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(Read till chapter 10, ca 14k words)

Summary:

This story is about Jung-Ho Yang, a changeling who was born as the son of the empress, but his mother had to give him away at his birth. So instead of in the Palace, he secretly grows up as the son of a farmer. 

The focus is on two things in this story, the protagonist, Jung-Ho and the ponified, (or is it changelingfied?) ancient asia.

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Well, actually it was kind of tricky to write this summary. I am quite a bit unsure what the main storyline is to be honest. Jung-Ho is a teenager whose life is presented a bit like the movie Mulan if I have anything to compare it too. He gets in some kind of trouble and has to leave the farm of his adoptive parents. While doing so, we get to see a lot of, what I only can assume as, east asian culture. My wisdom about those regions is very limited so I can't say if it is accurate, but, we see a lot of it.

Maybe this story is a mix of Mulan, and some Vietnam war movie, its feels odd, but also interesting.

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Okay let's get to a topic I am more familiar with, the quality of the writing. First of all, I like to look at the chapter length and the content of each chapter. Or the pacing if you will. Here the story scores very well. Each chapter is a significant point of interest in the life of young Jung-Ho, and each chapter has well set, in itself complete, content. You can already see that with the titles of them. Also they are quite short, only focusing on what's really interesting at their point of the story. That has its benefits, but also some problems.

Furthermore I would like to point out the amount of adjusted culture. Like I said, I can't judge if it is near the original, but it seems that the author put much thought and work into this. As an european, I get surprised and even a little bit disgusted at what is described in the chapters. But, looking at european medieval, I think it would be vice versa for an asian author.

Now, what this story has problems with is the overall storyline and partially the content. Jung-Ho is 13 years old, but already goes to war, which is from what is described like vietnam. He visits brothels, and here a little spoiler, meets his father there who sleeps with the equestrian soldiers. And no one cares it seems. I mean he is 13, and the eq soldiers who met him just accept he is coming with them. Like it is no big deal. Also in general this story goes through a lot of questionable content and decisions considering the protagonist is 13.

Besides that, we also have some major flaws with the overall worldbuilding and 'do it for the plot' moments. While the scenes are interesting and transmit a good feeling for the asian culture I assume, the motivation why people are doing stuff and how it all is supposed to end up doesn't work out. Just one example, Jung-Ho uses his ability to turn into a little bug to avoid getting spotted. In the show that's cool, but if you go to war against changelings, you should take that into account. Though the equestrian soldiers don't care about this possible threat, and they didn't even check their people for spies at all. It really feels like the story only remembers what changelings can do when the protagonist needs it or it would create an interesting to read scene. This creates not only logic errors, but makes some scenes highly unlikely to happen.

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Rating:

Adventure part and the culture: 8/10  Yep, here the story shines. Quick chapters, entertaining scenes, fast forward plot.
Comedy: 2/10 Not really there. We have a few references, like the matchmaker scene from Mulan, but besides that there is not much comedy.
Entertainment factor:5/10 It is interesting to read this ponified ancient asian, also the quick pacing does the story good, but it lacks real substance and deeper emotions.

15/30  5/10

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Feedback:
Well, where to start? I would firstly break some stuff down for the, with the asian culture inexperienced, reader. Some of this stuff is kind of heavy or disturbing. Also a bit more work on your overall lore for Equestrians relationship to changelings could be good.
Also slowing down the pacing just a tiny bit, to get a bit more connection between the characters and give their actions a reason would be great I assume.

A bit more openly spoken, you have a great raw material for a story here, interesting chars, great scenes selection, good pacing in general, it just needs a bit more work on some spots. Maybe ask yourself sometimes if a scene really would make sense or be realistic instead of it would be cool to write that or be an attention focus.

Fair enough! This was my first story on this site and I struggled with having to write over a thousand words for each chapter (i transitioned from Wattpad where that didn’t really matter). I’m glad you took the time to review it though and I’m happy that at least the adventure part was good in your opinion. I kinda wanted to get the story done quickly due to the fact that I often don’t have much motivations for stories and this was the first I actually finished in a long time