Appraisal Theory of Emotion
I spent the morning moving equipment just like yesterday and the day before and the rest of the week before that.
I made sure everyone drank water. I set up camera rigs. I handed out the shooting scripts. I delivered dailies. I helped the caterers. I sandbagged a lot of things. I made sure everyone knew what they were doing for the day and handed out call sheets. It was numbing, exhausting work.
I did it all because I didn’t want to think.
The desert sun over Mexicolt was unforgiving, and I only noticed how hot it was when I sat down on a rock to take a breather. I fanned out the collar of my shirt and let out a sigh as I felt the slightly colder air against my skin.
As far as I knew, we were about a quarter through the day’s shoot. Today was scheduled to be more interesting than the others, at least. It was the first part of a big action set-piece where Daring Do, with the Sapphire Stone in hand, attempted to evade a seemingly endless amount of pursuers on trucks and motorcycles.
In reality, it was much less exciting than it sounded. The entire shoot was stop-start as we got certain shots done. It was a master class in scheduling, but interesting filmmaking it was not. This one scene alone was scheduled to take two weeks to shoot.
I took a drink from my water bottle and thanked everything that there was still ice inside the thing.
“Hey, Twilight.”
I looked up and noticed Spitfire standing in front of me, holding a plastic gallon of water.
“Hi,” I said back. “How are you holding up so far?”
“Thirsty,” she said with a slight chuckle. She slapped the jug, and it jiggled in response. “And at the same time, I need to pee. You?”
“A little exhausted from all this running around, but I don’t envy your job,” I said, earning a polite laugh from her. While I was busy behind the scenes, she was dangling off the back of a pickup truck, her legs dragging against the ground, and somehow she had to act at the same time. “I have no idea how you’re not a nervous wreck.”
“A little bit of a death wish would do that for you,” she joked. “I don’t know what was more intense: today’s shoot or the time I did a four-fifty splash off a steel cage.”
I didn’t say anything back mostly because I didn’t know what she meant by that.
“That’s wrestling speak for a flip off a really high place,” she explained.
“Oh. Neat.”
“So, how’s your girlfriend doing?” she asked.
My mood immediately soured. “Not good. We had a fight. I think it’s over now.” I didn’t even know why I blurted that out. Maybe it was the heat, or maybe it was the need for sympathy from someone other than my parents.
“Oh, man, I’m sorry for even bringing it up.” Her face winced and she shifted her weight between her legs.
“Don’t,” I said. “You didn’t know.”
“So what happened? If you don’t mind me asking.”
I sighed as I stared down at the ground. “She wasn’t who I thought she was. I caught her hiding stuff from me.”
“Heavy,” Spitfire responded. “What kind of stuff was she hiding?”
“Alcohol, cigarettes,” I answered, keeping the more damning things to myself.
Spitfire tilted her head. “That’s it? Sounds like a party…” It hung in heavy silence. “Tough crowd. Sorry.”
I scrunched my face up. “What do you mean, that’s it? She was keeping stuff like that a secret from me. Making up lies and excuses, hiding it all in a box.”
“It sounds to me like she wasn't all too proud of it,” Spitfire said. She sat down next to me and put a hand on my shoulder.
“That doesn’t explain why she shoved everything in my face when I found out,” I said, kicking at the dirt. “It’s like she wanted me to see it all.”
“Think on it some more. Use that brain of yours, girl.” Spitfire paused for a moment. “Here’s a story that’s not too uncommon in my industry: Fake fights come with real pain. That pain is so real, it takes painkillers to function normally. You’re on the road everyday, so resting up at home isn’t an option. Eventually, that someone needs more and more just to be able to get through the day.”
“Sounds like that someone has a problem,” I said.
Spitfire smiled. “And you’d be right. Of course, stuffing your face with pain pills doesn’t look good when you’re supposed to be a hero to children everywhere, so you hide it.”
I thought about it. “Does that happen often?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” Spitfire nodded. “It’s why I’m not on cereal boxes anymore.”
My body went rigid. “You?”
“I’m clean now, but it took the help of the people around me.” Spitfire sighed. “The hardest part was looking my ma in the eyes and telling her that her baby wasn’t okay. It takes real strength to admit it—even more to ask for help.”
