Chapter 1- A New Beginning.
It's not easy being a teenager in this world. It also isn't easy liking a show that most people would say is for little girls. But what can I say? I'm different. How different, you ask? Continue to read my story, and learn my friend.
My name is Star. Weird name for a boy, I know. I'm 12 years old and a diehard brony. I was an orphan, left on my parents doorstep when I was young. My parents told me there had been a note on my chest that said, “Please take care of this young one. He will be very important in the future.” I didn't really know what it meant, so I didn't think about it. I lived like a normal kid, went to school, played video games, ran outside.... Life was rather easy for me and my family, until my 13th birthday...
It was on a Sunday, I got some video games and other stuff (which was AWESOME). My parents left me with my older sister to go and do some shopping. I was sitting in the living room when the doorbell rang. Chelsea was busy so I got it. There was a package for me. I opened it up and saw a sword hilt in the box. “Wha....?” I said. I picked it up and it suddenly disappered from my hand. “Weird.” I said. There was a letter in the box. “Dear Star..” it said. “If you have picked up the sword then come to the nature trail at 4:00.”
At the trail at 4:00, I started to walk. “Hello?” I yelled. I felt a strange sensation on my left hand. Rubbing it, I continued on. “Prince.....” I heard a soft voice. “Who-who's there?” I yelled. Stepping into the clearing that was in the middle of the trail, I saw a dark figure, in the shape of a horse? “The time is coming.”, the figure said. “But, are you ready?” I narrowed my eyes, “What do you....?
Suddenly 3 dark figures landed in front of me. They looked like the Shadowbolts from the 2nd episode of My Little Pony. “Time for you to join us or die, little prince.” they said. I was angry. “What. Is. HAPPINING?!” On the last word, a sword apperead in my hand. The blade was a dark blue and the hilt was also dark blue with black around it. One of the Shadowbolts flew toward me. Not thinking, I ran toward it and slashed. I cut right though it's head, blood flying from it's body as it hit the ground. I gasped and winced as my left hand felt like it was on fire. The other shadow ponies flew at me. I ducked under one and stabbed the one behind it between the wings. The last pony circled around to kick me in the head. I took the hoof to the face and fell flat, dropping the sword. The last Shadowbolts landed in front of me. “Time to die little prince.” I reached out to the sword and in reappered in my hand. I slashed the sword and cut into the Shadowbolts brain. She fell dead.
“Well, well. Quite the little fighter you are.” I looked up at the shadow that I had seen coming here. It walked up closer. “Enjoy that last bit of time you have here because soon, soon you will be mine.” It disappered. The sword left my hand as I said. “Happy birthday to me..”
Back at the house, I was sitting in the living room when my hand felt like it was BURNING. “AHHHHH!!” I yelled. Looking at my hand, I saw that it was glowing. My family backed off from me(understandable). I heard a voice in my head saying, “Look in the box.” Reaching in the box that had the hilt, I pulled out a necklace that had a unicorn horn. I put it on. The horn glowed and then stopped glowing. Suddenly my back started to hurt. I screamed as two beautiful dark blue wings came out of my back. Then, all of the pain stopped. I looked at my left hand and saw something like tattoos. There was a purple sparkle thing, a cloud with a rainbow lighting bolt, balloons, butterfly's, apples, and gems. “The Mane 6.” I thought. I looked at my family. “Can we have my cake now?”
This looks badass TRACKED
Let's Review: The Legend of Starlight!
Well, this story gives me bad vibes right off the bat, with a brony getting turned into an alicorn OC... Do you know how tired that particular plot is? So very tired indeed. Ew, short chapters. This entire story is only 6k words... hold onto your butts guys, this is gonna get rushed. I was going to do a chapter by chapter thing, as is my wont, but there wouldn't be enough material with 700 word chappies.
...I think you mean 'Epilogue'. Alright, enough rambling about the description page, let's get onto chapter 1.
