[Sad]
Author: Landmine
Description: Luna is about to get everything dreamed of. She will shine like her sister at long last! However, the smallest mistakes can alter what is recorded as history and create a permanent scar on one's character.Forgotten
Additional Tags: Luna, Moon, Redefining, the, Banishment
34 comments:
Sad Luna! This one is going on the list. Now, to work through this backlog.
ReplyDeleteI was going to say the exact same thing as a terrible person. My backlog is so big!
ReplyDeleteBut I'm looking forward to it, too!
Umm... sorry to ask, but should the first sentence of the description read as: "Luna is about to get everything she dreamed of"?
ReplyDeleteNeeded a bit more polish. I mean, why would Celestia banish Luna on that one assumption? There's no way an efficient ruler is going to jump to such massive conclusions.
ReplyDeleteNot really that much to this one, I have to say.
ReplyDeleteThe use of a 1st person narrative was a nice choice, and with some expansion this could make a compelling read, but as it is now it really doesn't leave much of an impact.
There are some really cool ideas here (such as the unreliable narrator aspect caused by what appears to be Luna being manipulated by something in her mind), and the Poor Communication Kills aspect is a nice one to cap the story off with, but ultimately it is too sparse and none of those ideas are really taken far enough.
Needs more to it. More development, more explanation, more grammar checks... Could've been great, but as of now it's just lacking.
ReplyDeleteHm. The twist at the end is more confusing than anything else. Did Luna just misread the spell? Because that doesn't fit with her characterization as a scholar in this story OR with the "causes temporary night" line. I can't find any other explanation for what happened, though.
ReplyDeleteI think it started off good. Gave us an insight of how Luna went off the deep end. The letters and such.
ReplyDeleteBut then it just flopped...
Seriously, poor reading and poor communications skills got her send to the moon?
I'm wondering how this got on Equestria Daily...
ReplyDelete@Anonymous
ReplyDeletePerhaps you missed the tag that said "sad" and the one that said "Luna"
@ToonNinja
ReplyDeleteIf I understand it correctly, Celestia used the Elements of Harmony to counter what she thought was a spell for eternal night. The incoming Harmony spell caused Luna to lose control of the spell she was casting. The two spells collided, and the resulting explosion sent Luna to the moon.
I think the start of this fic was its strongest part. The use of a first person narrative was a brave decision, but we needed more from it. It felt a little rushed, really.
ReplyDeleteWhat I would love to see is for you to look over this fic, the feedback, and maybe make some alterations, additions and more depth to the story, because I think it could be very good and touching if executed with a little more time and precision. I'm sure somepony will be willing to help you edit if you so wish, but at the moment I think it really started to falter after the first third or so.
It was going well, then Luna got on the Mountain and blaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh.
ReplyDeleteWith a different ending this story could be saved.
I have to own up to this: I only clicked on this because I saw it was averaging a 1.7 rating and I thought, "Oh, come on, it can't possibly be that bad."
ReplyDeleteAnd now that I've read it...well, no, it wasn't that, but a lot of the criticisms I've seen in the comments have a lot of truth to them. The writing is basic and some more editing would've been extremely beneficial, but that's not what really killed it for me. What killed it for me was the ending, which [THAR BE SPOILERS AHEAD] portrays Celestia as someone who has such a tendency to make snap decisions that she wouldn't even give her own sister a chance to explain herself before she banished her to the moon. Granted, Tyrant Celestia is by no means a new concept to this fandom, but the key to writing a good tyrant is to inject a twisted sort of logic into their actions; in other words, the best villains are the ones who make the readers wonder, even if it's just for a moment, whether the bad guy shouldn't have won after all. In this case, Celestia's decision is illogical no matter how you slice it, and when that's compounded with no previous indications that Celestia is in fact a tyrant and admittedly wooden dialogue that adds little to no emotional appeal to the scene, you have a recipe for disaster.
It's competently written enough to be worth more than one star, but I can't spin this to be any better than two out of five.
I have read much better stories that have been rejected to be here but this gets accepted? It's not even a bad story, it just needs to be double checked by multiple people.
