The Aftermath
+ 98:27:00 / – 00:04:00
Dear Princess Celestia,
How are you?
I'm kind of worried about Twilight. She refused to sleep for a
coplfew days. She kept muttering about Princess Luna, and she wouldn't tell me what was wrong. So I sent you're sister a letter and asked her to snoop on Twilight and find out what was bothering her.Well, the problem got
resalvfixed. Twilight's sleeping again now. But she's still acting weird, and when ever she goes to sleep, she makes weird noises and keeps moaning about Luna. I can't tell if she's still upset, but now she's keeping me awake at night.It's really frsturat.I don't like it.Can you check up on her or something? Luna won't answer my letters, so I don't know if she did something or not.
Your loyal dragon,
Spike
Lying on the rug in her bedroom, Celestia read the letter again. She didn't know what to make of it.
The door to the colonnaded balcony opened, admitting both Luna and the light of the morning sun. Celestia's sister looked very well rested, despite having just finished her stewardship of the night.
"Tia! Thy sunrise was most beautiful this morning." Luna pranced across the room to greet Celestia with a friendly nuzzle.
"You're awfully cheerful this morning," Celestia chuckled. "What, did the schoolfoals start offering you candy early this year?"
"Nn-nnn." Luna shook her head and gave her sister a secretive smile, but she didn't offer any further explanation. She began humming to herself and dancing idly about the bedroom, and Celestia turned back to Spike's missive.
"Oh, Lulu, since you're here... Do you remember getting a letter from Spike a few days ago?"
The sound of scrabbling hooves and a dull thump brought Celestia's attention back to the room.
"A letter from... um... Spike?" Luna's voice was muffled by the fact that she'd somehow tripped and fallen into a stack of pillows atop Celestia's bed.
Celestia's eyes narrowed and she rose from the carpet, levitating the scrap of parchment. A suspicion started to take hold in her mind. Luna was awfully happy this morning, and she sounded awfully cagey about that simple question. There was something going on here, and Celestia meant to find out what it was. "You should be more careful, Lulu. It doesn't do, getting snared in your own schemes."
Luna gave an affronted snort, struggling to extricate herself from the pillows. "I have no idea what you mean, sister. It's just that my... knees are a little wobbly this morning." Yes, the younger princess was definitely nervous: she'd slipped into common speech.
"Lulu," Celestia intoned warningly. "You did receive a letter from Spike, didn't you? And you didn't see fit to tell me?" She advanced on her sister.
"I... yes... but it was nothing, Tia!" Luna scrambled off the bed and began backing away, her eyes darting around the room and looking for an escape route. "He just wanted me to watch her dreams. He said she was upset about something. I did, I watched them, and... and she's fine now!" Luna seemed to notice the door to the balcony and began to turn toward it.
Celestia's horn glowed, and the balcony doors slammed shut. "That's not what Spike says, Lulu. He says Twilight – my faithful student – is still acting out of sorts. Are you two planning something? Something I should know about?"
"It's not like that, Tia," the other princess wailed. "I swear, none of it was my idea! I just went to look at her dreams, and she... and she..."
A malevolent smile formed on Celestia's lips. Oh, now this is fun. When was the last time I got to pry a secret out of Luna? Last year, when she tried to steal one of the entries for the National Dessert Competition before it could be judged? Celestia's grin widened. "Tell me now, Lulu, what exactly did my precious student do?"
"I didn't mean to, Tia!" Luna was whimpering now, and she sank to the floor under Celestia's dagger-like stare. "But she dreamed us into my bedroom, and she started kissing me, and... and she begged me to do it! I swear!"
Celestia felt the expression drain from her face. "She asked you to... You mean... You and Twilight...?"
Luna gave a small nod, refusing to meet Celestia's eyes.
"Luna!" Sudden anger filled Celestia's voice. "How could you? I mean... Twilight Sparkle! She's my student!"
"I'm sorry, Tia. I never meant to... It was all... And she's just so... so... adorable! What would you do, if she showed up and started kissing you and begging you to... well... y'know."
"That changes nothing! I mean, Twilight isn't the sort of pony who..." Celestia's voice trailed off into dazed silence, as Luna's words started to echo in her head.
What would you do, if she showed up and started kissing you and begging you to, well, y'know.
