It's fanfiction all the way down.
Luster Dawn asks Twilight what's in the center of the Canterlot Hedge Maze. In the end, she'll find out for herself. Everyone does.
Second-place winner in the Everfree Northwest Iron Author competition. Written in two hours, and unedited.
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Ooh. Has a certain feeling to it that I can't place my hand on...
I was told that the metaphor was too obtuse; so if you didn't follow, it's about death. The maze, and the events in it, are Luster's life: youth, finding someone, raising a foal, middle age. And in the end she goes where Twilight sent all of the villains.
but..but redemption and second Chance..
Twilight:
preview.redd.it/fppnqk8uxz841.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f8c09ed14ee0cd67138150d50d1e070dc3ee7e51
I thought the story came together nicely at the end, personally. For a two hour time frame, this was a lovely piece.
Chapter one, where Luster discovers reinforcement learning.
Chapter two, where Luster discovers GPS.
But ponies aren't supposed to look for that!
I'd say that in chapter three Luster is supposed to discover natural selection, but she already had foal.
So was Luster dead the whole time? And was she a villain? None of this makes any sense at all 😵😵😵. I do like the story though.
This is nice.
Congrats on placing second in EFNW's Iron Author contest. I heard you read this on Sunday and was extremely impressed. I think the best part of the story is the powerful message you convey. Looking forward to more great stories from you in the future!
But in the end, she went left, trotting off the map, and out of the plan she had so delicately laid out.
ouch
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For real tho, well done! Super atmospheric without being overly vague. And done in two hours? You savage.
I thought it was a trapped maze, and not a metaphor... So, yeah, the metaphor was a surprise...
Cool though.
Got bored reading this and the characters fell flat. It's technical competent.
Very well done, especially for the constraints imposed on the writing time and prompt. Iron Author is always a challenge, and we (the judges) are always impressed every year by entries like this one that manage to rise to that challenge.
Thanks for writing.
Nicely done.
I haven't though about the 1968 movie The Swimmer in decades, but this story brought it back to me in sharp focus.
While I didn't end up finishing anything for Iron Author, I enjoyed this and the other top 3 stories immensely. Everything crystalized so well to me with that final line, making me rethink everything that came before. Fantastic work.
When Luster Dawn and Comet Tail come to the split in the path, Luster wants to go right and Comet left; they end up going left. However, when they encounter the filly, she appears to say that the fountain is down the left fork at that turn, and then Luster agrees, as does the narration. Is this an error in the text, and the two were supposed to match, a misread on my part, and that's not what's actually happening, or part of the metaphor/deeper meaning of the story I'm not seeing at the moment?
(I'm mostly not reading this with error-spotting in mind, since it's marked as unedited, but that one stood out enough for me to comment on and ask about.)
"I was told that the metaphor was too obtuse; so if you didn't follow, it's about death. The maze, and the events in it, are Luster's life: youth, finding someone, raising a foal, middle age. And in the end she goes where Twilight sent all of the villains."
Huh. I thought that was pretty obvious? Well. "about death" something of a matter of perspective, or debate. One could just as well, say, I think, that it's about life -- things within life, and what comes at the end.
Though, mind you, I'd not be surprised if I didn't get all the fine details of the metaphor/the sub-metaphors.
Still, given that I don't consider myself that great at spotting these things, it really doesn't seem like "too obtuse" applies with how easily I picked up the primary metaphor here.
"I mean, you didn't think the Storm King was fine, did you? He got shattered!"
Yeah, the first paragraph might involve no metaphor at all. The second is where the "Hm..." starts coming in, I think.
(Though one bit I suspect I'm not getting is the meaning of the seasons at the start, unless spring, summer, and fall all are assigned to childhood, and the start of winter to its end. Which, well, could be, but it's not as clear to me. And I'm not sure if the correspondence of villain to season has a particular meaning, beyond the progress from "That makes sense" through "Didn't he get shattered?" to "Didn't he not even leave a pile of stone shards?".)
Also, after looking through the comments:
Congratulations on getting second place! Sorry for not thinking to say that before. :)
And thank you for writing. :)
Given how the last episode sort of cycles back to the first, I'm not sure Luster isn't going to become an Alicorn.
Well done, especially in such a short time!
This was one of my top 3 scores during judging. You deserved the spot on the podium
It was a close battle this year, so many fantastic stories.
Leaps
One day alicorns will learn to just give straight answers to questions. Not today, though.
I had no idea where this was going until I reached the end, and those last lines made me see the entire story in a different light. Thought-provoking and beautiful in its own strange, mystical way.
Also I am a silly wizard with a fairly literal mind so I appreciate you just telling us what the metaphor is at the end.
My reaction to 'its too obtuse' is to feel smug about having parsed it accurately as you were livereading it, but I caaaan see people not getting it, even though as soon as you grasp a hint of the metaphor I feel the whole thing unfurls before you
Fun as it was at Everfree; the only real 'flaw', if I can come up with any, is that there isn't that strong a message there, though 'There's no one way to live life, so just enjoy it' is a decent message, it could just perhaps be a little better highlighted
Luster's life is not the metaphor I would have picked, but it works so very well.
"Mistakes you don't regret." That's handy. Thanks.
At the risk of spoiling the metaphor, what I think is happening here is that Luster Dawn is dying peacefully in her sleep after a long, full life, and Twilight enters her dreams to guide them towards a good end, away from any regret or fear. And of course to say goodbye.
EDIT: Of course, this being a GaPJaxie story, Luster hasn't necessarily had a good or happy life. She may never have found love or had a kid. She may have had both, but fucked them up. She may be dying as a convicted criminal (Twilght saying she "couldn't be prouder" is significantly equivocal--Jaxie being that judicious in his choice of words).
It's not important that we know these things. In fact it's important that we don't know them. Because what's most important is what we do know: that regardless of the kind of life Luster has led, Twilight is there for her in the last moments of it, to take away pain and sorrow and to say a kind farewell.
That's what you do for someone whose love you accept.
A gracefully stylised parable with ponies.
Great job on this! And well deserving of a spot on the podium. :)
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Oh Christ you mean that movie where the guy goes all across Encino or whatever swimming from backyard pool to backyard pool?
When I was a kid my dad and I watched that in bewildered merriment when it came on TV. We both had the same reaction: "He keeps on trespassing--why doesn't somebody call the cops?"
We knew it was an art film and it was all supposed to be a metaphor for something, but we thought the metaphor was pretty dumb.
Eventually we changed channels.
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Yeah, that's the one! I think it starred Burt Lancaster. Swimming pools, hedge mazes... same metaphor, but in the case of Burt, the verdict was that he had wasted his life. When he finally makes it "home," the house is empty and abandoned. I don't remember when I first watched it, but I do remember thinking, "Who the hell greenlit this thing?"
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They should've remade it in the 90's. As a comedy. With Jim Carrey. But the moment's past.
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Now, that would have made a good film!
This reminds me of the Hans Christian Andersen story "The Bell".
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I think this story is structured like a magic act.
Luster Dawn is Penn. She does all the talking so she's the one you end up watching.
Twilight is Teller. She's the one you should be watching.
I did NOT expect this to be so deep! I was NOT expecting existentialism today! This is a VERY good story!
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Oh hey I used to live in Encino before CrispySparrow went full asshole. Ostensibly they still live there though!
The storm king is fine, though. His eye glows in the credits(or did it sparkle?), showing that he's still in there
Sombra got shattered too, but he Got Better