Twilight Approaches Acedia

by twitterdick

Twilight Approaches Acedia

Twilight Sparkle couldn't stop looking at trees. There was something about their figure, how they flowed in the breeze like they were never bothered by anything that caught her gaze as she pondered and wondered thru the streets. She took notice on how she'd been eating out more, how her strolls slowed in pace as she reflected on all those words and concepts she'd read in those books. They seemed to kind of blend together, the ideas and concepts. Knowledge was like the never-ending appetite of a great beast, the more you learned and gathered to more you realized that you knew so little. There was an irony floating about her buzzing thoughts as she waded thru the crowds and noises of that town - the more you learn, the dumber you feel.

She'd always nibble on the left portion of her bottom lip as she thought. Folks would exchange some kind of token greeting as they passed her, and she always responded but never conceptualized the interaction. She would pause in her quandaries to try and recall a particular pony's name then bathe in a brief rush of guilt due to her forgetfulness. She noticed that she started to rhythmically click her far-right teeth together in conjunction with her front-left hoof smacking against the ground. Something about tapping beats and noises added flavor to the strange places her mind would wander.

Halfway to the cafe, Twilight Sparkle stopped in the breeze to look up at the trees. She tilted her head and squinted her eyes at them - those perplexing things. They were technically alive, but had no canny trace of traits one would associate with being such. No blood, no thoughts, no friends, no movement. She projected pieces of herself upon them, thinking those trees looked back at her with baffled eyes wondering how those moving pony-things could be classified as alive.

"Why, good morning Twilight!" said some unimportant auburn chap as he walked by.

"What constitutes something being alive?" Twilight asked, eyes still stuck on the strange structure of those trees.

That unimportant auburn chap stopped and blinked whilst adjusting his grocery bags and stammering some nonsense. "Well…I, uh… I suppose things that are alive breathe!"

"Trees don't breathe…" Twilight said, shifting her head to left. "Bacteria doesn't breathe either really, not in the way we do."

"Oh… well I suppose I didn't really think about that…"

"So breathing can't be the only factor. What else? What do trees and ponies and bacteria have in common?"

"I, uh. I really gotta get goin' Twilight."

"It can't be any specific organ function, only animals have those. Ponies and trees grow, but single cell bacteria doesn't really. Hmm… trees don't move."

She turned and started back along the sun baked path to that cafe on the corner with the comfortable white seats, leaving the confused and unimportant auburn chap blinking and walking. Her hooves clopped upon the ground in the same tempo as the clicks of her teeth. She thought about not being alive, how upon her death she'd suddenly and permanently be regarded in the past tense. "Twilight is this and that" would forever become "Twilight was this and that". She thought about all the hooves and all those eyes that had poured thru all those books in all those libraries. How each and every separate life touched and remained on that book. How the thoughts of those authors that had struggled and researched remained forever locked in scratchy, symboly word form long after their brains stopped working. She thought about that song she had heard on some primordial record machine she'd seen in some unremarkable inventor's workshop and how the pony singing had died in some tragic accident. She thought about how inherently creepy it was to listen to a voice that could no longer be produced by natural, alive vocal chords. She thought about how those particular vocal chords had rotted away in a box in the ground somewhere.

She entered the cafe and asked for the same old boring table and ordered the same old boring food. Every time she found herself there, she promised herself that next time she'd try a different item on the menu. But she never did. Whenever she went there, it was because she craved that same old boring dish. She tapped her hoof against the table in a Sisyphean attempt to hasten the passage of time. She thought about how strange it was that she could 'hear' the words she thought in her head without actually hearing them.

Twilight Sparkle closed her eyes and wondered if the world around her had disappeared because she wasn't looking at it. She remembered some philosopher trying to deny that physical material exists and how nopony can explain how sensory information gets turned into ideas. That philosopher said that our minds are made of ideas, and we really only ever experience those ideas. She thought about having the idea of 'table' and all the other ideas that are connected to table: sitting, eating, writing, feeding, reading, waiting, resting, chair, stare, meal, book, unicorn, bored.

A massive growl encompassed her gut and wiggled it's way around. Twilight Sparkle would sometimes talk to her body like is was a separate entity. In her head, she'd refer to herself as 'we' without any thought or pretext and silently worried that she had some kind of undiagnosed mental illness. She theorized that if the mind continued thinking after death that she'd miss her body. Then she thought about all those grotesque bodily functions she constantly had to deal with. The damn thing always had to urinate - there were so many fluids. Fluids freaked her out. The word made her mind jump to instances where she stepped in something wet and was immediately unnerved. She march straight to a sink and scrub that hoof, no matter what the liquid was.

She rubbed her chin with impatience and stared up at a cracked windowsill on the second story. It amazed her that nopony else seemed to notice it and how such a fissure must surely be repaired. It smacked her of untidiness, which had begun to bother her more and more. Spike was a particular culprit, always leaving debris and trash around the library before wandering off. She'd always spot some litter in the corner off the room and could never ignore it for long.

