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]]> 132186 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/32807.html#132186

Sorry if you were hoping to see how the big brawl played out, but I had to get to set this scene up. Unfortunately, it got too long to fit comfortably in one chapter, so the real meat will be in the next one. I'm cautiously optimistic about getting back into a writing groove, so it hopefully won't take as long as this one did.

]]> 132184 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/128883.html#132184 >>132182
I finished your suggested corrections, including the ones I missed before, and I took you up on refreshing Sunset's motivations at the beginning of chapter one. It was a good idea and it really set up her being bullied and not fighting back.

]]> 132183 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/128883.html#132183 >>132182
Last chapter here

https://www.fimfiction.net/chapter/737123
code ab.

]]> 132182 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/128883.html#132182
>Looking back on it I guess that was the point, ponies that naturally embodied the Elements without trying; all those years studying and training and I never even could have embodied an element.//
Comma after "looking back on it" to set off the participial phrase. And your first comma would work better as a colon or dash, I think.

>I knew, I knew,
Keep in mind that she's writing a journal here. How do you handwrite italics? When emphasizing something in handwriting, you'd naturally make it darker (use bold font) or underline it.

>Celestial//
Typo.

>I'm getting off topic now.//
Missing a line break her.

>Once I did//
>when they appeared//
>It makes me want to smile//
>Before I even went back to Equestria to steal the crown//
Comma after this.

>let’s add more item//
Typo.

>Those memories I have, they make those choice tantalizing//
You originally had "Those memories I have make those choice tantalizing," which I marked as having a typo, but you added "then." The typo was "those choice." You're mixing singular and plural.

While the prologue does rehash a lot of the movie plot, it also gets at Sunset's emotional motivation for a lot of what's going to happen, so if a reader skips the prologue, he's missing out on that, and what you did with that was pretty strong. Normally, I hate repetition, but you might consider touching on it again a little in chapter 1 just to bring those readers up to speed.

>after the thugs had run rampant//
Besides being an awfully formal phrasing, I'm surprised she cals them "thugs" here, since it's much later in the story before she feels like she didn't deserve this.

>, (a jog for her)//
Move that comma after the parenthetical element.

>shyed//
shied

>out of fear//
Cut this. It's tell and already apparent.

>runners high//
Missing apostrophe.

>and she was right next to me//
Extraneous space in there.

>I wasn’t sure if that was a smart idea//
>I’m thinking about asking for a tour of her farm sometime//
>If I did go back//
>At first I was stunned that someone actually cared enough to help//
>It took a moment//
>but those thoughts passed//
>I was pretty out of it//
Comma after this.

>Then she’d turn to Applejack and said//
I pointed this out last time. The verb forms need to be the same. Make it "turned."

>on it’s own//
I pointed this out last time, too. Its/it's confusion.

>we were suppose to//
And I pointed this one out last time, too. "supposed"

>half heartedly//
halfheartedly

>Dairy//
Do a search in all chapters for this spelling to make sure you've gotten them all.

>confused though//
thought

>I think I keep trying//
kept

>- she’s the element of loyalty after all -//
Use proper dashes here, not hyphens. Either em dashes with no surrounding spaces (Alt+0151) or en dashes surrounded by spaces (Alt+0150).

>then maybe they will feel better as well//
You already gave extra emphasis to "maybe" earlier in the sentence. I'd cut this one.

>It caught me off guard//
>I hadn’t been out to Applejack’s before//
Comma after this.

>it’s tail//
I pointed this out last time. Its/it's confusion. As you have it, it would expand out to "it is tail." You do the same thing again later in the paragraph.

>Better safe then sorry.//
And I pointed this out too. You confused "then" for "than."

>fifteen minute//
Needs a hyphen.

>friends and family of the Apple Family//
Another one I marked last time. Repetitive use of "family." Just say "friends and family of the Apples."

>farm fresh//
And another one I listed before. Needs a hyphen.

