As Hearth's Warming nears, Applejack celebrates in her own private way.
Cover art by PyrisiaMiracles
Chapters (1)
RBDash47
Joined 20th Sep, 2011 ·
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... BWAAAAH!!! Oh, Gods that was bittersweet. I LOVE IT!
Sad, and sad in just the sort of way that--to me--is best. No great tragedy. No extravagant vicissitudes of fate. Just life, and how it can hurt sometimes. Well done, RBDash. My hat is off to you.
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'Zactly. Thanks.
Way to post your first new story in a year just minutes after Skywriter's!
This is nice. Strong emotions conveyed with quiet words. I wouldn't call it sad, exactly. I'd say we need a "sweet" tag, but then the mods would forbid us from using it together with "sad".
3603827 All this time, you never told me you don't like tragedy!
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We're the best.
I got the notification for his literally as I was clicking the submit button for mine; I thought FIMFic had broken for a second.
Beautifully written. I enjoyed that a lot. Well done.
Very nice~
Quite sad, and quite sweet too. A well crafted tale. Good job.
This is a really touching story, i really enjoyed it :')
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It's like an early Hearth's Warming present!
Even more bizarre is how beautifully the two stories dovetail together. If I'd read them in the opposite order, it would have simply felt wrong for Applejack's phone call not to mention the pie.
Good story! Nice descriptions, and very evoking. Not exactly a tear-jerker, but the perfect definition of bittersweet.
You might want to add it to a few more groups, though. Otherwise you will get only a few views.
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To this day I've never understood some of the conflicts. Like Slice-of-Life and Adventure. If Canterbury Tales teaches us anything, it's that those genres can mix just fine.
Well done, no doubt. It's a touching story.
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Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
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I honestly have no idea what groups to add it to. Apparently a couple people have already added it to Sad and Short Stories -- appropriate -- but where else do you think it would be a good fit?
This is really sweet! Thanks for sharing it. I do love me some Applejack Angst, and as previous commenters have pointed out, we're apparently on the same vibe of late.
You say this is autobiographical, but I can smell, and feel, and taste every moment as if it were my own. You see, my family, too, has a very special, carefully guarded pecan pie recipe of great personal significance. It has taken me many seasons to come close to mastering it.
This fic brought an honest tear to my eye and made me miss them.
I bet my family's pie is better.
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Damn it, I make time to read yours and I end up tearing up at work. Wonderful concept and execution.
Thanks!
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A fellow pecan-pier! I hope you get to see your family (and your pie) soon. I'll be trying again in about two weeks for Christmas.
And honestly, I bet it is, heretical though that may sound. I found Dad's original after he passed, and it was just clipped out of a newspaper. I actually meant to include that in the fic somehow but forgot at the time.
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Oi now, every recipe worthy of song has to start somewhere. Mine uses a blender and a few other oddball shortcuts. It's always the ingredient that isn't on the list that's most important.
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Wow, a blender? That is... elaborate. I think this is the part where I confess that we always just use Pillsbury pre-made pie crusts.
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Hey, so do we. And believe me, using the blender isn't elaborate - it's evidence of hereditary laziness.
I am not trying to shame your pie, dude. Love your pie. It's important.
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Oh, I didn't think you were pie-shaming. (And I'm curious now -- is that how you guys make the filling? I myself am lazy in the other direction, I hate dealing with cleaning blenders so I avoid them whenever possible.)
But yes, pie is important. And I definitely love mine.
It's always nice to see someone expand Applejack's interests beyond apples, and pecan pie is thematically perfect.
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I just went and looked it up and the pecan tree is Texas' state tree, so I guess it's a little more in-character for her than I realized!
How dare you share a story name with me!
Jk, it's cool
Oh god my heart.
That was beautiful.
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I'm sorry!
Pecan pie is a delicious pie rarely mentioned. I think I'll bake one this weekend.
This was very nice, stylistically and content wise.
You have done it again, the style, story line, and execution perfect so as to bring my imagination to full clarity. I tip my hat to you.
-The Vision Shall Rise
Still kicking myself over not guessing my dad's favorite pie. Kind of ironic how he's a southerner himself.
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You should!
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Thank you.
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I think pecan pie is (or can be) a very Southern thing. It's got that whole "comfort food" thing going on.
I don't know what to say. I ended up reading the story behind the story before I got round to this, so I know it's a very personal thing. Whatever else, I think you do it justice though. I felt a strong empathy of Applejack. The line "They only had one more Hearth's Warming together after that" got me.
I will have to read Old Friends sometime.
I'm not sure if I have a similar food I associate with home so strongly. If I did, it would be things served with custard, I suppose. Apple crumble and custard in particular. Not sure I've actually had pecan pie.
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Heathen!
I wish you would! I'm most proud of it, of my published works. (And it's barely longer than this one, so it wouldn't be any great drain on your limited temporal resources.)
It has been brought to my attention since posting this that the pecan is an extremely American nut, only very recently making some small inroads abroad. Might have something to do with it.
