All these moments will be lost, like tears in the rain.
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The bamboo forest, a quiet haven for Rush the reed worker. His quiet life of self imposed isolation comes to an end one night when he goes to investigate unusual noises near his home. There, half covered in the first snow fall of the winter, he finds the still form of one who will change his life forever.
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This story is amazing! Really drew me into the plotline and can't wait to read the next chapter. Keep up the good work
6117279 Thanks!
Hope you enjoy the rest,
Kindest Regards,
Bluespectre
moar!
(huh. I go afk for an hour, finish this chapter, post this, refresh the page, and find you've added 2 more chapters- seems a bit moot now :P )
6118763 Glad you like it!
This is surprisingly good so far. I have some reservations about where it is headed, but I'll just have to see, won't I?
if there are human and they appear frequently, please add the human tag. especially when human is a focus of the story.
6143862 Hi, Thanks for the comment. I really value the thoughts of readers and those more experienced than myself. I am after all, a new boy on here.
Although humans do feature heavily in the story, the main character focus is Celestia and her interaction with one of the denizens of the world she finds herself in. This becomes clearer as the story unfolds. I'm not sure how much you've read yet, but she features more prominently later on. Unfortunately, i can't explain too much or it would spoil the story.
I am a bit reluctant to use the 'human' tag just because humans feature in the story, but if thats the rules on Fimfiction, i am of course, more than happy to include it to avoid confusion. I was a little worried that using it may make readers think it was actually 'about' humans, or HiE.
Any thoughts would be gratefully received,
Kind Regards,
Blue Spectre
There's
Although he always stopped//although always stopping
Closing
Liking it so far, hope it keeps up
6155263 Thanks for the feedback, amendments made.
Such an interesting read. I like how the background iinfo wasn't dumped in one paragraph but spread out.
Wow. This is giving me some serious vibes of "I don't have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you fuckers."
So nightmare moon won The war in equestrian I guess.
6155528 That particular battle, but not the war. Theres more to come, which will add to the back story. My other stories (The Fairlight series) expand on the history and battles of early Equestria, however these are rated 'mature' so probably won't show up if you have the filter off. I'm actually thinking about re-writing those and taking out all the 'graphic' bits to make a version thats suitable for a wider range of readers. Thanks loads for commenting, I hope you enjoy the rest!
Oh, I like the way this is shaping up.
Invisible
Last market day and
In the future
Mother's
His hand had been outstretched
I think accents should be left to speech and thoughts, if that was even what you were trying to do here; around
Pause
Taken
Speaking
So they are humans
So he could
Completely
Examined
Around; forehead
And the others//and many of the others
He
It's; gods'
Mother's; what's been//what has been
It's; it's
It's
It's
In addition to the apostrophes, a lot of other punctuation marks are misused or not used at all. Lots
But the story's cool so no biggie
Creature's
Is, they're many united to one force. Is.
6205722 Many thanks for the comments. I apologise if your enjoyment of the story was spoiled, however I've taken on board what you've said and will spend more time in future checking for grammatical errors. I totally understand the way spelling errors and so forth can detract from a story.
Due to the limited time i have to write, proof-read and edit, I am doing my best to check everything prior to publication, but obviously some slip through. Judging by your comments, quite a few in fact! I've tried to find someone to help check these over for me, but not had any success so far. If you can recommend someone who would be willing to help me with this, i would be very grateful.
Thanks again for the comments, i'll make the corrections you pointed out as soon as i have time.
Kind Regards,
Blue Spectre
In a couple of the comments i've received, i've been advised to add the 'Human' tag. I've decided to add this now, as humans quite clearly do feature in the story rather prominently. Since Celestia finds herself in a world populated by humans, this won't really come as much of a surprise to anyone who's read past the first few chapters. I will emphasise however, that the story is not about humans. I can't give too much away though, as it will spoil the story. Since some readers clearly dont want to read stories that include them in any way shape or form (Which i can fully understand), hopefully the tag will avoid any more 'ruffled feathers'.
