Cars are still parked outside. If the rapture had happened, why was it unrecognizable? Why was the sky blue? Why did no one tell me? Do these things not announce themselves?
Years later, I watched a shooting star pass over the place where we used to live, stars blinking in and out like distant, tiny lights. What were the chances?
“What are the chances?”
“Chances of what?”
“That I’d fall for you.”
An entry for the third mxm shipping contest.
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this is brilliant. the quality of writing is just spectacular. i can’t convey in plain text the emotions this piece has made me feel.
heartbreaking…
did this happen years after the Canterlot invasion?
This was a nice story. Interesting how the changeling invasion was integrated, and that resolution is intriguing too. If this is after the changelings turned good, then I wonder how common these replacements have become.
11446635
I think that's a very valid interpretation, but I think the story is more about the confusion of having to deal with the memory of your loved one killed in a violent attack that you can sort of blame yourself for, but no one else will. The guilt can become destructive in the sense that you might never feel like you've "paid your due" as it were. In the story, I don't think Joe is at all responsible for Black Marble's death, but it's the kind of situation you can when you're thinking about all the things you could've done to avoid the tragedy. I read the end of the story as Joe remembering both he and Black Marble's meeting and the tragedy itself interlacing within his memories. As Joe puts it:
Joe's trying to remember the good things he can about Black Marble, but they're all mixed up with how he feels about Black Marble's death. Sort of like how when you remember a loved one that's died you might remember the good, but it's mixed with a twinge of sadness. I also don't think Pony Joe's gotten over the death in any meaningful way, which I think heightens this problem.
The whole story is about him reminiscing on these moments but the intrusive PSAs of the Canterlot attack are intruding into the mouths of the ponies he talked to. In one case, I think it's happening within the memory, namely the one where he's talking to the guard about Black Marble. In general, though, those announcements are symbolic of how some of the memory has started to actually fade, as well as how the joyous emotions have become tainted with this inextricable sense of loss.
But, that's just my interpretation of the text
well this one is certainly a thinker!
this feels like the key to the whole thing to me. there is a collapse here: of the linearity of time, of the distinction between what was once thought true and what turned out to be true. this captures what it feels like to hold too much of a story in my head at once, and i’m not talking about a story like a movie or a novel but a story of what someone or something important means to me. fleeting impressions of events, competing and conflicting perspectives, all spilling out at once and over each other and resistant to the work and reduction it takes to hammer all of that down into something coherent to communicate to someone not in your head.
(of course, in the course of normal life one does not often try to compress the entire story of the meaning of someone into a single moment of thought. but a traumatic loss is great at forcing such things.)
this inversion of the deuteragonist’s name:
and the repetition of
joining the last section of the story to the first, feel like they really fit that theme. and my favorite part was the tragic absurdity of this scene in particular:
Really incredible work here. You did an excellent job of capturing the torrent of confused emotions that stem from a powerful experience like this. There was a very natural through-line where every thought felt like it led naturally into the next at any individual moment, even though the whole recollection is very fractured. Lots of love went into this story, clearly.
Much like Joe, I imagine I'll revisit this scene many times. Very well done, and congrats on placing in the contest!
11523723
Hey thanks! Funny enough your Sensation story was one of the first ones I ever read on FimFic so it's funny to see things come full circle haha
11524775
That's awesome! I hope you enjoyed it (and the current sequel, if you're into that sort of thing), and I can't wait to read more of your stuff!