No happy ending
The look Derpy gives me is one I have seen many, many times.
From my mother, and teachers, and bosses, my husband, and strangers on the street.
It’s a look that says: “Great job, Goldie, now you’ve gone and fucked it all up.”
Nevermind the fact the current predicament is technically Derpy’s fault.
I understand, at least objectively, why the blame is being placed on my shoulders. Of course, that says nothing about what I’m going to do about it.
Nevertheless, the hallway is silent. A bubble.
Dinky sniffles slightly, on the verge of tears, as Derpy and I stand speechless.
Then her mother-mode springs to action, and she’s tearing down the hallway, hoofsteps echoing off the walls.
I walk slowly enough that I can’t hear what Derpy’s saying to her, but I’m sure it’s pretty consoling, because Dinky already looks like she’s feeling better. Better than I could do, probably.
I keep my distance, for good reason.
When her tears are finally reduced to just sniffles, she looks up at me, her eyes giant. The hallway is silent, as if the universe is poised for whatever prophecy is about to come out of this filly’s mouth.
“Do you love me, Mama?”
It’s a funny question.
I’ve actually been asked a similar thing a couple times before.
Hearing her say that brings up memories I’d rather not be there.
Do you love him, Goldie? Like really. I mean, can you see yourself with him for the rest of your life? Being Golden Script? That sounds so Canterlot... Golden Script. Like you’d be schmoozing with fashion designers and art critics. But that’s not you. You’re just a regular old country mare from Ponyville, Golden. Someday you’re going to have to remember that.
Okay, okay, I get that. I understand, but... just tell me, Golden, because I’m not really sure. Do you even love me? No, don’t answer that... look, I’m leaving... I’m going to go catch my train in a few minutes. Just... figure it out while I’m gone, okay?
I have a question for you, based on how it sounds from your letters. I know it’s one you have within your heart as well, though I suspect you are afraid to admit it. Do you love her? I don’t need the answer; it’s a question for you. Just something I’d like you to ponder betwixt now and out next exchange. This letter may seem unsatisfying to you, but I’m afraid that’s all I’m able to express. I understand the predicament you are in, but there isn’t much I can do for you. You can’t exactly escape this.
It was warmer then.
It’s started snowing and it’s sticking to my eyelashes.
I’m not going to cry for fear the teardrops will freeze to my face, though Celestia knows I want to.
Hoofsteps enter my soundfield, and then the hooves come into view.
I don’t dare look up.
“Hey.”
He sits down on the stoop next to me and shivers from the cold against his flank. Usually he’d nuzzle up to me and make some silly joke about warming me up somehow.
We sit there in silence, watching the snow softly swirling to the ground.
“I heard what happened.”
“Yeah, well obviously, since you’re here. How’d they reach you so fast anyway?”
“Uh, carrier pigeon.”
“In the snow?”
“I guess.”
“Look, Goldie, I...” He clears his throat. “What the fuck, Goldie? Seriously, I-”
I finally make eye contact with him.
“Script, it’s not like that.” I can feel the tears fighting to spill. “You don’t... understand. I fucked it all up.” It’s probably the first time I’ve said that, out loud. Without any pride behind it, at least.
“Yeah, well you’re damn well right about that.”
“Don’t be that way, Script.”
“Really? How do you want me to be, then?”
“Script...”
“I mean... I can’t even fathom how this all happened.”
“I can explain. I can explain.”
“I don’t think I even want you to, Golden.”
“I-”
“Don’t.”
We're silent again. While his silence asserts his power, mine just signifies... weakness.
“What are we going to do, Script?” And here come the tears.
“No, Golden. What are you going to do?”
These bubbles are becoming cliche.
I glance up at the clock reflexively when I come back inside.
It’s been a while, which is a bit of an understatement.
The same unicorn escorts me (in silence) to the aforementioned arts and crafts room, then quickly leaves.
