An Even Worse Self Insert

by ROBCakeran53

15: Along the Santa Fe Trail

Author's Note:

This isn't meant to start anything, such as fights or whatever, but I've been going through a lot of shit and I'm a good way into the bottle and needed something and then there was a big pony there and I just had to...

yeah.

There will probably be a blog post eventually, probably.

It had been well over a year since I’d actually spent any period of time in this room, save for occasionally trying to clean, or making sure my cats hadn’t made a mess.

My record player had been quiet since then, and a decent layer of dust had gathered on it, as well as most everything else.

The record in my hands was what brought me here, in my bedroom for over fifteen years, now just the “spare” room where one of my friends would crash if they stayed over.

I found the 78 when cleaning in our foyer. I bought it… I’m not sure when, but it had been the only shellac on the thriftstore shelf, pre-Covoid, so I bought it, paying the outrageous 50 cents a record (usually I bought enough at a time they’d sell them to me for a dime a dozen).

When I saw what record it was, and who it was by, it reminded me that I had made a joke at work the other day, about Glenn Miller was not dead, but missing in action.

Apparently, that’s changed in the last few years, as I was told by my boss.

“No, they found his plane. We did it. Communication error.”

While the fact checking has been… hazy at best, it does sound like that’s the going story.

So fine, I don’t care, I’m still gonna believe in my failing heart that he’s out there somewhere, enjoying a drink out of a coconut and orchestrating a crab musical.

Regardless, both the revelation from my boss, then finding this record I’d apparently placed behind a couple antique clocks (and then forgot about) were within a day of each other, so this was clearly a sign.

Plus I’d not had any more delusions since I’d stopped listening to my records, so maybe I was returning to what was arguably considered sane?

I’d still not fixed my old record player, so instead I played with the modern one sitting on top, seeing what state I’d left it in (on, figures), and the stereo set it connected to (off, thankfully).

Once things were as they should, I placed the record on the turntable, but didn’t start it. Instead, I walked down my hall to the vanity that connected to my “current” bedroom, and grabbed a beer from my mini fridge (I’d moved it from the room) and then walked back.

I stood in front of the couch, facing the record player, then with a hefty sigh, I started the music, collapsed onto my couch behind me, and listened to the instrumentals of Glenn Miller and his Orchestra.

The time between the song starting and the actual vocals picking up was half the song, but that was the point of this kind of music. It was there to lull you into the melody, get you dancing, moving, swaying to the beat, before the male or female voice could fill your mind with the alluring thoughts of what you’re actually dancing to.

The last year had been Hell for me, and I’m sure most of the world, but I liked to believe my suffrage was for different reasons than most others. Like this music, people were subdued, listening to the beat of the world, staying close to themselves or close ones, and not speaking, only listening, as the world around them crumbled and fell apart.

I worked.

As time progressed, people came up with new ways to live, to thrive, push on and move forward with what they constantly claimed to themselves and the rest of the world was a planet ending event.

The vocals, by now, had started, and we had the smooth beat already getting us on the dance floor, so the vocals for some broke the mood and caused rifts, while others rolled with it and kept pushing on.

My boss (at the time) had nearly died from it, and to this day he still jokes about it.

Then I came close to dying from a work related injury, and we all joke about it.

The scar across my beer gut doesn’t ever laugh, though, instead reminds me that we’re not, in fact, immortal.

No matter what we do, what we strive for, or force down each other’s throats, that life is not everlasting. Things come to life, they grow, they get old, they die. Sometimes they die young, sometimes older than sand. We aren’t allowed to anticipate what will get us, be it age or a speeding train.

My room rattles from a train going by, and I stand to start the record again. I’d completely ignored the music, but also had it memorized in the back of my mind and knew what had been sang, and what about.

Or did I?

Music was funny like that. Sometimes it was straight cut and forward, other times there was hidden meaning in between the words.

I liked to imagine music more by the sound, the melody, than the actual words. The tone, beat, harmony, it all paints a clear message that what you, me, the listener, are supposed to feel, or be feeling, as you pick it up from your ears.

“Angels come to paint the desert nightly,
When the moon is beaming brightly,
Along the Santa Fe Trail.”

“Stardust, scattered all along the highway, on a rainbow colored skyway, along the Santa Fe Trail.”

I froze, my cold beer getting colder as I fought the urge to look to my left, and yet the voice, female, beside me already had my attention before I could even argue with myself.

