A prequel to Luna Eclipsed. It seems like a dream come true when Lodestar finds herself working directly for Her Royal Highness Princess Luna, but she soon learns that a thousand years of exile have left Luna dangerously out of touch. This makes for a poor combination with Luna's limitless power and terrible pride. Now Lodestar has to deal with both her own failings and Princess Luna's disruptive struggles to find herself, not to mention the threat of being accidentally asphyxiated by a careless goddess.
Chapters (4)
It's kind of sad when you read a chapter, look at the fic rating, and realize you don't know how you stumbled on that fic. (Yes, I did that just now)
Only thing I didn't like is the lack of spacing between paragraphs. It makes it kind of hard to read sometimes. Other than that, you did an amazing job on this. Time to read the other chapters!
Man... Looking at the picture for this fic, at first I thought Lodestar was a stallion, because it sounds like a more masculine name. Then when I was reading, I wasn't reading closely enough and thought Sunspot was a mare.
The only suggestion I have for this chapter is to please actually describe Luna's guards. We know what they look like, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't show us.
Midnight's covered one issue, now I'm covering another. Write moar!
Sure as hell deserves to be featured. Good so far.
This is highly enjoyable. Your original characters are charming, and Lodestar's change in attitude is very natural and convincing.
Good so far! It's nice to see a well-done, flawed OC like Lodestar. And I like your version of Luna.
Complete?
But I want moooooooooooooore!!!
Please, tell us what happens after nightmare night !!!
Pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!! /whining
I very much enjoyed your take on Luna. She's assertive even when awkward and not desperate to please Celestia. It fits in very well with the Luna we saw in Luna Eclipsed. I hope you write more.
This is an interesting, believable, and original take on Luna. Well done.
Really great job on this. I like Luna in this and how she has no sense of time, which is very understandable. She's weird (different), but it's what makes me like her, and she's allowed to be different!
Eagerly reading the rest.
It's finished? Aww... I really enjoyed this. I see no reason why this can't continue - Um, that is, if you want to, of course.
I truly enjoyed this one and I hope you write a sequel! Adorably awkward Luna is adorable
There is no way this can go badly. No way at all.
wow!! this Luna is the BEST Luna, I love her old fashioned mannerisms :D Please please continue this story, drag the damned thing out with ridiculously long dialogue, I beg of thee!
This was well done. My only criticism is that it's implied in the show that Luna dosn't use the Royal We when addressing Celestia, which makes sense as Celestia isn't her subject.
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Good point about the formatting. I'm still getting used to how fimfic works, and I'll definitely do that for my next story.
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I honestly don't know how I managed to miss that.
703121 (and similar)
I wouldn't expect a sequel. The main characters' arcs are pretty much finished. I've got a vague idea for a somewhat related Luna story, but A) it's separate enough that I don't know if Lodestar would even appear in it, and B) it's currently maybe sixth in my list of things to write. Odds that I'll get around to it are low.
I went into this expecting to read a chapter to get a feel for the piece, then head to sleep. Instead, I read through the whole thing, dreading the end simply because I did not want to be forced to stop. Like others, I was left wanting more, though I do feel that this is in some ways a good thing. (Perhaps the difficulty is in knowing what comes next in the story of Luna, and wanting to see how you portray the aftermath of Nightmare Night?) In any case, I greatly enjoyed reading this.
Oh good gravy, Princess Luna will to have to invent new words for how fired you should be for doing that, Lodestar.
edit-- BTW, great story so far!
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She probably already has, actually.
An interesting take on Luna, though not one that really jibes with my own view. Luna forgetting that ponies need to breathe stretches believability to the breaking point. I'd expect that after just one major incident Luna would be able to come up with a couple of basic rules (1. Don't directly cast a spell on another pony without their permission; 2. Don't make large environmental changes in the presence of another pony without considering the consequences) that she'd be able to follow. There's a fine line between habit and stupidity.
Lodestar's character was too simple in my view, perhaps because of the limited number of other characters she could work against (and in the case of Luna, she was overshadowed). Sunspot's side-story didn't really go anywhere satisfying, and suffered from tell-don't-show syndrome.
