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Joined October 2011
No one expects to go to sleep and never wake up. There's always tomorrow, or the next day. There was always time. So, when a young life is extinguished before its time, it becomes especially difficult to handle. When the spirit of that life is forced to face and accept her death, what will become of her afterlife? Scootaloo will soon be faced with this tragedy, and this is her story.
I'd just finished reading this on DA when it popped up here. It's... thought-provoking. Well worth reading. I actually felt closer to crying than I've been in years.
She made the right choice. I've often thought that the ideal afterlife would have to be very much like life itself, complete with its pitfalls and challenges. What value is there in happiness without the feeling of having earned it? No, we're already in our heaven, and she was one of the rare people wise enough to realize it. Bravo, Scootaloo.
Never has this emoticon been more appropriate. 
The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favorite stories. Not because of the engaging plot, the wonderfully developed characters, or the rich setting. No, it's one of my favorites because of a single line, from the ending. I'm kind of paraphrasing, but this is the gist of it:
"To know ultimate happiness, one must first know ultimate suffering."
And that's what you've managed to capture here. Life has its ups and downs, its joys and pains. You can't have one without the other. Else, you're leading an incomplete life.
Beautiful story. Well done.
>>12289 I'm happy to hear you got to see it on there! Wow, I didn't think anyone looked at that - I'm a little flustered right now.
Still, I'm so happy to know you enjoyed this. It's an idea I've been playing around with for a long time, but it only just occurred to me to pair it with ponies. Poor Scootaloo just happened to be too easy a target to pass up...and she deserved a happy ending.
Damn... That's about all I can say to this. I'm not a cold and heartless person by any means, but I find it very difficult to cry. I'll spare you the reason, but needless to say, my eyes watered while reading this. Unlike my normal comments, where I would offer some form of critique, or pick out some error here or there in hopes of providing the author with some useful feedback, I don't have anything to pick on. I didn't find anything. I didn't care to look for them. I didn't need to look for them. So, I suppose I'll offer something else instead. How about a hope for the future? To inspire someone to do something is about the most profound effect anything can have on anyone. I've been inspired to write another story with a similar theme, though without the death. Thanks for pulling on my brittle heart strings - they've almost snapped, and it's about time I replaced them anyway. 5/5
God fucking DAMNIT brony... I'm 6'3". I'm 235 lbs. I can bench press my own weight. I work as a security guard. I got stabbed a while back, and I broke the guy's face with my knee. I didn't cry then. WHY CAN I NOT STOP CRYING?!
Goddamnit I'm supposed to be a man!
For all of those who read!
Ok, for all of you trying to figure out whether Scoot is alive or not, I agree, and would like the author to chime in. I'm probably overthinking this, but...
I see a few possibilities. The mare specifically said only those that die young & innocent are given this choice. 1) Scoot was allowed to choose another chance at life. Most ponies in the same situation don't realize they can make this choice, so they pick something else and remain dead. 2) Scoot is dead, and picked a heaven that was exactly like her life. However, since she will presumably live forever in this reality, everyone else gets old and dies and she constantly has to deal with loss again. Doesn't sound good. 3) Scoot is dead, and picked a heaven like her real life, except that nopony ages any more, so it's frozen in time, and somehow Scoot doesn't notice or care that it's not right. Everything's stagnant. A little less depressing, maybe, but still not great in my book. That's why I like to think #1 is correct. I doubt that was the intent, but for me, it's the happiest ending, and it still fits the theme that life was heaven for her since she thought of it on her own.
And, damn you for making me cry. Final 3 chapters were much stronger than the first, but brilliantly done.
To put it to rest, *cue drum Ba-dum-cha*
The idea I used was this. If I were to die, I'm the kind of person who wouldn't just let it go. I honestly can't see Scootaloo doing this either. After all, there were so many memories we never would have gotten to have, so many good times, even though there would be some bad. It would still have been an adventure - a story - and it's a shame to let it go unfinished. So the heaven I would imagine her, and myself, choosing would be to live out the remainder of the story. To live as though I had never died and finish what I started.
However - the Mare also stated that Heaven can change, if Scootaloo works to change it. It's in her hooves now and after it's all over, said and done, she'll have grown up and experienced life in all its joy. She'll be stronger, wiser, and I feel she would know better what heaven would be like from then on. I believe that, while she could not simply replay her life, she could start on a new adventure with her loved ones. They would continue to explore the world and other worlds together, and they would never grow old, and they would never grow tires. They would run the streets forever. And everything would be perfect.
By the way - ten points if anyone can cite where I got that last line from.
