Writer/Developer for the official MLP trading cards and collectible card game, EQD columnist, retired founding staff of BronyCon and the Humble Brony Bundle, and generally an okay sorta guy!
Princess Luna's memories and connection to the Moon have been missing since her return to Canterlot, and every day she gets more and more guilty that she hasn't taken any responsibilities back from her overburdened sister. Surely something in Equestria can make her whole again, but who or what could it be?
[Written in June 2011, back when our mental image of Luna didn't yet include the Royal Canterlot Voice or bat pony guards.]
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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At someone's kindhearted request I finally got around to dragging this over from DA to FIMFiction. Only a couple years late... There was some manual re-formatting involved, so if you catch any weird italics/bolding/etc errors please let me know. Thank you!
Why... Why does this have so little attention?!
This is insanely good!
Excellent capturing of emotions.
Absolutely beautiful!!!!!!! I DEMANDS MOAR!!!!!!!
Encore encore!!!!
God I missed this fic. It's so great, and I got pretty emotional by the end.
ZOMG YAY!
Great fanfic but that picture is... disturbing.
3178986
It made 6 stars on eqd back during the summer of 2011. I'd hardly call that "little attention."
Hmm. Should I go with "Woo! Nocturne got posted!" or "Every repost is a repost repost"?
Every Nocture is a repost posted?
Sorry about the insanity, but late night and early morning plus having to be normal around family for a weekend demands release.
Hooray! :D
3178986 Like kits said, it's ancient history. But thank you! Trying to capture emotions was basically the entire reason I wrote this story.
3179217 I took a peek at Derpibooru seeing if I could find any pictures more appropriate, but honestly a picture of old style Luna sitting in a field alone under the Moon with both tears and a smile on her face... there's no better picture. Plus, it's the one that was on EQD for it in 2011, so what the hay, right?
3179539 ... Yay!
3179026>>3179037>>3179212 Thank you!
Bravo.
Nice job. You really seemed to hit the very low that Luna must have felt during that time. Glad to see how you brought out the best pony/princess of a depression. I know you said this isn't cannon, but i would really like to see it that way. It's cannon for me if for no one else. Thanks for the great story.
3180346>>3181874 Thanks, guys!
Was there even a point bring this here?
At the very least, you could have updated the canon on this.
It is a nice story, but even with the excuse of this being written in 2011, Luna is still OOC here.
Just update the whole thing, and you'll be fine from there.
3184646 The point was for people who are okay with reading a story from that era, with that era's endless potential for fanon characterizations of Luna, to have this story to read on here. A couple people over the years have suggested bringing it here, and finally I was swayed to do so. And as we can see by others' responses, they seem to appreciate me taking the time to bring it here. I'm sorry that the story doesn't work for you, though, and I can totally understand why.
And, while I don't necessarily agree with them, some people seem to think that this isn't that far off-base for what Luna COULD have been like during Season 1, before she got her power back in time for Season 2. I dunno!
3186139 Hmph. Actually, I am of the opposite.
Though the years have rendered me cynical in regards to the use of S1 Luna.
I haven't seen the use of that character in ages, and with the recent update to Past Sins, I was somewhat weary of this befalling the same fate.
Bleh. I suppose you could say I am nostalgic for the olden times long past, thus why I was rather blunt with telling you to update it. Sooner or later, someone else would have said it, and after that, you would bow down to the will of the masses in file it suit.
Even though this is only a mere reposting, it is still nice to see that there is still a little spark left here.
Wish I could say the same for a few other fanon ideas though.
3186792 Nah, I'll never take the time to update this to make it fit canon. I'd rather just write something brand new and let this stand as it was. But that's okay, luckily there are lots of stories out there to fit nearly any taste.
3187797 I must agree. Besides liking her hair design more, i like season 1 Luna much more than the leftover from when s2 and the fandom bent her iver and had their way with her.
Oh hey. I remember reading this way back when I first started reading fanfic. Nice to finally see it here!
3187797 Best not to anyway. You can take all the clips of Luna appearing in the show and it still gives you almost nothing to go on. Luna Eclipsed is, of course, the only major character trace we have and, to be honest, it's not all that well written. Characterisation is a bit thin and the implications don't generally make a lot of sense for extrapolating background detail.
Frankly, Luna Eclipsed was more hindrance than help when I went to form her character for my writing. The 'Nightmare Rarity' comic arc had her as pretty two-dimensional, as well, so everyone is better off taking your own pot-shots and seeing what sticks. Beyond that, I've read altogether too many Lunas that directly contradict what little we do know, and no-one seems to care.
