This is my story. This is my story.
My name is Jiang Shuren. My name is Twilight Sparkle.
My body is running. My body is dying.
Maybe I'm still alive. Maybe I'm still alive.
But for now, we have one last story to tell.
Jiang - “江”, ancient name for Yangtze River, now refers to rivers of great volume. Also used as a common surname.
Shuren - “述人”, "to describe human" or "he who describes".
Jiangshu ren - “讲述人”, a narrator.
An entry for Science Fiction Contest II.
I guess the judges just have very different aesthetic opinions from the public, or they were cutting this exotic little piece some slacks.
As you can probably tell from the protagonist's name, this story was originally written in Chinese. It is an entry of Raa's 2020 Midsummer Writing Contest, conceptualised to the four challenge elements provided by the holder:
Leaving embers. The '70s. Subjecting. A violet rain.
It was written in a time of doubt and fear, and I probably got too emotional writing this, but in the end, I'm satisfied with how it turned out to be. Some of the concerns I raised had become very real problems on the Chinese Internet. I wish it had stayed a parable.
I found it hard to translate this story. Not only are there expressions that sound cumbersome in English, but some concepts mentioned are also unique to China. It might not be easy to read this, never mind empathising, if you didn't grow up in China. Though, I hope some of the sentiment get through to you, and encourage you to help make the Internet a more forgiving space for everyone.
No matter what, may you enjoy this story.
Thanks you, TheFlint44 and Omega, for proofreading!
This is one of those cases where someone brings one of the unusually or even exceptionally good stories from another land, and OF COURSE it is unsually or exceptionally good, isn't it?
Praising this story properly will be some work, and I am too tired and lazy right now.
I will say right now, though, that I enjoyed the sense of and use of historical perspective, from 20th century Chinese political unrest of the "Cultural Revolution" to quickly changing fads of the future's social media.
This sad but good story holds 3rd place in this sci-fi contest for me ).
11563597
Thank you so much for your kind words.
Should have realized that this is that story in fimtale.com some time ago. It is still as fascinating as I remembered. Good job translating this good treasure over here!
11568122
Thank you so much for your kind words! I'm glad you loved the story!
11568829
You're welcome! You should know that when I read it first in Chinese, I thought about a lot of things in this story, like what does that title mean (I'm actually not quite sure about this one even now) and what does our protagonist mean in the end and what his relationship with Twilight can be. When you posted this here before reading it again I actually thought about how could his name be translated into English. His name was "story teller" as I understood, but it doesn't sound like a person's name so I thought that it could change a little into "Tori Stella" which I think could preserve the "story teller" meaning ( I just swapped the words' first syllable's first part so it still sounds similar) while sounding like an actual name. It's just a silly thought, but seems fit that I put this here. I mean those are names but they still seem a little awkward together when calling someone.
I'll say it again, nice job on using the references! The first time I read it I hardly understand any of them but now I find it much more interesting now that I learned more about the things inside!
11569034
Oh, I actually considered punny names like "Isaac Teller" (Isaac as in the Bible,) but eventually decided against it. I couldn't come up with an passable name that shares the meaning, and I wasn't sure if I can tell the story entirely devoid of Chinese context; a protagonist with an English name doing very Chinese things would be ridiculous.
It also crossed my mind that maybe I could rename him with English puns, like maybe "Na Ruite", but again, it felt unnecessary. A Chinese name is bound to sound exotic, so I might as well just tell the readers what it means instead of imbedding it with a poor pun.
As for the title, it was the second concept I came up with, right after the entire "android ponies" thing. Throughout the writing of the original one, I was quite emotional and just running with the flow, so I made few changes from the early conceptualisation. Now that you've brought that up, yes, the title doesn't tell you what this story is about, but that's also what I was going for. I wanted the readers to be in Shuren's sentimental shoes reading this, to be frightened and surprised.
As you compare the two versions, you might find some small changes I made to the story across the languages. Among those is a somewhat peculiar one: I changed "CYBERLIFE" in the original version to "HYPERLIFE". That's because most Chinese players of Detroit only know the company by its localised name and "CYBERLIFE" would be implicit enough, but not for English readers.
