It is no secret that threats, both internal and external in nature, have plagued Equestria since times immemorial. And since times immemorial, heroes protected ponykind from danger, ensuring that the peaceful utopia and the Magic of Friendship would thrive.
Ultimately however, it was no threat that brought about the planet's end. It was no threat at all.
Amid the ruins of ponykind's greatest achievements, and in the middle of a century once promised to be so very great, the last surviving stallion attempts to recollect his thoughts, while struggling to keep his sanity firmly in check.
"Some things just happen... unforseen, I guess. Unpredictable. Unavoidable."
Designed for and best read in Dark Mode!
All comments are welcome for a struggling author!
I wonder if the other species did modernized and left the world and ponies did fail the great filter
10170092
Who knows...?
Specifics like that are purposefully left open
So what happened?
10171979
What do you mean, more specifically?
Well, I have to admit that this isn't the kind of story I'd usually seek out - but since you asked for feedback, here are my thoughts:
* Forest Light was likeable and it was easy to empathize with him - a definite win for this kind of story. He didn't feel angsty, just understandably sad.
* That said, I wasn't really convinced that he was crazy. He seemed quite lucid and insightful to me.
* I gather that the industrialization of Equestria messed with the natural order and that's what killed everything, but I feel like the story rushed through that aspect a bit too quickly.
* Forest's "This is the end" soliloquy was really good. A moving and powerful way to express the death of an entire species.
* Loved the "great filter". What a horrible stab in the heart. Passive-aggressive social Darwinist aliens are the worst aliens. They reminded me of the Aschen from Stargate: SG-1 - an advanced human civilization that uses subtle, patient tactics to silently invade and eradicate other civilizations.
* I liked the reveal of Celestia going full Daychanger. Luna was pushed over the edge out of jealousy, but I can see Celestia, the protective mother of ponykind, being pushed over the edge by failure. I like the tease that she might even have succeeded in salvaging some new order from the situation, had Luna not intervened and doomed them.
* Eternal Flame is an awesome name for a sorceress, and her being the agent of ponykind's abrupt end made for a great climax to the downfall of equine civilization. Almost cathartic in a very dark way.
* Having said that, I don't understand why all the bodies disappeared. Did the spell work after all? If she was trying to ascend everyone, why would they die first and then disappear hours later? I don't get it.
* Overall, I can't say that this is my kind of story - I prefer something with more optimism - but I thought this was a decent enough read.
10242361
Thanks for the feedback!
I must say that it sounds much better than I imagined it would!
That said, I'm especially grateful for the complaints, as they naturally help me improve the most.
Before I address some of them however, I of course understand stories like this may not be your cup of tea; we all have our preferences and there's no reason for them to be similar. I don't think it'd be controversial at all to state that Fimfiction is big enough to offer stories of basically any kind, and taking that into account, I'm even more grateful you took your time to help me out.
But anyway, here we go. Just as a sidenote though, none of the following is meant to act as any sort of justification or excuse - what does it matter if I had my reasons to write the text this way? I may have had, sure, maybe they were even perfectly reasonable, but if the whole thing doesn't come across well to the reader, then it simply means I've failed in what I tried to do - a fact I understand.
It's more of a clarification than anything else.
I kind of tried to write this aspect of the character as somepony on the verge of madness, with a potential of slipping into it. As such, Forest Light's notes are generally lucid, with random spikes of insanity appearing in the more emotion-inducing (for him, not the reader) moments, etc.
Hah, yeah, that... that is likely a product of me writing the story 'on an impulse'. The whole concept of the apocalypse was meant to be a bit broader here, not just industralization itself, but rather how it transpired here. I've tried to imply that industralization in general, in some way is pretty much necessary to transcends the limits of a species' homeworld.
[[A sidenote to someone else who might be reading in the future - none of this represents my views in any way, in the sense they weren't taken into account. This is a short, fictional story, and so aspects like this are just made to fit it.]]
But yeah, well, after briefly looking the story over with the mentioned concern in mind, I can see what you mean. I guess that's something I have to work on in my future works
I tried to kind of make that aspect open, up to the reader's interpretation - whether the spell backfired or worked in the end - by making both kind of possible. In either way, Forest Light is left alone, and for him there is no difference, so the premise isn't altered.
Of course, something similar is sometimes done by both authors and generally in different media, however these are in the vast majority made by people with experience.
If it doesn't work here, then it means that (whether because of my own lack of said experience of something else), well... that I've failed.