Slowly, I turned, and sitting there was a purple alicor, tall, regal like, far from the small little pony I was used to. It reminded me of Luna, but… taller, dare I argue what I’d imagine Celestia would look like sitting on my couch, had she ever visited.

I stared at her, unmoving.

She stared at my record player, eyes moving with the rotation, until it would stop, then her horn lit and she lifted the arm to start it again, but paused.

“May I?” She asked, however not looking away.

“Sure,” I said, doing the same.

The needle was placed gently, and the instrumentals began once more.

“So, you got bigger,” I blurted out.

“A few hundred years does that to a pony,” she remarked.

“An alicorn, maybe, normal ponies would be dust,” I finally raised my beer to my lips.

But it was gone with a flash, and I looked back to the larger alicorn as she downed the rest of my bottle.

“So you’re polite to my records, but not me?”

“I respected your music, but not always you,” she stated, setting the empty bottle on the floor.

Oof.

“That… that’s painfully accurate, and much harsher than I had expected ever from you,” I pointed out.

“As I said, a few hundred years changes a pony.”

“It’s been like, a year for me.”

“Well, yes, that’s because it’s been a year since you last visited this place.”

“My old room?”

“No, just… here, this place.”

I didn’t fully get it, but she waved a hoof at me before I could start solving the riddle.

“Never mind. Besides, I’m not the normal Twilight you’re used to. She is still not sure about talking to you, but me?”

She rubbed a golden shoe against her chest.

“I know better, knew better, yet it’s taken me an embarrassing amount of time to actually come visit.”

“Well the feeling’s mutual, then, cause it’s been over a year since I just sat here and listened to a record.”

She hummed at that, then started the record again.

“This feels like one of those songs that, vocally, has nothing to do with the situation, yet the tempo speaks volume of the mood.”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“I know I’m early, but you’re approaching a very important time, anniversary, that will-”

“I know.”

She paused, then looked down to me, brow raised and curious.

“I’ve known for months, been paying attention to the dates. I’ve just been trying to put it behind me. I’m busy, life’s busy, the world is on fire and people can’t seem to pull their heads out of their asses and just go with the flow.”

“It’s called a pandemic.”

I scoffed.

“That’s what I’m told.”

“So what?” she leaned forward, downward even, so she could look me in the eyes. “You just cast away everyone else’s fears because you don’t fear it yourself?”

“No, but I’m also not afraid of death, or the fact that life is short and can end at any moment.”

“That doesn’t change those from fear, or wanting to help their own chances.”

“That’s fine, then let them.”

Twilight Sparkle, Alicorn Supreme, leaned back and sat straight, although didn’t change her glare at me.

“You should know, after all, Miss I’ve been around several hundred years.”

I’d never seen a pony pissed. I had Luna close, but nothing like this.

It was like I’d put my face into a preheated oven, and then sprayed inside with a flamethrower.

She grit her teeth. “Life, and death, are natural, yes, but they’re also just that: natural. Just as natural, as for instance, as wanting to better one’s chances at survival in a harsh and unforgiving world. Tell me, do those who strive to better themselves and life to their fullest, sound like they’re being dumb? Careless? Selfish?”

I took a deep breath, sighing on the exhale, and looked up to the ceiling.

The Root Beer spray was still plastered up there, after nearly two decades.

“Yes, and no,” I whispered, then turning my head while keeping the back of it on the couch’s back rest, I looked at the pony. “Yes, they’re being selfish, but that’s their right to be. We’re all entitled to being selfish for our own sakes, or even those close to us.

“But there are some of us who are dumb, ignorant, and just plain stupid, and want to live our lives to the stupidest limit we can manage, to prove a point to ourselves, or God, or no one at all. We want to be our own person, our own controller. Is that so hard to ask?”

“At the potential of risking the lives of others?”

“Being alive means we’re a risk to others. Marry Jane is a risk to Joe Shithead because she was distracted and ran him over. Joe Shithead was a risk to Marry Jane because she signed off a form that passed a failing dam to break because she was being lazy. There are so many variables in life, how do you plan for them all?”

“You can’t, which is why you tackle the ones in which you can.”

I had to bite my tongue, because while I wanted to say something… that was actually a fair point.

“So, what do I do? Fall in line like everyone else? Continue to just live my life in happy ignorance?”

“That, is where this whole argument boils down to, isn’t it? What’s the right, or wrong, choice?” Twilight suddenly stood from the couch, barely able to fit in the gap between it and my shelf ladened wall.

“We have to choose what’s right for ourselves, but what if we’re wrong? We suffer the consequences, while also possibly putting others at risk. Or we put ourselves forward, and do what is felt necessary, yet possibly suffering for it, or benefiting from it, we won’t know until it happens.”

