Title: Response Author: Anonymous Pastebin link: http://pastebin.com/TEQ1kVZC First Edit: Tuesday 4th of November 2014 07:19:13 PM CDT Last Edit: Tuesday 4th of November 2014 07:19:13 PM CDT >Length Yeah, it's obnoxious. If I were to write a fic, I would keep the chapter lengths between 5k and 15k words. This thing got out of control. But you read this Great Wall of Text and wrote me some feedback, and I appreciate that way more than you think.   >Gender Yes, I really, really need to figure out a way of establishing gender that doesn't involve a mirror. When I was rereading Talons Apprentice one time, I realized that it took way to long to establish that Falke was a guygriffon. I'll have to think of something.   >Logistics The griffons were just there to keep Steel Rangers away from the stable. This is also why they have the AMR.   >Ellipses I can see how this can get really, REALLY irritating and silly. I don't have much of a reason for using them either, so I'll cut back on their use. General stuff like this is what I worry about the most, so hearing anything good or bad about it is very helpful.   >Redundancy I don't notice stuff like this, but now that you point it out, I'll be able to watch out for it in the future.   >Last Name UGH THE SHAME. This is the result of me deciding that I did not like her name or her color scheme that I had for her after already finishing the story. I read through this thing at 3am and changed every mention of "Thundersnow" to "Flurry" in an attempt to squeeze this thing out for a deadline that I set for myself. It appears that I missed one...   >Parentheses These were new for me. I usually don't use them, but for this I used them sparingly to see what would happen. I'll work my way around them in the future.   >Good Tension Aww yis. I did things good!   >A bottle fell over and then nothing was there, so what’s the problem?” I was thinking that this was out of character for her. She doesn't handle gore very well, but I figured that she would have a more realistic approach to something falling over, and simply cast it off as the wind. Blaming the wind would be fine if they were up above the clouds, but they're underground. I should really try explaining crap like this in the story.   >Repetitive More redundancy. I really have to watch out for stuff like this more.   >Bold I had mixed feelings about the bold text since I first typed it. I liked how Fuzzy used it for the Master's lines in MN7 because it showed that it was, without a doubt, the Master speaking. I used it in this for lazy reasons.   >Edgy Dragon What you were meant to believe.   >Knight vs Dragon >Eye Rolling Ohohoho this makes me cringe now. Never again.   >Size I didn't say how big edgedragon is? Huh. Guess I didn't. It's revealed that they're griffons, but before that, the reader has no idea whether it's a big damn dragon, or just the size of a pony. Needs fix.   >Attractive You're right. Of course they are. Of course they are.   >Griffons Yep. They're griffons. You seem confused, I would be confused too. Dragonfire armor is just ponified, err... griffonized Hellfire armor that's a little overpowered and designed to intimidate. I don't really know how well I explained it or how acceptable it is. One of the biggest reasons I wrote this monstrosity was to see how people would react to that armor.   >Flirting Flurry is weird. I tried to keep her flirting very brief, mostly just having her tease him act a little playful. It's cliche and now that you mention it, I should probably rework it to make more sense.   >Griffon Dialogue Well, in a way, the male griffon, Herrick, is supposed to sound a little robotic. As a character, he's very emotionless unless pushed over the limit. Nora on the other hand is almost the complete opposite. When it comes to pegasi, she basically does act like a raider while Herrick is very calm and controlled.   >Flamethrowers and Revolvers But colons are scary! Thanks for showing how I can use them properly. The only reason that Cookie was able to make that shot was because the griffon was hovering just a few feet away. All he can see is the light from the Flamer. Of course, once again, I didn't explain that in the story. Dammit. Must fix.   >Long sections I got exhausted editing this thing around that time. I was actually nervous that they were too quick and short... I said that I would keep things shorter after I wrote Watching Over, so I'm not sure if I hold up my promise when I say I won't write something this long again. As I said earlier, if I were to write an actual fic, I wouldn't make monstrous chapters like this so it doesn't wear the reader out.   >LE DIRTY HARRY I threw this in, not really as a reference, but more to show that Nora is overly dramatic and a bit of a psychopath. However, you're right, it only ends up sounding incredibly cheesy.   >That Darn Control Panel Yeah, I literally wrote myself into a corner with this one and just had Flurry shoot the control panel. I wanted the door to be the thing to kill Nora, but I just didn't have any idea how to do it without shooting the button.   >All The Dumb Assumptions There was supposed to be a scene where they see that the outside of the stable entrance is clear through a monitor in the Overmare's quarters, but I couldn't figure out a way to work it in. If I was a real bastard, I could've just had them walk out of the bunker and get killed for assuming such foolishness.   >Herrick Walking Away He's quite small and Cookie's an earth pony. Cookie is also exhausted, but Herrick doesn't know this and decides to back off. Getting his armor blown away like that probably shook him up too. And yet again, I didn't explain this in the story. God dammit.   >Why are they down there? How long have they been down there? I was going to explain this, but I didn't. Why? I really have no idea. I have no excuse. Dumb writing decisions, really. The griffons are down there to test out the Dragonfire armor against ghouls and whatever else they could find. The blood soaked hallway is very fresh – that's what's left of the scavengers. One griffon scared them and got them running, and the other ambushed them at the hallway. The blood in the clinic is dry and burnt because the flamethrower was used. At the start of the story, they hadn't been down there for more than a few hours. The talons outside left because they were overconfident and decided to just let the two lucky jerks that got to use the superscary power armor handle it. The only reason that Flurry and Cookie Dough managed to escape was because of overconfidence. Nora's overconfidence, Herrick's overconfidence and the overconfidence of the talons outside. It truly was a fuckup on the griffons' parts. It's kinda lame that they only made it through it because of luck, assumptions, and their enemies being stupidly arrogant.     I have to thank you again for this feedback. This is exactly the sort of stuff I was looking for and it's all very helpful. Actually seeing words on my screen that someone took that time to type that are related to some shit I wrote feels good, and all the corrections, tips, and advice are also great. Thanks man.