But... on the balance, I did enjoy this story. The writing style is good and it does get a lot of mileage out of the literal "out of this world" thought patterns and mannerisms that Luna displays, and I did empathize with Lodestar. So, I'll call this good... but not great.
This does not feel complete.
I realize that the events of 'Luna Eclipsed' happen immediately afterwards, but I do not feel a sense of closure from reading this.
In my honest opinion, this needs an epilogue. Something to describe the aftermath of 'Luna Eclipsed' from these characters' points of view.
“Thou art bored, then! We apologize, we forgot about boredom!”
Instant star-upthumb. This story is a great and fun take on Luna's social awkwardness.
I love Lodestar and Sunspot. The characterization of those OC's made them, I daresay, almost as enjoyable as Luna herself! I wouldn't be the least bit disappointed if any of your future stories happened to involve these two amazing characters.
"In fact, when I know what is meant by 'mamelon' and 'ravelin'"
I caught your Modern Major-General reference.
I liked it. There was nice character interaction even without having some major conflict which is tied up with a bow by the end of the story. Suspot learns his lesson and Luna's story arc continues into "Luna Eclipsed." My only concern is that I feels like Lodestar herself could have done with a more clearly defined conflict and resolution by the end of the story.
874777
Yeah, I definitely had some trouble with the pacing of the conflicts. Lodestar's arc is resolved around the beginning of the third act, and it was a struggle to keep her engaged until the end. I think that's the biggest weakness left in this story. Leaving Luna's arc unresolved until Luna Eclipsed was a risk, and it looks like I've had mixed reactions to it, but it's gratifying to hear that it worked for you.
(Good catch on the Gilbert & Sullivan bit, by the way. I was wondering if anyone saw that.)
(Hi! Here by backlink from your comment on No Regrets. Thanks for your thoughtful feedback there!)
Augh. Four chapters and done? I feel a lot like I did when I got to the end of Chapter 11 of Contraptionology! (it was the last chapter at the time). I was flabbergasted. The bad guy won. "That can't be the end," I said. Of course, in that case, I complained to some friends, and promptly felt foolish when someone pointed out the story's "incomplete" tag.
Here, I'm with Crisis: the story just feels incomplete. I realize you're unlikely to address it -- which is reasonable -- but it really would benefit from additional writing. Leading the story up to Nightmare Night and resolving Luna's arc by implication leaves the reader with the same complaint that Lodestar had: we've put in all the work and gotten invested here, and now the payoff is happening somewhere else.
Having resolved Lodestar's arc in the previous chapter also (as you've noted) makes Ch4 feel like a build-up instead of a resolution. Since she's already had her big moment, it feels like her appearances are setting up another conflict and another arc that wants more resolution down the road. ("I thought I was the pony who was teaching Luna about friendship ..." strikes me as key. After a chat like that, no matter how much Celestia may reassure, there's going to be some doubt gnawing at her -- doubt which I suspect Nightmare Night would only reinforce.)
And hey, what about Morning Glory's arc? She waltzed in, screwed up the lives of every single protagonist, and waltzed out. Now that she's no longer on speaking terms with any of the protagonists, there's a lot of karma waiting to be unleashed, and Lodestar has a lot of good reasons to unleash it, and/or leverage her into cleaning up some of the damage they caused.
(Unrelatedly, I briefly wondered -- at the Ch3 glassblowing scene -- whether Morning Glory was Celestia in disguise. Decided against it, because she wouldn't have written something so damaging to her sister. But the idea of her being so good at something so important to Luna's character had me leaping for parallels that may or may not exist.)
Anyway, stepping back: the fact that I'm trying so hard to ask you for more should be all you need to know about what I thought of your story.
You're clearly comfortable with stories with depth, and following intriguing premises out from canon to their logical ends. Both wonderful traits that are making me look forward to more.
