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To the world, changelings are hideous and disfigured, a true monster of monsters, and Queen Chrysalis is no exception. if anything, ponykind considers her to be as horrifying as their imaginations can allow, but their assumptions are bound to be wrong at some point. Strange then, isn't it, that it was their very first prejudice that was incorrect? Is there truly something wrong with a changeling wanting to love?

The leap day has come and passed, meaning that we're now in March and I'm due for another review! Today's story is an interpretation of our favourite bug queen, Chrysalis, and her true motivations behind her infiltration of the royal wedding. Deep character dives, especially those of our antagonists, are always fascinating concepts. So, then, Nocturnalist, show me what you've got

Plot and Setting

The first thing that stood out to me was the short sentences, but I'll address that in the grammar section! The second thing that I noticed was the barrenness of the descriptions. Take the very first paragraph of the story, (a paragraph that I suspect I will return to as an example):

Queen Chrysalis was in her room back in the hive. She didn’t know why they had to be so mean. All she wanted was to marry the one she loved. She knew that the changelings were hideous. No one could love a changeling undisguised. She flashed back to the moment where she had first met him.

While good introduction paragraphs vary in length, they all usually achieve the same effect: they create the set-up for the first scene. Typically, this is done by describing the setting that the first scene takes place in and/or the mood that permeates it. Nocturnalis's introduction paragraph does... very little of this. While it does technically set the scene, it does so in a single line and thus is far less effective than a longer sentence would have been. What should be changed is not only how long the sentence is, as you can easily just extend it to be longer with more words albeit with the same meaning, but also what exactly is being described. Chrysalis is back at the hive, sure, but is she standing in her room? Does she like standing? Is she pacing? We're given so many descriptions for her thoughts following the sentence, but all we have to picture the scene in our heads is a single, short line.

Alternatively, an introductory paragraph can start off with a line that catches the reader's eye. How it's done varies from author to author, but they typically involve some sort of impactful (and simple!) line that leaves the reader wondering "Why?" and prompting them to keep reading to answer that question. They can be anything, from "Celestia hates it when it rains" to "There were green rainclouds over Ponyville and Twilight did not know why." These lines are deceptively simple because they prompt questions out of the reader when placed at the beginning of the story and/or chapter; why does Celestia hate rain? Why does Twilight not know what's going on? Humans are curious creatures and we want answers, so we read onward to find out.

Also, word of advice: avoid using the verb "to flash" when referring to someone recalling memories. It conjures up the image of a visual flashback, which tends to go over poorly in literature form. While there's nothing explicitly wrong with using it, it's one of those words that seems quite amateurish when used for expressing a recollection of memories. If you look around in printed media, like in many fiction novels, you'll very, very, very rarely find "to flash" being used in the same manner as it is used in Nocturnalis's story and thus seems a bit out of place. Best-selling authors usually have other ways of introducing memories, but using direct recollection verbs is not uncommon; "to recall" would likely work better instead of "to flash," and one could make an argument for using "to remember" directly.

....This is starting to get a little long Let's lightning round it for the rest of this section and I can explain further in the comments if asked

Descriptions
Very barren. It's fairly difficult to picture the scene throughout the dialogue.

Pacing
The story goes by pretty fast. One second, we're spilling tea and then we're discussing the spilled not-tea. Oh boy.

Rating: 3/10

Character Exploration

Oh dear, there's not much I can say in this section. With only 1610 words to its count, Nocturnalis's story provides little to no room to explore Chrysalis's character. The changeling queen comes off like a lovesick schoolgirl at her best in this story and a blindsided fool at her worst. Her thoughts throughout the story only contribute to this with their short lengths and general shallowness. While I identify as aromantic and have no experience with matters of the heart, Nocturnalis's portrayal of Chrysalis's love of Shining Armor seems unrealistic to me with little reason other than "He might like me for who I am and not who I act like," which, if written differently and expanded upon, would be more than enough to justify being attracted to him. Does Chryssie feel an overwhelming sense of loneliness at the difficulty of connecting with others because of the nature of her species? Alas, that doesn't quite seem to be the case in this story...

Rating: 2/10

Grammar, Formatting, and Consistency

Goodness, this will be a ride. Let's first tackle consistency, as it's the easiest to get out of the way; overall, Nocturnalist was fairly consistent with terms, capitalization, etc., so they did well on that part. My only criticism here is to remember to de-italicized when not writing thoughts and returning to the narration.

