During a minor diplomatic meeting to the Everfrozen Forest, home of the Reindeer, an ancient evil abuducts Princess Luna and Prince Arctis, lord of the snow. Now Twilight, with the help of Arcits' daughter Aneira, must uncover and activate the Eight Shrines of the Defenders in order to halt the Windigo invasion.
Far from home, with only the generosity of the Reindeers to assist her, can Twilight overcome the many obstacles in her path, or will she fall prey to the bitter winds of the north?
Chapters (3)
(Joke) Alt. Title: Where Cold Winds Have No Name
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When wild wind blows.
Oh... Hey...
Where Cold Winds Blow.
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No relation.
Commenting as a reader, I think it's quite safe to say that I enjoyed this. You write well overall, the dialogue was humorous, and the plot intriguing. I'm very much looking forward to future updates.
My comments as a judge? Well, those will have to wait
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Regardless of how you judge it, I consider that to be a win. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Good show, my friend! Good luck in the contest, but by any measure this is a very solid start. Keep it up!
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From you, that means a lot. Thanks!
Alrighty. Bear in mind that this comment has little-to-no relation to whatever rating I award this in the competition
With that in mind...
IT'S REVIEWIN' TIME
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Technical stuff and things
Pretty good overall. Your spelling seems to be just fine, with your grammar being above average.
One thing I would advise you to watch out for is pacing. It's normally a good pace, but speeds up randomly for a few lines, before slowing back down. Like how the three ponies have a couple paragraphs of conversation at the start, then land in under a sentence.
Also, Aneria's history lesson is a pretty large lump. Could do with some breaking up.
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The bit with the story and stuff
Not a huge fan of the idea that Reindeer can fly, especially with their horns acting as wings. I guess it kinda fits in with the whole Santa thing, but it just seems so utterly silly in an otherwise fairly graceful-appearing race. Bit out of place, really.
The tale of Eros, however, was excellently done. I feel the need to congratulate you on your Lorecrafting ability.
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I'm detecting a decent amount of Nord influence in this story. Would I be correct?Scratch that, I just read the Author's Notes. Good that you put it in there. I would've been expecting some more Jormungandr next time otherewiseGee, I wonder where I've heard that before
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General Doohickeys
An interesting concept, to be sure...
I'm not entirely sure what my feelings on the idea are. On the one hand, my fiery hatred of the hey-let's-sell-more-pink-dolls pony burns bright enough to give Celestia a run for her money, but on the other, it's a neat idea with pretty good explanation.
Oh Cadence, if only you weren't such an obvious attempt to shift those pink Celestia dolls that were just lying around...
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Another interesting concept. Always liked the idea of being able to remember actions that weren't your own. Hardly an original one, sure, but fits well with the whole Avatar business.
The early attempts at humour fell a bit flat on me. I've no doubt that someone else would find them funny, but I've never really been one for that sitcom-esque banter at the beginning.
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The idea that Cadence can sense the Windigoes makes a lot of sense, considering. I feel rather daft for having not thought of it earlier
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Erm... opposable antlers? Or am I misunderstanding this somehow?
Overall hoojamaflips
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Despite all the gubbins I mentioned up top, I enjoyed reading this.
This is the point where I'd give an author advice on what to do with his fic next, but I feel that you can pretty much just keep on doing what you're doing right now.
Good show.
~ScreenedPlum, WRITE’s Drunk Demoman
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Fair enough.
And my anus is prepared.
Thanks, I was expecting worse to be honest. Learning difficulties kinda make writting... challenging.
Pacing is wonky, got it. Work on slowing down my scene transitions.
There closer to sky hooks than wings, really. But yeah, totaly inspired by santa.
Thank you. I am rather proud of that. Especially since Cadance's very existance keeps killing all my Alicorn origin stories.
Eh, I'm British. The desire to inject humor into everything is virtually genetic. Sometimes it works, sometimes it dosen't. Sometimes its subtle, sometimes its heavy handed. I'm no master of the craft, after all.
To be honest, I didn't think of it until after I wrote it.
Nah, she was just caged by them, unable to free herself as she was hoisted into the air. Or at least, thats how I envisioned it. Not sure if its actually possible. Lets have a looksee:
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Eh, I'll probably just chalk it up to magic.
I'm really gald you enjoyed it, and that you believe that I know what I am doing
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Thanks for the review!
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Female reindeer do have antlers. Males have larger ones, but they lose them during the winter. Females keep theirs all year round, except in a small handful of populations around the world where they don't have antlers at all, but its still more common for a female reindeer to have them than not.
Trivia—this fact implies that all of santa's reindeer are female, since they have their antlers during the winter.
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MLP fanfiction—teaching you something new everyday!
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Yeah, I just ended up mega busy with my dissertation and hit writers block at the same time, as well as focusing on several other projects at once.
Replace that comma with a semicolon.
*off
I see three sentences and three commas with no coordinating conjunctions. I understand that it is dialogue, but periods should work just fine.
In any event, this update pleases me greatly. Do go on. I cannot wait for more!
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Thanks! And I'm glad you like this chapter.
"Corporal Shadow Flight and Sergeant Nightwing are 'Night Pegasi', the batwinged ones Luna uses"
I always find it a little odd when folks assume that they actually have bat-wings. It seemed to obvious to me that they were costumes, but no-one else seems to agree.
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They might be costumes, they might not. In this story, night pegasi are a seperate breed of Pegasus.
I do have some headcanon that all guards have armour with two enchantments on it—a day enchantment that turns them white, like Celestia's guards, and a night enchantment that turns them black and batty, like Luna's guards. Day enchantments are optimised for defence, whilst night enchantments are optimised for offence.
It just doesn't apply to this particular story.
You mentioned the Waxing Moon caste twice. Pretty sure you wanted a Waning Moon in there too.
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Did I? Bugger. That's what happens when I only proofread it twice.