The big day is fast approaching, and Star is conducting her final rounds, checking in on each of her friends to make sure that everything is perfect, and having a little fun as she goes.
It's not so weird that Celestia is hostile, but the dialogue is just kind of off. She really doesn't sound like Celestia, or even angry Celestia. Is she supposed to be secretly Daybreaker and this whole thing was to overthrow her or something?
“Hold that thought.” She interrupted, raising one finger, then pointing it in front of her. “Starlight says: come her, now.”
"Come here", not "Come her".
Agreed. Lack of lewd isn't the issue. Plot is more important than plo ... err, I mean, What happens is more important than what happ ... I mean, How it is done is more ..
Ok, I give up.
How about: the story being authored for us via the characters is more important than the story being authored for another character via the characters? Not sure if that made sense :-).
===
So, this is a battle scene. Fine. Now, the question is, are we supposed to have enough information to figure out what happened?
That Starlight has gotten to Luna, when Celestia wasn't paying attention? Alright. We got enough hints of that last chapter. But here?
Starlight has a full body control trigger in Celestia, and I'm asking when and how?
The battle itself? I'll need to go over it a few times, but it seems Luna is able to somehow turn the two of them into shadows on Celestia's skin? Which seems like it would only make sense if Luna had the full power of Sombra / the nightmare force / the power of shadows we saw from all of that.
The real big question: Since Starlight had shown her "power" is in speech, can't Celestia do something to either muffle Starlight's speech, or distort what she hears (something on Celestia's own ears) to prevent that?
The funny thing about this arrogant, sneering Celestia is that at the end of the day, she's still just a jobber for the big villain, which only makes that arrogance feel even more incongruous and, honestly, unearned. I honestly find it hard to believe this proud, imperious god-queen would ever relinquish her throne, even to the student who so consistently outclasses her. And as others have said, you'll need a good explanation for how Starlight programmed her without her awareness, though I imagine Luna was instrumental there. (As has also been noted, I'd think that after the first few demonstrations of the "Starlight says" trigger, Celestia would do something about being able to hear Starlight. I suppose actually adjusting her strategy beyond "increase the yield of the explosion" would be giving the mortal too much credit? )
That being said, looking forward to more. It's just that this alternate take on Celestia doesn't accomplish anything the standard model could have done. (Indeed, I imagine she'd have a lot more faith in her sister's capabilities.)
11377856 Yeah, Celestia was so stupid that I had to assume she'd been programmed to be so dumb in the fight. And how would she not know what Luna can do in battle, when she's probably the only living person on the planet who has fought her?
Honestly if there were interspersed internal thoughts hinting to the audience that everything she does or says is programmed none of it would have been weird at all. But if she's really supposed to be imperious and overconfident as her actual character then it just comes out of nowhere.
11377673 Alright! There's a lot here so I'm going to try to go point by point (also, I may look into revising this chapter following the feedback I've gotten, but for now, here's where we're at).
1) You're not REALLY supposed to know what happened yet aside from the obvious points that Starlight is in control. Finding out how long she's been in control and to what extent was meant to come up in the next chapter.
2) To be honest, I'm not intimately familiar with the types of magic that each party has access to, and more or less played by ear based on what I felt fit with each of them. Their becoming shadows seemed like something that fit with the whole emphasis on magic themed around darkness, which I tried to keep distinct from the dark magic that Celestia uses.
3) This version of Celestia (that I'm now considering adjusting) is meant to be overconfident, unwilling to accept that she can lose at all, and going all in on increasingly large displays of sheer power. She also never considers trying to run or teleport, and barely expends any effort in figuring out how Starlight is doing any of what she's doing, instead just continuing on with brute force.
Thanks for your interest! Hope some of this answers your questions. Also, keep in mind, I may have just screwed up as well.
11377856 Yeahhhhhh, that seems to be a running theme. For what it's worth, 'increase za yeeeeeeeeld!' was a sort of overwhelming force mentality, in the same way that you don't often vary your methodology when killing ants.
I may rework this Celestia, I'm glad that you found things to like about it regardless!
Oh boy, things are really kicking off now. I think Celestia's arrogance and relative incompetence meshes with her feelings towards Starlight. Might be worth inserting some flashbacks of previous encounters to establish their current relationship, going from 'Twilight reformed a villain again, standard' to 'Maybe Twilight did not succeed this time, something suspicious is going on here'. I am looking forward to seeing how this plays out.