Moving onto grammar, this story would benefit from an editor going over it with a fine-toothed comb. Nocturnalist, my dear fellow writer, commas are your friend. There are many very short sentences in this story and many can be combined into longer sentences that make the story flow better. Periods are hard stops, while commas are placed in spots where we would naturally take a breath if reading aloud. Where periods are harsh where they stop, commas can help keep the momentum of one sentence's emotions into the next.

Queen Chrysalis was in her room back in the hive. She didn’t know why they had to be so mean. All she wanted was to marry the one she loved. She knew that the changelings were hideous. No one could love a changeling undisguised. She flashed back to the moment where she had first met him.

You could string a few of those sentences together by using commas or transition words like "and" and "when." Take as an example, "She didn't know why they had to be so mean. All she wanted was to marry the one she loved"; it could be written as, "She didn't know why they had to be so mean when all she wanted was to marry the one she loved." The sentences flow much easier together and are related!

There are various other grammar rules that pop out to me, so I'll take a sample text from the story, makes some edits, and explain them as I go.

She was posing as a maid in the Canterlot castle so she could find out Equestria’s weaknesses, she had to feed her subjects after all. In the afternoon she bumped into the captain of the royal guard. She had spilled the Princesses tea.

“I’m so sorry” he said.

“No, no, it was all my fault sir.” Chrysalis replied.

“Sir?” he asked.

“Well, of course. Why wouldn’t I show respect to those above me?” Chrysalis wondered.

“Well, not very many ponies call me sir outside the royal guard. Please call me Shining Armor, I insist.” He told her.

“Well, okay.” Chrysalis hesitated. “Let me help you” Shining Armor said after he realized that the tea was still on the floor.

She was posing as a maid in the Canterlot castle so she could find out Equestria’s weaknesses; she had to feed her subjects, after all. In the afternoon, she bumped into the captain of the royal guard. She had spilled the Princesses' tea.

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

“No, no, it was all my fault, sir,” Chrysalis replied.

“Sir?” he asked.

“Well, of course. Why wouldn’t I show respect to those above me?” Chrysalis wondered.

“Well, not very many ponies call me sir outside the royal guard. Please call me Shining Armor, I insist.” He told her.

“Well, okay.” Chrysalis hesitated.

“Let me help you,” Shining Armor said after he realized that the tea was still on the floor.

Let's go through it one by one, shall we?

• "She was posing as a maid in the Canterlot castle so she could find out Equestria's weaknesses; she had to feed her subjects, after all."

  Here, I put a semi-colon instead of the comma because the two sections of the sentence are two independent clauses. If we wanted to string them together into a single sentence without using transition words, as Nocturnalist did, then we'd have to use a semi-colon. Alternatively, it could be written with a transition word: "She was posing as a maid in the Canterlot castle so she could find out Equestria's weaknesses since she had to feed her subjects, after all."

  Additionally, I also put a comma before "after all" since it seems to be a parenthetical phrase, specifically an interjection (see this site for examples of parenthetical phrases). Here, it seems like an obvious fact and "after all" is being used in a way to denote the way Chrysalis thinks of the reason why she is infiltrating Canterlot. When in doubt, put a comma! You can always remove them later, but putting them there first is a tad bit harder.

• "In the afternoon, she bumped into the captain of the royal guard."

  "In general, the rules around commas and time phrases are as follows: If the time phrase comes before an independent clause or sentence, use a comma after the time phrase. If the time phrase comes after an independent clause or sentence, no comma is necessary," (prowritingaid.com).

• "She had spilled the Princesses' tea."

  Showing possession is the apostrophe's job, but the placement gets a little fickle when you start looking at the details. In general, if a word is both plural and ends with s, then the apostrophe goes at the end of the word and no additional s is added. However, if the word ends with an s but is singular, then the apostrophe is followed by an additional s. The Princess's tea is normally jasmine, but the Princesses' teatime usually has a different kind of tea that they both enjoy. (See this site for a more detailed explanation).

• "I'm so sorry," he said.

  "No, no, it was all my fault, sir," Chrysalis replied."

  When dialogue is followed by a verb that describes the character speaking, like said, whispered, replied, etc., the last sentence of the dialogue line must end in a comma if it normally was a period. The common exceptions are question marks and exclamation marks.

  Additionally, I put another comma before "sir" since Chrysalis is addressing Shining Armor directly, (see this thread).