We had talked a bit about what you planned for the last chapter. I think that might be something pretty tricky to pull off, and since there's only one more to go anyway, I'd also like to have a go at making an editing sweep on it like I've done for the rest. So for bookkeeping purposes, I'll call this a Mars (so mark it as such when you resubmit), but really, it's closer to being in a holding pattern until you've finished the last chapter. Any idea when that might be done?

]]> 132181 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/131375.html#132181 >>132179

Oh, herp derp, thought I did that already :/

There, now people should be able to comment on it.

]]> 132179 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/131375.html#132179 >>132177
Hi, just a tip: it would be helpful to reviewers if comments were enabled in googledocs, so that any issues with the text can be highlighted directly.

Last edited at Wed, Apr 15th, 2015 20:47


]]> 132178 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/132176.html#132178
]]> 132177 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/131375.html#132177
Title: Fallout: Equestria - Spectrum

Description: A cowardly pegasus civilian finds himself thrown into the horrors of the Equestrian Wateland.

Tags: Gore, Dark, Crossover, Adventure

Links: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sbgj05JfKQNZ4v5Lfc5iT4PHcQlHb9R8qP2o-_wG6vY/edit?usp=sharing (That should take you to the Table of Contents page, the story itself is linked from there. I've only got a Prologue and 2 Chapters thus far.)

]]> 132176 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/132176.html

#Collection #Random #scary twisted

the dark sounds came through the night as the mane six head to their beds to sleep. when twilight went to bed, a mysterious mare sneeked into the castle, and stole a ball of dark energy. in the morning, twilight got up from her bed.

" good morning spike: she said streching her legs.
"twilght, have you notice something weird about ponyville lately"
when twilight looked out the window, she say that ponyville was turned into a dark twisted verson of itself.

to be continued.

]]> 132175 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/103290.html#132175

>>132174

Before we get down to business, let me first say welcome to Ponychan; grab your imaginary muffin, pull up a leather recliner, and enjoy the reading. It isn't often we have non-fans here (I will admit to full assumption here. Do feel free to correct me if I am mistaken), so I am admittedly curious as to why you are here and why you even care.

Has him using the image negatively impacted your business? Has he smeared your name amongst all equine-based artists, turning you into a laughing stock no-one can take seriously?

This line of questioning comes about because, I am assuming (again, correct me if I am mistaken) you must have googled your own name or someone you know has googled your name and cared enough to notice the few MLP based images scattered amongst all the others. Which, to be fair, considering you draw horses for a living, seems should be expected given the current state of the internet right now with us low-brows cluttering up everywhere with the stuff. We even crowd into non-horse related material. We are truly a plague society has not dreamed possible since the Bubonic era.

So, if only to satiate my boredom and admitted curiosity, might I ask why you felt compelled to warn someone who makes no money from your work and, indeed, without whom I would have never even known of your existence, against using your drawing of a horse-skull to make what may be nothing more than a temporary thumbnail to a fictional story that will possibly see no more than a few thousand readers at absolute most?

Sincerely,
WB, one of many low-brow schmucks on the internet.

P.S. I'm sort of glad you showed up because now it allows me to ask a question of the board that's been eating at me forever.

Should I be dreading some inevitable call from Warner Brothers? I admit that'd be kind of interesting to see, though god-forbid we go to court over it. I do not think the world is ready for that degree of comedy.

]]> 132174 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/103290.html#132174 >>104671
Well, hello there. This is Ingrid Kostron, the person who created the image your using to advertise your work on google docs. Please be advised that the image is copyright, I own it and you are using it without permission.

]]> 132173 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/132172.html#132173

Why so insecure? The point of posting anon is so you can say what you think without having to worry about how you sound to others.

For me, the open-world creativity was also a huge part of the appeal in the beginning. The indeterminacy, the feeling of anything being possible, it was exhilarating. Now there is a lot of canon and if you want to adhere to all of it, it can feel constraining.

To me, George Pollack's Tales remains one of the best fanworks. Some say it has aged badly. I disagree. The wild divergence from canon is a feature, not a bug.

