This story is a sequel to What Separates
“There's always going to be melancholy days now and again, that's just the way it is!”
Not much more than two weeks past his arrival into Equestria, the human guest has spent much of his time keeping to himself, facing down the painful and permanent separation from his old world and still unsure of his position in this new one. Twilight struggles to fulfill her official roles as both a watchful eye and a guide, to the detriment of her being a simple friend. In the midst of it all, Princess Celestia calls upon them. Beyond the cozy bounds of Ponyville, something has developed which diverts their attention and presses on their differences.
A story of faith and depression.
Like What Separates, the idea is for a story which at its core is driven by the characters' dialogues with each other. This time however, the story expands and there is a bit more drama thrown in; the characters travel away and find new faces to engage with. While the focus of the prior tale was about what immediate divisions exist between two apparently different peoples, this story is focused on depression and those who retreat from the world.
WHY USE PONYLAND AS A STANDARD OF VIEWING MANKIND?
3708120 Why not? Everything has to start from somewhere, what matters is that you dont forget to see the important things in the right scale.
Also, Capslock FTW
I actually really like it when James gets angry.
Yep, whether or not her intentions are pure or not, that's what Twilight has been trying to do. He must always be the one to defend, explain, rationalize his point of view to her since she won't let up. That has to and will wear on anyone after a period of time. Trying to enforce your own ideals onto someone like that isn't very wise. Keep up the good fight, James. It's his beliefs, mindset, perspective, all these that make him truly human, for better or worse.
C'mon now, don't go blowing up at these two now. Save it for Twilight.
Excellent chapter as usual.
Keep your guard up, James. Never know what that sneaky Princess might try to get you to say or do.
>Reads the Author Note
But the real gem here is the answer to that wisdom cliche. Excellent chapter; thumbs all way up.
Knew he would end up caving in and going anyway.
That slight hint of drama. Different from the usual philosophic musings, but welcome nonetheless.
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Im quite happy that its past the philosophical ranting. It was getting a little preachy, where every little thing is talked about in depth. Even things that wouldnt even mark a difference in the species. "Why dont you want to come back to the spa if you like it?" "I just dont want to spend my time like that." Not exactly what I would talk in depth about with a ruler from the planet of Omacron Percei 8. It was starting to get very, very peachy, and overly complex for what is trying to be gotten across. This new "murder mystery-esque" plot is a welcome change. Though I'm suspecting that there is now more than one human living in the picturesque pastures of pastel ponies.
It still has the feeling that he writes the chapter, then goes back through with a thesaurus. But it has always been that way, and isnt all that bad.
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Interesting comment! I started thinking about it some, but then realized I had more thoughts about it than would be fit to dump into a comment box, so I pulled them together as much next blog post on my writing: Here you go!
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts!
- Zurock
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Ive... Ive never prompted such a response before... Cool. Anyway, thanks for the really, really in depth response. My point was slightly different, something along the lines of "shouldn't they(Fluttershy and Rarity) already know that some people want to pursue different things, and not have to have a long conversation about it." However, your explanation fulfills it all the same. I want to write more, but I have to skedaddle to work. Ill come back later, haha.
Goddammit Pinkie
Well, took me long enough to find you on this site, my man!
seems like the massive tree is a magical parasite that tries to eradicate any magic users so it can have more food.
KNIFE THEM,MANLYMAN!
SET THE TREE ON FIREE
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The funny part is, I don't know what type of response Celestia could have other than a violent one if her student and the elements of harmony don't show back up. She will literally be at fault for destroying the best protection of the country and pissed her student died. I'd put it Anouilh 50/50 odds she'd either go into depression or nightmare sun.
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Or she will be so emotionally numb with seeing her loved ones die or suffer,that she wont even care.Just get sum new elements.And she would get away with it,too.
Great, all we were missing was religious fanatics.
Forgive me for not garnering almost anything from this kind of storytelling, which really escapes my understanding, but I can see few ways out of this without bloodshed, and most importantly, Willow Wise and Broken Oak dead.
Ok that's a mean cliffhanger to end it on. Also, I hope you have a summary explained by someone because I'm not exactly sure about all that happened. My interpretation...I think...is that a dragon appeared and Celestia was supposed to stop it but didn't? Some type of Canterlot guard did and for some reason they hid away and became against magic with the "Desert that Walks" supposedly leading them to the promise land or some type of equivalent. They also have to defend their land to protect their way of life? I don't know. I've read it a couple times now and even then I'm not sure at all the damned phrasing. Interesting scene though. I also like how you turned Celestia's manipulations, which she does a lot, against her and balanced that with her honest and good intentions which are not "abuse" or any of that other extremist nonsense.
