I'm your friendly neighborhood riffer. Except when I'm not. I also write pony words and review them. I hope to serve.
Ever wondered if Princess Celesta and Princess Luna were the only two rulers of Equestria? Turns out, they had a little brother. This is only the beginning of Starlight's adventures as he finds his way to Equestria and his true destiny.
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The idea is sound. I feel that the story was rushed. This story could be so much more. Your OC human feels too acepting of what is happening to him. If it were me, I would be freaking out.
1248007 I realized that I rushed it also. Thanks for making that clearer though. Being my first story I kinda let my ideas expload out of me. Also, about him being accepting, he's in a state of shock still. That will come into more detail later on.
Not bad. Definitely slow the pace down, though. Fill in the thoughts a little more. Detail is your friend.
Also, I'd get rid of any statements in parentheses. They're not a good way to convey your thoughts.
It has potential. Give it a bit of polish and it might shine.
This looks badass TRACKED
1250329 Thanks a lot. Next book's on it's way!
1248584 Rewrites fix everything!
Let's Review: The Legend of Starlight!
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.
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...
...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.
1330341 Let me just thank you now for that. I knew I had rushed it, but I never saw how bad it was. Personally, I've been playing with a total re-write but I wasn't sure. That will probably change. Will look forward to your thoughts of the other chapters.
1330472
Thanks for taking that so well. I was worried it would come across as abusive, but that part with the horn pendant made me quite irate. Kudos to you for bothering to wade through that miniature essay, a lot of authors don't
1330563 I rather enjoyed it. Shows that you know what you're doing. I re-read that part and cringed myself.
Anyway, I'll just wait for the next one.
Let's Review: The Legend of Starlight! Pt 2: Electric Boogaloo
Onwards we ride dear children, through the fire and the OH GOD MARTY STU! Going into this chapter, you summarise the events of you turning into an 'alicorn'. And of your family's acceptance. Yes, you summarised a scene needs to be protracted and heavily emotional in order to make any sense whatsoever. Why? So we can dispense with all of that silly 'character development' and 'deep and engaging story' to get on with the plot of course! Regarding alicorns...
techredible.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/You-keep-using-that-word1-300x252.jpg
Alicorns are creatures like Celestia, ponies with both pegasus and unicorn magic, implied to be immortal, yadda yadda. This human with wings and spontaneous tattoo does not an alicorn make.
The plot of this... I don't want to sound too harsh, but this needs a complete rewrite. I can say that much, and I'm barely through the second fucking chapter, sorry. You have wings and a magical sword, and all we have for character interaction is 'They stood by me and did everything they could to help me.'... This is, again, poor story telling. You should show the events that lead up to them accepting him. His reaction to growing wings should not have been 'can I have more cake?', because that is, in the immortal words of my friend Chris, FUCKING RETARDED. I'm probably beginning to sound like a broken record on this whole realistic reactions thing, but I'm still having difficulty wrapping my brain around the sheer volume of abject failure in the previous chapter. A trend which continues, I'm afraid to say. You write reasonably good prose, although it's flagging in this chapter. But the subject matter... dear god. A brony who becomes an Alicorn, with a super special awesome sword and can turn into Rainbow Dash? Are you familiar with the terms 'wish fulfillment' and 'Gary Stu'?
Yes, dear readers, you heard me correct. He turns into a sparkly human version of Rainbow Dash. And it is implied he can turn into the others, by yelling their names. I honestly don't know what to say to that. It is somehow even more egregiously Gary Stuish than that Alicorn OC of rawhavocs that could turn into a jet fighter, of all things. Let's just leave it at that.