Oh, well. Just leaves one more field to strive to improve in, haha!
But anyway, once again, really thank you for the feedback!
And I'm glad to have been able to provide you with a decent enough read!
I have to say, I really enjoyed reading this. The flow and pacing were dynamic, and the atmosphere trully gripping—I wanted to read this by smaller chunks during the course of the day, but I just couldn’t bring myself to put it down and do something else. So, yeah, I just breezed through.
Now, as for the story’s concept of a “diary“ told from the viewpoint of a person balancing on the brink of insanity... It’s not the most original one, but it doesn’t have to be—what’s important is that it works. This piece definitely falls between some of the better works of the genre. Forest Light’s shifting between a mostly sane recollection of the historical events and his/her(?) mad rambling and babbling was rather well done, without the latter getting too repetitive or jarring. Other than that, I don’t think I can say much about the character. It was great you dropped some more background information about Forest so that it did feel a bit more personal, though I cannot say I really rooted for the character. Which I believe is not the point in stories such as this one—they’re more about the world as a whole, rather than the individual characters.
As for the historical events themselves, they were mostly told in a pretty straightforward manner, and I don’t think I have much more to say about them. Though you could have elaborated a bit more on the aliens, since when Forest later on tries to liken ponies to them, the similes were kind of empty and lacking. Furthermore, I don’t think it’d hurt the story if you had shown in greater detail how devastated Equestria was, and what were some of ponykind’s tries to remedy it. (By the way, was the disapprearance of the rest of the ponies a reference to Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince?)
Also, I have to appreaciate the small remarks, like the non-industrialised barn, alluding to the show. (At least I hope this was their purpose, and it isn’t just a coincidence.) However, the spot with the barn also indicates that there were some more conservative ponies. Therefore it is rather strange that there’s no mention of these trying to do something about the overexploitation before it was too late.
Furthermore, if Zecora stayed, what about some griffons and dragons that lived in Equestria? And also, how sentient a species had to be in order to be somewhat affected (tested? abducted?). I’m mostly wondering about the semi-sentient goats, sheep, et cetera. Or did all animals except ponies vanish? That was a bit unclear.
Now, about some more technical aspects of the story. Your grammar and spelling are mostly solid, watch out just for some mixed up lied/lay and Yearing/Yearling. Most of the sentences were of reasonable length and rather easy to read. On a side note, if you are inserting some remarks in the middle of a sentence, you shouldn’t use a hyphen—that one is reserved for connecting words, such as thirty-eight. An em dash (—) or a double hyphen (--) without spaces around it is the way to go.
What bothered me a bit more was the formatting. Notably the fact that sometimes there were missing spaces between paragraphs, merging the text into something not very pleasant to read. Speaking of things not pleasant to read, the two spots with greyish text were rather odd and kind of annoying—my eyes aren’t the best anymore, and I don’t really enjoy pressing my face against the screen to make out what’s written there. On the other hand, I quite enjoyed the changes in text size and such—this is one of the few kinds of stories where it fits. It is a bit debatable if you shouldn’t have stuck to expressing emphasis just one way (just text size, or just italics, or just all caps, for example), but in the end it depends mostly on personal preference and how erratic you want the text to seem (By the way, why was the word ‘con’ emphasised?). Also, while I feel this is fine in the story itself, it looks really odd in the long description. Remember the golden rule of typography—never use simultaneously bold, italics, underlined and otherwise adjusted text.
Phew, I hope that wasn’t too long and exhausting to read, and I hope it’s going to be at least a little helpful. Anyway, thank you for this story!
10244748
It wasn't at all, don't worry!
And it certainly is going to be helpful, especially the more technical aspects you pointed out, as I've never had almost any insight at all regarding how well I fare in that regard. I could glesm from the lack of complaints that most likelynnot glaringly bad, but to be honest, that isn't all that much to work with.
Also, although I am a fluent English speaker, I am not a native English speaker, so any and all opinions regarding grammar and spelling are always welcome, as they're naturally more important for me than they likely are for many.
Other than that... wow... I'm going to be honest, I know this may sound a little bit like boasting of sorts (the likeness of 'I haven't even tried!'), but I really thought it'd be much worse. I mean, I always considered this story to be the better written of the two I have, likely precisely because it's shorter; in my personal opinion (which is, of course, in no way objective) the quality of my writing tends to be... very unequal, and so the shorter the text, the easier it is for me to maintain its quality.