She dropped her fist against her knee and looked away.
“What I’m saying here is that having a vice doesn’t make you any less of a person,” she said. “Most of them are a terrible, incredibly shitty thing that should be kicked, but we do what we have to to get by.
“I just think you were more concerned that they were doing it instead of thinking about why they turned to it in the first place. Get out of your own head and try to understand theirs.”
“Right,” I said, still trying to process everything. I hung onto the silence.
“Does my ugly secret change what you think of me?” she asked.
“A little,” I said. “But it’s a good change. I know you a bit better now.”
“Does it change the times we hung out together?”
“Not really, no.”
Spitfire smiled and clapped my back. “Then it shouldn’t affect the good times you had with your girlfriend. You seemed really happy the day you brought her on set. It’d suck for all to go to nothing.”
I brought my hand to my cheek, thinking about what she said. “I guess you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right,” she said with a cheery grin. “Anyways, I gotta hurry. Seems like everyone but me works hourly.” She patted my shoulder before waddling in her many safety harnesses towards the line of portable toilets.
Once I was alone again, I did what she told me and spent the time just thinking on what happened and why. I caught Sunset smoking. Why did she tell me about the rest?
Get out of your own head.
Then I realized why. It was a cry for help. She wanted me to stand with her and maybe tell her that I accepted her as she was, but I just walked away. I felt a sudden weight on my shoulders. It was pure guilt. I let her down.
She needed a friend. And a girlfriend was still a friend.
My phone vibrated. 11:11 again. I never bothered to remove the alarm. I checked the date. The Spring Fling Dance was tonight, and I felt… mixed. I was still mad at her. She lied, and hid things about herself, and I thought she would trust me. A part of me wanted nothing to do with it, wanted nothing to do with Sunset. But at the same time, I wanted nothing more than to be on that stage as they called out her name. I wanted to be with her.
The realization lifted everything hanging in my chest.
After everything, I still wanted to be with her.
Actually, I wanted to be there for her. And that made the difference.
"You okay, dear? You look troubled."
Looking up, I met eyes with an older woman I didn't recognize. Her hair was graying. I could see the slight wrinkles in the corners of her eyes through her thick, red-rimmed glasses. She sat next to me, removing a large shawl before fanning herself with her hand.
I shrugged like the indecisive teenager I was. "I'm kind of regretting coming out here."
“Same here.” The woman nodded. “Seems they couldn’t find a colder desert like I’d asked,” she added dryly.
Given my mother’s stories of her standoffish sense of humor and my father’s accounts of unreasonable demands, there was only one person who this could have been. “You’re A.K. Yearling.”
“The one and only.” The corners of her mouth lifted slightly. Just slightly. “I take it you're Vel’s girl. You look just like her.”
I nodded, my head whipping up and down. “Y-yeah! Nice to meet you.”
“We’ve met before,” she snapped back matter-of-factly. “Though, I suppose you were much too young to remember it.”
“I guess so,” I said, not really knowing how to respond. I decided to just steer the conversation somewhere else. “So, what do you think about the movie so far? It must be great seeing your words come to life.”
“Terrible.” Yearling let out a rude snerk. “Spitfire’s much too tall to play Daring, the Sapphire Stone’s not the right shade of blue, and the costume just isn’t right. It’s not at all like I had envisioned it.”
I didn’t know why, but I felt the need to get defensive. My parents had been stressing about it for years, and I couldn’t just sit there and let her bad mouth it. “But adjustments have to be made. Books and movies are completely different mediums. You can’t healthily expect things to always be the way you imagined…”
I trailed off.
Now Yearling had a wide grin. “I suppose we all have things to learn, don’t we?”
“I guess so.” At this point, I realized that Yearling and my mother had only sharpened their wit against each other as roommates all those years. “I take it you’ve been talking to my mom.”
Yearling nodded. “Yes I have. We’ve always been ones for gossip. Though, all she’s told me now is that you and your girlfriend had a falling out. She won’t tell me anything else, so I’m here for the source. Forgive me for eavesdropping just now.”
I let out a pained chuckle. “We’re just not in a good spot right now. She’s not the person I fell in love with. Or at least, not the person I thought she was.”
