Collab with y1
When Luna reappeared on Nightmare Night, she was no longer the small filly from before. Now an adult mare, she commanded the same respect and presence as that of her sister, Celestia. Many assumed that this was the result of her powers coming back to her naturally, but that was a lie happily perpetrated by both Celestia and the Gryphon Kingdom.
This is the story of Luna as she struggles with the remnants of Nightmare Moon and her forgotten past. The only clue she has is The Temple of the Stars where her small group of worshipers used to gather, which now lies in ruins and in the clutches of the gryphons. Some things were forgotten for a reason and the past always has a way of returning.
These two facts are well known by Gilda. Pulled along for the ride against her will, ghosts of a forgotten past have come crawling back, intent on dragging her back down to a fate worse than death. All the while, she seeks to preserve the innocence of those untouched by war and tries to protect Trixie from the harsh truth beyond Equestria's borders.
One wrong step and war shall erupt. One wrong step and the world will be plunged into a darkness that would rival Discord.
Hope is not a plan.
First of all, this is a collab with www.fimfiction.net/user/y1fellas who some of you will see commenting on my fics and (I think) some of you read his fics. If you don't go read them. They are awesome (except Revenge and Justice, don't read that one). Secondly, this is not the fic I've been talking about recently. That fic will be released this Friday [GMT+12] so keep your eyes out on that. Now, onto my ramblings!
Writing Luna was interesting, crazy and fun. I find it really difficult to write her as a childish filly so y1fellas has to constantly drag me back on track to ensure I'm being consistent. I always tend to go too far into the calculating or 'evil' territory, but that's what I'm comfortable with. Mixing the two together was right in my territory though considering it's got the whole "insanity" vibe going on.
Gilda's section is not my section so I can't really comment except Luna was awesome. Death threats from a filly and turning the fact that she hasn't been around for one thousand years into a weapon? Totally awesome. That was the one scene I wanted to write this chapter and I managed to sneak it in there with limited proding. The interactions between the two are characters are great as well.
Back to Luna and did I mention how awesome the interaction between Luna and Gilda are? Damn that section was fun to write. Trixie... Trixie is kinda meh-ish. Don't worry, for all you Trixie lovers, we've got stuff planned.
Alright, my authors notes. Well to be brutally honest I'm not half the rambler Orphius is, so I'm going to start this off by bitching about him a little bit. The man does not plan. Ever. At all. In the slightest. Needless to say this has made writing this a bit of a unique challenge for me. Though, Orphius does have the occasional moment of chaotic brilliance due to this approach.
Oh. And I don't know if you people care or not, but the story here was created by a joke. In one of our usual online chats I deliberately loosely strung together a particularly weak plotline out of a bunch of ideas he'd pitched to me at one point or another. I did so with the intent of mocking him, but instead he just ended up saying, "hmmmm". That's where this story came from.
For those who are a unaware, Orphius was primarily in charge of Luna's sections and I was in charge of writing Gilda's. This marks what had to be the thousandth time I've written Gilda.
I don't mind so much, but I'm starting to feel like a one trick pony.
It's always fun writing Gilda. My particular version of Gilda isn't like other fics I've seen where they try to justify or explain how she acts in the show. I don't do that. I think that Gilda is basically a bitch and she acted like she did because she's a bitch, The trick is to make her a likable bitch.
Luna is an interesting character to have her interact with, because Luna is basically a highly unusual character. In my normal writing, Gilda is usually the least sane person in the room, but here she's comparatively normal. I think I'm writing too much Gilda. I'm swearing way more than I usually do these days.
The art here was supplied by Orphius and I'm enormously grateful for that. Another thing that I appreciate is how he allowed me to create the back story for the gryphons in this.
Anyway, I hope you people enjoy and be sure to leave a review.
1449739
Hey, I get plenty of brilliant moments! It's fair to say, it's difficult for both of us. He plans too much, excessively so. And he writes too much. Seriously. Waaaaaaaay too much.
Luckily for you, I managed to drag out the transcipt:
y1fellas: Well maybe you could write a fic about Luna deciding to turn Gilda into her secret agent to fight some force from her past, because she doesn't want her dark secret getting out or something, which is why she doesn't involve the mane six or Celestia or a normal pony that worships her.
Orphius: Well now =thinks=Throw in Trixie
y1fellas: I was joking man.
Orphius: Throw in [censored]. Hm... Oh no, this could actually go somewhere
y1fellas: =facepalm so hard= No way you were taking that seriously.
I've actually done this in the past as well. For those of you who have read Breaking Twilight, Phantom Celestia came from a similar comment.
1454462
Phantom Celestia was created from another case of me making a joke.
Hmm... You caught my attention. Probably won't be as absolutely awesome as Breaking Twilight, but still we will see!