Her mind wandered upon StarSwirl the Bearded and how he probably had no idea how memorable he'd be when he was her age. It like all those characters in the stories she read, how none of them knew what lied in store in their future. There was on particular old tale, one about a fellow that brings fire from the sky and gives it to ponies. Things didn't really work out for him in the end, and he ended up trapped in a big empty city. Twilight about how he could've never even imagined that would happen to him.

Her eyes caught the waitress bring in her meal. She thanked that pony, and thought her more important than that auburn chap from before. As she nibbled away, her mind conjured up some kind of fantasy that the waitress was in fact a secret agent. She poured upon romanticized adventures with complex plot lines, and how Twilight herself was but a background character in one of the waitress's big missions. She frowned at that thought - the idea that all her struggles and trials had all happened just to get her here at this cafe in time to be a background character in a scene with this spy-waitress. She thought of all those nameless characters in the stories she'd read that had been thrown in just to populate an area. She frowned and became overly worried that she was one of those, a nameless nopony in the great story of life. She worried she existed solely for the purpose of sitting at this table at this moment, and that when she left her purpose would be complete. Would she die then, once her purpose was complete? She wondered if there was some afterlife that had big clocks that recorded the amount of time one wasted doing eclectic tasks. She thought that she must have spent at least 3 solid weeks urinating in her lifetime. Her meal didn't seem so appealing now.

She paid the spy-waitress and tipped her rather well. If that was her sole purpose for existing, she would fulfill that role exceedingly by gum. She wandered off back towards the the library with thoughts still blazed and spinning, strangely satisfied that her could-be role in life was now fulfilled. Twilight Sparkle stared at the ground on the way back, and the rest of the world carried on around her like she wasn't even alive.

Author's Note:

The rain gathers in a little puddle in the parking lot outside my dorm room window in just the right spot for the streetlamp above to shine on it and I think it's really beautiful.

Comments

[Tungsten Carbide]

Laughed really hard at the spy bit! I'll have to read it again!

[Duskrunner]

Interesting.
Twilight Sparkle as Socrates, followed by the despair of the Platonist, followed by the hyper-observation and paranoia one tends to associate contemporarily with Adrian Monk, and ending with an inverse of The Secret life of Walter Mitty (I'm sure i got the last name wrong).
In all, a dense and curious slice-of-life read.
Upvoted.

[twitterdick]

3459059>>3458461
thanks!

[Dark Avenger]

This is an "off the books" review, brought to you by Dark Avenger himself. It is in no way related to a certain group that we are both members of.

Oh, come on, don't act so surprised! You're not fooling anyone. You knew full well that this was coming, and that you deserve every second of it. If anything, you were asking for this with that tidbit you left at the end. Well, fear not, because I have every intention of sating your need for someone to dish out some relentless abuse for you...

Now, one might rightfully point out that it is a little strange for me to choose this particular story as the subject of my review, considering the fact that the story of mine that good ol' twitterdick here has decided to do is about ten times longer, not to mention he also has a story up here that is much longer than this one (and perhaps far more interesting as well). But since you insisted on shoving that little bit of shameless self-promotion into your clumsy mess of a review, I only felt it to be appropriate to choose this one as an opportunity to "settle the score."

While we are on the subject, allow me to point out a couple of things to you: First of all, dropping the name of a world-renowned author into your review to prove a point will not make me think any more highly of you. Obviously, I'm not going to compare myself to them, meaning that I already start at a disadvantage in the argument (albeit an unfair disadvantage). Also, even if I myself like said author, I'm not going to start blindly following every word they say about how one is supposed to write a "good" story (as if any single author had the authority to define what a "good story" is...)

Secondly:

"Pointing out your own hypocrisy before being a total hypocrite doesn't make you any less of a hypocritic [sic] cockend..."

With that round of mindless kindergarten slapfighting aside, let me announce right from the start that Twilight Approaches Acedia is actually a pretty decent story. It's short, simple, and stops itself well before it would outstay its welcome, so even if you're not entirely satisfied at the end, you can at least be grateful that it did not waste more than a few minutes of your time.

The short description tells you pretty much everything you need to know about the plot, and there is little thereof: "A short story about a walk and lunchtime. Twilight Sparkle finds herself eating at restaurants more with a mind buried in thought. She thinks as she walks, as she talks and as she eats." Classic stuff. "Classic," as in: "I've read this kind of story a thousand times before, but if it's at least done right..."

Structurally, there's not that many things I could dissect about it, with the obvious exception of a few grammar issues, not all of which are just typos ("thru" instead of "through"? Seriously?). The writing itself seems to have an odd pacing as well. Not bad, by any means, but at the same time it doesn't seem to have a very smooth flow either. I suppose it's best described as being halfway between what I imagine "stream of consciousness" looks like and a "regular" short story.

However, there are three glaring issues with this story that I must mention: Firstly, in the "show vs. tell" department, "tell" has absolute dominance of the market here. This may just be personal preference (and what the fuck else did you expect me to write about here?), but when it comes to a story like this, the imagery and the character's actions (e.g conversations) should be the most expressive elements, pointing us to (but not telling us explicitly) the kind of "philosophy-infused verbal diarrhea" that is dumped all over us the whole time during this tale. Instead, twitterdick insists on making us sit through every single thought that runs through Twilight's mind, up to and including her bowel movements...