In general I'd have to say that I prefer stories which piss in the face of canon--and more importantly, fanon--and do their own thing uncompromisingly. While such works are usually not remotely plausible within the world of canon, they are more free to have integrity in the sense of being a unified whole. They are free to do what the logic of the story itself dictates should be done, rather than merely following an approved set of tropes and pre-existing ideas that have grown hoary with age.

Many people use OCs for such projects, but OCs don't have the same impact. The key, in my opinion, is to look at the characters of the show more as archetypes than as fully fleshed-out characters. The canon represents merely one set of possibilities for these archetypes to realize, and tells one set of stories that could possibly be told using them. The same goes for the universe, Equestria. It is the world of possibilities, a Dream Land. Equestria is every bit as compelling a setting as Middle-earth. Everything you need to know about Equestria to write about it, you can learn from watching the first two minutes of the pilot episode. What's essential about it is not its exact geography, not that it exists here or there or has these boundaries; what's essential about it is what it means.

I would personally like to see more inventive stories that explore the possibilities for this world and these character archetypes in ways that haven't been explored before. If that means contradicting canon, so much the better.

And maybe I'm too optimistic, but I'm confident that if you give people a good story that contradicts canon, they'll forgive the novelties as long as you can keep them entertained.

]]> 132172 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/132172.html

#Discussion

The following thread is a composition of my ramblings and thoughts on the title subject matter. Subject may drift and deviate from off course into incoherent ramblings, in which case feel free to disregard and mock with no restraint. Thread itself is an exercise of burning off steam in a temporary manner in hopes of earning sympathetic commentary, if there is indeed any to be had.

Pretentious dialogue is inevitable, as such it is advise to the sane readers here to avoid this thread outright entirely if they are not looking forward to perpetuate what will probably end up as a flame thread of little to no value. Expect OP angst in some major form or another. (In this case, prepare your best forum weapons to mock as such accordingly.)

Logical fallacies probably present in some form. Proceed to destroy such items accordingly as you see fit.



-------

As an individual who has been invested with the show and fandom itself since roughly around the Season 1 mid-late game of March-April, I have bore witness to countless fanfiction produced by fan-writers. Within many of the fics were countless worlds and the possibilities, each author having their own mythos woven into the basic fabric that left much open to interpretation. For a person such as myself, the world for this fandom was wondrous and most tantalizing. Never had I seen such a crushing force of creativity given form from a fandom that was so young yet vibrant. I suppose you could say I was enthralled by the sheer scale of possibilities the show's lore allowed for back then.

Perhaps even giddy to some degree.

The devotion that went into some of such work was alluring, a bait that could not be ignored, even if I were to know what was to come afterwards. By Sturgeon's Law, there was certainly an abundance of badfics to be had, but they were compensated by the various branching paths that writers took with their own thoughts and imaginations. Fanon and head canon alike seem to grow into their own niches, or in some cases, became something familiar fandom wide. Background characters and support characters took the spotlight here for me simply because their status meant that one could fill in a varied matter of backstories, histories, and personalities, with each iteration mixing and meshing with the creations from other fan writers to create new molds to work off from. Lore of unexpected origins for Equestria itself was abundant back then.


This along with other fan content is one of the main reasons why I have stuck around with the fandom for so long. Or at least, was one of them.

As time would have it however, most if not all of the original fan created content from way back when has either faded into obscurity or was altered to conform to the show's expanding canon content. These days I find myself repulsed to any attempts to even bother trying to come up with some new fangled interpretation or what not, simply for the sheer fact that it won't last against the canon status of the show, inevitably being buried or conforming to whatever changes the show throws out, regardless of whatever a fan creator's original plan and divergence from there would have been.

Over the years, seasons have come and gone, leaving me feeling like a bitter hag who has been rendered obsolete with time, unable to accept things as they are and move on from the past, away from the now irrelevant material that was once held in regard in one way or another. My enthusiasm for customized content from fan creators has waned to where I sometimes find myself actively discouraging such efforts in hope that others could avoid a similar fate, wasting precious time building something that will face obsolescence within a year's time.


