After a thousand years of exile, Princess Luna has returned!
As part of events to mark the occasion, for one night the palace has turned Canterlot into an open-air festival of art, music, performances and vendors, with the city's various galleries, studios, and museums offering free admittance to all who would join in the celebration of Equestria's beautiful night.
Octavia isn't normally a pony for such events, and at first would rather just stay home and practice her cello. Thankfully she has a friend who knows better, who drags her out in spite of herself, allowing Octavia to experience the many marvels the night may hold.
A Scratchtavia meet-n-greet story.
Rated Teen for events towards the end.
Story was inspired in large part by personal experiences had during Winnipeg's Nuit Blanche 2016.
Events and locations have been ponified for purposes of this story.
Reviewed as Recommended by The Pleasant Commentator and Review Group.
Pre-reading thanks to:
• Stitchwolf
• An-Twan Star
• Wave Blaster
• A M Shark
Holy crap, where have I been for, like, the past year? That's a long story, but it can be summed up by the word "life." I'm not really back, per se, but I came back in time to see you publish this story and expound on your lack of comments. Time to change that, I think!
I remember Nuit Blanche myself, although that of Nuit Blanche Toronto, and moreso because my research professor suggested putting one of our collaborative simulation projects on display as a piece of contemporary interactive art than the fact I actually attended. Leave it to him to brainstorm up creative uses for his primary research project. In hindsight, I would have really liked to attend Nuit Blanche, if only because this story piqued my interest and illuminated me to the festival I missed. There's actually quite a few more I should have attended during my stint in Toronto . . .
To me, this story seems to be best read with a glass of wine on a twilit night outside when the air is cool and there's nothing else to do. It's very serene and artistic, which I'd think was what you were going for. In that way, it's a very nice, slow story. Unfortunately, those are not the conditions under which I actually read your story. I'll probably need to come back on it when I'm not under the weight of several upcoming midterms.
I suppose I'm putting your story to different standards, considering your combination of tags (Romance/Slice of Life) is one of my favorite combinations and is one I use all the time. You go far more heavily onto "Slice of Life" as opposed to "Romance" than I would as evidenced by the fact this story really doesn't touch on romance 'till the end of the fourth chapter. It eschews classical story structure (where the climax of the story is in the middle) and pulls out the exposition to cover essentially the entire thing. That makes sense, given this story seems built off your own Nuit Blanche experience, but it almost feels too Slice of Life—that is, there's so much description of mundane life experiences that it no longer feels like a classical story.
Is that a weakness? I don't really know, since it depends on what you were going for. An embellished personal recount of Nuit Blanche this is, but an exciting story this is not. (That might explain the downvotes.) Your descriptions are great, but they alone do not a story make. I'll be honest, I was kind of hoping for a bit of extra story between the fourth and fifth chapter (because I am a sucker for the
), but that's just me. Take it how you will.
I'll close with my absolute favorite quote of the story:
It's not so much my favorite because it includes bubble wrap (I actually don't get how it's a reference to Tabby) but because structurally, it looks an awful lot like a Donald Trump tweet! I would much prefer he tweet about the multipurpose nature of horns than . . . whatever he's probably tweeting about now.
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Oh wow, thank you very much!
I do encourage you to attend one if you ever get the chance, they can be quite neat. At least if it has a proper bohemian feel to it.
The feedback here is very appreciated, being pretty much all I could ask for. You were right about the "romance" tag, it was very much a yes/no/maybe choice. Do I err on it just having that single tag, which for a long story looks odd, or add in really the only other appropriate other one. Went with both obviously in the end. As to wanting some more between chapters 4 and 5, heh, I will admit to getting rather out of my depth there and decided it best left to the reader's imagination what our two protagonists got up to on stage and after. I do acknowledge the other points about story vs recounting why I was hesitant to work on this after originally starting. Something to work on better next time!
As to the bubble wrap comment, it was Tabitha St. Germain's answer to the question "If you woke up in Equestria as your pony, what's the first thing you would do?" ("I'd pop bubble wrap with my unicorn horn!") It was expounded on in Pop by ocalhoun, which is a delightful little comedy piece.
Your review is ready over at the PCaRG.
Awfully atmospheric!
Cool Mane Six cameos, too.
Also, it's pretty awesome how you Canadians have cloud mazes at your festivals. I'm not sure I buy the crepe makers, though. I mean, there's fantasy, and then there's just blatant wish fulfillment.