Well, I have no idea what just happened. I feel like I just read a chapter of Cultural Artifacts.
4342478 You still read that clusterf***?
You're to be commended for your patience, I dropped it over half a year ago. Couldn't stand Dan_s Comments' scatterbrained writing.
4342582 Hah, I gave up that thing a while ago. I just had flashbacks while reading this... I'm scarred for life.
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Good to see that some people are starting to have a picture coalesce. The Dryponies' ceremony, even if it was the largest and most complete account of things so far, wasn't meant to clear everything up. It's sort of like an image downloading on a slow connection, back in the day; you get the dulled, blurred version first, giving you a rough idea of what you're seeing, but you need more for that image to crystallize.
Where you are, you're sort of on the right track. Recognize that the ceremony is the Dryponies telling their version of their story in their way. And when culture is such an essential element of character, surely how the story is told becomes as much as an important part as what that story is about?
There's no reason to be worried about having characters go over details, of course. Both Twilight and James are in the position of desperately trying to figure out what is going on, and both witnessed the ceremony (as Applejack's summoning of the others at the end of the first scene is meant to imply.) Quite naturally, chapter 15 is probably going to start with Twilight and others again, working with this new information. At least, that's where my notes are at right now. Nothing is set in eStone until it goes online.
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This is the start of such a great comment! Don't stop there! Give more, if you'd like! Why the consideration of religious fanatics? What's the relationship between you and "this kind of storytelling?" What do you even mean by "this kind of storytelling?" Why does it draw such a reaction from you?
Part of the reason a response like this is so interesting to me, and I'm being fully honest here, is because I haven't thought an iota about religion in the setup of this story. Not until you, here, have mentioned it anyway. But retroactively I can see why you did, and why you see it like that.
The reason why I've set things up as I have... it may be the same thing as you're seeing, but from a different angle... or it may be something completely different altogether! I'll try to avoid saying more because the story is still unfolding right now and there could always be time afterwards for the how's and why's of writing.
Thank you all so much for the comments and for reading!
- Zurock
4351716 I swear I'll answer, fully, a bit in the future. This comment requires nothing short of a full essay as a response, and I don't have the time or the state of mind to do it at the moment
I'll keep the notification so I don't forget.
huehue,they ar vankors
Seems the Dryponies are about to cross a line from which they cannot go back. I also have to wonder how much this situation has strained the relationship between Twilight and Rainbow Dash. Even if all turns out well, I think Rainbow Dash would have some level of lowered trust in Twilight.
Do it like in Civ! If something annoys you, nuke it 'till it glows!
Seems like Broken Oak seems more interested in war and fighting. Wonder how much he actually believes in the whole 'Prideheart was wronged' and how much is he using it just to lash out.
It seems to me that the drypony plan is on the verge of crumbling. With the wavering of Willow Wise, the attitude of the guards and Poppy, the one who seems to be driving this is Broken Oak. Which means they are either going to have to change his attitude. Or at worst someone might have to take him out.
Somehow I don't see Broken Oak holding up his end of the deal...
3708120 Ah, CRUISE CONTROL, how I love thee...
I thought for sure he would say something like, "As you wish, mother."
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I thought a little bit about the specific familial relationships between the three named Drypony characters but ultimately decided that it didn't really matter. They're as close as family regardless of their actual blood relationship. The age difference between Willow Wise and Broken Oak is steep enough that she'd more likely be his grandmother, though.
This was a pretty awesome chapter.
Heh, when they set out, it sort of reminded me of when the Fellowship of the Ring set out from Rivendell for some reason. Liked the interaction between Twilight and Celestia. Really didn't think Twilight would ever question or probe her mentor so.
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That's very interesting tangentially speaking because the whole Drypony sequence is actually inspired by The Lord of the Rings. I mean 'inspired' very literally here, as it's obviously not a homage and there's not much referencing or parallel to anything from the books.
I always knew I wanted the rough structure of Melancholy Days to have some relatively short setup of James' depression and then move into the longest part of the tale; some 'side' story that on the surface didn't appear related to James' issues but actually was thematically. What that side story would be was always a little mysterious. For awhile I had something completely different planned, but around the time that chapters 2 & 3 were being written I was rereading The Lords of the Rings. I was struck by the Lothlórien sequence, particularly the early part where the Fellowship are blindfolded and lead through the woods together, and it got me to imagine the same thing happening to the FiM heroes.