ReplyDeleteMan, this guy either has a lot of enemies or one really bored one.
ReplyDeleteI really don't see what it is with the rating. Sure, Celestia isn't portrayed quite right and the story itself is a bit underdeveloped, but it deserves more than 2 stars.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot more "people" rating this story than usual. Methinks someone is trolling.
ReplyDeleteI think a booboo was made somewhere along the prereading/posting process.
ReplyDelete... Seth, we SAID it needed an editing run.
ReplyDeleteThat means it WAITS FOR AN EDITING RUN.
Do these many people really read fics ><
ReplyDeleteUH OH SETH'S IN TROUBLE
ReplyDeleteStorywise, I agree that it started out well but ended weakly. Perhaps needs another chapter from Celestia's perpective, where she reads the spell and realises she made a mistake and is torn up about it. That's why she's different now, she's changed her rash ways.
Er, I think the idea is that Celestia sent Luna to the moon by accident -- the EOH were supposed to 'purge all evil' and just break the spell, but it went wrong and Luna ended up mooned. So she's not crazy tyrant, just kind of careless and stuff.
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, the ending does need work.
@NinesTempest
ReplyDeleteYaah i screwed up! My bad!
I'm in an avalanche of mail right now though .
The ending was a little weak, but I didn't think it was all THAT bad...
ReplyDeleteI honestly think if this didn't pass the pre-readers, it should be taken down for the author to make revisions as necessary.
ReplyDeleteI think the author just needs an editor to watch for silly mistakes and glaring ones.
Yeah, this shouldn't have gone up as is. It's got a number of glaring mistakes right in the first paragraph.
ReplyDeleteAfter a good solid editing, it could be a 4-star fic in my opinion. But only after.
also, Midnight, Don't start sentences with "but". Yes, I know you're talking to yourself.
2am - new rule, don't comment after midnight. It's like gremlins only worse.
@Midnight Shadow
ReplyDeleteStarting sentences with but, or, or and (as well as any other conjunctions) is perfectly acceptable. The reason you are taught not to as a child is to keep things simple. Just like split-infinitives and the word "ain't"
And then she blew up... Twice!
ReplyDeleteI know the "tyrant Celestia" characterization is gaining popularity here on EqD, but I feel as if this fic was trying to take a middle ground position between tyrant and burdened leader. Celestia was portrayed as hasty, and later cruel, but at the time of banishment, somewhat sorrowful. This just seems to make this story hard for me to accept.
ReplyDeleteThe other part that just disagreed with me was the departure from canon in a radical way. I know that interpretations of the banishment vary since it was not covered in the canon, but this seems to "break" the rest of the story. You cannot have Luna return as Nightmare Moon, and the Elements just don't carry much weight to them anymore. This kind of ruined the thing for me.
I will say that I admire the decision to use the first-person narrative, but it did not work out so well here. It's difficult to take on the voice of a character as your own, especially one who seems to have an established "fanfic voice" in the community.
The concept is passable in the fic, but it is lacking in the exposition and the "feeling" department. Overall, I agree with the general consensus that this could have used a bit more revision before posting.
Celestia is really showing an HEAVY lack of fair judgement ? This is quite contrary to her standard character.
ReplyDeleteShe almost literally goes :
*Take book, shove in face, ''SEE ! I'm right !'', shove in face again, ''Don't lie to me ! And don't give me an excuse or an explanation !'', shove the book in the face one last time, ''TO THE MOON ! For this crime on which I have based little evidence !''...and the book one very last time*
Upon further review of the comments, maybe I'll wait for this fic to get its editing run before I give it a read. Hopefully it will get a new post at that time, because I'd hate for a fic to be saddled with this 2-star rating just because of a blog mistake.
ReplyDelete@Sethisto
ReplyDeleteRemove this post, send the story through for another editing run, repost the story with a clean slate. It really shouldn't stay up here to gather anymore ratings if the editing process wasn't finished yet.
This story has an interesting premise; it just seems to need some work. I'd hate for the author to get unnecessarily discouraged by this.
@The Lovely Penguin
ReplyDeleteSeconded. The last thing anyone here wants is actively discourage aspiring writers/artists.