1454982
It's a collab with y1fellas, what did you expect? (Just joking! He's awesome). Hope you enjoy and feel free to critique or whatnot
1455032
Thanks! Our prereader (DoomManta) loved that scene too and it was a blast to write. I'll admit to being partial to dark, evil-ish character's and Luna seemed to fit right in with her archaic way of thinking.
1455032
Yeah it was a fun scene to write, but it was one of those scenes were Orphius threw something completely random in, and I stared at the screen going, WTF!? The humor there was mostly his/luna's, but if Gilda did anything that made you laugh, then that would be me.
Guys, if you're going to have me spelling/grammar check, let me look at ALL OF IT before you publish things. There's errors in the description.
Anyway, this story is really fun to work on, and as an added bonus, relatively little work for me (at least compared to some other things I'm editor for).
This story surprised me. I read the description and it didn't sound very appealing but I’ve read stories from both of you so I decided to give it a try. And so I found myself laughing and rolling around on the floor. Man Luna was awesome, don’t get me wrong y1fellas Gilda was great but Luna was amazing. My one issue was the pictures in the story (Not the cover pic) are bad. What I mean buy this is that the blown up, fuzzy, and pixelated. (I know it’s stupid and I don’t know why but it bugs me.) In any case I think you two make a great team and can't wait to see what happens next.
1455488
=laughs= Feel free to point them out then. I will totally admit to writing it while late at night and tearing my hair out trying to figure out what to write. You know we love critiques!
1460371
Thank you! I will admit to taking a lot of stuff from y1fellas' portrayal of Celestia from Revenge and Justice so I can't take all the credit. I just gave her my own twist and made sure it was still Luna. Glad you enjoyed it so much.
As for the page break pics, they're meant to be faded/scratched rubber stamps. I take it that they don't look like that? Damn. I can fix that up real quick and just make it the clear precise image they originally were.
Finally got some free time to read it, and I must say this is going to be an.... interesting... read. Out of the 3 so far, I like Luna the best. I think you did her really well, for a goddess being gone for a thousand years and then coming back into a filly's body. Tho I am surprised she would know what 'ravage' means
1461838
Actually, that's a really good point. We tried to keep more of the obvious language shifts out of her speech, but yeah, ravage does seem a bit out of it. Hm... I'll look around and see if I can find a better term
Though I have not seen y1fellas' author notes, I just know he's going to complain about me blindsiding him. And if he doesn't, something is obviously wrong on his end because he just loves complaining so much. Especially since I totally tossed the whole "mind reading" thing at him on a whim. Well, not really a whim since he tossed out that line prior to it and I decided to run with it. Truth be told, it makes for some crazy scenes later on, so I felt it was a good whim for me to follow.
Edit: Totally called it!
The Trixie-Luna interaction scene was fun to write and I wanted to keep Trixie out there and arrogant despite being in the presence of royalty. Or perhaps, because she got a chance to order Luna around that Trixie decided to push it as far as possible. Either case, the two of them together was rather amusing to write considering their personalities. We also get a flashback sequence where we learn a bit more about Luna's past and so forth. I'll be honest, I'm not the best at subtly.
Other than that, the other sections are y1fellas so I suggest you read his sections for an idea of his thoughts on it all.
Alright, so chapter two of stars. I hope you people enjoy.
This chapter there were three interesting little things dropped on my head. Firstly, we were in gdocs writing it, and Orphius decided that ‘suddenly Nightmare’ was a great idea. Caught me off guard but I rolled with it. Then he decided that Nightmare should flirt with Gilda a ton. Also caught me off guard, but again I went with it. Finally, he came up with, ‘oh yeah, and Nightmare can read minds.’ Not the actual quote, but you get the general idea.
This man does not plan. Ever.
Certainly put me in Gilda’s mind set though, finding out how bad the situation really is at the same rate she does. My scenes were fun to right, and despite my bitching, Nightmare was seriously awesome. With Gilda I was trying to show a slightly more emotional side to her and give you people an idea of how she feels about Dash, but at the same time I wanted to avoid the 'Gilda loves Dash' thing, yet still let the audience know that Gilda's not really very nice.
Anyway, enough of my whinging. Be sure to comment and let us know what you think of this chapter, or the story in general.
1496408>>1496424 I'm not sure what I enjoy more about this, the actual story, or watching you two bicker like an old married couple...
1496481
=laughs= Your comment is win. Have a cookie. If it wasn't because I actually want this fic to be cool and good, I'd be tossing random crap his way just for fun.
1496481
Oh hell no. No, no, no!
No.
Just no.
1496501
You suck, so much. Why the hell did I start writing with you anyway?
1496547
Because you love me. I'm just that cute and adorable
1496587
....
You know most marriages end in divorce or murder right? And there's no way in hell I'm accepting joint custody.
1496597
But think of the children! How could you do this to them?
1496598
... We don't have children, we're not married, and if we were, what the hell would that make Doom?