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Short but fairly enjoyable story fitting right into the spirit of the season. Knowing what inspired it's birth makes it an even greater pleasure to read!
And boy, DO I have an appropriate goup for it! According to the rules, the story must be submitted to the [Submissions] folder and the mods take it from there. This one will most likely end up in the [Family Bonds] folder, I believe. I'm leaving the joy of adding it to you.
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Hey, thanks for the suggestion! Added.
I love pecan pie.
*Weeps soft tears*
This is certainly one of the hidden gems among the fics on thus site. Truly, RD, I wonder why this didn't get more likes. But it is the luck of the draw. I'm glad you submitted this to Twilight's Library.
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[Sad] doesn't do this story proper justice; bittersweet is more like it. Not because it tries to beats tears out of a reader with an onion, but rather, it doesn't need to. There's genuine emotion here that gets evoked, obvious from not just your blog relating to the story, but because the very concept—of holding on to a memory in such a manner—is so relatable, whether it be through sympathy or empathy or some other means.
Can't say I've read PONY Legacy, but when putting this story up alongside Old Friends, they are similar—as you yourself have pointed out. But not just in terms of atmosphere or characterization, but with the very way it's written. You're able to get a story across in just as many words as you need, not any more or less, and I applaud you for that. The pacing was simply immaculate. Going off of just these two stories alone, brevity seems to be your strong suit, or at least when it comes to writing short stories such as these.
I can't really say much about what goes on in the story itself, for a variety of pointless reasons, but the one that's most distinct to me is that this isn't exactly a story per se. Of course, there's a linear progression of events and character development which you've beautifully crammed into such a short amount of space, but this reads like a scene. Or, I guess, a series of scenes, where very little happens, as opposed to a much more grandiose thing with lots to say. This isn't me trying to find a fault here—as I said before, the brevity is great. But it leaves me having trouble finding words to say since there's so little to go off of.
But the emotion of the piece as a whole is superb. From the very near beginning, we know how this story is going to end. And yet, somehow, that doesn't dissuade from the emotion behind it. I hesitate to say it heightens it, nonetheless there's really nothing to get in the way of the messages conveyed. Again, great pacing.
If I really want to nitpick, I'd tell you some of the sentences were phrased awkwardly, making me have to pause and go back a couple words to reread. But this is me, and the story does what it does what it does just fine.
Is great story. You should write more.
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Man, thanks for the thoughtful comment.
I do seem to gravitate towards being sparing with my wordcount, and my plotting, and not actually having very much to say in any given work. That's probably all directly related to how exhausting I find writing to be, as we've discussed before. And my EqD prereader said much the same thing, suggesting even if I got it to a state of technical perfection, he wasn't sure if he could recommend it for posting because it's really not a story, at least in the traditional sense.
This one was much less polished than Old Friends -- I sort of just wanted to be done with it once I felt it was in a good-enough state -- but I'm trying to summon up the wherewithal to get with a serious editor or two and scour it clean. Other projects and real life have been occupying my time, I'm afraid.
Excellent. Well written, paced, and hits the right notes without being manipulative. Knowing that this story has a personal connection gives it so much more gravitas. Greenthumbed and followed.
Also, pecan pie is also my favorite pie. Mom always bought them just for me and will always have one around when I visit.
I couldn't sleep tonight, and went wandering about the site in search of a good bed time reading. I found this, and I must say, I'm glad I couldn't sleep. I enjoyed this story thoroughly, and only wish I'd known about it sooner…
How do you call a story without conflict?
Fimfiction is quite rich with them and this one is yet another shining example of a brilliantly executed conflict-less story that is told rather shown.
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The closest this manages is "man vs. self", I think. But it isn't even AJ struggling with anything, really... It's implied that she has struggled previously, I guess, but she's fine now and just reminiscing about it.
The brevity only makes this that much better. I couldn't really imagine that this story wouldn't be as bittersweet if it was any shorter or any longer, and I'm very glad you were able to make such a wonderful balance. Thanks for the good, short read—the writing is solid, if at times a little lacking, and making the reader feel emotions without beating it out of them (as Raz said) makes a "sadfic" a good "sadfic" (if I can call it that).
The biggest thing I like about this story, though, is that it fits so perfectly with canon. After reading this, without the show confirming it or changing it otherwise, I have this ingrained into the show's canon. It just works so well at explaining everything it revolves around, especially the pie.
A B+.
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Hey, thanks for reading! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
In general I find I have a hard time writing longer stories, but it seems to work out for me.
I do love me some pecan pie and now I want some thanks to your story.
Sweet ( double entendrè ) and sad. Well done.
Thanks for the beautiful story.
Yeah, what everyone else has said.
Ever since Significant Other introduced me to Southern USA cooking, I have been all excited and bonkers about pecan pie (which happens to be his favourite).
Yum!
I happen to use ~60 mL (1/4 cup) of Kahlua in my pie recipe.
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The best thing about living on your own (or with your Significant Other), it that you can up and decide to randomly bake a pie at 3 AM