This room, like every single one in this building that I’ve ever seen, is empty, other than me and my entourage. It’s almost as if it’s haunted and we’re just rebellious teens.
I stand awkwardly in the doorway, just watching Dinky and Derpy make little houses out of various junk together.
This room’s too... sterile to be a place of creativity. It’s more than a bit unsettling.
Derpy beckons me over and nudges Dinky. She beams up at me.
“Hi Dinky. How was your day with your mom?”
She smiles even wider and launches into the details of her entire day. As usual, I tune her out completely.
Once she’s finished, Derpy politely tells her daughter that we need to talk and brings me into the hall. I attempt to take deep breaths.
“I take it Written Script came?”
“Yeah. And left.”
“What did he say?”
“Lots of stuff.”
“Golden, if you’re going to be difficult-”
“I’m not trying to be difficult. I’m sorry, I’m just in a difficult place currently.”
She smirks slightly.
“You? You’re in a bad place, Golden? Who’s the one bucking locked up here? Who’s the one who only gets to see her daughter for a few hours each month, and has to watch her leave with somepony who doesn’t give a buck about her? Yeah, I know. Your life is so bucking hard, blah blah blah.”
“That’s not what I mean!”
“Okay, yeah, whatever. You deserve everything coming to you, Golden. It’s all your fault.”
She turns toward the door, leaving me stranded, both physically and mentally.
So I do something bold.
“Hey Derpy, remember when you got your cutie mark?”
“Just take my daughter and go, Golden.”
I ignore this.
“You ran to the farm to tell me the second you got it. You were so happy. I remember that you weren’t the last one in our class to get yours, more like the middle. We lie on the floor of the hayloft for hours, hours, and talked about it. What it meant, and stuff. We thought that thing would solve all your problems, and nopony would bully you anymore. And I- I was so jealous of you, so bucking jealous, because I’d already gotten mine, and it was boring and predictable. But yours... your cutie mark was just plain awesome.”
“It didn’t solve anything. If anything, it made it all worse.”
“I’m still jealous of you, Derpy.”
“Just take my daughter and go, Golden.”
The world seems to be floating around me, rather than me going through it.
Dinky’s next to me, then cold again, then we’re sitting down, on a train.
She’s silent from the concentration needed in order to make the little ponies move around her junk dollhouse.
And me? I'm just watching the snow-covered hills roll by.
Eventually, she stops playing altogether, and looks up at me.
“Hey Mama, are you okay?”
“What?”
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
“Well... are you gonna be?”
“I don’t know, Dinky, I don’t know.”
“But... we’re going home now, right? And then Daddy will come home, and we’ll all be back together again, right?”
“Yeah. That would make sense, wouldn’t it?”
“Definitely!”
I lean over and kiss her on the top of her head.
“I love you.”
I don’t.
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That ending
wasn't fucking ready for that
you nailed the simplicity rule, the less is more thing, perfectly
fuck you
I cried
it was amazing
4058882
Damn. That was like a sucker punch to the stomach.
You were trying really, really hard to get us to hate Golden Harvest. She knows what she felt was wrong, but in the end doesn't change at all for it. Didn't learn, didn't grow, and now the road ahead is going to be a million times harder for her.
I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, that maybe she'll have at least some kind of revelation and not be such a hateable person. That at least she's feel something.
Well worth the read.
She has learned something: to be a more convincing fraud. What I want to know is why they locked Derpy up in the first place......
Well that was a nasty little story.
Damn. This really hit me hard.
Good job.
4355110 Thank you, I really appreciate it.
I understand that some ponies are terrible and Golden Harvest is 1 of them, but ¿why did she agree to raise Dinky?
4439881 Eh, who knows.
While I disagree with your head cannon, this was a good read. It was very simple and there is a lot left unsaid but that's not a bad thing. I liked the repeated theme with the bubbles. I haven't read a story about Golden/carrot top before so hearing your take on her character was interesting. Good stuff.