Celestia's own knees wobbled as she felt a slow warmth wash through her. A warmth she hadn't felt in close to six hundre—
"Oh no," she muttered. "This is not good."
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Author's Note – Redux
Well, 2295463, you asked for an expansion. You can thank 2395049 for the idea. Here's hoping the coda lives up to the rest of the story. I know I enjoyed it.
I both praise Twilight for this and feel sorry for her at the same time.
Well, at least she will have lots of love, right? Here, have a 
.
Ah! There! An answer!
Spike sent a letter asking Luna to look after Twilight. That's the difference.
Okay, that clears that up.
Wait wait...
Does this mean... sequel?! Yes please
2395067 2396240
Wow, two responses to the same post i made several weeks ago in one day? Nice.
On to the chapter itself, its absolutely perfect, Bradel. I've sat here for several minutes trying to figure out what to add to that previous sentence, and nothing i add feels or looks right.
gonna be honest. Not really a fan of the sudden Twilestia angle at the end there.
2396430 No, no plan for a sequel. Obviously there's an open door for one, but I personally think after those 5000 words (and my desperate attempt to avoid actually writing clop), that you're all better off fantasizing up your own sequels than looking for me to write one.
I provide the horrible Twilunestia setup. You can consummate it yourselves.
2396505 Thank you! I still feel more than a little nervous about tossing a coda on a story I'd decided was already complete right now, so feedback is appreciated.
ETA: Annnd 2396533 is exactly the sort of reason I was worried about it...
2396538
aw, don't take it to heart too much. Twilestia just isn't really my thing.
That was great. And... If anyone writes a sequel to this, let me know.
WOOO~
Cute story. Loved the epilogue the best, especially Luna's dialogue. She listed all the reasons needed for a TwiLuna ship to exist.
The Twilestia was fun, but predictable. Eh, you could've just prodded Luna more at the end, but that's my opinion.
Regardless, great job!
Well, that escalated quickly...
2396538
Although my inner self asks for a sequel, I believe you have chosen... wisely.
Hurrah, my explanations are unkiboshed! I love the countdown at the top.
Hrmmm... I smell a threesome incoming.
SEQUEL!!!
Wow, that was an adventure. I may never be able to look at Luna fanart the same way again...
Oh and grats on EQD, it's amazing how they accepted something with the "Sex" tag.
A quick ascribing of my reaction to the last bit.
"Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha-"breathe"-hahahahahahahaaa!"
Good stuff
Ah, the famous Twilight Princess Sandwich.
A fine choice.
The best ending to this. Period.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Which "she" are you referring to?
2398605 Celestia.
I suppose the line could be more explicit, but I really don't see a lot of potential for confusion here. The whole passage is written in 3rd limited from Celestia's perspective. The two preceding paragraphs (sentences) only involve Celestia, and are entirely internal. Technically, the line could be read as a call-back to the preantepenultimate paragraph, with Luna saying that Celestia trailing off into silence isn't good. But I think that's a big reach, semantically, and I don't know that I really think it's worth clarifying at the cost of three syllables on what's a nice, punchy ending line.
I'm also perfectly okay with the potential ambiguity of the line delivery coming from Luna. I think that still works fine, if anyone happens to read it that way.
Normally, I'm very interested in wording prose to avoid any unintentional ambiguity since it throws the reader out of the story, but in a terminal line where the ambiguity would be okay and there seems to be a clearly preferred semantic choice, this seems like about as okay a place for it as any I can think of.
Haha! Perfect ending Bradel. I'm normally never a fan of Twi-lestia but just the way you worded this entire story... hehe. I'm sad there isn't more but happy too, as there is no safe way to expand any further than you did.
2396538
>horrible
>Twilunestia
i.qkme.me/3quqau.jpg
Cool. Thanks for that)
Beautiful. The "moar" has been provided. I'm still working on "moar" for mine.
Well that was fun! I had a great time reading this.
I didn't feel that there were any problems with this story (I didn't read your first version, which might have helped). The dream and idea were clear, as was the dialog, and I enjoyed the way you structured the story.
