Nightmare Moon has been defeated, and Luna has finally returned to her only family.
The sisters return to their Canterlot home together and prepare to rule side by side once more, but....
Celestia has changed somehow. She is no longer the sororal heroine she once was to her younger sibling.
Is Equestria's nightmare truly over with the reuniting of the Princesses of Night and Day, or is there something dark stirring in the purest heart in all Equestria?
Many unending thanks to Lightning Flair for giving me this idea and beta reading a portion! Thanks also to my Goldenheart for being my final beta-reader and proofreader!
(*NOTE*: Cover art coming soon!)
Chapters (1)
Now this is a thing of beauty indeed, Sterling my friend! *applauds*
I personally think you did an excellent job with writing both of the sisters (I love how Luna slightly comes off as a lovable, sweet little imp in the beginning,) and the Nightmare-spirit. They definitely each had their own voices that were distinct and unique from one another, and personally, I enjoy this book format of yours. (Then again, I've always been a sucker for book format.)
You have done an excellent job showing this temptation of Celestia and the building conflict on multiple levels. Layered conflict is always a beautiful thing to see in writing! And the twist at the end with Celestia's dream and Luna watching? BRILLIANT. Absolutely brilliant! I loved it!
As always Sterling, excellent work, and I look forward to more!
Nicely done. This is going in my Sad Luna group.
Hmm... Not a bad attempt at one's heartstrings, but this chapter seems to be rather rough around the edges.
I suspect this may be due to the lack of further development and insight into Celestia's own pain. Nightmare Moon could potentially have done so much more to wring Celestia into a hysterical, quivering ball of crying pony.
My apologies for the lack of precision in words over just exactly what I am talking about, though I shall do my best to convey what I feel is lacking in the story, and what can be done to improve it. Keep in mind this is from my own perspective, and as such may or may not apply to what your original intent with the story was during the initial planning stages of this young oneshot.
Now, one of my own many versions of perceived fanon Celestia has her wrought with guilt, a chain tightened across her entire body, rendering her paralyzed and most sluggish. Though for the most part, she keeps this hidden behind a regal gaze of kindness and radiating compassion. From my perspective, it would seem that you were attempting to dwell into the depths of Celestia's psyche, examining her own inner turmoil, frustrations and many sorrows that the alicorn may have bottled up inside her. You know, the typical feelings of guilt, ghosts of past centuries haunting her every failure along the way, be it real or perceived. Most especially at the top of that list of many troubles is the banishing of her own sister. Now, ones fanon can vary wildly in this regard, considering the fandom's many diverse interpretations of Celestia's character, her past, backstory, personality, you get the idea. From what I can see, it would appear that you are trying to wring the chain that binds Celestia in such a way that strangles her heart and mind.
Being an immortal would probably do that to a being such as Celestia. To me personally, I would imagine that after enduring one thousand years alone and without her sister, it wouldn't be out of the question that Celestia could possibly have grown a tumor of bottled up guilt, woe and angst. This would probably become especially most prevalent after regaining her sister from banishment, influencing how Celestia interacts with the world and those around her. I.E: Becoming obsessed with her duty to Equestria, her own personal moral ideals, principles and integrity, ensuring that her younger sister is never again neglected, all at the expensive of Celestia's own personal comfort so as to ensure nothing bad ever happens again, harboring a perfectionist attitude toward her own performance.
I would imagine this could even possibly go so far as to self harm and torture, as penance for her own perceived failures throughout her life. All this is done without anyone, including her own sister, knowing about this at all of course, owing to the duty and pressure that Celestia's has mounted upon the sun princess's own back. As a novice writer myself, I would see this as an enticing opportunity to probe the psyche of Celestia's mind, with many opportunities to inflict misery and woe on her without mercy. The goal of this would be to build up the pressure that Celestia feels on an everyday basic to the point that she eventually crumples into a never ending nightmare of every negative emotion known to human kind. Self loathing, anger, jealousy, guilt, despair, agony, sorrow, you get the picture. From here, one can exploit the aftermath of any number of potential breakdowns that Celestia might suffer to further develop the relationship with those around her, most especially Luna. I cannot imagine a more heart provoking scene than Luna comforting a shattered and broken Celestia desperately trying to control her volatile emotions and failing, with Luna taking an ironic twist of fate in their roles being reversed, the younger sister comforting Celestia and attempting to draw her out of the broken shell of which she has built up over the centuries, with not much success of course. Perhaps even to the point where Celestia can no longer perform her own duties with any efficiency.
