/fan/ - Fanworks

>>2957
First off, not sure if you saw my earlier reply here:>>2939

>Re: Pound Cake and the honeycomb
They're a little distracting because there's no explanation for either. The reader's naturally going to assume thins are just like regular Equestria until it's explicitly said they aren't, so it's a natural question to ask where Pound Cake is when only Pumpkin was mentioned. Sure, the characters would have no clue who Pound Cake was either, so it wouldn't work to have them mention it. But just an offhand comment like calling Pumpkin their only child makes it explicitly clear. Same with the honeycomb. It's not that it's impossible for these characters, but a honeycomb isn't something you'd normally keep in a shed anyway, so it just confuses me as to why it's there.

>Re: Cup Cake's funeral
It's more that the chapter spends so much time with Apple Bloom, only to have her be pretty irrelevant to the story. You sure set her up like she's going to be a significant character, but nothing comes of it.

>Re: Dash
She knows that she used to be happy, but that she isn't anymore. She doesn't know why? Is it just a pervasive feeling that came over her gradually? If so, it might help to say that. The bigger issue is that she doesn't say how she knew she used to be happy. Give me a couple of quick one- or two-sentence anecdotes of happy memories. Be specific. The first time she medaled in a race and danced around so much she nearly fell off the podium. Little bits like that. They add so much life. And maybe she compares it to an anecdote more recently

>Re: Gimmick chapters
It would probably help if you do follow a pattern like you plan to, where you use witch perspectives but not familiar ones. Yet that may be a little too subtle for readers to pick up on. To wit, the characters don't identify which ones are run by familiars right off the bat, so the connecting thread doesn't become apparent until later. However, I talked about these scenes in my previous reply, so I won't repeat that here. The only thing I'd caution you about using the witches' perspectives is that you do need to let the witches come across as characters. Like don't just drop me into these perceptions without letting me get a hint of the witch's personality, same as you'd need to do with any character.

>Re: libretto
The biggest thing here is that most readers will be familiar with what a screenplay is, but have no idea what a libretto is. So just the fact that the dialogue is labeled by speaker feels like a script, and the reader will attach that to whatever's in their experience. Plus with MLP and Madoka being TV shows, it fits. That said, I don't think it matters, unless you're dead set on it coming across like an opera or musical. If that's the case, don't rely on the format alone. Add in imagery that would suggest one or the other, like a pit orchestra, audience using opera glasses, etc.

>Re: sestina
I'm not too familiar with many poetic forms, and most readers won't be either. I don't actually remember whether this was formatted in a way that made it look different from normal prose, so that's one potential fix. But repetition is a tricky thing to deal with. There are ways to make it obvious that it's intentional, and that's how you make it thematic. To do so would take acknowledging the repetition (like italicizing the second time for emphasis or using words such as "again" to call attention to it) or to use it more than twice in the same way, since that seems far more deliberate than two. And you did actually have it more than twice here, but it still didn't feel deliberate. That's an aesthetic thing, though, and the next reader could easily have a different reaction than I did. This one's a minor instance, and I don't think it'd hurt the story to have it. It's not like I won't approve your story if you don't fix every last thing. There's a tolerance level for artistic license.

Did you mean that the mention of stone served no purpose, or that having it as a sestina served no purpose? Because if it's the latter, then it may still lend to the labyrinth's atmosphere, and It's more so that what you say needs to have a purpose, not necessarily how you choose to say it. There are plenty of stories out there written as poems where there's no thematic reason for the story to be poetic. It can just be a genre choice, and I wouldn't say that's wrong.

I did say that some of the formatting choices were lost on me. That's more a data point for you. If many readers are getting lost, that's bad, but it might not bother others. You do have a reason for it. It's like if you told a joke that I didn't get. That doesn't automatically make it a bad joke, and most people might get it just fine. So if you say it's a sestina, I can accept that. It's just not the kind of thing most readers will notice or understand. You could explain it in an author's note for the chapter, if you wanted to make sure.

>>2959

Thanks, I did see >>2939. I wasn't sure what you meant that it wasn't possible to have scenes from the witch's perspective, which is why I tried it to see if I could find the problem myself. I see what you mean about building up their characterization, though, so I'll pay attention on that when editing those scenes.

>sestina
I meant having a sestina here doesn't serve a good purpose, and I do plan to replace it. Repeating "stone" (as well as light/dark, reflection, and book) were all products of the structure, so that will be less evident on the rewrite. It'll still be basically the same scene, but the style should make more sense. This was a case where I wasn't really thinking about the style's effect on how this part of the story is told, and I think the story does suffer here. If I got really lucky, someone who knows about sestinas might recognize it and comments "Cool, it's a sestina," and other people would know that was intentional rather than me getting sloppy with repetition and line breaks. It's not worth it.

>>2963
Yeah, it'd just be weird to show the labyrinth scenes through the witches' eyes in a very mechanical sense without having any of their characterization come through. Perspective is supposed to get the reader to identify with or understand a character, and if you never do anything with them except literally describe what they see, then it's kind of pointless. That said, I could buy it as building atmosphere, but without letting the reader see a little about who these witches are, it'd feel exceedingly superficial, which is against the point of using a limited narrator.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

I'm going to do something to illustrate a point. Here are the first words of all your narrative sentences for the first scene:
a, the, the, I, I, pneumatic, the, the, an, a, a, the, she, I, I, below, a, a, I, a, I, Zephyr, I, she, I
Except for that one "below," you have very repetitive sentence beginnings. Now, some words like "a" and "the" are so mundane that they pass by without notice, so it's not so much that the words themselves are repetitive; it's more that the sentence structures are. They all start with the subject. It gets to feel like a list of actions and doesn't flow very well.

>I swallowed and met her eyes. “Which means… we have to land.” Zephyr nodded. “Crap.”//
It's a little ambiguous who says this dialogue.

>left, a broad river valley at the north end, and an immense forest along the left//
It's a little odd that you're mixing types of directions.

You're probably giving more of a description of the map than you need. How many of these details are actually going to be important to the story? If a lot of them, then how many will be important soon? It's better to introduce information as it's needed instead of pushing a bunch of it at once and hoping the reader will remember it later.

>aluminum eggshell//
For one, you called it aluminum and polycarbonate before, and for another, you don't need to remind the reader so soon afterward what the aircraft is made of.

>week,Zephyr//
Needs a space.

>again.” Zephyr grabbed my seat and lifted her helmet as the transport rocked again//
Watch close repetition of words like that.

>The pegasus//
He knows her well. Why would he refer to her in such an impersonal manner? You don't think of your coworker as "the person," do you?

>the heavily armored mare//
Another very impersonal reference for a friend. I assume this kind of thing will pervade the story, so I won't mark anymore, but this i why this kind ofdescriptor doesn't work with a limited or first-person narrator. People think about other they know in three ways: name, pronoun, and relationship. Only the third falls into the realm of this kind of descriptor, so he might call her "my teammate" or something.

>thick, nylon//
>small, quartz//
These are hierarchical adjectives, so you don't need a comma between them. It can be tricky in some cases to tell the difference, but the general way is that if they describe different aspects or would sound really awkward in reverse order, you don't need a comma. There are a whole lot more of these I saw, but I'm not going to keep marking them.

>“Yeah,” I hollered toward the airlock, “Just//
The way you use those commas, it means both parts of the quote form one continuous sentence, but if that's the case, you've capitalized "just" in the middle of a sentence.

>quartz porthole//
I wonder why they're using quartz anyway. If they have the technology to make polycarbonate, then they must have something better than glass for the windows. It's heavy and not very resistant to damage.

>popped open and swung open//
Kind of repetitive language.

>A high, keening hiss made the aircraft’s hull ring. Lightning crackled along the hull breach, and a glowing, serpentine form shot into the cabin.//
This is another thing the chapter suffers from. I feel like I've seen these same actions and description three or four times already. There's lightning, noise from the hull, damage to it, loud sounds, lots of quartz, cannons firing, over and over again.

>razer teeth//
razor

>farther than it had right//
I've only ever seen that phrased as "than it had any right to."

Here's another thing: if you'd used a third-person limited narrator, there's a range of distances you can use. But when you choose first-person, you're irrevocably at a very close distance to the character. That means that the narration should sound like the character might speak, reflecting his intelligence level, vocabulary, personality and mannerisms. And it should also reflect what's happening at the moment. While the aircraft is breaking up, look at how calmly and stoically he describes it all. If that were you, wouldn't you be freaking out? I'd expect this section to be fast-paced, lacking in detail aside from what he'd focus on for his survival (to make an example, in the middle of a swordfight, it wouldn't make sense for him to give a lengthy description of the mountains in the background), and expressive of his emotions.

>As the serpent shook its entire body and retreated half a meter, maw gaping wide in a hiss, a thin, metal object fell from a holster taped to the pod’s roof and clattered on my ice-encased legs. Frost encroached on my eyelids, numbing my face and locking my mouth open. I began to jerk and buck inside the ice as the ice grew over my nostrils and cracked lips. The serpent shrieked a final time as I wrapped a shaky field around the shotgun on my lap and raised it to eye level.//
Around here, your sentence structure is getting repetitive again, but in a different way. Look how many "as" clauses you're using in this paragraph and the ones around it. Authors of intermediate experience often lean way too heavily on participial phrases and "as" clauses, but they get repetitive easily, since they don't appear much in everyday conversation, so they stand out. Do a Ctrl-f on " as " (include the spaces before and after) and watch the screen light up. There are 128 in the chapter. Granted, you use the word in similes, too, and those will happen in pairs, but that's still a lot. And that won't pick up ones at the beginnings of sentences either.

>As I watched, a tattered, scorched book and several burning pages blew out into the grey skies on the whistling, uncaring wind.//
The thing is, as a reader, I have no idea what this book is yet. I haven't even seen him act like it was particularly important, So it means nothing to me when it's lost. Now he's acting like he's upset, but I'm very detached from it since I don't understand why. He just gets the default sympathy he would for any generic character who's lost something.

>despite the hot air//
It's still going to feel cold at that speed.

>The first of many raindrops speckled the concrete and steel around us.//
Wait, I thought you said this was in a desert. For that matter, what's a bed factory doing in the desert? It'd be expensive to supply it with resources.

>Cold water splashed across my face.//
He was just about to set up camp, and this scene seems totally disconnected from that. I have no idea what's going on here. Maybe he's disoriented, too, but there's no indication of it, so my only assumption can be that he knows exactly what's going on. So why don't I?

>Ma’am; you require medical attention.//
Why the semicolon? It's not used right. A comma would be fine there.

>one hundred and fifty-seven//
I'd think a robot would be programmed to know it's improper to use "and" in a number like that.

>glided inside the immense, domed room. Other robots like the one that carried me glided//
More close word repetition.

>Another robot glided to the bed//
And shortly after, more gliding.

You're losing the sense of a limited narration again. While Crystal is in this operating room, you just go to all the voices and dialogue around her. It's first-person, though. I'm supposed to be getting her experience of all this. There are confusing and strange things going on, and they're talking about amputation. Why doesn't she have any reaction to it? It's like she's completely indifferent to all this.

>I reared up as it leapt, rammed my forehooves into its chest//
This makes it sound like the ghoul rammed his forehooves into its chest.

>Rasping, bestial growls that sent shivers down my spine//
I'm barely a page into the chapter, and this is already the third shiver to go down his spine.

By this point, I just see more of the same. I'll skim the rest of what's published to see if there are any big plot problems, but really the only thing I haven't mentioned yet is this is pushing the limits on gore. There's some pretty explicit descriptions. I'll still note detailed things I see, but I'll be reading too fast to catch much.

>It’s the nearest river for thousands of square kilometers//
Why is he stating distance using an area measurement?

>sky; approaching from a few kilometers away was a trio of dark specks that stood out against the blue sky//
More close word repetition.

>it’sq//
Typo.

>To the right of my saddlebags were the husk of my armor//
Number disagreement. the subject of "were" is "husk."

>Faint buzzes almost outside my range of hearing came from the limb.
>
>A faint//
Close word repetition.

>darlin.’//
The apostrophe would go before the period. It doesn't work like quotation marks.

>times—” I jerked my head to the right. “—but//
Don't use a period on an aside like this. The only end punctuation they take is a question mark or exclamation mark, as appropriate.

>I levitated small plate//
Missing word.

>diner: One//
Only capitalize after a colon if it refers to multiple sentences.

>yeah…” I trailed off//
The ellipsis already means she trailed off. Saying so in the narration as well is redundant.

Okay, I'm at the end of chapter 2. A lot of words in, and a lot of words still to go, but I'm not seeing any new problems I hadn't already seen in chapter 1. I could go on, but there's not a lot of point to it, as all I'd really get out of it is making sure there weren't any big plot holes (and since the story is incomplete, I couldn't guarantee there never would be anyway) and seeing if you cross the line on any of our content restrictions. So I'm going to stop here.

Really, anything I've had to mention multiple times are the things that need attention, but I'll sum them up here.

-You constantly put commas between adjectives that shouldn't have them.
-You have very repetitive sentence structures, where the vast majority start with the subject. Try reading your story out loud, especially if you skip the dialogue, and I think you'll hear how plodding it feels. You also have spots where you use a ton of "as" clauses.
-This is probably pushing it as to what gore we can allow.
-The narration is very bland and emotionless for a first-person narrator. The whole point of first-person is to give me a front-row seat to the character's thoughts and impressions. It'll typically read like an internal monologue or stream of consciousness. Compare your narration to your main character's dialogue. Her speech is very animated and indicative of how she feels. So are the few thoughts that are presented as quotes. The narration shouldn't sound much different than that, but it very much does.

The repetition and the emotionless narration are the two biggest issues, and unfortunately, they're also some of the more involved things for an author to deal with. It's not going to be a quick process to go through 100k+ words and revamp that. If you can, then I'd be happy to look at it again. I have almost no familiarity with Fallout, either the game or the MLP crossover, so I don't know how much of this story is original and how much is borrowed. I at least recognize a couple character names, but for instance, I don't know whether Eagle, Zephyr, and these alicorns are your invention or not. Either way, they're interesting characters, and on the whole, the writing is good. I think you're capable, but it's also a lot of work to fix those things.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

>his teeth shined//
"Shined" is a transitive past tense, so this would need a direct object, and it would say that his teeth were polishing something. You need "shone."

>Nodding at his reflection, he trotted across his room in Princess Twilight’s castle and out the door, stopping once to pick up a single purple rose with no thorns from his desk.//
Note that participial phrases mean things happen at the same time, so he nods at the mirror, trots across the room, and stops simultaneously. It's more reasonable that those things would happen in sequence.

>especially after what happened a month ago with Duke Bull Horn//
It's a bit off-putting to make such a big deal of this without explaining any of it. I'll come back to this in a moment.

>She wore an elegant purple dress that to flow with every move.//
Wording is off.

>What had come to a shock to Flash//
I've always heard that phrased as "come as a shock."

>it actually didn't turn out to be to difficult//
To/too confusion.

>more than one…awkward conversations, to say the least.//
Leave a space after an ellipsis, and you have a singular/plural mismatch.

The flashback scene is presumably the background about the duke we're supposed to get, but it starts out with a huge block of exposition, which isn't a good way to get the reader's interest. It runs for 11 paragraphs. It's better to work that kind of thing in gradually as it becomes important.

>slid it her head and the map//
Missing word.

>thinks your crazy//
Your/you're confusion.

>Smarty pants//
That's a name, so both words would be capitalized.

>incidents,” Spike said, wincing, “But//
The way you punctuated that, the quote is on continuous sentence, so when you capitalize "but," you're doing it in the middle of a sentence.

>Twilight and Flash’s//
By not putting a possessive on Twilight, this means their heads are community property that they own jointly.

>It’s be enough//
Typo.

>The duke//
You're inconsistent at capitalizing that.

>more then just a guard//
Than/then confusion.

>and the idea of stressing her out by having her worry about a relationship with him was the last thing he wanted//
How is that more stressful than a relationship with anyone else? Or does he think she shouldn't be in one at all?

>Worse-case//
Worst-case

>worse comes to worse//
"Worst" on both of those, too.

>O-Ok//
Only capitalize the first part of a stutter unless it's something like a name that has to be capitalized anyway.

>I need to pick up a book I lent her anyway.//
Wouldn't she be interested to go anyway? You don't have to make up a contrived reason for her to go.

>giggling at the drake’s enthusiasm//
You're using a limited narrator in Flash's perspective, so the narration is essentially his thoughts. Why would he internally refer to Spike with something as impersonal as "the drake" when he knows Spike well?

>The present…//
If you do flashbacks well, you won't have to indicate when they happen. The info will be in the context. But why did you use a line to separate scenes here when you didn't at the previous scene break?

>so twinkly that could blend in with Twilight’s castle//
Missing word.

>‘nobles’” she said//
Missing a comma.

>make-shift//
makeshift

>he was being to forward//
Too/to confusion.

>a pony well dressed pony//
Extraneous word, well-dressed.

>I though with a title//
Typo.

>in a horrible, horrible impression of…it was so bad, Twilight couldn’t even figure out what accent he was trying to imitate//
Why are you jumping over to Twilight's perspective here?

>Doth mother know…you wearth her drapes?//
"Mother" would be capitalized in this instance, and he's got the archaic verb conjugation wrong. I can't tell if he's doing it on purpose or if it's your mistake.

>And with that//
You start two paragraphs fairly close together with that identical phrase.

>flower pots//
flowerpots

>The center of the ballroom had been cleared for dancing and a stage set up right next to it, but there were a number of small tables off to one side and a stage for the band off to the other.//
So... there are two stages? I'm confused.

>ruining you date//
Typo.

>Faust have mercy on me//
That's very cliched.

>And with that//
You really like that phrase.

>Their not here yet.//
Their/they're confusion.

>working it’s way//
Its/it's confusion.

>pegesi//
Typo, but why do you have it as plural anyway? You have the other two types as singular.

>Pretty sure we’re all foals compared Celestia.//
Missing word.

>Twilight asked in shock.//
You identify shock fairly often, too. Even so, it's better to make her look shocked than to tell me she is. How does she act? What does she look like?

>Money Bag’s//
This implies his name is Money Bag.

>wont //
Typo.

>All three ponies turned as Princess Celestia herself made her way towards the group, everypony else bowing as she passed. Flash himself also bowed as she approached, partly out of duty, and partly out of reverence.//
That's three "as" clauses in only two sentences. It's a bad idea to be structurally repetitive like this.

>Money bags//
Capitalization.

I'm a bit past the halfway point, and I'm getting bogged down in all these detailed mechanical things, a lot of them the same issues over and over again. Just assume you need to sweep the whole story for them. I'm going to read the rest just to look for plot or character problems.

Wait, the duke is actually going to try assassinating Twilight? That's pretty extreme.

This isn't a bad story, but it's pretty cliched for the point to be getting them up to a first date, a kiss, a wedding, or whatever. Twilight does learn that others can appreciate her for who she is, but even that's a fairly cliched lesson on its own. Plus the conflict that leads up to it, the dispute with Bull Horn, is very superficial. He just comes across as a generic villain, not someone with a real personality. If he just feels like a stock baddie, then it'll disarm the story's tension. It'd help if you gave him a more legitimate beef with her or at least gave him an emotional arc.

Aside from that, there were plenty of editing issues, and for a story with a limited narrator, the narration itself doesn't feel very lively. Unless you have the perspective character's impressions flowing in pretty regularly, it can revert to feeling omniscient. In places, you do that well. It's not just what the narration says, but how it says it. If Flash is angry, for instance, let the narration sound like an angry person.

The flashback sequence ended up being awkwardly wedged in. I think you'd do much better to keep things in chronological order and put that first. The structure implied you'd be skipping back and forth in time, but you only ever did it once.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

>of...well//
Leave a space after an ellipsis, unless there;s more punctuation after it or it starts the sentence.

>O-Okay//
Only capitalize the first part of a stutter.

I have to agree with the comment that there's an awful lot of italics here. When you emphasize nearly everything, you effectively emphasize nothing.

>It had only been...a week?//
Space needed after the ellipsis again. I won't keep marking this, but I pulled it out for another reason. This paragraph brings the story's momentum to a halt. It has 8 "to be" verbs. That's a very boring verb, as nothing happens. You should use active verbs wherever you can, since the engage the reader more. Just as an example, say you rephrased this sentence as "How much time had gone by... a week?" That's all active phrasing, and it doesn't lose any of its meaning. It's impractical to remove all "to be" verbs, but it makes for a more active story when you only use them sparingly.

>The pony straightened up and brushed her long green mane out of her face, revealing bright orange eyes. “Oh, hey! Didn’t see you there. I’m Spring Forward!”//
But Spring Forward has a pale pinkish coat, blonde hair, and green eyes: http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Spring_Forward

>except for the wing//
And Spring Forward is an earth pony

Why is Spring Forward so chipper? Most prisoners aren't.

>It was full of surprising bitterness from the still somehow cheerful in the face of being captured, beat up, and shoved into a dingy prison, with meat, the Other, and...herself.//
I can't quite decipher that sentence. It feels like there's supposed to be some mention of Spring later on. Like, what does "cheerful" describe?

>Tempest raised her head in a sudden movement, surprised, then took a second look at Spring’s wing.//
You just mentioned surprise a sentence ago. But also beware of directly identifying emotions like this. It's too calmly self-aware for her to realize that, and with the type of narrator you're using, Tempest is effectively the narrator. If you're surprised, do you calmly think to yourself, "I'm surprised," or do you think, "oh crap!"

I don't get what the griffons want to achieve by leaving a dead body in the cell, especially since they go down there. Someone had to put Spring in there, after all. It'd stink, even to them. Maybe they just want to traumatize the prisoners? There's been no explanation as to why, though. Tempest hasn't described anything as outright abusive.

>Pegasi relied on their wings to do their magic.//
Wait, pegasi can start fires with their wings?

>backed away, eyes darting back//
Watch the repetitive word choice.

>escaped!//
When you have a word italicized for emphasis, it's preferred to include an exclamation mark or question mark on it in the italics. You have other instances of this.

>It was a miserable five days//
And we don't know how long Tempest has been there. So is she actually eating the meat? Because I don't see how she's alive otherwise. I also can't believe the griffons are stupid enough not to know they can't feed ponies that, unless it's another form of torture. Then that goes back to my earlier point about there being no clear evidence of torture, which would be counterproductive to selling them as slaves anyway.

>some labeled with simple words like Corn//
Now I'm confused. Meat would be more expensive than corn. Why feed prisoners meat when they can feed them cheaper corn, which they'll actually eat? And a healthy slave is a better slave.

>down. A griffon led the way, carefully lowering herself down//
Repeated use of "down," plus the second one's redundant with "lowering" anyway.

So does Spring Forward's body in the cell imply that The Other was someone else whose death Tempest had been responsible for?

>“Interesting…” he snapped his fingers.//
You have that lower-case as if it's a speech tag, but there's no speaking verb.

Either the ending is really weak or it's just going way over my head. I guess the Storm King figured out Tempest had been responsible for bringing down the ship, so he respects her power. But what is it that she thinks she can benefit from by talking to him? She'd still be in a situation where she felt she was better off alone. That's what made her run away from home in the first place. Also, this isn't exactly how they met. Now, we're not typically in the habit of enforcing comic canon, since they don't take care to mesh with the show, even sometimes contradicting it. But there were 4 comics made specifically as prequels to the movie, and the 4th deals with how Tempest came to work for the Storm King. I don't think it'd take much of a tweak to get in compliance with that, but I'm also not going to require you to.

I also agree with one of the comments that Spring's death has an understated enough effect on Tempest that it's a little hard to get as much of an emotional impact from it. Part of it is that the reader will have a default reaction, just because the death is a sad situation, but the other part is seeing how Tempest responds to it. Again, this is something a minor tweak would handle. Some kind of rage when she burns down the ship would help, and I see that she does express anger toward herself, but she never comes across as the Stockholm Syndrome type where she wouldn't also blame the griffons. Maybe she deserves the pain, but they do, too.

There are a few things here that don't quite jive, plus the mechanical fixes. If you can tend to that, I'd be happy to post the story. When you're ready to resubmit, I wouldn't need a full reread, so you can mark it as "back from Mars."

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

>enjoying the warmth of the sun and the fresh air//
It's ambiguous whether this refers to Twilight or Spike.

>She stopped in place and looked at the sky over the Everfree Forest.
>
>“Hey, Twilight! What are you looking at?” Spike looked//
That's 3 uses of "look" in a close space. It's a word many authors tend to overuse.

>A pleasant and relaxing picnic with her friend was exactly what she needed to forget about the recent fiasco with the publishing of the Friendship Journal.//
Let me back up to this sentence. This is clearly Twilight's internal thought expressed as narration. That makes this a limited narrator in her perspective. It's a bad idea to let this kind of perspective wander around. Yet only three paragraphs into the story, it's already switched:
>It took very little effort for Spike to identify what held Twilight Sparkle's attention, because there was a large, shimmering patch of air above the Everfree Forest, as colorful and shifting as Celestia's mane in a stiff breeze. He had to admit, he had never before witnessed something as unique and flickering as the light in the sky, which swiftly started shrinking in on itself. Well… maybe that one time at the Crystal Empire when the Crystal Heart was activated against King Sombra...//
This is very much in Spike's perspective, and it takes a conversational tone. If you want the story told through his eyes, why start with Twilight at all? I suspect you're going to have lots of problems with jumpy perspective.

>Trying to make some sense of her situation//
Don't over-explain things like this. Let her actions speak for themselves.

>Her neck was a little stiff, but flexible enough to look over her shoulder and down, noticing the two bronze stripes of fur running along her spine.//
This explicitly says her neck noticed the stripes.

>the bruised that were starting to color her skin//
Typo.

>dangerous predators who would love to feast on her bruises body//
Opposite typo.

>Yet, something felt odd.//
It's rarely needed to put a comma after a conjunction.

>She couldn’t help herself from occasionally glance at the scary looking trees//
Typo.

>a mistake resulting in her little nose being pricked by a thorn.//
This is a subtle thing, but you often have very subdued reactions. Take when Raichu first woke up. She has no idea where she is, and nothing looks even remotely familiar. Yet the narration sounds very calm. Same here. We're calmly told she pricked herself on a thorn. What would actually go through your mind if this happened to you? This stoic mention of it doesn't sound like she's surprised at all, and then she goes on to rub it without remarking on how it feels. Wouldn't that be on her mind at the moment?

>a sight of a blueberry caught her attention//
This says the sight of the blueberry caught her attention, not that to blueberry did. Seems odd.

>T-that//
Consider what sound is actually repeated. "That" doesn't start with a "t" sound.

>wooden jaws//
You already said they were made out of wood.

>rolling on the ground//
As it's placed in the sentence, this tends to describe the roar, not Raichu.

>After looking up, the pupils in her eyes//
This says her pupils looked up, which while true, is a strange way to phrase things.

>back first//
The way you're using it, hyphenate that phrase.

>“I hope no animal got hurt," she murmured, torn between the safety of her home and the possibility that some poor, helpless creature in the dark forest was injured and needed her help.//
See, this is what I was talking about when I said you tend to over-explain things. The narration expresses the exact same thing she just got finished saying. The reader already knows she feels this way.

>noticing a small dust cloud moving across the numerous hills//
You began the scene in Fluttershy's perspective. Twilight wasn't even there yet. But how would Fluttershy know what Twilight noticed? There might be context clues she reads, but you're stating it as fact, so it amounts to a perspective shift.

>hoping that no Equestria-ending threat awaited them//
And just as quickly, you're back to Fluttershy's perspective.

>sliding down hills//
>slid down her forehead//
Repetitive word choice in consecutive sentences.

>escaping death was the only thing on her mind//
If this is so, how can the narration even talk about anything else? Such is the difficulty of using a limited narrator: the narrator can't know anything the character doesn't. So if you're explicitly saying Raichu can't think about anything but escaping, then that's all the narrator can talk about.

>She looked up, a lifetime supply of apples hung there//
Comma splice.

>a distinct impression of her body, all the way up to the ears//
This is almost exactly the way you described the crater in the prologue.

>of relief//
>expression of anticipatory terror//
Try to avoid directly identifying emotion like this, particularly using a with/in/of phrasing. It doesn't paint much of a visual. What does she do? What does she look like? That's more engaging to describe.

>Not even feeling all that tired despite her non-stop running.//
That sentence fragment feels out of place.

I don't understand the purpose of the short scene with Applejack in it. Presumably she's going to catch up to Raichu at some point, and we can find out what's been going on with her then. Nothing of consequence happens in this scene. Same with Apple Bloom's scene.

>Ya’re//
What's this?

>Even in Equestria, a flying wingless critter wasn’t something she would ignore or consider normal. It wasn’t flying for long though.//
Why would the "even in Equestria" occur to her? When has she ever been anywhere else?

>Ah’em//
And what's this?

>showing four tiny fangs in her shining teeth//
She can't see this? How does she know what it looks like?

>ya'//
What's the apostrophe for? What letters are missing?

>“Ah said, drop that apple before Ah make ya!” Applejack said with firm steps and narrowed eyes.//
That's Raichu narrating this. How does she know Applejack's name?

You're really overwriting the Apples' accent. Readers know what they sound like.

>still apologizing//
In the way you're using this, it needs a hyphen.

><N-no thanks,>//
I don't see a reason to use implied speech here. Applejack can infer well enough what Raichu means without having to spell it out as dialogue. If Fluttershy were here, it might be a different matter.

>kept shaking its head//
>Applejack kept watching//
Repetitive use of "kept" in consecutive sentences.

At least the events in this scene are important, but it shouldn't be necessary to switch to Applejack's perspective for it. We don't really learn anything that we couldn't from Raichu's viewpoint. She's who the story's really about, after all. She can read all this info about how Applejack feels by observing what she does.

>Raichu kept staring at the apple, occasionally glancing between the mare and filly who kept encouraging her//
More repetitive use of "kept."

>ya’re//
I've never seen this before. What exactly is it a contraction of?

>the pokemon’s head//
You're in Raichu's viewpoint. Why would she refer to herself like this? In your own thoughts, do you call yourself "the person"?

>Raichu’s eyes opened in an instant. “I do what?”//
I sure got the sense from the prologue that she already knew she talked like that. She's repeatedly said it out loud, while the narration is in her perspective, so she must be aware of it.

>taking a moment to fix her purple mane//
Why wold Starlight bother mentioning her own hair color? It's not relevant, and it'd be something she takes for granted.

><Hello,> she said as the word “Rai” reached ponies’ ears.//
You've been using Starlight's perspective in the scene, so this would be her knowledge. How did she understand that as a hello?

>taking a moment to fix her purple mane//
>walking by numerous pillars and doors//
>waiting for Applejack to approach//
>stopping herself in the middle of the stairs//
>riding the farm mare’s back//
>noticing a few bandages on the critter’s head//
That's all in just the first screen of chapter 2. You're using so many participial phrases that it gets structurally repetitive. And go back to that "riding the farm mare's back." Normally, you'd see an "on" in there. Plus Starlight knows Applejack. Why would she refer to her with something as impersonal as "the farm mare"?

><No, I would never!>//
Again, how would Starlight know this? The narrator essentially is Starlight at this point, so if she doesn't know something, the narrator can't either.

>words made of is their own name//
Phrasing is off. And has it been established yet that her name is Raichu? It wouldn't be hard for her to confirm that, but just make sure it actually happens somewhere.

>Why are you calling her pest?//
Missing word.

>still slightly sad//
I can't tell what perspective you're in anymore. Starlight's? Raichu's? It keeps jumping around. Pick one and stick with her for the scene.

>few months worth//
That's phrased as a possessive: few months' worth.

>“I must say, never in my life have I encountered or read about such an animal,” Dr. Fauna said, clapping her forehooves in excitement.//
I'm not sure it buys you anything to do this scene as a flashback. Why not just move it to the beginning of the chapter so it's all in chronological order?

>The rat could do little but stare at those impressive features of Raichu.//
Why are you jumping to the rat's viewpoint now? And "impressive features of Raichu" is such a roundabout way of saying that. Why not just "Raichu's impressive features"?

>cool looking//
Hyphenate.

>60%//
>22//
Write out the words.

>lollypop//
lollipop

>This taste delicious//
Typo.

>wood-fragments//
You don't need a hyphen there.

>‘Arts of mind healing and hypnosis’//
You only need the italics, not the quotes, but do capitalize the title properly.

>while-yellow//
Not sure what that was supposed to be.

>down with a bit more rubble falling onto the floor. She approached her, looked down//
Close repetition of "down."

>‘bout//
Note that smart quotes get leading apostrophes backward because they assume you want an opening single quote. You can paste one in the right way.

>Starlight grit her teeth//
Past tense is "gritted."

>Raichu fell to her knees and grit her teeth//
Same thing, but it's repetitive to have Raichu do the same thing as Starlight just a paragraph later.

>luckily none was reaching any precious books//
The comma before this is a splice, and the syntax is off here. So is the perspective. Who's the one saying the books are precious? I can't tell.

>her hoof leaving a hoof-mark//
That would seem to be self-evident.

>She levitated Raichu upward and placed on her own back//
Missing word.

>Not only it gave her time//
Phrasing is off.