ForceTorno had a point I thought was relevant, though: without the Comedy tag, this might have seemed more serious than you probably intended (to me, that is). I've read a few stories on both the comedic and serious sides of Twilight's obsession/compulsive behavior, and your story touches on the comic side of that with a lot more subtlety. I liked that, actually, so I'm not complaining. Without the Comedy tag, though, I might have been a little misled more or less until the end.
2394468
Romance Reports? Or did I entirely miss your meaning? Of course that didn't really work out as the usual TwiLuna pairing...
One thing that bothered me was purely site-mechanical: I usually read FimFic stories on a tablet, but once in a while I read the site's HTML pages. I tried that with this story and found it very hard to read the sections you encapsulated, like the letters and The Idea. No matter what setting I used (and I usually use the Dark setting) it was still difficult to determine what was what even on default settings.
And this is not your fault, but I absolutely hate those full-width HR lines as a section break! You never see them used in a novel, ever. For me they break the feeling of story flow in a way that a double-return or the usual "* * *" or whatever does not. Plus they don't show up in any of the popular EPUB reader apps I use on a the tablet, so sections get mashed together in every story they are used in. Like I said, it's not your fault but I really do wish authors here would stop using it... (/rant) Sorry.
Words cannot describe how funny this fanfic is.
And the cycle continues. Hopefully Celestia is better at hiding her dreams.
Now that was highly entertaining. I'm glad the blog post from last night inspired me to take a look at this, it had somehow slipped past my radar before now. I really liked the two failed "interventions".
I can't say that I found the epilogue necessary, but that's probably because I suffer from the same WoT headcanon affection, so the how and the why of the dream at the end made perfect sense to me. That said, the epilogue was great too, though I was also a bit turned off by very ending.
Well, not what I usually intentionally reach for, but I saw this hit a few trusted favorites lists, so I had to check it out. Yeah, it's comedy, in that it's hilarious to watch, but that doesn't make me disinclined to take it entirely seriously. Especially after I just finished reading Eternal.
I'm impressed by some of the technical proficiency in the prose; for example, the voices in the bushes. You never state who says what yet it's still entirely clear. Adding specifiers would only make the passage more clunky.
The premise was simple, well paced, and didn't drag on or overstay it's welcome, though I do think that Rarity's intervention could have been more fun if it had been a little longer. Funny thing about that scene though, 22 pages and they're just getting past light kissing? What the heck was she writing about for 41 hours?
I wasn't a fan of the end of the coda. I thought the original story ended on a suitably hilarious/narratively satisfying note, and didn't really need an epilogue. The idea is a fun one, which provides a rather nice explanation as to why Luna is immediately present when Twilight's dream starts, and offers a rather hilarious juxtaposition of reality with "My sister knows well of my feelings for thee", but Celestia defies my character expectations here. I'd be more inclined to think she'd find Luna's secret amusing than something to be angry or disappointed at Luna about, and I wouldn't expect her to have an instant boner over the thought either. Though it does sort of fit with the theme of the story. (it's a thought virus!) Even if we accept that, I don't see that she has any reason to be worried about it. If anything, she could probably get some amusement out of subtly teasing Twilight in her future correspondence. Maybe my conception of Celestia is a bit farther towards the prankster/troll end of the spectrum than most though.
Overall, a well done pleasant diversion. The clock was a nice touch, and Spike's unidentified "picture" was a very thematically appropriate/ironic piece of blackmail.
2394468 There's an author's note? Where?
2396538 aww, no sequel planned?
this was really a fun story to read...
Aah! The comments have kinda gotten out of hand here, but let me do my best to respond. Let me tackle you wonderful long-commenters first.
2406956
Actually, I haven't read Romance Reports. I know of it, but I've only been part of the community... what, 11 weeks now? I'm slow about plowing through other people's stories (in no small part because I like to leave detailed comments myself), so I'm still working my way through most of what passes for the Fimfiction Primary Reader. So no implied allusion here. I really have very little idea of what's in that story.
The comments on readability are helpful for me, though I'm not sure what I'll do about them at the moment. In the original version of the story, I actually used a separator graphic:
i11.photobucket.com/albums/a167/Yakaji/HorizontalLine.png
But after posting the first version, I found that the separator bothered me more and more. It's much too complex and colorful for a text separator, even after washing it out. My own poor judgment in making it. The inclusion of quote blocks for story and horizontal rule lines for breaks is new here, and not how I did things in "Amazingly Awesome Adventures", which used a similar structural conceit. I'll probably continue to experiment a little, until I find something I'm really happy with. The triple asterisk is certainly an acceptable alternative, but I've never found it terribly attractive.