As for the story itself, I remember this from first starting to read fanfiction, too. Aside from the common pitfalls of early-fandom work (some dodgy attribution, passive wording, and a few overly telly bits—all of which I was oblivious to at the time), the only thing that stuck out on a second reading was how chillingly dark some of the assumptions here—none moreso that Celestia 'designing' birdsong. Take that to it's logical extremes and I see a pretty horrid rendition of Equestria, but I find that such matters are still common in the fandom even now. Little attention is paid to the ramifications of such concepts, and, frankly, very few people put as much thought into this stuff as me. However, the oddity is that while such things usually mar a story for me, here I didn't seem to mind it one bit, and to my mind that's a really good sign. Get the fundamentals of a story right and the little things melt into the shadows. It doesn't happen as much as I'd like...
-Scott
3288180 I definitely agree on the fact that we don't really have a "canon" Luna. We just don't. And what's funny is how very different the Season 3 Luna seems to be from the Luna during the happy parts and the ending of Luna Eclipsed. And the Luna comic was good fun and all, but I agree: Luna was pretty cardboardy during most of it. And then there's the Luna from the Big Mac comics! If that was the new canon Luna I'd be quite happy to just go with it, but... who knows at this point? She seems pretty :| instead of :D in recent episodes with her.
And personally, I find the old fanon idea of the immortal, godlike alicorns taking a "blank slate" of a world and improving it over time, for the benefit of their subjects, to be delightful rather than dark. I wonder if perhaps it has something to do with me being an Agnostic? Do I have God envy?
3292204 Agnostic atheist or agnostic theist? The word doesn't mean much without something to be agnostic about...
Anyway, I only find in dark insofar as it implies that things such as birdsong exist purely on the whim of a single creator, and that the birds had no choice in being altered arbitrarily one day. Same with the 'music of the night' and making living creatures dance to Luna's whims: it just strikes me as manipulative and controlling on an utterly sociopathic level. A creature that is both capable and willing to do those things isn't a creature I find any connection with. In the same manner, I find the god-like renditions of Luna and Celestia to be rather dry and dull because there's no room for me to empathise with such an alien mindset. The only ones I find interesting and the ones where they're just ponies, and thus, that's how I write them.
For both Shades of Grey and the more acclaimed Movements of Fire and Shadow, Luna is essentially just a pony that's lived for a long time and has regular issues that regular people have. On the opposite end of the scale we have stories like Sessalisk's We, to which I can do little but frown and say, "So what?". I always figured the appeal was born out of a cultural background thick with theological undertones, and that I just didn't get it as an occasionally frothing militant atheist (which I like to just call philosopher, but some times a little torch-waving is helpful). Thus, the idea of 'god envy' is both intriguing and confusing to me.
3293206 I'm quite familiar with the "the word agnostic doesn't mean anything by itself" stance. I stand on the side that says that words gain meaning from their usage. And the common usage of agnostic is SO common that if you type define:agnostic into Google you'll get exactly what I meant (and exactly what 95% of people who say agnostic would usually mean): "a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God."
As for the rest, sure, I see what you're saying. I just see it a bit differently. The end~
I remember reading this back in the early days, before season 2. I'm glad I reread it. It's still a great story, and still a great depiction of Luna. I especially like how she takes responsibility for her actions and forgives Celestia. I think that's truly beautiful, and the sign of a great character.
There may be much we don't know about Luna, but it's still possible to say a lot about her character based on the show. And while the show seems to shy away from depicting them as divinities (in the Ancient Greek or Norse style), there are still hints of it. It's like the show is trying not to admit it, rather than outright denying it, and I suppose that's not a bad thing.
Sometimes I do get nostalgic about the early days and the freedom we had. And sometimes I wonder if we, as a fandom, put too much stock in Canon. I for one like to let my imagination run wild and free, canon be damned
Wow this is really good.
3300509>>3485235 It's belated, but I want to thank you guys for your kind words. I'm glad you enjoyed the story!!
Very interesting, in a "time capsule" sort of way. I am not much of a nostalgist for S1 Luna (Sad Luna was, and still is the bane of the fandom), but even then this is a very good story, with some nice imagery and clever metaphors. Yes, the melodrama is laden on too thick, and Luna's depression wasn't very interesting, but for what it was it was great, and in the end that is all I was expecting anyway.
It's not perfect; but it conveys a lot of raw emotion and does that really well.
Luna's music of the night is a beautiful idea and Aura is a wonderful OC. I also really like how the story gives you a strong impression of going the familiar Luna-visits-Twilight-everything-turns-out-alright way but then veers completely of track and ends up with Black Snooty and the CMC.
So, maybe a little old, a little dated, at times a bit too melodramatic... but beautiful and still worth a like and fav for overall emotional delivery, world building and creativity.
Me like.
5579261 Thank you for the kind words, and for your reads and comments today!
5582213 You're most welcome