>Applejack held hat//
>bringing back smile//
Missing word.

>This place have//
Typo.

>Small snowdrops were falling from the sky while one landed on her nose and dissolved into water.//
Melting isn't the same thing as dissolving.

>First one being the fact//
>Most of them being//
>the fact that she was one of them//
That's a lot of repetitive language for one paragraph.

>M-mon....//
You only need three dots, and is Raichu Jamaican now?

>words; ‘Pikachu’ and ‘their child’.//
You're clarifying there, so use a colon, not a semicolon.

>wrapped in bandage//
"wrapped in bandages" or "wrapped in a bandage"

>She grit her teeth//
gritted

>Why’s she so different now//
Why are you switching to present tense?

>She was lying on a spacious wooden bed with violet eiderdown and a large blue pillow, her size was certainly no match for the owner of this bed.//
Comma splice.

>One quick glance at the window at the brown sky//
Surely you meant that first "at" to be "out."

>overtime//
This needs to be two words.

Why is the letter in the same format as Raichu's translated speech?

>Awkward silence overtook the room as Starlight and Raichu stared at each other, none dared to move.//
>Raichu climbed down and peeked from behind the bed, only the upper part of her head was visible thanks to her cover.//
Comma splices.

>calming her nerves//
How does Raichu know that's what she's doing?

>hiding animal and added, “You can come out from hiding//
Close repetition.

>She pointed at her mentor.//
How does Raichu know what relationship they have?

>suddenly feeling uneasy//
And this isn't in Raichu's perspective either. Your viewpoint is jumping around.

>The comfort of the bed beating dirt in a scary forest any day.//
That's awkwardly phrased.

>the reason behind bandages//
Missing word.

There's nothing I need to go into detail about in summary here. The three biggest issues were general editing, unsteady perspective, and repetition.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

Short description:
>own, little//
No reason to have a comma there.

Long description:
>The day goes on and Spike and Sweetie Belle babysit Flurry Heart together, almost like their own little family.//
That's actually the same sentence you have in the short description, but you have different comma usage in each. The one you have after "on" in the short description should be in this one, too.

Story:
>They should be arriving here at any moment, now//
This isn't really a situation to use a comma there. You would if you wanted to emphasize "now," like she's just gotten new information that changes things. The "any moment now" idiom doesn't use one.

>Now Spike//
And it's kind of repetitive to use "now" so soon after. Especially right at the beginning, you don't want to create the impression that the story is likely to be repetitive.

>"Ugh," Spike rolled his eyes.//
You've punctuated that as if it's a speech attribution, but it has no speaking verb. You can't just tack any action on to dialogue with a comma.

>For the thousandth time Twilight//
Needs a comma for direct address.

>I've got this," He chuckled.//
Same deal with a non-speaking action. Even if this were acceptable to do, you wouldn't capitalize the speech tag.

>I promise," Spike came to a stop.//
Let's just say non-speaking speech tags are going to be a pervasive issue, as will likely capitalization of speech tags. You'll need to sweep the story for these. There's a brief guide to it at the top of this thread.

>She padded his head.//
You've confused "padded" for "patted." And at this point, I wouldn't assume the reader has retained anything from the description or cover art. It's worth establishing right away that Spike is older and bigger than he is in the show.

>The others should be waiting for us at the train station, already.//
No reason to have a comma there.

>the way the there//
Extraneous word.

>As Twilight was chasing niece//
Missing word.

Actually, is Spike any older? If not, the cover art is misleading. Flurry Heart doesn't seem to be any older.

>he knew being Shining Armor's brother would naturally make Twilight Flurry Heart's aunt//
Twilight is his sister.

>Seeee?//
When you have a word italicized for emphasis, it's preferred to include a question mark or exclamation mark on it in the italics. There are other instances of this later on.

>just absolutely filled with toys and games that were just//
Watch the close word repetition. In particular, this is a word inexperienced authors tend to overuse.

>fluttered her way out of Spike's arms before jetting her way//
More repetitive phrasing.

>She nuzzled her head.//
The direct object of "nuzzle" should be what she's doing it to, not with.

>down the hallways at high seed//
Typo.

>just adorable playing with the all the toys. There was just//
Close usage of that word again.

>*Gasp!*//
Watch that you don't let personal opinions creep into the narration. So far, you've been using an omniscient narrator, so in this paragraph, it's fine when you say Flurry felt sympathy, because that's factual. But when you take a conversational tone like this, it pushes it into a limited narrator, and then stating something only Flurry Heart could know means you're shifting perspective, which isn't a good idea in the middle of a scene.

>Uuhh.........//
Three dots is plenty.

>Flurry soared him//
"Soar" doesn't take a direct object.

>lest he would risk//
"Lest" uses a different kind of verb form called subjunctive mood. The bottom line is that you don't need "would" here.

>That made very Flurry happy.//
Jumbled wording.

>*puff.*//
You don't need to put asterisks around sound effects like this.

>He lied there on the bear for a moment//
They're tricky verbs to keep straight, but you should use "lay" here instead of "lied."

>this-//
Please use a proper dash for cutoffs and asides.

>I..?//
Needs one more dot in the ellipsis.

>cutiemark//
That's two words.

>Spike walked stepped//
Extraneous word.

>beside castle’s the doors//
Jumbled wording.

>Many Ponyville's ponies//
Missing word.

>Not ones to deny such a day, Spike//
You're referring to Spike with the plural "ones."

>a plane double hayburger//
You've confused "plane" with "plain."

>Eh, don't worry about//
Don't worry about what?

>street's//
That should be a plural, not a possessive.

>He's the fella you're dancing with in that cute, little wedding picture you keep in your room.//
I'm nearly halfway through the story, and this is the first bit of tension that's come up. Until now, it's just been fluff. There's no source of conflict, no character growth. Any sort of problem that arises is immediately dealt with. You need to have something pushing the story forward.

>broke a tear//
That's not a phrasing I've ever heard before, but if it's familiar to you, it's fine.

>Around a lot of carrot dogs and hayburgers, I'm willing to bet.//
I assume it's Cookie thinking this? If you're going to use an omniscient narrator, you'll normally want to put dialogue-type tags on thoughts.

>Ma'am/
That's a generic title, same as the "sir" Spike used earlier. You wouldn't capitalize this.

>I appreciate it, Sir//
Well, now you've decided to capitalize it. It shouldn't be.

>is she more of trouble//
Phrasing is off.

>still napping//
Hyphenate, given the way you've used it.

>Why did Hondo have to say what he said?//
Why is Sweetie Belle referring to her dad by his name?

>Spike awkwardly rubbed the back of his.//
The back of his what?

>A small blushed//
Typo.

>Y-You//
Only capitalize the first part of a stutter, unless it's something like a name that has to be capitalized anyway.

>'come with me, dear,'.//
Capitalization, extraneous comma.

>But........//
Three dots is plenty.

>she is...embracing it? What is going on?//
Why'd you switch to present tense in the narration?

>"She's gone!"//
I'm about 75% of the way through the story, and this is the first whiff of real conflict. That's a lot to ask of a reader to stick it out this long.

>Despite Spike having scales, Flurry very comfortable in his arms.//
Some missing words in there.

>You've been real good to her, today.//
You really like to stick commas on those adverbs at the ends of sentences. They're rarely needed.

>Sweetie Belle green eyes//
Missing a possessive.

>hangout//
As one word, that's a noun. You need it to be a verb.

>look before looking//
Repetitive word use.

>You won't find stain//
Missing word.

>"..."//
That may cut it as video game dialogue, but not in good writing.

>........Wow//
Three dots is plenty.

These are just examples of the editing issues I found. There are more, but I should have all the types covered. Other than the editing, the perspective is very unsteady. It never settles into either omniscient or limited narration, and while limited, it skips around to different characters frequently. And there's never tha much of a conflict or character growth. There are minor ones like what to feed Flurry Heart and when she goes missing, but they're all solved quickly and with little effort. The only thing we learn about the characters is that Spike and Sweetie Belle may have a mutual crush, but that doesn't get developed through the course of the story. It's way into inconsequential slice of life material before it's even brought up, and then nothing is done with it by the end of the story. They still just may have a mutual crush.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

>There's still a lot a fighting//
That second "a" should be "of." Maybe you were going for a more phonetic interpretation of how she said it? Either way, the computer still has to hear her and decide what words to use, and even our modern ones are decent at catching grammar like that. I'd think hers would know the proper word.

And a word about italics. They get annoying to read in large quantities. They're also meant to separate things as different. But when the whole thing is different, nothing is. The reader will already pick up how this is being presented as recordings. You don't need the italics to convey that. If they were short recordings interspersed in lots of "live" narration, then there would be a justification in setting them apart, but there's no need to do that for the way you have it.

It might help to put an [hr] between log entries.

>There's a lot of other Talons up her too//
Typo.

>Even if its just me//
Its/it's confusion. Since it's either a computer putting the audio into text or the reader kind of listening to the recording, there are some things it wouldn't make sense to assume she got wrong.

>I' have//
Extraneous apostrophe.

>but... I've//
>they're...they//
Inconsistent ellipsis format. It's preferred to put a space after, unless it starts a sentence, because it plays better with FiMFiction's typesetting, but either format is okay as long as you use the same one throughout.

>Ponies they're//
And it seems like that was supposed to be "there."

>It was, sickening.//
Why is there a comma here?

I mentioned two possibilities before, and I think it's going to make more sense to take this as the reader listening to the recording instead of seeing a text transcript of it. That means it's more reasonable to use ellipses, since it'd be tough to explain to a speech-to-text algorithm which pauses should be ellipses, commas, semicolons, periods, dashes, or just about anything. But taking it as an audio log has its own issues, namely that it wouldn't make sense to have certain kinds of errors, like the aforementioned its/it's confusion. They sound the same, so who's to say which is recorded? There's no reason to choose the wrong one, because then you're presuming Gilda meant the wrong one or the listener hears the wrong one, neither of which is justifiable. This does mean it'd help if you were more judicious about putting commas between clauses. Here's an example I pulled from a little later on:
>I've cut zebras in half on the battlefield, so I'm no stranger to entrails and the like, but that was nothing compared to that building.//
You got this one right. Whenever there's a passage where each subject gets its own verb (I've cut..., so [I am]..., but that was...), you set it off with commas.
>There was a mare in the office too but she had nothing to say after she succumbed to a sudden case of decapitation.//
Here's an example of a spot that needs one. You do have separate subject-verb pairs, but there's no comma to separate the clauses (There was... but she had).

I guess I don't have a picture of who Gilda is yet. She's tough enough to take out the whole Steelworks, but she doesn't have much sway with the military or pegasi.

>Twenty Seventh//
In all these dates, when the ordinal number has two words, put a hyphen between them. Same deal with the cardinal numbers of the years, if that comes up later.

>Found some a lot of ingots//
Jumbled wording.

>High grade//
Hyphenate.

More than in the previous version, you're starting to wander into things that a reader would have to be familiar with Fallout: Equestria to understand. I haven't read it. I don't know what the Curtain or the Luna are. I can guess the latter is a ship, but I don't know what significance it has or why Gilda wants to destroy it. In crossover stories, don't assume the reader knows anything other than canon MLP.

>Luna//
Ship names get italicized. Of course it already is, since everything is (though it shouldn't be).

>its only a pyre//
>maybe its magic or something//
>Knowing who its made to look like//
Its/it's confusion.

>stuck up//
>Fifty Two//
Hyphenate.

>Talons//
You sometimes capitalize that and sometimes don't.

>I found a Ministry of Peace hospital just outside the lethal zone. It was inhabited, but it isn't now.//
I don't know whether that means it was once inhabited but anyone there died in the attack on the city, or if Gilda found someone there and killed them.

>fro this place//
Typo.

>their front's//
You have a possessive where you need a plural.

>screaming 'that's what everypony says!'.//
Punctuate and capitalize that like dialogue. And the period at the end is extraneous.

>manticore or something//
Missing period.

>played open//
I assume you mean "splayed."

>I'm sorry Dash.//
Needs a comma for direct address.

>its still deadly//
Its/it's confusion.

>I looks like the shield went down.//
Typo.

>I think its radiation//
Its/it's confusion.

>no where//
That's one word.

>I'm sorry Dash.//
Needs a comma for direct address.

>December Twenty Third, Year one.//
You'd been capitalizing the year numbers. But it looks like you stop doing so here. It goes on like this, at least for the few more dates I scanned ahead to see.

>Pip-Buck//
There was one time a while back where you didn't capitalize both words.

>I heading out//
Typo.

>Lot's of game.//
You have a possessive where you need a plural.

>eating them like crazy so they can't be bad. The things are growing like crazy//
Reptitive phrasing. And there are ways to check if something's poisonous. Wouldn't she know that?

>cave, They're//
Comma should be a period.

>Damn, it's been a long ass time since I've used this thing.//
Seems odd to have a 12-year time skip and not comment on why.

>About a third of them foals//
Missing period.

>hoof made//
That'd probably be one word like "handmade." Except why is a griffon using a "hoof" word?

>Its a little big//
Its/it's confusion.

>Ooooooooooo!!//
One exclamation mark is plenty.

>I was going to start yelling for somepony to come help, I didn't want to go get her myself.//
Comma splice.

>left eh kids//
Typo.

>I had to make a silencer for my rifle//
Where's she getting the material and tools for this? For that matter, where's she getting the toys for the kids?

>If they knew even half the things I've done they run away in terror.//
Typo.

>Next time I get out of the valley//
Well, there it is. She should mention this earlier.

>I just, don't like leaving them alone.//
No reason to have a comma there.

>fifty nine//
Hyphenate.

>I'm sorry Dash.//
Comma for direct address.

>I spent a hundred round//
Typo.

>My pistols don't have silencers to it was only an hour before the parents rushed into the clearing at the Ice Caverns' entrance.//
Typo.

>I cleared out all the bodies//
How'd she get rid of the blood? Or don't they have any? If not, here's a spot where someone unfamiliar with the crossover isn't going to understand.

>its all my fault//
Its/it's confusion.

>and tall the younger ponies//
Typo.

>its some kind of blasphemy//
Its/it's confusion. You get this right sometimes. I'm not sure what the deal is.

>Its not much//
I'm just going to list these when I see them. It's taking too much time to type "Its/it's confusion" over and over again.

>he bastards..//
Needs one more dot.

>All the younger mare's are alive//
You keep mixing up possessives with plurals.

>Fuck I should have been watching the entrance!!!//
Unless this was something she wrote out herself, I don't know how a recording device would differentiate three exclamation marks over one.

>sand bangs//
Typo.

>their isn't in green foliage//
Several typos.

>They have all the mare's and foals//
Possessive/plural. I mean, you get "foals" right. Why is "mares" any different?

>run .//
Extraneous space.

>I am going to hurt them SO much!!//
One exclamation mark is plenty.

>Its all fresh off the assembly line.//

>bleeding out on the ground//
>bled out on the ground//
Pretty repetitive so close together.

>make shift//
That's one word.

>If these bucks are scared than the rest of their comrades should be scared too.//
Than/then confusion.

>questions, to ask them after all//
No reason to have a comma there.

>'Stable 34 territory acquisition expedition//
Where's that quotation supposed to close?

>'We're so sorry spirit', 'please don't hurt us spirit', 'we didn't want to hurt anypony Storm Mother'.//
Needs commas for direct address.

>their trying to shoot//
Typo.

>December First.//
That period needs to be a comma.

>Ambush at the yeti Geyser.//
Not sure why "geyser" is capitalized. Or if it's a place name, why "yeti" isn't.

>I let through leave//
Typo.

>ponies Young//
Missing period.

>It's been a real long time since I used this thing, this will be my last recording.//
Comma splice, and there are several more in this entry.

>here....//
One too many dots.

>took about twenty tries before I could do it with coughing up blood or crying //
Sounds like you meant that to be "without."

>Its nice//
>Its comfortable.//

>Take care of your home my Children.//
Needs a comma for direct address.

>You must all be kind to each.//
Missing an "other."

The expansion definitely makes it clearer what's going on and adds more emotional depth. Since I'm not familiar with Fo:E, though, I don't know when this is supposed to take place. Would Gilda have made up with Dash as in "The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone"? Would "Griffon the Brush-Off" have happened? I don't know where we are in Gilda's relationship with Dash. And that informs what it meant for that to end. I gather Gilda killed her because she was paid to, though I don't know whether it was a straight-up hit job or just a bounty on ponies in general. Without that kind of background, I don't know how big a deal it is that Gilda killed her. She regrets it so badly later, but then I don't understand why she could have done it in the first place. It's not like Gilda had some wholesale personality change that made her a different person in that regard. Either there's supposed to be a change that wasn't conveyed, or Gilda's just being inconsistent.

That's really the only story issue for me. Other than that, there's just a lot of mechanical clean-up that needs to happen. It's not unusual for extensively rewritten material to have new issues pop up, but it felt like this was cleaner before. A lot of these things are pretty obvious.

Hold on, let me revisit her age. She says she's 60 in year 14. then in year 40, she says she's 85. Wouldn't she be 86? And she's still marauding around. How long do griffons live? If that's a piece of Fo:E lore, I don't know it. Then she dies in year 55, short of her birthday, so she's 100. Ponies, at least, seem to have pretty human lifespans, and you even allude to such (14 being very young to get pregnant, for instance). Unless griffons are much longer-lived than ponies, it's kind of hard to buy her doing all this at such an advanced age.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

Why'd you put the title in quotes?

>Larger than life//
>hundred carat//
When you use multi-word phrases as single descriptors like this, hyphenate them.

Your perspective is pretty unsteady so far. You obviously start the story with an external viewpoint, but as you ease into it, it seems to take on Rarity's perspective, or possibly remain omniscient. There's nothing decidedly limited about the narration, until we get to this:
>Yet Rarity still appeared completely unfazed//
The opening narrator wasn't a character, because he's clearly self-aware that it's a story. But this statement is from a character viewpoint. "Seemed" is a judgment call. Seemed to whom? I don't know. And that's the kind of context that informs perspective. It's not the same narrator we stated with, because he'd know if she was unfazed; "seem" wouldn't enter into it.

>Unicornia!!!//
One exclamation mark is plenty.

>sequins that drew the eye back to that one perfect diamond that shone like a beacon!//
The two "that" clauses get a bit repetitive when tacked so close together, but technically, both of them should be "which." You're not creating a subcategory; you're just saying this particular diamond and these particular sequins have these characteristics.

>Then a particularly extravagant spin left her facing the edge of the ship and she blindly stepped forward into empty air…//
You've got a number of spots like this, where you need a comma between the clauses.

Right after that first picture, we get assaulted with "as" clauses. You have all these within the space of just 3 paragraphs:
>as she sashayed along the railing//
>as they saw that a sparkling bridge of blue light had materialized beneath the mode//
>as he followed her onto the bridge//
>as he walked past//
>as the music reached its swelling finale//
This and the participial phrase can be wonderfully descriptive, but they're also uncommon enough in everyday usage that they easily stand out as repetitive, and a lot of authors overuse them.

>reached its swelling finale, they reached//
Close word repetition.

>through which she now played a blood-pumping solo on her guitar//
There have been three female characters (well, the reader's left to intuit that the "rainbow-maned pegasus" is female) mentioned in the sentence already, so it's ambiguous who "she" is.

>a figure wearing a cloak that hid all their features//
This is also inconsistent with the omniscient narrator hat you seem to favor. As omniscient, he'd know who this was. There are ways to make the language work and keep the secret, but the narrator or perspective character needs a reason to.

>When Rarity makes art it doesn’t matter what era//
Needs a comma in there.

>“isn’t
>“no//
Capitalization.

>Let me just cut you off right there, Darling.//
"Darling" is a generic term of endearment. It wouldn't be capitalized.

>a particularly fancy skybridge//
There's an opinion creeping into the narration again, but I don't know whose. And whatever personality the seemingly omniscient narrator took on at the beginning of the story has been missing ever since, so it's not him.

>this way, darling//
That's already her third time saying "darling" in this scene. If you look through episode transcripts, she doesn't actually eay it that often, usually no more than two or three times in an entire episode.

>Why don’t we ask him?//
When you italicize w rod for emphasis, it's preferred to include an exclamation mark or question mark on it in the italics.

>definitely not grape juice//
This goes to perspective again. Why's the narrator making a big deal about this? What would matter if it was wine?

>yelling “Thank//
Needs a comma.

Now that you have a scene with Applejack, it's very consistently a limited narration in her perspective. That just leaves me confused about what the narrative voice was supposed to be before now.

>she flew over the earth pony//
Well, now it's slipped. Why would AJ call herself "the earth pony"? In your own head, do you call yourself "the person"?

>Applejack looked hurt.//
How can she see herself to tell? The perspective's somewhere else, but not necessarily with her cousin. Though that's the only other option, I guess.

>I just don’t want to see you hurt again.//
And this use of "hurt" in the same paragraph is repetitive.

>Before Twilight could reply someone tapped her shoulder.//
Needs a comma between the clauses.

>Turning around//
You'll normally set off a participial phrase with a comma.

>she saw Applejack wearing a very odd dress//
So this is in Twilight's perspective...
>Rainbow Dash was the first to find her voice, and naturally the first thing she did with it was laugh.//
This might still be in Twilight's perspetive, but it sounds more like it'd be Rarity's or AJ's...
>She looked around and saw a good vantage point in a nearby tower.//
Now you're in Rarity's head...
>They had never seen fashion like this before!//
And now you're in some kind of collective viewpoint. This is all in the first page.
>But Ginger was hardly listening, already planning on how she would try again.//
Into Ginger's perspective now. It's bouncing all over the place.

>into— ”//
Extraneous space.

>back at Ponyville//
I'd normally see this phrased with "in."

>bu-//
Please use a proper dash for cutoffs.

>Rarity’s reply sounded rehearsed//
This has to be from AJ's perspective...
>Rarity stood up and rounded on the other mare with such suddenness that Applejack had to take a step back.//
But this is unidentifiable. The "had to take a step back" feels like AJ's, but it's strange for either one of them to call AJ "the other mare."

>Taint//
'Tain't

>Applejack’s voice remained strong and self-assured as ever, but her stance told a different story as she continued to back away, her broad shoulders tensing. Rarity’s body language was also different. Gone was the grace of the dainty lady, and in its place was something almost predatory.//
And you're switching perspective in the middle of the paragraph here.

>A fifty carat diamond with a good cut and clarity, it would make a fine addition to any collection.//
Fifty-carat. And while that's not technically a comma splice, it sure feels like one.

>“Blue Topaz”, Rarity thought//
Comma placement.

>Rarity looked away//
>looking affronted//
>Everyone looked at Rarity.//
>“Look, you have a lot of talent.//
That's all in just 3 paragraphs. "Look" is a word many authors tend to overuse.

>I can’t decide who I fall in love with//
I don't gather how this follows from "I'm just a regular mare." Do exceptional mares decide who they fall in love with?

>She did not hear Applejack knocking//
How does she know AJ knocked, then? You've mostly been using a limited narration, so the narrator is essentially the focus character. If Rarity doesn't know AJ knocked, neither does the narrator.

>T'was//
'Twas

>darling.” Rarity said//
Punctuation.

>Somepony made themselves your problem and you treated them much better than you had to.//
Why is AJ making pretty much the opposite argument that she had the day before?

I realize you were very hampered by word count limits, but all of the romantic attractions here are things I just have to accept the story's word for. None of the characters actually justify their infatuations. I don't know what Ginger actually likes about Rarity that she would consider her good relationship material. Same goes for whatever Rarity likes about AJ. It's on the absurd side, but you're not tagging this as comedy, so that's not the angle you're taking. In that case, I really am looking for this to be an authentic portrayal of an earnest love interest, but it's just surface-level, and it's hard to stand out from the crowd of all the other stories that do the same thing. For that matter, the emotional climax of Ginger having to face rejection occurs off camera, so I'm just left to imagine what impact that's had on her, or at the least, to take AJ's vague description of it.

Really, the two biggest things are that the love interest lacks depth and the perspective skips around between limited perspectives and an omniscient voice.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

You've done a good job using a close limited narrator. The narration expresses Ghost's opinions as if his own, essentially becoming her. But there are a few hiccups. Look at this one:
>Ghost thought that the mochas weren’t half bad here//
She wouldn't think, "I though the mochas weren't half bad here." She'd just think, "The mochas weren't half bad here." By forcing that "Ghost thought" in there, you're putting distance between Ghost and the narrator, who's now a middleman instead of being identically Ghost.

>Four- no//
Please use a proper dash. Alt+0151 = —. And don't put space on either side of it. This goes for the whole story. Don't use hyphens for asides and interruptions.

>Ghost hated the crowds in the supermarket//
This one isn't too bad, but it's a little clinical. Let the tone come through in how she says it, something like "those crowds in the supermarket always grated on her nerves."

>That was at a different cafe, though//
>It was in the past, though//
Kind of repetitive phrasing in the same paragraph.

>She wished she had a social life//
There are two classes of verbs you should only use sparingly in a close limited narration like this. The first governs perception. Since Ghost essentially is the narrator, they share the same perception. If the narrator says something is there, it's implicit that Ghost sees it. You should never have to say she saw, heard, felt, etc. anything, unless you really want to add emphasis that she was on the lookout for it or it was something most people would miss. The other class of verbs governs knowledge, things like want, wish, know, wonder, etc. Instead of using these, express them through tone. Like here, instead of saying she wished this, express it as a longing: If only she had a social life. That gets the wish across, but in a much more personal way.

>The door chimed announced//
Typo.

>thinking that it was mighty rude to not order anything, and hoping that her opinion didn’t show on her face//
A couple more of those types of verbs here that could be more powerful through narrative tone.

>That would be the sixteenth time she wiped the same spot, she mused//
Similar. You don't need the "she mused." Just let the narrator express the thought on her behalf.

>Another customer, hoorah! Ghost felt she could almost cheer at the sound.//
Well, she did cheer. Just not out loud.

>Her changeling friend may work with the royal guards//
Verb tense is off here. You need "may have worked."

>The changeling looked around.//
This is another advanced point about perspective, but you're implying this is the phrasing Ghost would choose to describe her friend. That feels very formal and external. In your own head, do you refer to your best friend as "the person"? More likely you'd use a name or pronoun.

>The changeling looked panicked for a moment, looking around.//
Another very impersonal reference to her best friend, and a close repetition of "look." And instead of saying Misty looks panicked, which is an abstract thing, make it concrete. Tell me how she looks and acts, and let me conclude that it's panic.

>Misty nodded, and sat down at a table nearby//
You only need the comma before the conjunction if it starts a new clause, and not even always then. You don't have a subject for the verb after "and"; it shares the same subject as "nodded," so it's not a new clause, just a compound verb.

>walked in a few minutes late and relieved her, before walking//
Close word repetition.

>The unicorn prodded her friend//
And that's even weirder than calling her friend "the changeling." She'd actually refer to herself as "the unicorn"? Do you think of yourself as "the human"?

>warm.“Hey//
Needs a space.

>you?” She teased//
Looks like you meant that to be a speech tag so don't capitalize it.

>Whatever trouble Misty Step was in, she resolved to do the best she could to try to fix it.//
This sounds rather calm for the situation, which tends to undermine the tension it creates. And undermining tension isn't a good way to end a chapter.

>Misty frowned and huddled against her warmer, warm-blooded friend//
It'd make sense for Ghost to refer to Misty as "her friend," but not for Ghost to refer to herself as "Misty's friend."

Before I move on to chapter 2, a word about your synopsis. It tells me nothing about your story, only that a pony and her changeling friend go on an adventure. That's incredibly generic. It's not going to grab readers' interest. Give me a taste of what's going to happen in the story.

>he put away her keys and flipped on the lights, revealing a cozy little apartment. In one corner was a heap of blankets and cushions, arranged into a nest.//
It's fine that you want to give a description of her apartment, but she's the limited narrator, so you have to give her a motivation to discuss it. This sounds like the once-over a first-time visitor would give, but both she and Misty are familiar with it. Find ways to work in these details. Take that last sentence. There's no reason for her to say it. It's normal to her, it's not relevant to what is happening, and she wouldn't notice it unless you give it a reason to stand out to her. Something like "In one corner was a heap of blankets and cushions, arranged into a nest that she hadn't gotten around to cleaning up for weeks now." That gives a reason for her to describe it, namely, that she sees it as a mess she needs to clean up.

>In one corner was//
>Taped to the pillow nest was//
>Across the room were//
>On the table was//
These are the beginnings to four sentences in a row. See how repetitive they are?

>She hoped she had something that Misty liked reading.//
Why? They haven't discussed anything like this.

>In one corner of the room was//
Now you're back to that phrasing and one you already used.

>Ghost made a mental note to clean those when she got the chance//
>Ghost made a mental note to clean out.//
More repetitive phrasing.

>The apartment was small, crowded, but cozy, and Ghost was proud that she had such a nice place to live.//
You pretty much already said this earlier:
>revealing a cozy little apartment//

>They worked for Chrysalis, and were waiting for the right moment to take over again//
You don't need that comma. It's just a compound verb.

>I’ll have my job back//
We're not going to get an explanation of this?Be careful how you give it, though. Ghost would already know the story, so it wouldn't make sense for Misty to tell her. You have to find other ways of hinting at it.

>She shruggedd//
Typo.

>She points at a few cacti sitting on her shelf.//
Why are you in present tense here? And Ghost already said she had two cacti.

>This was a problem, because the fire had spread over her bed and was slowly making its way around her.//
This is phrased very calmly, given this:
>The heat was unbearable, and the smoke made her cough.//

>She wondered//
Another one of those verbs you can do without.

>That was a terrifying dream, for many reasons.//
But the narration doesn't sound terrified. And beware of referring to generic things like the "many reasons" here. I don't know what any of them are, so I have no way to identify with her. Briefly list a couple of them.

>Misty,” She sighed//
>right?” She inquired//
Capitalization.

>her abomination meal//
I love this.

>Ghost managed a grimace that slightly resembled an encouraging smile.//
How does she know what it looks like? She can't see it.

>Misty trotted into the bathr//
Something got cut off there.

>Ghost sighed as she tossed her back into her apartment.//
Are you sure this is phrased how you wanted? I don't understand it.

>While the class went on about sine and cosine//
I thought you said this was an algebra class. That's trigonometry.

>written in worse handwriting than Ghost wrote in.//
Kind of repetitive phrasing. Just leave it as "written in worse handwriting than Ghost's." For that matter, it isn't handwriting. I typically see it called hoofwriting (closer parallel to the earth term) or mouthwriting (closer to what non-unicorns actually do)/hornwriting.

>Ghost started up a pot of her favorite jasmine tea, and grabbed another book.//
Unnecessary comma.

>Sometimes, Ghost thought as she warmed up a towel in her magic, it really sucks to be right.//
Your presentation of that is closer to dialogue. If you want it that way, use quotation marks or italics for the thought. But you can remove the thought tag and just state it as narration, in past tense.

>any of their behavior follow//
>this criteria//
Singular/plural mismatch.

>hastily-scrawled//
You don't need a hyphen for a two-word phrase starting in an -ly adverb.

>The unicorn//
Another strangely external reference, this time to herself. I haven't been marking every one of these, by the way. You should go through the whole story for them.

>coffeemaker//
>coffee making//
Strange that you have one of those as a single word and the other as two.

>business pony//
This would likely be one word, like the human equivalent.

>list.” She mumbled//
Punctuation/capitalization.

>decypher//
I've always seen that as "decipher," but if you're used to this spelling, it's fine.

>icey//
icy

>which had spread behind the counter and out towards the customer’s chairs, which were thankfully vacated//
It's kind of clunky to have two "which" clauses stacked up like that.

>happened?” Blurted//
Capitalization.

>refridgerator//
This might also be a regional spelling, but I've only seen "refrigerator."

>until it shined like new//
"Shined" takes a direct object. You want "shone."

>“Waffles!” Squealed//
Capitalization.

>ectacy//
Typo.

>shquares~” She//
Capitalization.

>added “I’ll//
Needs a comma.

>pushing a crosswalk button over and over//
I love this.

>ruined page//
You just used "ruining" in the last paragraph.

>going.” Ghost murmured//
Punctuation.

>Was she really that surprised about how easy it was to miss out on the lecture.//
Isn't that a question?

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

>wished — for//
Don't leave space on either side of an em dash.

You've got some questionable semicolons. In formal usage, you should be able to replace one with a period and have both resulting sentences stand as complete, but many of yours would result in sentence fragments.

>A sigh of disappointment escaped her lips.//
Beware directly identifying emotion like this. It's often better to demonstrate it through character behavior and appearance, so that the reader can draw his own conclusion—this mimics how people judge each other in real life anyway. But in these "in/with/of emotion" phrasings, there's usually already something in the sentence to convey the mood. Here, the sigh and what she'd been musing already get across disappointment.

>Tempest’s surprise was apparent in her gaze and in her voice.//
Consider you've been using a limited narrator in Tempest's perspective so far. But she can't see her own face, so how does she know what her expression looks like, much less that it's "apparent"? Besides, it doesn't vocalize the emotion well. When you're surprised, you have a "wait, what?" moment, not a calm, "oh, that surprises me." This could stand to come across as more authentic. How she looks isn't going to be her clue as to how she feels anyway. You don't have to look in a mirror to know you're happy, after all.

