Any Arddun Lleuad fans out there? · 9:44pm Jul 14th, 2014
They say that once something is published on the Internet, it's there forever. But that only seems to apply to stuff you neglect to save.
Those of you who discovered ponies in 2011 may remember a story called Arddun Lleuad, written by the now-retired author "Pride". When it was posted on EqD, Sethisto commented that he was taking a risk by allowing it through. The reason is almost immediately obvious.
Tell me if this sounds familiar. An average nobody is summoned to Equestria for initially unclear reasons, and lands in the Everfree. He survives many dangers—including a manticore attack—and emerges near Ponyville. After many adventures, he finds his one true love: Luna, circa Season 1.
All horribly cliched, right? Well, when Arddun Lleuad was first published, none of those were cliches yet. In its own context, it justifies all these things and usually makes them work. For better or worse, Arddun is to Human stories what Past Sins is to OC alicorns.
This is not to say Arddun is without fault. Some chapters in both stories read a bit like Twilight for bronies, and other, smaller issues led to Pride spoofing his own work:
Still, there is a certain earnestness and personality about Pride's writing that largely make up for its shortcomings. In 2011, this whole pony thing was all fresh and new, and Arddun captures the zeitgeist of that time perfectly.
Sadly, this story does not end happily. Arddun's second part, Chwe Goleadau, was released, unedited, in "track draft" format: a rather large download with audio logs from the production, a deleted chapter, and other supplementary material. Though it clearly needed a rewrite, Goleadau was an absolutely balls-to-the-wall thrill ride, of the type that can only be found in fan fiction. Highlights include a vivid description of banishment in the moon, a beautiful dream sequence on an infinite carousel, and a climactic battle with an eldritch abomination that must be read to be believed.
I thought the track draft package would always be available, so after reading through it, I deleted it to save hard disc space. Big mistake.
Unfortunately, sometimes creators vanish without warning, and for whatever reason, take their work with them. Pride, whose handful of stories created a lot of pony fiction tropes (for better or worse) has pulled all of his work off his Deviantart account.
Heroically, RBDash47 created the Vault and Archive, which have the texts of Pride's two big stories between them. But these couldn't save the supplementary material.
(Through lots of searching and a little luck, I managed to dredge up Pride's only short story from some forgotten corner of the Internet. It's actually the first Conversion Bureau spinoff, but rest assured, it's much more literary than most of those that followed. I'm considering putting it in a later blog post, which I would of course remove if he asked me to.)
The last communication from Pride I can find is a comment on Chris's blog post regarding Arddun, made on September 4 of last year, in which he says the story "was slated for a colossal rewrite and a merging with its sequel", and concludes by saying, "Best get back to it, now that I've got this somewhat off my chest." A few months later, his work vanished from the face of the Internet.
Will we ever see Pride again? Well, Somber only just got around to putting the classic 2011 story Simply Rarity on Fimfiction, so you never know.
I hope I haven't come across as self-indulgent in this stroll down memory lane, but I think it would be a shame if such an important story lay forgotten. So if you also have fond memories of the bibliography of Pride, let's hear 'em!
Be well, everyone.
I could be wrong, but I may have a full copy of the two stories plus supplemental materials on my computer at home. It's possible that I had it on my old tablet instead, in which case my copies are probably gone for good.
I'll try to remember to look around for it when I get home in a few hours.
Huh, so that's where people got falling in love with Luna trope from for the HiE's. You learn something new every day.
Boy that takes me back. Saying I read it with morbid fascination doesn't do it justice. If ever there was a book or piece of fiction you read to get to know the author, this was it. Afterwards I felt like I could map every childhood trauma he had been through and create a complete psychological profile.
From the moment he appears in equestria right in the middle of making a star trek model, he is earnest. He is dedicated to following the prime directive, and to loving the horse princess he was brainwashed to love.