1496609
The insane uncle who's actually sane compared to the rest of us?
Or you know, just some random dood who edits for us
Well I really liked this chapter, but I do find my self torn should I be rooting for Luna the good guy with the awesome personality or Nightmare moon who is a total badass. My favorite part is by far the mind reading, I couldn't breathe i was laughing too hard
. Then with most stores the funny parts usually end at the end of the chapter but with you guys it continues right on in to the comments.
Can't wait for the next chapter.
1499408
Yes! Ha, my characters are better (take that y1fellas!). Aaaaaaaanyways, yeah, writing this chapter was great, I really wanted to give Nightmare that "I am not going to play around" attitude where she's very straightforward and is very willing to actually do evil stuff.
What can I say? I aim to please. It's not my fault he feels the need to whine so much about my writing style. No planning is seriously the way to go.
So, this chapter, um... I actually really don't have much to say considering it was all written from Gilda's perspective. Um... Nightmare was really, really, damn fun to write as I got to play the "insane, murderous killer" card which is a card I like playing. I don't think y1fellas has anything to whine at this time round, though I could be wrong (depends on how much he's had to drink). Fairly certain I didn't toss anything out there that blindsided him.
New chapter, yay.
This chapter was written entirely from Gilda’s perspective, so that was fun. Certainly made Orphius’s job easy. This is the first chapter that you really get to see what Gilda’s good at and her skills. The first hints are made here about her past life and in general I had a really fun time working on this chapter. I have to say that I really think Orphius did a good job with Nightmare, and even better, he didn’t blind side me with any sudden changes in plot, direction or character!
We had to make some last minute edits to this chapter to squeeze in some foreshadowing of things that come later, but in general I have to give thanks to PiquoPie and DoomManta as pre-readers. Sorry we didn’t alert either of you to the sudden changes, but there wasn’t really any time.
Oh, and final thoughts because I’m pretty sure Orphius is going to bring it up, but I am not an alcoholic, nor do I have a drinking problem.
Two idiots bring a giant angry star bear into town after being goaded by Spike, with the only damage IIRC being Trixie's caravan and the water tower used to subdue it and Trixie gets all the blame. Twilight actually destroys the town with her parasprite alteration spell and nothing.
1537372
Pretty much, but Twi is also Celestia's student.
1537381
I want to edit this comment
1537789
1537381
Hey Orphius.
1537789
Fixed! What can I say, I'm smart like that
1537809
Shut up.
Well they got threw that temple faster than I expected. So Gilda seems to be prone to judging people. But we do get to learn more about her past. And are we getting to see a softer side of Nightmare Moon in this chapter because she seems nicer than normal and even says “I am sorry”. We seem to have a case of story inception I want to read a book that is in a story that is a fanfic of another story. My only complaint about this story is it can be (In my opinion) hard to tell when Gilda is speaking in her head and when shes not.
On a side note I was rereading the other chapters and in the seen where Gilda is in prison you switch between her having a bowl and a plate three different times. Can It just be a bowl I don’t like it when the dishware starts shapeshifting it makes it very hard to get a bowl of soup.
Can't wait for the next chapter.
1538466
Don't worry, the story is still far from over. Yeah, Gilda is quite judgmental, its a survival mechanism. Like this chapter indicates, she has a past. Yeah, there is a slightly softer side to Nightmare Moon, but I'd point out that whole collapsing the temple and killing fifty gryphons for no good reason thing.
That's because I tried to give Gilda's internal voice a very personal sound, with lots of swearing and speech patterns just like Gilda's. I approach writing the narration in this the way I usually approach writing dialogue. Plus, with Nightmare able to read Gilda's thoughts (almost breaking the fourth wall and seeing the narration) it becomes so the the only thing really separating dialogue from naration is "quotations marks". I can't really think of any way to fix that without either reducing Gilda's personal voice, or adding hamhanded italics to seperate thought from narration. There might be some confusion, but I think that's acceptable.
Yeah, thanks for spotting that, it made it past two pre readers. I'll ask Orphius to fix it.
1537812
Hey, Orphius. Go fix it.
1538466
In terms of Gilda talking in her head, basically what y1fellas said. I personally hate using italics to indicate thought in first person and NMM is reading all thoughts, so it was more a stylistic choice on our part than anything else.
1539851
Like I said, it's amazing we haven't killed each other yet. And it's fixed, no thanks to you, Mister Inconsistant. Hey DoomManta and PiquoPie, be glad that I get to preread his stuff as we're writing or you'd be dealing with missing capitals, commas instead of spaces, and who knows what else. I mean, seriously, why do you hate capitals so much!? And commas. So many missing commas.
1539978
In the words of Gilda, "Go suck yourself." I'm not the best at grammar, but I am getting better. Besides, I'd point out that you have tendency to drop entire words from a sentence. You're far from innocent.