Here's a trivia to thank you for your comments: GELAS in the story stands for "Global English Language Assessment System", a paraphrase for IELTS.
ooh, the stars outshone by humanity’s light, very thematic in a way fitting with MLP!
and oof, already heartbreaking
this does somehow feel dystopian in a way that is an extension of current trends
surely she’d be wobbling like a newborn foal, not a fawn!
so true
dang, those are some really well-crafted wings! i, too, would love to look at them
really makes you think about society
well you definitely did your job in making this person absolutely infuriating
oof! really says a lot about this society
aww! as awful as this experience was, at least he got this lesson out of it
so true actually. also very relevant to this story!
aww! thus is the magic of ponies, love it
very poetic in an awful way. you really do a great job in making every human not the narrator a terrible person in this!
and that is one of the so many things that is nice about ponies! it’s the world where people are as they should be
hehe, great reference!
dang that’s us in fifty years really makes you think
to think that Past Sins still has an impact after all these decades…
so true, love her! and good commentary on how early fandom works are dated by their characterizations sometimes
and oof… putting myself into this Twilight’s horseshoes, what a tragic situation to be in
and thus is what our fandom is fated to become, one day. time, mare!
same actually and i didn’t even need to live with a Twilight Sparkle android replica!
horrifying!
ooh, so that’s what happens to Apple!
Equestria Daily?
ugh, and the fandom seems to go full circle here, very sad
and an excellent touch to have the end the beginning, and the beginning the end. what a note of beauty to end on!
and a heartbreaking finish, bringing together all of the awful things about this society that Jiang Shuren despised in order to take away the only thing good in it. but as Twilight beautifully said, all that good she and Equestria had given him exists in him still. and it is indeed his responsibility now to bring the sun to this land.
the themes here really resonated with me, and i truly do identify with them on a personal level. thank you for bringing this wonderful story to us Anglophones!
Find true feelings in your life
I can see the author’s self-insertion and reflection on the social issues of reality, feels a bit dreamlike. From a temporal perspective, it can be roughly divided into three parts. The first part is the night before farewell, the second part is the encounter and growing friendship, and the third part is the fateful moment where it all started.
The first part here is the protagonist’s last tenderness with the Cyberlife Twilight, which raises a lot of questions for readers: why does Twilight have to leave? How did she meet the protagonist? And these questions lead to the following part of the story.
Although we have no accurate prediction of the future decades later, the author still sketches out a general framework and introduces the protagonist’s convincing backstory, which allows us to form a basic impression of the protagonist. Then it is the encounter with Twilight, which the author accurately describes what a fan and a lover of Twilight would do under this circumstance. Thus, we simultaneously got the emotional resonance with the protagonist and Twilight. The photo activity further portrayed the protagonist’s characteristic, showing his simple yet everlasting pursuit of true beauty. Such daily life between them is also very cute and relaxing, and the relationship between the protagonist and Twilight becomes closer as days passed. The readers also experience the happiness and emotional bond of being with Twilight through these scenes and descriptions. Then there is the dramatic part, where this peaceful land of ponies is discovered and trampled by “internet celebrities”. Countless identical “Twilight Sparkles” are also produced in this wave of blasphemy to pony fandom, who are brutally treated as simple toys. This eventually led to the protagonist having to part with his own Twilight, by which time both we and the protagonist realize at this moment: Tree Teller's Twilight is no longer simply “Twilight Sparkle” from the show, but has become his soulmate during their life.
The third part is where we return to where the dream began, which is the moment when Tree Teller find his sparks in life: ponies. Feel kind of nostalgic years after the end of G4. Maybe we don’t know what the fandom and MLP will be like in the future, but finding ponies for the first time that joy and touch will become our eternal warm harbor in our hearts.
A very excellent pony fanfiction, there are many elements from other works, but the main line is very clear and definite. What I especially like is the author’s description of scenes and characters, as if I was Tree Teller, and discovered the soul bond with my favorite pony in those interesting daily interactions.
The entirety is just a bunch of imagined crises glued together into a barely continuous mess of pseudo-narrative. I don't even know how this deserved to receive a prize in the contest. Really, just look at how bad the like ratio is for this piece, and you can already tell there are like a dozen other entries that are more deserving than this.
11764232
Ratio is not story quality.
Specifically, for a story that is not typical of the kinds of stories that fimfiction.net likers most like, a story's like:dislike ratio isn't really a reliable measure of the story's quality or lack of quality.
Also, whether a story gets noticed by a lot of people to get lots of likes isn't necessarily any more quality based than a matter of random (or extraneous) factors.
I mean, I can say these things to contest your remark about THIS story. If a story by ME has, say, five thousand dislikes, that might say SOMETHING meaningful about my story.
(Edits to this comment in the first hour or so, in italics.)
11774696
Yeah, sure. Call me when this laughable piece of scifi wannabe gets 5,000 dislikes, then I’ll admit it’s something.
Before that, though? I don’t see why you’re defending this thing for its incompetence. You of all people should know this is garbage.