No chapter about Rush's first moments seeing "Snow" for real and reacting to her talking to him with his mind and perceptions clear?
6217163 I did consider this, but felt that a whole chapter devoted to 'OMG you can talk?!' didn't fit in with the flow of the story and felt somewhat 'clichéd'. Rush is quite a cynical character already and considering what he has seen and experienced so far, I didn't feel he would be that surprised to find she could talk on top of everything else.
You'll also find that as the story progresses, part of the reason for his lack of surprise at Celestia's appearance and his understanding of who she is becomes clearer.
I can't get enough of this story, it's really good.
6222036 Thanks, thats really great to hear!
When we're talking guns, am I right in assuming that they're muskets, arquebi, or some other early firearms?
6228692 I had in mind an arquebus to be honest. I decided to go with the word 'gun' as Ghai doesn't really know much about them and so probably wouldn't have known the correct term, rather using the older word used to refer to a 'hand cannon', or 'gonne'.
Besides, arquebus is hard to spell, let alone pronounce
I cannot express how good this is. Bravo good sir/Madame, bravo.
6236239 Thanks, thats very kind. I'm glad you're enjoying it!
I know what you said about things becoming clearer in the future, Bluespectre, but this chapter is pretty much what I mentioned being leery about after chapter 10.
I'm fine with "I just want to be a normal mare," but the strength of this reaction is a bit out of left field. We've seen no indication thus far that she has any feelings along those lines, and now she's suddenly really going out of her way to show her feelings and to dissuade him.
Which wouldn't be so bad, except that this kind of reaction is very frequently used to try and connect the princesses to someone who is not royalty. Speaking of...
Which brings me to the real reason I was hesitant: a rushed relationship (no pun intended). He's cared for her. She's cared for him. Neither was in much a position to interact with the other while being cared for, so this is really the first actual time they've spent together...
...and now they're suddenly pretty much head over heels for each other. Again, with little actual buildup to it.
You have a wonderful pair of worlds here - a darker Equestria where the rise of Nightmare Moon was a long, bloody affair, as well as what appears to be feudal Japan. You have a ton of plot points building to a massive overall story - a princess trying to escape long enough to recuperate, an experienced enemy who wants to win within a well-defined code of warfare conduct, and a young, brazen enemy who pretty much just wants the world to burn. You have us on the edge of our seats and wondering how the interplay between the two who want to defeat Celestia - and now each other - will affect the town and all its citizens, and who will come out of this alive. We're anticipating Rush and Celestia finding each other in this horrible situation and coming to rely on the other in order to overcome.
But with this chapter it really feels like all of that leading up just came to: Surprise! Blam; love.
6248706 One of the phenomenons I've come across during my life was just how fast someone could fall for another, with no particular rhyme or reason to it, it just 'happens'. One particular article on the subject which came to mind whilst envisioning this story was where an individual can 'fall in love' with someone who has helped them, particularly when they've been nursed back to health. It even has a name, but i can't for the life of me find it right now. Anyway, the speed this can happen varies dramatically, but usually its a fairly rapid process and is partly due to the 'closeness' of the people involved.
An argument about whether this is real love or not erupted around the topic, but the way i look at it, its all subjective anyway.
At this point in the story (I think Chapter 19?) I saw Rush and Celestia as more 'close friends' than actually 'in love', but romance is involved in the story, so some form of 'relationship' (call it what you will) is pretty much inevitable, but i didn't want it becoming solely focussed on Celestia's relationship with Rush. I saw Celestia as a younger princess at this point, thrown into a violent conflict with her own sister and seeing her people very much on the back hoof when it comes to the violence of war. In my mind, i pictured her as a princess tired of the constant pressure and ponies expecting her to have all the answers. Rush doesn't make any demands on her, nor ask her for anything, and its partly this 'difference' coupled with the alien environment which disarms her, allowing her emotions to come out.
There's another reason why Rush and Celestia are drawn to one another, but you wont find out about that until Chapter 25. Really, I want to leave some of the interpretation to the reader, rather than simply say 'they're in love'. I believe it's better to leave something to your imagination rather than having it all laid out neatly labelled.
