She stumbles into the Whitetail Woods one last time, to finish what she'd started so many years before...
Based on the song by I'm from Barcelona.
Approved by Twilight's Library!
Chapters (1)
- Member Since 3rd Sep, 2011
- offline last seen Yesterday
PresentPerfect
Fanfiction masochist. :B She/they https://ko-fi.com/presentperfect
PresentPerfect
Joined 3rd Sep, 2011 ·
Offline
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- PresentPerfect · 6.2k words · 174 4 · 4k views
- TotalOverflow · 12k words · 83 3 · 2.8k views
- Fable Scroll · 1.9k words · 81 3 · 954 views
- Mixolydian Grey · 43k words · 50 2 · 829 views
- Dark Avenger · 15k words · 93 2 · 3.1k views
- PresentPerfect · 6.6k words · 133 4 · 2.9k views
- Bad Dragon · 4.8k words · 37 8 · 694 views
- T-S-H · 7.4k words · 56 0 · 1k views
Featured In25
Shipping đŸ’–11,678 stories ·9,746 members
The Fillyfoolers3,950 stories ·3,489 members
Sad4,354 stories ·2,623 members
One-Shots18,927 stories ·2,369 members
Sensual Fiction (SFG)1,192 stories ·1,724 members
Cutie Mark Crusaders4,489 stories ·1,748 members
- F/F ships2,908 stories ·1,412 members
Short Stories5,074 stories ·548 members
Join our SubscribeStar to remove these adverts!
Join our SubscribeStar to remove these adverts!
Stats
Page generated in 0.117 seconds
Total duration
805 users online
1,345,757 hits today, 2,151,698 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
2643671
Yes, hence the [Sad] tag.
Wow, love it!
Half-way through I realized that Scootaloo was dead but, man, you still got me with the bittersweet feeling. That was very well written.
By the way, the video in the link has been taken down.
2645533
Glad it had the intended effect. :)
And actually, I just checked and the video is still up. Any chance it was, I dunno, blocked in your country or something?
EDIT: Okay, I just clicked the link and it says it's unavailable. Something weird is going on with that link.
I get that Scootaloo is dead, but is Sweetie dead as well?
Fair warning: this is going to be incredibly subjective.
I find myself quite conflicted with this piece. I like the story you're telling, and I hesitate to call the writing 'clunky'—it isn't, not exactly—but it fails to pull me in nonetheless. I strongly suspect that your avoidance of be-verbs has a lot to do with this, though I don't think I would have picked that out without the prompting of the author's note. Restricting yourself from using them seems to cut down your sentence variety and make the whole piece seem overly dense, at least to me. Then again, 'tight' isn't how I think of good writing (and 'dense' certainly isn't). 'Punchy' is what I like. And while this is evocative and interesting, it's not punchy. For two reasons, to my mind.
First, for something to be what I'd describe as punchy, it needs to have a certain ebb and flow. This is actually one of the things I dislike most about "show vs. tell" advice. This piece is very showy, and to me I feel like that's very much to its detriment. I don't need to read 2000 words of description. I like to have some fixed points of reference. Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of people who love this sort of thing—the whole school of, "interpretation should be left entirely to the reader". I have a very different attitude... but this isn't the place for an extended rant on the subject (and it's already on my blog, anyway).
The second is this weird semi-limited third person voice you use, where the reader gets shunted through a very carefully selected subset of a character's thoughts and perceptions. It feels inherently manipulative. I think the rationale for having Apple Bloom avoid some of those thoughts is sound; there's a lot of pain here. But the avoidance of actually naming the things she's carrying, that's a large level removed from the character. The word choice and tone also doesn't feel much like Apple Bloom to me, from a traditional third limited perspective, and I dislike that, but it's pretty much part and parcel with the choice to cherry pick from Apple Bloom's thoughts and perceptions.
In general, the writing was good and I definitely liked the story idea, so this gets an upvote from me. But stylistically, while I suspect many readers might like this just fine, this is very far from my cup of tea.
2724515
No. And I know why you would ask that, and I never thought that interpretation until now.
2724913
Well, I appreciate the upvote and the vote of confidence regardless. :) You can thank... I think it was Cold in Gardez who convinced me to take that particular narrative track, and removing the be verbs became a fun exercise in and of itself. That makes this definitely not the usual sort of thing for me, so there's that too.
I really liked the way you slowly built up the revelations of the story(who is the protagonist, what she was doing, who she was doing it for, and why she was doing it in this particular manner). Knowing the ending, skimming through the story a second time really paints a different picture, and I find that very interesting. I also liked the overall narrative flow, and the whole vagueness of the whole setting (you never really situate the story in time, for instance).
Still, there are a bunch of little irksome things, and since it is very short, I guess they kinda build up. There is no real sense that this character is Apple Bloom, other than her name and her relationships. Some parts also feel too emotionally manipulative (specially the bit with the placard at the end).