>she cut her off//
That's already what the dash means. Narrating it as well is redundant.

>“As you wish,” Twilight nodded.//
You're using a non-speaking action as a speech tag.

>laying down and getting comfortable//
"Lay" and "lie" are tough verbs to keep straight, but you need "lying" here.

As this conversation starts, compare the flavor of the narration to what it was at the beginning of the scene. Early on, it was very expressive of Tempest's thoughts and opinions. Now it's just spouting factual statements. Inject some of those flavorful-toned sentences fairly regularly, or it will sound like you've reverted to an omniscient narration.

Consider character voicing. Twilight's speech sounds virtually identical to Tempest's. If I picked out a random statement, I doubt I'd be able to decide who said it based on voice alone. Maybe from the circumstances of what it actually said but not how it said it. You want to give these characters distinct voices. For that matter, you're affecting a very cumbersome voice for both. Purple, florid language has its place, but extemporaneous musings and off-the-cuff dialogue aren't usually a good use for it. At least Twilight could believably have this level of vocabulary, but Tempest didn't especially seem to in the movie, and you're not giving her a reason why she would.

>Surely even among the diplomacy-obsessed Equestrians//
Pretty repetitive to start two sentences in a row with that word.

>Tempest snorted, a mixture of exasperation and quiet amusement on her breath.//
Again, odd for her to outright identify her mood rather than the effect it's having on her. From her perspective, the effect would be the more noticeable thing.

>a bit of//
You use this phrase is consecutive sentences.

>“And at the risk of sounding too pleased with myself,” she looked up to meet Tempest’s gaze.//
Non-speaking action used as a speech tag again.

>delicious food//
How does she know it is? She hasn't tasted it yet.

>shocking and intriguing//
Yet the narration reacts to Twilight very calmly, not as if it's intrigued and shocked.

>“Not quite what I meant,” Tempest shook her head.//
Non-speaking action as speech tag.

>real friends that cared about you//
It's preferred to use "who" instead of "which" or "that" when referring to sentient beings.

>“I didn’t,” she nodded.//
Non-speaking action as speech tag.

>a hole in her heart that she didn’t know she had//
You already spoke to hunger she didn't know she had. It's kind of a cliched thought, as well as being repetitive, but I can't tell if the repetition is intended. I doubt it, but there could actually be a very interesting thematic link here. The key is to make it obvious you're doing it on purpose by acknowledging the repetition. You could have her liken it to the earlier hunger, for example.

>“I never realized.” She finally said.//
Punctuation/capitalization.

>panoply//
You can keep this if you like, but for me, it's an odd word choice. "Panoply" implies a covering that's all over, but this one is only on the horizon. It also connotes something protective, which isn't the case here.

>takedown//
It's kind of weird that you've repeatedly used this to describe his defeat.

>“Thank you for your offer. But I’m learning to be more comfortable with who I am.”//
Looks like there's an inadvertent line break here.

>He gaze//
Typo.

>again, but stopped short. A curious notion washed over her. She looked to the decanter and once again focused on her magic. Her horn sparked again//
That's three uses of the same word very close together.

>“No.” She said quietly to herself.//
Punctuation/capitalization.

There's some nice characterization here, but I'm confused. You submitted it as a complete story and didn't give a synopsis of forthcoming chapters, but on FiMFiction, it's marked as incomplete. The incomplete is probably an oversight on your part (I believe it's the default when you create a story), but it really does feel incomplete.

There's not a big moment of character change here, and Tempest doesn't struggle wih it much. She does wrestle a bit with understanding why Twilight acts the way she does, but not with accepting Twilight's attitude, and it's really that struggle that would or wouldn't introduce tension in to the story. If it's something worth having, it's something worth fighting for, so let me see Tempest's fight to attain what it is she wants here, and let me see Twilight fight to help her get it. When there's just a direct path from need to success without any obstacles, it's hard for the story to make a compelling case. And then when she does get it, there's no catharsis for her.

For that matter, I'm not sure why you're tagging this as AU. There's some talk of a council which may or may not fit into canon, but it's relatively unimportant to what's happening.

I liked your characterization of Tempest, but Twilight's voice is pretty indistinguishable from hers, and it could use some higher-stakes and less easily resolved conflict.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

>well,they//
Missing space.

>There was reason//
Missing word.

>six pointed//
Hyphenate.

>cutiemark//
That's two words.

>well deserved//
Hyphenate.

>Twilight- urk//
Please use a proper dash for interruptions and asides. You have a number of these throughout the story.

>bone crushing//
Hyphenate. Whenever you have a multi-word descriptor used as a single adjective in fron of what it describes, hyphenate the phrase.

>fore legs//
That's one word.

>“Oh, I’m still going”//
Missing period.

>and tried to recall the whirlwind of books and dusty scrolls of that day.//
You'd been using Twilight as your perspective character, but this is within Spike's head.

>lung crushing//
Hyphenate, but that's pretty repetitive with the earlier "bone-crushing."

>out the equation//
Missing word.

>Spike felt the now all-too-familiar embrace of a super-strong alicorn.//
You keep flipping back and forth btween their perspectives, and not in a way that an omniscient narrator would.

>change Rarity’s dress and mask to better suit her new look//
How does she know it'll suit her better? She's not exactly fashionable.

>This would be her spells greatest test//
Missing apostrophe.

>and she payed dearly for a few months back//
Missing word.

>doors.” she said//
Punctuation. And I don't get Luna's point. Why would Rarity be the only one to serve as an example?

>she desperately wishes she there could’ve been another way//
Wording is off.

>her Mom//
I won't get into the grammatical dtails here, but if you'd said just "Mom" here, it would need to be capitalized, but with the "her" in front of it, it shouldn't be.

>Tutancalmel//
Did you mean that to be "camel"?

>If there is a universal constant, then Pinkie is the certainly the universal variable. But if there is one thing Twilight can count on, it’s her friends//
Why are you switching to present tense here?

>lantern lit//
Hyphenate.

>in place like this…//
Missing word.

>wished she had stop breathing//
Syntax is off.

>all she could do is watch her friend melt in front of her eyes//
The comma before this is a splice, and you've gone to present tense again.

>Her only response were//
Singular/plural mismatch.

>when Luna pulled similar stunt//
Missing word.

>ended up finding her hiding in the closet, and thinking she was just vermin, ended up//
Repeated phrasing.

>was out of limelight//
Missing word.

>How had Pinkie not succumb to its power?//
Typo. And I haven't been marking many of the perspective shifts, but this is another. Most of the scene was in Twilight's, but you're going to Celestia here.

Aside from the mechanical things, the biggest issue here is the jumpy perspective. It's a bad idea to skip around to different viewpoints in this limited a narrator, because it can be confusing an jarring when the narrative view keeps changing. It also defeats the purpose of using a limited narrator like this, as the reader's never given the time to settle into the different viewpoints. It'd help if you tried to stick to one character per scene.

Plot-wise, the biggest issue is that Twiligt wanted to make the point that her friends are all as important as her. But given the opportunity to, she never does. To her friends, sure, but they already knew that. She didn't make the point to the crowd, which was the outcome she really wanted.

Consider also that the stakes were never very high. The biggest one of all is that Rarity was upset her dress wouldn't get used. Pinkie and Dash didn't have any issues, Applejack didn't even turn up until afterward, and Fluttershy immediately recovered, so the effect on her wasn't significant. Rarity immediately forgave her, too. When everything gets solved so easily without anyone becoming too upset it undermines that there was anything serious going on in the first place.

Even Twilight's problem seems a little misplaced. She's not uncomfortable with the spotlight; she just wanted that spotlight shining on her friends, but she's in the perfect position to make sure it is, so was there some other reason she was desperately avoiding it? That doesn't come out, and it's not used to balance out the justifcation for her actions, such that the other girls understand why she did it and agree to meet in the middle somewhere. Twilight just kind of comes to the conclusion that she never really had an argument in the first place. Resolve that conflict, don't nullify it. They do apologize to her, but really, for what? None of them were acting unreasonably.

If that mask at the end is so potentially dangerous, why is it so easy for someone to gain access to it? It's also a strange diversion from the story's message to have this tangent that doesn't go anywhere.

There's a nice idea in this story, albeit one that's been done plenty of times before, but it could use some focus on the depth of the emotional journey for all involved. Let me see the stakes involved: what Twilight wants, what she's willing to do to get it (so far, you've got those), and what bad thing will happen if she doesn't. And throw some more obstacles in her path. The only major one is Rarity getting upset; all the rest just solve themselves.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

>The magenta pony//
You're using Tempest as your perspective character. That means you're having her refer to herself using this type of phrase. Who does that?

>the taller mare//
Again, you're having Tempest refer to herself this way.

>the other unicorn//
Similarly, why would she use a reference like this for someone she knows? You don't think of your acquaintances using language like this.

>Taking a quick breath, she rattled off//
Note that participles make things happen at the same time. So she's speaking while inhaling.

>After she started talking about the incinerator room, she just tuned her out.//
This gets convoluted as to which one of them each "she" refers to.

Now I'm going to illustrate something. I'm going to copy out every participial phrase I see in the first scene.
>hidden behind the doors in Twilight's abode//
>turning another corner in the hallway//
>Turning a corner//
>raising an eyebrow//
>Laughing nervously at Tempest's complete non-reaction//
>Taking a few seconds to ponder the proposal//
>crying//
>Rounding the corner//
>turning around//
>Taking a quick breath//
>Noticing that Starlight had finished her spiel//
>trying to remember the directions//
>Double-checking to make sure she had found the pool//
>Freezing for a few seconds//
That's quite a lot. Not overwhelmingly so, but authors of moderate experience tend to rely on this structure too much. They don't turn up a lot in everyday conversation, so they're unusual and stand out easily. Similar are absolute phrases and "as" clauses, and you have your share of those as well:
>as Tempest Shadow, only a few days into her new life, turned a corner and continued her steady pace//
>as the candelabras and other wall decorations passed by//
>as she slammed into another resident of the castle//
>as the other mare shook her head//
>a slight blush rising on her features//
>As Tempest continued to stare silently//
>as the taller mare passed//
>as Starlight continued her "easy" directions to what should have been a simple room//
>her horn-stub dropping electric blue sparks on the floor//
So just watch that you're not getting structurally repetitive.

>protege//
As she's a female, it's technically protegee.

>Ducking under the table//
>Closing the book//
>Seeing she had been acknowledged//
>Chuckling nervously//
I've already made my point about these, but look how you've started 4 paragraphs in a row with participial phrases. That's also very repetitive.

>so, she won't//
There's rarely a reason to put a comma after a conjunction.

>shocked and embarrassed//
That doesn't really describe how she looks. It's just identifying the emotion. It's more like real life when I get a picture and have to evaluate it. So what does Starlight do here? If you describe her reaction well, the reader will deduce these emotions without you having to mention them at all.

>anger and embarrassment//
Yeah, don't just name emotions like that.

>Sunset." Starlight said, give a few soft hoofclaps//
Punctuation, typo. In fact, it looks like you have this punctuation problem quite a bit. If dialogue ends in a period, then replace the period with a comma when you add a speech tag after it.

>We've all got some stories to tell, why don't we see if Cheerilee would let us present them to her class?//
Comma splice.

>cutiemarksarereallyimportantandtheyshouldn'tmakeyoufeeljealous//
Consider that this is supposed to represent her speaking quickly, yet it actually takes longer to read than separate words. It's creating he exact opposite effect. It's better to write this out normally and just say in the narration that she speakd it very fast.

>Those are hands.//
Minotaurs have them. Plenty of creatures have hand-like claws. Why are they so alien to the students?

>—” She beat her hoof against the diagram a couple of times to emphasize—”to//
Be consistent with your dash placement. Either they both go with the speech (which means she stops talking for the action) or both with the narration. And don't capitalize an aside in a quote like this.

>and snarled slightly//
Missing punctuation.

>Ponyville market had always been an impressive sight to visitors.//
You'd been using Tempest as your perspective character. How would she know this?

>Despite being a small town, the market was always filled//
This says the market was a small town.

>whomever was the current mayor//
This is actually a spot for "whoever."

>a reassuring hand//
Yet you just got through making hands sound so mysterious in the schoolhouse.

>metaled hooves//
Why do you keep calling them that?

>laying perfectly still//
Lay/lie confusion. They're tough verbs to keep straight.

>Pausing to dramatically think for a moment, a pink glow//
This says that a pink glow paused to think.

You're basically running through all the same tricks Trixie showed Sunburst. Why not come up with something original?

>The two guffawed at the showpony//
I assume these are modeled after Waldorf and Statler? I approve.

>afraid of having to explain the situation to Twilight//
How does Tempest know this?

>as one Twilight's friends//
Missing word.

>Tempest visibly getting more and more irritated//
How does she know this? She can't see herself, yet you're telling the story from her viewpoint.

>although both it and her magic field seemed to have no effect on the pony//
Now this is being told from Starlight's perspective. To Tempest, "seem" wouldn't enter into it. She'd know.

>Tempest, who was now watching the three ponies with slightly tear-filled eyes//
I'll touch on this in a moment, but this completes a character arc you never started.

>Seeing that Tempest was somewhat upset//
That's more from Twilight's point of view than Tempest's.

On second thought, you didn't quite complete that character arc. So, at the beginning, Tempest is so lackadaisical about joining this group. She has zero interest in it. Why does she? Just to stave off boredom? You have her learn a lesson toward the end, so why not make that a theme through the story. It really needs one, or a lot of it is pointless. And really, the scene at Trixie's show goes on awfully long for something that's both rehashing material from a show episode and not working toward Tempest's character arc.

So why not have Tempest want to join the group? She doesn't even have to be cognizant of why. She might explicitly know she's looking to make friends, or she might just have some unidentified gnawing feeling that she's missing out on something and she hopes she might find it here. Then keep framing every scene through that lens, such that the events are helping her work toward finding that friendship or suffering setbacks.

How to complete it, then? She doesn't have to be completely won over. Even showing her on the road to getting there is fine, but aside from tearing up a little, she didn't show much of a realization that this is something she wants to achieve. Then the ending is pretty weak, as it doesn't have her start to follow through on that. Twilight, of all ponies, isn't even definite about what's happened, and you turn that into a mild joke. Ending on a joke is fine, but you do want the story to have closure. Not necessarily plot closure, to where she's accomplished everything she wants to in friendship, but thematic closure, where the story makes its point.

This was a pretty good story. You have a few mechanical things, like using commas with speech tags and overuse of certain types of phrases, but you also need to tighten up on what the actual story is. Keep things focused and working toward that goal, showing Tempest's progress toward it, both her steps forward and backward. Along those lines, it did seem a little odd for Grubber to show up and then get completely dropped without serving much pirpose. Can he play a role in her character growth? If not, does he really need to be in the story at all?

If you can get those things ironed out, I could see posting this.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

>approximately 19:42 ,//
Extraneous space.

>ambience magic//
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. Are you sure this shouldn't be "ambient" magic?

>Eyewitnesses’ account describe the incident as a sudden of swelling of ambience magic for a few seconds before the aforementioned explosion took place. Bystanders describe the ensuing explosion as a burst of a deep purple magic which tore through the roof and wall of the tower, residence of Twilight Sparkle and her assistant, and then shot upwards to the sky before quickly dissipating.//
What's the difference between an eyewitness and a bystander here? The bystander account is of a direct observation, so aren't they also eyewitnesses? And both essentially say the same thing.

>Captain Shining Armour//
Normally, I don't mind the difference between British and American spellings, but this isn't his name.

>a medical revision//
I have no idea what you're trying to say here either. Maybe you meant "evaluation"?

>Being the only known witness of the event besides Miss Sparkle herself, questioning has been scheduled for tomorrow.//
"Being the only known witness of the event besides Miss Sparkle herself" doesn't describe anything in the sentence. Grammatically it refers to the fact that questioning has been scheduled for tomorrow, which doesn't make sense.

>the guard will continue//
"Guard" would be capitalized here, since it's part of the official title of the group.

In chapter 2, I don't understand the difference between what's underlined and what isn't. I assume it's supposed to represent a form with lines there for writing on, but I don't understand the logic behind which sections have them and which don't. If you really want this to look like a form, it might be a better option to make an actual one and put an image of it in here.

>HPI//
Here's where a balancing act comes in. Authenticity says that this is a document for internal hospital use, so they would use common abbreviations for efficiency. However, you're presenting this outside the intended audience, and I don't know what this means.

>lead to believe//
The past tense is "led."

>Further analysis are required//
You're mixing singular and plural there.

> I don't what should be thanked//
Missing word.

>Per testimony of the Royal Guards//
This is a strange phrasing for this form. Why are medical personnel recording testimony?

>Further analysis are required//
Same singular/plural mixture you had for Spike's report.

>I don’t know how soon will the news of what happened reach you//
Syntax is off.

>I was doing the routine check up of the guard//
Just "check" would sound more reasonable here. "Check up" often has a medical connotation.

>We thought it may have been an attack at first, you know we’ve been on the edge//
That's a comma splice. Now since this is a letter the character has written, the error could plausibly be the character's and not the author's, so I guess that depends on whether you're deliberately having him make this error. And the idiom is just "on edge."

>back detachments from all over Equestria back//
Watch the close word repetition.

>the Twilight’s tower//
Extraneous word.

>Princess Celestia herself was flying straight for the tower, part of the roof was caved in. I don’t I don’t know what happened I got there as fast as I could.//
The firs sentence is a comma splice, and the second kind of is, except that it doesn't even have the comma.

>shewas//
Needs a space, and I can't tell why the sentence cuts off. This is the kind of thing that happens in dialogue, not a letter.

>anyof//
Needs a space.

Why didn't Shining Armor sign his letter?

>Residents of the city were rocked early in the night by a loud blast coming from the Royal Castle.//
Why is the byline in a smaller font than the article?

>In the eve//
on the eve

>Southwest//
Why is this capitalized?

>in the proximities of the castle//
If you really want to use that word, a more normal phrasing would be something like "in close proximity to the castle."

>Spike: “How is Twilight? Can I see her?”//
I guess I've never seen an actual interview report, but it seems odd they'd do it in script format. Unless maybe this was taken down by a court reporter or something, but one isn't identified. A poilice officer isn't going to write it down word for word, for example, much less his own dialogue.

>honest...//
And it seems odd that whoever this is would record speech affectations, like trailing off. They're only interested in the facts, not the nuance of how it's said.

>Spike: “… ”//
>Copper: “…”//
This might cut it as video game dialogue, but not in good writing. Whoever is compiling this report is actually going to write this down? I don't buy it.

>However, thanks to the testimony of Spike//
Missing a space between paragraphs.

>ambience magic//
Same issue with that word choice earlier in the story.

>rundown observatory//
"Rundown" is a noun that means a summary. You want "run-down." Though that tends to mean in bad shape through chronic neglect, not ruined by some freak accident.

>delegated investigator//
While it's possible this is a valid meaning (it would mean that the investigator in charge made someone under his command do it instead of him), I think it's more likely you intended something closer to "designated."

>South tower//
I don't know why that would be capitalized, but didn't you earlier say it was the southwest?

>Copper: “…”//
Again, it's not believable she'd write this.

>events of the Summer Sun Celebration has//
You have a mismatch of singular and plural: events... has.

>Strictly off the record.//
This is to Copper's commanding officer, right? Don't they ever see each other in person? Why does Copper have to communicate this via letter?

>several concussions//
I didn't realize it was possible to have more than one at a time. I suppose she could have kept injuring herself, but then I have to question what goes on at this hospital.

>could not be awaken//
Typo.

>Nervous system had suffered a thaumaturgic feedback, causing.//
Causing what?

>protégé//
Twilight's female, so protégée.

>A meeting of the Royal Guard and the Royal Archmage Court, was held at the Royal Canterlot Castle on the fourth of January at noon.//
There's no reason to have that comma.

>Ambience magic//
Same word use issue with that.

>The Guard is still on the look//
on the lookout

>discomfort and uncertainty is//
Plural subject with singular verb.

>expedite//
expedited

I assume they have the authority to present their findings to the public without Celestia's approval? Seems like they're breaking the chain of command here.

>Asure//
Assure

>Southwest tower//
Again, I don't know why you're capitalizing directions, but you've also switched yet again on whether it's the south or southwest tower.

>a private room//
Seems like on all these statements of which room, if it's worth saying where it was at all, it's worth being specific, like noting a room number.

>there were only a few rooms left in the towers to take care//
take care of

>Additionally, if she speaks the truth//
A number of these documents have spots like this where there's a new paragraph without indenting or leacing a blank line. Don't do both, but you need one or the other.

>ambience magic//
I'm going to stop marking these. Just assume you need to sweep all the chapters for this word usage.

>further worked would be required//
Typo.

>As far as the Court is concerned, the matter of the Summer Sun Incident has reached its conclusion.//
Really? They still don't know what magic was used or if Twilight was the one using it.

>Twilight Sparkle casted Dark Magic//
In the sense of magic, the past tense is usually used as "cast."

>Letter of Discharge//
This is not at all how any military would deal with a soldier in Shining Armor's situation. I realize the Royal Guard wouldn't necessarily operate like any Earth nation's army, but it's strange to have such a departure from that when there isn't a need to. And doesn't Shining Armor outrank Lt. Heartmare? How can a lieutenant remove him from duty then?

>Its resident, Twilight Sparkle, who was severely injured in the process.//
That's not a complete sentence.

>protégé//
protégée

>we hope for her soon recovery//
You're using an adverb as an adjective here.

>Actions will be taken to ensure that such an occurrence will not happen again peace and safety which characterise our beloved city.//
Something went wrong here.

>who have maintain//
Typo/

>a homage//
an

>I have no ground to ask for an apology//
Why would she ask for an apology? She should be offering one.

>disgrace has fallen Twilight Sparkle//
befallen

>downed upon Equestria//
dawned

>a millennia//
millennium

I'm a little surprised there wasn't any sort of public announcement. Celestia didn't ask Twilight's parents to keep it secret, after all. I do find it curious how Luna's banishment didn't leave a body behind, but Twilight's did. There's definitely a balancing act where it can feel justified or not as to outright explaining everything for the reader. And in a case like this, where you'd spent many chapters doling out the facts little by little, only to make that all moot by giving up the entire thing, after inviting the reader to assemble all the little clues. It does feel like a let-down, at least for me, but that's secondary at this point.

Primary is to fix all the editing issues and quirks, like all the mechanical errors I noted and the procedural things that didn't make sense (interview reports recorded in script format, essentially having a junior officer relieve his superior officer of duty, etc.)

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

>and—" My sister glanced to her nervous looking elegant orange-maned manager. "—and//
A narrative aside cutting into a quote like that shouldn't be capitalized or end in a period.

>nervous looking//
>foil decorated//
Hyphenate.

I'm barely a couple paragraphs in, and I'm already suffering participle overload. The first paragraph wasn't too bad overall, except the first two sentences both end in a participial phrase, which gives you a repetitive feel right as the story begins. But then look at this sentence:
>Minutes later Sassy and I trotted toward Canterlot Castle up Alicorn Way, levitating foil decorated boxes tied with ribbons and bows, trying to avoid traffic consisting of stallions in suits wearing top hats and mares in spring dresses sporting green bows.//
You have 6 participial phrases in one sentence. That's actually impressive. But it isn't good.

>She threw open the red door to the bottom flat of a duplex brownstone, tossing her keys onto a glass coffee table with a bang.//
Also keep in mind that participles mean things happen simultaneously. So she tosses her keys while opening the door here.

>splashed with paint from a paint factory explosion//
That just sounds self-explanatory. Maybe you need better imagery. Go for something outlandish.

>Sugar Cube Corner//
Canon spelling has "Sugarcube" as one word.

>(And if that last gets back to Scoots or Bloom, I'll know it was you who said it.)//
Wait, who am I? No audience has been mentioned for her. If you're going to do that, establish it up front, but there's more going on here. It depends on how she's telling the story. Am I accompanying her? Or is she telling me/writing about it after the fact? If the former, nobody's acknowledged I'm there. If the latter, it doesn't ring true, since nobody could remember these events in enough detail to reconstruct entire conversations word for word. The way this is typically handled is by jumping to flashback scenes so that the past events can reasonably be presented "live," though there are other ways. I'm just not sure how you intend to portray this, but it isn't working. EDIT: Now that I've read the whole thing, I'd recommend getting rid of this. You barely revisit addressing the reader in any fashion, and you never even identify who "you" is. This bit stands out as the part that doesn't belong with the rest.

>using her horn to boil the kettle//
Rarity doesn't do this in her own kitchen. Seems odd that anyone who wasn't particularly powerful (or who had that as their special talent, I guess) would be able to.

>Sassy and Twilight were the same age.//
Why is Twilight being brought into this? She's not relevant to anything that's happening. Sweetie just mentioned Rarity. Why wouldn't she give Sassy's age relative to her?

>an hurricane-aftermath//
That's not a spot for "an."

>rumbled shirts//
Are you sure you didn't mean "rumpled"?

>sound— the//
Don't put space on either side of an em dash.

>Posters displayed the constellations and aspects of the Milky Way. One displayed//
Watch the close repetition.

>a obsidian//
an

>I— You//
No space.

You've kind of already let on what this colt's deal is when he said it was too noisy at night, so it's a little off-putting that he's not going to tell her now, and she hasn't figured it out.

>wrote on the chalkboard by the door using the chalk in his mouth//
This is agian something that sounds rather self-explanatory, but it also sounds kind of like he had the chalk in there all along.

This colt seems rather matter-of-fact about his parents' deaths. And why is he throwing a sweater at Sweetie Belle?

>which smelled faintly horsey//
Then why'd she put it on? I mean even without the smell, why'd she put it on? He didn't tell her to, and I still don't get why he threw it at her. He hasn't asked her to go anywhere with him, and she hasn't acknowledged that she will.

>the sky turn deep yellow, orange, then crimson. In minutes, the sky started turning blue//
Kind of repetitive. Plus it takes some time for all this to happen. She's already been self-conscious about this seeming like a date, so she's just going to gloss over this time period without comment?

>peddling her legs//
You sure you didn't mean "pedaling"? Even so, it's kind of an odd word choice.

>Blue." I said//
Punctuation.

>It was indeed as silky as I imagined.//
You're really going out of your way to talk up this OC. I understand why Sweetie Belle would do so externally, but I don't know why she'd think he's so great. She doesn't even know him yet. Just be aware of how many readers will take this. It takes a lot of gradual convincing that an OC is worth caring about, and you're kind of forcing the issue. People will assume this is a representation of you.

>"Who?" He asked.//
Capitalization.

>I just smiled. Just//
Watch that close repetition of "just." It's a word many authors tend to overuse.

>Fire Break//
Does Sweetie Belle know him? She hasn't indicated she does, but in her limited narartion, she's come up with his name without it being mentioned.

>as he rubbed Blue's head like a tike as we left//
Kind of clunky to stack up two "as" clauses like that.

>"Yes, princess."//
As a term of address, that would be capitalized.

>There's been some oversights!//
This is just strangely worded. I can't figure out what she means.

>Oh, yes, I remember her when she called herself Pins. She studied to be a doctor, but the dean of the school didn't like her 'prickly' ideas. Right. A good mare. Sweetie Belle, see that Blue visits the office of the exchequer.//
I assume this means Blue is due some kind of inheritance or some such? It's rather strange to bring it up and close the matter in such rapid fashion, not to mention assigning Sweetie Belle the responsibility for handling it. Plus I hope it'll end up being pertinent to the plot that Sassy wanted to be a doctor.

>text checker//
You can't have this both ways. It's her limited narration, so when she heard Luna says it, she's the one who perceived it as the correct word. She can't get it wrong now.

>And with that, she sprung into the sky and soared off.//
She leaves so abruptly and without explanation. It feels more like the plot had no more use for her than she had an actual reason to leave.

>She visited all of Ponyville together in one big dream once//
Did she really swear an entire town to secrecy? I guess there's precedent for that, though. *cough*Equestria Girls*cough*

>That elicited a dainty royal chuckle and I turned to gaze into her royal blue eyes.//
Needs a comma between the clauses.

>We— I//
Extraneous space.

>first name basis//
first-name basis

>Er— I've//
Extraneous space.

>old mares tales//
old mares' tales

>Tears streamed down his cheeks.//
This is sudden, and she relates it as a mundane fact. It really feels like she's completely unaffected by it.

>Canterlot mountain//
If that's a proper place name, then "mountain" would be capitalized too.

>She cast another spell and a faintly glowing blue bubble formed around each of us.//
Needs a comma between the clauses.

>lay down//
lie

>He lay//
This seems like an odd word choice. It doesn't connote any urgency.

>"Please," he pleaded.//
That seems self-explanatory.

>"Blue," Luna said, "What did you sense?"//
Because of the way you punctuated that, you're saying both parts of the quote form a single sentence. That's fine. But then you're capitalizing "What" in the middle of a sentence.

>Oh, and I learned that some of the voices he heard were the stars.//
This glosses over a lot, and she's so glib about it that it doesn't carry any weight.

>It was ponies' dreams he heard when he slept.//
That's been obvious from the start.

>dinner." Luna said//
>sister." she said//
Punctuation.

>her sisters' ear//
You have a plural possessive where you need a singular.

There are a number of editing issues, and I'll step aside for a minute to sy that I have been keeping up with the previous story you submitted here. I've enjoyed it, but a lot of the same editing mistakes I helped you clear up in the early chapters are popping up again in the newer ones, some of them pretty obvious. I was hoping you'd take a little more care with editing.

In the end, why does it matter that this happened? Sweetie Belle was "hired" to help Blue find his cutie mark, but he didn't. Blue found out what the voices were, but so far, that's been treated as no more than a curiosity. What's he going to do with this knowledge? He's been brought on as Luna's student, probably because she's the best one to instruct him in an ability nobody else has, but it's also just kind of tossed in there. Neither he nor Luna shows too much of a definite plan of what that entails. There's so much that's open-ended here.

Now, open endings are fine, but there's a way to make them work, and that's to establish what the stakes and likelihood of the various possible outcome are. That's really not happening here. All these potential pieces are set into motion, but it' vague about what direction things might head, and nobody seems that emotionally attached to any particular outcome. If the characters don't care that much, it's hard for the reader to. Sweetie Belle's a first-person narrator, so we should have a front-row seat to how all this is affecting her, but she doesn't have a plan and she doesn't seem invested in where things are going.

And that's the biggest weakness here. It feels like I'm tossing along in the current with these events, but they're not heading anywhere.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

>“I owe you an apology, Star Swirl.” She swiveled her neck to look at him.//
She looks at him after she speaks to him?

I'm going to pull out a few sentences to illustrate something.
>AJ raised her foreleg.//
>Star Swirl glanced at Applejack and nodded.//
>She flipped her hoof so that the bottom faced upward.//
>Her green eyes shone as she relived the moment.//
>Applejack nodded.//
>Star Swirl cleared his throat.//
>Twilight thought for a moment.//
>Applejack held her hoof toward her friend.//
>Twilight pursed her lips.//
>AJ stared at the ground.//
>Twilight tilted her head, perplexed as to why Applejack brought up that adventure.//
>Applejack's ears twitched.//
>Star Swirl raised his eyebrows.//
>Applejack waved her foreleg.//
This is a stretch where I've removed all the dialogue and any narration that was just a speech tag. Read down this as if it were a single paragraph. See how plodding it is? Most of the sentences are about the same length and with the same inflection. All of them start with the subject, and most of those subjects are names. It helps mask this when there is dialogue breaking it up, but you still want the narration to flow well, or I'll get the feeling that the speech is fine but the action is dull.

>Much of the land was a patchwork of cultivated fields intersected by thin roads and railways.//
This is a very thin description for a moment that's supposed to be inspirational.

Twilight's using direct address with Star Swirl an awful lot. It's never ambiguous who she's talking to, so it shouldn't be necessary.

Around here, the story's starting to stagnate. You're having Star Swirl do a lot of exposition via dialogue, and a lot of it is stuff the reader should already know. The "as you know" type os expository dialogue always has a really tough time feeling natural.

>“I do not make friends with stupid ponies.”//
That's rather callous of her. Why would she rule them out? I could see her not wanting to be friends with malicious ponies or immoral ones, but stupid? Some ponies just couldn't help being that way, and it doesn't seem like a sentiment Twilight would have.

>“Twilight Sparkle, I apologize for doubting you.
Missing a line break here.

>Seeing that Star Swirl was taking banter well//
Don't over-explain what's going on. This is already apparent.

>entry way//
That's one word.