She's still dead - but that doesn't mean she gave up on living.
that's so sad... I don't know if I'm crying because I felt like I was in scootaloo's horseshoes, or that the story was so beautifully written. The English language does not have enough words to describe how sad I feel now... If I were to die young like scoots, I would probably do something similar in the way of finishing what I started... Oh well... At least I've found it easier to fall asleep when I'm sad... Rest in peace Scootaloo...
Wow... this just got added to the list of fics that got me to cry. I didn't bawl, but the emotion was thick.
here, have this.
and a link if that dosn't work.
http://juy56.deviantart.com/#/d4cqx5f
5 stars.
>>12523 To you, my dear reader, I must attempt to make my response as well versed and eloquent as a bard in the crux of autumn.
*clears her throat*
THANK YOU! 
I hope this brief expression will suffice in adequately expressing the degree which I have proceeded to "squee" over having received your lovely token. 
I do like that explanation, and it's similar to the one I chose, but it still doesn't sit right with me. She chose to experience both the joy and pain of life again, but if she lives forever now, it changes the consequences of her future actions. The most pain in life is that it ends, both hers and her friends', and if you take first one and then the other of those away, it's not the same. You wouldn't live the same way. There would be no motivation to make the most of life while you can, since you will never lose the opportunity.
Those are my feelings, anyway. I'm not trying to get you to change anything, just putting my 2 cents out there to get people thinking. I think you left it ambiguous enough that readers can make their own choice. I gave you an enthusiastic 5 *'s.
Just... wow. That was amazing, I loved it. The ending is somewhat similar to something that I wrote myself:
"“Naturally, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Luna said with a small chuckle. “I imagine that you’ve got plenty of questions.”
Vinyl nodded in affirmation. “Am I alive?” she asked, obvious first question.
Princess Luna couldn’t help but chuckle. “Do you feel alive?” she asked.
Vinyl thought about the day’s events, from losing her eyesight to everything she’d just been through with Derpy. There could be only one answer to the Princesses’ question.
“Yes,” Vinyl said simply.
“Then you’re alive!” Luna said. She placed her hoof on the unicorn mare’s shoulder."
Clearly, you and I are on the same page. I applaud you, this was amazing.
HexReverie, the point is Scootaloo choose a Heaven where she never died, and yes, in the original reality her friends are mourning for her, but that can't be changed. Basically, Scootaloo pulled a Source Code, and in the reality she's living she is alive because she choose to be, because that is her heaven.
I cried.
I cried that silent, tears streaming down your face but being quite cry.
A sobbing fit of Hurt, Of a touched heart and of depressed Thoughts.
With the power to make one feel such a strong and painful emotion through writing is tough and you should be commended for it.
Tragedy is unavoidable and when it happens to someone so innocent or undeserving of it, The hurtful Feelings can be overwhelming.
I'm Glad you didn't pussy out and make scootaloo wish for something that would allow herself Life once more, Instead, she chose to live that life in the afterlife as her own personal heaven,a never ending paradise with the one she idolizes and loves, And that was A respectful move.
You should write a sequel to this or some kind of continuation that closes the story fully, show what happens as the broken hearts are repaired and
amends can be made and possibly how the Hurt was to much and Maybe... somepony can share a personal heaven with Scoots.
Reading Depressing stories is difficult for me because the funk it puts me in usually lasts for a very long time, A Few days was the longest i ever had. So thanks for making my chest feel heavy for the next few hours.. Dickhead.. (kidding)
... 
This was amazing. One of the most moving, heart touching stories I've ever read. What broke me during this story was when Sweetie Belle started to sing the lullaby, when she started to sing i started crying to the point where i almost couldn't continue reading the story but i pressed on and finished reading it through tear streaked eyes. And when she sang again at the end, same thing. Thank you for an amazing story, 5/5 and a favorite for you, bravo good sir, bravo. R.I.P Scoots
I have to say this is probably one of the greatest stories I have ever read. I sit here on my chair in front of my computer trying to express how good this was with tears streaming down my face. But I can't. I can't put words to how good this was. Thanks for sharing.
This is incredibly upsetting. Not saying it's bad. I just don't enjoy, or understand the desire to feel, such strong negative emotions like grief and sorrow. Not sure I can even call this bittersweet, it's just pure sad. Yeah she got to "live" her life to the fullest, somewhat restoring what was taken from her, but it's on a purely selfish level, her friends will only be echoes of her memories after all. Her life will no longer color and shape the lives and destinies of her family, friends and loves as it would otherwise. That is the tragedy of dying young. Not your own end, but the hole ripped in the fabric of reality you would have otherwise filled with your actions and presence. A kaleidoscopic array of mutual experience shattering and fading from existence.