This brings me to the second point: Twilight Sparkle doesn't sound like the most appropriate character choice for this story. True enough, we know her as well-educated, rational, and slightly obsessive-compulsive pony, whose mind does not stop perhaps all day long, so it isn't much of a stretch to imagine her overthinking everything she sees during the day. However, the actual thought processes seem out of character for her. Twilight is, in a way, a scientist rather than a philosopher. While there is some science-y stuff thrown in, it only seems to serve the purpose of painting a huge "SHE IS A SMART PONY" sign on her and does not contain any real depth. Her thinking seems far more rational than what you present here, as evidenced by the episode where she actually attempts to rationalize the "Pinkie sense." I would sooner believe that she would start thinking about the chemical compounds in the pile of dogshit she stepped in on her way to the café than start a philosophical debate in her head about trees or whatever. It might actually have provided a far more subtle method of delivering the "transcendental" ideas, perhaps through having her think about how the simplest things in life are actually the results of incredibly complicated processes (e.g "the smell of dogshit hitting your nose after you stepped in it involves (among other things): physics, chemistry, probability, biology, and maybe even politics...)

Finally, why in the name of unholy space cunts is this story an MLP fanfic at all? Don't get me wrong, I appreciate it when an author attempts to stray away from the "conventional" methods of writing MLP fan fiction, but even then I at least expect them to maintain a few elements of the universe to provide it distinction. This story, however, barely contains any elements that would make it necessary for it to involve Twilight Sparkle, or any of the Friendship is Magic universe for that matter, in order to deliver its intended message (whatever it may be). Admittedly, it builds a decent atmosphere and provides pleasant insight into one's character (though, as I've mentioned before, said character should not be Twilight Sparkle), so it would work just fine as an original piece. To me, this seems to be the point where turning it into a fanfic defeats the purpose of writing it in the first place. That, or you could have made a better character choice, thus giving the insight a purpose.

That's about all I can think of. "Nightlight Encroaches the Media" (am i doing it rite?) is a fine piece of literature that, depending on how bored or busy you are at the time of reading, may or may not set your own mind in motion. Its main faults are presentation and character choice, and even the overall message is slightly off due to the lack of any real context. She takes a walk one day, sits in a café, eats what I imagine is a pleasant meal, then concludes that her life is meaningless? While I hate the stereotype, if anything, this sounds like the upper one percent bitching about "the great torment that is life." Both Twilight and twitterdick need to get their hands on Candide and let Voltaire's bitchslaps set them straight about bullshiting yourself.

That is all. Thank you for your attention! I will now proceed to purge my breakfast from my stomach, because it's been over an hour and it still does not agree with me...

[twitterdick]

3523333
Yeah, I like 'thru'. It's thin, pretty and gives head like a champ - much like your sister [If you don't have one substitute 'sister' with 'girlfriend' (if you don't have one of those substitute 'sister' with 'goldfish')] I think 'through' is too flabby and obtuse - much like your mom. (If you don't have a mom and reproduce asexually, substitute 'mom' with 'dog'). I can do whatever I want with the English language because of entitled reasons. So ha!

Thanks for sorting thru (ha) this verbal discharge that I shat out one insomnia-filled evening. It's seem you gave much more of a shit about it than I ever did - it was like an experiment to see just how folks reacted to such a thing. Your comments were insightful... I guess. I can't wait to not take them seriously. The insults to both me and my "work" where good enough to almost make me consider pretending to be offended out of pity - maybe with some more practice you could even make me feel an emotion!

Thanks again for willingly squandering away your time on this garbage, you magnificent fool. Every second I steal away from you creatures gets added to my lifespan - I've been going for 340 years.

I enjoy the hate. It's the only way I can get it up!

Also, Hatebeak. It's a death metal band that's singer is a parrot. Srsly. I couldn't make this shit up.

[Dark Avenger]

3524462

Wow... only one "your mom" and one "your sister/girlfriend" in that post? Your efforts seem to show improvement...

Also, Hatebeak. It's a death metal band that's singer is a parrot. Srsly. I couldn't make this shit up.

*yawn*

[Hex Mark]

=As I am rather new to this style of review, I do ask that you take my comments with a few more grains of salt than you would with other reviewers=

I don't get what this fanfic is about. I'd like to call it a slice of life story, but there isn't any life in it to begin with. So Twilight began to lose all care in the world, and begins reflecting on her lack of worth compared to such characters like Merli- I mean 'Star Swirl', wondering if they even knew how famous they'd become. All while she wonders about the true meaning of life, which anybody with half a brain would know that we find our own meaning.

Now from a writing perspective, it's a mess. Not so much the plot, but the actual writing style. Every paragraph and piece of dialogue looks like a fat woman who insists on reclining in the cheap seats of an airplane, crushing my ability to read like it were my kneecaps. Struggling to belly-crawl my way through the story, I found myself more lost with secret agents and food; not exactly the best combo. I can't find any way to empathize with our protagonist- no, she's not even a protagonist. She isn't working towards something, all she does is value things on whether or not they bring food to her.

The narration just sucked the life out of this slice.