Now that I'm at the end of chapter 1, I want to paste in an earlier excerpt:
>Was that what they were talking about? Yet her friend didn't appear irate. If anything, she seemed pensive, her eyebrows slightly angled upward.//
This takes a very conversational tone. It's not omniscient. An omniscient narrator would know what they were talking about; he wouldn't have to ask. An omniscient narrator wouldn't bother with "seem" or "appear," unless he was attributing such a perception to a character. Yet most of the chapter feels like it's omniscient. It's very formal and factual, and it never mirrors Twilight's (and I presume she'd be the perspective character, since the excerpt I pulled is told from her viewpoint) emotional state. Plus you use lots of phrases like "the farm pony." Limited narration is essentially the focus character's thoughts, so this implies that Twilight chooses to refer to AJ as "the farm pony." That just doesn't ring true. People don't think of acquaintances in such formal, external terms. In your own head, do you refer to your best friend as "the person"? Or if omniscient is what you did want, then make sure you're not having the narrator express opinions as if his own (attribute opinions to the characters) or taking a conversational style (asking questions, trailing off, adding emphasis, etc.).

>Fluttershy truly was curious about Mystical Mask's daughter//
Why are you referring to her like that? You've only called her Mage Meadowbrook or some manner of LUS.

>“He's real?”//
When a word is italicized for emphasis, it's preferred to include a question mark or exclamation mark on it in the italics.

>forced my friends and I//
That's actually a spot for "me." Take the friends out: "forced I." Doesn't sound right, does it?

>back. It's horrible to look back//
Watch the close word repetition.

>siren's magic//
There were three, so use a plural possessive.

>counter spell//
Make that one word, or possibly hyphenate it.

>Are you asking me to be your pupil?//
But Meadowbrook specifically said "filly." Seemed like she was looking for a child. It's a bit of a leap for Fluttershy to assume Meadowbrook meant her.

>remembering some of the things Starlight had done to her and her friends in the past//
There are lots of little phrases you like to put in along these lines throughout, but they're not very effective. There are two reasons why. First, it's similar to spelling out emotions. You've probably heard of "show, don't tell" before, where it's usually better to demonstrate emotion than to have the narrator state it outright. It can also be distancing to explain character motivations and intentions. The second thing is that this statement carries no power. I have no idea what these memories are or what they mean to her. It's harder to do this kind of thing in an omniscient narration, since they like to take on a more personal voice, but a couple of examples will always speak louder than a cold, vague summary. Give me a sentence or two each about a couple of these memories. That brings it alive. Then I get engaged with the character and her feelings on the matter. Just leaving it that she had memories is a fact that does nothing to make me empathize with her.

>“If it'll make you happy, then yes, I'd love to.”//
This is a weird sentiment. The first part makes it sound like she's not interested and is playing along to humor her. If she'd really love to, then why qualify it like that?

>Hearths Warming//
Missing apostrophe.

>Had it been his idea, or had Twilight fallen asleep on her own? Oh well, it wasn't that important to the story.//
Here, you're taking a very limited feel to the narration again. You're predominantly using omniscient, but there are the occasional slips like this.

This chapter is extremely dialogue heavy. I don't get a good sense of what the setting is and if that guard is still standing there listening to him. It also tends to make the conversation a little sterile. There aren't the kinds of emotional cues that back up the mood of what they're saying. Remember, a significant part of a conversation is nonverbal. Don't neglect it.

>Ponies marveled at the ancient legend brought to life.//
I guess I'm surprised they'd recognize her unprompted. Has news of their return spread widely?

>when she spied the familiar rooftop in the distance//
>I see the rooftop of my boutique//
These are redundant.

>“Aww,” chorused the followers//
>“Ooooh,” the ponies chorused.//
Repetitive speech tag so close together.

>yet another pony was monopolizing her special time with Mistmane//
This is sudden. Sassy's barely spoken so far.

I'm now 4 chapters in, and I don't see a coherent story. It's just episodes of a Pillar talking an Element through a very low-stakes conflict that's easily solved, and there's no connection between chapters, other than the characters are already linked, but there's nothing in the story doing so. It's felt like I've read 4 separate short stories, not 4 chapters of a long story.

>your highness//
You'll typically capitalize honorifics like this.

>If his canter could do that, how disruptive must his gallop be?//
You're lapsing into a limited narration here. Take this with the earlier:
>the princess//
If you're truly using a limited narration, then this implies Celestia chooses to call herself "the princess," which is oddly formal. This is also very much from her point of view:
>appearing uncomfortable//

Why is Celestia laughing about Stygian on coffee? Does she know him? If so, we don't have any evidence of that.

>coffee?//
Keep the question mark inside the italics.

>Oh, Harmony//
Strange that he'd use that as an expression, because they didn't in the past, and when the modern ponies said things like "Tree of Harmony," the Pillars didn't understand. he'd know what it meant now, but it wouldn't have worked its way into his everyday usage.

>ponies who only knew Luna and I//
Same deal as before: use "me" here.

>If anything, he seemed to be under-reporting the horrors he'd witnessed in battle.//
Into Celestia's viewpoint again.

>protect . . .//
The best argument I can make for not putting spaces between the dots of an ellipsis is that FiMFic's typesetting doesn't recognize it as a single entity, so the spaces are fair game for line breaks. On my browser, two dots ended up on the next line.

>You guys are so proud of yourselves, like it's some kind of accomplishment that hair grows out of your face.//
But... she has hair covering her face as well. I get what you mean, but for an animal with a coat, it's not quite the same sentiment.

This chapter finally seems to have some lasting plot to it, but it doesn't really tie into any of the others, except for Stygian being around the castle.

>Daring Do didn't want to let Somnambula in on her secret identity.//
This is pretty obvious from thir behavior. Don't over-explain it to the audience.

>I've heard some unbelievable stories from Daring Do//
But this is Daring Do saying it, right? I don't understand. It's not like they really need to keep up this charade for Somnambula's benefit. She hasn't read the books, so she'd have no idea what they were doing.

>him,” - here she curved her forelock into a horn shape to illustrate - “but//
>Ages'” - she made hoof quotes - “is//
You have hyphens here where you need dashes.

>ghost aren't//
Mixing plural and singular.

>“Okay. What?”//
Include the question mark in the italics.

>“You were in Somnambula – the town – when Dr. Caballeron was causing trouble, right?”//
Why wouldn't she already know this?

>few seconds head start//
seconds'

>“I'm s-”//
Use a dash.

>the Map wanted you and the other Elements to bring us back for a reason//
Huh? The map didn't direct them there. Twilight undertook that on her own. The only thing the map did was help them find spots of dark energy and direct them to help Stygian, both after the Pillars had already returned.

>“It's like Rocky says – there's a reason they decided to keep me around.”
>
>“I'll say,” said Dash with a laugh.//
That's three forms of "say" close together.

>If he lost his balance and fell, he'd certainly be the heaviest pony she'd saved from falling from a dangerous height, although not the first.//
Drifting into the feel of a limited narrator again.

>lass//
>Ja//
Wait, so is he Scottish or Swedish? Or that Dreamworks/Disney brand of Viking that has a Scottish accent for some reason?

>She would have stumbled over the word if she had not spent an hour in the library with Twilight and Star Swirl earlier in the day.//
Because that specific word came up, or because spending time in the library just makes her generally smarter?

>at edge of our property//
Missing word.

>adding her own opinion//
That's just obvious. You don't need to narrate it.

>But I forgive you if you forgive me.//
Interesting she's making that conditional. It didn't seem like she was at first, and it runs contrary to what she said to him.

>the affects are unpredictable//
Effects. As a noun, "affect" means something like a tic, not a result.

>Stygian sipped from his cup again.//
He's doing that a lot. There's a disease readers catch where they can't think of anything more for a character to do with a beverage than some variation on "take another sip." Think of the things you'd do with your coffee while talking to a friend besides drinking it, then work some of that in.

>but yet//
Redundant.

>He took a drink of coffee///
And you're still at it...

After a couple of chapters of feeling like the story was going somewhere, it's lapsed back into the pattern of a Pillar having a low-stakes discussion with a show regular. That's really how the entire story feels so far, with the exception of the plot point about revamping the military. It's like those stories where it's practically obligatory that it visit each of the Mane 6. Everyone's paired up here, and we go through a somewhat philosophical discussion that ultimately doesn't resolve anything or even create tension to be resolved later. And so many of the chapters have no dependence on each other. As I said earlier, this feels like reading a series of quasi-related stories, not a single one with an overarching plot.

In fact, the story really isn't delivering on what the synopsis promises. The fix for that is probably revising the synopsis, though honestly, what it describes sounds more interesting than what's actually there. It's implied that the Pillars will have trouble fitting in to modern society, and that many apologues are owed. The item about Meadowvrook does come to fruition, but also note that the synopsis focuses on her and Star Swirl.

Of course, it's enirely possible (even likely, I'd say) that we'll get to some more compelling plot points in future chapters, but you're asking readers to go through an awful lot to get there.

Do the Pillars have some kind of unified plan, or are they just wandering around aimlessly trying to find things to do? I get the impression it's more of the latter, but that makes for less of a coherent story. I think it'd help if you established an organized plan for what these characters want to do and that they're on the same page about it, and then make that clear from the earlier chapters. Without any sort of overall purpose, the result is a directionlessness that doesn't keep me wanting to see what happens in the next chapter. The more of an impetus you can give events, the better off you'll be. What they want currently is a set of very broad things that are unlikely to get underway by the time the story concludes, and they're also things for which there's no real conflict or struggle to attain.

We don't know what kind of opposition Flash and Rockhoof will face in increasing the military, Somnambula and Star Swirl are pretty vague in what they actually want, and Mistmane and Meadowbrook seem more interested in surveying the magic school and evaluating the present state of magic than actually achieving something.

Aside from that, there are these detailed mechanical and stylistic things, but the only one I want to emphasize is the perspective. It seems like you want to use an omniscient narrator, but then you have to keep the narration from slipping into taking on any character's persona. There are numerous places where it did that and transitioned into a limited feel. You don't want the narrative voice wavering like that. Or if you intended to use limited, be careful the narration is always focused on saying only what the current perspective character could know or perceive (until you get used to the effect, it's better to keep to one perspective per scene), sounds how that character might phrase things, and doesn't revert to sounding neutral and formal for long stretches, which makes it lapse back into sounding omniscient.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

>so why was it so hard to find the words.//
Isn't this a question?

>mention- her respect//
Not sure why this warrants a dash, but please use a proper one.

>She took the picture of her and Pinkie Pie off the wall making her way to her bed.//
This sounds jumbled. It seems to say the picture is of Pinkie making her way to bed. Or the wall is going to bed.

>picture- as//
Yes, please use proper dashes, either an em dash with no space on either side or an en dash with space on both sides.

>I actually wanted to ask if want to come with.//
Missing word and repetitive use of "want."

>The alicorn inspected the room with joyful curiosity. She frowned when she saw something underneath the covers of Starlight's bed.//
I get that Starlight's not in the room to witness this, but does that really warratn changing perspective? Is this stuff important? If so, can you stay with Starlight and have her notice evidence of it? Or if it really is necessary, can you have a smoother transfer of perspective?

>t was a journal//
Typo.

>But she had already read the last entry before she realized it.//
This is really contrived. She knew it was a journal and inadvertently read it? That's really hard to believe.

>So....//
You have several four-dot ellipses. They should be only three.

>This was her teacher and usually the situation was reversed.//
And now you've popped back to Starlight's viewpoint.

>I just flipped to last entry//
Missing word.

>"Years ago," She stated//
Don't capitalize the speech tag.

>mane. "but//
You have a period, so this starts a new sentence. Capitalize it.

>where we're differ//
"where we differ" or "where we're different."

>"...You're right." Twilight grinned boastfully.//
For several paragraphs around here, you're disorganized. You consitently have one character's speech in the same paragraph as the other's narrated actions, and it gets confusing as to who's speaking.

>And if there's something Pinkie//
Seems like you're missing a word here.

>dragged her to barn//
Missing word.

>she would never try and hurt you, or do anything to hurt you//
That says the same thing twice.

>Put your heart in Starlight.//
>She'll say yes Starlight.//
Missing a comma for direct address.

>He's the guest bedroom//
>Trixie sarcastically//
Missing word.

>"I don't know what to do." She said//
Punctuation/capitalization.

>she won't full on reject you. And least not fully.//
She's saying the same thing twice.

>"Well, for instance," she paused in the road//
You're using a non-speaking action as a speech tag.

>But, you weren't going to tell me.//
No reason to have that comma. They don't normally go after conjunctions.

>I'm took a guess//
Typo.

>Not just to be advice.//
The syntax is off here.

>She was please//
Typo.

>it eventually lead to an entrance//
The past tense is "led."

>Starlight practically felt a hole being born in her chest.//
I have to think you meant "bored."

>Starlight lifted the cup to her lips, it tasted like a strange combination of lemons and grape.//
Comma splice.

>Starlight think she saw//
Verb form is wrong.

>first one i went to//
Capitalization.

>the post office closes at Midnight//
Why is that capitalized? And why is the post office open so late?

>some pony//
One word, same as "somebody."

>hr//
>Slowing marching up the stairs//
>Her gaze sudden turned serious.//
Typo.

>The beautiful flowers of the night rushed over the daylight ones.//
I have no idea what this means. There's no context for it.

>A good night sleep//
A good night's sleep

>Scribbling down the words, she quickly jumped under the covers//
Participial phrases mean things happen at the same time, so she's writing while jumping in bed.

>else where//
elsewhere

>placed the small piece of parchment her saddlebag//
Missing word.

>He held a small blanket and a candle.//
This is the third sentence in a row with a "small" in it.

>hourse 'till Midnight//
Typo, capitalization, and spelling it "till" doesn't use an apostrophe.

>I know it isn't a big sentence, or huge reveal.//
Looks like the bold font got cut off before the end of the letter.

>the pinkie pony//
Typo.

>neat envelope, with various stickers on it. Her name was written neatly//
Repetition of "neat."

>It was "sent in" last minute//
When you have a quote inside another quote, use single quotation marks for the inner one.

The biggest issue here is that I still don't know what made Starlight fall in love with Pinkie. As much time as the story spends exhorting her to think about it and express that to her, she never really speaks of it to anyone, and when she finally puts it into writing, it's still very vague. She likes Pinkie's mane and smile, and she's happy Pinkie treated her well during her reformation. That's all very generic and not much to build a relationship on. What about her makes Starlight think they'd be compatible? How did she gradually come to find Pinkie endearing? I could go on at length, but instead, I'll refer you to Aragon. He's made a series of blog posts on how to do realistic and plausible shipping, and they're linked off his home page.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

>the normally blizzarding frozen north of the Crystal Empire//
But the Crystal Heart keeps the blizzard out. Wouldn't she be able to see the moon? Or is she outside the city's border?

>whenever I would come here. I needed a good prodding to come up here//
Try to avoid close repetition of words and phrases like this.

Right away, I'm noticing quite a lot of "to be" verbs. Mostly, you use "was," but it doesn't really matter which form. They're stagnant verbs and tend to make a story's action stagnate. I did a Ctrl-f for "was," and the screen lit up. Let me pull out an example to illustrate.
>I was thankful for my friend, former mentor and faithful confidant, Twilight Sparkle, for convincing me to make the trip up to the Crystal Empire for New Year’s.//
If I replace the "was" or just rephrase it to avoid having a verb there at all, it takes on a more active feel, which is more interesting to read. Try something like this:
>Fortunately my friend, former mentor and faithful confidant, Twilight Sparkle, had convinced me to make the trip up to the Crystal Empire for New Year’s.//

Here's another:
>Truthfully, anxiety was still an undercurrent in my mind//
becomes:
>Truthfully, anxiety had still clouded my thoughts//

It's impractical to completely avoid "to be" verbs, and you get more leeway for dialogue, since real people don't creatively avoid them when they speak, but using active verbs where possible in the narration will make for a more engaging read.

>I was curious about Twilight’s recent research with Sunburst as the sole reason.//
I don't understand what this is saying.

>Let me break the fourth wall, talk directly to my audience and tell you that your guess is as good as mine.//
Don't do this. You're now explicitly saying Starlight has an audience. Who is that audience? Is someone standing there listening to her tell the story? Is she writing all this down? Whatever the case, if you imply or outright state an audience, you need to define them. Why does she want them to hear it? Why do they want to listen? That's a can of worms best avoided unless you're prepared to deal with all that.

>“What a perfect New Year’s Eve,” Sunburst was the first of us to speak//
When you transition from speech to narration with a comma like that, the narrative bit needs to be a speech tag, but that's not how this is phrased.

>off-white stripe going down his muzzle//
I wonder if, being a pony, she'd know the proper terminology for that. For the width of it, it's be called a blaze.

>his voice trailed off//
You ended his speech with an ellipsis, which already means he trailed off. It's redundant to narrate that as well.

>I reply//
Why are you switching to present tense?

>and…” Sunburst trailed off//
Redundant again.

>“But there’s already—” Sunburst tried to protest, but was cut off by my excited smile.//
Two things to say about this. First, this is similar to the trailing off. The dash already means he got cut off, so you don't need to narrate it as well. Second, when you have an interruption, what comes immediately after it needs to be what does the interrupting. The fact that the narrator has time to wedge in the "Sunburst tried to protest" makes it seem less sudden. Do something like this:
>“But there’s already—” My excited smile silenced him.//

>civilians//
That's a strange word choice, as it implies the story focuses on non-civilians, civilians are in the minority, or Starlight herself isn't a civilian. I wonder if you meant citizen.

>in bedazzlement and awe//
Try to avoid directly naming emotions like this. You've been pretty good about presenting behavior and body language as evidence instead of just saying how characters feel, but be especially aware of using these "in/of/with emotion" phrases. Better to demonstrate that through what these characters are doing. It makes things more vivid.

>with,” I answered the question he wanted to ask.//
If that had just said "I answered," it'd be a valid speech tag, but as you've phrased it, that narrative piece should be a separate sentence.

A word about your choice of speaking verbs. You have to find some moderation. Yes, "said" is pretty unremarkable, but it also blends it. The reader doesn't really see it there, and the speech stands out. It's fine to have some more unusual speaking verbs for variety, but don't go overboard. They're okay when they change how the reader interprets or hears the speech, but if you go overboard with fancy ones, they steal attention from the dialogue.

>“Because of you, it’s going to be a good year,”//
Missing a line break here.

I have to say, this was far better written than a lot of what we get, never mind that it's your first one. I think it's on track to where we could post it with a little work. So have a look through what I've said and fix these things up. Then there's one more thing. The romance itself is very superficial.

If you love somebody, there will be lots of reasons why. I never learn why either of these characters think the other would be good relationship material. As far as I can tell, it's just because they knew each other since childhood. But what does Starlight actually like about him? What qualities does he have that she admires? What does Sunburst say to indicate the same about Starlight?

Actually, let me go on a brief tangent. You did a good job at staying in Starlight's perspective. Lots of authors have trouble with that, and they wander over to Sunburst's head to let me know what he's thinking about all this. You didn't do that. You kept steady in showing everything through Starlight's perception. And that's why I made the distinction of Suburst saying what he liked about her. She can't read his mind, after all, so the only way she'd know is if he said it.

But back to the romance. You have to prove to me that these two are in love, not just expect me to take your word for it. So part of that is taking me through Starlight's thoughts about him, so she can say what she likes about him. Anecdote can be a powerful thing here. So instead of just saying she thinks he's smart, give me a few sentences about a time she saw that on display and found it endearing. Then do that for a few other of his qualities as well, and you'll have all this evidence for why she loves him. That's how to build it up.

Also consider that a relationship is a give and take. Not only should she be thinking about what she'd get out of dating him but what she would contribute. What does she think he's going to get out of it?

I could go on at length, but fortunately, someone's already done the legwork. There's a user on the site called Aragon. If you go to his home page, you'll see that he's linked to a series of blog posts about writing romance. It's worth a read. (And he's a good author, so while you're there, his stories are worth a read, too.)

So you've got an excellent start here. You're already ahead of the curve. Just add that context to justify the romance and take into account the other comments I've made, and you could get this fixed up to where I'd be happy to post it. Because hey specifically apply to things I saw in the story, you might want to read some of the sections at the top of this thread, namely the ones about dialogue punctuation/capitalization, show versus tell, and saidisms.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

>Rainbow Dash and Rarity head east//
I thought when Rainbow Dash headed east, it took millions of words. Sorry, couldn't resist.

>, love, it’s//
If this formatting means something, it's lost on me.

That opening paragraph just comes across as inconsistent. First off, Dash is not a poetic character. To that end, I could buy the uneven rhythms and stretched rhymes. Yet it's so almost regular that it doesn't feel haphazard. It feels more like something planned, a speech that Dash had worked on for some time but not perfected yet, and the word choice is rather advanced for her in places. In fact, the near-structure of it seems to be fighting the whole theme of the piece.

In short, it doesn't say "Rainbow Dash" to me, nor does it create the tone that follows through the rest of the story.

>If is that one?//
Wording got jumbled here.

>just--hanging//
I don't understand why you're putting a dash here. There isn't a change in the train of thought, and nothing interrupts her.

>Dash felt Rarity take her hoof. She tucked a loose part of her curly mane behind her ear//
The first part sure makes it sound like Dash isn't looking at her, so how would she see the second part?

>She pondered how to open up without opening up all at once, which from her years of experience with her neurotic friends tended to look pretty bad.//
Again, this just doesn't evoke Dash for me. Compare it to her dialogue. The two should sound very similar. A limited narration is essentially the character's internal stream of thought, and if it sounds much different than what they say out loud, there would need to be a rationale for why (like an informal thought pattern against formal speech because she's in a ritzy venue, for instance).

>cartfull//
cartful

>cried out as her tongue burned//
Go back to the notion that the narration is Dash's stream of thought. She says this so matter-of-factly. If you did this, you'd probably have some choice words running through your head, but she just glosses over it. If it were to create the sense she barely noticed, I could buy that, but then she wouldn't be crying out. When she doesn't pay attention to the right things, it loses some authenticity.

>locked inside Carousel Boutique preparing//
Why do they need it to be locked?

>Dash laid on her friend’s plush bed//
Lay/lie confusion.

>Pegasi could feel and manipulate the energy in it like a unicorn could a leyline.//
This seems to contradict her earlier statement that the pegasi who'd modified it had done so in ways few of them understood.

>ripping across the sky//
You repeat this phrase in consecutive sentences.

>Dash would fly.//
I get why she'd like to fly, but it feels like you're skipping over something, namely the pluses and minuses of traveling together. I'm not even sure if Dash would count the companionship as a plus or minus at this point, and that's a rather telling thing.

>it’s a moment of piece//
I don't know if you're doing deliberate wordplay here or this is a typo. If the former, I'm not sure what it means.

>below her//
>beneath her//
Kind of repetitive to end consecutive sentences this way.

>facefull//
facceful

>If Dash had paid enough enough attention to that lesson, she might have come to the conclusion that since the jetstream was essentially one giant column of air being vibrated by unbound magical forces, it was only logical for it to produce sound as the overtones interacted in the space around her.//
Well... you're using a limited narrator. So this is Dash's stream of thought. It explicitly does occur to her if the narrator says it. There are ways to say things to this effect, but they're usually phrased more like she would have been satisfied with that conclusion were she more scientific, or some such. This sounds more like she's saying she lacks the knowledge to reason out the explanation she just reasoned out, which is contradictory.

>carrying over the wind in fifths and fourths and major thirds//
Look, I know you in particular can't help letting this kind of thing creep into the writing, but once again, this is Dash's limited narration. This means that she not only knows what these things are but so instinctively that she can recognize them when they're not where her attention would be focused. Don't lose an authentic train of thought for the character, or else you might as well be writing omniscient.

>a trail of condensation clinging to her like the tail of a comet//
I guess it depends on what the source is? Only condensation from a combusting propulsion source would trail behind, and she doesn't have one. If you're talking about the vapor clouds that form when objects approach the speed of sound (presumably, exiting the jetstream means she's suddenly going much faster relative to the air around her), then those would be more around her head and wings.

Wait, let me revisit that. She shut her wings, and there's suddenly a downward force on her. It's just gravity, so nothing more than she's used to. There's not going to be an aerodynamic force pushing her down just from that.

>again, light blue suited her. Another thought overtook her, and she rolled again//
Watch the close word repetition.

>Dash, pumped her wings hard//
Why is that comma there?

>emblazoned with the San Diamingo flag//
Kinda makes me wonder what it looks like...

>over the mountain,” the pony explained over//
Watch the close repetition.

>There are essentially two towns on either side of the island.//
This makes it sound like there are four towns total, two on each side.

>What kind of food to they have?//
Typo.

>lulled them into silence//
It's kind of presumptive for Dash to assume this is what's happening with the staff member. She can only speak for herself, unless she's drawing a conclusion from her observation of his behavior.

>above, she spotted a pair of pegasi riding a thermal updraft into the clouds above//
Close repetition.

>Thanks for the lift dude.//
Needs a comma for direct address.

>in the background, dramatic music playing in the background//
Close phrase repetition.

>all bursting out all//
Close repetition.

>coy!--“No,”//
Here's a danger of using a double hyphen over a real dash: you can't control the typesetting on FiMFic. On my browser, it's put a line break between the hyphens.

>led her down the single dirt road leading//
Repetitive word choice.

>then back to cabin//
Missing word.

>You could have gotten sunburned//
Do ponies get sunburned? I know only certain animals can.

>Much to her friend’s chagrin//
Why would Dash refer to herself in such a roundabout way?

>down into deep//
Seems like you're missing a word.

>Dash laid in a soft bed //
Lay/lie confusion.

>how do you propose I make it down in time for the spa appointment.//
Isn't that a question?

>the pegasus//
So I guess you've tranferred over to Rarity's viewpoint. It doesn't go back for the rest of the chapter, so it's not bad, though I'm not sure it's adding anything either. But once again, this is a very impersonal kind of reference to make about someone she knows well.

>if you want to look presentable when we got to the resort club//
That "got" doesn't parse.

>cognitive dissonance//
You've done a better job since the early chapters of keeping Dash's narration from sounding too advanced, but there are occasional spots like this. You have her not knowing what spelunking is and thinking they'd have a log flume ride coming down the mountain (Is it really a mountain, though? There's a minimum elevation requirement to call it that.) despite no evidence of such, and yet she both knows what cognitive dissonance is and is inclined to use the phrase.

>That vague notion seemed familiar, but it was equally easy to dismiss.//
And you're getting a bit advanced with her again.

>The jetstream roared above her, no more than a few hundred years away.//
Typo.

>to find Dash zonked out on a folding chair. It felt strange to find her//
Watch the repetitive phrasing. And it's curious for you to switch to Rarity's perspective here. The whole story's been with Rainbow Dash so far. Is it really buying you anything to go to Rarity? We don't learn anything important while there, and it only lasts a few paragraphs. You could easily cut it without losing anything, or have this be something Dash observes while pretending to be asleep.

>Having already made the important decision to stay in bed until the tides washed the island away, her resolve was strong.//
This makes it sound like it was her resolve that had made the decision.

>ice cold bottle//
ice-cold

>The poor pegasus//
Why would Dash refer to herself so externally? Nobody does this.

>Without taking her eyes off of Rarity, Dash eyed the paper bags sitting on the floor//
This is self-contradictory.

>Dash nervously peered into the bag and pulled out its contents. “Is that... Prench?”//
I don't understand this on two levels. First, Rarity had put the cold bottle against Dash's neck, so when did it go back into the bag, which may not even be that close to Rarity? And second, Dash already said it was a champagne bottle, so why did she need to look into the bag to see that's what it was? She's the narrator. If the narration says it's champagne, then Dash knows it's champagne.

>“What’s that, some kind of protein shake?” Dash grimaced at the thought.//
I guess I'm a little surprised that someone athletic like Dash would hate protein shakes, but it's not impossible.

>toast, “The//
Capitalization.

>And it’s why I love you so much that, uhm, I want to know if you’re happy.//
Okay, nothing in the story so far has made me think they were already in a relationship. Rarity doesn't react with any degree of surprise, so either they are, Rarity's long since figured this out, or Rarity's just taking this as a platonic statement. And this is good! Rarity's hard to figure out here, and it keeps things interesting.

>everything’s confusing//
Capitalization.

>leaning on a stood//
Typo.

>The chords sounded funny//
This goes back to narrative voice again. Remember, this is the same limited narration you had identifying fifths and fourths and major thirds, and now she can only say something vague (which fits her character better anyway).

>More chords floated past them.//
Why do you keep just calling the music chords? Whether or not Dash has any musical knowledge, she's going to describe it in more ways than that.

>whatever,” Rarity said, “It’s//
Capitalization. When you re-enter the quote like this, it doesn't get capitalized.

>by the time she touching down again//
Syntax is off.

>with the incredible roar of the wind passed around her//
Weird phrasing. Maybe you meant that "with" to be a "while"?

>All that was left with the night.//
This might be okay, but it kind of sounds like another "with" you meant to be something else.

>ocean stretched on endlessly beneath her. The island was a tiny speck in the endless ocean//
Pretty repetitive phrasing.

>Using the jetstream to retrace her flight path//
How's that work? Presumably she's not in it, so she's just below it or something? How can she sense it there in the dark? Seems like this would be a great place for some sensory imagery instead of glossing it over.

>The island appeared on the horizon//
But she mentioned it being a speck before. That sure made it sound like she still had it in sight.

Man, this is a really hard kind of story to judge. It's got lovely atmosphere and characterization, and on the balance that can outweigh some missteps. The biggest is that the narration is inconsistent at feeling like it's Dash's voice. It's too sophisticated at times, and then there are the big poetic paragraphs. Because of the narrator you're using, it's Dash coming up with that stuff on the spur of the moment. On the one hand, that makes it more reasonable that the rhymes aren't very clean most of the time, but on the other, it means Dash is both able and inclined to think in poetry off the cuff, and that's tougher to believe.

So I'll say this: Fix up the typos and mechanical errors and such. I'm prepared to take the poetry as a conceit for the story. But you should really consider how out of place the two short diversions into Rarity's perspective are, and you should think about making the prose-style narration more in tune with Dash's character. It should reflect her intelligence level, vocabulary, mannerisms, and personality, and there were several places, mostly in the early chapters, where it fel like you were losing her voice. Again, if you want that fancy language, you could go for an omniscient narrator, since matching her voice wouldn't be an issue then, but that would be a far more extensive change to make than "dumbing down" some of the existing narration, as it were.

If all you fix is the mechanical/stylistic things, I'll post this, but as much as you want this to be an intensely personal experience for the readers, seeing through Dash's eyes, I hope you'll consider that it would be even more powerful if it more consistently emulated her. Mark it as "back from Mars," and I'll approve it when you resubmit.

Oh, and a word about cover art. You have a lot of followers, and this is a popular enough ship. I'm surprised it's gotten so few readers. I wonder if it isn't the art. If you really want to keep this, you can, but Seth always complains at us when we send him stories with stock images as cover art like this, since they look pretty boring on the blog. Even a nice episode screencap of Dash alone or with Rarity and looking mood-appropriate would make a noticeable difference.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

>the road to school to the bus stop//
So which is it? I realize it could be both, but it's just confusing reading it this way. I'm not sure whether she's walking to school or the bus stop. Either way, this seems to say school is her destination, but the very next sentence talks about her going home, so I can't figure this out.

>as of billions of tiny little cotton balls had covered everything//
Typo.

Just in the first screenful, you have 12 instances of "was" or "wasn't." There are over 100 in the story. That's a lot for this word count. If I factor in other forms of "to be," then you're even more awash in them. It'd pay off for you to phrase things with active verbs where you can. "To be" is boring. Nothing happens. It's impractical to avoid it altogether, particularly in dialogue, since people don't creatively phrase things to get around it when they speak, so you get some leeway there. I'll pull out an example.
>Her bike was in the shop, so her only ride home was the local bus that ran by every fifteen minutes.//
If I rewrite this with active verbs, it could be something like this:
>The shop still hadn't finished fixing her bike, so she had no other way home except the local bus that ran by every fifteen minutes.//

>She also realized that because of the snow the bus would be late//
Why? Is the road not plowed? Is the bus always late when it snows? I'd like to see her justification.

>Once she had reached school, she noticed one of two things.//
This says she only noticed one thing, but then you have her go on to notice both. Even if she only noticed one thing, this wouldn't work for the perspective. You're effectively using Sunset as your narrator, so if there's something she doesn't notice, the narrator can't notice it either.

>Not that the substitute cared, he was dozed off in Ms. Harshwhinny’s chair//
That's a comma splice, and the syntax is off for "he was dozed."

>low voiced//
Hyphenate multi-word descriptors like this when they come before what they're describing.

>She was the newest of the group therefore she shouldn't know either.//
Needs a comma.

>But she guessed that's what the hushed whispers were for, but it didn't seem to comfort her in the slightest.//
The two uses of "but" create the feel of a double negative. Plus Sunset should know whether she was comforted or not. "Seem" shouldn't enter into it. That'd be someone else's impression of her.

>twenty third//
Hyphenate.

>Shock overtook Sunset’s face, then confusion, then understanding.//
This is a bad idea in two ways. First, it's better to demonstrate how a character feels through their behavior, body language, and dialogue, instead of directly naming emotions. It's more realistic that way. Think about it: you don't know how some random person you see in public feels. There's not a narrator telling you. But you can observe them and figure out how they feel from how they act. That's how it works in real life. So when you have to figure out a written character the same way, it's more authentic.