What's the point? If one's fan lore (Plus character interpretations, maps, personalities, plot items and interest, past histories and so forth.) is always having to adjust to canon so as to be deemed as acceptable material that isn't considered outright disrespecting the show itself, then there is little point in putting effort into such projects until the end of the show itself. Hell, even with the excuse of the AU tag, you are still expected to conform to some degree regardless, at least that is my personal perception of how it feels on an individual level. (Your mileage will vary.)

Yet even still, I cannot find it in myself to withdraw from these elements of the fandom. Still I stick around in the vain hope of rekindling forgotten past histories and creations. Or rather, out of nostalgia and memory for such things. One would not be at fault to think such behavior and mulling as both pathetic and reprehensible. Is that not the norm to think as such? How is such behavior any different from the Twilicorn incident? It isn't, naught but a fool's stupidity to lull themselves into becoming attached to such elements of the fandom before thinking about the consequence of such actions.

To this end it has occurred to me that the creation of such material is nothing but damaging in the long run, or at least that appears to be one such possibility, much as it may depress me to even comprehend as such.

It is readily agreed upon that anyone who tries to preserve past obsolete fanon/head canon elements or use them is nothing short of arrogant. (Or at least, that is what I have been able to glean over my time in this fandom with my experiences.) Some regulars of the fandom regard even the concept with nothing but utter contempt, as in their eyes such content defiles the very show and fandom itself as something akin to fandom heresy. (Again, personal perception here.)

Even fan creators I have seen will readily retrofit, renovate, and/or alter their own content more often than not to suit the current show as it is. Assuming they do not alter their past content, then their future ones will most certainly will incorporate canon elements of the current present, regardless of what the original projection of such creations could have been, all conforming to one single canonized timeline in some form or another. (May be another personal perception, if only some of it.) Rarely do I see fan creators ever stick to their own guns as it were in direct defiance/deviance from the show itself to branch off and do their own thing. Even then, it isn't done full heartedly.

Even small things such as names and eye color can irk me, perplexing as the notion will be to some. I.E: Sweetie Drops instead of Bon Bon, Octavia "Melody" instead of Van Clef, Philiharmonica, Sonata, Harmonious, and what have you, gone the varied interpretations and past that could have come with them.

A common magenta eyed Vinyl instead of the exotic fanon red or even other obscure colors, the symbolism held with such things no longer relevant and now worthless.

(The following will make use of extreme hyperboles, metaphors, exaggerations, and the like to get a point, if there is any, across. Simply put, a personification of my experiences and subjective perceptions. Will likely fail in any case.)

Past histories and personalities? Ha! As if background characters have any canon ones to display. You are not being original if you use fanon elements, you are naught but a pretentious fool that willing partakes in falsehoods and tales where none such things exist. I presume that the 100th episode will rectify this once and for all, and once that happens I do expect at least a small purge of obsolete elements. (Bitterness here much? Indeed.)

D'aaaaw, the little crier wails in wangst because Twilight now has a canon love interest. He is most upset that his "waifu" now belongs to a proper canon character. (Or rather, cannot be shipped with other characters and the like without taking a considerable hit to one's reputation as a writer. This paragraph is personifying small elements to display personal perception and what not. Feel free to mock this section in particular.)

You idiot! Twilight Sparkle already HAS a brother in canon. Get your bloody facts straight and correct this grave error at once! (If not using AU tag.)

The Princesses are not "goddesses" you damned fool. There is no such thing as the silly "New Lunar Republic, Solar Empire, Celestial Tyrants, rebel freedom fighters" and what not as canon has not shown as such. Such elements are these days considered blatant disregard for show canon, their users if any deemed less than reputable among some individuals in the fandom. (That or indifference.)

Either include the Hearth Warming Eve as an element of Equestria's past, or be stoned by the projectiles of a thousand boulders!