PS: This is actually very similar to the "good" ending of Shadow Hearts: Covenant. Ever play that?
PPS: This still doesn't take the crown from the absolute overlord of all sadfics: Somewhere Only We Know.
You know, I've never really been too keen on sadfics. Everypony keeps saying that I should write one, since they like my shipfics so much. After reading this, I can honestly say that I will write one. You jerked my heartstrings so much that I had no choice but to simply sit her and cry, multiple times, especially as the imagery and symbolism. The story was far too good to even make the one grammar issue I found worth mentioning, and I can say that this may get me one step closer to accepting my grandfather's death, though it was over 2 years ago. He'd always told me "put on your big girl panties and deal with it." I've always had a strange fascination with heaven...maybe I'll humanize that old story I wrote in 07. Thank you, sir/ma'am. You've written an exceptionally good story. Hopefully mine can be up to par.
Regards,
Bandmaster Trey.
>>13834 Hypothermia. When the body gets too cold too quickly it can cause that, and if she just went to sleep instead of getting up to go find heat or to circulate blood, she wouldn't have been capable of overcoming it. I assumed since she's a child, and she was in a pretty open area with just a cape on, she wouldn't be capable of regulating her body temperature if it suddenly dropped during the night.
>>13725 Just saw this comment, man I'm slow tonight. Anyway - I was gonna say, I actually *just* submitted this to EQD about an hour ago. Wish me luck, guys. If it makes it up there, it'll be my second fic to make it, and I'm not gonna lie, I'd be so stoked.
I'm absolutely overwhelmed with how much everyone seems to like this. It's amazing and terrifying and I'm so happy I could connect with all of you in this way. Seeing your reactions is like winning the lotto for me! 
Call me crazy for it, but I actually experienced true sadness for the first time in a long time reading this fic. I know it's all fake, and none of the characters have or ever will be real, but it doesn't make it any less sad. Thank you for writing these beautiful piece. I do hope this makes it to Equestria Daily. This is the sort of thing that deserves to be there, one hundred percent.
I never thought I would feel this way again since "My Little Dashie", at least it wasn't right before work this time>>12362 probably has something to do with the fact that a child died
on a completely related note, this site does not have enough fucking "sad" emotes
we are missing Twilight and Dash dammit, of course far as I remember, Dash has never cried in the show
what i did during the funeral scean:
applebloom speech: misty eyed, close to teary eyed.
sweetybelle speech: very close to crying, tears in my eyes.
rainbow dash speech: BWAAAAAAHHHHH.
after scootaloo "woke up" i calmed a bit.
rainbow's adoption: BBBBWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH
at this point i thought scootaloo was really back alive and it really was a nightmare. and sooooooo
at the end: BBBBBBBBBBBBBWWWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH
i loved the story, but you did manage to kill off my favorite charicter and then have her version of heaven be my other favorite charicter adopt my favorite charicter sooooo........ i liked it but i am kinda now depressed... thank you but please don't have this develope into an actual episode. i do't think i could take something like that...
Oh my god... I can't- I mean- I just... SCOOTALOO!
This is the saddest story I've read in a long time. Sad... But at the same time... Relieving... The tears of sadness transforms to happiness... It's so very hard to explain...
I don't often cry. I sometimes do when I watch a sad movie, or in this case, read a very sad story. This one had me in more tears than I've had in a looong time... I even had to lay down in bed for a bit so that my mum wouldn't hear me. The way she chose her heaven... Her own heaven was... Heartbreaking in a lot of ways... I for one would have a hard time living- I mean uh... Dying? like that, for I would know it was a lie... A world crafted out of my own wishes and nothing more... But then again, she didn't seem to truly remember her death, which I think was part of her plan. And I say that's a good plan.
Dying like you would have lived... I like the sound of that...
Ok, I don't know how many people actually read my comments - but good news time! This is going to be put on EQD - BUT - under a new title. Yeah, I know, it caught me off guard when they asked me to rework it. So if you guys see "Final Dreams of a Filly" - that would be this under a new title. Sorry about that, but hey, it made it!
I will say that I absolutely love the story, but I think a Horror tag would be extremely justified.
I do not know if it was your intention, but that is exactly what the ending comes off as with Scootaloo's heaven.
Living out the rest of the story would be good, but living out a fake life you believe to be real while the real one goes on without you? That is not something anyone could call good. The only way it would be made up for is if she broke out of it by the end, but even then that seems unlikely.
So, I'm feeling a bit contemplative here, so I was wondering. I had two different options of how this could be seen if you took time to think about it after reading, analyzing it. by nature, I like to do that sort of thing from time to time, so I hope you don't mind. I saw two ways this could be interpreted. Feel free to correct me if this did actually have a finality to it, a very real conclusion with no interpretation at the end.