And second, you're using Sunset as your viewpoint character. That means you also have to be careful exactly what things you use to give her emotion context. Only she could know what memories are running through her head, for example. A narrator in another character's viewpoint couldn't tell you what Sunset is thinking. Along those same lines, consider that Sunset can't see her own face to make the judgment you're having her do here.

>twenty first//
Hyphenate.

>what Sunset did know, was that she was going to be there for Applejack//
Why is this such a big thing for her? The other girls know AJ well, and they're not moving to do anything. Why not? Do they know AJ would just rather be alone? Have they tried in the past and nothing's worked? Seems like that's the kind of stuff Sunset should ask about before she unilaterally decides she's going to fix AJ.

>Losing a parent was hard//
This kind of begs the question of how Sunset feels about her own parents.

>Lunch time came around//
Why are we only halfway through the day? You already said "The rest of the day was a blur of classes" as if it's already over.

>Do you....//
>How'd....How'd//
Only three dots in an ellipsis. A four-dot one is a specific use case in formal nonfiction.

>I don't know dear//
Needs a comma for direct address.

>At a time like this, she really needs her friends.//
Then why have none of her friends ever done anything about it?

>the bell for the period to end rung//
rang

>When she arose from her bed//
Needs a comma here to set off the dependent clause.

>today,” She said//
Capitalization. Dialogue tags don't get capitalized unless they start the sentence.

>up,” There was pity in her eyes.//
The narrative part here doesn't have a speaking action, so it can't be a dialogue tag. It needs to be a separate sentence, so end the dialogue with a period. Both of these dialogue mechanics issues persist throughout the story. I'm not going to mark any more, but that doesn't mean they aren't there.

>the older woman//
AJ is your perspective character now, so you're saying she chooses to refer to her own grandmother like this. In your own thoughts, would you call your grandmother this?

>turnin’.” She turned//
Watch close word repetition like this.

>Seeing how nothing she said was going to get though her stubborn granddaughter’s head, Granny Smith decided to let it go.//
Why are you jumping over to Granny Smith's perspective for a single paragraph? Stay in AJ's head.

>Applejack didn't even bother to shower, she just threw on her work clothes and headed out.//
Comma splice.

>blanketing it in white//
Most times, you'll set off a participial phrase with a comma.

>It was quiet, most mornings were.//
Comma splice, and you have a close repetition of "most" in the next sentence.

>Apple Bloom hated getting up this early, it was the bane of her existence.//
I'm seeing a lot more of these comma splices lately. I'm going to have to stop marking them.

>I wasn't even old enough to talk to them. I don't even remember what Momma looks like and it hurts Applejack! It hurts!//
This'll take a bit more explanation to get into. If Apple Bloom never knew them, then why does she have such an attachment to them? THis is a very over-the-top reaction. She'd love them just by the fact they're her parents, but she didn't have a reason for so personal a relationship with them, so give me more about why this matters so much to her.

>I was four, remember?//
She just said she wasn't old enough to talk to them before they died. A four-year-old can't talk?

>Apple Bloom you can't blame yourself//
Needs a comma for direct address.

>I’m the reason their dead//
Their/they're confusion.

>O-Okay//
Only capitalize the first part of a stutter, unless it's something like a name that has to be capitalized anyway.

>walking passed Applebloom//
Past/passed confusion; Apple Bloom.

>I miss my parents in Equestria//
Ah, there we go. But as relevant as this is to identifying with AJ, she barely touches on it. This is the only mention it ever gets.

>The usually kept girl//
Something's off in that phrasing.

>she had went//
gone

>Oh, Okay//
Why is "okay" capitalized?

>Sunset hadn’t been friend with,//
Friends, and that comma is unnecessary.

>bit bile//
Missing word.

>confused and not sure what made her friend leave so abruptly//
Don't jump over to AJ's perspective like this.

>ya’ll//
y’all

>‘round//
When you have an apostrophe on the front of a word, be aware that smart quotes will turn it backward. You can paste one in th right way or type two in a row, then delete the first.

>recognized the immediately song//
Syntax is off.

>years...” her voice trailed//
The ellipsis already means she's trailing off. Narrating it as well is redundant.

>youngin’//
young ’un

It sure doesn't end up taking much convincing to get Apple Bloom to give up her guilt. Part of the power in a story is the difficulty involved in achieving what the protagonist wants. This is all pretty straightforward. At least Apple Bloom doesn't come around when Applejack first spoke to her, but they just make the same argument to her twice, and the second time it works. Plus having everyone come over for dinner ended up not mattering to this. It had nothing to do with what Applejack said to her, so that leaves it feeling extraneous. Plus that's another example of a problem being fixed very easily. Everyone shows up, and Applejack's immediately in a good mood. They didn't have to work for it, so there's less of a payoff when they get the effect they want.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

>A quiet chime sounded and the creature’s characteristics popped up in the lower left of her visor.//
You have a number of places like this that could use a comma between the clauses. When a conjunction separates two subjects that each get their own verb, you'll normally put a comma there. In this case, you have "chime sounded, and... characteristics popped up." Here's another spot a bit later wi the the same issue:
>Luckily she heard its skittering legs at the last second and she was able to throw up a personal shield in time.//
Assuming this is going to be a pervasive thing, I won't be able to mark them all, so give the story a scan for these.

>thirty three//
Hyphenate.

>according to her helmet’s heads-up-display//
Participial phrases like this normally get set off with a comma.

>take a step back to take//
Watch the close repetition of words or phrases like this.

>faster than light travel//
Whenever you have an entire phrase that acts as a single adjective in front of what it describes, hyphenate it. So, "faster-than-light travel." The exception is if there's a two-word phrase starting with an -ly adverb. Those don't use hyphens.

>it more closely resembled a gangly insect rather than a spacecraft capable of faster than light travel//
Now I'm going to revisit this sentence. This is narration, but it's expressing Twilight's opinion for her. Mostly, the narration has been pretty factual, but here, it's taking on Twilight's viewpoint. It could stand to be more consistent. Limited narrators essentially take on a character's identity, while omniscient ones are formal and factual for the most part. Your story has sounded mostly omniscient to this point, but some spots like this one sound limited. The problem is that I can't tell what you intend. If you want omniscient, then you can't let character opinion like this creep into the narration without explicitly saying is what that character thinks. Or if you want a limited narrator, then establish that more definitively from the start, and have it poke in with a subjective statement like this more often. The longer you go without something like this, the more it feels like omniscient narration with occasional perspective mistakes than a limited narration.

And here's another thing that doesn't work if you're using a limited narrator:
>The alicorn mare//
This would mean that Twilight is choosing to describe herself with such a phrase. People don't think of themselves in such formal, external ways. For omniscient, this kind of phrasing is fine, as long as you don't overuse it.

For that matter, if you want a limited narrator, then it's really not necessary to have so much italicized thought. The narration already is her thought, so let it express those for her. By making them quotes, you're forcing a distance between the character and reader that works against the point of using a limited narrator.

>Then I saw the fire….//
A four-dot ellipsis is really for quoted excerpts in formal nonfiction writing. It's possible to actually do that in fiction, like if you were showing a research paper Twilight had written, and she did something like that in the paper. But for trailing off, just use three dots.

>much needed//
Hyphenate.

>As the purple pony settled in the padded pilot’s seat, the canopy swung down and locked with a pneumatic hiss as the airtight seal pressurized.//
It's really clunky to have two "as" clauses in the same sentence like this, plus they effectively over-specify the chronology.

>high pitched//
Hyphenate.

>at best, thirty light minutes away//
No reason to have a comma there.

>burnt out//
Hyphenate.

>excuses.” Twilight quipped//
Punctuation.

>Princess.” The voice boasted back//
Punctuation/capitalization.

>Regret maybe?//
If you've got a word italicized for emphasis, then include a question mark or exclamation mark on it in the italics.

>“Anyway,” Twilight decided to file that thought away to think about later, “I//
And this is the opposite problem. You have something punctuated/capitalized like a speech tag, but it has no speaking action. Add one in or make it a separate sentence.

>several thousand light year//
Hyphenate.

>it was nice to finally have somepony to talk to; especially one that knew her so well.//
A semicolon is really only correctly used if you could replace it by a period and have both resulting sentences stand as complete, but what comes after it here couldn't. A comma would work fine. This is the only one I've marked, but most of your semicolons are misused.

>hideous!” His voice came in//
Capitalization.

>gut wrenching//
Hyphenate.

>“It wasn’t your f…” His voice cut out//
An ellipsis is for a gradual fade. If the voice cuts off suddenly, use a dash.

>Too bad I don’t have time to catalog everything. The mare thought with some indignation.//
You're really intermittent at getting this kind of punctuation/capitalization issue wrong, so I can't tell whether you're making careless errors or don't understand the rules. There's a short section on dialogue capitalization/punctuation at the top of this thread.

>two hundred and sixty//
Someone as scientific as she is should know it's improper to use "and" in a number like this.

>the recording, along with any information she had gathered since her last data drop//
You need to pair that comma with another at the end of this descriptive aside.

>The three that her scanner failed to pick up anything//
Syntax is off here.

>Whatever monster created the life forms within//
It's starting to get stretched very thin that I have no idea what's going on. In a novel-length story, it's easier to put off something for thousands of words, because that's only a small portion of the whole thing, but when I'm closing in on 20% of the way through, and I don't have the first clue 1) what made Twilight run away, 2) why they want her to come back, and 3) whatever you're talking about in this sentence, then you're stringing the reader along too far. There is one exception to this, but it's not one you're using: that the limited narration can't address any of this because it's so abhorrent or traumatic to her that she forces the thoughts away before she can dwell on them. She's been given no motivation to do so.

By the end of chapter 1, I didn't know what the story's central conflict was supposed to be. There was just some banal interaction with an alien life form, then a mild but vague confrontation with another pony. I asked myself then whether it was okay prolonging even identifying the conflict this long, and I decided that it sometimes takes novels several chapters do to this, but now that I'm well into chapter 2, it's getting to be too much. Either let the reader know what the conflict is sooner or give Twilight some plausible reason why she refuses to even think about it, as well as demonstrating her having to fight off such thoughts.

>her conscious overruled her//
conscience

>Depressing the acceleration bars of her control yoke, her vessel’s pulse drive kicked on//
This says that her vessel's pulse drive depressed the acceleration bars.

>gentle decent//
descent

>sunward facing//
Hyphenate.

>flattened mesa//
As opposed to... an unflattened mesa?

>drew her ire attention//
It feels like there's a word missing here or something, but maybe it's just an expression I'm not familiar with.

>dark thoughts muddled her mind//
When you leave something so vague like this, it loses all meaning.

>sparks arching//
Usually sparks are described as "arcing," though what you have is possible, if unusual.

>burnt out//
Hyphenate.

>A cluster of thick crimson crystals//
Is this the plutonium? I don't know of any plutonium compounds having such a color, but if this comes straight from the game, then I suppose it's at least consistent with the source.

>her world turned to red//
Ah, so we finally have some drama. But it still does nothing to bring a sense of unity to the story or explain what's caused it all. What has the most forward momentum so far is wondering why the story's giving me the impression that all the evidence of intelligent life she's found are from the same source. There's only the most vague back story about why she's out here and what she wants to accomplish, so that part isn't compelling.

>ear splitting//
Hyphenate.

>Lined with flakes of ablative skin, they//
What's "they" here? The only candidate I can see is the flakes, but then this says the flakes are lined with flakes.

>peeked around her cover briefly, just long enough to take a peek//
Watch the close repetition.

>but every second she wasted, meant the sentinel grew closer//
No reason to have a comma there.

>an angry, computerized scream//
Is it alive? It kind of sounds odd for a computer to be angry or scream. What purpose would it serve?

>Violet eyes//
Once again, keep in mind you're using her as the perspective character for a limited narration. Why would she remark on her own eye color?

>the two flying sentinel’s//
Why is that a possessive?

>Her ears swiveled around and locked in on the whirling and buzzing//
Maybe you meant whirring?

>accelerate around next bend of the crevice//
Missing word.

I'm going to pull some examples out of the end of chapter 3 to make a point. Here are all the participial phrases you use in the last screenful:
>using her powerful hind legs to accelerate around next bend of the crevice//
>searing away the shadows//
>Galloping along the rocky floor//
>reminding the little pony that she was still being hunted//
>Flaring her wings wide//
>placing a hill between her and the sentinels//
>opening the canopy just in time to leap into it//
>Throwing her harness on//
>slowly trudging after her//
>Staring forward once more//
>letting her breathing fall to a more manageable level//
>already mulling over ideas on how to patch it//
That's over 5 paragraphs and 20 sentences. So you're averaging 2.4 per paragraph, or a little more than one every other sentence. That gets to be very structurally repetitive. The reader notices, albeit perhaps unconsciously, that he's seeing the same elements over and over again, and it feels repetitive. This is even more true the more unusual an element is, and participial phrases don't turn up much in everyday speech, so they stand out easier. The same is true of words. You wouldn't blink at seeing "the" 4 times in a single sentence, but you'd remember seeing "ventriloquist" twice on an entire page. So just watch for getting in a rut with these.

>>3089
>newton meters//
Torque units are usually hyphenated.

>Hyperdrive//
Why is this capitalized? Is it a trademark or something?

>deep space fighters//
deep-space

>showing the Equestrian fighters angle towards her//
The verb form here should be "angling," unless you mean that to be a noun, in which case, "fighters" needs to be possessive.

>“I was hoping.” The Equestrian captain answered//
Capitalization/punctuation.

>one way//
Hyphenate.

>She was the furthest pony from Equestria//
There are other ponies in the same system. She will be when she warps again, but for now? If this is true, it's true by such a tiny margin that it may as well not be.

>twenty five//
Hyphenate.

>Guilt wracked her//
The previous paragraph already describes the circumstances of this. Don't be so blunt with her emotions as to state them outright. Focus on what thoughts and images go through her head (which you've already done) and how this makes her feel physically. But to those thoughts, even though you'v covered what they are, pay a little attention to tone. The narration is essentially her internal monologue, so think about not only what she'd say in her head but how. These are painful images, so she wouldn't be stating them stoically as if reading from a history book. You've got some word choice in there that's in the right direction, like acrid and devastation. These are not factual words, so they let her opinion creep in. That's good. But some of this might get painful enough that she can't complete a sentence, maybe she'd emphasize a word here and there. Basically, give it the inflections she might use if she spoke it out loud.

>the Equestrian pilot//
She knows his name, right? If so, why make such an impersonal reference?

>many more sights that brought a flood of memories to the forefront of her mind//
Another spot where it's way to nebulous. Just a one-sentence example or two of these memories will carry far more weight than leaving it as a bland generalization.

>Griffons, Yaks, and the Dragons//
Why would these be capitalized? She doesn't capitalize pony.

>Twilight Sparkle seemed lost for words//
To whom? She's essentially the narrator. She'd know whether she was at a loss for words. "Seem" wouldn't enter into it.

>a maelstrom of conflicting emotions swirled through her head//
You're doing that vagueness again.

>Twilight saw the explosion happen again, just like it did every time she dreamed of that day.//
See, she's not fighting the thought. She's letting herself see it. So why is the narrator withholding the identity of "he"? You're not setting this up to be plausible as to why she keeps skirting the issue.

>Its ponies like us//
Its/it's confusion.

>“But those families…” She began, only to be interrupted right away.//
Three things here. First, you have the same dialogue tag capitalization issue. Second, if she gets interrupted, she'd get cut off with a dash, not trail off with an ellipsis. And third, when someone gets cut off, the very next thing needs to be what cuts her off. The fact that the narration gets to wedge all that in there takes away the sense that the interruption is sudden and immediate. Just end the speech with a dash, remove that narration, and go right to his speech in the next paragraph.

>His words echoed across the void and they might have worked in the end but he would never know because she was already gone.//
This needs a couple of commas, and it's weird with the perspective. If she's gone, she wouldn't know any of this. It's like you're shifting to his perspective.

>learn her tactics and anticipate her actions//
Really, what are they going to do to her, though? They won't shoot her down, and unless she's somewhere out of her ship gathering resources (which she doesn't even need to do anymore), they couldn't capture her either. I don't get a sense of what the actual peril is.

>month long/
Hyphenate.

>duel levers//
This means they're for fights. You want "dual."

>worn out//
Hyphenate.

>Carefully setting down a crate of lustrous emril ore, the alicorn princess followed the sound back into her ship’s cockpit.//
I mentioned a while back that you use a lot of participial phrases. I haven't seen a cluster quite that extreme again, but there are a couple dangers of using them. One is that they imply synchronized action, so here, she's going back to the cockpit while she's setting the crate down. Whenever you use a participial phrase, make sure you actually intend the actions to be concurrent.

>a hostile scan; ever! The most they’ve ever done is a cursory scan//
I don't understand the difference. What makes a scan hostile?

>high pitched//
Hyphenate.

>Somepony was screaming and only when the attack had ended did she realize that it had been coming from herself.//
This is a very cliched thing.

>It represented the only safety she had but she knew she would never make it in time.//
This is pretty much the same dilemma she faced with the sentry bots. Does the game repeat like this?

>dizzyingly speeds//
You have an adverb where you need an adjective.

>The gangly insect-like spaceship//
I don't know how many times you need to describe it as such.

>a house-sized rock//
I don't get a sense for how much cover this provides. Some of the things she's done aboard the ship make it sound bigger than a house, so this wouldn't obscure her.

>now donut-shaped asteroid, where she could now//
Watch the close word repetition.

>the inevitability of her inescapable fate//
She just got finished saying the other Equestrians were only minutes behind when all this started. She seems to have conveniently forgotten.

>closed her eyes shut//
Redundant.

>Having reached the end of their short energetic lives, the Equestrians//
This makes it sound like the Equestrians reached the end of their lives.

>taxing their weapon’s heat dissipation systems//
That should be a plural possessive, assuming there's more than one weapon in the fleet.

>Hellish lights danced by her cockpit and out of the corner of her eye, she saw several of them slam into her fellow ponies’ shields.//
Comma splice.

>chance… Twilight’s thoughts trailed off//
The ellipsis already connotes trailing off. Narrating it as well is redundant.

>One that was piloted by a friend.//
If he's a friend, why hasn't she named him in 6 chapters?

>Four million suns worth//
suns'

>I have run the numbers again and again. She reminded herself//
Punctuation/capitalization.

>a pony//
This makes it sound like she doesn't know who it is.

>damaged, yet un-breached//
You don't need that comma, but if you want it there, you need to pair it with another after this.

>small wave had just crashed, sending a torrent of frothy bubbles racing up the shore to be followed by a small//
Watch the close word repetition.

>downward spiraling//
Hyphenate.

>He asked almost more as an accusation, than a question.//
No reason to have a comma there.

>Did you find any friends? Did you find any allies? Did you find the peace you were looking for?//
I don't get his argument. She left so Equestria would have peace. He's not addressing whether it worked.

>they found a natural adversary, and.//
And what?

>lit by the ambient light//
Lit by light? Seems self-explanatory.

>Her own little science vessel only served as target practice to them//
She keeps denigrating the ship, but it's taken out quite a few enemies and survived. It's been ringing false for a while now. Not that she wants to seek out combat, but she keeps saying it's inadequate in a fight yet proving otherwise.

>Memories poured forth of their own accord. She saw her friends again, smiling at her, beckoning her.//
You're being needlessly vague again.

>coast line//
coastline

>a gentle decent//
descent

>Lifting a hoof, she gently ran it along the multi-tool’s smooth rounded surface.//
Another spot where a participle synchronizes actions that probably shouldn't be. You also need a comma between smooth and rounded.

>She had no more use for it anymore.//
The "no more" and "anymore" are redundant.

In the end, I'm unfamiliar with the game, so I don't know how much about this story was driven by it. For instance, why Twilight never reveals who the friend she rescues is. But again with that as an example, there are some things you can get away with in games that you can't in stories. It makes no sense from her perspective to keep his identity secret, unless you give her a reason to. Same with whatever villain she was referring to. It's still a little off-putting how far we go into the story before we know much about what's going on, but I gather the game is like that as well, so I can take that as being consistent, where it still works with what narration you've used.

Other perspective issues are her use of impersonal descriptors, particularly for herself, and the odd way you have so much quoted thought when the narration is already her thoughts. I can live with the latter, though consider how distancing it is to have the narrator become a middleman relaying quotes when it's supposed to be identically Twilight.

There's some mechanical clean-up needed as well, and I provided examples of all the kinds of problems I saw, though certainly not an exhaustive list of every instance, so take those examples and apply them throughout.

>>3089

Thank you for pre-reading my story. I've read through your feedback, and I just wanted to respond to some of your notes and ask a question or two if you don’t mind.

First, I fully agree with all of your notes on my problems with mechanics. I'm actually a little embarrassed at some of the dumb mistakes I made. I’m sorry about that.

As for my issues with having consistent narration, I get why switching back and forth is an issue and I’ll work on rewriting parts of the story where this problem is evident. If I might ask, would you prefer a limited narrator or an omniscient narrator for this story?

Some parts of the story do reflect things in the game and I know they sound weird if you haven’t played it before. Examples include the hostile scan comment, how the different enemies act, the strange way plutonium is presented, and how the computers screech or scream.

With regard to your comments on the story, I see why there are issues with the main plot. One of the reasons why is in the game itself, the main character never has his/her backstory explained. He/she is only referred to as The Traveler in the game and no reason is given as to why he/she is trying to reach the galactic center. I wanted to leave the exact circumstances of what happened to Twilight as a mystery. Same with the identity of the pony who followed her. My intention was to parody the game and not delve into either backstory but I can understand why it didn’t work. I never intended this to be a long story in the first place and to be honest, I don’t have any canon background for either. Would this be a killing stroke to the story then?

>>3097
I apologize for taking so long to respond. I sometimes forget to check this thread, as I don't get many responses anymore.

The idea with a crossover is that someone who knows nothing about the other material won't be lost. Oddly enough, it seems that people who are familiar with the game will also be lost, quite by design. So all that is to say that anything you've done to mirror what happens in the game (skimping on Twilight's back story, computers screaming, etc.) are fine. They'll hurt immersion for readers new to the game, and I don't think it would hurt the crossover nature to add that stuff, but no, you don't have to.

Between omniscient and limited narration, that's entirely up to you. There are strengths and weaknesses to both, and it'll come down more to what you're comfortable using or feel provides a better story. I think what you have is much closer to limited, so just from a standpoint of how much effort it'd take to make it all uniform, that's the easier route.

Omniscient tends to work better when you want broad overviews of events and want to be able to say what any character is thinking or what other thing is going on across the universe. But you'll normally want to keep such a narrator formal and factual. Limited can only portray what one character at a time knows and perceives. You can jump to multiple characters, but you shouldn't do so often or abruptly. It's best to keep to a single character per scene if possible.

Limited is usually the better choice when the story is focused on the experiences of a small number of characters or you want the reader to identify with one or two in particular, since a limited narration gives a much more intimate portrait of that character. But it's possible to do it either way.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

There are a few standard things like editing mistakes and close word repetition, but the biggest thing, and the one I'll discuss some, is that the perspective is really unsteady.

I'll begin at the beginning.

>Twilight Sparkle asked Spike for the umpteenth time//
"Umpteenth" is an opinion, so in the first sentence of narration in the story, you're already clearly using a limited narrator. That's fine. The only characters clearly present so far are Spike and Twilight, and this could reasonably represent either of their opinions, but I don't know whose yet.

>the princess//
Next sentence. This isn't something either one would reasonably use. Twilight wouldn't call herself that, and Spike knows her too well to use such an impersonal reference. You don't think about your friends or yourself in your own head as "the person," do you? It's just as poor a fit for a limited narration unless it's a reference they would reasonably use (like "her number one assistant" for Spike, as an example). So I still can't tell who holds the perspective, but it's leaning a little toward Spike.

>nervously wearing a groove into the platform//
"Nervously" is an opinion, so we're still definitely in a limited narration, and it's favoring Spike's viewpoint so far.

>The young dragon//
By the same token as "the princess," Spike wouldn't refer to himself as this, so you've seemingly drifted over to Twilight's viewpoint now.

>Despite his smile, his voice sounded as nervous as Twilight looked.//
Now I can't tell anymore. The comparison of his smile to his voice feels external to him, yet Twilight wouldn't know how she looked. She can't see herself, after all. You're just flicking around to perspectives all over the place.

>the concern in her friend's voice cutting through her inner excuses//
Only Twilight could possibly know this. If you'd phrased it as Spike surmising this, that'd be different, but when stated as fact, this has to be Twilight's perspective.

>Spike whirled around and felt his heart leap into his throat//
Likewise, only Spike could possibly know this, and it's just a couple paragraphs after the previous excerpt I made.

>As she drew near, he struggled to not simply lose himself in adoration of her. Not today, today was too important to lose focus.//
Definitey in Spike's head here. And look at the second sentence. Not only are you conveying Spike's opinion, but the narration is taking a conversational tone to where it sounds very much like dialogue. That's another indicator of a limited narrator in his viewpoint.

>he found himself cut off//
The "found himself" instead of just leaving it facutally at him getting cut off now places this back in Spike's perspective.

>Twilight smiled, though it was more in defeat than anything else.//
Back to Twilight.

>Spike chuckled at the memory of Discord's version of their roleplaying game.//
Next paragraph, and back in Spike's viewpoint. You actually stay with him for quite a while, but you don't exactly have a choice, as he's the only one present anymore. Though you still fight that with these references like "the little dragon." Spike wouldn't call himself that.

And so goes the rest of the prologue. Now, as we start chapter 1:
>Formal events in Canterlot were always glamorous affairs//
A narrative opinion, but I don't know whose. It's not Spike, since he isn't there, so you haven't carried over the perspective from the previous chapter. It's important to establish perspective immediately.

>Unfortunately for Twilight Sparkle and Rarity//
In the next paragraph, we now know which characters are even present, but we don't know which one holds the viewpoint.

>hoping the beverage//
It's not until the end of the third paragraph that we get something that can only be from Twilight's perspective.

>a decidedly hard gleam in her eye//
"Decidedly" is a judgment Rarity would make, and Twilight can't see her own eyes anyway, so this has jumped over to Rarity.

>Twilight silently promised herself//
Still the same paragraph, but only Twilight could know this.

>Despite her own words, Rarity frowned a little and looked into her nearly drained glass.//
Except for the one slip, you'd stayed with Twilight, but now we're more explicitly in Rarity's head.

(There's an awful lot of smiling going on. There are other words for that and other ways to display the same emotions.)

>Rarity, whose gaze seemed focused on something in the crowd//
And back to Twilight.

>hile she couldn’t find fault with her friend’s logic, she still felt guilty about agreeing with it.//
And to Rarity.

>in the tone she reserved for friendly lectures//
Probably back to Twilight, but this could plausibly be Rarity's opinion.

>Rarity couldn’t help but chuckling.//
Only Rarity would know what she couldn't help doing.

>Twilight could only sheepishly nod her head//
Same deal, but this is in the same paragraph. You should definitely not use multiple perspectives in one paragraph, even if you have good reason to shift the perspective in the middle of a scene.

>Freed from her station at Twilight’s side, Rarity navigated the little clusters and islands of ponies//
Over to Rarity again, since Twilight's no longer present.

>if Spike had been a young stallion instead of a baby dragon, he would look like the pony before her//
That's a little too on the nose. Give the reader some credit.

Oh... so it's not just supposition. She immediately sees through his disguise? I'm not sure what to think about that.

>Fire Heart could only stammer at first, petrified by both Rarity’s invitation and her intensely hypnotic stare.//
And now back to my tracking of perspective. You're in Spike's head here.

>Rarity found herself stealing glances at her companion//
Just a paragraph later, back to Rarity.

>Despite her words, Rarity’s body language told a very different story//
You've used that phrasing multiple times by now. And this is in Spike's head.

>Rarity watched his change in demeanor with a mixture of guilt and regret and found herself//
Back to Rarity. You also use this "found him/herself" phrasing a lot.

>His fate was truly sealed however, when he felt the insistent tug of unicorn magic on his collar.//
Once more to Spike.

>she felt him begin to follow her//
Back to Rarity.

>For her own part, Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, had endured just about all she could of the gentry and, with Rarity being safely distant to spare her any embarrassment, had begun to tell the more unpleasant ones just what she thought of them, titles or no.//
Oh, we're going to Twilight now.

>For all her expectations, the reaction each pony had for the other was decidedly different from what she had thought.//
And just as quickly back to Rarity.

>she realized the pony in front of her was sweating with fear//
And to Twilight.

>Rarity only half listened to Twilight’s rambling apology and a feeling of doubt began to eat away at the back of her mind//
Next paragraph, back to Rarity.

>Leading on a strange stallion, toying with him//
Is it really any better if she's leading Spike on?

>happy to be away from the closer scrutiny of the nobles around him//
You'd actually stayed with Rarity for a while, but this is Spike's viewpoint.

>Fire Heart visibly scowled//
This would be Rarity's observation.

I don't need to continue this any further—you should get the picture by now.

One other thing you ought to watch. Look how repetitive this sentence structure gets here:
>The ingredients congealed into molten mass as he continued to read, watching in surprise as they began to liquefy, turning into a bubbling crimson broth.//
You have main clause, "as" clause, participial phrase, "as" clause, participial phrase. Furthermore, "as" clauses and participial phrases serve to synchronize actions, so every single verb in this sentence happens simultaneously. That's probably not reasonable, but it's also hard to keep track of.

I hadn't been keeping detailed notes through chapters 2 and 3, but I had to pull this excerpt:
>Slowly releasing a breath she hadn't realized she was holding//
This is onr of the most cliched things you could have possibly written.

Perspective was obviously a big problem. Why so? Rather than retype it all, I'll just refer you to the section on "head hopping" at the top of this thread.

The other thing is that I never got a sense of the actual romance here. This is another time I'll refer you somewhere instead of typing out a bunch of advice myself. Off his homepage, Aragon has a series of blogs linked on writing romance, and they're worth reading. In short, there doesn't seem to be any more than a physical attraction here, and I don't know why Rarity's toying with Spike at all. Aragon goes into this in depth, but make sure the reader knows exactly what both of them like about the other, what they'd each give and take from a relationship, and why they each think the other would be good relationship material. The story makes it clear they're in love, but in name only. I have the "what," but I'm missing the "why."

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

The opening gets a bit repetitive in structure. It's also a tad confusing. I tried to figure out why it was italicized. I assumed it was because you were starting with an omniscient narration before easing into a limited perspective, then it's a couple paragraphs in before it becomes apparent he's writing something. These kind of bait-and-switch openings can work when they make for a nice surprise, but there's really no payoff here. It adds confusion without getting anything back for it, and when your opening note has no plot relevance (the fact that he's a writer is relevant, but the reader already knows that from reading the front-page description, and what he's writing about has no importance), it doesn't make a good hook.

This also creates a dissonance that may be justified, but it's hard to tell. He's a prospective writer, so it's hard to know whether to take deficinencies in his writing as intentional or stemming from you. For instance, look at what he's written. Every single sentence but one starts with the subject. That creates a repetitive feel. That's probably still going to be the majority of what you write, but when it's this prevalent, it can get plodding to read. Then look at how many "to be" verbs there are. By paragraph of the things he's written, here they all are:
is, is, is
be, is (you're actually doing quite well in this paragraph—lots of active description)
are, are (both of these use passive voice, which compounds the problem I'll discuss in a moment)
are, are, is
It's not overwhelming, but there are quite a few of these. The problem is that these are boring verbs. Nothing happens, and the several instances of passive voice even accentuate that nothing happens. Even a description of something static can use active language, like "he stood there" versus "he was there," and you've got some active descriptions mixed in as well.

Again, am I to take that as a deficiency in his writing or yours? If the former, then I think it'd help immensely if he immediately glances back over it and is dissatisfied for some of these very reasons, or at least a vague sense of them. If it's not until much later in the story that he learns to spot such things, the reader's not suddenly going to remember all this and excuse it. That ship has sailed.

The one thing that does seem to bleed from his writing to yours, at least what I've seen from the first page alone, is some repetition. His "so thus" is redundant, and you have a "start on his description of the station, but it was starting" that exhibits close word repetition.

I see georg already left a comment to this effect (more on that later), but if you've done anything to address it, it isn't clear enough. The only things he acknowledges having trouble with are identifying parts of speech, staying focused, and descriptive language.

Moving on.

>oversized shield shapes and configurations//
This just sounds weird. What's a shield "configuration," and how does it differ from a shape in this context?

>Baked Bean then sighed, slid his pencil into the spiral binding along the top of his notebook, before placing it into his saddlebags.//
The syntax is off here.

Now that I'm a little further in, I see that the overuse of "to be" verbs is continuing outside Bean's writing.

>Celestia’s bright sunlight//
This is a very cliched thing.

>soot and cinders//
He sure tried to make the station sound inviting. Why did he not mention any of the downside like this?

>adjectives – or were they adverbs//
I'm surprised someone who fancies himself a writer wouldn't know the difference. He doesn't even seem to care.

>brass sculptures//
Outdoors? They would be a nightmare to keep shiny.

>wealthy. The whole city was rich, both in atmosphere and monetary wealth//
More close repetition.

You're really hammering in that this guy's poor and everyone around him is rich. I get the point. The only reason to go on at length about it like this would be if it changed, like he's getting angrier and angrier as he thinks about it, but the narrative tone stays constant.