-------------------------------------------
After this I assume you have an idea of my personal perceptions and experiences that have been had throughout my time in this fandom. Or failing that, have demonstrated in a spectacular manner of just how crazed and dumb that I am as a person. In any case, I needed to vent as a way to deal with personal anxieties and worries, as the background character episode will no doubt create, much to the delight for the rest of the fandom in that they are finally getting something solid for all to use with no room for argument, and to bludgeon those fools (Me included.) who insist on making wasteful use of fallible fanon content.

And with that ends this waste of thought matter and use of brains.

If nothing else, it shall at least provide an exercise to demonstrate how to deal with fools of the fandom in the follow up comments to this "article".

This thread was brought to you by the senile Anon who does not happen to know any better.
Good hunting then.

]]> 132170 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/fic/res/128883.html#132170
>Ebony hooves echoed off the marble floor as a young white Pegasus fled along yet another corridor, moonlight streaming through the stained glass windows. Her pursuers kept pace, their constant orders for her to halt still within earshot.//
Let's start with the first paragraph, appropriately. Both sentences have an absolute phrase on the end, which immediately creates a repetitive structure. Also note that the "moonlight streaming" gives a still and peaceful scene that feels out of place with the action going on around it. Also notice how you repeat "halt" very soon after in the next paragraph.

>heir horns shined brightly//
"Shined" is the transitive past tense, like what you do to shoes or brass. You want "shone."

>The mare stiffened, then simply smirked. “Now, that won’t do at all, I’m afraid. You see—”
>
>Her form ignited with a burst of emerald flame, shattering the shield.
>
>“—I already have a date with royalty.”//
You don't need to put those in separate paragraphs. Here's how to put a narrative aside in a quote (note the pattern of capitalization and punctuation):
The mare stiffened, then simply smirked. “Now, that won’t do at all, I’m afraid. You see—” her form ignited with a burst of emerald flame, shattering the shield “—I already have a date with royalty.”

>The stallion hung his head, his ears flat against his head.//
Watch the repetition.

>The stallion saluted and departed, leaving Celestia alone in the room. She sighed, dropping her royal facade as she wandered from her throne to a window. The moon caught her attention, shining gently as ever like nothing of concern had even happened.//
You have a participial phrase in every sentence here. That structural repetition gets into a rut. There are attendant problems with participle use that you'll probably run into just by using so many. It's probably worth scanning through your story for them to make sure you're not using a whole lot overall or locally in clumps like this.

One issue is that they can be misplaced modifiers. Take your last one here. Participles like to modify the nearest prior object, so "shining gently" would tend to modify "attention." Now, we can apply a little logic and figure out what you meant, but if there'd been another potentially shiny object there in the sentence, it could be ambiguous or misleading.

I'm not going to point out any more participles unless they are one of the other problematic types I alluded to. Other than that, just suffice it to say you could stand to reduce the number of them overall and even out their distribution. While they're nice for flavor, authors who are just starting to gain some experience often rely on them too much, to the point that they get overloaded with them.

Likewise, if you add in the last sentence of this paragraph, there are two "as" clauses, which are similarly overused by many authors.

>Even after fleeing Canterlot, the Changeling’s wings buzzed like her life depended on it.//
Speak of the devil. Here's another problem participles can cause if you aren't careful. It's a special case of a misplaced modifier calling a dangling participle. "Even after fleeing Canterlot" is supposed to describe Chrysalis, but she doesn't appear in the clause. It describes her wings, and while they've technically fled Canterlot as well, it's just weird to say it that way, and I'm sure it's not what you intended anyway.

>Sync stared back at him, affronted//
Okay, you've been good about show versus tell so far, so I've let a few inconsequential ones go, but this is a pretty big emotional point of the story, so I'd rather have you make her look and act affronted than just tell me she is.

>She shuddered as she recalled the withered old stallion that kept the library in order.//
You've kept to Sync's perspective since the scene began. Why skip over to her now? Is it really necessary? Just having her shudder still gets the mood across, and since that's something Sync can see, the perspective would still rest with him. There can be good reasons to shift perspective, but it has to be carefully considered.