Also, since you're following me (for which thank you!) a brief word of warning. One of the pieces I'm working on right now and about which I'm particularly excited, "The Account of the Explorer, Waning Promise", is probably going to rely on BBCode rather heavily. There's some cool stuff it lets me do in the way of presentation, and I want to try to actually use that in a way I haven't seen other authors do. If this didn't work well on a tablet, that will probably be worse by an order of magnitude or more. Actually, I should remember this conversation when it gets closer to publication so I can drop a blog post letting people know that I'm going to play havoc with formatting.
2411489
I've really been enjoying that this story has gotten a bit of wider exposure than its title might initially attract – but I'm an old Rocky and Bullwinkle fan, and the opportunity to use a title this pun-packed perhaps overwhelmed my good judgment. (There are early plans for another piece of what passes in my mind for crack pairing too, mostly to allow myself to use the title: "The Logistics of Long-Distance Maritime Cargo Transportation". GhostOfHeraclitus has suggested that said story should include horrible chapter tiles to match, e.g. "Modeling 'Hooking-up' Using Directed Acyclic Graphs: Why Rainbow Dash Gets All the Mares". I am perhaps overfond of clever titles)
You're the second person to make explicit mention of the dialogue in the bushes. I have to admit, I was pleased with how that went. I hope it didn't feel stylistically artificial, but I have to admit I enjoyed getting a chance to basically throw a writing exercise in the middle of a story. Then again, I'm really not a fan of dialogue tagging. I don't like wasting words and I think keeping character voices distinct is a critical skill in writing, so unless tags are absolutely necessary for conveying the scene or preventing confusion, I do my best to work without them. I'm always very happy to get feedback about whether my strategy is working or not in particular instances.
I'm really not sure how to feel about the epilogue at this point. Some readers seem to think that it's a perfect ending to the story (and I do feel like it's more thematically appropriate, since it brings everything full circle). But I get the feeling that others either dislike the Twilestia overtones or the Celestia characterization. For the former, I don't overtly subscribe to any ships, really, but I have to admit that Sunchaser sucked me in on the believability of Twilestia and left me in a position where I don't feel particularly hesitant about throwing it in on the fly. I figure if Twiluna makes sense, it's a very short hop to Twilestia making sense as well. Twilunestia, as I believe it's called. For the latter, this is my first time trying to write Celestia, though I personally felt like I had her dead aligned with my headcanon here – impish, especially with her sister, but at the same time very conscious of the expectations placed on her by others. She flashes through a few emotions toward the end of the epilogue, but it all makes sense to me: mischievousness, followed by a bit of "methinks the pony doth protest too much" and a final flowering of the fact that Twilestia is well-seeded. But again, that's headcanon, and I'm flashing through it in about 100 words, which is probably quite jarring to anyone who doesn't share nearly identical headcanon. In any case, the extended ending answers the mechanical questions some readers were having about how Luna and Twilight ended up in the same dream at the end of the original story, and I think it makes a nice thematic circle, so I personally find it to be an improvement over the original ending (which I also quite liked). Of course, if I didn't feel like it was an improvement, it wouldn't be there in the first place. But I feel like your comments and the reactions from other readers are definitely going to be helpful for me in future writing, in terms of balancing just how much strain I can put on canon characterization in short spans.
I did quite like the clock bit, but to be perfectly honest that was also serving as a bit of experimentation while I work on the aforementioned "Account of the Explorer, Waning Promise" where tools like that are going to be a lot more important.
As for the author's note (or notes, in this case – there was one for the original story and one for the epilogue), I've been taking a page from GhostOfHeraclitus and Bad Horse, and posting them as the first comment on chapters just before I put them live. I don't like cluttering the end of the story itself, but sometimes it's nice to leave some acknowledgements and notes. If you scroll back through the comments, they're pretty easy to spot. They have "Author's Note" in bold text centered at the top of those particular comments.
