*Authors note: I'm extraordinarily hungover but a promise is a promise, so I'm sorry if the quality isn't top notch.*
Love.
Love is perhaps the most important emotion that can be found within us.
The insanities it may drive us to, or pull us from, have proven that it holds a power so raw over one's psyche it can make or break you in a heartbeat.
So why is it so mysterious?
As deep as we may dive into our own physical brains to observe chemical and electrical reactions, one's consciousness, their soul, remains a great mystery to us.
For as we can try to replicate these same reactions in the motherboards of computers, or the lines of a page, we can never truly capture it. Computers and stories still cannot feel. Cannot love.
Only we can love.
So how am I to say it to another? What I feel for her?
We may master communication to it's fullest extent but I can describe to you the emotion I feel no better than I can explain the color red.
I can only say its name.
Love.
When even only a single soul captures true love in your heart it truly consumes all that you are, vanquishing all other hatred and loathing because there is simply no room, no room for any other thought than the adoration you have for another. So in love for her I find love in all.
So suddenly that which has plagued me has blessed me.
So rapidly that which weighs me, lifts me.
And in this gap, this precious, precious gap between 2 completely ordinary seconds of time I have been changed.
I have the power, the ability, the gift to stop this world, this universe on a dime, and live in this moment forever, for eternity...
But then I would miss so many more.
So why oh why would I want to do that?
But how does one know what love is?
What is that defining line? When is it crossed?
Somepony once said to me "You just think your in love. You're too young to know what love is."
But isn't thinking your in love, and being in love the same thing?
There are no physical symptoms of love in ones body, they exist only within the mind, the soul.
One does not have a hypochondriac case of love, the idea is laughable.
And to say one is to young to know what love is...absurd.
A foal loves it's mother from the moment it is born.
Perhaps romantic love?
But then what is the age limit?
So the question remains, this all-powerful, soul consuming feeling, how do we define it?
It certainly can't be measured, nor made exclusive to any individual or group.
What is love?
Love is when their is a remarkable fondness, in my eyes, so remarkable that love, true love...
Is knowing deep in your soul that there is another out there, whether they are in your arms or a world away...
That you care about more than you care for yourself.
And I do love her.
So whether we have known one another or for 5 minutes or 5 years it does not matter.
Because to me...
To love...
A second is all the time in the world.
Gah so short :(
And yes, there were a few errors. I'll point them out when I have wifi that doesn't suck so hard.
I'm just curious. Is this tedious for you to write or something?
I keep wanting to upvote this story but then I remember I've already upvoted it
I have waited so long... And here it is. I cannot say that I am not disappointed, but I loom to the future of this story.
3744713
Sorry you're disappointed man...I'll try harder
Why is this updated so... well, rarely?
3744778
TBH I just forget about this site most of the time. I'm usually preoccupied with classes, fraternity stuff, or just out and about with friends.
3744800 D'ohh, can't say I blame ya. With the success you've received, how can you not have the urge to "retire"? Like, drinkin' and gettin' drunk
3744814
Lol I wouldn't call it 'success', but I don't retire because I don't really want to I guess. I may not be able to update as regularly as some top authors, or even at regularly at all, really...but I enjoy writing for you guys, and I just enjoy writing sometimes. Sharing views and ideas through a comfortable and relatable format is fun, and neat. So as long as I have ideas to express and share, I'll keep writing to whomever will read it. And I do drink. A lot. I don't have a problem! Shut up!
Baby, don't hurt me.
3744743
Again, I look forward to this story. Just after so long, with such a short update... Meh. Who am I to complain? Haven't updated my story in almost a month. XD
3744851 Ain't nothin' wrong with a "couple" o' drinks...
... or 8
You should really consider writing more than you are atm, this story is amazing in concept, and well executed IMO .
Some minor spelling and grammatical errors here and there, but nothing story breaking.
I also cried a little at the end of the chapter with music (which was well timed btw), and there are not many stories capable of that.
All in all, I hope to see more from you, since you seem to know your thing .
Oh and favorited, liked, and all that.
IT LIVES! It's short, but IT LIVES! I also love the many points you made in there… I'll be sure to keep this story in mind, as something to reference later.
Baby don't hurt me... ♫
I'm ok with these short chapters. They make sense in this story, as long as they focus intensely on a single thing. That hyper-focus has parallels with clockwork's exploration of a gap.
There is an obvious problem with twilight kissing him back less then 5 minutes after telling him her name, but I guess she might be smart enough to realize his perspective on the universe is extremely skewed and she might be choosing to humor him.
in the next second, she will have spent an eternity with him, so I guess that she could develop actual feeling for him by the time we hear from her next.
Won't twilight forget the sound of her friend's voices before she sees them again?
This gets me thinking about where this story could be going.