Enter Karen. She already knows about your transformation, and has accepted you, thereby removing any possible emotional conflict from this piece. This is another thing you should have shown. You know, you've just gone through a horribly painful transformation, barely managed to win over your family, gained awesome magical powers, and then it hits you. "How the hell do I live my old life like this?" Because you are now stuck with wings. If you're discovered, you'll probably become a modern day freak-show. How do you hide something so obvious? Who can you trust to know? Oh, right, Karen's pretty cool, she'd be fine with your enormous wings, right? Now how to break it to her without her freaking out... The anxiety! Etc. That kinda thing would really make the whole idea of you growing wings go over much better, in my opinion. Real emotional conflict, first with your family, then with your friends, because those are the kind of things you would realistically worry about if you were in some way magically altered.
But no, Karen is pretty much a passive love interest here, and completely accepting of your ability to turn into RD. I will likely refer to her as Love Interest from now on, because she's not very interesting, and may in fact be a body pillow in heavy disguise. So, you chat a little, and then suddenly Big Mac. Only evil, and spouting the same pseudo-prophetic stuff the others did. Cue dull surprise from the rest of the people in the room. If ponies were accepted to be real in this setting, then I could expect this kind of reaction to a pony teleporting in... but here? See my complaints about realistic reactions to weird crap. Teleporting ponies definitely count. And then he attacks in possibly the least threatening manner possible, by kicking soft, pliable dodgeballs at people. So you kill him, revealing your deformities (not to mention magic) in the process, rather doing the sensible thing and running away, because he's a horse and thus too large to fit through single width doorways. It's not like Love interest was in much danger there, since Mac was mainly going for you, so why not run away and fight on your terms (i.e. when he's stuck in a doorway
)?
I laughed my ass off at 'and then the house exploded', but probably not for the reasons you intended. It seems like the fic takes a jaunt into the pseudo-elemental plane of Crazy for the end of this chapter, really. Nightmare Moon blew up your house. Why? Because you need to get to Equestria and thwart her, damn it! She's starting to feel lonely and unloved without a faceless block of muscle to leer at while she makes her evil villain speeches. She's had to make do with pastel coloured (not to mention entirely female) pony protagonists for too long, you see. You have a heroic blue-screen-of-death, which is a somewhat realistic reaction to the death of your family, and ascend to Super Sayan mode... wait for it... by yelling 'Mane 6!'. Yeah.
Hurk.
The universe accidentally an entire black hole beneath you, while you are fighting NM. I hope there is a scene later where you are forced to explain to an irate Celestia why she has to spend several hundred years clearing the rubble of the pulverised Earth off the surface of Equestria. I likely hope in vain. As for the fight itself, it seems to involve you and NM flying around WW1 dogfight style going 'pew pew' at each other with your magical powers, before finally deciding to settle the score with FREAKIN' LASER BEAMS. Meh, seen worse, but the pew pew section is underwhelming, and the laser beams section feels like you cribbed it from god knows how many other stories that use that trope, like Harry Potter for example.
Well, as we wrap this chappy up, Star is finally in Equestria, after all of 1500 words of buildup. He forgets how to fly, because the plot demands, or possibly because realism is finally catching up with him and he now has less than a week's worth of experience in using his wings. The latter explanation makes more sense, imo, because humans are not a species naturally adapted to flight, and thus learning how to do so effectively would likely take several months of hard practice. Anyway, chapter three beckons, ciao.
Yeaaaaaaah, First two chapters I admit were HORRIBLE. I do explain the whole "transforming" thing and the alicorn part, but other then that you were spot on. Lord, this is gonna be painful.
1330737 I really hope you know that "Karen" Was based off of me and had NOTHING to do with love. It was friendship. javascript:smilie('
'); And, I'm the co-author of this and all of your laughing kinda offends me javascript:smilie('
');. We're going to fix the book shortly. Sorry for the mess up. javascript:smilie('
'); But thanks for the honesty.
