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Twilight, after decades of near isolation finds a way to rid herself of the curse put on her by her closest friend. Unbeknownst to her she is stepping into the realms of the unknown and into a fate far worse than death. Will her once friends save her from herself or will Twilight condemn herself to her own personal hell for all eternity?
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Well, this certainly looks interesting. I look forward to more.
The feels
Another Twilight in Grief over Immortality's gift.
Do these people just not have anything resembling therapists? Or the ability to channel grief like a normal person? It's like every other day we see Twilight trying to kill herself in horrific ways because people can't handle loss anymore. You cherish the ones that have passed on and enjoy the new generation.
If you feel you'll forget them start writing about them to make sure you never forget. Chiseled stone doesn't age much in sealed conditions..
4763377 People write this kind of story cause for some reason its interesting. Is the idea over used? Yes. Is that a bad thing? No. If you don't like it, that's fine because the over use of a trope has absolutely no effect on you.
Although Now you bring it up, I would like to see a good story about Twilight moving on with her life and telling the story of her friends to future generations. That could be interesting.
4763465
I planned on that for a possible alternate ending kind of deal. I probably shouldn't have spoiled that but it's all in HOW you go about it that matters.
4763465
Oh I know, I plan to watch this regardless.
And drama does fuel better stories I suppose.
Interesting, I shall await more
4763377 Hell, why not work on a way to get your friends to live forever too?
SO. MANY. TYPOS.
do you even know how to grammar? I'm sure you do, but these things happen. I suggest a very thorough proof reading. Slap the fic into a word processing program and fix the glaring issues first. There were a few places in the story that felt awkward to read as well, but it didn't detract from the whole experience.
Also, out of curiosity, I'm wondering if it's purely the magical aspect of an Alicorns body that grants them immortality. Because if it was, you know... Terik kind of does that whole magic steal thing. Scorpan might also do that, so yeah... If you kill off the insane healing aspect by draining all of your magic, an Alicorn should be susceptible to any sort of lethal wounds.
Anyway, great work.
4764616
And if not, time to start progressin that Necromancy! You don't need to make it the sort of abomination magic everyone makes it out to be, make safe practices like the C'tis and create yourself some eternal friends.
4763377 I always ask people if they plan on killing themselves when their first friend dies from cancer/auto accident/ etc.
Seriously, the wangst around here is pathetic.
Death happens. Alot. Deal with it.
There are not a lot of fics that contain alicorn Twilight that I read (mostly because I still hate that change).
However, I can't discriminate. If a story is good, then I shall read it.
Apart from some typos and forgotten words (just go over it again after a couple of days from writing it, it helps), the premiss is quite interesting.
A small thing I don't really like is how "credible" the characters act. Despite the fact that at least a thousand years have passed since Spike was a baby dragon (show age), characters act as if they were just thrown into that time frame. Twilight and Spike discuss things that should have been discussed a long time ago, same with Luna and Celestia (Cadence as well, a bit). The reason you're doing it is understandable: you are trying to get the reader up to date as much as possible, so you write Alzheimer Characters.
A way you could avoid that is by having revelations or info dumps made in third person narration. Doing it that way however is harder because the reader will easily get bored/annoyed by being told what happened in large blocks of texts. Now I don't know the exact fix for that, but you could try slipping bits of info here and there in regards to a character's action. Let's say Spike does something that reminds Twilight of the time he was a baby dragon. Just mention it like this (pure example):
This way you've managed to tell the reader 2 things without having to actually make Twilight say those words as if it were the first time she said them. They know it's been a lot, it's not something they would bring up in a casual conversation everyday.
You can also mix them up and see how it goes. For example the line where Spike told Twilight he knew what she was working on but didn't want to talk about it over breakfast was very good. It was just Spike saying something normal, while letting the reader know the two of them have had that conversation before.
Regarding two endings part (I think I've seen it in one of your comments): Don't do it.
This recommendation however is purely personal opinion. Some people like that stuff, some don't. But keep this in mind: The best stories out there (movies, books, plays) don't have it. And for a good reason. When you are telling a story, you are telling us, the readers, what happened. By definition, there is only one outcome, unless you're touching on multiverse sci-fi stuff or you make it work in the story's favour (maybe make Twilight see how it is in a parallel universe where she would have succeed with killing herself?). However, a story should always have a single ending. Or an ending that is left for the reader to decide for himself. Let us fill the gaps, don't do it yourself because you're robbing the reader of one of his greatest tools: imagination.
Actions have consequences, and the characters suffer an ultimate fate because of those actions. Splitting up the chain of events of a good story is like untangling a strong rope. You get more rope, but it's just not that good as it once was.