“Then who did you think she was?”
“I don’t know,” I said, staring down at the ground. “Someone better than me. Someone…”
“Perfect?”
“I guess…” I took a deep breath, knowing what happened. “I think… I fell with the idea of her.” It hurt to say, but I messed up, and I had to admit it.
“Young love,” Yearling said after a quick scoff. “A topic I never personally cared about, but your mother loved to write about it. She has this way of words that’s just—”
“Romantic? Idealistic?”
“Naive,” Yearling corrected. “Which explains a lot, young lady. Did you really let Vel embarrass you in front your date?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Though, I think it was supposed to be endearing.”
Yearling clicked her tongue. “You watch too many movies. That was a cliche in all of them when your parents were first dating.” She trailed off for a moment as if she’d just returned to those times. “You know, I blame your father. I just knew he’d steal your mother away from novels with his newfangled moving pictures.”
“Moving pictures?”
“It’s a joke, dear,” Yearling clarified. “I’m not that old.”
I let out a belated giggle. She seemed satisfied. There was a pause in the conversation as Yearling took a drink of water.
“See, if this was one of those movies, your girl would have driven here in a big gesture just to see you and wrap it up in under an hour and a half.” She placed the water down at her side. “But this is life. You have to live every minute on your own. Though, a book wouldn’t be as pressed for time. You can have a long elaborate sequence, pages and pages long, where—”
“I don’t see how this is helping.”
Yearling pursed her lips and leaned in closer to me. “Well, since subtext isn’t working, let me spell it out for you. There’s two choices. Sit here and mope because the pedestal you put her on is broken, or you can go to her now and meet her on her level, warts and all, and help her pick up the pieces and work it out. Y'know, like adults.”
“But she’s back in Canterlot.”
“That doesn’t matter. It’s not too late if you go to her now. You’re young, and you’re in love. It’s supposed to be stupid and messy.” She waved her hand around dismissively. “Make mistakes, and make every grand gesture before you get too old for that nonsense.”
I thought about it some more. She was right. I came here to hide and wish none of this never happened. Sunset was not coming to fix a problem I created.
I stood up and took a deep breath. “I need to make this right.”
“Atta girl,” Yearling hummed.
I turned to face Yearling. “Why did you help me?”
She smiled. “There’s this light. I saw it in your mother’s eyes, and I see it in yours. The last thing I wanted was to see it go out, even if they were never meant for me.”
I paused for a moment. She isn’t talking about me, is she?
Without a word, I ran off, ready to make things right.
Then I ran right back to Yearling. “S-sorry! I forgot to say thanks! Is there any way I can repay you?”
Yearling chuckled. “Get your mother to start writing novels again. I’m getting tired of rereading.” She paused for a moment, a smile creeping up on her face. “Or better yet, give it some time and write your own.”
I nodded and this time ran off without a word.
—☀—
I knew how to make things right. I’m decided to surprise her. With a plane ticket booked to Canterlot in the next hour, I should be able to reach CHS by the pageant winner ceremony at eight.
When they call her name, I’ll be right there to hand her the crown.
Within minutes, I was packed. Just the essentials for a carry on. I made use of my dad’s trailer office, printing out the plane ticket. Then I was out the door, running through the bustling set.
All I needed was a ride to the airport, which turned out to be a bigger problem than expected.
My parents were too busy. The whole production revolved around them, and they couldn’t exactly leave. I found myself running all around the set in search of a ride.
Then, my saving grace came from the door to a porta-potty swinging open and hitting my face. I fell to the ground, landing on my back. When I looked up, I found Spitfire standing over me.
“Crap, kid, you okay?” she asked, bending down and extending a hand out. I took it, letter her help me up.
“Y-yeah,” I said hurriedly, suddenly out of breath. “Need… Airport… Ride…”
“Breathe, kid,” Spitfire instructed. I did my best to comply. I fumbled for the inhaler in my bag and took a quick hit. “Now what’s wrong?”
I tried my best to explain what was going on. “I need a ride to the airport, but I can’t find someone to take me.”
Spitfire smiled. “All you gotta do is ask.”
“Seriously, you’d do that?”