The entire Drypony sequence is built off of that one strip of imagination. Built from trying to answer the questions it raised. Who captured them? Why? Where were they being lead? What was going to happen to them there? Why were they there to begin with? Why were the captors there? And so on.
I eventually chose the Drypony sequence over the old idea and built towards it; mainly because I wanted to use Broken Oak, Willow Wise, and Poppy.
Good, good. It's time to open him up - the self-pity and misery has, while understandable, been wearing. I don't expect one heart to heart will make him all smiles, but it is a step in the right direction.
The only thing that irks me a bit, is that James is a trained soldier... Seems like that has been almost completely forgotten. As a minor example, it isn't ever mentioned, from his perspective at least, that he could have most likely just killed Broken Oak and solved things with violence. I know that this whole story is a kind of growing past what we were and learning new ways and such, but I think that it should be remembered that he knows how to solve things the permanent way and that it is a struggle to do things the 'pony' way.
Just a personal pet peeve, otherwise totally enjoyable. Thank you for the story.
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Excellent thoughts! Like is so often the case, it's such a great opening that can be expanded to include so much more. I could probably write paragraphs about it myself, but I'll try to keep my reply a little limited so that there aren't chapters appearing below every chapter.
But certainly say more, if you like! Why do you believe that element should be a considered part of the story? Something personal? Or do you feel the story set it up and never followed through? Do you yourself believe that killing Broken Oak would have "solved things permanently" or are you saying that the story suggests that would work, or maybe you believe that is how James should have thought and the story should have addressed that? And to each of those questions, another layer of: why?
Never stop talking. I love words.
Speaking briefly for myself on the broader issue you bring up: James's character trait of being a soldier. Yeah, it doesn't always get used like it could. I think a lot of it comes from it being such a tacked on character trait. Like I've mentioned in the past blog posts, making him a soldier was initially done with one solitary purpose in What Separates: to clue the reader in to the fact that he would be reasonably comfortable with the idea of violence; that he would accept a certain place violence would have in the world. Doing that without having plans on how to tie it into him more may not have been the greatest idea. But I have tried. I still try to bring it in where I feel it's reasonable, without making it the defining aspect of his person (that is one of the reasons why in this story I created a reference to his more apathetic joining of the military; to put forward the idea that though he is a functioning soldier, he isn't a career soldier.) So I do think it comes into reasonable play enough. For instance, his reactions when the gang is captured and hauled away in chapter 12 and chapter 13.
Regarding the more specific issue of him never considering violence as the choice through the Drypony escapade: you're right that the story never directly covers his thoughts on this. However, I personally feel the story covers it indirectly. There's enough following of his feelings and thoughts through the whole event to understand why he makes the choices he does and doesn't choose other courses of action.
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Oh! I think you may have misunderstood what I meant... Becoming a soldier, indirectly or not, changes people in ways that, unless you have served, are unimaginable. What I was intoning was the struggle 'not' to fall back on training, the internal conflict not to 'be' a killer. 'Cuz lets face it, he is a killer. It's also clear that he regrets it, and wants to be better...
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I wouldn't say misunderstood so much as your comment was the start for a lot of great thoughts. There's many interesting places it could go.
Yes, absolutely, experiences can change people and dramatic experiences can change them dramatically. Change them consistently though, from person to person, I'm less sure about. And more to the point, whether unimaginable or not isn't entirely relevant. After all, part of the point of writing a story, and even reading one, is to be able to imagine.
Anyway, I'm not certain that internal struggle you mention is very present inside James, actually. What Separates very intentionally defines him as a character with a strong moral center and clearly defined moral ground. When he sees Fluttershy upset at what has happened to the animals he feels morally compelled to accept responsibility as an act of cosmic justice; he believes that it will ease her torment to feel like there is a center of moral and karmic balance in the universe. Defining James like this was in fact essential to the story. He needed to be a good, morally strong person at his core so that Twilight couldn't dismiss his willingness for violence as completely misguided or outright evil. She needed to face someone who was a good person but yet still could be abashedly accepting of violence. It's sort of like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. The film goes to great pains to establish that John is, basically, the perfect man, so that Joanna's parents have nothing they can object to about him except his race in order to draw focus to that issue. Equally, a good person who accepted violence would shake Twilight's world view more than someone who would considering killing casually, callously, or even ignorantly; someone who would more easily fall into her simplistic conceptualizations of lost or evil.
The point is, James actually generally knows where he stands morally. The lines are fairly rigidly defined for him, and he's okay with that. He talks about it a lot in What Separates. More or less, he sees lethal violence as necessary sometimes but never desirable if it can be avoided. I think there's one point where he even basically mentioned that he's the kind of soldier who is disgusted at other soldiers who don't take maximum effort to avoid collateral damage. For him, soldiers exist only to defend something.