>and while she didn’t usually have time to meet with ponies for very long//
You have a few spots like this where you could use a comma to sett off a dependent clause, but mostly you're good about that.

>no,” he stopped.//
That's not a speaking action, yet you've punctuated/capitalized it as if it is one.

>having a very loose understanding of the rules made it so difficult to know if he was doing things right or wrong//
So he actually is a bit on the ignorant side. This is probably early enough in the story that it doesn't feel like you're unreasonably hiding it from the reader, though like I said about all the inactive "to be" verbs and repeated sentence structure, it'd help if he acknowledged something sounded off about his earlier attempts, even if he couldn't pinpoint what.

It is getting a little off-putting that he's so focused on physical descriptions, and ones that aren't that interesting anyway.

>nicker of annoyance//
>frustrated breath//
His mood is already coming through fine through what he does and the narration's tone. You don't need to short-circuit that by directly identifying the emotion for the reader. You'd already said he was frustrated anyway.

>Then…!//
This is one punctuation combo that's never made sense. How do you trail off emphatically? They're opposite effects.

>was….//
Only three dots. Four is for a specific nonfiction use.

>“There! He’s running away!” A guard shouted.//
You've capitalized the speech tag. It should still be lower-case, even if the quotes doesn't end in a comma.

>She then spun him slowly in the air in front of her.//
Looks like you meant to put a blank line before this.

>There was a few moments//
You have a singular verb with a plural subject.

>same emphasis on vowels and consonants//
That's awfully vague. I can't come up with how that would sound. It's also described kind of weird. If vowels and consonants are emphasized, then what else is there?

>You tend pick up//
Missing word.

>in embarrassment//
Here's another spot where you directly named an emotion that you didn't need to.

>I think you mean you were looking for adjectives//
Yeah, you're revealing this so far after it came up that leaves me feeling like it's the author's mistake for several pages. I'd recommend at least saying he has trouble with parts of speech pretty early on. It's fine to leave it generalized like that, but then it sets it up better. Getting the reader to see something as character incompetence instead of author incompetence can be a tricky business.

>“Yeah, it’s something like that, I guess.” He replied.//
Punctuation/capitalization of speech tag.

>I should have revoked it many years ago//
Seems like "repealed" would be a better word choice. But here's where my suspension of disbelief starts to kick in. Her power hasn't changed over the years. If she could have repealed it long ago, she still can. And it's entirely possible to repeal a law in such a way that its effects are retroactively nullified, i.e., she doesn't still have to follow it because it was still in effect when the nose touch happened. THen when you do try to explain it, you just gloss it over. That's kind of unsatisfactory.

>again.
>
> Bean’s legs again//
Watch the close word repetition.

>happened, truly. If you happen//
Same.

>Wha…duh…buh…oh…guh…//
Leave a space after each ellipsis.

>Yes, Ma’am//
No reason for "ma'am" to be capitalized here.

>really…expect me…to…marry//
Spaces.

>“Wait. You’re the Princess,” Bean spoke his sudden thought//
That does't really parse. The speech can't be the speaking verb's direct object since you already gave it one.

>You…you couldn’t…couldn’t//
Spaces.

Celestia sure is using direct address a lot. Think about how often you actually do when you're having a one-on-one conversation. There are really only three reasons people do so:
1) to get someone's attention
2) to disambiguate who should be listening to them
3) for emphasis
You don't need either of the first two when there are only two people in the conversation, and when you use too much emphasis, it loses the effect, so this isn't working well for the third case, either.

Celestia's behavior is kind of all over the map. When her nose first gets touched, she's very low-key about it, and she treats Bean quite playfully. Yet she goes on about how it's a very serious situation and she needs to do whatever she can to avoid it. Those two things don't mesh. Either this is a terrible occurrence or she's gently guiding him through something inconsequential. Don't play it both ways. The premise itself as well—your synopsis tells of very serious places the story will go, yet having it all founded on something as lighthearted as a nose boop undercuts the tone, unless there ends up being a good reason why a nose touch in particular should be taken this seriously.

The last thing I have to say is that this will be a very difficult thing to pull off well. Of course, I have the benefit of the extended synopsis, but that actually makes things worse in this case. If I had no idea where you planned to take it, then I wouldn't know to be afraid, but you're going to be greeted with a ton of skepticism when you introduce an OC and ship him with a fan favorite canon character.

You really have to get the reader in the character's corner, but I have no reason to yet. He's not endearing. I know very little about him. He's an aspiring writer a little frustrated with his lack of progress, he's pretty cliched in his disdain for the wealthy, and... that's it. You're not going to get a reader to care about him with such a limited portrait, and caring about him is crucial to making a ship between him and Celestia appealing.

One method I've heard is to come up with a list of five adjectives or short phrases that will cover as much of the character's personality as possible. It helps if a couple of them are contradictory, because real people are just like that. Make sure the story exhibits those traits, and try to show at least three of them the first time he appears. You don't have to do that literally, of course, but it's at least a good mental exercise in making sure your characters are well fleshed out.

Maybe you'll do a convincing job of the ship later on, but for one thing, you need to get the reader on board with Bean immediately, and for another, this situation is so ripe to be mishandled that I wouldn't be prepared to approve it sight unseen anyway. So even if you fixed all that stuff, I'd want to see the story far enough along to evaluate how well the shipping is pulled off.

Oh, one more last thing. You'll get a lot more views if you publish on FiMFiction.net. But even if you leave it in GDocs, it'd look a lot better if you cleared the comments out. They just make the story look messy, and you don't want to air your dirty laundry and let everyone see spots where reviewer thought it needed work. That'll bias the reader toward seeing the same flaws.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

You have a few editing problems like comma splices and consistent confusion between "its" and "it's." More than that, though, I'm seeing a couple more subtle but pervasive problems.

First, the perspective. You're using a limited narrator in Chrysalis's perspective in the prologue. That's clear from the conversational tone you take, as if Chrysalis herself is vocalizing her inner thoughts. But using her as the viewpoint character has several implications. When the narration refers to her as something like "the dethroned queen," it's Chrysalis choosing to call herself that. People don't think about themselves in such external and formal ways. They would tend to use just pronouns and names, except in unusual circumstances. Another example is where you say she didn't feel the tears coming from her eyes. She is the narrator. If she doesn't know the tears are there, neither does the narrator.

Then at the end of the prologue, you go over to Thorax's perspective for only a couple of paragraphs. It's a jarring shift to him that needs to happen much more smoothly, but is it even necessary to? There's nothing critical to the reader's understanding that happens after she leaves, so why not just stop there?

The rationale behind maintaining a steady perspective is discussed at the top of this thread under "head hopping."

And second, you use a ton of participial phrases. They don't turn up that often in everyday language, so they stand out easily when overused. In addition to getting repetitive by having a lot of them, authors tend to place them in the same positions in sentences, which makes them repetitive in structure, not just makeup. They also cause several common errors, and the more you use, the more likely you'll have such mistakes.

I'll pull out some examples to show you.

Here, you start three consecutive paragraphs with a participial phrase, so again, it's not just having them in the sentences but also using the same placement within those sentences.
>Spotting a hidden alcove in a small gorge//
>Nursing her sore joints//
>Continuing on into the cave//

Here are all the other participial phrases within those three paragraphs:
>gliding down to the ledge that jutted just beyond the opening//
>landing without her usual finesse//
>largely ignoring the aesthetics of the place//
>instead following the cave wall around to where the stalactites and stalagmites gave way to a tunnel//
>leading deeper below ground//
>her eyes perfectly adapted to seeing clearly in the deep and dark places of the world// (This one's actually an absolute phrase, but it's another type of participial structure.)
>letting her see the corridor//

So, you're really repetitive with those. Now to the kinds of errors that pop up. Participial phrases like to describe the closest noun or pronoun that comes before them, unless the start a clause, in which case they describe the clause's subject.
>She was surprised to see a carved door at the end of the hallway, taking a moment to register that fact with her beleaguered brain before proper intrigue could even start to take hold.//
Because if its proximity, this sounds like the hallway is taking a moment to register the fact. It's pretty clear a hallway can't do that, but it still creates a sentence that doesn't feel quite right, which isn't good, and eventually you'll run into one of these situations where it truly is ambiguous what the participle describes.

>Continuing on into the cave, Chrysalis noted it’s rugged, natural appearance as on notices an ant, largely ignoring the aesthetics of the place, instead following the cave wall around to where the stalactites and stalagmites gave way to a tunnel leading deeper below ground.//
Participles mean things happen simultaneously, so here, she performs every one of these four actions at the same time. That can be a lot to keep track of, plus the multiple instances of the participles forcing things to sync up can feel oddly worded. But more to the point, that synchronization sometimes doesn't make sense. She wouldn't follow the cave wall to the deeper passage until after she'd gone inside, yet this says they happen concurrently.

I'll read on a bit to see how the human stuff goes initially.

You're directly naming a lot of emotions. That doesn't make for engaging writing. Think of how you have to interpret real people. You don't just innately know someone is happy. You deduce it from how he looks and acts. You might see him laugh and smile, then conclude he's happy. It feels more like real life when a reader has to interpret written characters the same way, so focus more on the evidence of how your characters feel than just telling the reader. There's a section on this at the top of the thread as well, under "show versus tell."

So you introduce Allan in the first scene of chapter 1. All I learn about him in this scene is that he recently started dating someone, and this fact surprises his father. That's nothing to go on. I don't have the first clue what he's like or why I should care what happens to him. You need to define this character better so that he's immediately interesting.

A good exercise for this is to make a list of 5 or 6 traits he has that give a fairly complete description of his personality. Try to make at least a couple of them contradictory, because real people are like that. Make sure the story demonstrates all those traits. And I don't mean just saying what they are. If he's a huge D&D fan, then don't just say he is; show him rattling off a bunch of game statistics. Furthermore, make sure you demonstrate at least 3 of those traits the first time he appears.

He doesn't show up again until 3 scenes later, and I don't learn anything new about him. It's still just those couple of bare facts that hardly elevate him above generic.

Chapter 2 does a good job of keeping to a single perspective per scene and having that viewpoint character interpret the behavior of those around him instead of stating others' feelings as fact. But in this first scene, you're having Thorax do quite a bit of exposition. He knows very specific things, and I get that you've already had Chrysalis able to read Allan's memories, but this still strains credulity, and a lot of it isn't even particularly relevant at the moment. Exposition is often better handled by meting it out in small bits as it becomes important to the plot. All these things that Thorax intuits aren't necessary to understand the story at this time, and note that he's doing a far better job of characterizing Allan than the time we actually spend in Allan's viewpoint. That's not good.

Chapter 3 goes back to having unsteady perspective. The first paragraph immediately establishes Allan's viewpoint, but it only stays there until the third paragraph, which switches to Thorax. The 11th paragraph goes back to Allan, then the 14th returns to Thorax. The 19th seems to go to Twilight, and you stay there for the rest of the scene.

By the 28th paragraph, you're still with Twilight, but look at this:
>Turning her head back to look at him, worry written plainly onto her features. He’d stopped moving, and looked like he was on the brink of tears//
The latter part is clearly her opinion, and it's something she can observe. Fair enough. But in the first part, how could she perceive this? She can't see her own face.

So now I'm a prologue and three chapters into the story, and I still know nothing about your protagonist except from one sentence in the prologue and some exposition Thorax dropped about him in chapter 2, and that's not much to go on. I have no idea who he is, and I have no investment in what happens to him. When the reader doesn't care about your main character, it's all but impossible to keep the story interesting.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

>The maroon silk carpets, the paintings on the walls, the vases; the Thief could have taken anything in the palace and been set for the rest of her life.//
That's not really a correctly used semicolon, since you couldn't split the sentence there; what comes before it would be a fragment.

Note that you have quite a few "to be" verbs early in the story. By paragraph through the first screenful, we have:

was
was, was, was, been
was, be
were, wasn't, was, been
wasn't, was, be, be, were, were

This causes several problems:
1. It's very repetitive word choice for a key part of the sentence.
2. It's a boring choice of verb, since nothing actually happens. The readers here to see some action; don't just tell them what is. Even when the situation is static, it can be described with active verbs. "He stood there" has more momentum to it than "he was there," for example. You do get somewhat of a pass for dialogue, since people don't creatively avoid that verb when they speak, and you don't want the dialogue sounding unnatural, but in narration, use active verbs wherever you can. Some "to be" verbs are fine, but you have way too many.
3. The beginning and end of the story are particularly bad places to overuse this verb. The beginning sets the tone that the rest of the story will be just as repetitive and static, and the ending will create more of a lasting impression.

>Bathing in the shadows, she cautiously crept across the right side wall, a candle illuminating only just in front of her, her eyes darting back and forth in a calm paranoia scouting for an outlier.//
You want to avoid repeating structural elements as well, and you've been pretty good about that so far, but it can be very clunky to have multiple ones of the same kind in one sentence. Here, you have <participial phrase, main clause, absolute phrase, absolute phrase, participial phrase. And since absolute phrases are another kind of participial structure, this sentence is really loaded with them. That can be fine in small doses if you want to create the feeling of someone rushed or overwhelmed, but you don't have that here. This character is very much calm and focused, so let the language convey that in its tone. Furthermore, participial elements create actions that occur simultaneously, so you have a lot going on at once. That's hard to keep track of and visualize. And that's precisely why it works in the situations I noted, because it helps you to feel jumbled then, but you don't now.

>nothing's//
That only expands to "nothing is," not "nothing was," so you've switched to present tense.

>Quickly, whispers spread in the criminal underground like a silent plague//
You just talked about whispers in the previous sentence, and this isn't worded in a way that makes a thematic repetition, so it just feels like an oversight.

>impossibly incredible artifacts that had no way of being truly confirmed beyond the whispers//
And now you're repeating it again.

>an high ranking//
a high-ranking

>once impossible dream//
When you have a whole phrase that acts as a single modifier before the noun or pronoun it describes, hyphenate the phrase. (The exception is for two-word phrases beginning in an -ly adverb.) So "once-impossible dream."

>It was all scarce, as only a damned fool would break into the palace inhabited by gods, but that was no concern of hers. As far as she was concerned//
Watch the close repetition of "concern," but this very much is her concern. She may not consider it much of a threat, but she still does have to deal with it, and that by definition makes it her concern.

>the very night Luna loved so dearly would cloak her enemy to perfection//
But wouldn't that work for pretty much any enemy Luna could have? And so wouldn't Luna know that? And so wouldn't she have developed tactics to counteract it? Avoiding Luna's attention is of course the goal, but it's not like that advantage can't be immediately revoked. Does the Thief have a plan in case that happens?

>The most important thing she needed to gather during her earlier reconnaissance outings were the exact moment the guards changed their shift.//
You have a plural verb with a singular object: thing... were.

>As two or three guards passed, their heavy footsteps almost as loud as their breathing, they didn't stop for a second, with any sort of suspicion in their minds violently surpassed by their will to clamber into bed after another long shift.//
A couple of oddities here. The "as they passed" would imply the "they didn't stop for a second anyway," since that would be the default. And the Thief doesn't presume these thoughts on behalf of the guards; they're stated factually, which has her reading their minds.

>it was a silent as her//
Typo.

>Taking a deep breath just as loud as it could be//
That doesn't sound like she's carefully keeping below a threshold; it sounds like she's taking the loudest breath possible.

>It was where the door was.
>
>It was where the crown was.
>
>It was where her legacy was lying in wait.//
In the light of my previous argument against "to be" verbs, this is a horribly stagnant way to phrase what should be one of the story's most exciting moments.

>she could have cared less about//
People use this phrase wrong all the time. If she could have cared less, that means she does care some, which is precisely the opposite of what you're trying to say. Actually, she couldn't care less.

> to the right of the second to last hallway//
All the language you keep using to this effect is both repetitive and confusing. I have no sense of a map in my mind, so this is all meaningless, but it's also unimportant to the plot. Just say when she makes turns and when she's in a hallway, but you don't need to keep reiterating which direction or that it's the next-to-last hall.

>She could hear the old guard's words now, bouncing around her head in a booming echo, swelling with fear, pride and jubilation that she was only moments away from her prize.//
Here's another problem with participles: then like to modify what's near them, so this really sounds like the echo or the guard's words are swelling with pride. It's located way too far from what it's trying to describe.

>Looking around once last time, she turned to the lock on the door, a plain and inconspicuous mechanism that looked//
More close word repetition.

>Tying it carefully around her horn, the Thief cast a spell//
And there's that synchronization of participles I talked about earlier, except this time it's not action overload, but contradiction. This says she's casting the spell while tying the fur, but she wouldn't work the spell until after she'd finished.

>a spell that could replicate the aura of any unicorn (or in this case, alicorn) with a piece of their fur//
This would be a sentence fragment, so the semicolon before it is improper.

>She slipped through the door frame and closed it behind her//
This sounds like she closed the door frame, not the door.

>anything like like what rested before her//
Inadvertently repeated word.

>speckled//
Are you sure you didn't mean "sparkled"? You haven't given this a direct object, and "speckle" is transitive.

>like and eternity//
Typo.

>A pair of magenta eyes caught her vision in the corner of her eye.//
Watch the repetitive use of "eye."

>has assumed//
You've gone to present tense.

>and while Twilight gathered she was currently scared out of her mind, she certainly made no show of it//
This is weirdly phrased. At first it states as fact what the Thief couldn't know for sure, but then it explicitly says the Thief has zero evidence of it. It's fine for her to speculate, but make it clear that's what she's doing. Oh, wait. You've gone over to Twilight's point of view. I'll see if that's a warranted shift, but you've done it so abruptly that it's jarring and confusing.

>Twilight scanned the mare with her eyes//
What else would she use? This'd certainly be the default anyway.

>the Princess nodded her head towards the crown on the pedestal.//
Capitalization.

>this...what//
It's better to leave a space after an ellipsis, unless it starts a sentence or is followed by other punctuation. It formats better on FiMFiction, since you can't control the typesetting.

>The Princess stepped forward, her whole upper half of her body now revealed to the Thief. Her own crown was missing from atop her head, leaving the only thing different about the Princess to be her wings.//
It's really strange for this to be coming from Twilight's perspective. Have you gone back over to the Thief? It's hard to tell. Even if you're staying with Twilight, it's odd for her to choose to refer to herself as "the Princess." In fact, it was strange all along for the Thief to do something similar for herself, but it's a conceit you see from time to time so you can hide her identity.

>With that's Twilight's warm smile//
Typo.

>Cerise's posture tightened, unsure of what the Princess was attempting to accomplish.//
Now it does seem you've gone back to Cerise's perspective. And it explicitly says her posture was unsure, not that Cerise was.

>I...I//
Leave a space. In fact, it's better if you use a single-character ellipsis instead of three separate dots, but it looks like you're editing directly on FiMFiction, which won't do that automatically.

>the Princess turned to Cerise.//
Capitalization. This has no speaking action, so it can't be a speech tag. It needs to be a separate sentence.

>There was a clear look of sorrow sparkling in her eyes//
And this is back in Cerise's viewpoint. Twilight can't see her own face to describe this, and it's not how she'd perceive the emotion anyway. You don't have to look in a mirror to know you're happy, after all.

>At least...I was.//
Leave a space.

>Everyday I wish it was something else.//
>everyday I tell myself//
"Every day" isn't the same as "everyday." You picked the wrong one. And with where this is going, why aren't the CMCs the ones tackling this problem?

>other pony's things//
Unless she only steals from one pony, that needs to be a plural possessive.

>If I ever see you near these walls again, I won't be so forgiving.//
Wait, what? She's condoning theft as long as it's not from the palace? How is that fair?

>She couldn't see her now//
I can't tell which is which.

>the Equestria's ruler//
Extraneous word.

I like this idea, and it is just like Twilight to be that understanding. I've also thought about this problem of a pony having a cutie mark that would drive them to do things that were illegal or unethical, and it's interesting to think about. I am a little surprised she didn't suggest Cerise consult the CMCs, since this is precisely their bailiwick. I'm even a little bit sympathetic to Twilight saying Cerise can't help what her talent is, but it does rather absolve her of any responsibility for her actions, which is a hard position to get behind. And I still can't get over her basically saying it's okay for Cerise to keep stealing, as long as it's not from the palace.

You've actually set up a very interesting philosophical question here, but you sidestep it instead of exploring it. Not that you have to—if that's not what you want your story to be about, fair enough.

Aside from that, it's mostly mechanical and stylistic things I've already marked, like the repetitive word choices, preponderance of "to be" verbs, participle issues, and unsteady perspective.

Thanks again for reading, it is a huge help! I went back and fixed all the grammar related edits and removed a plethora of "was" and "been" words. I just wanted to address your comment at the end about the plot, because I do like to know what people think about the story.

In MY eyes, Twilight is not condoning theft as long as it is at the castle. She understands that theft is illegal, and the effect it can have on the life of a pony. She also knows that it is Cerise's destiny, so she explains that she's going to let her go, but that if she comes back to the castle, there won't be a second chance. Finally, in one last line of dialogue, she attempts to convince Cerise that, while she may not be able to stop stealing, she can possibly use that talent for other than sole material gain (think Robin Hood, or maybe even working for Equestria in some sort of way with this talent).

I liked writing this story because it could be approached in lots of ways, and I wanted to give Twilight a dilemma that wasn't so easily solved, one that she could handle in the wisdom of Celestia and Luna. If the story doesn't come across that way, I totally get it, so let me know! I am not adverse to changing things around :)

Thank you again so much for the proofread! I am very very grateful and i hope I am not bothering you with this reply!

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

Synopsis:
>Some times, to ensure that something - or someone - is safe, we resort to drastic measures.//
"Sometimes," and please use proper dashes, either en dashes with spaces or em dashes with no spaces.

>Sometimes, those drastic measures have long reaching consequences.//
Needs a blank line before this to separate the paragraphs, and when you have a multi-word phrase acting as a single modifier before the thing they describe, hyphenate it: long-reaching.

Story:
>My entire life has lead up to this.//
The past tense is "led."

>shines through the thick waxy walls of the chrysalis, shining//
Watch the close word repetition.

>I’m not a huge fan of this color//
This sounds almost comedic, which is undercutting the tone. Also consider the disconnect between what the narration says and how it says it. This character is alarmed and upset, but the narration is delivering it in a flat tone with no emotion to it. And since I'm breaking away to make a comment anyway, I'll say that you have pretty repetitive sentence structure. To this point, I've only seen one sentence that didn't start with the subject. When I keep getting the same beginning over and over again, it gets plodding.

>Will it hurt? Will it burn? I’m so terrified, and I suddenly realize I do not want to die, not like this, but I can’t struggle. I can’t move, I can barely see a few inches in front of me! No, I want to get out, but I can’t! I’m hyperventilating, and probably using up what little air there is in here. It’s crowded, I’m trapped, and I wish I could be anywhere but here.//
Ah, this is what I was looking for. Why not create this tone earlier? This actually sounds terrified.

>The air smells like my breath, and I wish I’d brushed my teeth.//
Again, this is undercutting the seriousness, as it takes a comedic mood.

>I wish somepony else were here//
You keep using this "I wish" phrasing. It's getting repetitive.

>I’m getting ahead of myself, though. Perhaps I should start at the beginning.//
Okay. This opens a whole can of worms. You're implying an audience, but you haven't defined one. Furthermore, by making it present tense, that audience is there with this character inside the chrysalis, and yet she hasn't been speaking aloud, so... who's listening and how?

>Queen Quartz was exhausted.//
This is kind of jarring. The first two paragraphs of the scene don't mention anyone but Flex being there, so he's presumed to be the perspective character. Then in this paragraph, it's evident the queen is, and then I have to look back over the opening two paragraphs to see whether they still work in her viewpoint or if you've done a clumsy perspective shift. Either way, there's a big speed bump here. Establish the queen's perspective right away, or this just gets confusing.

>stars knows//
With the prevailing tense, this should be "knew."

>The captain wobbled caught himself an inch before his muzzle hit the floor.//
He just wobbled a paragraph ago, and the wording is off here.

>before her expression turned somber again.//
Keep in mind you're using her as the perspective character. How can she see her own face to make this judgment? Keep the narration limited to things she can actually perceive.

Chapter 1:

Chapter 1 has the same repetitive sentence structures the prologue did. Such an overwhelming majority of narrative sentences start with the subject. It's understandable tha lots of sentences in a first-person narration will start with "I," but it's worth trying to work around that where you can. You're also falling back into the limited narration sounding very unemotional at a time the perspective character wouldn't be.

>A spray of warm water hits my side and I curl up reflexively.//
>I feel damp silky fur against my hoof, and it comforts me.//
Look at the inconsistent comma usage here. The second one is correct.

>hot water//
She only mentioned it being warm. When did it get hot?

>rubbing my main//
mane

>for her muzzle looks feminine//
This is awkwardly wedged in. I had to read the sentence twice to get the syntax. I'd recommend setting this off with dashes instead of commas so it's demarcated in a way the reader will expect to find a disjoint thought.

>Is that good, or bad?//
This is the type of spot you don't need a comma with a conjunction. It's just a compound structure, not a separate clause with its own verb and subject.

>So many questions, sister.//
>It’s a rather long story, sister//
>There isn’t much time, sister.//
>Because you have no other choice, sister.//
>It’s the closest way in and out of our hive, sister. //
>I will remain up here, sister//
>chorusing We’re here with you, sister// (This one needs a comma to set off the quote, too.)
>Relax, sister//
>You’re not crazy, sister//
>Welcome to Hive Quarry, sister.//
Family relations get capitalized when used as terms of address.

>My eyes are teal, and lack pupils//
>somepony had tried to straighten out Pixie’s crooked horn, and missed a few spots//
Another few spots that don't need the comma.

>‘ling//
Note that smart quotes always get leading apostrophes backward, since they assume you want a single opening quote. You can paste one in the right way or type two in a row and delete the first. Apply this through all the chapters. You also sometimes forget to put the apostrophe on this word.

>as far as our hive and I are concerned//
>Welcome to the Hive//
Inconsistent capitalization of "hive." Just make sure you go through the whole story, whichever one you choose, as there are other spots.

>She lets me go as soon as my hooves brush against the ground, humming gently as I unsteadily catch my balance.//
It's ambiguous who or what is humming here.

>landing gracefully next to me, folding her wings back and heading off at a quick pace down the street.//
I'd recommend insterting a "then" after the comma. As it is, the participles mean that all these things happen at once, yet she wouldn't head off until after landing.

>My legs wobble as I follow her.//
You just used "wobble" not long ago.

>half-crumbled building. The corner of it has crumbled//
Watch the close word repetition.

>My immediate thought is that it depends on what the question is//
But she knows what the question is. It's "do you trust me?"

>I get a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I shouldn’t question it//
And then the close repetition of "question" in a different sense feels strange.

>Pixie smiles, and levitates the rope around my midsection.//
Don't need the comma.

The changeling//
Now that Flurry knows a name to call her, why would she fall back on this descriptor?

>This is insane, there’s no way I’m jumping down there!//
And you're starting to capture that narrative voice you've been missing for a lot of the story. She's upset, so the narration sounds upset, like the thought would actually be vocalized inside her own head.

>My stomach lurches, and darkness consumes me as I fall.//
But now you've gone back to the narration sounding pretty emotionless when the character would be decidedly otherwise.

>high pitched//
Hyphenate.

>The water gets closer and I scream.//
See, the tone of the narration is at a decided contrast to what's actually happening to her and what her actions say she must be feeling.

>The changelings don’t flinch but they buzz their wings//
Needs a comma.

>He says//
Missing a comma, and you started the italics before the actual quote.

>their-//
Please use a proper dash. I'll just leave it that you need to go through the story for these.

>Don’t scare her, Axiom! The male voice chides.//
Seems like you meant that to be a speech tag, but you've capitalized it.

>they all looked like Pixie, but they all have subtle differences. One, the most female-looking of them all//
A lot of repetition of "all."

>so that I can’t really tell what their gender was//
Why have you switched to past tense?

>My eyes dilate//
How does she know? She can't see them. She can perceive the effect it causes, but then that's what she should be narrating.

Chapter 2:

>baskets slung across their back.//
They don't share a single back between them, do they?

>a questioning look on my face//
Perspective again. How can she see this to know? More to the point, when you're questioning something, is your mind really on what expression you're wearing? You're more likely asking a mental question or feeling confused. Some specific things you might note, like raise eyebrows, but not the overall expression.

>She spins around and walks backwards to face me.//
I'm having trouble visualizing how she could turn around and while facing Flurry walk backwards and stll approach her.

>carefully-styled//
No hyphen.

>The changeling clears her throat and I look up at her.//
Needs a comma, and you have a close repetition of "look" in the next sentence.

>breathe, sister//
Capitalization.

And I'll break in here to say this chapter is doing a much better job of the narrative tone When she's upset, the narration shouts, for instance, and it generally reflects her mood well.

>I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding//
This is one of the top three most cliched things you could possibly write. It's up there with "a single tear ran down her cheek" and "it was a dark and stormy night."

>but when looks at me for a split second//
Missing word.

>but when I try to concentrate on one//
Needs a comma here.

>slung under their backs//
Wait, how does that work? The stuff's inside them?

>Bridges of the sparkly grey stuff connects towers//
You have a plural subject (bridges) with a singular verb (connects).

>light shines through it, lighting//
So the light lights?

>I’m not kidding//
This really creates the feel again that she's aware she has an audience for her story. It's just weird.

>making Hive Central looks//
Typo.

>and when I turn to follow her//
Needs a comma here.

>Welcome to being part changeling, sister.//
>Try not to freeze, sis!//
>Relax, sister//
Capitalization.

>I want to mimic her stance//
Needs a comma.

>Her wings are spread slightly, and shimmer in the cool light.//
And that doesn't need a comma.

>take my eyes of the female changeling//
Typo.

Chapter 3:

>Queen Quartz lifts my head gently with a hoof, and helps me to my hooves.//
Don't need that comma.

>They’re… something//
It's quite possible that's the correct word choice for the thought that got cut off, but if it's the same thought getting picked back up, it sounds like that should have been "there's."

>The Queen stops suddenly//
Needs a comma here to separate the clauses.

>an unreadable expression on her face. I can’t make out her emotions, even though I’m standing right next to her. I catch flickers of fear, grief, a pain I can’t even begin to describe, but they’re gone as soon as I’m able to name them.//
Okay, this passage is odd. She starts out saying the same thing twice, then contradicts it.

>Queen Quart//
Typo.

>poorly-timed//
You don't need to hyphenate two-word phrases starting with an -ly adverb. There's no ambiguity in what modifies what.

>they celebrate their differences, and remember the outstanding//
Don't need that comma.

>You have no reason to apologize, Flurry Heart.//
She's been using direct address an awful lot and continues to do so throughout the chapter. Think about how often you actually do when you're talking one-on-one with someone. It's not much. You don't need to get their attention or make it clear whom you're addressing. That leaves emphasis, but the more emphasis you use, the weaker it gets.

>not even their royal guards couldn’t keep you safe//
You have a double negative that's changing the meaning to something you didn't want.

>Queen Quartz’s face contorts into an expression of unbridled grief.//
You've been doing this a lot in this chapter. Avoid directly naming emotions, particularly in an in/of/with phrasing. Normally, the answer is to describe what the character does and how they look to get across the emotion without saying it. Here, however, we have a narrator uniquely attuned to emotion. You can still do it the regular way, but it'd be interesting to play with the unusual perceptions she has now and talk more about how the emotions taste or what physical sensations they cause her.

>arching like lightning//
While it's possible you actually meant this as written, it's more likely you intended "arcing."

>The grass below my hooves are soggy.//
You have a singular subject (grass) with a plural verb (are). I also don't see the need to italicize this entire scene. It's plenty obvious it's a flashback, and extended passages of solid italics just get irritating to read.

>I can see the outline of a rabbit between the branches of the hedge. False alarm.//
Why's she so sure that isn't a changeling? Can she tell?

>It had served its purpose, and killed itself to avoid interrogation and punishment.//
Don't need that comma.

>back, my back//
Watch the close repetition.

>my brow furrowing in a mixture of shock and outrage//
Let her actions and the tone of the narration carry the emotion instead of just saying what it is.

Chapter 4:

The beginning of this chapter is stagnating under all the "to be" verbs. Some of these are unavoidable, but just the sheer number. Here they are by paragraph for the first couple screens:
I'm, I'm, that's, I'm, I'm
be, am, am, is, being, you're, is
that's, there's, I'm, I'm, be, be
be, be, they're, isn't
it's, being, it's, is, is, be, that's, are, that's, I'm
It's, isn't, I'm, isn't, I'm, I'm
I'm
it's, I'm
-
I'm
See how that get's better suddenly? But for the first 6 paragraphs, you're averaging over 6 per paragraph. This is bringing the story to a grinding halt.

>Its like looking at a crowd//
Its/it's confusion.

>and the wing roaring past my primaries feels nice and cool//
I think you meant "wind."

>the wind yanks my wings up painfully. Ouch. Note to self: don’t suddenly unfurl your wings while falling.//
This doesn't fit the mood at all. First, she's supposed to be fearing for her life and in pain, but the delivery sounds like she's bored out of her mind. Then she injects levity into a situation that doesn't call for it. You're killing the mood.