Good luck with the story. I'll be watching it.
4766071
Yes it's always been curious for me to wonder why people don't seem to under that grief while a natural process, it is one that passes. If you stay in grief forever over things then that isn't natural.
Things die, your friends will die, your family will die. Old Age, disease, tragedy.
But one continues to live, when one lives they can continue, meet new people, make new friends, make your own family.
And if one is immortal why does that change things? It just means an infinite possible people one can become friends with, you'll love, laugh, cry, and watch them pass on, no worse for meeting them.
4766093
I remember trying to edit out that part since I thought a time frame of a thousand years was a bit hard to swallow(Considering they just took Apple Bloom off the front of the sweet apple acres bottles). I must have missed a section where I mentioned spike was a thousand years old somewhere. It was part of the original draft that didn't fit very well. (If you could write out he sentence where it occurs I can find it and fix it)
On the other note I'm not good at catching typos or editing at all. Writing with dyslexia is hard enough, editing with it is a titanic nightmare(words just bleed together after awhile). Is there some program online I could use for better editing?
4766129 I am of the opinion that it's a combination of 'Fear of the Unknown' and 'Sour Grapes'.
Immortality is an unknowable condition, thus there is no way for the human mind to properly guage its effects.
There is also the fact that for all intents and purposes it is unobtainable by any possible and practical means that we have available, thus they assume that it must be horrible to remove the insatiable desire for that which they cannot obtain (hence the Aesop).
Combine this with an adolescent-like tendancy for emotional turmoil and overconfidence despite severe inexperience and lack of information, and you get a large percentage of people who automatically assume immortality must be terrible.
I, however, am a SCIENTIST!!! I am also quite delightfully mad! Therefore, I DEMAND immortality such that I shall rule the cosmos forever!
4766185 use office word, it will usually underline words that are in wrong order or doubled up (among grammar mistakes).
Then take that whole text and copy paste it into a Gdocs document. Its verifier will underline some other words as well (mostly american vs english versions), but it's sometimes better at word order mistakes than Word. Editors however are a great help.
4766208
Don't have office at all, Microsoft stopped bundling it with OS years ago and Gdocs is a no go becuase every time download it after corrections it corrupts the format. (spacing gets borked, italics and bolds no longer work and in worst case scenario allthewordlooklikethisshit)
4766208
Running the entire thing through http://spellcheckplus.com/ and found quite a few grammatical errors, mostly minor stuff. If only there was a syntax checker as well lol
Update: Around 75% the way through using the spell check so far about 80 errors have been fixed.
Update: got most of the errors out of the way, at least the few caught by spellcheckplus.com if anyone can give me a better checker it would be much appreciated.
4767384
So as Alondro said, it really is just Sour Grapes then.
4766857 you need a better spellchecker.
also, is that profile picture supposed to be Nyan Space Core?
4763479 don't worry about spoiling it when you know you have something to keep the suspense: the question of how it's done. As long as there is some suspense in the "how" (this being the most important form of suspense, IMHO), there's still a reason to keep reading.
4766188 Oh boy, another mad scientist! A pleasure to meet one like myself!
4764869 I wouldn't have thought of Tarik
4767487
I'm not perfect damn you
I know my editing skills are lacking. Also that's the core that always yells 'space!' and as you can see the backdrop is his favorite space.
Is it me or does this reak of suicide?
Will read later.
4763465
The main problem with them is that, most of the time, they aren't written in such a way that actually makes sense. Immortal angst is a very overused fictional trope, but it is mostly written by people who have no idea what they're doing.
The thing is, if you look at real world people, almost everyone has their parents and grandparents die. And yet, people don't fall apart because of this. Indeed, many people survive the deaths of their spouses and remarry.
This is at the core of the issue with immortal angst stories - they don't really work on a fundamental level because ordinary people don't fall apart when this sort of thing happens, and frequently the grief depicted in them is wholly unrealistic in most cases.
That's not to say that this necessarily has this problem (I haven't read it yet), but the truth is that very few such stories are actually approached in a, well, human manner. Most people don't end up falling apart because people die.
And of course it is especially bizarre in-universe seeing as a number of Twilight's friends (Celestia, Luna, Cadance, Discord, and Spike) are likely to live thousands of years, if not forever.
4769036 I agree. Its an interesting idea, but im yet to find a story that takes a truly realistic approach.
4769036
Finding a realistic approach to immortality is difficult from a human perspective becuase we can only guess at the long term effects. For example we know as humans get older we perceive time at a much faster rate than say a child would.