I'm slipping into rambling though, let's get back on track. I can see the story could use me elaborating a bit more on the whole situation, even with just a sentence or two more to add some deapth (mostly regarding the countermeasures the more conservative ponies would try to undertake here. The idea was basically that the vast majority of the population was still 'blinded' as overexploitation took its hold, only helped by the fact that with outside help, Equestria industrialized noticeably faster than Earth; nevertheless, ignoring the less progressive remainder may not have been the best move. Oh, well... I guess that's one of those things you need to have a 'feel' for, so my lack of experience can be felt).
Oh, and while we're at it, the more traditional barn was indeed alluding to the show. Other than that, I left a few references to various works here and there; following this, you've correctly assumed the vanishing bodies were a loose reference to The Little Prince, and similarly as in Saint-Exupéry’s work (or at least that's what I believe he intended) this detail leaves it up to the reader to decide whether the other ponies actually died, or the spell actually ascended them to some 'higher plane' of existence, if this was its goal (despite there being implications to one of the outcomes). The Little Prince gave me inspiration for this part of the story (despite it being originally conceptualized independently), as if I remember correctly the Prince says something along the lines of 'If my body stays here, that just means it was too heavy for me too take it back'. It isn't the same situation, of course, but for I felt it somewhat similar regardless.
Other than that, the words Forest Light first describes their arrival with ('and we watched and beheld, the...') are a paraphrase of the introduction of Death from Biblical Apocalypse. "Machinery that gave abundance had left us in want" is a brief intake from the Great Dictator Speech (although slightly modified), etc.
There aren't many of those, but they're there regardless.
I don't know what else to write at this point, as I've made the mistake of going full-on rambling here, so I've sadly lost track of what I've already addressed and what I haven't. But to answer your remaining questions:
'Canonically' Forest Light would be a stallion, but as that isn't really that important, I think it's fine to leave this aspect for the reader to determine themselves; either way is fine (hence why the the quotation marks around canonically).
'CON' is mostly emphasized because I've seen the word written that way time and again by various people (likely trying to allude to the graphical representation it often gets, or it being a frequant, shared part of various names) and so I think it was done mostly instincively to make the text look more casual (due to its nature). Nevertheless. t's not something I cannot change; as stated earlier, that 'instinct' definitely has yet to properly develop.
The formatting similarly, I'm going to have to sit and edit the story over in that regard. Once again, I really appreciate pointing that out; lack of spacing between paragraphs was kind of a way of creating half-paragraphs, if you know what I mean (text separations on a level lower than a paragraph, so to say). But anyway, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work, so I'll try to fix that.
For the long description: I've tried to make it look somewhat simlar to the story proper, as a sneak peek of sorts; I'm really not the greatest in writing good descriptions and, well... the presentation of my stories in general. I actually think this might be the/one of the greatest problems I have...
On an ending note, what do you mean by 'two spots with greyinsh text', if I can ask? Is the kind of font referenced the one used in the very beginning (to write the date)?
Alright, I think that's all for now, but as I said, I might've missed something, and in that case, I'll edit this reply/write one. In addition, sorry, if parts of this comment seem weird or... or something... Sleep deprivation has been killing me for the last week or so, and I cannot know how it effects things like, say, imteraction with others. Fortunately, that seems likely to change soon.
Once again, thank you very much for the comment! I'll try to implement what you suggested, and, well... I'm not going to lie, it's very nice to read someone being so positive about your work!
If you liked it, I'm glad to have provided you with the story!
Lastly, sorry for taking so long to reply. I genuinely expected you to only write the comment around Saturday or Sunday, so it was rather surprising seeing it so soon. So, yeah, thank you for that as well!
10246688
No need to apologise, I’m used to people taking far longer to respond. And I’m glad it’ll help you grow as a writer—I’m a non-native English speaker myself, so I know how hard it is to start writing in a (semi-)foreign language with next to none advice or support.
Indeed, it’s the one in the beginning, plus I believe there was one sentence of grey-coloured text in the latter half of the story.
I understand. Such half-paragraphs are actually acceptable in some languages, though not in English, especially not concerning digital text (the removal of spaces between paragraphs is often seen as a way of saving paper by lowering the number of pages).