It's not so weird that Celestia is hostile, but the dialogue is just kind of off. She really doesn't sound like Celestia, or even angry Celestia. Is she supposed to be secretly Daybreaker and this whole thing was to overthrow her or something?
This is pretty cool. Against just about anyone else, Celestia would have won.
Not worried about the lack of lewd here. With this sort of thing the setup is more important than the payoff.
"Come here", not "Come her".
Agreed. Lack of lewd isn't the issue. Plot is more important than plo ... err, I mean, What happens is more important than what happ ... I mean, How it is done is more ..
Ok, I give up.
How about: the story being authored for us via the characters is more important than the story being authored for another character via the characters? Not sure if that made sense :-).
===
So, this is a battle scene. Fine. Now, the question is, are we supposed to have enough information to figure out what happened?
That Starlight has gotten to Luna, when Celestia wasn't paying attention? Alright. We got enough hints of that last chapter. But here?
Starlight has a full body control trigger in Celestia, and I'm asking when and how?
The battle itself? I'll need to go over it a few times, but it seems Luna is able to somehow turn the two of them into shadows on Celestia's skin? Which seems like it would only make sense if Luna had the full power of Sombra / the nightmare force / the power of shadows we saw from all of that.
The real big question: Since Starlight had shown her "power" is in speech, can't Celestia do something to either muffle Starlight's speech, or distort what she hears (something on Celestia's own ears) to prevent that?
The funny thing about this arrogant, sneering Celestia is that at the end of the day, she's still just a jobber for the big villain, which only makes that arrogance feel even more incongruous and, honestly, unearned. I honestly find it hard to believe this proud, imperious god-queen would ever relinquish her throne, even to the student who so consistently outclasses her. And as others have said, you'll need a good explanation for how Starlight programmed her without her awareness, though I imagine Luna was instrumental there. (As has also been noted, I'd think that after the first few demonstrations of the "Starlight says" trigger, Celestia would do something about being able to hear Starlight. I suppose actually adjusting her strategy beyond "increase the yield of the explosion" would be giving the mortal too much credit? )
That being said, looking forward to more. It's just that this alternate take on Celestia doesn't accomplish anything the standard model could have done. (Indeed, I imagine she'd have a lot more faith in her sister's capabilities.)
Even with the lack of lewd, this was a pretty great chapter.
11377362
Yeah... Looking like may have flubbed the execution a bit, maybe I'll have a look at taking a run at a revised version
11377856
Might not have quite stuck the landing on this one, could be worth doing a bit of a reevaluation.
11377856
Yeah, Celestia was so stupid that I had to assume she'd been programmed to be so dumb in the fight. And how would she not know what Luna can do in battle, when she's probably the only living person on the planet who has fought her?
Honestly if there were interspersed internal thoughts hinting to the audience that everything she does or says is programmed none of it would have been weird at all. But if she's really supposed to be imperious and overconfident as her actual character then it just comes out of nowhere.
11377673
Alright! There's a lot here so I'm going to try to go point by point (also, I may look into revising this chapter following the feedback I've gotten, but for now, here's where we're at).
1) You're not REALLY supposed to know what happened yet aside from the obvious points that Starlight is in control. Finding out how long she's been in control and to what extent was meant to come up in the next chapter.
2) To be honest, I'm not intimately familiar with the types of magic that each party has access to, and more or less played by ear based on what I felt fit with each of them. Their becoming shadows seemed like something that fit with the whole emphasis on magic themed around darkness, which I tried to keep distinct from the dark magic that Celestia uses.
3) This version of Celestia (that I'm now considering adjusting) is meant to be overconfident, unwilling to accept that she can lose at all, and going all in on increasingly large displays of sheer power. She also never considers trying to run or teleport, and barely expends any effort in figuring out how Starlight is doing any of what she's doing, instead just continuing on with brute force.
Thanks for your interest! Hope some of this answers your questions. Also, keep in mind, I may have just screwed up as well.
11377856
Yeahhhhhh, that seems to be a running theme. For what it's worth, 'increase za yeeeeeeeeld!' was a sort of overwhelming force mentality, in the same way that you don't often vary your methodology when killing ants.
I may rework this Celestia, I'm glad that you found things to like about it regardless!
Oh boy, things are really kicking off now. I think Celestia's arrogance and relative incompetence meshes with her feelings towards Starlight. Might be worth inserting some flashbacks of previous encounters to establish their current relationship, going from 'Twilight reformed a villain again, standard' to 'Maybe Twilight did not succeed this time, something suspicious is going on here'. I am looking forward to seeing how this plays out.
11382818
Thanks so much!