4058882 never cried. I seem unable. Please help with that.
I have a 'fictional characters that I hate' list and I can't decide if I should put Goldie on. If I do, she will be on the bottom. So, should I?
5318297 Eh, it depends on what you find hateable. I'd put her on if I had such a list.
5324216 On the bright side, she is NOWHERE NEAR Neil Klaskovsky. He's my top, and if you wanna know why he's my top look up 'technicolor dom-N-8-ion' or just type in his name (Be warned though, this is NSFW imagine 50 shades of gray but with ponies, it's nasty.) Funny thing is, if you type in his name you get my rage comments. So if you're light hearted ignore this comment.
Fuck.
Wow. This story tells me that Golden is just a rude self absorbed pony. But in time Dinky will realize that Golden doesn't love her and will move on with her life someday become better than her.
4439881
I think Golden Harvest took Dinky in cuz she felt obligated to as Derpy's friend. They were good friends at one point, after all. They talked about Derpy's cutie mark all day in a barn and it was a momentous and memorable occasion.
4060755
Somehow, I think Derpy was locked up because of her flying, although that might be just a small portion of the issue. There's a line about Golden Harvest being cringy at how the tips of Derpy's wings are straight; her primary feathers are clipped so she can't fly. The court must've thought her to be that physically incapable from flying erratically.
She's being given drugs. From the observations Derpy has given, I wonder how much of it is due to the clarity the drugs give.
There's enough clues to paint a dread picture filled with terrifying speculation. How much did Derpy resist? How hard are they on her cuz of this?
4071622
Coming from you, it looks like a compliment :3
6421962
It got a green thumb from me.
6421962 Her wings are clipped so she doesn't escape, actually. She's locked up for things that are much more mental than physical. But that whole situation does have really dark implications.
Sweet merciful fuck.
I love how cold it is.
This story simply doesn't work in my opinion. Ponies can be selfish but they are not cruel. These ponies are simply cruel.....
And there is another easonf or that. Equestria is a world of emotion. Friendship and lvoe are its greatest magics, while hatred and cruelty and its greatest threats.
This kind of shit would eventually manifest as something beyond anyone's control.
7076709 I generally agree, given the reactions in the comments.
Plum: I really, really don't want to read this story. Although I usually love intense psychological things, I don't want to see Derpy and Dinky under the hoof of cruel ponies. Congrats on making something that would probably hurt me worse than Cupcakes and Rocket to Insanity -- and those stories gave me dissociative episodes for a year and a half!
Compared to the descriptions here, my usual headcanon is pretty tame: Golden Harvest's husband Written Script and roommate Derpy Hooves accidentally found themselves in the same bed in the dark, one drunken Summer Sun's Eve, thus Dinky.
7076851 Less cruel in that they are abusive, but cruel for other reasons.
I feel this story is held back by the question that is Derpy's reason for being in that institution. I understand you're trying to hide it with the vague "because government says so" explanation, but I'm gonna need more than that to be satisfied with the justification.
Other than that, pretty okay story.
7076851 Did you really develop a mental symptom after reading [badly-written / poorly-characterized] fanfiction?
I'm rather surprised at the level of hate that Goldie is getting in the comments. I suppose a lot of people read this and sympathize with Dinky, Derpy and Written Script, and that's not a bad thing, after all, they are all in a less than ideal situation.
Let's take a minute here and sympathize with Golden Harvest. She wants what everyone wants, which is to be happy. It sounds to me like she's felt obligated to do certain things once she reached adulthood, like get married, take in her friend's foal when her friend is marked as mentally incompetent. Golden probably got married and later on took in Dinky because she felt that ponies wouldn't think she was a good pony otherwise ("Aww, he's such a nice guy, are you really going to break his heart?" "Aww, that poor foal! Goldie, you have a stable home in which to raise a foal in, and Derpy hand picked you to do so! You'd be perfect!"). If she went ahead with her 'selfish' desires to have the life she wants, she feels like she would be ostracized. Even if what I just said WASN'T her reasoning, she is a pony, and every pony deserves happiness.