There's no way I still have those supplemental parts, unfortunately, but you are absolutely correct that the second part was tons better, and stands the test of time much unlike the first half. The parts that didn't involve the human at all were all surprisingly well done and gave me hope that as an author he would continue to write.
Although he was able to translate the characters' passion as well as anyone could hope, doing so didn't necessarily make for an interesting character. He was REALLY in love with Luna. He was REALLY dedicated to following the prime directive. The villain was not just evil for the sake of evil, he was REALLY REALLY evil incarnate, LITERALLY. From the human world, which is REALLY evil. He wanted to be with Luna but they can't so he lives in a cave which is REALLY dirty so he can be REALLY ALONE and just practice magic and think about luna all the time. All of which is fine and well written, but not particularly interesting once you're out of the moment of reading the story.
Do you remember that scene from Goleadau where the last few sentences of the chapter are literally "Luna and I kissed for a while and then it got weird because she's a horse so we stopped". It was one of those profoundly funny moments that makes you laugh for days. But, at least it was in earnest.
I do remember reading Arddun Leuad, but my memory is hazy. It was the second or third pony fic I've ever read, a loooong time ago.
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The sad part is, no one was ever able to match it for relative quality. And I think I know why. In those days, Luna could be characterized however the writer wanted, and Pride based her on his wife. That's why it felt so genuine, despite the fantastical reasons for the romance.
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It's funny, isn't it, how some art can be enjoyed ironically one moment, and earnestly the next?
I don't remember that part specifically, but I do remember a rather inventive dream Luna has, which ends with him grabbing her cutie mark at the end. (And then it got weird because he's an ape so we stopped.) Shoulda had her use magic to temporarily transform him into a pony or something.
Oh yeah! I remember all that. Back when Jetfire and AestheticB were the hot things (and Jetfire is back!). Back when Composure still updated. Back when Austraeoh was just getting started. Back when Buttersc0tchSundae was still around. Back when FimChan still existed. Back when Cold In Gardez's The Glass Blower first caught my attention, and I eagerly read The Wind Thief while putting over a hundred hours into Skyrim.
Back when Crookedtrees and Swaetshrit captured my imagination. Back when Fallout: Equestria was still being finished. Back when Tumblr was still cool and "Missing e" was still a thing. Back when Lauren Faust herself still headed the show. Yes, I remember those times. Back when being a male who liked My Little Pony was still a novelty in and of itself. Somewhere, buried deep beneath all the jadedness and hopelessness accrued over the past few years, there exists a place in my psyche that has captured those precious moments. Those were exciting times. Back then, being a "brony" was not such a bad thing.
I've been lurking these past few years, and I haven't drawn much attention to myself. I've changed handles many times, but I've been watching since 2011. Trees was the driving reason why I joined Tumblr. AestheticB, Varanus, and Cold In Gardez were the main reasons why I first joined Fimfiction. I've been watching these past few years, but I'll never forget those early times, before Season 3 came around and everything changed. Perhaps it's foolish of me to reminisce on times that some people would rather forget, but here we are. And I almost forgot about the stories in question! I read Arddun and downloaded the Chwe package, and I do remember PrideRage mentioning the Conversion Bureau (I didn't know what that was at first; I thought it was a British thing) and a third story in the Arddun series that would be more adventure-themed. I don't have the pack anymore, unfortunately. Time can erase a lot of things.
Still, I'm glad I'm not the only one who reminisces on those times. Those were good times.
Here's to hoping that Pride will make a return, because I honestly didn't expect Jetfire to ever come back.
2285615 Good news, everybody! While eating dinner just now I realized that I had a smartphone and 4G, so I removed into my home computer and looked around (Chrome Remote Desktop for the win).
Turns out it was on my old tablet, but I had backed everything on it up to my old computer, and had similarly backed up my old computer onto my new one. I have the whole shebang uploading to my Google Drive as we speak, so PM me your email address and I'll see if I can share out the RAR file I found. I also have the individual files (also uploading), but I imagine the package would be most convenient.
