It Is Recommendsday, My Dudes #64 · 7:21pm Jun 8th, 2022
I'm feeling a bit melancholy today, so I think I'm gonna use one of the story pairs I've had in reserve for a while. The set is based around the tragedy of the top - so many major characters (and not just pony - it's a common phenomenon) are at or near the peak of their chosen field. And that can easily be a bad thing.
For the first, I go to Vows Made in Wine, a 2017 piece by MrNumbers. It's a somber story that follows a conversation between Rainbow Dash and Rarity. Not exactly the pair you'd consider for having a heart to heart, but in this context it makes sense.
Dash, you see, has just made Captain of the Wonderbolts. Spitfire's retiring, and now Rainbow Dash has everything she dreamed of. And as much as she is happy, it's also a bit hollow. Because - as Rarity puts it - once you're at the top of the mountain, there's nowhere to go but down. So she asks the designer: you made it to the top. How do you deal with it?
Her answers are simultaneously helpful, frustrating, and frightening. Because she has been there. And she understands the hurt.
Now, while most of us won't ever be at that same point of the absolute apex, the general idea is something I think we can still all understand. And Numbers expresses it wonderfully, both with Rarity's stories about her struggles and Dash's morose drifting. And there's no right way to do it. No real solution. But there's ways to deal with it, good and bad.
This story's great in how it gets you to really feel the problem. Not just stating the issue, but digging into the emotional side of it and the desperation it can cause. Ups come with downs, and coping with those is an important part of life. If we're fortunate, we have friends to lean on to help us through them.
The other piece today is the memorably named Ich Steh' Mit Einem Huf Im Grabe by the massively underappreciated axxuy. (Seriously, they're one of those writers who I have no idea how they're not massively more popular than they are.)
The story - who's title translates to I Stand With One Hoof In The Grave - looks to our favorite British horse, Octavia.
Vinyl wishes her well as Octavia steps out onto the stage. And she plays - she plays perfectly. A masterpiece of music, played to perfection. And Octavia thinks of the principle of the parabola: that which goes up must come down. She is reaching her peak, and her thoughts turn darkly to what the down will look like.
This story's a darker one than the previous - but I would also call it a more beautiful one in tone. The perspective inside Octavia's head is more visceral, clogged as it is with her own self-flagellation and doubts.
But like the song she describes playing, it all seems sorrowful at the surface yet has an underscore of celebrating life. Octavia chooses her confrontation of perfection with purpose. Her thoughts are full of darkness (and are quite morbid, if still very proper) but I at least find an undercurrent of odd hope in there.
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Thank you very much for the review! This was a story that I can definitely say turned out well, which is always nice. I certainly am not going to be wrestling with perfection like Octavia anytime soon.
Behind the scenes, I stole the title from Bach:
And when I went to adapt it for pony anatomy, I was very amused to find out the German word for "hoof" is "huf." Natürlich.
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That is a wonderful Bach piece - I didn't know the title was adapted, but it quite fits.
And more than happy to - as I said, you're a massively underappreciated writer and one of the site's hidden gems. Bringing stuff like your excellent work to light's why I do this series.