>And then it hit me. Not a solution to my problems, just the ground.//
And again. She's supposed to be fearful, and the story hasn't been making jokes until now, but suddenly you're going for lowbrow humor? This is tonal whiplash.

>As I’m taking a deep breath to start explaining what happened to me//
Needs a comma here to set off the dependent clause.

Why doesn't Flurry feel like she needs to go finish her conversation with the queen? She just kind of left.

>Axiom shifts uncomfortably, and I almost want to comfort her//
That's a weird, repetitive juxtaposition.

>work. I’ve got a lot to work//
Watch the close repetition.

>pinchers//
Usually "pincers."

>His glowing eyes and the tattered remains of his hivemind leads//
You have a compound subject but a singular verb.

>She wouldn’t tolerate excuses, no matter the cause, no matter how important this mission was for the good of the Hive and changelingkind.//
Why have you switched into past tense here?

>few haphazard pods for his siblings to catch a few//
Close repetition.

>they made due//
do

>KI-77 is almost jealous of his former sister as he trembled before his Queen.//
Switched to past tense again.

>wasperfection//
Missing space.

You have a good start to the story here. The plot and characters are interesting, and it doesn't drag. The only issues are some low-level mechanical ones that are easy to fix, plus the unevenness in having the narrative tone follow the mood of what's happening. Sometimes when Flurry is upset, her narration sounds upset, but at others, it only says she's upset while sounding like a documentary voice-over. If you could take a crack at these things, I could definitely see posting your story.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

>Your door opens slowly and an indigo pony muzzle pops through the grasp//
There are a few spots like this, where you could use a comma between the clauses.

>wizard- Lord Swirlystar, or something like that- she//
Please use proper dashes. There are lots of these throughout the story.

>Evidently, you were also a source of powerful magic which allowed Luna an easy route back to her world and filled Luna with a sense of, as she put it, ‘regeneration’.//
This seems like we're missing an awful lot of interesting story. We're kind of past where they're figuring things out and on to where it's more routine. Did Luna instinctively know it would work this way? Or did she have to go by trial and error? We're also kind of missing their emotional investment in the process. Don't just say this is how things work. Let me see how the characters feel about it.

>Kicking her silver shoes off and removing her crown and headpiece, she places a single hoof up onto your bed.//
Participles make things happen at the same time, so she kicks off a shoe while simultaneously putting a hoof on the bed.

>“Of course!” a tinkling noise briefly emanates from behind your head and the lights click off.//
The part after the quote isn't a speaking action, so it shouldn't be lower-case as if it's a speech tag.

>quickly-morphing//
You don't need hyphens in two-word phrases starting with an -ly adverb, since it's not ambiguous what modifies what.

>standing aside it//
You meant "beside," right?

>“Violence is your sleep aid?” She asks intently.//
Capitalization.

>y...when//
The typesetting formats better if you leave s space after the ellipsis, especially if you use a program that automatically converts three dots to a single-character ellipsis.

>“Now it is four of six,” she grins.//
Another non-speaking action as a speech tag.

>eyes fixated on the television//
"Fixed" is closer to what you want. People confuse the two a lot.

>your highness//
Honorifics like this should be capitalized.

>gently run over Luna’s hooves, you can hear the gentle//
Watch the close word repetition.

>the quiet ambience of snuggling; the scratching of your fingers against her coat and the soft ruffling of her feathers.//
What comes after the semicolon couldn't stand as an independent sentence, so it isn't used right. You're defining somthing here, so a colon would do fine.

>You’re the Princess.//
He hadn't been capitalizing that when it wasn't used with her name.

The fact that Luna has been helping him sleep is so generic. What kinds of problems had that been causing in his life? How much better are things now? That's the kind of thing that makes a story out of directionless fluff.

>Noticing you in the corner of her eye, She//
Capitalization.

>she hissed playfully//
Why are you going to past tense?

>Although…” she sighs blissfully//
Non-speaking action used as a speech tag again.

>her hoof was taken care of//
Gone to past tense again.

>having her many brushed//
Typo.

>once in awhile//
"Awhile" and "a while" aren't interchangeable. You need it as two words here.

>one peeked open//
>began to quiver//
Switched to past tense.

>Woah//
Why can't anyone spell this right?

>“I’ve always been fluffy,” she winks.//
Non-speaking action used as a speech tag.

>Inhaling gently, you let out a quiet, muffled groan of approval.//
The participle is synchronizing things that shouldn't be. How can she let a groan out while breathing in?

>“Nothing,” she grinned.//
Non-speaking action used as a speech tag, and it's past tense.

>Luna’s voice sounded far away.//
Past tense.

>Her head lies on your chest, her mane gently brushing across your chest//
Watch the repetitive phrasing.

>Walking her over to the couch, you sit her down.//
Synchronized actions that shouldn't be.

>Nabbing a blanket from a nearby chair, you spread it out and tuck Luna in it, running your hands behind her back and flanks to make sure she is securely snuggled down.//
And that's an awful lot of actions that are supposed to be happening all at once.

>“She is so embarrassing,” Luna cringed.//
Non-speaking action as speech tag.

>But, don’t worry//
It's rarely correct to put a comma after a conjunction.

>Luna sighed//
Past tense.

>Princess Luna tilts her head. “What do you mean?”//
Missing a line break before this paragraph.

Okay, the good news: the writing here is not bad at all. I think you're a capable author, and I think you can write the kind of quality we'd be happy to feature. But this story isn't it, not in its current state.

Basically, nothing happens. Everything is so superficial. I mentioned before how it would help to delve into the background of how all this came to be and what it means to them, but it's just the cuddling with a small bit of lip service paid to giving it any depth. I'm looking at the author's note for the last chapter.

>it became a reflection on the growth of a relationship, the capacity of cuddling to heal and comfort//
But it really didn't. Each of them did take a turn at getting sick, and each one took a turn at caring for the other, but the cuddling didn't have any sort of additional effect. What kind of situation does he have in his life that this cuddling made a real difference to him, when it was the catalyst that made things turn out for the better? Same for her. Why is this such a big deal to Luna? I'm missing all the context as to why any of this matters, and the human character never gets much personality. I don't know anything about him. Maybe that's an attempt to make him so he can fit any reader, but it leaves him without enough definition to give me a rooting interest in what happens to him.

>I forget who it is, but one of the better writers on this site has as their bio, "Stories about ponies are stories about people." Wise words indeed.//
That would be Cold in Gardez.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

Your synopsis is littered with semicolons, and none of them are used right. You should be ave to replace one with a period and have the resulting sentences stand as complete, but that wouldn't work here.

>A few others congratulate me and I stop to thank them before finally opening the door to the drama room.//
You have a number of spots like this, where you could use a comma betwen the clauses.

You're inconsistent at whether you use proper dashes or double hyphens.

>wants to date me?//
When a word is italicized for emphasis, it's preferred to include an exclamation mark or question mark on it in the italics.

>a neutral expression//
That's a really external evaluation. She can't even see his own face to say how this looks. More immediate to her would be her emotional state, not how she looks. You don't have to look in a mirror to know how you feel, after all.

>I still kept my eyes aimed upward//
You've slipped into past tense.

>“Alright,” I say. “Thank you. I’ll leave.”//
This just feels weird. It's very abrupt, it doesn't sound natural, and it doesn't answer the janitor's question.

>My eyes burn and shake my head from side to side.//
This doesn't make sense.

>My ears lay tight against my head.//
Lay/lie confusion. "Lay" requires a direct object.

Three things strike me about the prologue. First, such a preponderance of the narrative sentences start with the subject and are about the same length that the story gets in a structural rut. Second, you sometimes get relatively heavy on "to be" verbs. These are inherently boring verbs, as nothing happens. You really ought to be choosing active verbs where you can. And third, the whole point of the story is to believe Gold and Jade are in love, but we barely get any reason why. We just have to take the narrator's assurances that they are. You only spend a single paragraph building it up. There are a couple of nice anecdotes in there, and that's one of the better ways to depict a relationship: demonstrate it.

Real people have a give and take. They bring things to a romance and get things out of it. They also believe the other person does as well, so that they're more or less equals. I won't go into too much detail, as someone else already has. Aragon has a good series of blog posts on writing romance linked off his homepage, and they're worth reading. If you want this romance to feature prominently in the story, you have to quickly get the reader invested in it, and so far, it comes across as pretty superficial.

The beginning of chapter 1 is pretty heavy on "to be" verbs again.

>My heart fell to my hooves, and breathing suddenly became very difficult.//
You've slipped into past tense again.

>his ears lay back//
Lay/lie confusion again.

>But…” he trails off.//
The ellipsis already means he trails off. Narrating it as well is redundant.

After class starts, you blaze through an awful lot of the day in a single paragraph, and it sounds so stoic. Gold should be very emotional about this, but you wouldn't know it from the narrative tone.

>I look up at him and nod; he smiles; we walk our respective ways.//
It's pretty clunky to have more than one semicolon, unless they're part of a superlist.

>and her intoxicating scent of rose water and sweat//
She normally smells sweaty?

>well,” Sandy Prose pauses.//
You've punctuated/capitalized that like a speech tag, but it has no speaking verb.

>a, “Hi, Gold,” in//
You don't need the first and last commas here, as this isn't actually dialogue.

>go to him without going//
Watch the close word repetition.

>I know very little about her home life; about what happens outside of these walls.//
Misused semicolon.

>I look away from my friend, glancing around the cafeteria.//
It's ambiguous which one is glancing around. Gramatically speaking, Pale is.

>I feel the bile rising to the back of my throat again; my eyes beginning to water.//
Misused semicolon, and this part of the story is another exaple of where the narrative action depicts someone who's very emotional, yet the tone of the narration is rather bland. For a limited narrator (and first person is as limited as it gets), the narration is the character's thoughts. If she's upset, her thoughts wouldn't be so calm and lifeless.

>“You can’t lie to me, Gold,” her voice has turned dark, dangerous.//
Non-speaking action used as a speech tag again. It's also kind of over the top that Rhubarb is so immediately mean. What's her motivation? Gold's only said simply that she doesn't like Rhubarb, but this is outright malicious.

>“Oh, and,” she says, looking down at me, “if she’s dead, you will be too.”//
I don't get this at all. Rhubarb is so pointlessly antagonistic that it's coming across as more of a caricature. It doesn't feel very authentic. And so what if Jade did ask Gold out and Gold turned her down? It's not like Gold has an obligation to date her. I can't figure out Jade's motivation. I can't imagine she'd be any happier if the two were dating.

>that phantom odor of rosewater and sweat//
What's her obsession with the smell of sweat?

>laying in a small, sterile cot//
>My black cat beanie, black cat socks and black-and-pink choker lay in a heap//
Lay/lie confusion.

>equally-white//
Don't hyphenate two-word phrases starting with an -ly adverb. There's no ambiguity in what modifies what.

>she was depressed enough to contemplate suicide if I didn’t accept//
Why's she become so convinced this is true? She's stating it as fact, yet she's only basing it on what Rhubarb said, whom she shouldn't believe anyway, and Pale vaguely not answering a question about it.

>his red eyes showing his concern//
You just had his voice showing concern a couple paragraphs ago, but you should really avoid directly naming emotion like this anyway. In real life, we have to read little context clues about how people look and act to determine how they feel. It comes across as more realistic when we have to do the same for written characters. So just describe how he looks and what he does, and let me conclude that he's concerned.

>Oh, Honey//
That's a generic nickname. It wouldn't be capitalized.

>Mister Gold, can you leave us?//
This is pretty iffy, questioning her without a parent.

>Hearing myself say that I love Dawn is so foreign; so strange.//
Misused semicolon, and I still have very little picture myself of what makes her love Jade.

>her…” I trail off.//
Redundant.

>Over the next few minutes, Detective Strike asks me more specifics on times and the ponies I met or recognized in the crowd.//
This will be tricky. You haven't necessarily done anything wrong here, but it depends on exactly what you want this story to be. If you want it to be more of a mystery, then think of it in those terms. You want to present evidence to the reader so that he can keep or disregard the bits, but you don't want to skip over things, because then you're jumping the gun and saying none of that is important. Hearing what Strike asks is a bad thing to skip if you want the reader trying to piece together the mystery. That's the draw of one, after all: seeing if you can solve it before the story reveals the truth.

However, if this is less a mystery and more about Gold's experiences, then it may be reasonable that she's so shocked about all this that it barely registers with her. That's up to you, but make sure the whole story is consistent in that regard.

>There was no sign of sadness; no sign of depression//
Misused semicolon.

>If anything happened to trigger her depression, it wasn’t me.//
I still don't get what ever made Gold buy into this line of thinking. Rhubarb first suggested it, and it was all based on Gold rejecting her, but Gold knows that isn't true, so why would Jade kill herself before getting her answer? This isn't feeling like an authentic train of thought.

>It’s okay, Honey//
Again, that wouldn't be capitalized.

>I think I had information for them that they weren’t expecting and that could really help the case.//
What information is that? Just that Jade never got to ask her? I'm kind of surprised Strike didn't already know the janitor had seen her waiting. Seems like a person and place she would have already covered in her investigation.

>“Oh, Siamese, Honey,” he squeezes me.//
Capitalized nickname, and non-speaking action used as a speech tag.

Overall, the major things I see are the lack of a match between the narrative tone and Gold's apparent emotional state, and that I don't know enough about the actual love interest to feel they actually are in love. It's important to get that right when it's a central feature of your story. Maybe you'll get to that later, but if that's the intent, you're quickly running out of time. If you don't get the reader invested early, you risk them dropping the story. To wit, you have a fairly precipitous drop-off in views between the prologue and first chapter, and I wonder if this isn't a main reason why.

Another possibility is that there's nothing inherently pony so far. You could make these human characters, and you'd barely have to change anything, certainly nothing important.

Back to the love interest, though: one of the more powerful ways to show they work as a couple is through anecdote. You made the right choice in having Gold reminisce about feelings she had for Jade, as that establishes them well before hand, but they're a bit vague and unfocused. Sprinkle some more throughout, and go for specific events, times she did something that Gold found endearing, what things about Jade's personality and appearance that Gold noted. And give me the other side. What are some times Jade found Gold endearing or remarked about some quality of Gold's she enjoyed, and maybe Gold didn't realize it at the time, but she's putting the pieces together now. These don't have to be long, but it does take specificity. Not just that Gold found Jade pretty, but that the green dress with the white stripe that really accentuated her shoulders, or the time she just had to stop by the roadside to make sure the ladybug had crawled safely away and wouldn't get stepped on by anyone... These are just examples, but note they're short, yet they're not the least bit generalized, and they pick a couple of details to really focus on and give a vivid picture of who these two are and what sparks their interest about each other. This is a great way to get reader buy-in.

I will say that there's writing talent here. The sentence-level crafting usually shows a pretty good flow, and you've done a good job of characterizing Gold. Instead of having her give an expository description of herself, as many authors are wont to do, you let her personality come through in her interactions with others. That's absolutely the right way to handle it. It is a little odd that you'll apparently later cast her as a famous cat burglar, yet she's a minor (still quite possible), and this hasn't even gotten the slightest mention in the story so far (if it's going to be that important to the plot, it seems a curious omission, though not an impossible one to manage).

So if you could give me a better taste that there's an actual in-depth love interest here, and have Rhubarb a little less cliched, and if you could have the narration convey her emotion better... Well, I'll expand on that a bit.

Internal thoughts sound a lot like dialogue, so think of the narration as being a lot like that. These are actual things that would be running through Gold's head, even if they're not italicized or quoted as thought. In fact, having that avenue available means you should rarely, if ever, need to use italicized or quoted thought, and in fact, you don't have any. But it's not just what the narration says—it's how it says it. If she's angry, the narration should shout. If she's confused or chocked, it can fumble for words. If she's excited, it should sound joyful. And adding italics (emphasis) on just the right words here and there changes not just the meaning but the cadence.

So yeah, if you can do that (and just maybe have something irrevocably pony about the story?), I could see posting this.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

I don't understand the point of your first scene break. There's no jump in time, place, or perspective.

>The record began to spin and he delicately lowered the needle//
You have a number of spots like this, where there are multiple clauses, essentially where each subject gets its own verb (record began... and he lowered). Most times, you'll want to put a comma between clauses.

>“No, no!” He cried//
Jus because the dialogue ends in an exclamation mark doesn't change the rules about not capitalizing speech tags.

>Is that an ice sculpture of a dragon, he wondered//
Isn't that a question?

>It jumped and immediately galloped towards a blue flame that Star Bright hadn’t noticed until now and simply stood there, transfixed.//
This is a little confusing. Thorax galloped toward a flame? I'm not sure why. Maybe this happened in the episode this obviously references, but I don't know that you can count on readers remembering it in that much detail. And the way this is worded, it sounds like Thorax is the one standing transfixed, which is contradictory to him galloping.

>Star Bright picked up the bouquet and held them//
You're using a plural "them" to refer to a singular "bouquet."

>that,” He heard Roseluck comment//
Capitalization.

>“Oh, so many,” Star Bright pointed to the graph containing multiple circles of different size and color./
You're trying to use a non-speaking action as a dialogue tag.

>she smiled.//
Capitalization.

>I don’t get to participate in question and answer part of the tours//
Seems like you're missing a "the," and you're using "question and answer" as a single modifier, so hyphenate it.

>silver tongued?//
When you have a word italicized for emphasis, it's preferred to include any exclamation mark or question mark on it in the italics.

>the stallion’s gardening//
It's ambiguous which one you mean. They're both stallions, after all.

>had perhaps they had fallen //
Wording is jumbled here.

>Star Bright stood still for a moment and watched Silver Script’s determined gaze that was so focused he didn’t even blink, at his forelegs as they bent down so that he could ruffle through the soil, and at his wings as they occasionally extended.//
I can't quite parse this. Where does the "at" come from? As near as I can figure, it branches from "watched," but "watched at" is a strange phrasing.

>You’re making daddy so proud.//
When used effectively as a name, family relations get capitalized. So "Daddy" would, but "your daddy" wouldn't.

>Silver Script himself even tried//
>Star Bright even recalled//
Watch the repetitive "even" phrasing so close together.

>juicy looking//
Hyphenate.

>the stallion//
You're really overusing that as a descriptor.

>Silver Script paused and his eyes darted around.//
Needs a comma between the clauses.

>dropped the trowel into the toolbox//
But they already put the tools in the box.

>reaching out to place a hoof on Silver Script’s cheek, keeping it there until he made eye contact.//
The way you've used these participles means they happen at the same time, but they'd have to happen one after the other.

>far off look//
far-off

>looking for story ideas.” He looked//
>already open. He turned to ask Silver Script if he had already//
Watch the close word repetition.

>Star Bright bowed down as Princess Luna entered the room//
Take a look at this paragraph. It's symptomatic of something that's popped up occasionally. Every sentence starts with the subject. Every sentence is an independent clause with a compound structure or some sort of parenthetical element following. When you see the same structure over and over again, it can get in a rut. Go for a little more variety.

>Princess Luna seemed to catch on to his nervousness//
This is a pretty advanced topic, but your narration has been omniscient so far. However, "seem" is a subjective thing, so it wouldn't work with an omniscient viewpoint. You could say it seemed to him, because that's a factual statement. By leaving it as "seem," it's the narrator's opinion, but your narrator doesn't inhabit a viewpoint that can have an opinion.

>“I apologize, I was wool gathering.” She snickered.//
I don't understand how she could do that in the middle of a conversation, and one that's still too new for her to have lost interest in already.

>sky,” Star Bright struggled to get the last word out.//
Non-speaking action used as a speech tag.

>immediately found themselves on the floor. Star Bright immediately//
More close repetition, and you're falling into the rut of all the sentences in this paragraph starting the same again.

>What does the Canterlot Astronomical Society need to send me a letter for,//
Isn't that a question?

>Starry can invent a new type of star, it said, you can’t even get a book published.//
That quoted thought would be a comma splice.

>she…” he let the rest of the sentence trail off.//
The ellipsis already means he trailed off. Narrating it as well is redundant.

>“That,” Star Bright continued. “Was//
Here's a spot where it sounds more like the quote would be one continuous sentences instead of starting another at "was."

>took a gulped it down//
Jumbled wording.

>The pegasus flew into the next room while the unicorn//
These are also getting to be very overused descriptors, plus I can never keep straight which is which to be able to tell them apart.

>“How can I say no to a friend,” //
Isn't that a question?

>whinney//
I've only ever seen that spelled "whinny."

>now empty//
Hyphenate.

>now stretched painfully thin//
That's a close repetition with the previous "now," and you've got an opinion creeping into the narration again.

>Okay, he thought, plan B. Just tell him, he thought, just get it out of the way.//
Repetitive speech tags.

>He went to work preparing the muffin and wrapping it up, flew into the living room, slowing his speed as he turned the corner.//
You must be missing a conjunction before the "flew" action.

>Silver Script returned with kiss with one of his own//
Typo.

>flanking each side//
Redundant.

>Another unicorn approached the couple.//
Repetitive with what the previous character did.

>Star Bright took a step forward, and pointed a hoof to himself.//
You don't need that comma. It's just a compound verb.

>floor to ceiling//
Hyphenate.

>He leaned over//
There's been a lot of leaning in this chapter.

>Idiot, he thought, facehoofing, he doesn’t know.//
That's rather harsh. He should know whether he's ever mentioned it before. And since he knows he hasn't, how does he expect Silver to figure it out? That's not something he'd reasonably intuit.

It's kind of interesting to see the change in Star. He's confident right now because he's the one who knows his way around Canterlot. In that sense, it's reasonable that he's forgotten his fear of making a speech, though I hope you'll have him remember at some point and give an appropriate reaction.

>as Silver Script’s gaze toured the room, his eyes getting wider and wider as his jaw continued its slow descent//
It's pretty clunky to have multiple "as" clauses in the same sentence, and they tend to fight each other for the sentence's timeline.

>first time//
Hyphenate.

>either unaware or ignoring the stallion’s current state of mind//
As I've noted before, you're primarily using an omniscient narrator so I'm going to assume that's what you want. This is closer to being from a character perspective. Someone who's omniscient would know which this is by definition. He wouldn't have to give an ambiguous choice.

>Los Pegasus Review//
>Cloudsdale Chronicle//
>The Manehattaner//
Newspaper titles get underlined or (preferably) italicized. I wasn't sure whether you intended "The" to be part of the official name of either of the first two, but if so, include it as well.

>widest reaching//
Hyphenate.

>pegasi market//
Noun adjuncts are singular, even if the term is plural. For instance, you say "ham sandwiches," not "hams sandwiches." So this would just be "pegasus."

>The sound of glass shattering hit the bedroom floor//
This says the sound hit the floor.

>the glass figurine//
The way you refer to this it's like I should know what figurine you're talking about, but you haven't mentioned one before now.

>Silver Script stared at the wall//
What's the point of a scene break here? You haven't changed time, place, perspective, or anything else.

>matter of factly//
Hyphenate.

>Caliper nodded, his horn glowed, and the pieces of the statue floating into the air.//
The verb form "floating" doesn't work with the syntax. There's some pretty repetitive wording in this paragraph, too. You use some form of "float" twice and "pieces" three times.

>She gleaned over her clipboard//
Are you sure that's the word you mean? I've never heard "glean" used in that sense.

>Silver Script nodded, but didn’t speak. Raven turned to Caliper and nodded//
Repetitive nodding.

>She turned her attention to Star Bright.//
This is pretty redundant with the fact she uses direct address with him.

>“I could write it!”//
Why the hell didn't Star think of this long ago? I mean, his husband is a writer. Is he really so clueless that it would never occur to him ask Silver to do something that he does as a very serious hobby/aspiring career? Star's holding a massive idiot ball here.

>I need the alone time//
Why is he using "the" instead of "some" here? This is the kind of strange phrasing you hear from Starfire on Teen Titans. And why isn't Silver upset that Star had never considered asking him to write the speech?

>S… s…//
Presuming that this is Silvy that he's trying to say, capitalize all those instances of it. It's a name, so it has to be capitalized.

>rest his head against the door//
rested

>knowing there was a purpose to the landscaping, though never quite able to figure out exactly what it was//
Then how does he know? Did someone tell him? Or he just assumes there is?

>do?//
Include the question mark in the italics.

>The Trenderhoof//
Extraneous word.

>I am actually here looking for an astrophysicist named Star Bright.//
Huh? He writes travel articles. Why's he doing an interview of nothing having to do with travel? You could have just made up an OC here. I don't know what it adds to have it be Trenderhoof specifically, and it doesn't make sense.

>says that if Star Bright isn’t in the cage,” he said, making air quotes. “He’s probably hiding. They said//
Since he uses "says" and "said" in the dialogue, it's pretty repetitive to have "said" also be your speaking verb.

>“...yes?”//
This isn't picking up a sentence left suspended earlier, so capitalize it.

>He glanced over at the castle door, praying that Silver Script would come and rescue him.//
The last "he" mentioned was the guard, so this sounds like it still refers to him.

I'm seeing very few speaking verbs other than "said" and the occasional "asked." Often, we have the other problem, that authors aren't using "said" enough and are relying on too many unusual ones. This tends to steal attention away from the dialogue. But you're pretty extreme. Toss in a more interesting one every so often.

>He then began//
>He then turned//
Repetitive beginning to consecutive narrative sentences.

>Sorry I didn’t realize what was happening and I was just trying to get to know the stallion who wanted to interview me.//
Huh? He's not allowed to talk to other stallions? You're pressing the limits of credibility here.

>The wind rustled the leaves and an owl hooted in the distance.//
Needs a comma.

>the cage?//
Include the question mark in the italics.

>they were teleported//
Twilight said way back in the series pilot that teleportation was pretty hard. And Star hasn't been depicted as someone particularly gifted in magic.

>>3151
>Star Bright tapped the call button on the elevator, and moments later, a single bell rang out, and the elevator doors opened with a quiet whoosh. The two stallions stepped in, and the doors closed. The unicorn tapped the button for the basement, and Silver Script immediately felt himself drop.//
This is about as bland as a paragraph could be. You could have said, "They took the elevator down," and I could have intuited that all this other stuff would have happened exactly as you stated it. If you're going to add detail, make it mean something. You just have obvious, empty filler here.

>“You weren’t kidding when you called this the cage.”//
How does he say this before he even sees it? The door doesn't open until the next paragraph.

>flanked either side//
Redundant. That's what "flanked" means.

>He glanced at the unicorn beside him, enjoying the way he had cast a spell to block the kiss from his view.//
Why were they cheering if they didn't see it? And why does he care?

>the Manehattaner//
Underline or italicize, and last time you had "the" capitalized as if it were part of the name.

>a note//
That's not really an instrument. You might want to mention it after what it's attached to so that the list makes sense for what prompted it before the colon.

Ah, a villanelle. One of my favorite poetic forms. You've almost got a regular syllable count, though not a regular meter. Of course, neither is required for a villanelle, but since you're so close to the former, I didn't know if you were trying for such. Most lines have 7 syllables, but some have 6 or 8.

>"And you just made that up on the spot?"//
He really came up with something as structurally demanding as a villanelle off the top of his head? I don't buy it. For Zecora, maybe, but not here. What would you lose if this just happened to be something he'd written a while back but remembered? And then it's far more realistic.

>get out of your manes so you can get back to work,” Star Bright said. “We need to get//
Three uses of "get" in just two sentences.

>to to castle//
Typo.

>Why did he make it sound like he was talking to me,//
That's a question, right?

>He lay his head//
You have a direct object, so use "laid."

>jealous.” He said//
Punctuation/capitalization.

>dropped. He reached a hoof to his chest as he felt his heart drop//
Close repetition.

>“How else could you have meant it?”//
This is a rather manufactured drama. Both of these guys are awfully thin-skinned.

>How could you do that,//
I don't know why you won't punctuate all these questions with question marks.

>he thought as he tried to think//
That sounds kind of contradictory.

>let Silver Script let//
Close repetition.

>clearly unimpressed//
>saw clearly//
Repetitive to have these in consecutive sentences, but it's also a narrative opinion creeping in again, which doesn't work for an omniscient narrator. To whom are these clear?

>“What’s wrong with your wing?” he asked//
Who asks this? I can't tell whether it's Trenderhoof or Star.

>plucking out his remaining feathers//
These guys didn't come across as the type to do this. Not only is it completely tactless, it's also probably criminal. You can't just go and start yanking someone's hair in public.

>he saw//
You have this exact phrase 3 times in the paragraph.

>“You were taking so long,” Trenderhoof said with a soft laugh. “That we ordered for you.”//
You do this a lot, where it makes more sense for the two parts of the quote to make a single sentence, yet you've chopped them into two. I've seen far fewer where you made the mistake in the opposite direction. Essentially, he says:
“You were taking so long. That we ordered for you.”
More likely, he says:
“You were taking so long that we ordered for you.”
Then it would look like this:
“You were taking so long,” Trenderhoof said with a soft laugh, “that we ordered for you.”
I finally commented on it, but I've seen you do this in all the chapters so far.

>flipped the table over//
What the hell? Besides sounding like a lazy meme reference, what'd be the point of this? He's punishing the restaurant for something that has nothing to do with them.

>“Well, you see…” Silver Script began but let his sentence trail off.//
Redundant.

>The pair of unicorns began to circle him, the flickering lights causing their shadows to disappear and reappear around him.//
Okay, so this is a dream?

Ah, it is a dream. I'm not sure it's worth having this come as a surprise. If I knew from the start it was one, it wouldn't be any less powerful, and it'd head off all these suspension of disbelief issues. But that's up to you.

>your highness//
That's an honorific. It would be capitalized.

>Reached reached//
I think you meant one of those to be his name.

>he obediently laid down//
lay

>month,” The pegasus continued//
Capitalization. You also use "massage" 6 times in the first couple screens of this chapter .

>“How did you—” Star Bright began, but was cut off//
This is similar to the deal with the ellipsis. The dash already means he go cut off, so you son't need to narrate it as well.

>castle!//
>dungeon?//
Include the punctuation in the italics.

>What has gotten into you,//
It's a question, so make it one.

>uncharted territory//
They're married, right? How is this uncharted?

>agreement,” She began//
Capitalization.

>back to back//
Hyphenate.

>you?//
Include the question mark in the italics.

>The outside facade of the Silver Frames Art Museum didn’t look particularly inviting. In fact, when compared to the surrounding establishments, it looked downright intimidating//
You've got opinions creeping into your narration again, so you're breaking from an omniscient viewpoint.

>Silver Script paused for a moment before slowly turning his head back to Star Bright, whose head was now turned up to the sky//
>Star Bright’s gaze turned to face him, but immediately turned away again.//
Close repetition of "turn" in each sentence, and these sentences are even close together, so you have 4 of them over just 3 paragraphs.

>his muzzle against his//
A lot of these descriptions and actions get ambiguous, including the ones where you use "the stallion," since it could apply to either, ad there's not always enough context to sort it out quickly.

>“It is my duty to ensure that your trip through town goes smoothly.//
You didn't close those quotation marks.

>guard gaze//
Missing possessive.

>indifferent expression, the only difference//
This still creates a repetitive sound, even if they're not close to each other in meaning.

>Silver Script ignored the ponies who were attempting to approach them//
That's kind of an awkward way to bring up what these other ponies are doing. And why are they doing it?

>the pre-recorded script ended.//
You might need to do something to delineate these better, or put the mention of the recording before what it says instead of after. It keeps appearing to be dialogue, and I have trouble figuring out who says it, and then after the fact I see it's the recording. It's a little confusing.

>on the altar//
I would have expected "at" the altar, but if this is an expression you're used to, it's fine.

>structure?//
Include the question mark in the italics.

Okay, this chapter is getting bogged down in lengthy descriptions of what these architectural designs mean. For one thing, most readers aren't going to care, and it's not even important to the plot to get this much detail. For another, you're trying to convey something visual, and as subjective as artistic interpretation is, you're never going to give the reader an accurate enough text description to really link the artistry to its appearance.

>The Tasty Treat//
You've been inconsistent in capitalizing "the."

>turning back to the couple//
Set off the participial phrase with a comma.

>The two stallions shrugged//
I don't get the shrug. What sentiment are they expressing? Her actions shouldn't be a mystery to them.

>You wouldn’t know them.//
They wouldn't know two Elements who'd saved the world numerous times and had a bestselling journal about them published?

>Did I introduce him to Silvy,//
It's a question.

>stallions shoulder//
Missing apostrophe.

>assistant?//
Include the question mark in the italics.

>Fancy Pants had managed a seat to the interview in order to report to the local news//
Why's someone like him doing journalism?

>The Manehattener//
Underline or italicize the title.

>Trenderhoof leaned in and rest his hoof on the pony’s knee.//
The verb form of "rest" is off, and I've cheated by looking ahead and seeing that there's quite a bit of leaning going on in this chapter, too.

>Has he always called me his partner,//
It's a question.

>This is too much, Silver Script thought, I can’t let him do this anymore.//
If you took out the attribution, the two quote parts would form a comma splice.

>husband!//
Include the exclamation mark in the italics.