A. This is really happening, she did die, and this end result is her own little piece of heaven, like the last chapters title suggests, so now she does get to experience the joys of "Growing up" even if it's not in the reality of the world, where the others grieve and move on after her death.
B. This was sort of a "Near-Death Experience." The mind can make up plenty of unbelievable things. Not to say that it didn't hold some truth to it, as is seen with the old, gray mare in the end. Possibly the mare guiding her along through her near death experience as Scootaloo's mind sees it, and the moment she makes her decision, is the moment she wakes up.
Honestly, I could go into greater detail, but that sums it up a bit. It's hard to tell if you maybe left it open for interpretation, or you did have an absolute finality to it. Could you maybe please clear this up for me?
Either way, I'm not usually one for tragic, sad fics, but I had to give this one a chance. Usually they're too much for me, but this did it just right.
Could have been worse:
What if all of this was happening in her head while she was in a coma? The adoption, growing up, realizing her dreams... Then 10 years later she wakes up and none of it ever happened. She's alive but completely alone. Her entire life over the last decade never happened; and even though she experienced it, she was the only one, and now she'll never have a chance to experience it for real.
Just sayin' her fate in this story is far from ideal, but it's not unnecessarily cruel.
The second I began reading... I thought of this song.
It's both happy and sad to me... Like this story.
You have made my eyes water, which is not an easy feat. I like the fact that you made it so that each ponies' heaven is their own. If it were me, it would be like real life, but without the gangs and stuff. There would still be death, but only from attaining a great age. I also agree with the fact that there cannot be happiness without sadness, there cannot be one thing without it's opposite. This story makes me sad, but it also made me happy. Scoots went to Heaven. On another note, this is my exact face right now
Well, I finally bit the bullet and read this thing. If something really is this good, I really can't see how I can pass it up.
As for my thoughts? Well...
********************** SPOILER WARNING **********************
This is certainly thought-provoking, and a surprisingly heavy subject. Considering you took an orphaned child, froze them to death, made them watch their own funeral, and then decide what their own afterlife should be, this is far from typical My Little Pony subject matter. There have been a lot of dark stories out there, but I think what really set this one apart was how "real" it tried to be. I say "tried", since we are, of course, still dealing with cartoon ponies. There's only a certain level of "real" that can be achieved in such a world.
Now, this is obviously one of those stories that attempts to deliver a message. In fact, had the message not been present, this story really wouldn't have much point. Now, I think I understood what you were trying to say, but the way it was delivered was almost a bit strange. There are a lot of "live life to the fullest" stories out there, where a character has a near-death-experience and wakes up realizing how much they wanted to do in life. You, however, decided to keep the character lifeless and have them "live life to the fullest" in a non-life. At least, that's what I think your message is. I could be wrong, though. If your message was "it's better to be alive than dead", then there's not much point to the story, since that seems to be a relatively common train of thought.
The one other thing you might be attempting to do (and again, this is conjecture, since I don't really know your own thoughts as you wrote this) is make a statement against "heaven". The lines that point to this, of course, were these:
"Over thousands of years she had heard and seen many different heavens. Sometimes, the heaven would be of one who chose to become a god and rule forever in their own domain. Sometimes, the heaven would be a fantasy they had never gotten to fulfill. Then, sometimes, it would simply be to never want or need for anything again and to simply join their loved ones when their time came; living in paradise for all eternity."
The fact that Scootaloo rejected these makes it seem like this entire story is an argument against them. Again, I'm not entirely sure if this was your intention, but this is the only other lesson I can see this story attempting to get across.
I would be interested to know your inspiration for this story. If I knew what your own thoughts were while you wrote this, it might help me decide whether I think it was successful or not. As of right now, I really can't tell what this story is trying to achieve (aside from making us cry), and I almost wish there was an author's commentary at the end.
I'm going to be honest at this point, and say that I don't normally read sad stories. I'm a Pinkie Pie fan, as well as a fan of Tex Avery animation. I like to laugh. That's my thing. However, I also enjoy reading, and was curious to know what this story was about, particularly after reading all the comments about the open-ended "ending". Personally, I thought the ending was quite clear, particularly with the mare being present, but I still have my own confusions as well.
If you have any further comments on this piece, I would like to hear them.
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but it was still realy sad
Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v142/Donna_the_Vixen/phpbOumDVPM.jpg
Image: http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/286/3/3/good_night_scoots____by_juy56-d4cqx5f.png
Of course, that could be because i read spark and other fics of that caliber that had me crying for about an hour, but hey. It was good. I commend you.
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