If you extrapolate just that to the extreme by the time someone is say a thousands years of age, time would just cruise on by, decades would feel like just days to someone with that kind of life.
Trying to approach it in a human manner is sort of impossible since we have no data of someone living that long to extrapolate from. What we do know is the older you get the faster you perceive time and the higher chance of you having what is essentially a brain crash (too much data) and your chance increases to get dementia.
Alicorns obviously have built in defense mechanisms against such things, otherwise Celestia and Luna would both be batshit insane at this point. This leaves the constant grief of loss as the only approachable avenue IMHO.
Also horse biology when dealing with loss extrapolated to a human level could be FAR worse. They are herd animals and that connection to each other is possibly stronger than human pack mentality, the mane six are like a herd and the loss of one would essentially be soul crushing to the others.
Now Imagine you get to keep experiencing that kind of loss for the rest of eternity or if you want to avoid that pain you just avoid all contact at all. Horses are social animals and this would also have a nasty effect on you. Yes Twilight still has Luna, Cadence and Spike in this story but being around them means she will inevitably make non-immortal friends or acquaintances. All of which she will feel the loss of when she inevitably outlives them.
Later chapters will explain why she decided that ending her life was the best possible alternative and despite our difference in opinion, I hope you stick around to read that.
4769150
This isn't really how it works. Human perception of time is actually unchanging - that is to say, one second to a youngster and one second to an older person are percieved as an identical amount of time. What actually varies is not our perception of time directly, but rather our perception of elapsed time, or more properly, our memories - that is to say, if something happens, then something ELSE happens, and older person will tend to percieve those two things as having happened with less time between them than the younger one. Not that they will count wrong, but it will seem to have occurred more recently than it did. But why?
Well, the answer to this is that our perception of time is actually heavily modulated by our attention, focus, and novelty - in other words, what really makes us percieve elapsed time is important things happening. Unimportant things turn into a blended blur, as the memories are not terribly important so they aren't percieved as super distinct events. Important things - novel things - get "bookmarked" so to speak, and thus seem to occur more seldom because as you get older, you tend to experience less novelty because you have consumed more things.
The catch to this is that it ultimately is linked to age, not novelty - if you participate in some activity which is very important and focus on it heavily, it will seem like it lasted a very significant amount of time, even if it did not.
An immortal is going to have experienced a lot of things, but I think at some point this process more or less evens out - engaging in significant activities seems to stick with me equally well with many years elapsed between them, and especially significant activity still stands out to me.
So to someone like Celestia, when significant things happen, she wouldn't really percieve them any differently than anyone else - the oddity of her perception would mostly be about non-significant events. I would imagine that the last few years have seemed much longer to her than many years have in a very long time, though it depends on how much she seeks out novelty in general. Meeting new people and befriending them, for instance, or engaging in some sorts of significant social activity will always make the time seem more significant and stretched.
There's no such thing as a brain crash (unless you count a seizure, but they're completely different), and dementia is caused by the aging proces. If you were immortal, then dementia wouldn't affect you.
We do have limited memory capacity, but it is unclear how limited it actually is - I don't know if anyone has ever "filled up" their total possible memory. And in any case, your brain mostly discards useless memories - most likely, if you "filled up", it would more or less blend away stuff that didn't matter so much and repurpose it. Goodness knows how that would work, of course, but our brains already do have something of a filing system, given that we take in enormous amounts of data via our senses but don't record it all.
It doesn't really work, though, because that's not how people actually operate or respond to grief in most cases. That's the problem - real life people DO have everyone die around them sooner or later, and yet that doesn't actually break people down - my grandparents are dead and I am not psychologically scarred for life. This is why these stories tend to be inherently very unbelievable - because everyone has their parents and grandparents die, at least, and half the population has their spouses die, and yet people don't crumble when their parents and grandparents die, and even the death of a spouse is usually gotten over. This is the most common response, and is the response you see in healthy individuals.
The same mechanism which alters the importance of people in your social circles alters the importance of dead people as well; over time, they become increasingly less important to you, just as old friends you fall out of contact become increasingly less important to you.
Basically, people who hold a cross for someone forever are the exception rather than the rule - they're broken.
Humans forge incredibly strong bonds between individuals; indeed, as far as we can tell, humans are the "ultimate" social animal. The idea of them forging "stronger bonds" is beyond questionable.
Indeed, we're evolved to do so - it makes sense, really, given that chances are good that half the people you know are going to die before you do, and it will occur pretty much continuously over your lifespan, so we're evolved to adapt to people dying.
4769196 What a well thought out and written response on immortality. I find the concept to be quite captivating and I do have to say that you have hit the bulls eye on my thoughts about it. Outstanding.