She nodded. “I’ve been itching to get into some kind of trouble.” She gestured behind her, towards the stunt jeep that had been dragging her earlier in the shoot. “I even know just the ride.”
She raced off to it, and I chased behind.
•·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·☀·.·´`·.·•·.·´`·.·•
It was surprisingly easy to hotwire a car.
I found that out by looking it up on my phone. However, it was easier, but ultimately less exciting to use the keys already in the ignition. Still, the adrenaline rush of stealing a jeep from the set was incomparable to anything else I’ve done, except maybe asking Sunset to be my girlfriend.
I guess she was a bad influence after all.
Spitfire drove the car off set, much to the screaming and yelling of all the producers and crew who chased after the speeding vehicle. Within seconds we were on the dirt roads leading into the nearby city. The wind whipped at my hair, and I couldn’t help but let out a yell of pure joy. I was going home. But more importantly, I was going to be with Sunset.
Spitfire sped the entire way down until we hit the outskirts of Mexicolt City. The last thing we needed was to be arrested and sent to a Mexicoltan prison. However, as the car turned down towards the major road leading to the airport, we ran into a bit of a roadblock.
In fact, it was a literal roadblock. As it turned out, there was a Spring Equinox festival going on today.
“No bueno,” Spitfire groaned, looking at the road full of people, floats, and markets. “What now?” She brought the jeep to the side of the road and slammed her head against the steering wheel.
I looked around. There was traffic in all directions. There was no way we were getting out in a timely manner with the car. I checked my phone. My flight was coming up fast.
We were stuck. Until a thought came into my mind.
“What would Daring do?”
Spitfire looked up. “Book four, Curse of the Lycanthrope. Chapter Eight.”
“The Scramble!” I hopped off the jeep and grabbed my duffel bag from the back. “Daring, with the Werewolf’s Amulet, escapes chase from Dr. Caballero by passing through a local festival. Her seaplane waits at the airport on the other side of the city.”
Spitfire tipped her hat. “Well, you have Daring herself to get you across. I always wanted to be a method actor.”
Without hesitating, Spitfire grabbed my arm, and we ran into the thick of the festival.
Surprisingly, compared to most of the costumed festival goers, who were dressed in bright feathers and masks, we were mostly inconspicuous. We ran as fast as we could, pushing past concerts, cutting through dance squad performances.
We hopped onto a parade float adorned in spring flowers to cut through the crowds some more. I choked on a cloud of pollen. The band on stage stopped playing, drawing more attention to ourselves. Spitfire only tipped her hat to them before pulling me off the other side of the float with her.
This, obviously, caught the attention of a few security guards. The chase was on. Spitfire led the charge, ducking through alleys. Compared to movies in general, the guards were much less motivated to catch us. Spitfire noticed this and took the initiative as she grabbed a fruit cart and used it to block the street. Piles of oranges, mangoes, and apples hit the ground, tripping up those on our tail.
“It actually worked!” Spitfire remarked. I turned around to watch the security guards struggling to push it out of the way without knocking everything over while the owner of the cart yelled at them.
There was another guard ahead of us. Spitfire grabbed my arm and ducked into the nearest shop. It was a bakery. The regular patrons looked at us as we ducked down from the windows. The guards ran by the shop, not knowing where we went.
It was only then when I noticed how ridiculous we looked. Apparently, during our run, we were bombarded with colored smoke powder, silly string, and feathers from the costumes. I hadn’t noticed because I was having too much fun running towards my problems.
The airport was in sight. I was almost there. My lungs burned, and my legs tightened, but I kept running. Thankfully we were uncontested as the two of us stopped at the airport’s entrance. I doubled over, taking in all the precious air I could get while I heard Spitfire laugh. I took a deep puff from my inhaler.
“You look ridiculous,” Spitfire said.
“You do, too.”
I grabbed an old t-shirt from my bag and did my best to wipe myself off. It got most of the string and feathers off, but the powder was stuck to my skin. As long as they let me on the plane, I didn’t care.
We ran inside, stopping at the gate, gasping for breath and covered in what I assumed whatever filled Pinkie’s party cannons.
“The two o'clock flight to Canterlot,” I said to the counter. “Can I board?”
