I'll be glad to see some more answers about Lucy because up until now [and admittedly, some of this is the result of the prose style you use], she's struck me as more a collection of character elements that haven't quite gelled together than a full-blooded character per se. You spend a lot of time essentially "telling" us how we're supposed to feel about her via such things as the frequency with which you use use adverbs like "sweetly", etc. to describe her actions, but we really don't get to effectively experience it through being "shown" her behavior. Its okay to show us her being sweet and kind, etc. without using those words to describe her behavior. I'm not reflexively against pure-hearted characters or anything; I think she could be a well executed character. But as it stands, the *way* in which you describe her hinders any emotional investment in her character on my part, and makes it seem as though your characterization of her is more...manufactured than sincere, if that makes sense. Not saying you *didn't* write these words in perfect sincerity; I suspect you did. But in the current draft, she just seems too artificial, and I don't think she has to be. Something to work on when you redraft these early chapters.

So Lucy has...premonitions or something, I guess?

Interesting bit of deja vu. Might've been fun if the kart came out all dainty and neat, for irony's sake, but maybe that's just me.

The prose is still rough draftish and needs work at this point in the story. But I'm happy we get at least some sort of hints as to what Archer's deal is. I'll be curious to see where this whole "shadow" thing is ultimately headed.

Again, a lot of "telling", and not much "showing".

Unless there's some explanation about Lucy's powers, abilities, aura, or what-have you that makes our heroes trust her so quickly, I'm going to be disappointed, because while its true that Ralph and Vanellope have a natural empathy to them that would lead them to have sympathy for this woman, they've escalated to friendship a *lot* faster than I find believable [at least where Ralph is concerned, at any rate]. Its all just happening so fast, like you're in a hurry to get to the romantic bits before we've had a proper chance to really get to *know* the characters and how/where they're at at this point in their lives before meeting. I'd have liked a slower burn, I think -or at least a little bit more subtlety with the prose.

Fluffy.

You don't necessarily have to make the shouted lines be in all caps.

Still, this is the strongest chapter so far. The structure, pacing, and dialogue works pretty well.

Ah, the scene transitions appear to be back for this chapter.

Again, its all happening a little fast. But I did appreciate the subtle humor in Ralph's line about the only thing to worry about with him being his temper.

These early chapters do read as rough-draftish, with scene transitions being abrupt and some extraneous sentences that could be cut being retained. Something to look at.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm getting the impression here that the question you were asking yourself when you first began writing this was: "What if Ralph falls in love?" What I don't know -yet- is whether you asked the twofold question that you need to be able to answer in order to execute that sort of premise well: "What would make Ralph fall in love- and if he did, why with *this* character?" Ralph saving Lucy at the bar makes sense, insofar as he'd probably instinctively do that for anyone he perceived as being wronged at this point. But why is he suddenly attracted to *her*? At this point, I'm not sure what, *from Ralph's perspective* seems so unusually striking about a female game character in a cloak that would make him more interested in her than in any other game sprite. Its all happening a little fast.

When a character is thinking, you don't need to put their italicized thoughts in quotation marks. [At least, that's what I was taught.]

Kind of a stock situation here, but I'm okay with it for now- hard to knock fun old traditions. Its the execution that matters anyway.

Hope we get to see more of what about Ralph would make him suddenly take notice of this character, rather than just having it be "he has to notice her because the plot requires it." But this looks to be a long story, and there's time yet.

This feels more like a proper story opening than the prologue, honestly. You introduce the new character, drop a few hints about her, show us some of how she acts and reacts, but don't give us everything at once. You're less careful with Ralph, however- the information last couple of paragraphs could've been conveyed in a number of more interesting ways, from dialogue to physical gestures to actions, etc. Also, might want to add a scene transition marker of sorts when the chapter cuts to the interior of DDR- maybe one of those horizontal lines?

I don't have any problem with the actual narrative content of this prologue per se. I do have issues with how its conveyed. Namely, you mostly just tell us a lot of things about your OC -her backstory, her personality, etc.- right off the bat, before we've even had a proper chance to see her being herself, if that makes sense. Granted, this might change after I've read the story proper, but if I'm discerning your intended purpose for this story correctly from the synopsis, it seems to me that this prologue didn't need to exist at all. You could have introduced Lucy to the reader *after* her game goes out of order, and have all of this information gradually come out over the course of the story. In other words, don't just tell us who she is- *show* us what she's like. Then, once you've done that, you can start revealing all of this information.

Ralph Punch!

I like this so far.

Wonderful!