Right now she feels trapped in a loveless marriage, trapped taking care of a foal she doesn't love, and she feels like there's no way out because she built the prison herself, most likely doing so because she thought making those around her happy was more important than making herself happy, and therefore doomed herself to unhappiness. I'm sure when she first took in Dinky, she tried to put on a happy face and tried to make herself love the foal, but I have a feeling that these moments depicted in this fic have been months, if not years in the making. Golden is tired, she can't feel happiness anymore because she's buried in sorrow and hates the life that she feels doomed to live.
You may say "Well, that was her choice to do those things!". Yes, this is true, but if you've ever met someone who has low self esteem, anyone who feels like they are personally responsible for making those around them happy, then you'd understand that that someone feels like they don't have a choice, that they would be selfish to choose to make themselves happy when there are those around them who 'deserve' happiness way more than them.
Was Goldie wrong in taking in Dinky when she felt like she could never love her? Yes, she was wrong to do so, but she probably felt like she couldn't say no. After all, if YOUR best friend had something like this happen to them, and the only other option might be for their kid to go into foster care or maybe to a much less responsible friend, wouldn't you think you might be 'selfish' for saying no in front of your tearful best friend?
In any case, this is a great fic that explores a usually unexplored topic. It's a killer in the feels department. Wonderful job author!
7078240
It's really hard not to see Golden as the one at fault here really. She didn't have to take Dinky in, unless I really missed something. It's her resentment that won't let her move on. It's not likely Dinky hates her, not yet at least, and it's unclear what the source of the problem between her and Script is. For all her complaints, though, it's really Dinky that's getting shortchanged here. She doesn't have a say in anything and to have the pony you look up to clearly imply that she doesn't love you is pretty cold.
Having issues doesn't excuse you, even if it explains some of the problem.
7078267
Oh Dinky is for sure getting a terrible hand dealt to her! Her mom is in an insane asylum, her adoptive mom is cold and unloving, her adoptive dad, though he loves her, isn't around a lot due to his job. I don't deny that Dinky is plenty deserving of people's sympathy. Being sympathetic of Golden doesn't mean the rest of the characters are any less worthy of sympathy.
Why I commented what I did was because it seemed like people were just saying that Golden was just cruel, hateful and cold, which, yes she is, but that doesn't mean that she's those things because she's evil.
I'm not excusing her for being cold, unloving and hateful, I'm just saying that she isn't just a bad or evil pony, that'd be far too black and white. She's hurting to the point that she's gone cold, she feels like no one will ever sympathize with her, that she'll only be labeled as selfish if she tries to be happy, so she lashes out at the world that hurts her. She's in a cage, and unfortunately Dinky represents another lock on her cage door. A self inflicted lock, yes, but a lock all the same.
7078240 I (obviously) think Goldie is not an inherently bad pony, but she's not good either. There's a lot of things she does that you can explain, and for a lot of it one can see where she's coming from. But at the same time, there's a lot that's really inexcusable.
I hate that there tends to be a dichotomy of good and bad in fiction, because that's not how real people work. So this was written, in part, to try to break that dichotomy. So tl;dr: I like how you're analyzing her.
Also, her being in a loveless marriage definitely wasn't intended, so it's an interesting interpretation.
7075657 It's not saying one or the other.
7077260 Simply put, she's crazy. Golden doesn't like facing that fact, so it's super ambiguous and not explained at all in the story, so valid point. But her institutionalization isn't necessarily the same thing as her being declared an unfit mother.
7078267 Yeah Dinky's kind of getting screwed over here. But I think a lot of that depends on how old/mature one considers her to be.
>Derpy likes muffins and is legally unfit to take care of her foal.
