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Luna and Philomena: a hate affair for the ages.
A thousand years ago, Celestia's pet harrier chases a broken Nightmare Moon through the Everfree Forest. A thousand years later, a much-diminished Princess Luna attempts to feed and take care of the elderly phoenix. In neither case does it go particularly well. Set during Season One, slightly before "A Bird in the Hoof."
Now with a Spanish translation by Spaniard Kiwi!
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Why do I see this happening? X3
4017887
Hopefully because I have selected a credible premise and written it in a way that rings true? Maybe? I hope?
Best fan fix ever
Fic*
4017906
It's almost as if you're an author with a solid grasp of premise and narrative!
So thanks for that.
For what it's worth, not my favourite of your work by a long shot, but thanks for sharing it anyway.
4018028
Thank you for reading it!
Oh. So that's why all the ponies in that town are crazy.
Real cute story.
As much as it pains me to say it, because there's some great writing and good world-building in them, the flashbacks really detracted from this otherwise-fantastic story. They were jarring and jumpy, with inelegant transitions for a lot of them. I'm not saying I could have done better, but it stood out. I'm also slightly annoyed how Luna is always portrayed as meek and subservient to Celestia, but that's common throughout the fandom and on the show, so I won't fault you for it.
But the "lesson" was wonderful, one that could and should be on an episode of FiM. Even though what you do might never be fully appreciated, it matters that it was done. I work in healthcare for people who can't communicate verbally, so that line was especially moving to me. I'm getting choked up all over again writing about it. Well done.
Man, Philomena's a jerk. I hope she get's her comeuppance someday. Even something as simple as Celestia learning about her behavior and scolding her for it. But at least things turned out well for Luna in the end. I did wonder if this was written from experience while reading, and while it was, I certainly hope you've never been bitten on the tongue. Ouch! If I had been Luna, I would have bit down as hard as possible. No regrets.
Birds can be the fiercest little things, and I think you conveyed that rather clearly haha. I know you said Luna is difficult for you to write, but you certainly do hide it well. I thought she was very well written, the ancient princess stuck in a helpless body, pouty and easily irritated, but still with an air of child-like innocence that prevents you from holding anything against her. Well rounded and perfectly relatable. You just wanna pick her up and hug her to death. And while Celestia was mostly her usual distant self, I really enjoyed the passage where Luna asked about incubi of the swevens, illustrating that even Celestia had overlooked something important for a thousand years, creating some less than stellar consequences. It added a bit more depth to her in a story where she's mostly just a side-character. That and her Serious Face.
So I guess Wheatio's is the breakfast of princesses, or is it champions still? Does the box usual sport a picture of one of the wonderbolts? xD
4018380
Thanks! Glad the ending salvaged what the story concept couldn't.
4018790
Thanks. I'm glad to hear that Luna came off well. I've never written with her this closely. Dunno about the Wonderbolts, but the box certainly featured Ms. Harswhinny at some point.
4018815
This is awesome, but I never saw Celestia as a mace user, more a spear pony really.
I loved the Nightmare's attempt to seduce Philomena to the dark side, just as well they didn't have Wheatios a thousand years ago or things could have gone very differently.
So lord of the Rings then?
4019185
I tried to not make it sound like Aragorn, while still making it sound good, honest I did. Guess I failed on that front!
In any case, thanks for reading and replying, and glad you liked!
Firstly, I eagerly wish to learn more about the elemental courts and the dark forces in this setting. The swevens alone sound fascinating.
Which I'm sure were glorious.
Oh. Well, that explains that.
...okay, how does that work? Heat rises. In order to ride a thermal, something has to be above the heat source. Philomena would have to simultaneously be above and beneath herself to generate her own thermals.
Oh, right, magic. Carry on.
Crayons make for surprisingly good jackhammers.
Fantastic work. I loved the parallels, I loved the archaic vocabulary, and I adored the ending. Thank you for another fantastic story.
4019525
The undersides of her wings are warmer than the top sides.