So... a killer? Hm. Yes and no.
1. He's a killer insofar as he's killed before. More relevant to us, he explicitly states that he'd kill again, if he felt it were necessary.
2. He's not a killer in that he doesn't seek it for its own sake, or ascribe any glory to violence. He certainly doesn't take any pleasure in it and doesn't look for excuses to use lethal force.
Given point 1, as far as Melancholy Days goes, he wouldn't really struggle with whether or not to use lethal force through the Drypony debacle. He would quite clearly and readily consider it if, and only if, he thought the situation made it necessary. And that reaches back to what I said last comment: I think the story indirectly shows that he never feels that "necessary" threshold is crossed. Comes close probably, when Broken Oak is torturing Twilight by dunking her and then later when Rainbow Dash is fighting the same stallion, but never crossed nonetheless.
And so it is completed. I sincerely thank you for writing this, for it has been a pleasure to read it.
i.imgur.com/nqeJqjT.gif
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Thank you! And the pleasure has been all mine, for sure.
Very nice. And is that an implied hint there will be a part three?
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When What Separates was coming to its end, in the last three or so chapters, I had lots of leftover notes for stuff that never made it into the story. One lesson on development (for me I particularly learned this lesson in doing software development work) is that you have to know when to cut things off because otherwise you can work on them forever. I knew that, for where I was at in What Separates, it needed to end even though I had all these unused ideas. So, I figured I would tag the end of the story with "END PART ONE" and then I could follow up if I ever wanted.
After all, even when writing What Separates I knew what the natural extension of that story would be. The tale goes out of its way to hint at James' coming depression and his then-current partial immunity to it due to shock.
So eventually I started work on the sequel and I got to pull in some of the stuff that never made it into What Separates (like Rarity mussing with James' hair, and his followup talk with Princess Celestia.)
Similarly to all that, we're at the end of Melancholy Days now and I still have all these leftover notes. Things that didn't get into both stories, things that I came up with while writing Melancholy Days that never found a place in it, and so on. And likewise I know what the natural extension of this story would be. So, it ends with "END PART TWO" so there is an opening for me to continue if I would so desire.
And I wouldn't put it past me. This is a hell of a lot of fun.
"END PART TWO"? Does that mean what I think it does?
4699335 I sure hope so! :
I'm glad I found the second part to What Separates; I read that one a long time ago and wasn't sure if there was ever gonna be a follow up to it. I pretty much put down most stories I was following just to read this one all the way through.
Let me just say that I was really enjoying this fic before the party arrived in Hamestown. After that, the feeling downgraded to general pleasure.
Slice of Life is probably the tag I like the most in this site, and you delivered one of the slicest of lifes I've read for the first third of this story.
When the story took a different direction (and setting), my expectations were thrown off a bit, but not completely disappointed.
I feel that the new setting could warrant the Adventure tag, but that's up to you.
I really liked Gadget as a character; her quirks and mannerisms are what won me over.
It's a shame that it seemed that she was only used to bring interaction with Applejack.
I suppose that was for the best, since I don't see too many applications for her if you brought her along to Hamestown.
I agree that how a book approaches its ending could be more important than the ending itself, especially if the ending is obvious.
Two fics in mind use that, since the ending could be surmised without even looking at the first chapter, but they are still excellent stories.
I liked how James called out Celestia for doing the 'cryptic wise man', and she responds by continually doing it.
Heh.
I'm having trouble figuring out why I feel some dissatisfaction with the Dryponies.
Don't get me wrong, the characters you have established are well fleshed out, especially from seeing your blog about them.
I think my 'general pleasure' stems from the whole shtick of 'devout fanatacism' and how I've seen a similar application in the Savage Skies series.
In Savage Skies, there is a usually genial cult that follows their own set of ideals.
One of the main characters has a rare, purely cosmetic genetic condition, and because of that, he gets persecuted by the ideals of the normally-benign cult.
Much of the story is involved with convincing stubborn followers of the cult to think for a second and leave the poor colt alone.
The main difference I see here between this and the Dryponies is that the focus of the cult in Savage Skies is centered on one individual, while the Dryponies' focus is centered on some destiny that I'm not actually sure what it was.
They both have followers that are zealous with good intentions, but I feel more attachment to the target of one individual rather than that target of a demographic.
You seem to put great effort in parallelisms, thematicisms, and Chekhovian elements.
There isn't much to say, since your blog posts say much more about them than I ever could.