This is mostly an issue of perspective. You know that the description is mimicking the story itself, but a reader that has yet to read the story does not know that. Also, writing descriptions is simply hard, as summarising your story in a way that’s intriguing, not too spoiler-y, and short. (For similar reasons, I’m really not a fan of the “Summarise your story in just one sentence” saying.) Furthermore, I have never used their services myself, but I believe there were a few groups that specialise in helping people come up with good descriptions. (Honest Blurbs was one of them, if I remember correctly. Though maybe it’s long dead, I don’t know.)
Anyway, I don’t want to hold you up longer than necessary. I wish you a good night’s sleep (at least) during the weekend
10246866
Yes, I think it is noticeably difficult to switch to a foreign writing style, even if just in the beginning. Being fluent is one thing, but literature simply works differently in different languages, taking advantage of their construction. I, for example, have no problem communicating in English, but when it comes to narrative writing, I'm used to Polish works; these usually play with how absurdly complicated the grammar can be, and thus authors tend to mix up forms and how they should affect what follows in some truly intriguing ways; in English that's not even nearly as much the case, because the language works differently, and so much of what I tend to do in my works may simply come across as, well... erroneous, or at best weird. I think that's best seen in the first chapters of my main story, 'Of Starships and Golden Armors'. I feel like it improves later, but the beginning is kind of, well... not the best anyway... I need to somehow find a way to cut that story and jump into a sequel written in a way that doesn't require reading the first part. But that's besides the point.
I actually do have quite a big experience in writing in English, just never narrative writing. I was (and still am) a worldbuilder, thinking up universes for their own sake, with no story to accompany. I have some works in that category that I feel are really decent, however the very style of writing involved is extremely different from that which is used here; in the articles we wrote, it was more important to include much information in a way that is clear, with pleasant reading, even though technically somewhat taken into account, going far behind that.
As a result, when I took up narrative writing, everything I had in mind was not fitting the language I were to work with at all, and what was fitting it was, well... a technique leading to exposition dumps. So, yeah, advice and support are really welcome here
Ugh, I'm browsing FimFiction with Night Mode on, so to me it actually looks even clearer than the rest of the text...
Fixing that right away.
I'll look into that. I've actually been thinking of applying for an editor just to help me with that, if something like so is even possible...
Thanks! I need that, definitely.
Oh well, thank you for the advice once again and have a good weekend!
10247088
I understand, compared to Slavic languages, English relies far more on idioms and shorter phrases that make it more straightforward, yet not entirely plain.
Actually, that’s more than possible, and I highly recommend getting an editor. Looking for Editors is possibly the largest and most active group on the site in this regard. Just a fair warning, make sure that the editor who volunteers to help you is worth their salt. There are many skilled ones, and many more who mean well, but a story might be better off if they don’t touch it.
10247132
So it does. At least both are indo-european, so it's easier for me than for someone from, say, Polynesia. And well, all things considered, some aspects of narrative writing are similar, so it could be worse; in German for example, repetition of the same word isn't even a mistake (by default), and I can't possibly imagine myself adapting to that if it wasn't already at the back of my head.
Oh well, I guess in that regard everything's just a matter of experience and... well, getting used to the style. Fortunately though, there is time.
As for an editor, I will definitely need to look into that. I don't imagine finding one for this story being that much of a problem, if it comes to my other one however... I'm not sure anyone will be willing to sign up for a ~100K word long story. That being said, I might as well try.
https://www.fimfiction.net/group/924/i-just-want-a-comment/thread/438627/critique-and-headpats-the-last-pony-on-equis
When uplifting a civilization goes not the way you wanted
This Empire and the Rings Scream Forerunner to me.
This is screaming Forerunner.
Captain Constantine of the Armageddon Steel Legion marched with his squad. Sir, one of his men said look what I found.
By the God Emperor...
10489767
10489764
I'm really sorry for the late reply... I was... there is just so much happening, but I still probably should've replied. I'm really sorry.
But I'm happy to meet a fellow sci-fi lover!
I hoped you liked the story.
10489770
So, you'e a 40K fan as well? Again, it seems like we've got similar tastes!
And, again, thank you for reading the story then!
How my people of Forge of Empire feel when I move on to restart a different world.
o really need an explanation of what actually happens here…
11097596
Well, my PMs are always open if you want to ask questions. I'm more than eager to answer!
the insanity in this is just palpable
This was good. I liked the part where it isn't specified whether the other species were uplifted or deconstructed into constituent elements and compounds to build more spaceships to continue the cycle.
11275886
Why, thank you! A lot, even. I appreciate feedback like almost nothing else!