1330737 Oh and ehh... This isn't supposed to be realistic. Sorry if I annoy you. Just pointing that out. javascript:smilie('
');
1332785
I'm laughing because this story basically became an exercise in absurdity, once NM showed up. It's also a learning process, because basing characters off of yourself is generally a recipe for disaster. That's because you are tempted to make them powerful, and are loathe to see them suffer, because that would be like wishing suffering upon yourself. It also makes you feel offended when someone criticises the character, as you were here. Karen seemed quite shallow, although again that was mainly due to the rushed nature of the piece. If we had seen more of her, she would appear to be more than a shallow love interest. I know you say it isn't anything to do with love, but given what we are shown in chapter two, that is pretty much the most likely conclusion. No offense to you, as the co author, but the character based on you is shallow and one-dimensional, and you probably should have fixed that if you wanted to look better, just saying.
1332798
Edit: Regarding realism... the main reason for mentioning that at all is that without some form of realism to this, it loses any sense of drama. Things can happen for no reason at all. It's not funny, it's inane, because things don't follow the general pattern of comedic timing, etc (Really, I only laughed once while reading this, and that was out of incredulity at 'then the house exploded'). It also doesn't follow action movie logic (rule of cool), because there is too much absurdity to keep the drama and 'acting cool under extreme circumstances' to make it... badass, you know what I mean? It's just kind of there, devoid of drama, yet also not funny either, and thus isn't really good for anything except riffing. Any depth the characters might have at present either isn't shown, or is completely undermined by their reactions. Simply put, they don't behave like people, they behave like robots, Star in particular, because they don't react to the circumstances like real people. They don't really seem to think about anything, or react based on their personality. They're just a puppet for the authors, which makes them one-dimensional and boring.
1337830 The issue with Karen was I moved rather quickly past her because she's going to have a greater role in the upcoming books. (As you'll see in the second book, should you chose to review that as well." It fell under my rushing problem, so I didn't devolp her character as well as I should. That'll be fixed in the update. Also, about the love interest.....well I'll just let you figure out what happens there on your own.
Still, thanks for looking over my story.
Let's Review: The Legend of Starlight! Pt 3: Oh my god, he just ran in...
All right chums, let's do this!
i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/001/738/lolcats-funny-pictures-leroy-jenkins.jpg
...Ahem. Quite. As the picture will tell you, this chapter is rushed beyond all recognition. You need to take a new line for every time the speaking person changes, because I'm honestly not sure who is talking of the main cast here at any one time. So you wake up, and miraculously for you, the ponies have already heard about humans. That saves a lot of work on your part, at least. And all the main cast are here when you wake up, how quaint. Personally, it would be more interesting if it was just Twilight, or possibly even Spike, to wake you. Maybe with Twilight about to begin testing? That could be funny. This is just... bleh. It's not terrible, it just kinda happens. The ponies don't really say much, then Pinkie butts in, being the usual hyperactive ball of fuzz we know and love. Cue sudden blackout, to avoid having more than five seconds of introductory dialogue with the main cast.
<1 week later>
*Spews tea and German expletives* WHAT?! A WHOLE WEEK?! Why in the nine hells do I not remember any of that? Oh, apparently someone set me up on a date with Rainbow Dash... brilliant. Must be 'welcome to Equestria' customary hazing, I'm sure. Huh? Someone nerfed my powers? Bu-huh-wibber.... SUPER SAYAN! Come on, can I at least have that back?
You get the picture. You take the lazy option here, again, taking your character out of action so you can summarise (
*groan*) his actions for the week, thus removing any possible character interactions that might actually be interesting. The ponies seem awfully accepting of the alien in their midst, and he seems to be taking this remarkably well... for a robot. We're told rather than shown that his powers are decreased, and that you don't remember much. You know, things which might have some kind of emotional impact on Star... loss of identity, feelings of inadequacy... you even stripped him of possible familial angst by removing his memories of home. Just about anything that could give him some kind of depth has been almost surgically removed here.