>Silver Script could hear the sounds of chairs scratching the courtyard as ponies stood up and backed as far away as possible//
This is in the castle. No guards are coming over to head off a rapidly developing incident?

>mine!//
Include the exclamation mark in the italics.

So even the princesses are there? And nobody's going to intervene when a heated altercation starts?

>star studded//
Hyphenate.

>with an expression on her face even he couldn’t identify//
The "even" makes it sound like he's an expert at interpreting expressions or something, but I have no reason to think he is.

>so that he could he//
Typo.

>the two stallions simply rest//
Why'd you go to present tense?

>The pair were interrupted by a gentle coughing, and immediately separated, Star Bright looked down and pawed at the ground while Silver Script scratched the back of his neck.//
That second comma is a comma splice.

>the bat ponies in front of the podium began playing the Equestrian Anthem on their horns.//
Maybe a little odd that he didn't notice them until now.

>“Thank you, Equestria,” He said//
Capitalization.

>He waited until the crowd quieted before beginning.//
But he already said something. He's not exactly beginning.

>looked up to his husband, who was now looking//
Close repetition.

>“Since antiquity,” Star Bright began.//
And many paragraphs later, he's beginning again?

>Silver Script beamed with pride at the pun//
It kind of loses something if you have to point out that it was one.

>whispering about why they were asked to come there.//
This is unnecessary, as in the very next line, Silver goes on to do just that.

>The Manehattener//
Italicize.

>much to small//
Too/to confusion.

>back and gave Silver Script a wink before turning around and disappearing back//
>before,” she said before//
Close repetition.

>The center of gravity of our love is everywhere.//
I'm not sure what he means by that. As a matter of physics, no, a center of gravity is always at a single point.

I see lots of complaints around the fandom that there's a short supply of good M/M romance. It's not something I normally read, so I can't say whether that's true, but I do think you have a good story here. It gets a bit sappy and simplistic at times, and the two behave in rather childish ways for married adults, but whether that's problematic depends on the story. This is close to show tone than something more serious, so despite the comments I left to that effect, that's not something you need to change. Were you to try writing some original fiction with the goal of getting it published, then there's more of my advice here that I'd press you on, but that isn't necessary.

The main things I do want to see you work on a bit are fixing the mechanical things, the repetition, and working on the perspective, where there were a few slips into a limited narration. There's not a lot of work to be done, and I've pretty much laid it all out for you, so I hope that makes it easier. I'd like to post this, and when you're ready, resubmit and mark it as "back from Mars" so I know it only needs a spot-check of the edits.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

Kind of bold to do an in medias res here. One of the big emotional moments would be Twilight seeing the filly appear and realizing what she was, but you're skipping all that. It can work, but I'm hoping that conflict's of a different nature so it doesn't matter your forgoing some obvious engagement,

>but it only turned more probably the more she thought about it.//
probable

>it has always has been//
Extraneous word.

>Whatever choices she has made or events that have happened must always happen, else a paradox would arise.//
I can't really parse this sentence. I think the syntax is off. Plus I can't figure out why it's in present tense.

>and how exactly whoever was responsible for this, had obtained the power and means//
There's no reason to have that comma. I also don't understand Twilight's conclusions. She's decided that the filly wanted to come here or someone sent her intentionally. Couldn't this just be an accident? Or some natural phenomenon?

>However, she herself was of the future, albeit one that no longer has meaning.//
Switching verb tenses again.

>W-Where//
Only capitalize the first part of a stutter, unless it's a word that has to be capitalized anyway, like a name.

>nodding assuredly at the filly//
You'll normally set off participial phrases with a comma.

> scholarly.” She said//
Punctuation/capitalization. You got it right earlier in the paragraph, so I don't know why you're getting it wrong here.

>patting her on the filly on the back//
Extraneous words.

>A mundane chore like that came off as perfectly choreographed performance akin to a fireworks display.//
You'd been in adult Twilight's perspective so far, but here, you switch to filly Twilight. Until you get comfortable with how to do a perspective shift and whether doing so is justified, it's better to keep to a single perspective in each scene.

>chore” she admitted//
Missing punctuation.

>Filly Twilight noted the slight twitches on the older mare’s face, but paid it no mind. The thought of becoming as focused and precise as the mare in front of her was nothing short of awe-inspiring.//
Here, you're popping into the filly's perspective again. So far, you've never stayed there more than a single paragraph, and we don't learn anything essential while there, so there really isn't a need to shift the viewpoint.

>exactly?” Her past self asked//
Captialization.

>Oh...right//
Needs a space after the ellipsis.

>my sister is taking the exam later this week//
Wait, what? Twilight has a sister?

>it’s pipes rusted//
Its/it's confusion.

>Her eyes squeezed shut as the tears fell in vain, staining her fading body as she bawled it all out.//
Try not to be structurally repetitive, like the two "as" clauses you have here. Because they also set a sentence's timeline, they're also kind of fighting each other.

>The door swung inward to revealing the dusty floor//
Typo.

>She took scope of all it//
Missing word.

>Thank you Mayor Mare.//
Needs a comma for direct address.

The perspective is unsteady in this chapter, too. It starts with the Mayor, then quickly goes to Twilight within the first page.

>I can’t...” Twilight trailed off as she surveyed the place again..//
The ellipsis already means she trailed off. Narrating it as well is redundant. And you have an extra period at the end.

>Mare on the moon//
Mare in the Moon

>every shelve and surface//
shelf

>the clouds we still off in the distance//
Typo.

>as she cleaned, humming a tune to herself as she reflected on the friends she had made here in Ponyville//
Repetitive "as" clauses again.

>nothing beat having real friends around to talk too//
To/too confusion.

>“What was that?” She asked as if hoping somepony might answer here//
Capitalization, typo.

>She reached hoof//
Missing word.

>quick.Why//
Missing space.

>herself- no//
>She saw Waning Star- no//
Please use a proper dash.

>turned corner//
Missing word.

>Twilight brought a hoof to mouth//
Missing word.

>Holding them back for so long in spite of her impending existential unravelling, was a feat in and of itself//
No reason to have that comma.

>I am..was//
Looks like that was supposed to be an ellipsis?

>continue to live on in her? ”//
Extraneous space after the question mark.

>layers of dust that bedded it’s surface//
Its/it's confusion.

>I hope so very much”//
Missing period.

>It faintly smelled of ink//
You just used "faint" a few sentences ago. It's repetitive to use it again so soon.

>This is my last letter to you Celestia.//
>Why didn’t you wake me up Twilight?//
Missing comma for direct address.

>I can-”//
Use a proper dash.

I do wonder how all this is supposed to fit in with canon events of where all the girls were when Twilight took her test, but then you have it marked AU, so you can place them wherever you like.

There'a very interesting idea here, but it does need a lot of editing help. I couldn't even note everything. I got most of the technical things, but there are also plenty of places where the phrasing just sounds off, and it's going to take an editor going through it in detail to help you iron all that out. If you can, it's definitely a unique take on events, and it could be a pretty engaging story.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

>who sounded like they were in discord//
That's a pretty odd phrasing.

>Since Kamino laid only a short distance from Bluegrass//
lay

>took her time to take//
Close repetition.

>But don't get your hopes up about any of them Violet.//
Needs a comma for direct address.

>we often go out and eat at the ice-cream parlor, if you want to you can join us there in the weekend!//
Comma splice.

>Maybe this could change now. This could be her great chance to finally form some friendships.//
This just comes across as bland, and that's a problem with the narration in general. You're telling things from Violet's mindset. If you thought you had an opportunity to get somehting you really wanted, wouldn't you sound excited? Yet the narration just says it here with no emotion. It doesn't sound like Violet cares much about it. The whole point of using a limited narrator is to give your character a very personal voice, but you're not using it.

>lancing over towards Rose—who smiled back at her—her body calmed down.//
This says her body glanced over.

>Violet thought “I'm not gonna write down anything anyway”//
Needs commas to set off the dialogue.

>It was kinda awkward for her to search these three, especially Rose, so much on this day.//
Strange phrasing.

>Kick it up one last notch everypony!//
Needs a comma for direct address.

>While she was in hospital, her parents arranged for her to move to Kamino and rented her a small house on the edge of the city while they were off doing business around the world.//
It feels unnatural to have two "while" clauses in the sentence, plus they're fighting each other for the sentence's timeline.

>The previous owner left barely any furniture and a sheet of dust had already settled in when Violet first entered her new home.//
Needs a comma between the clauses.

>most walls facing the outside were made up of mostly//
Repetitive word choice.

>None of this made sense to her, so emotions of joy mixed with uncertainty, and ultimately fear.//
So those emotions what? And instead of listing those emotions, give me symptoms of them so I can figure out on my own what they are.

>the pony that had saved her earlier//
When talking about intelligent creatures, it's preferred to use "who" over "that" or "which."

>Apparently Violet mumbled without noticing it first.//
But right after this, she does say it. I'm confused.

>decorated with few abstract paintings//
Seems like you're missing an "a," or else this tends to say Violet would have expected more paintings than there were.

>If you like and feel like it//
Strange phrasing, and kind of repetitive. Just one of those is fine. You don't need both.

>It is pretty tempting don't you think?//
Needs a comma.

>erratic movements//
That's pretty vague. What does she actually do? And here's another spot where Violet should be quite emotional, yet her narrative tone sounds bland.

>Taking a deep breath//
Set off participial phrases like this with a comma.

>whenever you want to become a Sorceress//
Needs a comma here to set off the dependent clause.

>now.As//
Missing space.

>I didn't think you'd actually join as//
Typo.

>Despite knowing this, she did not want to admit anything of the sort, not even to herself.//
The narration is essentially her thoughts, and it said so explicitly, so she very much has admitted it to herself.

>Even though our main targets are the witches//
Needs a comma here for the dependent clause.

>That's a different story entirely, let's just go after the witch for now.//
Comma splice.

>Whenever I fight one of them//
Needs a comma here.

>All muscles in her body tense up//
Why'd you switch to present?

>anymore.“That's//
Missing space.

>And we would never force you to become a Sorceress if you don't want to, we just wanted to show you the door.//
Comma splice.

>slowly walked away, her hoofsteps slower//
Close repetition.

>An ebb and flow of happiness and subtle terror//
You're directly naming emotion again.

>On the outskirts of Kamino laid relics of ancient villages.//
Lay/lie confusion. They're tough verbs to keep straight. Short version is you need "lay" instead of "laid" when there's not an object being laid down.

>decelerated in its descend//
descent

>the civilian pony//
What are you differentiating "civilian" from? The girls aren't government employees or anything.

>Turning around, no immediate way back out could be seen anymore.//
This says that no way out turned around.

>now spreading//
Hyphenate.

>They counted somewhere between seventy and a hundred.//
That's a rather large number to be able to estimate so quickly, and yet have such a large error band.

>Violet immediately threw herself on the ground and shielded her face, her body trembling.//
Here's another paragraph that sounds very stoic for what iolet's going through. That's the only major thing holding your story up.

>Reaching the apex of her jump//
You'll normally set off participial phrases with a comma.

>Releasing the shot, the magical arrow zoomed forwards//
This says the arrow released the shot.

>around the bridge. Rose turned around//
Watch the close word repetition.

>You can get up now Violet.//
Needs a comma for direct address.

>barrier.” Amber said//
Punctuation.

>Giant images of various tapestries hushed over the walls//
I can't imagine "hushed" is the word you meant to use here. I don't even know what it would mean in this context.

>the walls, folding around the walls//
More close repetition.

>Scattered around the field laid common objects//
You need "lay" here again.

>form. Its form//
Close repetition.

>Amber if you'd let me//
>go ahead Rose//
>Don't worry Violet//
Needs a comma for direct address.

>her?She//
Missing space.

>After having traversed about half the distance, the witch's head sprouted rose flowers//
This says that the head traversed the distance.

You're sure using "conjured" a lot during this fight.

>And even then he didn't even seem to realize I was there, he looked right through me.//
Comma splice.

>a whim of her parent's//
She has more than one parent, right?

>looking for more words. She had looked//
Close repetition.

At this point, it's going to take me forever to go through the whole story in detail, and I'm mostly finding the same problems over and over again. The point is for you to learn how to fix them on your own, not have me fix them for you, so I'm just going to read the rest of the story without further comment, then come back at the end to say if I found any plot or characterization problems.

In chapter 4, I don't understand this: "It was still too early in the day for them to attack any ponies." I haven't watched Magica Madoka, but is there really something in there where witches can't attack early in the day?

>thing,” while grasping for Rose's hoof, Violet tossed her head from side to side to look for a path away from the Walpurgisnacht, “we//
You have a non-speaking action you're trying to use as a speech tag. It seems like you want to use a narrative aside here. This is how to format one:
thing—” while grasping for Rose's hoof, Violet tossed her head from side to side to look for a path away from the Walpurgisnacht “—we

You're using "salve" when I think you mean "salvo."

In chapter 5, Violet says she has the ability to skip back in time to getting out of the hospital again. So why doesn't she do that when Amber gets killed? She could have stopped it from happening. That's what she already did for Rose.

Okay, so she does after Rose dies again. But I wonder why she never did after Amber's death.

The editing's gotten noticeably worse in chapter 7. There are numerous slips into present tense and several places where you're missing a space between words.

>Hardly any pony would care if this bridge was suddenly destroyed//
That's just really, really hard to believe.

I'm noticing more editing problems than usual in chapter 11.

In chapter 14, I get this:
>a singular tear//
That is one of the most cliched things you possibly could have said.

Yeah, the editing did noticeably decline the further in I got.

All told, I like the characters, but then I don't know how close a match this is for the show, since I've never seen it. Most of what I know about it comes from the one or two other crossovers I've read. It's interesting how Violet becomes the complete opposite of her original personality over the course of the story.

So, all the things I mentioned in detail over the first few chapters was present through the whole thing. You need to work on the editing, and the narration is pretty bland during emotionally intense moments, considering you're using a limited narrator who takes on characters' identities.

Even if you fixed all that, there's a subtle problem here: why is this an MLP story? There's nothing pony about it. You could make these characters human, and the only thing you'd have to do is a search-and-replace of hoof/hand, mane/hair, etc. You wouldn't have to rewrite the characters, setting, or plot. It doesn't matter that they're ponies, it's immaterial to the plot, and it doesn't even come up very much.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

Chapter 1:

>W-Well, it there’s anything I can do for you//
Only capitalize the irst part of a stutter, and you have a typo there.

>um…I’ll//
It tends to format better on FiMFic if you leave a space after an ellipsis, especially if you use a program that auto-converts three dots to a single ellipsis character.

>And her eyes…their soft raspberry-red hue contrasted perfectly with the rest of her, giving them a captivating look.//
Note two things here. First, this expresses opinion in the narration (perfectly, captivating). Second, the ellipsis makes this sound very conversational, like dialogue. That combines into making this a limited narration in Ticket Stub's perspective. But it doesn't stay there. Only a couple of pages in, Ticket Stub leaves, and the perspective moves over to Sonata. It's usually not a good idea to change perspective in the middle of a scene anyway, but it's really strange to start the story in a perspective that will soon be abandoned and is an unimportant character. I'd be surprised if he even turns up again.

>the red-horned unicorn//
Keep in mind what this means to the perspective. This is Sonata choosing to call him this in her own thoughts. Do you do that with people you know well? Do you think of your grandfather as "the gray-haired man"?

>An exasperated expression//
You outright name emotions a fair amount. Think about how you could tell that someone you saw in public was exasperated. You wouldn't know he was automatically. You'd have to interpret the context of what he's doing and how he looks. It's more authentic when written characters mimic this real-life effect.

>Two months ago Equestria had been the victim of what had since become known as “elemental bleeds”; instances of the heretofore-unknown Elemental Planes superimposing themselves over patches of Equestria.//
You should be able to replace a semicolon with a period and have both resulting sentences stand as complete, but they wouldn't here. You're making a definition or clarification, so use a colon.

>“Aww, I bet it’ll be fine,” smiled Sonata.//
How do you smile dialogue?

>how…” Lex trailed off//
The ellipsis already means he trails off. Narrating it as well is redunant. You use this speech tag nearly very time you have an ellipsis.

>Unaware of the nonplussed expression on her boyfriend’s face//
And now you've drifted to Lex's perspective. That's the third one in the scene already.

>Much to her chagrin, he hadn’t noticed//
And now you're back in Sonata's head. The perspective is incredibly unsteady in this story.

Chapter 2:

>So why,” he lifted the pair of boarding passes in his telekinetic grip, waving them in Sonata’s face, “do we have tickets//
You've punctuated/capitalized his like it's a speech tag, but it has no speaking verb. It sounds like you're trying to do a narrative aside. Here's how:
So why—” he lifted the pair of boarding passes in his telekinetic grip, waving them in Sonata’s face “—do we have tickets

>A look of incomprehension spread across Sonata’s face.//
Besides being very blunt with the emotion again, look at it from Sonata's perspective. She's held the viewpoint in the chapter so far, but how can she see her own face to say this?

>Tale to-//
Please use proper dashes, not hyphens, for interruptions and asides.

>He doubted it would be that easy, since it was likely that Tall Tale had experienced their own problems.//
And now you're in Lex's head.

This is a rather big thing, that he would be granted part of Equestria to rule, but it's just... there. I have no idea how or why this occurred.

>Sonata blinked as Lex looked at her with an inscrutable expression. She was about to ask him if something was wrong, when he leaned towards her, giving her just enough time to feel surprised before he kissed her gently.//
And now you're back in Sonata's viewpoint.

>They had confessed their feelings for each other only a few days ago//
I hope we'll get to some of their backstory eventually. It's a lot to expect the reader to just get invested in this relationship because you say they're in love. You have to demonstrate that. If I don't know why they love each other, what they like about each other, what they each give and take from a relationship, then I'm not going to care much about it.

>Much to his surprise, the stallion was reading the paper intently//
And you've gone to Ticket Stub's viewpoint now, and it only stays there a couple paragraphs.

Chapter 3:

I'll obviously never get through the story if I keep up that level of detail throughout. For the next few chapters, I'm only gong to note new issues I see, and then I'm going to start skimming just to get a flavor for how the plot and characterization go.

>She stumbled on the unfamiliar word, trying to sound it out.//
Why do you feel the need to explain this? Don't you trust the reader to figure out what's going on?

>evidence that his anger had not abated//
And again. It's like you're afraid the reader won't pick up on something unless you spell it out explicitly.

>His eyes had changed back to normal though, indicating that he was finally getting his temper under control.//
Again, you're over-explaining things, but it's also repetitive to keep using the same indicator for it.

>‘kay?//
Note that smart quotes will make leading apostrophes backward. You'll often have to force it the right way by pasting one in.

Chapter 4:

>Kicking her way free of her blankets, Sonata unsteadily climbed to her feet.//
You do this from time to time. Note that a participle synchronizes with the action it's attached to, so she kicks out of the blanket while climbing to her feet. More likey, she'd kick free before standing. You have to be careful when you use participles that you actually do want the actions happening simultaneously. Sometimes it doesn't make sense for them to. In fact, you do this again later in the same paragraph:
>Rushing to the door, she stepped out into the hallway//
Then again just one sentence later:
>Pushing past them, she hurried to Lex’s room, throwing the door open.//
She couldn't open his door until after she'd rushed there.

>His brow furrowed in thought, not answering immediately.//
Another problem with participles is that they can be misplaced modifiers or dangling modifiers. This is one of the latter. Presumably, Lex is the one who's supposed to be "not answering," but he doesn't even appear in the sentence. This says his brow wasn't answering. You have this problem occasionally.

>The responses came from Sonata and the engineer came in chorus//
That wording got jumbled.

For all that you keep mentioning Lex is the only pony fit to rule all of Equestria, I have no idea what's going on. I know you want the story to stand alone well, but I feel like I'm missing lots of context.

Chapter 15:

>Because Sonata’s back was turned to her, she couldn’t see the wolfish smile on Kara’s face.//
But if Sonata's the perspective character, then the narrator can't tell me things she doesn't know or perceive. This is a little bit of a different problem with perspective than the ones you'd been having earlier.

In chapter 20, when the spiders have attacked and gone, Nosey is wandering around town and talks to Sonata. But the last time we saw her, Lex was telling her his story. This just leaves me confused about where Lex is now.

Chapter 23:

>Nodded back to her//
Typo.

Chapter 25 is basically one solid block of exposition. It's rather tedious to read.

In chapter 26, it's pretty cliched to have one of these "as you already know" exposition by dialogue sessions.

What are these italicized paragraphs? Flashbacks? It's just confusing.

Chapter 28:

>Quietly climbing to his hooves, Lex quietly//
Another spot of close repetition. I might as well flag these when I see them, but at the speed I'm reading, I won't catch many.

Chapter 31:

>Barely noticing Fireflower running behind her, Lex’s entire world came to a halt as he saw her//
Just another example of a dangling participle. I've seen others. This says his world barely noticed Fireflower.

>“Rockwood’s right,” Breezyleaf looked like she wanted to cry//
Another non-speaking action used as a speech tag.

Chapter 32:

Just because you have a character doesn't mean it adds something to inhabit his perspective. That's the case here. I don't see what we learn of value in this chapter. He's not someone we'e supposed to care about, and there's no important information we get from him that couldn't have come from someone else.

Chapter 33:

More of these italicized paragraphs that are supposed to be flashbacks. They're confusing. At first, they look like they're character thoughts. Flashbacks typically deserve to be separate scenes, but then they'd need to be longer than these.

What these changes of perspective also mean is that you're constantly going over the same events 2 or 3 times. There can be value in showing different interpretations of the same thing, but that's not exactly what you're doing. That'd be more like if two witnesses to a crime remembered it differently. Here, you don't give me anything new from each perspective. They both describe the same events in the same way. And you do this often enough that I'm spending a significant amount of time rereading the same things multiple times.

Chapter 36:

>starting to bubble slightly, heating up enough that it was actually starting//
Watch the close repetition.

Chapter 39:

>Sonata laid on the ground//
Lay

>Lifting it, the hole suddenly turned back into a piece of cloth. //
This says the hole lifted it.

Chapter 43:

>Holding it in his telekinetic grip//
See how you start 4 paragraphs in a row with a participial phrase? That gets pretty repetitive.

>still laying where it had fallen//
lying

>>3174
Chapter 44:

>The goddess was far larger than himself//
Reflexive pronouns are for when the same person or thing is the subject.

>thaumaturty//
Typo, I believe.

>whom it was//
That's actually a situation where "who" is correct.

>the Night Mare’s had been displeased//
Why is that a possessive?

>of whom Lex was mostly sure had been the subject of that carving//
The "of whom" should just be "who."

Chapter 45:

>He named his remaining request then//
Authors love to do this kind of thing, but they fail to consider whether it works with the perspective. The scene is in Lex's viewpoint. The narration is his thoughts. He knows what he asks for, so why isn't it in the narration? There has to be a motivation for the narrator to avoid mentioning it, and the convenience of creating tension doesn't count. He has zero motivation to avoid mentioning it in his own head, so he has zero motivation to avoid letting the reader know here. It would work from a perspetive that didn't know what he'd asked, and it might work in an omniscient narration, depending on how it's handled. But it doesn't work with the perspective you've chosen.

Chapter 46:

>Sonata laid down beside her boyfriend//
Lay

>Yawning again//
You're in that rut again. Of the scene's 7 paragraphs, 4 start with a participle.

>well played Night Mare//
Missing a comma for direct address.

Chapter 47:

>you know…” he turned slightly red, “to//
Use the aside formatting I discussed earlier.

>he was loathe to do that//
The adjective form is "loath."

>this,” he gestured to Severance, “here//
Aside formatting again.

Chapter 49:

>I love you so much, Sonata.//
He's known her for, what, a few days?

Chapter 51:

Look at these repetitive paragraph beginnings right at the top of the chapter:
>Turning away from where they were embracing in a tangle//
>Pausing as she reached the threshold//
>Turning away//

>He knew that there was no way that a flimsy wooden door could feasibly contain an artifact-weapon forged by a goddess, but he’d be damned if he had to let the thing witness private moments between himself and his beloved, let alone interject its opinion.//
The chapter had been in Sonata's perspective until here.

>Sonata wasn’t sure what made her think that the weapon was a “he.”//
And in the very next paragraph, you're back to Sonata.

Chapter 52:

>between Sonata and I//
That's actually a spot for "me." You wouldn't say "between we," but that's the same thing as "between Sonata and I."

>Lex grit his teeth//
Past tense is "gritted."

It strikes me that since they defeated the dragon, there's very little momentum to the story. Nobody's really struggling for anything, and there's no developing conflict.

In Chapter 58, I don't see what the purpose of the last scene is.

>Canterlot Chronicle//
Newspaper titles should be underlined or (preferably) italicized. This goes for the ones you mention later, too.

Chapter 60:

>“It is my royal duty, sister,”//
When used as terms of address, family relations, get capitalized.

>pony that was having a nightmare//
It's preferred to use "who" over "that" or "which" when referring to an intelligent being.

Even skimming, I'm only getting through about 10 chapters a day, and it's going to be forever before I get a reply to you. So I'm going to have to pick up the pace and just try to get the most basic picture of each chapter. Inevitably, I'll miss things, but I did want to be able to give you some feedback on whether the overall plot makes sense. It means I'll barely catch any detailed stuff, though.

Chapter 75:

>But as loathe as he was//
You're using the verb spelling "loathe" where you need the adjective spelling "loath."

Chapter 76:

>the edge of his periphery//
That's sure redundant.

The perspective is bouncing around a lot in this fight scene.

Chapter 79:

>The pudgy fish-monster was fairing even better.//
faring

Chapter 80:

So precisely the right scroll fell out of Lex's bag by chance? There's an old guideline about writing that has a lot of truth to it: Coincidence is a fine way for characters to get into trouble. It's a terrible way for them to get out of trouble.

Chapter 87:

>start in surprise//
Redundant.

Chapter 88:

>clearly taken by surprise at Nosey’s request. The newsworthiness of everything they’d gone through hadn’t occurred to her before.//
These are from two different perspectives. The second is obviously Nosey's impression, but the first wouldn't work for her perspective. She'd just know she was surprised. "Clearly" wouldn't enter into it. That's someone else's assessment.

Chapter 91:

>She paused, then added. “That’s the other world we were sent to.”//
Punctuation.

Chapter 95:

>We didn’t know our enemies strength then!//
You have a plural where you need a possessive.

Chapter 96:

>spokepony//
That'd probably be spokespony, like the human-equivalent spokesperson.

Chapter 99:

Some of this battle language gets repetitive. Like you describe a "sickening crunch" twice.

So I apologize for not being able to get through everything. I stopped after chapter 100, because it was getting to be a chore to keep going at it, and it was making you wait an inordinate amount of time for a response.

My main issues are these: The story doesn't stand alone well. I did at least get a sense of who the characters were and why some of this was happening, but I did feel at a big disadvantage for not knowing who Lex is, what he'd gone through to get him to this point, and the world-building involving Everglow. It's not like I can't understand this story's plot—mostly, I do, but a little more on that later. It's that I don't understand what motivates and informs this story's plot.

It doesn't feel like there's a strong overall story arc here. Lex has this lofty, fairly abstract goal of ruling Vanhoover. The synopsis seems to say he wants to rule all of Equestria, though nothing I'd read so far speaks to that. This would seem to be a big concern for Celestia and Luna, except that in 100 chapters, they only show up once, vaguely hint that they have their own machinations, then promptly disappear for dozens of chapters again.

The perspective gets jumpy at times, in two ways. It's fine to change perspective characters at scene breaks, but there are numerous places where you abruptly switch in the middle of a scene, sometimes only for a few sentences, and rather than go into a lenghty description of why that's a bad idea, I'll just refer you to the brief discussion on head hopping at the top of this thread. But back to the times you do confine perspective shifts to scene breaks, you spend quite a bit of time recapping events from the new perspective. Now, I know it's a time-honored thing to show the same scene from multiple perspectives, and it's not that fact that you do so at all that's problematic. It's how often. Many of these times, I don't learn anything useful in the new perspective, or at least not right away, so that some of these retellings could be shortened or cut entirely. (And frequently, something that could be cut or shortened should be cut or shortened.)

And any of the editing issues I had to point out in the first few chapters were present throughout.

Note that this list is not comprehensive. I picked out a few examples of each kind of error or problem I found. Of course, not everything is a black-and-white issue; this is not a list of things you have to fix, but take each under advisement.

>My injury from the assault course yesterday//
She doesn't say what the injury is. That leaves things pretty vague.

>I stepped inside the elevator and was elevated 18 floors//
Watch the close repetition of "elevator" and "elevated." That's a strange enough use of "elevated" that I'm guessing you did this intentionally, but it's not creating an effect. There's nothing thematic. It feels more like you're trying to be humorous, but she never makes a joke of it, and just as quickly, it's gone, so I'm not sure what you were going for. And 18 is a short enough number that you should write out the word.

>allowing me to walk through the hall down to "Office #467".//
You'll normally set off a participial phrase with a comma.

>This wasn't my office but I had been sent an email//
You have numerous places through the story like this, where you need a comma between clauses. You have two subjects, each with its own verb (this wasn't... but I had been...), so put a comma before the conjunction.

>my usual office "Office #20".//
That's a strange repetition of "office."

Wait, why would office 467 be on the 18th floor? Usually the numbering scheme reflects the floor, so I would expect 467 to be on the 4th floor. For that matter, how do they have email? They don't have computers.

>yeah we were that professional we had a mini courtroom installed//
This feels really odd just tacked onto the previous sentence as it is.

>The main disputes that were debated in the courtroom were just petty things like let's say they get a raw brand deal, then they can settle that in our courtroom, of course it occurred to me that these were things that could be settled around a desk not in an EBI courtroom, but I kind of enjoyed the company especially because I had lost touch with the team ever since I graduated so it was always good to catch up.//
Man, that should be several sentences. For one, it's not grammatically correct as a single sentence, but for another, you really can't do this much in a single sentence and expect the reader to keep up with it.

>spinning on chair//
Missing word.

>I've been waiting for you." He said.//
This isn't how to punctuate and capitalize transitions between speech and narration. There's a guide to this at the top of this page.

>it's.....//
3 dots is plenty.

>Well..I..never//
And 2 isn't enough.

>Right on it sir.//
Needs a comma for direct address.

>This toy wasn't given a valid reason.//
Do we get to know what the given reason was? Without knowing, it's hard to empathize with her. She may be in denial, or she may have been treated unfairly.

>which he constantly teases me about//
Why did you switch to present tense? You use it several times in this paragraph.

>to the suspicion of Twilight.//
What does Twilight do to make Dash think she's suspicious? Let me see that.

>Was it really that obvious.//
That's a question, right?

>aput//
I don't know what you meant to say here. Maybe "amiss"?

>your being give no work//
you're, given

>"I told you there would be risks when joining law enforcement didn't I?" Twilight said//
Missing period at the end. This also speaks to a lot of the back story that I'd really like to know, as it informs what their relationship is like now. You're glossing over some pretty important things.

>"Where have YOU been?!"//
You already had Twilight speak in this paragraph. Keep to one speaker per paragraph.

>Woah//
Whoa

>Her enthusiasm rocking me.//
This isn't a omplete sentence, and absolute phrases make poor stylistic fragments.

>I paused before realising I should probably clarify something//
Missing period.

>""Bye Rainbow Dash!"I//
Extraneous quotation marks, missing space.

>Think of him as a virtual egghead.//
This is explicitly speaking to an audience. This means Dash is aware of her audience. And this opens up a can of worms. Who's listening? Why? Whay does Dash want to tell her story to this listener? Where are they talking, and when? Unless you're prepared to incorporate all that into your story, it's best to refrain from addressing the reader.

>"Um-D-Dash"//
>"I-It's the v-victim"//
Missing periods.

>just as I start to see how much they really mean to me//
When did this happen? This says there was a big change in her life recently, where she gained a new appreciation for them, but we didn't get to see any of it happen. We don't know what it means to her. We're just assured it's really important, but that's not going to get the reader to identify with her. Demonstration is far more powerful that statement. Let me see this change in their relationship, and it'll mean a lot more.

Chapter 2 just has more of the same problems, so I'm not going to note editing details for it

>now door-less doorway//
>notably annoyed carriage driver//
She's just been informed of Scootaloo's murder, and she's using humor? You need to have a consistent tone here.

>We don't have time to be running around trying to find a crazed killer. We're already up to our necks in paperwork, we simply don't have the manpower.//
Huh? What kind of policeman would ever say something like this? This is completely irresponsible and not plausible.

Dash isn't going to ask Blackhoof about the body in his office? She might keep silent if she feared him, but nothing like that happens.

>I'd forgot I'd been given a suspension the day after the incident.//
What incident? And why? The reader's not going to be engaged in her situation if they don't know.

There are a lot of electronic devices for a story not marked as AU.

This is an interesting idea for a story, and heaven knows there's a lack of good mystery stories around. But the editing needs a lot of work, and you gloss over a lot of the background of what gives the situation its emotional gravity. You may well get to that in future chapters, but you can't string along readers too far before doing so, and you need to give some of it early on just to generate interest in the story. If a reader's not invested in the conflict from the start, they'll drop away from following the story.