I am working on the final chapters now, and i can only hope that readers enjoy the ending.
Many thanks for the feedback too, it's given me a lot to think about
6217163 Right? I'm super bummed about that.
As I reach the end of this incomplete story I'm starting to feel sad, because I will not know what happens or if it will end. I have just reached chapter 26 in the matter of 1 day I almost read your entire story... I have never been into a story so much before. And for the time and effort you put into this story, I thank you not only for the entertainment, but your inspiring story and great imagination. You may get comments like these but please take into concideration that every comment or "post" is just trying to point out your amazing work and incredible talent. So thank you and please, finish the story! Lol. ;)
6262487 Thank you so much for those kind comments, you've given me a great enthusiasm boost just when i needed one
. I've been working hard on the last few chapters but they will take quite a bit of editing and proof reading first. So far, the viewable story is up to Chapter 26 and around 170 pages or so long. There's another 100 I need to edit (so far), so i hope you'll bear with me, but more importantly, enjoy the rest!
Thanks once again. I'd better get back to writing
6264054 we'll thanks for that instant response! I don't suppose you let or have been asked this but if you need help reading over or editing I have done a fare share of that. Just a friendly suggestion I guess. Meh. But hey like I said take your time and have fun while doing it! ( I never said that but it sounds good ). Lol
Oh boy. Here comes the riot
Quite misanthropic, but that bias seems to be exclusive to the POV character, who clearly isn't in the right. I'll read on.
Okay, that does it. Between the flashback chapters out of nowhere, the constant POV changes to characters I don't care the least bit for, and the mindfuck that was this chapter, you got me so turned around I don't feel like looking for the main road anymore.
Goodbye.
Okay, so why didn't Thorn attack and kill Rend? He was distracted and it was a perfect time. Nothing in the text tells me why not.
As I read this, I get more and more a sour taste in my mouth. There's blood everywhere, and you didn't label it for gore. You didn't label it for Dark either, despite drug use, war, murder, consumption of flesh and brainwashing. I saw in your comment responses earlier showing that you first refused to label it Human despite it being almost entirely about a human. It makes me wonder what else the tags and description are hiding from the reader.
What's worse, I can see the whole story leading up to a hero/villain confrontation similar to Misunderstandings, a good concept with a terribly made villain who seemingly only exists to spread misery, and then puts everyone in a pointlessly hopeless situation where they're about to be murdered, and some Deus-ex-Machina saves them at the last second, with the villain dying at the very end but doing something horrible to get the last laugh. The pattern is so cliche, I can almost foresee the other guard sacrificing himself to keep Celestia alive because Rend is being a pointless psychopath.
Lovin' it so far, but I won't mind a fight between the human soldiers and therstals
6285090 I don't think you'll be disappointed.
6283607 Hi, thanks for taking the time to leave a comment.
You're absolutely right that some of the scenes contain fighting and the death of a few of the villagers. I kept the references to what had happened to them deliberately mild as i didn't want the story to be 'over the top' and gory. However, after reading your comment, i trotted off to the rules and regs part of Fimfiction and it does indeed state that 'any' reference to bloodshed, no matter how tame, should contain the 'Gore' tag, and so you'll see it's up there at the top. So thanks for pointing that out to me.
In regards to the use of the Human tag, i didn't use it originally as the story is not about humans. As i've said previously, they feature heavily in the story, true, but its not about them. You'll understand this as you read on (which i hope you do of course!). Anyway, after doing a bit of research following someone pointing this out to me, you will see that I applied the Human tag some time ago, so there was certainly no attempt to 'deceive' the reader.
I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree on your other points though. Naturally, not everyone is going to like the same things and your interpretation of what you're reading will not necessarily be the same as what i intended. That's one of the things I like about story telling, in that it gets the reader thinking and using their imagination.
I'm afraid i've never read 'Misunderstandings' though, or even heard of it before, but whether you think the ending of my story is cliche or not is, again, going to be down to your personal interpretation. I don't think it is, but that's only my opinion.