The woman typed a bit at the keyboard. “Flight 314 departed fifteen minutes ago.”
My heart sank. I checked my watch. She was right. For once, in the millions of years of human evolution and a hundred or so years in aviation innovation, a plane departed on time.
Just my luck.
Spitfire rubbed my shoulder. “When’s the next flight to Canterlot?”
The woman typed at her computer. “Tomorrow morning at ten. All the others are booked.”
“Not good enough,” I muttered under my breath. “I need to be there by tonight.”
“It’s alright, kid,” Spitfire reassured, squeezing my shoulder. “We’ll get you there tomorrow.”
I pushed her off me. “The Spring Fling’s tonight. I have to be there with her. For her.”
I stormed out of the airport. Spitfire didn’t follow me. I felt bad for lashing out at her. She did everything she could, and I just yelled at her for not getting me there faster. I sat at the curb and held my head in my hands. After a while, Spitfire joined me, putting a hand on my shoulder.
“So, you missed out,” she said. “That’s just one night. I can assure you the moon will come up again.”
“But it’s the Spring Fling,” I said childishly.
“And?”
“We’re seniors. There won’t be another one,” I explained.
Spitfire chuckled. “Just because your school does it once a year doesn’t mean you can’t take your girlfriend out for a night of dancing. As much as it sucks to say, perfect endings are hard to come by.”
“But I can make one.”
I stood up and scanned my surroundings. Then I checked my phone, searching around for any sign of hope. I found one. And thanks to my many contingency plans, I did something I always envisioned myself doing:
I bought a bus ticket.
Stats
Page generated in 0.024 seconds
Total duration
1,073 users online
16,702 hits today, 1,960,719 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Tomorrow, the last chapter. Seriously. Thank you for waiting. I'm sorry it took me this long.
10938758
it was very much worth the wait, I'm looking forward to it!
10938758
Does it involve holding a boom box up outside the gym blasting their song? Some cliches are worth it!
This has been fun even to reread.
I'm glad it's not 2024 yet.
Amazing chapter as always! Can't wait to see how it all ends!
And don't worry, this story is totally worth the wait.
Wheee! Twilight, you are an adorable train-wreck, you know that? Hopefully Sunset hasn't just given up and moved on.
Wonderful to see this again, and to see Twilight realize the flaw in her thought process. (Yearling’s an author. Of course she understands parallel structure.
) Looking forward to the conclusion.
It's good to have people in your life. Especially those that will point out flaws in your logic. So glad to read it again.
Impressive
That's relationships for ya.
Yep, that's the basics of making a movie based off of a book these days and I know plenty that aren't the same as their book counterparts. 🙄
She's right twilight, now is the time that make things right! Even if it may end in disaster.
😔😠
You sly dog spitfire
We're too late! 😔
You can do it twilight!!!
Another fun title for this chapter: “The Brief Adventure of Senorita Twilight Twinkle”
Seeing Spitfire’s and Yearling’s takes on Twilight’s spat brings with it a fresh sense of perspective, between Spitfire being really brutally blunt about her own vices (she almost comes across as a calmer, more mature Rainbow Dash here) and Yearling… wait… talk of romance clichés… elaborate sequences in books…
Are you calling yourself out through an in-universe character?
I say this because, well… The climactic chase here feels… weird. I don’t mean it as a complaint, more that it feels so far removed and cliché, it ended up actually feeling quite detached from the rest of this otherwise rather grounded story. Reading through the chapter a second time, I almost wonder if you’re alluding to the clichéd climax via Yearling herself before saying ‘yEET’ and going with it anyway.
If that was a deliberate nod, then bloody bravo. Because my first thoughts were that for you to then crush that cliché so swiftly as Twilight misses both the aeroplane and the Spring Fling crowning… it actually turns into a bit of a stroke of subversive genius. You set up the Hollywood ending then slap it away with a firm 'things don't always work out that way'. That one moment turned the chapter from "uh... is this happening now?" to "oh my days you sneaky evil genius".
And then if it turns out you called it two thousand words earlier through the character who’s… an… author…
Oh you absolute sod
GET THAT BUS TICKET SPARKY ! YEARS OF PLANNING DID IT
sparky you done messed up, fix it