You're a human who settled into Ponyville with much ease - more so than you anticipated. Not like you're questioning it, though. Around a month later, you've adjusted well into the pony-filled society, made friends with a few of them, and even decided to create a garden; something you never even considered back home. You smile brightly as you water your flowers and wave at anyone who greets you.
It's really as perfect as you can imagine here.
Until Twilight Sparkle comes to your house to ask you a few questions. You don't really like any of them.
Story for the Most Dangerous Game Contest. Also an experiment for me because I've never done a story like this. (... does it show? Probably)
Chapters (1)
Nice story, but
...
>Ecocat<
Aww, comforting Twilight is so cute!
This is not the Seventh Element story I was expecting. Well done.
4611663 Can you tell me the problem? I'm really tired so I'm missing it, I apologize.
4612530 Twilight anything is cute, of course!
4612827 Great to hear you liked it!
4611927 .............
4613346
I think that he just meant the fact that there was a 7th Element? I'm not totally sure
But making it be Trust and working that into "your" internal conflict was really cool!
4613346 I mean, why even create a 7th element?
4613429 Thanks! Trust is something I find very important in friendship, and if the world ended and a 7th element was made, then I'd like to imagine it being that.
4613558 You're totally right, you know? There is no reason to add anything to the Elements of Harmony. I myself don't like reading it, because boy, don't those authors make their character sound sooo special? It's a silly story concept that is unoriginal and overdone to death.
But first off, that's the point of the contest. Whether it's HiE, Seventh Element, OC alicorn, etc, you'd make a story with one or more of these ideas and try to make it, well, decent. Since this isn't overly hated, I think I did okay in this department. Believe me, I wouldn't make this otherwise, because I'm not a fan of Seventh Elements myself.
Which is why I didn't focus too much on the Element itself. Too much, because obviously, there were moments where she (or "you"... whatever) literally focused on it, and I'm not going to deny that. However, trust was the more important subject here. "You" thought you lost trust from a friend back home, "you" didn't trust yourself to be this new Element, "you" even had doubts if this world was trusting you. Honestly, the reason this is an Element is because without it, there would be less pressure for you to be someone trustworthy.
4613618 Aah, now I see
BRILLIANT!
4615276 Aww, thanks!
It's nothing special, but I appreciate it.
It wasn't great, but it was a nice, easy little piece. Faved and upvoted.
4625861 I'll take it! Heh, but seriously, thanks.
that's worth an upvote!
img.pandawhale.com/post-19101-Flaming-Moes-upvote-gif-Simpso-wrRf.gif
4627717 Thank you, good sir! Free upvotes for everyone!
Looks like I’m going to be your self-designated reviewer, MissyAngel. Buckle up; it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Dash/hyphen confusion is a continuous error. A hyphen cannot do what a dash can, and a dash cannot do what a hyphen can.
Semicolon misuse. A complete sentence must be on either side of the semicolon in this instance.
This sentence has a couple of things wrong with it. First, “could” is past tense, and you are writing present, so it would be “can.” Second, this sentence contradicts itself: “off in the distance” does not equal, and is in fact near-opposite of “not too far away.”‘ I have no idea what you are trying to say here.
Again with the tense slip. I’m not going to mention any more of these—just be aware you have them.
That’s a huge immersion-breaker, for me. You have been living in a town for long enough to grow a garden in front of your house, and the most inquisitive pony (Pinkie notwithstanding) doesn’t know your name? I realize that’s just a way to try to get around second person, but it felt very poor, to me.
“Earth” should not be capitalized in this context. And out of all the words in the English language, did you have to use the same word twice in one sentence?
Right here, Twilight is actually the one talking, but you’d never know just to look at the sentence like I have it. If you have dialogue on either side of an action, then make sure the action is being performed by the speaker. Otherwise, as you can see, it really looks like “you” are saying the words, which is very confusing. Note, that’s twice: I won’t mention it again.
You’ve got some emotional exposition here. I’d like to experience what makes me nervous instead of just reading about it. What makes “you” appear nervous? Do “your” palms sweat? Do “you” decide to tap your leg? Your foot? What do “you” do that makes “you” nervous?
This is so convoluted that I don’t know where to begin. I don’t even know.
More emotional exposition. How can “you” tell she is surprised? Also, I won’t mention this error again—just know you have it.
This doesn’t really work. . . . Under your breath is silent, but heavy implies force or weight. So you forcefully sighed quietly? Perhaps “long” or “deep and slow” would have been better here. Also, repeated “breath.”
This is a common occurrence? Since when? Perhaps it should have been a hypothesis of hers.