Maybe this is just supposed to be a romance, but that would mean that all this stuff about time powers was kind of wasted. If you are kind of implying that they forever disapearing into the brave, new land of magic together, that would normally make sense, and I have read such stories before, romantic and otherwise.
However, that doesn't work in your story. You have written a story where a single moment can last forever. It's a story about the infinite detail and beauty present in any single existence.
So, no matter what you write. No matter how much closure we are given, the next second will come and they will be alive to greet it. The universe will grind inexorably on. Maybe twilight and him will still be in love, and surely she will have read every book in the world, but we will then get to see the problems between interactions between her and her friends who she barely remembers.
I would expect that we end up experiencing a story where twilight's friends think something is wrong with her. The stories focus would keep changing like that. Every little set of conflicts would be given their own magical conclusion full of closure, but the next second would keep coming. Writing so many emotionally valid endings would probably be the hardest part of this. Ponies would keep forgetting who they were as thousands of years go by. You could even get really creepy and use a near reprints of emotional scenes you already used but which the ponies had forgotten.
See, he already expressed fear of watching others grow old. All his little power does is delay the inevitable, and, even then, people change. It's a little distraction. Eventually, he has to face death, regardless of if he kills him self or he lets himself age, which is killing himself anyway. To him, aging to death would take no time at all at this point.
3746206
Very insightful and interesting comments. However, while this story will have hints of romance, it's primarily to provide a platform for the main theme of this story. The primary purpose is to provide a social commentary through the eyes of an individual whom has an infinite amount of time to think through and properly analyze all social interaction. It is my opinions, observations and criticisms of the society we live in, and how regrets are fairly meaningless, as even if we had all of time to think through an action we may later regret, we would likely still take the same course of action, as the future is unknowable. This, the kiss, and other less realistic moments of the story are sort of the basis of 'such big decisions made so quickly'. The kiss is to provide how reckless actions on one side of a coin may provide love, and spontaneous joy, while the other may hurt and offend others.
Regarding forgetting her friends, that is unlikely. As it is mentioned even if they did spend, as you said, an eternity in this particular gap, it has no effect on the body. It does not age, and therefor neurons which form memories cannot die. This is why Clockwork remembers his first experience stepping into a gap without problem. His physical brain is rather young, while his conscious is ancient. This is also why he remembers everything he reads. Also, they won't be spending an 'eternity' in the gap, I plan on them returning to normal reality soon. Also, twilight has not 'learned' Clockwork's ability, he's still the only one whom can pause time alone.
With aging to death, it won't take no time at all, it will take much 'longer' to his consciousness. He expressed his fear of others watching him grow old and die, as originally he thought his body aged within the gaps, but as explained, it does not. Death is an invariable and inevitable ending to life, and it will come to everyone. But the life we live and what we do with the time that we have is much more important than when or how we go.
As I mentioned before, the story is not supposed to be overtly somber or dark in the sense that his powers are tragic, though it is, at times, somewhat melancholy because of it's social commentary.
Regarding closure: that's half the point of the story. While each moment, each gap, must at some point be closed, an infinite amount go unopened to begin with. The horrid reality of time is that it is completely indifferent to that which occurs inside of it. It will continue marching on even after the inevitable heat death of the universe. So how can we have closure? In reality, there's no such thing. There's no happy ever after, as time will march on and things will continue to occur long after we perish. But why would you want closure? An ending is very closed, and finites an infinite reality in which we live.
Hopefully this provides some more insight into the meaning and planned future of the story. Cheers!
This fic is a) beautiful. b) the first fic I ever read, and what made me join this fandom (thank you so much). And c) just brilliant. Heh, it's the only fic I can wait for. Definitely quality over quantity for this one
How moch do you know about time.
My brain hurts...
should be "there".
Great chapter though.
its fullest extent
you're. Both times.
Too
I found a typo in this! I probably shouldn't; but I feel pretty proud of it.
~Leonzilla
Haha,
That is funny, coming from him.
Someone had to do it, and i'm sorry.
4100991
If you had not, I would have anyway
You seem to have problems differentiating between
"your" and "you're"
Otherwise.....wat iz dis I dont even
AWSUM
Well, your doing it somehow.
Beautiful style of writing so far. I like it. Although grammar and spelling could be worked on.
Some define love as a powerful thought, only expressed by the brains of humanity and not explained into computers and data. It is a thought that is so open yet so blurry that we often just let it wash over us and revitalise us with its warmth.
Some understand it as an action, something we show to other people. Something so simple, yet so complex which pulls us from our metaphorical shells and casings. Revealing to people who we really are, how we have grown up through our childhood, what we really think about them.
People say that love is a verb.
People show love through their own dedication to them.
People think that love is a thought that flows through every one of us, that drives us to do amazing things.
People try to explain the feeling, trying to find its secrets and meanings. Use science to explore its corners and how it ticks. But we just can't explain what we feel.