-I see... I see... Well, I never thought I would have to bring my old story out of mothballs, but here's my counter :
http://nova225.deviantart.com/art/MLP-FiM-and-Forever-Together-205121802
So... you couldn't even fix up the typos?
7079399
I agree, Goldie isn't a good pony as far as how she treats others. She has reasons as far as why she acts that way, but it doesn't mean they're good reasons or that she's right in acting the way that she does.
I too dislike when writers/people in general paint the 'good guy' as an infallibly pure hearted good creature, and paint the 'bad guy' as someone with a heart so cold and a mind so evil that they are inhuman/inpony(?). Like you said, real humans don't work that way. There is no such thing as a straight up evil person. There is no such thing as a flawlessly good person. Life doesn't paint humanity with that broad of a brush. I was concerned that people might've seen Goldie here and painted her as 'the big irredeemable bad', so I commented to add perspective.
I guess I was reading in between the lines a little there.
I suppose I interpreted it as a loveless marriage because I saw that every time they interacted, they were either disagreeing, criticizing, or just being neutral around each other. I'm sure they do care about each other, but at least on Goldie's end I wonder if the love is still there, especially since she said that all of her good memories that came to her mind were back before she became an adult.
7079399 She certainly doesn't act crazy. She seems very lucid.
I didn't focus too much on the vagaries of why Derpy is in a mental institution, since that detail didn't stick out to me as particularly important beyond the fact that it sets up the circumstances for the actual story. But I do think it probably would have been easier to portray Derpy as sane and logical were she, say, a convicted felon rather than an asylum ward.
Wow.
What else is there to say about this? You gave us a magnificent piece of emotions. It's very heavy, full of conflicting thing,s beautiful ans yet ugly. And at no point does it weaken, it start strong and just get better and better, tougher and tougher...
The only real downside is the brievty. It feel incomplete. Mind you, I am not talking about the future, whatever comes next is better left unsaid, left for us to imagine. I really liked the ending. But the past, the settings, there is a lot of unanswered questions, and some answers could really give the story an additional strength, some additional understanding. Of course as is the case with the ending, too Much informations can be, well, too much!
Overall, still a very interesting and entertaining fic. Thank you for sharing it!
Older conversation, yes, but those last two lines...
I read the blog post saying there's a bright spot at the end, but I'm just not seeing it.
That's not a bright spot.
There really needs to be an epilogue.
Most definitely lacks a proper resolution, but definitely rips out my heart and jumps up and down on it.
Loved it. Those last lines show that Carrot can be more accommodating but it doesn't compromise how she honestly does not want a child and probably never will.
7093395 Honestly I flip between loving and hating her. I think you have a very good analysis of her, though.
This story was like being punched in the nuts repeatedly, and I mean that in the best way possible.
This is remarkable stuff. Full review here, but briefly: I'm impressed by how complex a character GH is here, given the length of the story. Clever use of the "bubbles" motif, too. On the downside, I'm not keen on Derpy being used like this (even if we don't know what's behind it) and I join with some others in wondering how Pony it all is. Still, it's hard to quibble too much with a story that hits me like yours did with its last line...
7908921
lol yeah it's not very pony. Let's just say that there's a reason I don't write here that much anymore. And part of the reason this fic came to be was wanting to do a reversal of the common fanon of Derpy.
Thanks for the review though! As for the train thing, I am North American, so I don't have that much train experience.
Also the fucking/bucking thing is probably just a typo when switching it from the latter to the former haha
7912798 As it's not spoilery: the train thing I was pleased by was that you didn't make a mistake many NA writers do, ie writing about everyday inter-city train travel as though it were a land cruise holiday. I've noticed that quite a few American authors do this, maybe because inter-city train travel isn't a normal thing for them, and it comes across as though they'd made the Staten Island Ferry feel like a cruise ship.
And aw, I actually did think the change of wording was deliberate. Given the change of speaker, it actually helped to given an extra little dimension to the characterisation, even if it was unintentional!
You can has review!