You actually manage to make your prose quite readable, and you're better than a lot of HiE writers at using the first person. Too bad the plot of this introduction makes me cringe. You decided to open the fic bemoaning the difficulties of life as a teenage brony. So far, so stock. Then you tell us you were an orphan, delivered at a doorstep with a note that screams 'chosen one/child of prophecy'... I mean, who does that? It's borderline illegal, if not criminally negligent. If the kid's abused, there is no record of them living at that house. They just disappear, pretty much. No adoption papers, nada. Looks like Star just dodged a bullet, because Harry Potter took it for him. Skipped childhood... meh, I didn't want to hear about the time he got picked on in year three for having a hippie name like Star, anyway.
Skipping ahead, he gets a mystical package, with a sword in it. The sword disappears in his hand, and his reaction is a flat 'weird.'... sorry, what? People don't react to blatant violations of physics like that. It subverts a person's core assumptions about the nature of reality, like 'objects don't just disappear'. Those kinds of things tend to provoke quite fierce mental anguish, really, leading to things like the Kubler-Ross cycle of grief... or just plain fear. A lot of aspects of the horror genre work by undermining peoples' expectations as to how reality works, particularly cosmic horror and surreal horror. So no, this reaction made me throw up in my mouth a little, sorry. It's these kind of reactions to obvious magic that I find make the HiE genre a slog at times. It undermines the depth of your character, really, if they don't behave like a human being, if they are meant to be human.
Ah, shadowbolts. Well, it's not the absolute worst fight scene involving shadowbolts that I've reviewed this month, so count yourself lucky. Start a new line whenever the speaker changes! The preamble to the fight is pretty stock, with generic 'I'm just testing you' dialogue from the 'bolts, and semi-realistic 'wtf' responses from Star. Who the fuck follows an anonymous note out into the freaking woods? Well, this kid has no common sense, at all. His reaction to real life talking horses is underwhelming, as expected. Fight scene ensues, and it's actually reasonably well done. The thing that irks me is that he has no previous experience with a sword, and thus would be completely unused to the weight of a sharp hunk of metal. Basically, I could probably expect sloppy strikes, if not spastic flailing from this guy. I guess it's just an improbably sharp sword. No remorse, either, or horror at getting splattered with blood and chopped up brains. This guy is a robot, I suspect.
And then we have a jump cut back to Star at home. Doc Brown called... he wants to use your story's pacing to make a new Delorian. I mean honestly, did you give any thought to the drama of the previous scene? Obviously not, because it's just gone. Poof. Going from hack and slash to 'I was sitting in my living room' with nary a sentence between? That's just bad storytelling, sorry. There should be followup to that fight, as trite as it was, like humanising reactions for your OC. Nope, still flat as hell, despite the circumstances. He's probably a cylon in disguise, in fact... those things are insidious.
And then you have a random (and blatantly magical) glowing hand at the dinner table. Your family has a semi-realistic response (backing away from the scary glowing monkey), but you? Nope, pain is no obstacle to the plot! I must forge onwards, and follow the voices in my head without question! Sparkly necklace of speshulness with a unicorn horn on it... ... ... WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU DO THAT. Then he put it on. His hand was still on fire, but because he was a robot, it merely scorched is blocky metal frame. The robot then grew wings. It was exciting and unexpected. His utterly flat response to a spontaneous tattoo is pretty much expected at this point, but growing wings? Come on. This isn't comedy, it's dreck. That line about the cake, which might make a fleshed out protagonist quirky and pretty much indomitable, is annoying and flat.
You need to show more, basically, in order for your protagonist's thoughts and comments to become a consistent personality. You summarised too much for this to feel at all realistic. This chapter basically took my willing suspension of disbelief and beat it with a tire iron, because you rushed through character development, and didn't really extend it enough to show realistic responses to weird crap. You know, mentally scarring weird crap, like dealing with the fact you just brained a talking horse with a magical disappearing sword. OR GROWING FUCKING WINGS! Just... make him an actual character here, and make us like him, rather than this robot who seems so far to exist only to fulfill some sort of prophecy and turn into a pony. Basically, a character made entirely of 'k3wl shit' with no substance at all. Will be back for later chapters, so please hold.
Kind of rushed, but still enjoyable STACHE!
Very rushed; I felt that the fast-forward button was stuck the entire time I was reading this.