Call me GB! ^_^ I enjoy writing colourful horse stories for you to enjoy. If you liked one of my stories, please share it with others and have a wonderful day!
Sad4,351 stories ·2,622 members
Luna Is The Best Pony4,626 stories ·7,265 members
I Just Want a Comment15,697 stories ·3,671 members
Celestia Is The Best Pony2,577 stories ·2,888 members
For years, Luna has endured the guilt of Nightmare Moon and subjected herself to the nightmares of the Tantabus as punishment. When she lost control of it, her friends in Ponyville were able to stop it and things seemed all right for a time...
...but what about Celestia? What about Luna's closest friend, a pony who had no idea what was going on in her little sister's mind?
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Well done, my friend. Well done.
I like it! Very nice read.
I love stories like this. Luna may have descended into the Nightmare, but it was a long road before that final jump, and Celestia had her share of blame too.
WHY CAN'T THE SHOW ACKNOWLEDGE THIS?! WHY?!
So much feeling!
6223808 Because the writers can't get it out of there heads that Celestia is supposed to be perfect in every way. Which is stupid because that just takes away from her character and makes her less relatable.
A character is defined be their flaws and mistakes and they really need to show this on the show.
6223987 Ah. Yeah, true.
[aplauso]
I really need to start watching season 5
That was a rather nice and logical follow up tot he episode. Very nice.
6223808
Because it may not be true? If Luna kept this self-torture hidden from her sister, what makes you think she wouldn't keep her feelings of loneliness and jealousy hidden a thousand years ago, until it was too late? And don't tell me "Celestia should have known", Celestia is not omniscient. Maybe Celestia trusted her sister enough to trust her to tell her when something was wrong. Luna, evidently, did not.
6225196 So it's her fault she spiraled into depression because ponies were unappreciative of her night?
Surely somepony would have noticed if one of the princesses of Equestria had enough jealousy and anger to transform into an evil being who wanted to cause eternal night?
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Like somepony noticed she had a nightmare running on the loose that she created to punish herself, you mean?
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Why have you not watched it...is the show dragging on for you or something...
6225317 That's different. The nightmare wasn't "running on the loose" until the very same episode it was defeated. As Celestia stated earlier, the only outward symptom it caused was her not feeling well in the mornings, and she was always not such a morning pony. However, either A) having a parasite feeding off of your anger, jealousy, and loneliness, or B) having so much jealousy and loneliness that you transform into a creature that wants nothing more than to control all of Equestria and have eternal night.
Unless she was bottling up her emotions all the time, with not even a single slip-up (increased aggression, becoming confrontational, etc.), I doubt that it went unnoticed. Especially since you wouldn't need to look at her behavior; you could also see that ponies frankly didn't care about her night.
6225333
That is all pure speculation, since there is no canon information on the circumstances of a thousand years ago except for a very short flashback in "Princess Twilight". There is no more evidence of Celestia being (partly) to blame for Luna's mess than there is to the contrary.
I love stories like this. The Two Sisters being loving siblings that truly care for one another. Have a fav and a like.
6225333
Not that I'm some sort of expert on the subject, but I do know that Nightmare Moon is a separate entity from Luna. Nightmare Moon was a parasitic creature that latched onto Luna, taking advantage of her anger and jealousy to take control of her. We might not have all of the details of how Luna's spiral into rebellion went down, but we do know that whatever part Celestia had in it was unintentional. Frankly, I get sick of all of the Celestia-bashing. She's under developed in the extreme. If she had even one episode to herself, I think a lot of people would change their opinions about her.
This is the third story I've read with the premise of Celestia reacting to the Tantabus. While Celestia's characterization was spot-on in this one, I can't say the same for Luna.
The whole point of the episode was that the Tantabus was gone once Luna forgave herself. You can't have her just flip back to this self-loathing nonsense once she wakes up. It just doesn't make any sense. Not to mention the talk of mass murder that has no basis in canon. Nightmare Moon didn't kill anypony. She almost did by causing a mass extinction due to lack of sunlight. That's tragic enough by itself. Why tack on a body count?
While this story is competently written, I can't say I'm a fan of the melodrama route you took with Luna. That's just my two cents.
6225520 Mass Hysteria kills. Also, in her emotional state, negative gross exaggerations are given far more weight than they logically should (The Worst. Possible. Thing.). I agree with this assessment of the story, too. It was overall enjoyable to me.
6225478 In the comics, The Nightmare is a separate entity. This is about the show, so all comic content is not canon, only apocrypha.
6225348 While Celestia is certainly not at fault to our knowledge, it can be argued that she is partly to blame by the simple fact that she didn't ameliorate the problem. The former means you did something wrong, while the latter means you didn't do something right. Plenty of blame to go around (careless ponies, inattentive Celestia, lonely unappreciated Luna), but ultimately, only Luna (or possibly Nightmare), is at fault.
I... think I accidentally gave this story two likes by pressing on the thumb-up button while the internet wasn't working very well.