2399098
I think Coolidge has to be my all-time favorite approval image. That hat. In any case, as I said in my previous comment, I'm really happy to have sucked in a few readers who normally wouldn't look at something that looked like this story. It's a lot of fun, subverting expectations.
2410282
I'd actually planned to write a third intervention between the Quills & Sofas scene and the final scene, with Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy checking in on Twilight, but it never really coalesced. I couldn't find a way to set it anywhere but the library, and because of that Twilight's side of the scene was going to look too similar to her scene with Rarity. All it would have offered was a chance to see Rainbow and Fluttershy playing off each other. That's fun, but it really didn't fit into the story well.
And it seems like you're in pretty good company on that ending. A lot of people seem to think it's perfect, and a lot of people seem to think it's the weakest point in the whole story. I'm still having a bit of a hard time trying to process that into useful information for future writing.
2398768
On the subject of Twilestia, I've been, as previously mentioned, irrevocably corrupted by Sunchaser. He's too good at this stuff by half. That said, I'm glad you still really liked the ending. I thought it wrapped things up into a very nice package... as long as one were willing to forgive my three line excursion into Twilestia.
And to everyone else who provided comments, I don't really know what to say except:
Thank you for reading, and I'm really, really glad you enjoyed my story. Almost all of your comments, even if they were just short "princess sandwich" kinds of things, served to bring a smile to my face and brighten my day, and I'm very appreciative of that!
2418881 Thanks very much for taking the time to respond to my comment.
Romance Reports is a well-written story with a number of excellent side stories written by SleeplessBrony and other authors (The Other Mare is especially, very very good), and they’re all very heavy on the explicit sex aspect, where it was only implied in yours. It’s a highly emotionally-involved tale with Twilight’s obsession for Luna as the primary drive of the story. So looking now at my comment, I’m not quite sure what I was thinking. Sorry about that. :P
As far as readability issues with the site’s text displays, honestly that’s pretty much my problem. You’ll work out the methods that work best for you (as you should) and I’ll read the stories in whatever format works out best. FWIW, I can read stories directly from the site on the tablet, so there is that.
Can I make a suggestion? Pointers to your Author’s Notes (as a first comment) and any formatting hazard warnings would work well in the story notes at the top of the page. I’m sure some people don’t click on the ‘More’ to expand long story notes, but then they could miss your first reader comment, anyway.
Anyway, so far my ‘review’ of your story appears to be pretty worthless. I am bad and I should feel bad. Sorry.
But wait, there’s more!
FWIW, I liked the inclusion of the epilogue. The story could have ended well without it, and the epilogue did change the overall tone of the story a little, but for me it added some essential depth and playfulness. Without the epilogue, I felt like the story cut off too quickly. Interesting how there's such a divide on that issue with your readers...
Also there are a lot of ways to interpret Celestia’s reaction to Luna’s revelation, but I thought your interpretation was realistic. I think it’s well within the realm of possibility that Celestia could be upset that her immortal sister had a virtual fling with her most beloved student – very nearly a daughter to her in one way of thinking, and clearly a potential love interest in another. So, yeah. ;)
I just had to read the end of this story again, because naughty Twilight and Luna is just kickass. And I was very pleasantly surprised to find that their was was an epilogue. But...the idea of Celestia having naughty thoughts about Twilight too just screamed of 'threesome' and that just always sour things for me. To me, this fic was somewhat romantic, even if it wasn't meant to be. and "everyone wants to bang Twilight"...isn't. That Celestia found out about the affair was awesome. I was hoping for Luna to admit to wanting to start a relationship with Twilight, though, rather than "You would do it too". Oh well. That's just one guy's opinion, and it certainly doesn't ruin the story!
Sorry for the double post, but my PS3 only allows a certain amount of text per text field. I want to make it clear that I wasn't complaining about Twilestia because I dislike Twilestia (I do have some logical concerns about it, but I'm very capable of enjoying the ship), My complaint stemmed from the fact that the story made me focus on Twiluna, and the epilogue hinting at a continued affair felt kind of romantic to me. not that sex equals love or anything, but it felt like they could start dating or something. Celestia finding out about it was awesome, and the whole epilogue was a good add-on because it explained what Luna was doing in Twilight's dream as well as gave an opportunity for Luna to admit to wanting to try a relationship with Twilight. Except that she didn't, and instead hinted at threesome. Blegh. On top of that, what I forgot to mention, is that Celestia's instant horny reaction was out of nowhere and completly not believable. (continued)
I get from the author's comments that it might not have been intended to be a 'serious story' (whatever that means. It just seemed like a good story to me. And not one that Pinkie Pie wrote either) And despite apparantly not intended to be a ship fic, the shipping is done masterfully ^_^ ....except for threesome-suggesting Luna and Molestia's random out of nowhere naughty thoughts at the very last lines. Not a complaint about the epilogue as a whole. The rest of the epilogue was awesomeriffic.
