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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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This always gets me thinking about my own writing. On the topic of your own, it reads well the tension felt through out the chapter. I especially loved your Celestia and Twilight.
1. Celestia is obvious hiding something(s) and this reads strange after a fashion. Artemis cant rule if she isnt part of the solution i.e knows all the things. Another that strikes me as curious is Celestia natural inclination to towards secrecy? And general shadiness?
It reads to me that this is one the affects of a thousand years alone? In a sense? Im not sure if its deliberate but thats my take on. Another thing that struck me as how much secrecy should there be?
Everyones all well lets erase history and for the short term that, might be fine? What about when history repeats itself? Or, maybe all these so sane and eternally optimistic people could never go mad right?
Your mommy immortals will take care of you... thats really what they are really saying? Only THEY can make the hard choices....and be right? Right?
So not crazy about Celestia, I hope you explore this angle and considering that it seems to be their in the background. I am looking forward to your answers. Ps. Your Celestia is a complex character and well written. I just dislike mommy and daddy immortal s erasing history for reasons?
Mommy and mommy cough.
Other then Celestia and Artemis getting into it. My second point is Twilight.
2. I quite honeslty love and dislike Twilight in the fandom. She like most protagonist gets a free pass on the crap she does thats actually fucked. Their is that.
I whole heartedly applaude you having Twilight be the antagonist here. Because in the back of my mind. Shes not unreasonable in her critcisms more over they need someone anyone to say these uncofortable things. These supposedly imperfect but secretly perfect immortals in check. If not on the occasion a smack in the nose or just by saying no?
I dont know but if anyone had mad power, immortality and the splendid affect of no one telling you no? Let alone being questioned?
So short answer I like your Twilight and your Artemis for their willingness to disagree. It tells a mean story and so much to the politics! Because what would Celestia choose her wife or Politics?
Pps. Is their any lingering affects for Luna because for such a seemingly more grounded read? It is not touched upon? Well it may be for storys sake? Im just curious? Thank you!
I am open to criticim of the above thoughts. Even my grammar. Lol
Thank you and have a kind day!
10621144
Oh my god, Thank you so much for commenting!
I'm sitting here legitimately teary eyed that someone would take the time to think so much, then write so much, about my little story. To say I'm flattered doesnt do it justice. I haven't smiled this much in a while, so thank you for that!
I'll do my best to answer your questions without getting too 'spoilery'. But I'll let you in on a (not so) secret. This story isn't pre-written! I have a lot of major plot points in my head, as well as where I want to take most of the characters, but the journey getting there is as much of a mystery to me as it is to you lovely readers. I'll be putting a spoiler tag on the paragraphs below, but keep in mind that I'm not going to be talking about plot points, only characters and what I had in mind for them when I started writing, as well as where they're at now. If you want to read it, that's okay, if you want to ignore it and make your own conclusions as you go through the chapters, that's okay too!
On to your points, I think you are one hundred percent bang-on about your first point regarding Celestia. Her immortality, combined with her millennia alone contributes massively to the way she conducts herself. Both on the political stage and, unfortunately for her loved ones, her private life. At this point, I don't think she can help it, she loves her ponies fiercely to the point of being overbearing and doing stupid thigs like erasing important history. I fully intend for Artemis to have a long conversation with her regarding this.
I think Artemis is a bit paranoid around her. She knows that Celestia's policy of 'don't ask, don't tell' is in play, as it usually is, and she hates that. I always intended for Celestia to be a sort of 'foil' character for Artemis, despite their love for each other, and they do love each other. Celestia is very much a scalpel whereas Artemis is a hammer. But just like Artemis, she is also a mama bear who will do anything to protect her cubs. However, Celestia is not Princess Protector of the Realm, she is a Princess of Equestria.
On to your second point. Twilight Sparkle holds a strange place in my heart. On one day I can't decide if I love her character and on another I hate her. She is entirely unique for me in this regard as she's the only character in the fandom that I feel this way about. I think I'm mostly on the 'love her' side. Mostly. Her character in this story was always meant to be a 'foil' for Lyra. Just as Celestia and Artemis are for each other. Lyra constantly tries to both compare herself to, and distance herself from Twilight. Their past is rocky, but Twilight is so... 'Twilight', that I don't think she realises just why Lyra is so antagonistic towards her.
I really like the direction that her character has taken so far. I love that she's practically the Immortals only critic, yet at the same time would do anything to please her Immortal mentor. I think that if Artemis wasn't in the picture, in this story I mean, she wouldn't say anything and maybe even not question anything.
On to Luna. Her and Artemis' loyalty to each other will be touched upon later, so I'll not go into that. He time away still very much effects her, but her need to be there for Artemis wins over her trauma. I intend to go more into her time away. Her and Artemis' apology to each other felt like a big cop-out to me. Writing-wise, I mean. I think it was one of my weakest points but I'm not going to go back and change it. Writing this story is supposed to be a learning experience after all. It was basically one scene of them saying sorry and then that was it. How boring, right? I want to go further into their relationship. Both felt like they've utterly failed the other, even though neither are truly at fault. Their loyalty to each other only makes this more painful.
To anyone reading this, Thank you so much for even being slightly interested in my story. Words cannot describe how much happiness it brings me that people are even glancing at it. I just hope I do my ideas justice, otherwise this comment is going to be pretty cringe. If it does turn out that way? Eh, C'est la vie, as they say.