Very, very redundant here. “You cut her off” is simply restating what the hyphen (should be a dash) is indicating. And is there ever really a polite way to cut someone off? Personally, I can’t think of one; therefore, “rudely” is also redundant.
“Into the tea” perhaps? “Dip . . . against” doesn’t really make much sense.
You have quite a few of these, but this one is very easy to see, so it’ll probably be the only one I point out. It’s called a misplaced modifier, and it means that the underlined group of words is too far away from the word—in this case “you”—it is modifying. Generally, modifiers modify the closest noun or pronoun.
Very poor use of “super.” I would find a much better word to replace it.
From the context, I can tell you meant Celestia and Luna, but what this is telling me is that “you” didn’t bow to the guards.
You’ve got some saidism abuse going. Basically, that means that you are using complicated words when “said” would be just fine. And the funny thing about “said” is that no one actually reads it, so it doesn’t slow down your story.
When in direct address, “princess” should be capitalized.
This is what you call a viewpoint slip. If I’m “you,” how can I see this? I can’t, because I’m not looking in a mirror. You drifted a bit into third person, so you could add this.
I don’t get what’s happening here.
I chuckled, which completely ruined the sad mood you are trying to portray.
burrow ⇒ to dig; a hole or tunnel
borrow ⇒ to receive money with the intention of returning it.
Notable mention, the first words of some paragraphs have more or less spaces before them than others. You need to clear that up after the competition.
The story has a somewhat poor hook; as in, you have something dangerously close to a Weather Report Opening. Everyone opens their story with “it was a sunny day in Ponyville,” and your story isn’t much different.
You also have some emotional exposition (I think I listed it somewhere) that could be done away with. Things like “you enjoy having accomplished something so well” could easily be done with some dialogue, or if that’s not your thing, show “your” pride by having “you” lovingly take care of the garden. Find a weed, for example, then carefully extract it while being sure not to damage any of the surrounding flowers. It really puts a damper on things when I read about how someone is feeling, as opposed to experiencing it.
Now, the character building. To be honest, “you” felt fairly flat to me. She didn’t have enough substance for me to really get into her character. I can list everything about her right here.
*Likes to garden
*Lets her friends down
*Kinda hard on herself (debatable. I would have liked to see some more of that shown in her gardening.)
That’s all I really know, so I didn’t really care about her problems. You didn’t give her enough for me to connect with, and that’s a really big problem when it comes to writing a sad story. If your readers don’t care about the person they should, then the story falls flat, and that’s the real reason why I didn’t give your story a good score: it didn’t evoke any response from me.
Final point, why trust? Trust seems like a very poor choice for the seventh element, seeing as it’s pretty much just loyalty or honesty, depending on how you look at it, and the way you portrayed it in the story just made it seem like loyalty 1.5.
Overall, a somewhat mediocre story fraught with poor mechanics.
. . . That was just a bit longer than I intended, but I can't very well give a negative review without evidence, I suppose.
Ah well. Hope you enjoy your review, and I'll be happy to answer any questions.
4657475 I'm just commenting on this again to let you know I have fixed most of the grammatical errors, but due to the competition still happening, I can't change too much without, uh, cheating (might be the best word here I guess?). I will take your words to heart, however, and afterwards, I'd like to try and rewrite this in hopes of making something far better.
Not a bad premise here..... a person that doesn't want to go back to her *mostly* failing life on Earth and instead wants to stay in good ol' Equestria..... but her past mistakes continue to haunt her and she wants to go back to try to mend those mistakes.... and she can presumably go back to Equestria but she will never know when..... she may possibly never come back.
This is a great premise to get behind..... the 7th element thing is questionable but it could work with a few good reasons and backstory.
Honestly, if that was me, I would've never opened my mouth about home and just asked to stay.... I'm sure Equestria could benefit from some dude that likes to build new and exciting
ways to burn thingsinventions. I would've ended the subject when Prylight Sparkle asks. But that's just meHere: have an upvote, favorite, and follow in case you come up with other cool stuff.
5311002 Thank you kindly! Yeah, the 7th element certainly wasn't needed entirely but it was part of the contest so I did what could. I'm still glad you liked it, and though I haven't written much in... quite some time (motivation is severely lacking), I will try to write more before the year ends... hopefully!
5312289
The 7th element could work with a good reason for why she's needed. You wrote in a human in equestria that also a 7th element, all written in a second person perspective (basically a more fleshed out greentext story, lol)..... kinda makes me wonder: how'd you do in the contest anyway?
Hopefully that's by the time FimFiction re-implements the option to get e-mails everytime there's a new chapter or new story by a followed author comes out.....
5313886 Not even close, but I wasn't expected much considering the competition and how this could've been fleshed out more. It was more of an experiment than anything.