TPartner

• MLP: FiM
• Romance
• Slice of Life

Applejack isn't getting any younger. Neither is Rainbow Dash.

• Rainbow Dash
• Applejack

Bicyclette · 4.4k words  ·  96  23 · 2k views

It sure has been awhile, hasn’t it? I can’t think of a better way to start off my first review in nearly a year than with a story that explores the concept of time and what it does to us. There’s a saying that I try to live by, coined from an old favorite musician of mine. Time Changes Everything.

Partner is a perfect exploration of this concept. It is composed as a bittersweet, meditative story, centered around what might be the best character for this type of story: Applejack. 

Without delaying any further, let's get into the meat of things. 

Partner opens with a familiar scene, Applejack resting after a long day of farming. The opening quarter of the story features her private thoughts, letting us explore what her feelings are and the current setting of this fic.

Because this is post-season nine Applejack. An Applejack who isn’t quite as young and spry and adventurous as she used to be, but if her thoughts are any indication, one who enjoyed her youth fondly.

And this is how Rainbow Dash finds her, leaning against an old dead tree with her hat down over her eyes. The plot from here progresses in a leisurely manner, moving at its own tempo and not afraid to delve into self-reflection and speculation. 

The pacing I will say is slow. But it’s a pace that is again so perfectly fitting for a story like this. Not every story needs to smash cut to the action and this is a perfect exercise of a pace that fits the story.

The story utilizes a dead tree on Applejack’s property to anchor itself, and references to the tree help propel it forwards, giving the story something to refer to and revolve around. It struck me as somewhat odd that Applejack would keep something like this on her property, but the reveal as to exactly why this is there sells me on the point. 

Other than that, the plot of the story doesn’t exactly break new ground. It is absolutely still a solid and well-written fic, but the concept of change and time has been well explored in literature. What sells this story for me is the characters.

Rainbow and Applejack are handled brilliantly here. The two feel like reasonable and real extensions of themselves, with some slight differences that come to all of us with enough time. Rainbow’s very first lines in fact sound like classical Rainbow, and Applejack is as down to earth as she ever is.

The interactions are rich and full, and we can really see the dynamic that all of the show has been building to. And that I think is the crux of this fic. It takes a lot of skill to pull off presenting two characters, mixing who we see and who they will be, and Partner is able to do so fairly seamlessly.

I think this section from the fic itself is as good evidence as anything I can say:

“Moving back to the Cloudominium, then?”

“Nah.” Rainbow Dash’s gaze turned towards the sky above Ponyville, where her old home stood. “I mean, half of it’s, like, a weird museum dedicated to me now. I thought that Scootaloo would’ve grown out of the whole fan club thing by now but…” She shook her head. “I think I’ll just whip up something next to it. Something small, maybe just one room, even. Call it the Nimbungalow.”

That got a chortle and a small groan out of Applejack. Rainbow Dash smiled.

“Sounds small,” Applejack commented.

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash agreed. “But the Academy dorm hasn’t been so bad. It’s actually been pretty nice, living humbly.“

Applejack whistled. “That’s a mighty big change!”

“Hey, not that big!” Rainbow protested.

“Ah, just ribbin’ ya.” Applejack smiled. “Just sayin’. You sure have changed a lot these past few years, RD.”

“Yeah, I have.” She smiled. She then realized something, and blinked. Her voice found some steel. “I have, haven’t I? But isn’t that what we’re supposed to do in life? Change and grow? That’s what alive things do.”

This brings to my last point on their dynamic. The romance here is… somewhat subtle and fairly understated. In fact, it feels somewhat sad that it took all this time for their relationship to progress to this point. But with how these two have developed over the years, it almost feels like we can say that they’ve been lovers all this time and this just makes it official.

All in all, this is an AppleDash piece that isn’t afraid to start at the end, and is all the more special for doing so.

Grammar time. There were a few things that rubbed me the wrong way structurally here. My chief concern, and something I noticed more often earlier in the piece, is that the story features several sentences that feel like incomplete fragments. For example:

Brown and rich and crumbly, its moisture maintained by the clockwork cycles of the rainclouds overhead.

This feels subtly off to me. It makes me ask “what about the brown and rich and crumbly (soil)?” 

I also noticed a use of the wrong ‘to’ here:

Rainbow agreed all to eagerly.

I have some other notes that are more of suggestions as well, for example I’d add an oxford comma in:

Between them, it was short work to help the Apple family dig out, root and branch, all of the trees that had died of the apple blight that season.

This was a really delightful piece to read, and the author did really well handling the subject! The romance is subtle and understated, and I think this story is more of a reflectionary one, one  that looks back at everything we have done while still reminding us that it is never too late to start something new. Great work! 

If you are looking for a more romantic AppleDash fic this may not be for you, because as I have said the romance is fairly understated minus the ending. I’d recommend this in a heartbeat to fans of slower-paced reflections though! 

Great work, this was a really fluid and introspective piece. I haven’t read the companion piece to this and a few holes exist in my understanding but I think I can piece enough of it together. Great job! 

thank you so much, red! this story was written long enough ago that the quoted parts feel like someone else wrote them, haha. the sentence fragment thing is something i've noticed others bring up on other pieces, which i guess goes into the category of things that seem off to everyone else but me, which means it's something i should watch out for.

the characterizations and interactions were definitely the most important part of this to get right, and the compliments here are especially high praise coming from a great character writer like yourself! and your assessment of the target audience is spot-on. it's a romance absent the romance, and a meditation on some of my thoughts on the subject.

and thanks again! this was a really great thing to see