I love you all,
LadyMaria
Another fantastic chapter!!! Awesome work!!!
Now look what you've done, you've inspired me to respond.
LadyMaria, I like hearing that you have an overreaching plan for this story. So many writers just write with no real plan for future chapters, and eventually find they've written themselves into a corner. As for me, the one story I published here I finished and edited to100% before I published it. I did that not only so I wouldn't write myself into a corner, but because I didn't want to get stuck on a story point and end up not updating for months. Having any plan is good. :)
I agree with your points on Twilight. She does have a special and strange place n my heart as well. She's fun and oh so adorkable at times. But I think her more negative traits come out when she is convinced that she is right. She becomes insufferably smug to the point of arrogance, and doesn't consider the possibility that she might be wrong. I saw that trait in this very chapter, and I feel you've captured that part well. Twilight simply does not understand the 'real world' as well as she thinks she does. So far, her deux ex machina 'friendship laser' (elements of harmony) Has defeated all enemies so far, so she presumes that the darker methods that Artemis employs reflect flaws in Artemis rather then necessary actions. It will shock Twilight to her core when she realizes that those darker skills will be very much necessary later on.
10621537
Thank you!
10621556
Thanks so much!
So changelings aren't alive then?
I'm on the fence about this story. It's gone in such different directions over the past several chapter compared to how it started out. Surprises aren't neccesarily bad, but the issue here is that you have an unlikable protagonist in the role of Mary Sue.
To be clear, Artemis is a murderous alcoholic who abandoned both her wife and her duty of protectorship to wallow in self-pity for a thousand years, pushes around ponies and magically silences them, and hurts those close to her even when they beg her not to. Are we to feel sympthathy for this? What hardship that was not self-inflicted has she endured to earn our sympathy? And you have gifted this horrifically unsympathetic character with title and privilege and power and the undying love and trust of immortals...because why?
Unlikable protagonists can make for interesting stories. Consider My Little Dashie. It's protagonist was frustrating and annoying, but it's one of the more well known stories in the fandom because at least appealed to our emotions and desired through the eyes of its flawed character. And Mary Sues, while generally annoying, can be put to good use in self-insert wish-fulfillment fics. Provided the readers wish-fulfillment is in line with the author's, that works perfectly well.
But here you have a character I don't like, and certainly wouldn't want to be. And this character I don't like and don't want to be, is leading the ponies around by the nose, bullying them in some cases, all while flaunting moral authority and approval from the powers that be.
If a bully gets their comeuppance, some may revel in schadenfreude. If a bully is broken and we are shown how and why, and we are then walked through their redemption, there can be be joy at the healing. But this...this story seems to be saying, "I'm an asshole and I'm right." Imagine you see someone punch a stranger and laugh. Do you wish to be that person? No. Do you wish to hear their story and watch them succeed at what they do? Probably not. Now imagine the appointed moral guardians seeing this, rubber stamping it and saying "yes, this is all well and good and proper, carry on."
That's what this story seems to be doing. It's not fun, and it doesn't lead me to want to see what happens to these characters. The outcome I most want to see right now, is for Twilight to take the high ground, and refuse to participate any further. To say "no, this is wrong," and because the wrongness is being endorsed, to walk away and abandon Equesrtia and to go live in the woods, because she's now convinced that these people aren't on the right side, and that she wants nothing to do with them. For the elements to then become essential, and for Artemis to go seek her out to ask for her help...and for Twilight to have a suicide spell prepared for exactly this occassion, and halfway pre-casted at the ready when Artemis walks in the door. Because she perceives Artemis as an untrustworthy monster...and she'd prepared suicide as a contingency so that she'd never have to endure horror at her hands.
The quality of the writing is good...but you've applied that quality to deliberately creating a character I don't want to see succeed. It's not with carelessness or lack of ability, but with care and precision that you have skillfully created a character that I specifically want to not see validated by success. At this point I don't particularly care about her or like her enough to want to see her redeemed and healed either. I don't even really want to see her punished...because within the context of the story, you've made her out to be right. As a result, Artemis as a character has garnered neither my fondness, nor my desire for schadenfreude, nor my sympathy.
And this character who invokes none of these things within me...you've placed her at the forefront of the story and relegated all pony characters I do like...to being either willing participants to her unlikeability or useless tagalongs in her wake. Everybody either loves miss Mary Sue, or gets pushed around by her, and this looks like it's heading into "let's cheer for the abuser" territory.
I don't want to see what Artemis does or what happens to her. I don't want to see what the Celestia and Luna in her pocket do, or what happens to them. And I certainly don't want to see the ponies who aren't on her side be slowly won over and conclude with "yay, the awful, horrible character is great!"
Do I want to see a victim bullied? No. But even less do I want to see the victim cheering on the bully and converting to her side and saying "everything you did was right and justified in the end."
Where can this story possibly go that's anyplace I want to see?
10655274
Thanks for the long comment!
You are 100% correct.
No, seriously. Artemis is unlikeable. Why she is a lot of the things you stated will - hopefully - be told throughout the story. I don't intend for it to be over anytime soon and I'm hoping I'll get across the characters motivations as it progresses.
I do hope you'll continue reading, but if I lost you, that's okay. Thanks you so much for reading this far!