Oh and one more thing, and I'll stop posting multiple comments in a row: Celestia's initial anger about Luna diddling her student was totally believable and understandable. [end]
2450814 Well, I can't say I like getting negative reactions – I'd obviously much prefer if the story was universally enjoyed – but I'm finding the reactions to this story very instructive and very helpful for thinking about what to do in future writing. I never expected that the last couple lines of text were going to prompt this much of a split in how people felt about the story. Your input (and especially your careful explanation of what, exactly, you didn't like) is very much appreciated!
That holds for you again, too, 2419120. Since the epilogue has been published, I figure that at least in the present context, this ship has sailed. But I'm definitely hoping the reactions I'm getting can help me in the future.
2451029 "since this has been published" It ain't a book. So long as you have the power to edit it, it's editable. If you want to. It all depends on whether you agree with reader comments and feel like it, I suppose. I'd never be demanding. But I can't stand this silly notion that "once it's done, it's done". I'm going to be blunt, that's BS, and I'm tired of writers saying it. It makes me just never want to comment. Just read the stories, never say a word, and maybe badmouth a couple writers behind their back if it gets extraordinarily bad. My opinions are directed toward a specific story. Any new story, no matter what the author has 'learned' from the last, is just a further gamble into whether or not my time's going to be wasted reading it, and like every story it's just going to come up with it's own flaws. If a writer agrees with criticisms about their stories, I wish they would at least consider fixing it up sometime rather than "learning for the next". Makes in-depth critique utterly pointless.
2451422 Personally, I feel almost entirely the opposite way. I frequently leave very detailed critiques, but I never expect authors to revisit their stories and make major changes based on them. When it concerns errors of grammar or usage, maybe, but structural issues and narrative choices are things I think are better edited before a story goes live.
It's certainly true that something published on Fimfiction remains editable, but my personal feeling is that it does a disservice to one's readers to make serious changes to a story that they've favorited. Expanding an incomplete story, of course, is fine. That's expected. But major revisions on what's been completed runs the risk of destroying the reason some readers may have added the story to their favorites in the first place. I don't completely reject the notion of changing a story after the fact, especially if the changes are for clarity, but I'm very wary of changing any of the big four (plot, character, setting, theme) outside the pre-reading stage.
I'm sorry if that attitude feels like it cheapens your comments, but I legitimately see it as a violation of my role as a writer to make big story changes to a live story unless I'm extremely confident (>99%) that those changes will be a universal improvement to a story. While I definitely appreciate input on the ending, there's been a very definite split between readers who like it and those who don't. As a writer, I find that dissatisfying, but at the same time I'm loath to change it when improving the experience for one group of readers seems likely to cheapen it for another.
The whole arc of writing this story hangs on this question, really. It started as a very short, 1200 word story. It got a lot of positive feedback, but also a number of comments from readers saying they would have liked to see more. And in the case of that criticism, I found that I was confident I could expand the thing and make it better. So I did, and I brought it up to a much more satisfying length, and even got it onto EqD.
I was a little less confident in the epilogue, but I still firmly believed I could make it better with a little extra addition – I feel it calls back to the initial scene quite nicely, it answered some questions readers were having about the scenario that I hadn't made clear in the earlier versions, and it addressed a desire some readers had stated for seeing the aftermath of the main story's events. To me (and apparently to many readers) it still feels like a good addition to the story.