>At first elated//
You were doing so well before, but another blatant telly spot where it really doesn't work.

>remaining energy I have left//
Redundant.

>making Sync even more indignant towards her two friends//
Stahp. And while you're stahping, have a look at the section on "show versus tell" at the top of this thread. It gives some more detail about what warning signs to look for.

>changelings//
You'd been capitalizing that. Be consistent.

>the chariot he was in//
That's a clunky phrasing.

>hiding?//
You'll normally italicize a question mark or exclamation mark that's on an italicized word.

>‘ling//
Smart quotes always get leading apostrophes backward. You can type two and erase the first, or you can paste one in from somewhere else.

>Spurred on by the gesture, Chrysalis let out a shout as the light consumed everything...//
This is the fourth sentence with an "as" clause in just the last two paragraphs (not counting the short thought one).

>his horn shined brightly//
"Shone" again, but notice that it's the exact phrasing you used from the last time I pointed this out.

>the stones he stood next to//
Another awkward phrasing. How is this any better than "the stones next to him"?

>They split into a two-by-two formation, cautiously entering the tunnel.//
And there's the trifecta of participles. They imply simultaneous action, so you have them entering the tunnel at the same time they split into formations, while it's more reasonable for them to do those actions one after the other.

>changeling//
You should just Ctrl-f for these and make sure you use consistent capitalization.

>rubbed the bridge of his nose//
I get that authors want to use human mannerisms, but horses don't even have such a thing, and if pones did, it'd be way down on their muzzles, not between their eyes. If the latter's what you want, then just say that.

>An empty wasteland of nothing that seemed to stretch forever and it was all her fault.//
Needs a comma between the clauses, and based on the way you're formatting this, it needs a line break as well.

>just, save them//
Commas aren't for dramatic pauses. There's no grammatical reason to have one there.

>“... ake… up...”//
Don't leave a space after a leading ellipsis. And note that some of your ellipses are a single character while others are three separate dots. Just do a search and replace of one for the other so they're all the same.

>Chrysalis’//
I realize that it's become acceptable to use this form now, while the traditional one would be "Chrysalis’s." But you used this version earlier in the story, so be consistent.

>cosy cave//
Extraneous space.

>He just hoped his shell would remain in one piece.//
Why are you hopping over to his perspective?

>She withdrew at the sight of her quivering charge, and sighed.//
That's all one clause. No need for the comma.

>Though it was just a pile of moss, it was strangely comfortable.//
Here, you're in Chrysalis's perspective, and...
>He quickly glanced around to see if anyling was nearby before leaning closer.//
here, you're in Scribe's. Then back to Chrysalis:
>Chrysalis sighed as she closed her eyes; her eyelids felt so very heavy.//
It's not necessary to be hopping around like this.

> the youngling tumbled through the air, landing on the soft grass and rolling, finally stopping at the biped’s feet as dislodged leaves floated down around her.//
Another case of participles synchronizing actions that shouldn't be.

>her eyes shining and her legs covering her head//
How does her know it's a female? Even Sync didn't seem to know, as she used "their" instead of "her" earlier.

>Scratching his head, Adrien reached again for his belt.//
More synchronization problems.

>she let out an audible sigh of relief//
Since you're using a limited narrator, there's no need to be so blunt about this.

>they hurried along the passage, to discover the rest of the hive either cringing and backing away, or running around yelping//
Neither of those commas is needed.

>M-m-majesssty//
Since the word has to be capitalized anyway, do so in every instance of the first letter.

>T-that’s//
Consider what sound would actually be repeated. Certainly not just the "t."

>changeish//
A language would be capitalized.

>looking perplexed//
Show me what that looks like.

I like what I see here. Really, there's not that much to fix up, so I don't think it should be hard. I suspect that has as much to do with your editor as much as anything else. Whatever it takes, if you can keep that quality up for the rest of the story, I think it could have a home on the blog. When you're ready to resubmit, please choose the "back from Mars" option.

Last edited at Fri, Apr 10th, 2015 20:02


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