This story is a sequel to p-value
Shortdesc
Destabilized by Equestrian magic, Wallflower’s world is dying. For its sake, Sunset had to leave forever. All Wallflower can do is hold on to the last connection they still have: the journal Sunset left behind.
Review
Long-Distance is a wrenching story and more than one of our judges said that, though they won’t ever be able to bring themselves to re-read it, it will stay with us for a long time. Everything is ending, it may or may not be anyone’s fault, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. The time it will take to reach that final tragedy doesn’t make it any less remote. Sunset and Wallflower are separated across worlds, and have only Sunset’s journal to link them. One of them will die and the other will live on. They’re left to learn how to cope with and share and grieve the time they have left.
Long-Distance is superbly written, with just enough detail about the nature of the tragedy to make it feel realized without overwhelming readers with exposition. There’s a novel’s worth of story in this short story, but none of it feels compressed. Sunset and Wallflower’s tightly written, wrenching, and affecting, and the last chapter left us breathless.
--Judges of Scampy's SunFlower Shipping Contest
The result was an emotional tale of making the best out of a bad situation through inevitability and – if you’ll pardon the title drop – long distance. Bicyclette’s work is a delightful story that exemplifies how to Show a hard-hitting story through meaningful dialogue, contextual narrative clues, vivid scene setting, and a firm grasp of the characters and their struggles.
--PaulAsaran, Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCXLVII
Contest
Literal last-minute entry to Scampy's SunFlower Shipping Contest, and now unexpectedly the fourth-place winner. Go read the other entries please, there's a lot of good stuff in there!
I originally pulled this story for revisions after the contest results came out. I regret this, and I am sorry.
Credits
Thanks to Sledge115 for emotional support!
this wow
Huzzah, it's out
I'm tempted to check the tags for this story again, but I'm not gonna. The rest shall be a surprise.
bike. I had to stop reading the last chapter for a moment because you really hit hard. Thank you for this gem.
I can hear their voices as I read.
oh my god i love this
and i'm so sad
holy shit
Memento Mori. This story. Wow.
There are some lines that should be indicated with italics for Wallflower's responses that aren't, and some parts broke on the 'character per paragraph' (chapter 10 was difficult) which made me confused in certain points. About who was talking, I mean. Some parts also suddenly lose their italics. But otherwise, the narration is evocative.
This is a good story. Reading this contest's stories was a good choice. And there are still so many...
But I couldn't shake the feeling that something was off on this one. I hope you don't mind if I ramble. I don't want to offend anyone.
I think it was the romance aspect. At times it felt like it was almost secondary? The part with the Foundation, the world-building... honestly, I would've been fine with just the short description as a setup. I wanted to see Wallflower and Sunset talk, see how their relationship was (very cute, btw
), but the world-building kind of got in the way of that. The start was very strong with that promise, so I guess I was disappointed.
There was even a point (chapter 5 mostly) where even inside their own interactions felt like the world-building came first, and there were sprinkles of cute back-and-forths to remind the reader 'they are still a couple!' and not two puppets droning on about their circumstances, setting up the next dialogue where they are back to being a couple.
I guess the phrase is 'overstayed the welcome'? To contrast, I felt like Ms. Rose's section, and to a degree, SciTwi's too, were perfectly fine balanced. If the others were handled like that, more naturally and not taking up the space, this would've been much better
.
There was also how neither really felt like they changed in twenty years, I think. I could go to chapter eleven and that pretty much feels like the Wallflower and Sunset from the beginning, twenty years ago. But that's not necessarily a bad point. Just curious characterization.
I didn't understand them saying 'I love you' at chapter 10.
What romance there was was good, though. I really wish it was trimmed down, since I liked reading those two, and this is a shipping contest. Maybe the Romance tag could be changed to a Slice of Life, but I guess that defeats the point of the contest
.
I'll favorite it. It's very good outside that context.
EDIT: I'm sorry if I didn't spoiler mark things. I'll do it if you want me to.
Congratulations on being the first story in this site that made me cry.
Them joining dots was the most sweet and painful thing to read.
Chapter 4:
"She looked up at Princess Celestia, who had been sitting right in front of her the whole time."
Was that supposed to be the Princess?
Chapter 9:
"“Will it really?”"
Will it really what?
Right, and glad I got and listened to those recommendations despite your claims on the story's quality! :D Perfect, no, but quite good, I think. :)
I am now, however, rather a lot behind schedule, so no time for more detailed commentary (I don't have any leaping to mind right now and demanding to be typed, anyway; there are probably things I could talk about, though). Thank you for writing, though!
10766335
Ah, fixed those up, thanks!
10766455
Ah, thanks!
[checks]
Yep, those look fine to me now. :)
That last line still hits like a truck.
Now that is an ending.
10764608
That is a sign of madness.
... or just good character writing...
Ten years of horsewords have conditioned me to assume that “Kettle” was the name of Rose’s unusually attractive and well-aged husband.
10792376
10764592
Same red tag as all my serious stories get, beginning to see a pattern here hmm
10764608
10775542
Much too kind!
10769991
That was one of the few parts to go through multiple drafts, which did improve it. Glad to see it had the effect I wanted.
10764659
One reason I was initially disappointed with this story was that I felt I did not have the chance to develop as many of the themes as I wanted to due to the space and time constraints. But with so many on the table already, balancing that with the worldbuilding and relationship development was always going to be difficult. The things I ended up cutting were actually all worldbuilding, and maybe if I had more time that process would have continued and I would have focused this more on the nuances of the relationship.
10764598
10764614
A very high compliment, thank you!
10764618
It's as much about how to leave behind
10765946
That was definitely one of the parts I was most proud of. It's a beautiful image in my mind.
10770003
It was the mental image that forced me to write the story.
The story has been reviewed at the Reviewer's Mansion here! Thanks for writing!
10821274
Thank you so much!
I am keeping a close eye on this one! My interest has been captured!
I knew I needed to start somewhere with Bike words, and this was the most obvious pick on my read it later. There already is such a strong tug of chemistry between the characters and the formatting is crisp for those texts. I really love the affection and wholesome glimpse into Wally’s relationship with Sunset that’s already evident from this chapter.
10911298
ty! hopefully this gives me the motivation to actually write and post the rewrite!
10911336
🅱lease do, I shall gobble it up.
Any ETA on the rewrite? Was hoping to give this a re-read, but I can't find the full version on fimfetch.
ok the link to the original version is in the description nvm i'm a dumb
Though I am still hype for the rewrite.
I was thinking about this story again recently. Here’s to hoping the rest of the rewrite will appear soon because this was too splendid of a start to abandon.
This story was a real gut punch. There was real life and depth in these vignettes.
11658266
thank you so much, this was so nice to hear! :)
what a great story.
You can has review!
11300707
11309881
enough time has passed where i can say that i have definitely abandoned the rewrite! the fic is now fully restored to how it was as the entry to the SunFlower Shipping Contest, and thus it shall always be.
i do definitely want to take these two on more existential tragic romances, but if i ever take them on this particular one again i would want it to be different enough in some way to be published as a new fic entirely.
I was just rereading this story and...
Dog bite scars. That... doesn't happen to be a reference to Spike, does it?
11792532
it is indeed Spike
This is great.
The tragic sense of centripetal-folding history juxtaposed against Wallflower's life accepting journey in the other direction. The mad scramble for invention--Twilight's efforts and everything! 
This story and the prequel honestly destroyed me.
11808527
thank you so much! i am very glad you saw and appreciated those throughlines!
11853399
that is so wonderful to hear, thank you so very much!