The wordplay especially was a high point -- I stopped with some delight to look up Luna's esoteric vocabulary -- and for as much and as well as your concept of sesguin was used, I would have loved to see it further still. (One nitpick: You want "inamorata" instead of "inamorato", since the -o version refers to a masculine partner, and your clever setup to its reuse at the tail end of Ch1 would be even better if it were accurate.)
Best,
-H
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In hindsight, it probably would've been a good idea to include a brief epilogue. I would've had to restructure a lot of the third act, but it would've been a stronger ending as a standalone piece. I think the best way to take this story is to read it and watch Luna Eclipsed immediately afterwards... but people aren't actually going to do that. Lesson learned, I guess.
As for Morning Glory, she was intended more as the impetus behind Sunspot's arc than as a fully fleshed-out character with an arc of her own. Writing this, I didn't feel like she needed to get her comeuppance in the same way Radiance did. All she's guilty of is A) doing to Sunspot what Sunspot did to Starlight Song and B) publishing an article that was entirely true. She's basically the mechanism by which other characters' bad decisions take effect. As to her actually being Celestia, I may have to steal that (or something very much like it) if I ever get around to writing One Giant Leap.
I'll admit to having more fun with the wordplay and theme naming than is probably justified. Good catch with "inamorata"— I'm not sure how I missed that.
As far as "following premises to their logical ends" goes... well, this is nothing compared to Mortal, my current project. Feel free to PM me if you want to know more. You've got a good eye for character, and I could use an outside opinion on my early draft.
"The glow from Luna’s horn abruptly vanished. The princess was breathing heavily,"
Breathing? She didn't it before at all, why now? And I would think that rising moon shouldn't be that hard for her. More like snap of the fingers( hooves ;) ).
Great story BTW.
Epilogue would be niiiice *hinthint*.
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As incredibly late of a response as this is, I must make my voice be heard!
I recently decided to find this story in the vast repository of stories that my Fimfiction account holds, and upon finding it, was reminded that it was completed. Lodestar's character was one I loved to read about, and I really (really, really, really, really, really, really, etc.) want a sequel :C.
So... please? Pwetty pwease?
Note: I wonder if it's because I always use the Lodestar scorestreak on BO2...
encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSCyBcDxU7lZApq2WI9PT-h7Rb05KpT5BNdNB98E4mHvOkwk8G_NA How this reminded me of this story is up to interpretation...
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I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you. Writing Lodestar was great fun, but she's learned what she needed to learn and I don't see room to continue her story in a way that's worthy of the character. I tried to start a sequel about Luna, but that story refused to come together. (I know what the beginning and end need to be, but the middle is a big question mark.) Besides, there's still so much ponyfic I need to write that doesn't involve these characters at all.
1785592
Suddenly, a mushroom cloud formed over a town, followed by a loud explosion.
Aw, I knew nothing good would come from this. Perhaps one day inspiration will strike and you will be able to use Lodestar once again. However, that's besides the point. I respect the fact that you can develop a great character and leave said character with those qualities of greatness, rather than ruining said character in a later installment (we've all read those sequels where the author accidentally "broke" a great character and/or idea.) Maybe I should read several more of your stories instead of sticking to one...
Well, thanks for the response. Despite being saddened, I know I'll read another story that will make me flip more desks than the previous one xD.
Very lovely story. Honestly the story felt too short. It really felt like there should be more to it so I suppose if the worst I can say is more ppelase, that makes it a pretty damn awesome fic *grins*
Came back to this fic from your blog about sequels (not the database one, sadly), only to see that I had already read it and gave it a thumb down.
I almost never downthumb because I don't even read the fics that I would, so I figured I'd better give this one a re-read.
Okay, Alien Loner Luna fic, round two.
Ponies with rocking horses. My life is complete.
Celestia should get mad now.
Luna's both fascinating and sad. Engaging chapter.
Poor Luna.
Did Radiance seriously think she could get away with mouthing off to a Goddess? The lesson was clearly needed.
Lodestar confessing to Luna showed a great deal of character. Their interactions are pretty heartwarming.
Love how much progress they both made.