I hate Philomena...
HATE!!!!!!!!!
4019927, 4019525
Yeah, that's kind of what I was envisioning with that line. They aren't "thermals" in the classic sense, which probably was confusing.
4019525
You already know what the swevens are. Scootaloo has had an encounter with them already
Attracting a total jerk for a pet must be a side-effect of holding Kindness.
Of course, Angel came before Kindness, so it must have a retroactive effect. Can you detect future Kindness-bearers by how huge a jerk their pet is? Was Angel the breakthrough that let Celestia find the future element-bearers and set them up as ponies Twilight would have to meet to oversee the Summer Sun Celebration?
Nobody tell him, his ego is big enough already.
4020214
Yeah, the one time we see Philomena in canon she was just a total cock.
Despite being a hen and all.
I better stop this comment right now.
4020232
But apparently Breezies can beat Angel. So what happens if you pit Philomena against Breezies? Does she suddenly turn from Jerry into Tom?
Having one of her pranks rebound ironically on her would probably be the biggest shock of her entire life. The world just isn't supposed to work like that! Picturing the look on her face in that situation is being unreasonably funny to me just now.
4019927
Ohhh... Yeah, that makes sense.
4020192
I know what you mean by that, but I can't help but imagine Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon as incubi. It explains so much!
4020253
...write eet... wriiite eeeeet...
It's interesting seeing this in its finished form after the sausage-grinding of the editing process. The new scenes near the end I think are good additions; slapstick is easy, character is hard.
TVTropes would call Philomeanie!Luna an Iron Woobie, I think, and my Hitchhikers Luna is remarkably similar. (So's my own head!Luna, but her life isn't nearly that level of comedy of errors.) I … actually don't think I've written a story yet that is 100% honest to my head!Luna, just because dramatic exaggeration and escalation tends to make for a much more satisfying story, and because my muse tends to be caught only by weird and demented ideas. I wonder to what extent you have that problem.
I had nearly a full screen of feedback written meticulously letter by letter on this old laggy iPad, all to be undone by the single accidental tap of "undo"...
I shall recreate it as best as possible.
I absolutely loved this story!
It had me by the throat right at the offset, and upon the utterance of Luna's dislikes sure of bread crusts, I learned to only love such capture.
I'm unsure if it was the "filly-factor, or my love of well written comedy but I found myself enjoying the story parallel on the filly-Luna side of things a bit more engaging and entertaining, though I the framing of it through the ancient conflict was excellently done. I live reading about well-realized backstory, especially if there is very interesting world-building involved!
I also very much appreciate the ending emphasis on Luna's loneliness, her acceptance and (eventually) her reward. Using the dream walking scene was great for the set-up, and the wheatios as an innocent but heartfelt symbol of love and acceptance (and obviously a well balanced meal) put a smile on my face. Sometimes it's just the little things, eh?
I do very much love reading your Cadance of Cloudsdale series, but should any new stories of Luna, Filly or otherwise emerge from your well-spring of pony words, they would be an immediate "must read!" For me.
This is one of the best types of Luna story out there, and although I know you're busy with other projects I'd love to see more. Though if there aren't, that just means I'll be re-reading this one and grinning all the way.
Thank you very much for writing it! It was true,y a pleasure to read.
~Shaiden
4021464
It's not a problem so much as a perspective. Characters visit in the interest of me telling a story about them, not in the interest of me preparing a biography about them, if that makes sense.
I was trying to emulate Luna from "Hitchhikers" (although later revisions increased her Wooniness levels) so I'm glad to hear you at least make the comparison.
4022328
Thanks so much for reading and for the nice reply! Sorry your first one got vanished.
As much as I enjoyed this story, this part here...I really nearly threw up. I can see it happening, (which is arguably part of the problem) but....uuuugh.
Philomena really is a pretty wretched butt-trumpet.