2285615 Whoops, just saw the edit, never mind on the PM.
Haha, I have a copy on the Vault's file server -- but it looks like someone beat me to it! Editing in a download link for anyone who's curious. It's ~150MB and includes a bunch of supplementary material, including an audio recording of Pride explaining his reasons for retiring.
Not to brag, but back in the day Pride himself lost that package; I was the one who got it back to him.
I'd forgotten completely about this. I was deeply relieved that he announced his retirement immediately after I invites him to the Vault; I found out he was leaving when I read his interview while I was prepping it for posting.
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Oh yes! you reminded me of the part where he sees what she would look like as a human and she sees what he would look like as a pony and they never discuss the obvious solution to make one of those two things happen.
I had designs on doing an audiobook for Arddun, but I'm thinking that's not going to be realistic at this point. :B
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Rest assured, you're not the only one who likes to reminisce about stuff that happened three years ago. Take heart: I know that the graces this fandom is meant to embody are still held by at least some people... and here are two of them: 2285724 2285754
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Perhaps that's for the best. Wouldn't it be awful if a big rewrite was released right after you got done making an audiobook for the original version?
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Haha, totally.
Originally, I was going to do Dangerous Business, but someone else started one, not that there's any guarantee they'll finish. :B Mostly, I just don't have the time to record large projects like that anymore, not if I want to write as well.
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2285754 has provided a public copy on the Vault.
2286531 I saw. I deleted the comment for a reason.
Here's a memory:
Back in April 2011 when I was writing Half the Day is Night, Sethisto forwarded an e-mail to me from Pride asking permission to use my character Captain Destrier in Arddun Lleuad. I said sure, but then Pride wrote me back and said he'd decided to make up his own character named Praetor instead...
Mike
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Another piece of the puzzle I didn't even know was there. Actually, I almost wish he had gone with your character, since "Praetor" is a title, not a name. And "Destrier" is a good name for the sort of old-fashioned officer-and-gentlecolt type Pride was going for. Ah well.
I loved the first 95% of that story... Then came yo utterly loath the last half dozen or so pages, as the most heinous murdering of the reformation of Luna and the bonds of friendship that she had established. So. Much. Hate. Of those last few pages. Thanks to the great comment derp of the Blogger to Intense Debate changover at EqD, it's no longer visible... but only two stories unleashed wrath from me... NOT cupcakes. Cupcakes was just dumb. Rainbow Factory, and Arrrrden Lulalalaladdad... that title...
My complaints were technical complaints on how the stories breakcre character traits while trying to play the world straight. Rainbow being the epitomy of disloyalty, in RF, while the Elements still some how binding to her... I argued that world would be forever under nightfall... In AL, i argued that Luna throws away 100% of her charachter development to betray her friends and family AFTER they are discovered to side with her anyway... And commits the most heinous of mind invasive memory spells... When all she had to do was admit to being unwilling to risk their judgement... Sleep spell, check on everything... Feel guilty. She could have done the simple thing... but no... never been so turned off by a story I loved till that point. I have the entire mess on my hard drive somewhere, including the big download. Never looked at it.
Arddun Lleuad was actually the first Pony story I read aloud, back even before I recorded "Eternal." I read it to a group at a library and it was very well received. I always thought that I would eventually record it, but I was awaiting the completion of the sequel. Alas it never seemed to emerge and the plan slowly slipped away from me. As you say it was in the heady days when HIE had not yet been stepped on as thoroughly as today. It was also one of those stories where the words fall pleasantly off the tongue and also manage to entertain you. I am sad that it was not to be.
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It may be just as well, since we've seen hints that it may be rewritten someday. If you voiced that rewrite, you'd have one eager listener, at least.
I BRING THE SAVIOR!!!
I found an online copy. http://www.ponyfictionarchive.net/viewstory.php?sid=958
Awesome story. Found it in Pony Fiction Vault, which I am reading my way through.
read the first one way back on EqD, rereading it again to refresh my memory for the sequel. S1 was a veeeery different landscape.