In respect to Rend, he's certainly not a one dimensional character and i believe that this becomes clearer as the story progresses. Certainly he comes across as cruel to the reader, but what I have tried to put across in the story is a little of how the thestrals view the world, their history, dedication to their goddess and how that translates to their actions in the human world.
Once again, thanks for your comment and helping me understand the tagging system.
I
By all the Gods i demand a update!!!
6291443 As you wish...Chapter Thirty Six - Fire Lillies, uploaded
At first I was under the impression that this was going to in a very misanthropic direction, and I was worried. Then I suddenly realized that Rush was a misanthrope, and thus as the POV character it wouldn't have been very appropriate if he didn't think accordingly. Rush is very well characterized, he shuns other humans, he has temper issues, there's a great deal of bitterness in him, and yet despite this, there's a great deal of compassion as well, not just towards his wounded charge, but also other human beings as well. He strikes me as cantankerous and deeply disappointed by life, and it's an interesting set up for a character. A hell of a lot better than most of the human characters you see in HiE or human related stories these days, so damn agreeable and mild that it makes you want to puke. So far, it's been a breath of fresh air.
Then the author, through alternate POVs, demonstrated that he knew EXACTLY what he was doing with this story. The alternate POVs are a masterstroke, showing, without telling, that the story ISN'T an "Equestrians are moral and cultural superiors" type of story, it is simply a barbaric and lawless time, both for humanity AND ponies. Granted, I've only read up to chapter 7 so far, but aside from a few minor typos and grammatical annoyances, this has been a great read so far. Most of the problems I've seen so far could be fixed by employing a decent prereader, if you haven't already done so. Looking forward to reading more. Thanks for writing, Bluespectre, I will be following this with interest.
I don't know about Rush's backstory. It comes across as awfully... contrived. His wife and daughter both turned on him for as far as I can tell, absolutely no reason other than that they were kidnapped, actually tried to kill him, and when he defended himself, his daughter told him she loved him?
Her actions would seem heavily at odds with her words. I mean, I suppose people can get scared, but that's her dad, man. Not to mention the mother. I can understand people being forced to do something, but there was no apology, no hesitation, no nothing, just, oh, you're that guy who raised me/guy I had a child with, well fiddle dee dee, I guess it's time to kill you now. Tough break buddy. It comes across as so sudden and so abrupt that it seems ridiculous, and completely breaks the immersion of the story. I'm going to continue reading to see if there's some kind of explanation of what is going on, but right now, I gotta say I'm extremely disheartened. It would be like if you came home from work one day to your loving family and your wife and daughter attacked you with knives out of the blue. This is the first time his wife and daughter have been mentioned, and the entire thing seems to be manufactured entirely to extract the maximum amount of sympathy from Celestia and the reader, but it's handled so abruptly and so clumsily that it actually just breaks story immersion. That's my opinion any way.
6293496 Hi, you're absolutely right, i could have expanded on the backstory of Rush's family more. At the time of writing I was worried about diverging too much from the main story, rather wanting to leave this more to the reader's imagination as to what they thought had happened to his family when they'd been taken away and why they had effectively joined the bandits. Essentially, I was thinking of a form of Stockholm Syndrome.
Another reason, was that i didn't want Rush to appear to be dwelling on this, instead accepting that it was a part of his past and had been buried to the point of being almost 'circumstantial' to his life. I felt this was important as it showed Rush to be a person who in some ways had a painful past, but that it was something he'd pushed from his mind. Celestia's appearance begins to break down some of those walls and he comes to understand he still has feelings, but there is still that sense of detachment from his human family. Whether this is due to his ancestry or not, i want the reader to decide. There's more to Rush's backstory as you read on, but i'd ruin it for you if I said any more.
You'll have to forgive me, i've always been a bit worried about ending up as being too 'explanatory' with anything I write. When I think back to some of the films i've watched, the ones I prefer are the ones that get you thinking. Of course, there's always going to be extremes, but I have tried to find a balance. I fully take on what you said and will bear it mind for any future writings.