Still, I pretty much liked it overall. Nice work.
This felt like you only gave us the last scene of a much more interesting story.
2726110 Oh, y'know, I need to stop back in to say something else. This story just came up in conversation this morning, and I was discussing it, and I realized I never mentioned the one thing I really loved here, largely because it didn't hit me until after I'd read the story and started reading the comments.
The metaphor where you reveal that Scootaloo died is an amazing piece of writing in my opinion. Far and away the single best thing in this story, and very honest to Apple Bloom, that she refuses to engage with the idea except as an abstraction. That bit deserves a lot of praise. You really nailed it, in my opinion.
2728355
Yes.
2730857
Why thank ya kindly, sah! Y'all might just be givin' me the vapors, tee hee.
Sorry, but I found the vagueness to be excruciatingly dull. There was nothing to latch onto or pique my interest, to the extreme that by the end I was so blase to it that I completely missed what it was really about. Now, I like pieces where I have to put things together for myself, but this feel more like doing the author's job for him.
Can't say which of us should get the dead fish award for this one...
-Scott
2727485 I think that was kind of the point. The story is very minimal, that "much more interesting story" is entirely your creation. I think that that is the true beauty of a short story, just ask Hemingway.
I thought this was well crafted, but in all honesty is probably not ambitious enough for me to really remember it. I enjoyed it while I read it, but little else. This will get a thumb but not a recommendation from me.
"... the less said about that, the better."
Why? I rather enjoyed the original. I kinda miss the rock cutting into AB's fetlock and her shouting "Consarnit!"
I want to provide some criticism, but I'm having some trouble piecing my thoughts together, so it may not be very useful (sorry, I'm no Chris [well, I am, but not that Chris]). Both drafts felt unclear, in that I figured out Scoots had died, but there this nagging feeling I was misinterpreting the text. Various bits would lead me to consider other interpretations, and by then end I just felt kinda stupid. Like, if I'd read this in a classroom and the teacher asked us to explain the story, I wouldn't dare raise my hand for fear of looking like a fool (not that I ever raised my hand in class anyways, but that's beside the point). It's fine - even somewhat desirable - to leave some work to the reader, but they should feel certain about their conclusions should they have reached the correct ones
2791146
What are the other interpretations you've come up with? :O I'm interested to know, and maybe it can help me fine-tune the narrative.
2791371
Crap, I'm gonna feel really stupid now, but here we go:
The "wingbreaker" bit (which I loved!) made me think Scootaloo was still alive, but had been crippled. I imagined her acting tough and using humor to get over the accident, but her friends felt bad and possibly even responsible in some way. Now that'd be something to read about!
The mention that the CMC had grown apart after discovering their talents made me wonder if AB was using her talent to bring them back together or at least immortalize that friendship it had some part in weakening
I'd also considered that Apple Bloom was building something like an engagement present for a still living Scootaloo
It's been awhile since reading the first draft, so I don't recall what other conclusions I might've reached at that time
2794523
She was, till Scoot died in the middle of construction. :B
Also, the wingbreaker thing is more about Scootaloo being reckless, which led to her death. You don't come up with a word like that unless you've lived it.
I like the bit about AB trying to bring them all back together though. :D
This... I'm not sure what all to make of this, but I'd like to think I do.
I won't deny, though this thing hits.
Well done. Approved for Twilight's Library.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Very well written. You really capture the atmosphere and AB's sense of wearyness.
For most of the story I tought it was it was AB who was dying.
Normally not my taste but still faved for the exceptional quality.
3807719
Many thanks. :)
Also, has this story been linked somewhere recently? I noticed a slight uptick in views over the last day or so. :O
Some dude did a reading of this. Did you know?
4902089
Whoooooa. (Also that site is actually active, wow!) Is this on Youtube? :O
4902270
As far as I can tell, No.
Also interesting note about that site, the Russian side seems about 10 more active than the English side. Wonder why that is.
4903077
It was started by a Russian, so maybe that? :B I've got a few readings on there, but the site format isn't the easiest to keep up with.
FEEEEELLLSSS!!
I wrote a review of this story; it can be found here.
the story is supposedly taking place in the whitetail woods. isn't that pretty far away from equestrian ? there have been several stories involving it, that have been very dangerous. isn't that where the wendigos come from ? I thought it was taking place at the same spot that the original tree house stood. that would be on, or near the farm. iv'e never heard that place, called the whitetail woods. the story itself, stood up very well, with a bit of vagueness. I enjoyed it a lot.
6128974
According to the official map, the Whitetail Woods are a good bit west of Ponyville. I wrote this before that map was released, I think, and it made more sense for them to border Ponyville, since Fall Weather Friends and all. I don't think there's anything particularly dangerous related to them. Glad you liked the story. :)
It's always nice on the rare occasions when I actually notice that the meat of a story is taking place under the surface. :P
Damn you, Present.
I almost cried.