Quote Originally Posted by Thanqol View Post
Desserting On Dawn Review:

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Is Caer Gallan a place? A year? A month?



Double use of 'the dawn'



Double use of 'note'.


Out of curiosity, have you ever taken the time to just sit and watch the dawn? Like, gotten up early, climbed the highest mountain available to you, and watched the horizon until the sun came up?

If you haven't, do so. I make it practise to do it at least once a year. It's always an absolutely beautiful experience that will stay with you for the year to come.



Her little what? Her wings? Why is curse singular?



Fix, also oddly phrased but I'll pass it over.



Pretty sure you don't need the comma.



Really starting to lose track of what's going on here. From what I understand this is Celestia, breaking into some sort of temple, and she's a lowly maid who hides her wings. And yet, she has a formal breakfast proceeding and isn't particularly worried about the ramifications of being caught?



Tenses!



Rule: No commas immediately before 'and'. It's called a rolling comma or something, and it is BAD!



A.D standing for what, exactly? After Discord?



I really think the flavour of these would change if you watched a few sunrises firsthand.

The colour breaks the horizon far before the sun itself does, spreading blue across the whole sky and igniting a bonfire of white amidst the distant mountains. The first inches of its flight are the most glorious, stabbing so sharp and so powerfully into eyes unprepared for their brilliance. Slowly, languorously, it breaches the tip of the mountains and recedes some of it's radiance within itself. Finally, by the time it has well and truly taken reign in the sky, surrounded by the clouds which are its courtiers and attendants, the sun reduces to a mere ball of fire and fades into the background.

If you're writing a story about famous sunrises you should really watch some sunrises and take detailed notes. Sunrises and sunsets are, in my opinion, all the proof I need for the existence of God.



^



AAAAAAAAAAAH ATTRIBUTION TAGS!

don't hit me again, i'll be good, i'll be good

You might want to look those suckers up because EqD will bounce your story for misusing them.

Also, 'ye'? Not 'Thou'?



The whiplash between the olde timey English and the ultramodern pejorative 'freaks' actually hurt my neck. You really need to do something about that, like, as a thing.



Discord's a 'he', she even refers to him as a 'he' in the same sentence, and the LotR reference was cool the first time but not when repeated.



Ow. ow. The whiplash.

Um, possibly that could be a feature and not a bug here but there would need to be a framing voice/clarification of the narrator.



I feel like this should receive more attention. Did Discord break the world so badly that nothing works if not constantly maintained by ponies? That should be a thing.



I have a thought here, but it's complex and might work better as an essay down the road.



This, however, is a thought that I can articulate. You can not do this. You can not go through this detailed examination of the past of Equestria and not examine the motives or reasoning for Luna's fall. You can not go from 'everything is happy' to 'Celestia has won'. You can not imply that everything was perfectly happy right up until it was not. You can not absolve all parties of all guilt by not addressing the issue. You can not. I refuse. I won't allow it.

This will literally kill the fic for me. You are sidestepping the most complicated, involved, emotional and powerful character arc in the entire MLP setting. You can't do that. You just can't.


Sorry, I can't progress past this point in the review. The next chapter seems to be a thousand years in the future which means there's no prospect for a proper examination of the concept, so I'm just going to put it down.

This album; it's not my favourite musically, but narratively it's one of the best visions I've ever seen of the Celestia and Luna story. With Poise; With Anger forever changed my view of Celestia. Dawn is genuinely heartbreaking.
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Excellent; thank you for highlighting that one lack that was itching at me but that I couldn't find. I think my original intention, when I first wrote this, was contrast - going from idyll to hell. But you're right, my usual method of highlighting by omission isn't going to work here.

And I'm afraid most of the sunrises I personally witnessed, I associate with Scottish mist and damp mornings. Which wouldn't be the most inspiring description ever, talking about how the mist slowly gets light enough to see from the kitchen to your tent and hey is that the sun yes it is now hurry up and rise all the way so we're not freezing.