It's Luna's first winter back home, and her work is weighing her down. She goes flying to clear her mind, but soon she wonders if anything has changed at all after her time on the moon. Soon she has to face her hatred in the form of windigos, but she doesn't know how to stop her own hatred. Can she find the solution in her dreams?
Written for this contest
Thanks to RaylanKrios, Bad Dragon, and Glocky for editing and prereading. You guys are awesome.
The amazing art can be found here: http://horseapparatus.deviantart.com/art/First-Winter-Back-479381886
Chapters (1)
This is amazing!!!!! I absolutely love this!!!!
Have a Spike
5099162 Thanks!
*takes spike*
5100179
Treasure him forever! Or else!
Added to Sad Luna
5107599 oh thanks
although I'm still debating weather its sad or not
Enjoy it a lot! Well written.
5109808 thanks!
It really wasn't required to make an entire blog for it, but here you go your critique.
Thanks a bunch for featuring my art! My friend and I read it, we loved it. The symbolism was excellent, and the ideas all flowed into each other smoothly. You really captured the feeling of conflict well, without falling into the whole angsty Luna schtick. If I had to give one critique though, I would probably say that almost every sentence feels like a closing sentence. The poetic effect of it kind of wears off as the story goes on. And when you've got concepts as genuinely thought-provoking and fascinating as the ones on display here, the last thing you'd want to happen is for it to seem like you're trying to be deep. This was an awesome read on the whole though, I'm glad I had at least some rudimentary part in helping it come to be;)
5132694 oh thanks
also thanks a bunch for the critique. That's something I really need to work on.
...and Celestia blind as a bat just like a millennium before.
5152642 lel Celestia's as blind as a potato
even though she has eyes, she cant see anything
5152646
Don't drink and comment K?
5152646 Isn't this simply Luna's perspective, though? She's going through a lot of turmoil, but even she realized that she hadn't thought everything through. It would be nice to see you write this from Celestia's perspective as well - no doubt there is a lot to learn from her voice.
Anyway, nice work. I enjoyed reading this.
Totally inconsequential: I don't know how you resisted the temptation to compare stars above in the cloud of the galaxy with the snowflakes below.
5162570 thanks!
I'm thinking of maybe writing something from Celestia's perspective, but idk.
also, I did compare stars and snowflakes in the first draft, but I cut it because it didn't fit. I meant to weave it back in somehow, but then I forgot. I'm going to work on it a little in the next week-ish, so thanks a bunch for the reminder.
5189386
Yah, I'm horrible with titles and descriptions as well.
Okay, so I just read the First Winter Back. A very weak title for such an interesting story. This could have probably been called “The Secret of Beauty” or “What is Beauty?” or something to that affect because that was the whole thing was the discovery of what is beautiful. What makes Equestria beautiful. That was the whole point of this story and a title needs to fit what is the main focus of the story. I admit I’m not great with titles, either, but First Winter Back just didn’t seem strong enough for what the story was about.
First thing I want to say, it was interesting, because I’ve read stories like this before. This isn’t really anything I haven’t seen. So, for me, it was kind of predictable. I’m not saying it was bad in that sense, I’m saying that it wasn’t really that engaging because I’ve seen so many of these that, there wasn’t an outcome I didn’t expect. So, to me, that kind of hurt it a little bit because it didn’t intrigue me to know what was going to happen, it didn’t really play with my expectations that much.
And sometimes, that’s okay. So, this is more of a personal thing, but I felt that it could have been more engaging and giving the audience a reason to see where it goes.
Another thing I wanted to point out was the descriptions, I thought what you brought in to the descriptions, was very good for the most part. I thought that there was enough that I could see everything, but there wasn’t too much of it. There were a couple of scenes that I felt could have used a little more.
Like the scene with the painter, I love that idea. I love the idea of Luna learning from this artist about the beauty of every color. Every color has a purpose. Every line, every stroke of the brush has a meaning and it’s only together can they make something. I loved that scene, I wanted more of that scene.
The windigos thing. I didn’t really like it. I felt that it didn’t really need to be there to feed on Luna’s dilemma. I felt there were other ways that this could have happened. I was thinking the set up for the paperwork and the meetings that she is forced to go to, that was great. I really liked that. I felt that it gave her a really good reason to be upset and she was faced with a challenge that she lacked in.
And her sister would overpass her because she’d been doing this for a thousand years. I wanted more of that. That would have been interesting to see Luna and Celestia talking about it and Luna getting frustrated and Celestia trying to calm her down. And, granted we get hints of that, but I would have loved to see more of this scene.
The windigos I felt were just a waste of our time. I didn’t think they added anything that wasn’t already there. I don’t think that it gave us something that couldn’t have found another way. By the end, I forgot that the windigos was even there, that is how much of an impact I think it had on the story. I just think it wasn’t necessary.
There were a couple of things I spotted that jumped out at me that broke my reading a little bit.
It is supposed to be foul there? I looked up the word “fial” on the dictionary and I didn’t get much. So, if that is a word and this is an error, please let me know.
Missing period and “The sky become”? I think it’s supposed to be “The sky became”
For the most part, I felt that things that I though could have had potential wasn’t focused on enough and the windigos were pretty pointless. But overall, the story was decent. It had some good description. It was easy to understand. I think that if it had been dragged out a bit, I think that it would have made more of an impact as a story. Personally.
It was easy to see why Luna was frustrated, though I would have liked to have seen more of it. The painter scene was great, but again, too short for my taste.
A decent fic. I think that there are really good ideas in this story and I think that it really shows your talent as a writer. I just think that there needs to be more of a focus and expanding on things that I felt could have made a stronger story.
I know this was written for a contest and I won’t claim to know what those rules are, but I felt there was so many ways this could have gone and most of the samples were good, but it craved me wanting more of the stuff I liked.
5196049 Sorry. I was just being thorough.
5196044 Rude! I really liked this story! I thought that it was a good change from most of the comedy on this site. It was well written without any grammar mistakes and I thought it was good.
5852074 Still, this was more intended to be more poetic. At least in my mind.
5852678 Meh. Opinions and opinions.
She only knows how to be harsh. Her first step is always extreme. Her sun is blinding. Her season burning.
-This doesn't seem to match the reunion scene in episode 2, but I guess there is a plausible explanation in the alter part of the story. Also, I think she set up the events of the first two episodes, which qualifies as "fighting for me" although the present tense might be Luna's issue.
5854479
5852678
I kinda have to agree with Breeze ark. nothing actually really happens in this story its pretty much just me rambling bout luna and making her all artistic. And like people can enjoy that, but they don't have to.
And I sorta made breeze ark read this so hes definitely entitled to dislike it
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
bringing up dead conversations like a champ
6124736 Yes, you certainly can bring up dead conversations...
This was definitely beautiful but yet short read. Good job!