Oh well. It deserves it. 
It feels like it needs a bit more build up for Luna to just break down into tears.
This felt like it was merely rehashing what the episode did. Luna thinks she's like NMM, other pony tells otherwise, Luna gets over that hurdle and the Tantabus weakens. It didn't offer anything new or interesting, and I didn't like it very much because of the repetitiveness. We've seen this "Luna and Celestia have a talk" story a hundred times over, and the whole blame game and "I forgive you and I forgive you" doesn't do anything for me.
The dialogue was insipid and uninspired. And-ugh-I'll say it: it felt cliched.
The writing also had its issues, with lines like:
Some parts really used way too much words than they needed to. It feels like you're telling us how the characters are acting or supposed to act rather than showing us.
The double-exclamation points...
fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/321/8/4/i__ll_make_a_friendship_problem_by_mezkalito4p-d4ghvnh.gif
I feel like Luna needs a project to work through her guilt. It's nice to Twilight and Celestia and everyone to not hold being Nightmare Moon against her, but that's not a real outlet for her any more than self-inflicted suffering is. She needs a way to - if only symbolically - make things up to everyone. There's some real misery inside her that needs to be spoken and everyone telling her it doesn't matter isn't really helping.
6225196 I've never said that Celestia should have known something was wrong with Luna, or that she was omniscient. I've always been of the opinion that she knew something was up, she just didn't know what, and that she was distracted with all sorts of things, like running Equestria and so forth. She just didn't realize the full extent of the problem until it was too late to do anything about it.
6225520 Hello! The end of the episode showed the Tantabus crawling back 'inside' of Luna and we never saw it being completely destroyed. That was my interpretation that it had not yet been completely defeated, although it was definitely weakened. The cartoon is short and doesn't always show everything. The day was saved by protecting everypony from the Tantabus' nightmare, and that's all that was important in the context of the episode, but it's not too hard to imagine that there was more to get through. The 'body count' as you call it comes from my other fic, "The Nightmare Wars".
6225348 I feel like you might need to rewatch a couple of episodes. Calling the Nightmare Moon incident "Luna's mess" is quite a misnomer if you ask me. There are a lot of things that never get across in the TV episodes because it is a show that is (at least partially) aimed at younger children, but the fantastic writers do so in such a way that the underlying context is easy to see for people like us in this fandom. It's the parts that they purposefully leave blank that basically tell us what happened without actually telling us what happened. The TV show never showed anything that happened before the night of her transformation, so we have no idea what happened then. Similarly, Celestia was not shown to be 'surprised' by the transformation, so that moment in the flashback is clearly not the beginning of the whole escapade. Still there are some of us who believe that the flashback was "truncated" for lack of a better word and did not show everything, but even if you do not subscribe to such a notion my point still stands. What I think is important to remember is that the Nightmare is a nonphysical entity that corrupted Luna's mind, and it does not necessarily have to manifest itself in the form of the jet-black mare to still be there and to still be in control. Canon is canon, but canon is also not an encyclopedia. That's why we have fanfics, to fill in the blanks and that's what I did here, because I filled in the "blank" that was Luna not doing the obvious thing and talking to her sister about this lingering guilt.
6226389 Ok.
6227457 While that may be a somewhat valid headcanon to have, it still doesn't really explain why Luna went from "I forgive myself" to "I'm an awful pony" in the span of a good night's sleep. Even if the Tantabus is part of her subconscious like you're proposing here, it's way too soon for her to relapse into self-loathing. This more or less undoes everything Luna learned in the episode. That's-a no good.
6227457 I hope you realize that your interpretations aren't more valid than others. Did you even watch the episode?
The Tantabus isn't some foreign entity like the Nightmare, but a creation of Luna's, a manifestation of her power. Destroying it is akin to destroying a glass sculpture made by your hand - you recycle it, not throw it in the trash. The Tantabus isn't as simple as a monster to destroy.
The point of the episode isn't Luna removing or ignoring her problem - it's learning to deal with it and moving on. That was the single most important part of the episode - monsters come and go, but character development stays. I don't think you got that at all.
Happened to be listening to this while reading. Felt it was relevant.
6227927 That fits perfectly...
She killed her own child for a greater cause. (￣▽￣人)
6228508 NO! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYjy7uUn7fc
I feel that some of the wording could have been a little more complex and that more emphasis should have been placed on the non-verbal parts of the conversation.
Other than that very nice, stirring up the feels.
6225478
6227457
6227645
Actually, even the Nightmare being a different entity and not just a product of Luna tapping into dark powers hasn't been made canon yet. At least not in the show-verse, like GriffonSpade noted.
You know, there's some potential for a followup to this particular setup; by which I mean both Luna and Celestia blaming the latter for what happened. I want to see Blueblood confront his Auntie Celestia about this. I want to see him angrily question why Celestia would feel the need to apologise for something that wasn't her fault, why she beats herself up over something that was Luna's choice. And why the mare who nearly took down Equestria again is rewarded by everypony rushing in to tell her everypony loves her and she shouldn't feel bad when there's so many other ponies out there who also made mistakes and don't endanger the whole nation trying to make up for them.
