After finding out Gallus was an Orphan last year, Silverstream offers to let him spend the Holiday with her family. Everygriff is friendly, and mount aris is a lot nicer than Griffinstone. It's easily the best Holiday he's ever had. He's having fun... and yet...
He can't stop comparing everything to Griffinstone.
He can't stop wondering what it would be like to have family that cares about you.
He can't stop wondering what his life would be like if his parents had stuck around.
and with everygriff being so nice he doesn't want to say anything.
Written for anonymous browser for Jinglemas 2021
Chapters (1)
Well. Where to start on that? I tried to leave the prompt a little open ended to give some flexibility ("Gallus and Silverstream spending the holidays at either of their respective home cities" for anyone else reading this), so I didn't quite know what to expect. But I did spend some time thinking about what I would've written given the prompt and the sorts of themes I'd like to see.
To end the suspense, it was basically this story. Pretty much beat for beat. I had a smile on my face the whole way through. It didn't meet my expectations, it blew them out of the water. Managed to cover a lot of ground without getting bogged down and a really good example of showing instead of telling. There's the exploration of the festival itself, the somewhat unique issues with Silverstream's family and Gallus' feelings of inadequacy and longing for what he's missed out on. The amount of time spent focusing on each facet I felt was just right for a fluffy holiday piece.
I really liked the description of how the festival flowed and everyone having a nice mixture of fun and family time. Silverstream's hints that she likes Gallus weren't exactly subtle but get a big thumbs up from me. Overall it dug into some pretty hefty stuff but managed to stay fluffy and upbeat. I really, really enjoyed it. A lot. I'm really glad you had fun writing it as well.
I'm humbled, really. Even moreso because my offering this year I felt was sub-par (although I didn't have much time due to life stuff outside of my control, so I can't beat myself up too much). Was the art custom made for the cover as well? If so you can colour me seriously impressed.
For technical feedback I felt the overall quality of the writing was good. There were a couple of errors I noticed with apostrophes, like one creeping in here where it isn't needed:
There's one or two missing elsewhere, as well as some missing punctuation with some of the speech. I wouldn't say any of it's really bad though; just very nitpicky things I found going through it more than once. It didn't impact my enjoyment of the story when I was reading it for the first time.
I'm guessing this should be a hippogryph? this is the only big thing that jumped out while I was reading this the first time.
But to close, I can't really quite sum up just how much I enjoyed this. Probably the best Christmas present I've received this year. You've certainly gone above and beyond the call of duty here.
Happy Hearthswarming!
I would've expect Gallus to turn into a sea-lion.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Complete_Guide_to_Heraldry_Fig314.png
The Xnxubd VPN browser offers a seamless way to browse the internet securely and privately, especially if you're looking to mask your IP address or bypass geo-restrictions. With its user-friendly interface and robust features, this app has garnered positive attention for delivering a smooth online experience. Whether you're streaming, downloading, or just casually browsing, it aims to provide you with a layer of security and anonymity, making it a favored choice for many users in the VPN community.