4019185
Personally I think the mace is a nice touch actually. Though it caters to my headcanon that Celestia was, when younger, the more impulsive of the two, and tended to solve problems with brute force rather than machinations. And that Luna was the skill to Celestia's force. Since Luna is LUNA, this says something about Celestia. The Nightmare turned things on it's head, and Luna changed to pure raw force, and Celestia was forced to reevaluate her modus operandi afterwards.That all said, a mace seems actually rather appropriate for Celestia. This is all in my own head though, of course.
4022820
I pondered leaving it out, but then I thought, eh, what the hell. It wasn't a punch-pulling kind of story.
Euch. Philomena is just too nasty in this for me to enjoy it. It would have been ok if she would get some sort of comeuppance at the end, but instead she gets to be all smug, supposedly because she learned Luna a lesson? A lesson that, in my mind, isn't a very good one anyway. Especially in the context of this story. What is a lesson that might be valid in some occasions now becomes "it's ok when people treat you like crap even though you're helping them as long as you remember they still benefit from your help." Which should almost never be true.
That's some clever naming there... Furthest from the sun.
4022865
Yeah, I was aware that some folks might see this as the moral, and one of my prereaders confirmed it; no matter how I danced with the verbiage it always became "Luna, it's okay for people to abuse you." This was the major reason for the dreamscape scene at the end, that Luna would herself see it as a metaphor (thus relieving the audience of the tricky burden of doing same). Still, it was always going to be a hard sell. Thanks for giving it a shot, anyhow!
4023240
What I eventually liked about the names of the spirit-weapons was that despite their owners, they weren't purely "night" or "day" words. Luna's sword still mentions the sun, and Celestia's mace is named "Morning star," so yes, morning, but still a night word. It suggests a sort of inevitable entwining between these two which I think is factually apropos.
4019525 4019927 4020155
More likely that the wings are creating a superheated column of air above them. Warm air is less dense than cool air, and thus is buoyant relative to the surrounding air (that's why hot air balloons work). So the less dense, superheated air continuously rises, i.e., convects, decreasing the pressure of the air directly above the wings while drawing in more dense, cool air under the wings. Voilà—lift without motion.
4023783
Thank you for doing my science for me!
4023807, you have no idea how much I've wanted a Green Lantern ring down the years to try some of this stuff out…
Nice interweaving of the present and past events. That must have been tricky.
I have little experience with birds myself, but from what I've heard, your depiction of Philomena as a screeching, poop-emitting psychopath is accurate, if uncomplimentary. It sounds like you have birds of your own, so I take it this is a case of "writing what you know."
It's not specific to this work, but I would just like to say that I really like your epithet for Celestia, "Sol Invicta." Does the fact that I want to learn Latin just so I can give pretty pony princesses epic titles make me a strange person?
(Yes. Yes, it does.)
"Incubi of the swevens" is an excellent and very Luna way of phrasing it.
It's rare for me to feel sorry for the Nightmare Moon, but you succeeded, here. Good thing Luna got her own renewal out of the story!
4024486
And yes, bird-owner for almost twenty years now. It's funny how much we take it for granted with other mammals that we're reasonably close on the tree. Birds split off a long time ago, and their minds work in... different ways than ours.
Thanks! I didn't really work out the transitions beforehand or anything, so any success on that front was largely accidental.
I'm a poor hand at Latin myself. "Sol Invictus" was a classical-era sun-deity with a super-cool name, and I just feminized the adjective.
4024562
Thank you! I learned the word "swevens" especially for this piece. And yes, NMM gets pretty abused here.
4026784
But she's not a foal!
Why is little luna or "woona" so cute?
Sweven! A new word!
This was a good story about the struggle of Best Pony.
4026946
XD Of course not.
Damn. Well, at least Luna didn't have the gall to wear a hat.
Weird - I think I heard about this for the first time just the other day and here it is in a story.
Anyway - I really enjoyed this. Nicely done sir!
4027464
I don't think she would have survived a bird's traditional hat-wrath. Birds hate hats.
4027921
Thank you! Lady Grey's "Thy Words" reminded me of it so I wanted to try and do it right.