• "Well, okay." Chrysalis hesitated.

  "Let me help you," Shining Armor said after he realized that the tea was still on the floor.

  Here, it's okay to not put a comma at the end of Chrysalis's dialogue, although it could work both ways. Without a comma, the scene is read as her speaking, and then her hesitating to do something; with a comma, the scene is read as Chrysalis being hesitant to agree to calling the captain by a casual name.

  When dialogue is being spoken by different characters right after each other, they always must be put on separate lines.

  The red comma is, once again, placed there because there is a description of speech directly after the dialogue.

I'm a little bit tired, so I likely have missed some things! I'm not an English major, so I'm no expert when it comes to grammar, but these seem like good places to start!

Now, you might have also noticed that I got rid of all the italics and I did that for a reason! It nicely segues into the formatting section, so let's start talking about that

I got rid of the italics because of the line break, which signals a change in setting or time within a story. As long as the story has some indication of what time period and/or setting it's now in, it's fine to address a memory without breaking out the italics.

Speaking of line breaks, several times in the story, Nocturnalist makes use of line breaks through holding down the hyphen key on their keyboard. FiMFiction actually has some BBcode that puts in a line break for you! It looks like this:

Queen Chrysalis was in her room back in the hive. She didn’t know why they had to be so mean. All she wanted was to marry the one she loved. She knew that the changelings were hideous. No one could love a changeling undisguised. She flashed back to the moment where she had first met him.

---

She was posing as a maid in the Canterlot castle so she could find out Equestria’s weaknesses, she had to feed her subjects after all. In the afternoon she bumped into the captain of the royal guard. She had spilled the Princesses tea.

Nicely centred, isn't it? If the little pattern isn't your thing, then you can make your own line break and center it to make it look better. Everyone is going to read stories on the site with their own visual settings, (I personally have my font pretty big so it's easier for me to read), so the formatting of your line breaks might look a little... strange if you overcompensate. Having a shorter line break but centring it can accommodate for this!

Grammar: 2/10
Formatting: 4/10
Consistency: 7/10
Section rating: ((2+4+7)/3)/10 = ((13/3))/10 = 4.3/10

My Little Nitpicks

Word counts can be deceiving at times...
...but this time, it does not bode well for my reading experience

Always look before you leap into a scene
Else you fall flat with no set-up. Very abruptly, Chrysalis is just in her room. If you want to start with a one-liner with no set-up in the scene, be sure to put in some emotional impact or weight to grab the reader's attention!

Here. We. Stop. Every. Sentence.
Short sentences are okay. But many short sentences in a row become tiresome to read. It is rapid-fire. Many can be combined into longer sentences. This makes the paragraph easier to read.

Commas, commas, commas, commas, comm-
They are you friend, and so are semi-colons! Use them to your advantage!

Chryssie in a maid's dress
You'd think one of the drones would be doing the reconnaissance instead of the Queen doing it directly...

Excuse me, sir!
Shining Armor has lived in Canterlot for essentially his whole life and I'm pretty sure it's common practice to be polite and refer to males older than you as sir unless otherwise stated. You'd expect that he'd be used to this

Captain, my captain!
For the captain of the royal guard, Shining Armor seems pretty gullible here!

What an evil mastermind! Or maybe not?
Hm, Chryssie doesn't seem to be thinking this through properly...

Aftermath
Hm. Interesting inclusion, I suppose. Seems a bit redundant since it just recaps things from the show and links clips.

Final Thoughts

A story that had some potential, but ultimately fell short of it. It would be a good exercise to rewrite this story while keeping in mind the pitfalls the original fell into.

Final rating: ((4.3+3+2)/3)/10 = (9.3/3)/10 = 3.1/10

7168963

However, if the word ends with an s but is singular, then the apostrophe is followed by an additional s.

It can also be without! So Princess's is correct, but so is Princess'. Just thought I should mention that

Commas, commas, commas, commas, comm-
They are you friend, and so are semi-colons!

Don't trust this treacherous trickster!

But seriously, I wouldn't recommend using semi-colons for people who aren't familiar with the nuances of its use. It has some pretty specific rules. Maybe try the em dash (—) instead? Incidentally, it's my favourite punctuation mark

Anyway, great review, Lumina! Always nice to read reviews that go into more detail, and you certainly do, especially for a story of this short length Agree with all points, especially on the character exploration.