4767577 Mad science is best science!
4770753 want to help me optimize my Tesla coil? Just kidding, I don't have one, but I wish I did.
4769196 Other issues:
1. Once a brain is 'immortal', can we even begin to estimate just what sorts of physiological changes it has undergone to achieve that state? There is simply no way to ascertain the limits, if any, of something that does not currently exist. However, we can assume that an immortal mind has changed VERY drastically from its mortal form, and thus is likely be much less restricted by our current physiological limitations.
2. Time perception is highly personalized. Some people feel that time slows down as they age, for example.
3. There is also the notion that an immortal has the awareness of being able to truly plan incredibly far ahead. Their schemes and goals could operate on scales and scopes we can scarcely conceive, and include subtle influences to entire biomes and geological epochs!
To put it simply, "Who can claim to know the mind of God?"
4770781 I'm already busy building an exotic matter torus for an experimental warp drive...
... IN MY BASEMENT!!
*a week later, Southern New Jersey suddenly explodes...*
Wow, the characters in this story talk to themselves outloud A LOT, you might want to make it thought based or at least tune it down
4766071
you need to make a profession of mailing people greeting cards
"You have been quiet about the specifics of why we are in such a rush to stop Twilight. I mean, I want to stop her, but I can understand her reasons for wanting to well ... die." Cadence looked down at a locket hanging around her neck and opened it with her magic. Inside was a picture of her long deceased family; her husband Shining Armor and their son, Unbreakable Bulwark.
WAT WAT WAT WAT?
4772327
This is set in the future, did you expect Shining and Cadence not to do the horizontal monster mash and have a foal?
4766071 >alot
learn2english
also you have a disturbingly unattached view of the human psyche
Not everyone reacts in the same way to pain like that, and you going "lol get over it faggots" is callous, ignorant, and downright dickish
There are some people others cannot live without, and you dismissing a whole category of people with nothing more than a "you're all pathetic babies boo hoo hoo cry me a river" is what's truly pathetic
4772100 Alondro's greeting card:
"Hello. Your best friend died. Get over it. Happy holidays!"
(Card has picture of Alondro launching all da nukes because he is 120% evil like that.)
4772823
The sheer autism that bubbles from your posts is unbelievable
4772845 You wish you had autism as powerful as mine.
I CAN DESTROY OBAMA WITH MY PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWERS (which come with an itty-bitty living space)!!!
*Alondro bends spacetime into the past such that Obama makes all manner of idiotic decisions and his popularity plummets below 40% versus the 99.9% approval and less than 1% unemployment rate that existed before Alondro trolled the cosmos!!*
BEHOLD!! IT IS NOW AS I INTENDED!! MY POWER IS INFINITE!!
4772899
No seriously
4772460 I've heard and used the horizontal tango, but that's a new one
4772845 these days I'm not sure what really fuels him, autism, hate, or attention? I can't be sure
4763377 It's easy to say something like that when you don't have to worry about out-living your grandchildren. Not everyone deals with certain situations in the exact same way. Can you imagine not being able to find a partner to spend eternity with? To possibly have children only to watch them grow old and die while you remain the same? To watch the same thing happen to their children, their children's children, and so on? Sure you could have friends but for how long? In the eyes of an immortal the lifespan of their friends are about as long as blinking your eyes. The emotional wear and tear could even bring down the hardiest of people, as seen in the part where Celestia talks about how she even tried to end her own life.
Anyone can say they'd be able to handle it but try walking in their (horse)shoes for an eternity and see how well one's mind can deal with it.
4769196
Well put and thought out, bravo~
The whole "Immortality is a curse" thing has been around for a long time and the notions of how it'd work can get a little too rehashed at times. Not to mention the frustration of when people confuse being Ageless with being Deathless. Immortal typically means "Can't be Killed", but so many assume not aging anymore is the same thing. Oi.
The idea of being deathless is silly in and of itself too as it's actually "You are much harder to kill" rather than "You can not die".
4775657
When you've made friends with dying patients in hospitals, you know that feeling well.
When you've seen friends or family die suddenly. It's the same feeling.
4775768
Is it? Depending on your religious view point you'll see them again once you pass or be reincarnated and never remember them except as a kindred spirit should you meet them again. Immortality, you're going to have to deal with never being able to see them again except in memory and that can never take the place of making memories with them.
When with friends and family, you cherish the time spent together because one day either you or them may suddenly pass away. Immortality, it's the heartache of knowing they will die at some point and you won't. That every friend you make will die and you won't.
Much intrigue, I really want to see what happens!
Good luck and looking forward to more.