Now I'm not saying Blueblood would necessarily be right in his outrage, but it's an interesting angle to the whole thing. I don't think I've ever seen something like it. And who knows, maybe it turns out he's just jealous that Luna gets all this support.
What do you think?
Unfortunately, due to the show's construction, Luna comes across as an idiot. The format of the show is not kind to subtlety and fine distinctions. It tries to make molehills out of mountains and doesn't always deal reasonably with either. Depending on what your headcanon says happened, Luna is either beating herself up over nothing or right to have trouble reconciling herself with where she is and the knowledge of what she has done and the unquenchable guilt. There is really no -right answer- to her difficulties. Punishing herself forever will accomplish nothing, but pretending it didn't happen is foolishness. Things that are forgotten still happened.
6229445
Blueblood is, at least as portrayed, something of an idiot. What you describe is quite in line with my own opinion of him. He doesn't understand because he already has what he wants or at least it seems. Also, his history of Equestria is a little bit incorrect, which is also Celestia's fault.
i.imgur.com/tDSzE1U.gif
6229445
Whoa, that idea is amazing. I'll need to resist the temptation to try to write it. I have too many projects in the pipes as it is.
As for the comics, I'm not sure we can say they are or aren't canon. Some of the books I've seen seem to be set up as canon lore. Makes it hard to know.
I think, this was well done. I already read another fanfic with the same topic and I like it nonetheless. Forgiveness can be really hard and Celestia worked so well in this fanfiction. The guidance to a better life for Luna and the difficulty both had to overcome. It was really well written. But I think, you could have added more bodylanguage.
A beautiful, serious take on the latest episode (and unfortunately, apparently the last for quite some time). Stories like this show what a wonderful show the original is.
Only one thing: Nightmare Moon killed that many ponies???
I didn't realize she had actually killed any ponies at all! Of course, it's a kiddie show, so...
OH
MY
GOSH
So, this was the first fanfic I'v read since 2012 when i read a little known fic named My Little Dashie. This brought a tear to my eye. So heartfelt, such sincerety, GB, your a great writer. This was fantastic. Truely. I feel you captured the heart of the issues between Luna and Celestia reconciling the events of their troubled past. Amazing job!
I had no idea either
Carry the peace and the coolness of night
And carry my sorrow in kind
Luna, you're loved so much more than you know
May troubles be far from your mind
And forgive me for being so blind
*sniffles* SO BEAUTIFUL!
6229445 That actually is a really good idea. Kudos for coming up with it. I agree that Blueblood is the perfect tool (Haha, 'tool') to examine that side of the argument from, and even if such an idea were not connected to my own fic it could stand really well on its own. Nice!
Good read. It good squeal to the episode adding one the elements the episode was missing Celestia, Luna's sister.
I'm feeling so many good feels after this!
Not really sure how to react to this. There really isn't any meat to the story, is there? A problem appears, gets resolved through a bit of dialogue, then everything is peachy. It's good at what it sets out to do, which I guess is akin to a passing grade, but I don't feel it excels.
Even the feels were lacking for me. It could just be my jaded nature, though, so that slides.
Then, there's the sheer number of times the word 'Luna' gets used in dialogue...while she's being addressed. I didn't bother counting, but it happens frequently enough for me to notice it, and I am the least perceptive person I know.
I feel two ways about this story.
One it's pretty good, well written, and very enjoyable.
But then I notice the absence of feels, it was only kinda moving and I especially liked the part when celestia begins blaming herself, but I feel as though it needs more substance.
But I still really enjoyed it. Have a like and a fave!
This was a great read. Thank you
6226044 True. Perhaps Celestia should have done more to reach out to Luna.
Or perhaps she did and Luna wasn't willing to trust her sister.
I think the latter is the more likely, as Luna clearly didn't trust herself.
Essentially, the episode shows Luna is/was suffering from depression. We so frequently hear in the news about how society blames the family members for "not recognizing the signs" before little johnny goes out on his mass-murder rampage--but unless little johnny, or in this case, Luna, opens up, no one knows she's got problems!
Folks with mental issues are often very good at concealing them. As people aren't telepaths, there's no good way "to spot" people having issues.
Also, unfortunately, most all the serious subject stories in the show are constantly and severely shortchanged because of the 22 minute format--these subject matters certainly deserve more air-time than what's been given.
Heh! I did like the scene in the episode where Rainbow Dash was fighting all the changeliings--that was her "happy dream"
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6229622
Glad to hear that!
Truth be told, I tend to see him as ignorant and a little self-absorbed, brought on by a life of being pampered. He's a prince; considering how everypony treats the princesses he's probably just used to ponies catering to his whims. I don't think he actually meant to hurt Rarity's feelings.
However, that does offer the unique position of him perhaps being bold (or foolish) enough to say these things out loud where anypony else would just bite their tongues and bow down.