I'm glad that you enjoyed writing this, and I hope to see more from you soon.
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Thanks so much for sharing! So much great stuff said!
Re: Story tags: I've actually just been thinking about this! While fussing around with notes for a third story, I was looking again with how I tagged the stories. Melancholy Days got the tags it did because, mainly, I was copying the tags from What Separates. I didn't expect the two stories would be much different (and also this was at the time when only chapters 1, 2, and 3 were written, so I only had the faintest inklings of the Drypony encounter.) What Separates I do consider generally Slice-of-Lifey since there's no serious prime conflict outside of character interactions, but it is a truly open question as to whether this story should get it.
This site has an interesting dichotomy between Slice of Life and Adventure in that it considers them opposites. Not that stories must be one or the other, only that they cannot be both. And you're right in that Melancholy Days starts very Slice of Life, in order to highlight James' behavior. It's very interesting that you were more taken with that portion of the story instead of what happens later; I don't feel that's particularly common! I do enjoy that kind of simple character interaction very much though; getting some characters in a room and just imagining them talking about some subject.
Melancholy Days really does start to turn away enough to probably merit dropping the Slice of Life tag, but I don't know if, for me personally anyway, it veers close enough to meriting an Adventure tag. But maybe at that point we're getting too far into the emotional content of words. I see what happens in Hamestown as very reminiscent of the kind of stuff that happens in the show itself and I don't consider the show an adventure show. For me, Adventure has to be a little more grander than that. So... I wonder if I should drop the Slice of Life tag and leave it as just a Human story? (But then I feel like I'm under-describing the story... sigh...)
Re: Gadget: I really liked her too, but she was created for a single purpose and once that was fulfilled I didn't want to forcefully wedge her into other parts of the story. I had the technology discussion in mind and I knew I could have Applejack take the very anti-technology stance (not because I believe her character to be anti-technology but I knew I could put her in a place where she was very upset with machines and would take that position emotionally.) But I didn't feel like either Twilight or James could play a good, very pro-technology opposite for her. Hence, I created Gadget, and thus we get a nice four way conversion: Gadget is very pro-tech, James is pro-tech but more moderate, Twilight is a little more on Applejack's side, and Applejack is very anti-tech.
I also really like Gadget and Applejack's interplay. There's very similar characters in some respects (I have a hard time imagining Gadget speaking in not Applejack's voice) but instead of being very earth minded she's very technically minded. It made it really fun to have them interact.
Maybe we'll see her again. I can't be sure. As much as I do this for fun, I wouldn't want to use her 'just because.'
I'll be honest that I really like Princess Celestia as a character. She has a particular trait that I really love to see in not just characters, but people: she is a completely mature individual while at the same time she has also completely abandoned society's bizarre need to force 'mature' individuals to reject simple, childlike, or silly things. In one of the instances where the story draws upon my real life experience, I am certain this comes from my father because he is the same exact way. He has a complete, sophisticated maturity, but it never stops him from being goofy or enjoying things for their own sake, regardless of what they were intended for.
I know there's always going to be a few people who get things like this, but it's still nice to see when somebody does.
Yeah... it's the simple things sometimes.
Re: Dryponies: Since I have said so much on them already, I'm not certain I can help you resolve your feelings here; that may just be something for you to work through.
The literal idea always was that they are a culture that exists outside of Equestria but that they didn't need to be outside of Equestria, and indeed their attempts to force their way out would inevitably lead only to tragedy (it's sort of a commentary on being depressed and trying to remove yourself from the world.) The destiny they believed in for themselves was complete separation from magic. Though they lived in a forest of reduced magic, the magic it allowed was too much for them. They imagined their destiny would come in the form of a 'Walking Desert,' a being who embodied that separation from magic, and one who could lead them away to a magicless paradise. So their strategy was always a waiting game, which is why they are very slow to interfere with Hamestown. In unspoken details it can sort of be imagined that, decades ago when Hamestown was founded, a younger Willow Wise was just ascending to Drypony leadership and advocated a waiting plan. It was much later, as Broken Oak came onto the scene with all his strength and power ready to play, and Willow Wise being much older and fading, that he pushed for more proactive actions.
The thematic idea, besides from some of the elements stated above, was always just what I said in the blog post: the Dryponies are James. The whole debacle with them is just another way to view James' struggle with his depression.
Thanks so much again for sharing your thoughts! I'm feeling more certain now than ever that we're going to see another sequel. I've put a bunch of work already into drawing up notes, outlining, and writing chapter-1-type things and I'm getting pretty excited.