No description of scenery, no description of what characters are doing at any given time... no description, ever, in fact. Just summarised actions and minimalistic dialogue crammed into the fic to attempt to slow the ridiculous pacing. You went from 'just arrived' to 'racing date with RD' in less than 500 words... by skipping a large portion of potentially interesting and character developing story, and then telling us what happened in a vastly less interesting manner. Star once again asserts his status as a minion of Skynet by showing none of the associated mental trauma consistent with massive retrograde amnesia. Not even talking brain damage here, I mean the associated loss of identity from not knowing who you are besides a name and how to use some of your magic. It's like you're writing a synopsis for another fic, one which actually goes into detail over what the characters do in the largely skipped areas, and shows how they interact and develop in interesting ways. Sorry love, I didn't come here to read the wiki entry on an interesting story, I came here to read an actual interesting story.
It's not even like you have a lack of material here. You have his arrival and the associated introductions, speculations, arguments and such. His settling in with Twilight, presumably, and how that works out. You have his ongoing retrograde amnesia, which would likely be a source of immense stress for him as he tries to remember who and what he is, with only ponies as a reference. You have the reactions of other ponies to the obvious alien, the reactions of the princesses to the obvious alien arriving in their realm, and his stress over being different from his 'peers'. There's the problems with remembering how his powers work, and Twilight's interference with that (you know she'd want to experiment with the alien's magic- potential for magical hilarity, if that's your thing). There's even this tension with Rainbow Dash, which you seem to be attempting to build. Not sure on that one. If it's romantic, sorry, you fail so far due to lack of actual character interaction. If it's just friendship, well, they feel like acquaintances due to the same, really. Pretty much all of your problems come down to poor pacing, and not knowing when to show information rather than tell it. Not that you should show all the time, but here... you need to show dramatic points, in order to make your story interesting. Show us how the residents of ponyville freak out, for example. Show us more of the main cast being supportive... well, I can see Fluttershy doing that, once she gets over her fear of the big alien thing... but RD and AJ? They'd be suspicious of it, methinks. Most importantly, show us what Star thinks, because the pacing has rendered him a faceless robot so far.
The last scene in Cloudsdale is pretty much standard at this point. Sudden jump cut to location, telling us it is 'BEAUTIFUL' but not actually bothering to describe anything, sudden jump to racing track. Awkward semi-in character dialogue from RD, counter with bland challenge from Star, and then suddenly RD pulls Fluttershy from her heiny to direct the race. Not even a 'hey Flutters, you mind giving us a count down from three?!', just suddenly there, then suddenly counting. No real description of the actual race, just little hints that Star may have a crush on RD and occasional actions of the racers. And then a challenger appears! Something swats our dear Gary Stu from the skies like an overgrown housefly. A wild mysterious thing appears (suddenly)! It somehow manages to be shadowy despite the midday sun in the middle of the sky, no mean feat in and of itself, heading towards our hero... the suspense at this cliffhanger is gripping
. Or it would be, if you hadn't rushed and had bothered to build dramatic tension. There are plenty of guides on the 'net on this kind of thing, for the record.
If you noticed my (sudden) overuse of the words 'sudden' and 'suddenly' in the last paragraph... well, that's because it sums this fic up quite well. Everything happens with little preamble and often seemingly at random. There is no description to mark the (sudden) appearances and disappearances of characters. When in doubt, they just turn up, I guess. As I said, at the root of almost all of the problems is the abominable pacing and lack of showing what is going on. It makes the fic at once confusing to read, and also not interesting in the slightest, because we don't see enough of the characters to build any emotional investment in them. They seem flat, because they aren't given enough screen time to develop a personality. We basically don't care about them, so their actions don't bother us. Part 4 coming soon. Not sure how much more I can write on this topic without repeating myself too much, to be honest.
Let's Review: The Legend of Starlight! Pt 4: Not Another Fight Scene
This is probably going to be shorter than the usual offering. Something tells me this chapter is going to be slim pickings.