But I've increasingly been made aware that what was (to me) basically a crack shipping story, came off as much more sincere to many readers. I still don't really feel like I understand this. From my perspective, I think Twilight's characterization came off pretty much just how I wanted it to. But there's barely even a tiny hint of TwiLuna romance in this story. The whole thing is driven by lust, except for (1) Twilight reminiscing about the enjoying her time dreaming about platonic activities with Luna, and (2) Twilight avoiding the point horribly and writing some vaguely romantic fiction. Neither of these events even involves Luna, just Twilight's imagination of her, and the at least somewhat romantic (2) is still being created primarily out of Twilight's need to vent her lust. But Death of the Author and all, I don't feel like my own reading of the story counts as definitive, and a lot of readers see more romance here than I do, or to more comfortably conflate lust with love. And I think one of my big errors in assuming that the addition of the epilogue was a universal positive came from the fact of this difference in viewpoint. I wasn't a good barometer of how readers would react to the epilogue, because I didn't have a firm understanding of how readers were reacting to the story. So it's addition was arguably a mistake.
But at the same time, it does serve the three purposes I mentioned and it has been well received by some readers, so it's not such a miss that I feel like I should swing the other way and remove it. I have thought about it, though. The ending to the main story seems to hit the mark with much greater regularity – but at the same time, I feel like the epilogue ending is a legitimately better ending.
From an authorial standpoint, it's a somewhat troubling situation. But no, I'm not planning to make any changes to it unless I get the feeling that it's demonstrably damaging a cllear majority of readers' ability to enjoy the story.
2451605 I really, really hope I didn't come off as insinuating that I expect people to make changes just because I suggest it, or that other people suggest it. A single person's opinion should never be heeded without a grain of salt, and you're right that one group shouldn't be sated in favor of another if readers are split. Still yet, I want to add that even if an opinion is universal among readers, it's still up to whether or not you yourself agree with it and want to change it. Considering input isn't the same thing as blindly heeding. Anyway, I have to disagree that it's a disservice to readers to change something. Maybe if reader opinion is split...which is not even the kind of case I refer to, but even in that case it's still your story so if you were inclined to do so, if I disagreed with that change as a reader I wouldn't feel as if I had been 'disserviced'. Furthermore you said "major plot changes"...which strikes me as odd since we're literally discussing a single sentence. [continued]
Which is kind of funny because we're talking about a single line (and you already broke your own rule by adding an epilogue anyway). I never thought Luna and Twilight were in love. From the canon they come off as friends to me..friends that don't see each other much, but the little reactions Luna gives when Twilight's name is brought up sometimes is interesting, and I can believe they'd been arround each other every so often after that Nightmare Night episode to be called "aquaintances, not so close friends"....so in this story to me I saw two people with a distant, lukewarm friendship that suddenly realized sexual attraction to each other and started banging. Definitly a social mistake, jeopardizes friendships and if romantic tension did develop it would make it awkward, but to me it provided a cause for them to become interested in the prospect of knowing each other more, and perhaps try a proper date. I'm dissappointed you considered it a crack pairing. By default, I don't consider it as such [continued[
Because there's enough about both characters...Twilight's experience in being socially inept and Luna's present social distance (and the possibility that the same social problems might have contributed to her becoming bitter a thousand years ago), a budding friendship started from Nightmare Night, that a relationship between the two could work (and honestly works better than Twilestia because Twilight is not Luna's student) but most of all...even pairings that are more reasonably considered crack parings, like Celestipie, can work as a serious relationship under the right writer. Again, I never meant to suggest that Luna and Twilight came off as "in love"...but they do care about each other, and have respect for one another. And in this story, are sexually attracted to each other, which sets a nice stage for interest in dating. Most romance stories on this site drives me nuts because everyone writes infatuation as if it were love. Everypony loves each other too fast, nopony seems to know what [continued[
Infatuation is or the words "I like you, let's see where this goes" instead they always resort to "I love you"[end[
2451029 I understand why some people might not like the epilogue, especially if they had originally read the story without the epilogue and considered it complete.
Now that I’ve had a few days distance, I re-read the last part of both sections (finale and epilogue), and the last few lines do feel a little jarring. I’m not quite sure why, but I’m guessing for my part that it’s simply because of a weird clash with head-canon in this context. I have another theory, below...
Not that there’s any problem with Twilestia – I feel it’s up to readers to reset their expectations on any shipping and clear the previous stories out of their minds if they’re going to read anything here. I also love well done Twilestia stories.