1540021
And I'm probably worse at grammar than you as well so that's really saying something. And that's because my thought is running by so fast it is physically impossible for my fingers to record it all?
1540036
Yeah, something like that. Sure, that sounds nice so we'll go with that.
1540043
Yes! Victory!
1540021>>1540036 Interestingly enough, I can tell who wrote a section entirely by what kinds of errors are present. y1fellas tends to miss punctuation marks (especially its versus it's) and more blatant technical errors; Orphius usually does all of that stuff fine, but ever so often you get sentences that just do not make any sense as they're written (usually because some word got left out or duplicated or something like that).
I'll let you guys decide which is worse.
1540273
I always needle him over the amount of red that you leave on his section of chapter.
Ah, chapter 4. We introduce a few gryphon characters, and give the Kingdom an identity and face other than ‘the bad guys’. We also introduce Graciano, who is the third perspective character. It took a while to get him right, and a few re writes, but in the end I’m pretty happy with how he’s turned out. This chapter required a fair bit of re working, and I had to pull Orphius back on the Luna’s a badass thing he was doing, but really it wasn’t much work.
This is also the first time we really tried to portray Trixie in a likeable light. I think it turned out pretty well, and in later chapters Trixie has come into her own quite nicely.
Okay, so, new character introduced this chapter. Don't look at me, I didn't write him at all, that was y1fellas idea, but don't worry, we've got a lot of things planned for him.
Shame he's y1's character or I would have really put him through the paces. Why? Because it'd fun and it might stop everyone from saying I hate Twilight. Maybe. Hopefully. Oh, the whole feminine male thing was my idea because why not?
I don't think I blindsided y1 with anything this chapter, though it feels like I'm doing that every single chapter so I could be wrong. Um... I wrote a section at the top. A very short section. Like, super short. It's actually really funny, everytime I write Luna's perspective it tends to be very short and takes a couple of days to get through. Gilda's section? Two days for 8,000 words or so. Like I always said, y1 write waaaaaay too much.
Oh yes, I think it was after chapter 2 that we realized we didn't characterise Trixie well enough since he took Gilda and I took Luna so Trixie kinda floated in the middle of nowhere. This is really when we actually sat down and semi-planned her character. Why semi-planned? Because I think we did too much planning while y1 thinks we do too little. It's amazing we haven't killed each other yet.
Wait, I did some Luna badass thing? Why don't I remember this? And why don't I remember of the rewrites y1 keeps talking about? Hey, y1, have you been cheating on me again!?
1577316
I re wrote the scene with Grace at least three times. And I'm pretty sure it was you who prompted the changes. You had me shift it from first person to third person, then to third person limited, then you suggested I take it back to first person and I told you to burn.
You have a tendency to write Luna as a dangerous and capable, and I have to keep reminding you to make her more immature.
And cheating on you?
What? I've been nothing but loyal. I mean, sheesh, talk about an out of no where accusation. I mean, it's not like I've been secretly collabing with someone else behind your back. That... That? I mean, sheesh. That's just crazy talk.
1577583
What? I don't remember that at all. You're hallucinating again, stop drinking.
Oooooooh, I thought I just had a habit of writing Luna as insane and logical. Though I suppose I do make her a tad too capable in some situations. It always takes me forever to get into her mindset because it's so weird.
Loyal my ass. I'm keeping an eye on you. If I catch you cheating on me, I am getting a divorce!
1577594
Drinking doesn't make people hallucinate, and I'm not drunk. I do not have an alcohol problem.
I have been loyal! I've received at least two offers to collab and I've turned them both down. And they were good offers too, respectable authors. So don't go after me about loyalty, I've been nothing but committed to this from the start.
Also, we're not married. That might get in the way of your divorce.
1577600
That's what they all say you know.
Pics or it didn't happen? I'm sorry, I couldn't resist that one. Amusingly, I got a great idea for a fic today that be perfectly tailored to you in a variety of ways. If we're both alive by the end of this, want to collab on it?
That's what you'd think.
1577608
Not an alcoholic, don't even need to argue against that one because it's so blatantly not true.
We'll discuss it sure, but no guarantees. I'm frustratingly behind on my own writing, and I do want to spend some time with my own stuff in the near future.
Unless you found a way to marry us while my back was turned, it is what I think.
1577303>>1577316>>1577583>>1577594>>1577600>>1577608>>1577654
Technically people do not usually hallucinate from drinking, however 2 things.
1) People can hallucinate from dehydration, which alcohol can do.
2) If the person drinking is also tired they can enter moments of dreaming, if they force themselves awake during this time, the dream and reality can overlap. This can happen without drinking, but drinking and severe sleep deprevation exhibit very similar simptoms.
Thus, while y1fellas was probably drinking, he was probably hallucinating due to sleep deprevation from all the work he puts in.