After Luna's banishment, a guilt filled Celestia searches for answers. Trying to gain a new understanding of what caused her sister's misery, she visits the valley that once housed Starswirl the Bearded as well as Luna and herself many years ago. It is here that she believed everything started.
She finds so much more than she asked for.
This story now has a review by PresentPerfect that's filled with spoilers. You can find it here! Now featured by Equestria Daily! There's an SA review now too. It has spoilers, but you can check it out here. Partially inspired by, but has no relation to The Last Dreams of Pony Island by horizon. Former cover art source. Current art by flamevulture17. Now with spiritual successors: Bathophobia and Atelophobia. Rated 'Pretty Good' by PaulAsaran in an in-depth and spoiler-filled review. A multi-part audio reading by Lotus Moon is available, click to listen to part one and part two here! Contribute to the TVTropes page!
I can kinda see why you would want to put 200-word poems for this.
Usually, I'd advise you to have at least 1000 words per chapter, but I'm out of my depth when it comes to poetry form.
I really like your poetry. The story in the poems is depressing but it makes the poem that mush better. Keep it up I really want to seehow this poem ends.
Hope to see more of this.
What is this supposed to mean?
7455086 Pre-NMM Luna is referred to as her shadow by more than one character, usually in a negative way. Storm refers to a fight/falling out.
7472695 Whelp, I'll be fixing that. Thanks.
7472702
7472708 I promise not to brine the heart.
I wrote a story with this one's title a long time ago, so seeing this in "Latest Updates" confused me for a second.
7487008 Who would have known?
7487006 I don't believe your conspiracies.
Perhaps one of the most acute descriptions of depression that I've read on this site.
Poor little Luna... it's really unsettling how efficiently Starswirl's tyranny is tearing the sisters apart.
reactiongifs.com/r/2012/12/tiniest_violin.gif
Heart-wrenching.
7501147 Yeah...the whole thing is meant to be utterly heart-wrenching. Poor Celly. I'm glad you've take a liking to this. I always love it when readers can identify with something (as a reader myself) that I've written.
7501152
Should we add a "Tragedy" tag to this, then?
7501160 I only add a Tragedy tag if the character is loosing/will lose/ has lost (think like in Shakespeare). Since Luna comes back, I decided it to leave it as just Dark/Sad. The Adventure/Au combo was meant to be from the start. I'm posting the final poem for this collection tomorrow, so if you still strongly think it's a story in need of the tragedy tag then, I'll mull over changing it.
7501177
I see then.
In that case, you should leave this as it is, then.
Well, that was some journey.
We should probably get some author on Fimfiction to take a gander at this story and see how well the story is executed as a poem.
You live in the States, I assume?
7502379 Yup. Home of burgers, Trump, a lot of questionable whatnots, and some crazy horse poet.
7502403
Do you consider yourself a poet?
7502418
I'm not sure.
But poetry sure has some allure.
And composing verses isn't a chore.
Probably.
7502429
Indubitably so.
I wish I knew what I was. Honestly.
Sad to see the Completed tag on this now. "All great things--", I guess.
I really like the sense of hollowness you depict in Celestia. You seem to treat it as a mental illness, one brought out by sorrow and regret, to the point that Celestia has numbed herself so much to feeling. We see in these poems that she has become a wise and fair and kind leader, one who loves her ponies dearly, but she's basically reduced herself to a husk in doing so.
I guess the driving force in these poems is Celestia's complete lack of any sense of optimism. She doesnt know Luna is coming home, and she doesnt seem to be willing to prepare herself to be disappointed.
Anyways, top points from me. Fantastic experimental poetry, coupled with uniquely articulated emotions, make me VERY glad to have kept up with this one.
"fillyhold" and "canterlote"? :B
8154287 That first one was a typo, thank you for catching it!
The second one is not.
I don't think she's in Cappadocia...
8154322 That has been fixed!
oop
8154330 I second that. Once again, thanks for spotting these. I can't believe I let so many of them slip by, since these are such short chapters.
8154307
8154326
8154341
Ohoho! :O
That was quite something. :)
8154353 I hope it was something good! :D
Thanks for taking the time to read this. It's not the kind of story for everyone.
If that's supposed to be the city it should be 'Canterlot' with a capital C.
I think you should consider a different format or a different layout. There's just way too much white space and no reason really to have more than a few one word lines.
8180210 The city is left like that for a reason and the format is intentional.
God, what a read.
I'm not a poetry kind of guy, but these were some of the very few poems that I've read where I've been able to pick out the various emotions that you play with throughout. Got chills more than once, and left feeling very sad and morose. Jesus. I'll be thinking on this one for a while now.
8193735 Thank you for reading! I always try to put a lot of description for emotions into stories like this and I'm glad it payed off.
Twas sad, but in a way a bit of hope, although their childhood and revelation thereof was most depressing
8351584
Oh, thanks for reading! It was actually a surprise to see this notification! Autophobia is probably one of my favorite pieces of horse words that I've written.
8351667
Well, you - I think it was you - said to try reading this, so I did!
That Starswirl was a jackass and I feel so sad for poor Luna because her entire life was ruined a million times over :(
8351715
It was me, or rather me on my alt! Thank you for giving it a try, the style isn't for everybody, but it's one I like to use.
The Starswirl, Luna, Celestia, and history presented in this story appear in most of my other works on here, in an out of control but I still keep writing it continuity called the Iceverse, where their lives are given in further detail. Karma and just things sucking a whole gosh dang lot kinda hits all three of them - Luna, obviously with Nightmare Moon, and a few other subtler things. Celestia with... well, a lot of things. Starswirl, however, he has something awaiting him.
But again, thank you for reading. Not a whole lot of people like these abstract, dark stories.
And a bit of trivia in case you're interested about the title: Autophobia literally reads as 'fear of oneself' but is the fear of abandonment and isolation, real or otherwise.
8353035
I've read a bunch of other stuff - mostly one-shots - in the universe over the last year or three (Time goes by so fast now!) I remember it having a melancholy sort of vibe that makes me a bit worried about the longer-form ones though right now it's largely academic when I have 700+ chapters in Read It Soon, hah!
8353117
Yeah, it kinda has a bit of mood whiplash to some of it - characters joking around (the humor often is very dark in the longer ones) in the middle of horrible situations and stuff, and a lot of existential weirdness at times. Usually, there's at least one hopeful vibe for somebody, even in the darkest of tales. The amount of 'dark' usually depends on which character or story line you want to follow, but there's plenty of fluff with all that drama at times.
If you want to avoid the ones that are mostly all dreary on their own, stay away from The Storm Dancer, Atelophobia, Tear the Sky Asunder, All the World, and Antumbra. Everything else has some sliver of hope in it, for somebody at some point in the story.
And 700+ chapters? wew lad
8353135
700+ in Read Soon. Then there's 'Read Eventually'
8353153
Jeezums. I usually don't turn on the unread chapter feature, otherwise I get really twitchy about all the things I should be reading... and then nothing gets written.
Oh, and if you're a reader who likes to avoid certain dark themes like the plague, you can PM me with themes you don't like/avoid and I can give you a heads up if you do decide to take a look at my longer form things.
8353160
Oh, no, I've read a bit of nearly everything. Right now it's mostly just time constraint and so I enforce my general rule of 'Dont go looking for more unless I make headway through my existing backlog'
8353801
Same here! That only goes so well though...
7501177
Where is Luna in this?
8416278
Um, what exactly do you mean? What chapters she's in...?