It’s more that Celestia appears on-scene for the first time in the story and expresses indignation over Luna’s actions with Twilight, so acting as a protector figure... and then we’re shocked into suddenly seeing her experience a familiar desire for Twilight. That context almost makes her reaction edge into the obscene (or again, I suppose that could be just head-canon talking). The original ending doesn’t do that – even though it’s overtly sexual – because it doesn’t form that specific context beforehand, and we’re actually guided into feeling happy that Twilight finally got what she needed from Luna. It’s an odd clash, even though it does work by circling back to the start of Twilight’s obsession.
If I had to choose, though, that minor dissonance doesn't bother me enough to want something different. I still prefer the epilogue because to my mind it does make the story feel more complete.
2451715 First of all, on TwiLuna, perhaps I should clarify. I do not consider it a crack pairing, and I was careful not to describe it that way in my earlier response (though I'll admit it's possible I've mischaracterized my attitude that way at a much earlier date). I said that I considered this a crack shipping story. To my mind, the justification for pairing the two of them here is incredibly flimsy, and only really serves for comedic effect. Again, this is my attitude toward it while I was writing it, and other readers seem to have felt differently. But to my way of thinking, "Twilight gets a thought stuck in her head and can't expunge it without writing clop stories about Luna" is pretty much textbook flimsy excuse for a pairing.
I think TwiLuna is an entirely reasonable ship. I think TwiLuna coming about in this way is nonsense, albeit fun nonsense.
As for editing stories after they go live, I'm just giving my own position on the issue and how I choose to approach it. I'm perfectly fine with writers being more willing to edit published stories, and I think that's something everyone needs to decide for her/himself.
The only other point I think needs a response is my characterization of changing the ending as a major change. Yes, the sticking point is only two or three lines of text, but those two or three lines of text don't stand in isolation. The epilogue was written with that ending in mind, and structured as a build to that point, returning some of the "running headlong into a brick wall" feeling of the original, shortened story, and the ending is a very intentional callback to the first scene in the story where Twilight's stray thought about Luna begins to infect her mind. Sure, one could just delete the last couple lines of the epilogue or change the way in which they resolve, but to me, that feels like it would leave a gaping structural hole, where the epilogue would build to a resolution that doesn't happen and the story would just trail off instead of ending in a sort of da capo.
2451737 As for this, what you're saying seems to hang quite a bit on a particular wording I was a bit iffy about when I wrote it. I might go revisit that. The "familiar" in that line isn't supposed to be Twilestia familiar, although that's certainly a reasonable reading in context. It was intended only as "Celestia's also familiar with lust," though I suspect most people may not be reading it that way.
2451786 This has been a really fun debate, I have to say. It seems that your last sentence directed toward WolfeTrax negates my original stance on the ending. (I misintepreted Luna's exact meaning and Celestia's reaction)Also the fact that you don't take issue with other writers editing their stories after publishing lessens my desire to get on a soapbox about the subject, lol. Lastly, I'd agree that the pairing came together in a flimsy, improper way. I guess I didn't see it as 'cracked' because I've been wanting for awhile now to see a shipping start with some major mistakes and the wrong way to go about things :P. Crack pairing or not, this story fuels my Twiluna shipping fantasies! Not only that but it's extremly funny. Sleep-deprived Twilight Sparkle is just awesome. XD
2451737 2451999 Since we're talking about it, and since I really wasn't particularly happy with that wording, I took a different stab at it. I'm curious what you think. The only change is replacing "familiar" with "centuries-forgotten", but I'd encourage you to read it in context.
I'd originally tried "long-forgotten", which I do think sounds much better as a phrase, but it also leaves a very small but particularly squickish hint at foalcon that I really don't want.
Improvement? Or clumsy wording that needs more thought?
2452044 You're probably right to leave long-forgotten out. As for centuries-forgotten... my first reaction was that it's not clumsy so much as it is distracting, and on top of that it makes me feel sad for Celestia. ;) Leaving it as-was with familiar would work better, IMO.
Just as a thought, if you're still unsatisfied with it: Have you considered leaving out that modifier completely?
2452458 When in doubt, ask GhostOfHeraclitus.
There. New formulation. I'm much happier with this, and it should completely dispel the possibility of this being read as "Celestia has long-simmering feelings for her student".