become Rainbow Dash. Also not consistent with show canon, since we now know Rainbow's actual parents.
Also, let me reiterate. I'm making suggestions for how to make a story that will be the most interesting to readers "Taylor told me to write this" does not make it less boring. I sat down with my editors to read one of these chapters, and one of them straight-up screamed in disgust when they read one of these. If they were a reader, they would've put the book down right there and not picked it up again. I don't care what senile Taylor said, senile Taylor doesn't know how to craft a narrative, I do. And so can you.
Fun fact: We learn in the early seasons of the show (before you wrote this) that Granny Smith was a young adult in Ponyville when the city was founded, 300 years ago). I don't blame you for not knowing or using this though, since many writers don't seem to know that much about the show, or choose to ignore that part of canon.
This response is utter nonsense. It's obvious what you wanted to do _narratively_, but it doesn't actually follow from the conversation. Obviously for the narrative you wanted an excuse to talk about making gasoline. But what Taylor said before doesn't make their response make any sense:
See that? It makes no sense for them to ask "What are you going to do with it?" because he just told them. He's going to drink it. That isn't his real plan for all of it of course, but they don't know that.
It's slips like this that break the suspension of disbelief. They show that the story isn't real and make it look like the characters only exist as sockpuppets to advance the plot the author wanted. Watch out for this like the plague.
Now how could you have done this and still got to talk about him making gasoline? There are lots of ways. The one that comes to mind for me is waiting until a little later. After he tries out the moonshine and finds it's pure enough, he orders like... a huge amount of it.
Considering this plane has fuel tanks for 726 gallons, he'd need a crapton. He orders that much, THEN she could ask what the heck he wanted that much for.
It's at this point in the story that I realized Starlight and Redheart just following him around everywhere no longer makes sense. Taylor is very clearly not injured anymore, he doesn't need _two_ nurses. He doesn't even need one. ON THE OTHER HAND, you could have the doctor try to take Redheart away, and have her stay on as a guide to help him get acquainted to Equestria.
But having two grown adults with lives of their own follow Taylor around when he no longer needs it is another think that makes someone look like a Mary Sue.
(there's an easy way to test for this. Side characters should read like they have lives of their own. They should have goals of their own, and when they're not with the protagonist, they should more often than not talk about things that AREN'T the protagonist. That's how you know you're dealing with a rich side character and not a sock-puppet)
Except Taylor is unfaithful. I wonder if his relationship will ever suffer because of what he did. (this isn't a problem with the story I'm just wondering out loud).
Talked about this before. Unless your name is Steven King, you shouldn't ever tell a scene out of order like this. It's extremely confusing and also a little frustrating. Tell the past first, then the present. If events would overlap, tell only one half of one happened and don't show the unimportant half.
Mary Sue alert going off again! Taylor is a human, he weighs less than half as much as Abby assuming that she's approximately the same size as the other horses we've seen at her age. More importantly, she is an Earth Pony doing something she has a talent in and has a lifetime of practice.
Taylor is _not_ better than her. Taylor would get crushed to a pulp by the strength of an earth pony. Just think about some of the things we've seen Applejack do. On top of all of that, this is his first try.
How do you make apple moonshine taste like apples? Yikes, I think Taylor might've hit his head harder than we thought in the crash if he needs to ask that one.
Mary Sue alert, take two. Ponyville is mostly earth ponies, and alcohol tolerance is a function of body mass with a fractional multiplayer based on history of consumption. But that's a small fraction in overall tolerance. A horse the size of those we've seen weighs 2-8 times what he does. Even _without_ earth pony magic this is impossible. With it, it's absurd.
Yikes, she really understands the opposite sex that simplistically? It's so sad she knows so few males. (this isn't necessarily a problem either, just me thinking out loud).
This is extremely weak from a storytelling perspective. You can't get the payoff of foreshadowing something earlier in the story AFTER you need the payoff. If you wanted this payoff, you should've actually included this scene earlier in the story. It is, as they say, too little too late.
SNEAK him in? That's completely stupid and they should know better. If they wanted to get him treatment, then it's a guarentee that the one running the hospital would find out. He would be on a patent list, and more importantly he's the only human in the world so the fact he's being treated will spread around. Trying to sneak him in is extremely infantile. They're better than that.
WAIT, WHAT? As Princess Luna might say "The Stupid has been doubled!" They took him into a room, set him down, and then used their OWN Skills to examine him! That's ludicrous! They could've done that right on the ground in Ponyville if they didn't want to get caught. Or, even better, they could've gone to one of their own homes, given him a bed to lie on, and THEN used their own powers.
I thought they were going to get a real doctor involved, which would've made going to the hospital forgiveable. Now it seems like they just went there because someone gave them the script to the movie and said "this is the part where you get caught.
These characters have zero chemistry together. Having her say otherwise only makes it look like a comedy story. I'm not a romance writer so I can't give you a guide on how to write chemistry between characters. What I will say is: Chemistry takes time. It comes from characters going through adversity together. They just haven't had the chance to really do that.
That's a bit of a bummer. We aren't going to get a payoff from them getting caught. IE: They weren't made to suffer for it. No punishment. If you want the story to be satisfying, you've got to punish characters for their mistakes. The more miserable you make them, the better.
Having a surpluss of moonshine does not make sense. It is _incredibly_ expensive to produce and more importantly it doesn't decay with age. It can take days of work to make just a gallon of the stuff and five hundred pounds worth of apples (or more, depending on the type of still).
Also, another storytelling weakness I noticed: No one ever discussed price before, and he wasn't given money to pay for the moonshine. It's almost like every pony knew the script of the movie and knew he wouldn't need it in advance. This is another one of those moments where the "suspension of disbelief" is broken and we're reminded it's just a story. Avoid these moments.
The process they describe would not make gasoline. Not even close. Gasonline is not alcohol+oil. For that matter, planes of the day did not burn gasoline at all, but something called AvGas. It's an ultra-high octane blend 130/140 according to a quick google search.
I don't mind getting historical details wrong, but I do have a bit of advice: Don't include a real-world detail unless you're sure it's right. It's better to be vauge than to be wrong.
IE: Once we have the moonshine back at the workshop, we'll try to use some chemistry to match it with what's left in the tanks. I could explain how this might actually work, but if you don't know then just stick with generalities.
Not being oil based would not make it explode. What matters for a fuel is the octane. The engine might explode, though. Why? Because unless they dehydrate the water out of the moonshine (which it certanly has), then you're dumping water into an engine. Water in the fuel mix will either strangle combustion, or else burn into steam and expand. Boom.
He's worried about _decals_? (facehoof) Maybe when you're in an alien world this is a low priority.
We really, really don't need to know this much detail about how painting works. Unless the story will be bout Taylor getting a cutie mark in painting, it's totally unessisary. A single paragraph of detail would've sufficed.