Thanks again for the helpful feedback
6295742 While I certainly agree that Stockholm Syndrome can lead to sympathy with and empathy for their captors, what makes it come across as contrived is the extremity of that reaction. Stockholm Syndrome can lead to positive feelings toward the controller, negative feelings toward the rescuers, supportive behavior by the victim helping the abuser, and lack of desire by the victim to be rescued, it does not completely erase previous feelings. In those scenarios where hostages assisted their captors against rescuers, they were turning weapons on what they viewed as members of an outside group directly threatening their new "friends". Not family members that they had strong emotional ties with. My problem isn't the behavior itself, it's the abruptness in which it is portrayed, with no apparent feelings of remorse, hesitation, or even attempts to justify it. His wife and child were the aggressors, and as written, attacked him so suddenly and so forcefully that he was still suffering from shock at even seeing them alive when he was injured. They showed no shock, no hesitation, and no remorse in doing so, DESPITE the fact that as written, his daughters dying words were to say she loved him.
Additionally, the FBI statistics state that the amount of hostages who display SOME form of Stockholm Syndrome for their captors is about 8%. Now it's entirely likely that several factors can lead to more extreme forms of/higher percentages of Stockholm Syndrome, none of this changes the fact that their reactions come across as excessive in the extreme, to the point where in my case, the reader is jarred out of the narrative.
My take on it is this; you already have a habit of taking detours to show other POVs, some of which could probably have been done without. So far we've had Celestia, Nasta, some lord who's name escapes me, Thorn, Rend, and probably several others who's contribution to the narrative has left so little impression on me that I actually can't remember them. I may even have gotten those names wrong because I didn't care about them enough. I imagine that probably comes across as somewhat harsh, but I'm trying to illustrate another issue; the POV changes are useful techniques, but you are in danger of doing it too often/unnecessarily. When, as a reader, I find myself skimming over a certain POV because I want to get back to the narrative that involves the characters I actually care about and empathize with, that's a sign that the author has not devoted enough time to a set of characters for me to care about them, aside from how their actions affect the characters I DO care about.
This lack of concern hits other characters as well, Blossom's death had very little impact, other than a vague, aw... a young girl? That's too bad. She was never introduced in the narrative, in fact, her connection to and relationship with Rush is so vague that you don't even know she's his niece until after she's dead. Up until her death leads to a frantic search for revenge, we only know that she and Rush know each other, and that he likes her.
That's it. We learn absolutely nothing else about this character until she's already dead. Not only is her death not terribly shocking (because we don't really know her, or care about her much), we can't empathize with how much of an impact her death has on Rush, so much so that we have to be TOLD, in the narrative, how much her death has an impact. This all points to a couple of things. One, you're rushing the narrative to get to a specific point in the story, to the point where some of the characters and their importance to/relation with the narrative focus characters are being lost or missed, and this rush is also causing some characters actions to come across as extreme or even unbelievable because we lack the context that would make those actions make sense, given the characterization they have received.
Looking at the comments, I find that some of the other criticisms you are receiving are in effect readers who are getting confused at the narrative, to the point where they simply stop reading because they can't follow what is going on. ALL of these issues readers are having with the story probably come from the same source; not enough time is being used to flesh out the narrative and set the scene. The story is bounding along at a breakneck pace, without stopping to consider or even really shed light on the reasons for characters actions and feelings, and the result is that some readers are getting left behind and becoming disillusioned. My advice to you is that when multiple readers are having the same problem, it's a strong hint that you should probably slow down a bit and elaborate. Again, as soon as you have to TELL me that someone is feeling or thinking a certain way, you're taking a short cut. If there simply isn't enough context for you to SHOW me what they are feeling or thinking, that's a bad sign.
Remember, show me, don't tell me.
I hope this helps. I really do, because you've got a good story here, but it is sadly suffering for the reasons I laid out. Some readers won't care, readers are a diverse lot, but as evidenced by some of their comments, several do.
Gods thirst have been sated..For now but I exspect moar
from your glorious story