- Member Since 13th Jun, 2012
- offline last seen 2 hours ago
AugieDog
I've been writing and selling stories for longer than a lot of folks reading this have been alive. Check Baal Bunny for more!
AugieDog
Joined 13th Jun, 2012 ·
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Ooooh. Very nice take of things!
I liked the way you tied the Rite and the Old Magic to the Nightmare Moon and the Elements, and brought Cadence in.
Commence read.
Quite interesting.
Association of Those who will Pine Forever for Twilight Sparkle...Cadance with her consolation prize.
So wait... a fanfiction of a fanfiction of my fanfiction?
I approve!
1954588 Now you have to make one of the one of one about yours. Then the cycle will be complete.
This is well written and an excellent companion piece to In the Garden of Good and Evil. Thank you for writing it.
Two questions though (and I suppose I should throw up the SPOILER tag here):
According to the story, the stag needed to be killed in order to appease the Old Magic and restore Luna. But in In the Garden of Good and Evil the Baccanalia is made out to be an annual ritual. Was there always such a killing or was it only this one time?
Also, I could be completely off base here, but is this entire thing a Narnia reference? As in, a traitor's (here: Luna; in Narnia: Edmund) blood must be spilled in order to appease the Old Magic, but a willing volunteer's (here: the stag; in Narnia: Aslan) blood can be substituted and so maintain the balance. Knowing C.S. Lewis, that is itself based off of old mythology, although it's not something I've heard of myself.
But this is the only one that isn't rated mature! I'm really really inclined to starting here anyway… so I will.
I have no moral objection against mature stories, but a very practical one: I read on the bus.
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I'm pretty sure this makes you, like, a grandparent.
Congrats!
1954698
My inspiration was Igor Stravinski's The Rite of Spring. Certainly, though, the idea of a sacrifice being needed to appease gods or natural forces is as old as humanity.
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Thanks!
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We're through the looking glass here, people. But I did just wanna say thanks again to the both of you. It has literally been decades since I last put together an entire story in so short a time--it was the first week of May, 1992, my records tell me--and it's just such a fine feeling.
1954698
Definitely C.S. Lewis, but also Euripides--his play The Bacchae from 405 B.C. is all about the Baccanalia--and some of the writings of the last couple popes, too. Because if there's one thing that brings out my inner Jesuit, it's My Little Pony fanfiction!
Mike
This was fascinating. The plots and planning that all came to naught, the ... cultivation of the Elements, the intrigue, and the simple issue of balance and the pain it can bring... I loved this. The concept of debts owed and the terrible lengths Celestia went through to try and stop the killing were handled very gracefully, and I got goosebumps thinking of those six generations Cadence watched over. I mean, Damn.
In the Garden of Good and Evil hit me kind of hard.
You've helped a little with that, so... thank you.
So, why dark age?
What will follow?
Why? Is Luna wrong? Aren't they just free from fate and able to guide the world on their own?
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Thanks, folks:
It goes without saying that Cold in Gardez's story hit me pretty hard, too--I mean, I spent three days and 5,500 words unraveling my feelings toward it. Mostly, I think, I wanted to introduce a positive possibility without diluting the original story's interpretation of the Bacchanal. Celestia's reasoning when she's talking to Twilight at the end of Garden is absolutely valid, and I didn't want to argue against it. So I put the idea of faith into Luna's mouth, had her approach the whole situation from the angle that this might all lead to something greater, and introduced a bit of the dreaded ambiguity.
So who's right: Celestia and her dark age, or Luna and her golden age? I don't know. I'm just a twice-removed interloper in SleeplessBrony's world when you get right down to it...
Mike
A comment led me here, after I read In the Garden of Good and Evil. And I followed, without a second thought, because it was this or no sequel at all, and no sequel at all was not really a choice. I hope you can come close to living up to Gardez, unfairly high bar though that may be.
His antlers can't be both glowing and not glowing.
So that's where I recognize your name from . . .
Hmm . . .
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There's imagery throughout:
That could use a little polishing--the visual I was aiming for in the line you quote was the glow of the antlers being caught in the metal of the blade and reflected around the room. So the glow only becomes a light after being processed by the knife...
But, see, I'm a little superstitious about this piece, so I've never gone back and given it my usual sort of general clean-up. It's just such a rare, lightning-captured-in-a-bottle moment for me--the last time I'd pumped out a story beginning to end like this was in May of 1992 right after the L.A. riots, for crying out loud, and that story, "A Bag of Custard," I ended up selling to Gardner Dozois, then the editor of Asimov's SF magazine, for publication in the February, 1994 issue even though, Dozois told me, he knew he was gonna get complaint letters. He thought it was wunna the funniest things he'd read in a long time.
And, yeah, I threw a few ideas from "The Birth of Harmony" into the mix here, then mined them back out when I was putting together Calling You. So everything feeds on everything else...
Thanks for reading!
Mike
Yay for stumbling across this due to Collaborators. I don't know how I quite feel about it, yet, but it addresses something about Garden that had always sat ill with me. To this day, I still do not accept that the ponies would allow such to continue, and this takes a spin on it that goes along the same ends.
It makes me somewhat tempted to actually go for a fourth entry, although then I'd be setting myself up for something crazy long because while I don't know where things would end, exactly, I already can feel their general form. It's sorely tempting.
Of course, I'd have to read all of Romance Reports finally, and 200,000 words is rather a lot.
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It's always fun:
When folks find these older, more shadowy stories back among the archive stacks. Romance Reports is definitely a time-investment, but it's well worth it.
Mike
Almost a decade later, this story, and Garden, and Romance Reports are still well worth reading.
Will it be a dark age, or a golden age? Looking back at the story, and the question, I think it will be a grand age, of darkness and light, of great heroism and horrible villainy, the kind of age that will leave behind legends and change the face of the world.