“So, there’s no right answer,” I scoff.

“Everycreature will try to pressure you, or me, into believing there’s only one right answer. But, as life has taught me, there’s never such a thing. I’m not here judging you, or trying to change your mind, but trying to help broaden your horizon.”

I leaned back once again. “Yeah, that’s kind of the norm now.”

This time, instead of a rebuttal as I’d expected, I heard a curious hum.

“Would you believe me if I told you, I was only a few days past eleven years old?”

This was out of nowhere, but I rolled with it.

“No, honestly not at all.”

“Well it’s true. We’re all only eleven, yet much older in retrospect. Celesita was thousands of years old, Luna the same. Cadence was several hundred years, and I was a twenty something unicorn lost in her books.” She looked to me. “And yet, we’re all still so young, compared to you.”

“How so?”

All she did was smile, and then her horn glowed, and with a poof she was gone.

I blinked, then felt something cold in my hand. It was my beer.

I looked ahead, and the needle arm was still on its rest, the record sitting in place and motionless.

It was like nothing had happened, yet at the same time everything had happened at once.

Nothing was gained, but nothing was really lost.

The world continued on its axis, and I continued to sit here, lost in thought.

“Ten years…” I whispered to myself, then took a drink.

The beer was warm, yet the bottle was still chilled.

Comments

[Admiral Biscuit]

The fic we don’t think we need—but we do—returns once again

[Barney]

“Would you believe me if I told you, I was only a few days past eleven years old?”

I was confused at first before it dawned on me. Hard to believe it's been that long.

[Borko]

Didn't plan on this, but here's a longer, somewhat impassioned comment. Read it or don't, but I'd personally prefer you do.
--
I can't tell if it's a good or bad thing this hasn't been updated.
Either way, I'm somewhat happy it hasn't, though I do hope it's for the best of reasons. Call it naivety, or whatever you'd like, but this is something that speaks so true to me since it's something that was written with your own personal truth. Taking in your own personal qualms which you acknowledge, accept, have tried to take steps, and then chose to sit back down when you tripped. It's painful, everyone wants to sit down.
You know this.
I know this. Most people do.
Your choice to keep sitting longer than you want yet not long enough is what hurts to see, heck it even hurts me. And I'm not going to act like I know you. I don't. You've made some of my favorite fanfics I've ever read and may ever read. This one in particular because it has something that is not only personable and true because it's your own struggles, but what makes up a good story: crafted conflict. Real and effective conflict.
It hurts. This entire fandom for me has been something of a miracle, discovering the beauties that lie in the niche, the foreign, the popular, the unpopular, and everything in between. They've all got hidden gems and beauty that cater to most if not all. And I love it.

This isn't the most viewed or popular because it doesn't cater to most, and is—as the title states—entirely a self insert. It's great, raw, and doesn't need the beauty of polish or amazing characters or arks or any of that jazz for me to love it. It's that realistic sense, the personalized touch that caters just to you as a person rather than your wants.

Granted, I'm just trying to sum up my own thoughts as best I can for whatever reason 'cause it made me feel the need to. Deep down, I do hope this is updated or considered finished of some sort. Likely never will be if I'm being more pessimistic with myself. But that hope is still there. Then again, I myself am fairly young. I've got a lot ahead of me and haven't made a decision yet that has doomed my future entirely.
Stupid ones, yes.
Influential ones that I'll be feeling for the rest of my life, yup.
But you get my point.
What I'm trying to get at, is that I love this because you accept the struggles but while you don't have that strength personally, no matter what you say to me or many others, we will never believe you don't have the capacity for that strength to eventually come. Came to me earlier in life when I nearly lost everything. I needed to get up and fix it. Didn't want to, hurt, and felt numb, but I did, cause I hated being numb more.

I know I'm a random shmuck from the internet that has no bearing on you. These words will be forgotten by time too.

I just hope they stick long enough to be read, just like your books at one point. That's what it's meant for.

You.

[ROBCakeran53]

11760842
I really wish I had something thoughtful to respond with, but I don't, other than thank you for the thought out message.

I will say I've tried to sit down multiple times to do another chapter, as some things recently have gone on and I needed to vent. Yet, I couldn't seem to do it. I don't think this story is complete, but I don't quite know where I wanna go next with it. Next with me, my life, my problems and what I may think is the right solution.

I guess you could say, none of my technicolored muses have really shown up in a while to inspire me.