This gives an all too tempting and many opportunities to develop highly emotional scenes for a story, with further development between the two sisters. It would be especially intriguing to see how the roles between the two be reversed in contrast to Celestia's usual appearance. I.E: Celestia looking for redemption where none is needed, and Luna becoming horrified to the extent of Celestia own self loathing that would even bring the seemingly stable monarch to inflict agony upon herself as punishment, ensuring the reader knows just how dire Celestia's deteriorating mental state has become. Cue emotional scene after scene as the two attempt to help each other, with many moments of heartwarming to sprinkle in the story in a rare but most satisfying moment of daaaww.
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Something like this, only on an intensely more vast scale for dramatic effect and character development in terms of themselves and their relationship with each other of course.
The point is, show no holding back when revealing the raw intensity of Celestia's turmoil and the recovery of her mental state. One must be careful however in not overdoing the dramatics, lest they lose their effects in diminishing returns after repeated use. Subtleties are important here. If wisely planned and directed, a story could emerge at literally turns the emotions of the reader into that of a marionette.
For now, I shall end this commentary here. If I went on, I would be here for another hour typing down this comment.
However, I shall wait for the time being and analyze whatever response you may provide me.
Good tidings to you good sir.
3900400
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First of all, I'd like to apologize for accidentally procrastinating my response to your wonderfully in-depth comment.
Second, thank you, sir/madam, for taking so much time just to give me advice on furthering the conveyance of a feeling through the written word. Even moreso, thank you for heeding to my call for comments for the bettering of my own work.
Onto the response, I suppose. I must confess that I didn't put too much thought behind Celestia's state of mind when I began writing this. To be perfectly candid, it was an idea given to me by a friend that, upon hearing it, caused me to want to write this as quickly as possible. This was obviously not the wisest course of action because if I had put a little more thought into it, it might have been something even greater than I think it is now.
I hadn't intended to make this too in-depth in terms of feeling at the fear of making this more than a oneshot. I've seen the multi-digit chapter numbers of heart-wrenching stories, and they aren't appealing to me. I love to read them, but to be so deeply invested in writing something because of earlier exploitation of past experiences and slow, constant elaboration of plot development and character absorption is a little more than I'm willing to dive into right now, even though it makes for an amazing tale. I doubt there is anything truly remarkable in that manner for this story, as this was a short, feels-invoking exercise of my descriptive language in terms of inner conflict and manipulating a passage of time in a story with a procession of thoughts (which definitely needs work).
The depth I put into Celestia's psyche is as follows: Celestia was doing everything she could to keep her guilt inside. Since Luna was back, she would want to suppress her previous depression for the time being to allow her rising-to-grace sister a comfortable settling in (as a sort of compensation for banishment). This would also keep Luna from worrying about her state of mind. In the first draft, there had been a paragraph of Celestia receiving Luna and showing her to her quarters, allowing a development of scenery and relationship; however, I scrapped it because it didn't flow well with the dark nature of the Celestia we see first. This could've given a chance to show how the sun princess coped with herself in the presence of her sister, but their restriction of interaction for the better part of the story was more appealing to my beta-readers and myself.
To hold to my oath, I'll not revise it under this same entry. If I do heed to your advice in this particular work, rest assured it will be a new work altogether.
Again, thank you for putting so much time into this, and I look forward to a response (if you do care to write another.
Also, feel free to message me. You seem to be a pleasant person, and I could definitely use your help in future works, if you don't mind helping.