Oh, look, Nightmare Moon. How unexpected. It's not like she just appears out of nowhere or anything, with startling regularity I might add. She always manages to make that 'join me' speech sound oh so tempting, as well. Ya know, at least Vader had the whole 'we shall rule the galaxy as father and son' thing going for him. She's not really offering anything. He might make a decent mook, actually... emotionless, faceless, robotic for clean and PG rated dismemberment, speshul powaz. Yup, he's got it all.
Rainbow delivers a midair backrub in time to save the day of course. I don't really know what to say to that, besides the fact that I laughed for half a minute straight at the words 'midair backrub'.
<-- So very much.
So Rainbow flies off to find the EoH, which totally doesn't take a day or so of searching a dingy ruin in the Everfree. Then again, this whole story seems quite sketchy on the overall timeline of the canon at the point where Star drops in. Maybe they've already found the elements? Then again, Luna is implied to be present at the end of the chapter, so who the hell is Nightmare Moon? Shreds of her power brought back into a pale mockery of her former self, ala Past Sins? Some other pony with a symbolic link to the moon, also corrupted by jealousy and hate? A shared hallucination? Luna, living a double life like a villainous version of batman? Hee, Woona plus bat-utility belt... fun times. Off topic now, sorry. Back to the underdeveloped fight scene.
It's less static than some fight scenes, but your descriptions are lacking. It feels like a child's description of a fight. I'm sorry to say that, really. The kind of 'and then she hit me, so I hit her' kind of description. The magic is pretty much used only to fire force at each other, or make swords, when we know pony magic is many times more versatile than that. Pretty much anything goes, yet the best you could come up with was 'I cast magic missile'?
Also, I don't know why, but 'sent flying' as a term for getting blasted into the air never sat right with me. It feels like a very childish and lackluster way to describe the effect of an equine getting hurled bodily by a blast of magic.
Twilight and the others manage to get the Elements and return in what is realistically between thirty seconds and a minute of fighting. Easy to do, if you're The Flash. They beat back NM, who makes overtones of 'I'll be back' at Star, and then the princesses arrive in the confusion, just in time for Star to dramatically pass out in front of them. He doesn't have any thoughts on the matter, of course... probably too busy receiving his orders from the borg hivemind.
1341893 Allow me to spoil this for you that will come up later. NM is supposed to be her own pony. She magically possessed Luna to overthrow Celesta, but that didn't work out and you know the rest.
We're already fixing them... So...... Just check when the update is
Theres a lot of people complaining about being "Rushed". I get that. We're fixing it. "Yay" 
So yeah. Check back soon. Please stop saying it's rushed everyone! *Kinda makes me upset.. 
We'll get to it soon. 
~BlueMoon98
1344628
Yo, do you want me to keep going? Twow443 asked me to take a look at this stuff, but if you guys are doing a rewrite then these comments are probably going to get wiped.
1355552 I explaned to her what you're doing and she understands now. Yeah, your comments probably will get wiped, but I'ma keep them at least untill I start and finish the rewrite. So feel free to continue.
Kind of rushed, but still enjoyable STACHE!
wow. I dont like how fast things get going in this story but its got great potential in it
1596525 Yeah, this was my first fic. Pacing was horrible then. I was gonna re-write it, but I decided to leave it as it is so I can learn from it.
Just so we're clear...
twow443...
You WROTE THIS?
1677887 Yes.
Yes I did.
1677953 FUCK. YOU.
1677958 Love you too buddy.
rushed once again.
1890773 I know. Read my other fics like Son of the Princess or Repairing Harmony. Those are MUCH better.
Short, sweet, and to the point, just how I like my fics.
1596568
... I don't know if anyone else noticed this, and I fully intend to read this later...
But it doesn't bode well when your epilogue is misspelled "Epilouge"...
Hello everyone! I did a riff of this story for Doctor and Ditzy Science Theater. I had a lot of fun riffing it. Thank you twow443 for letting me riff your story! I should have Book 2 of the Starlight saga riffed in about a month or so.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Epilogue
annnnnnd... I'm done.