Author's Notes
For some reason this was a bit of a Marmite story (if you're not British, Marmite is something you either love or hate, there is no middle ground). It definitely went down a lot better on Fimfic than EqD, but then again most things tend to. Whilst I'm not 100% sure, it seemed that most of the people who disliked it felt that it was 'unrealistic' because the characters wouldn't act like that (which is actually the entire point of the story) and everyone who did like it liked it because it resonated with them. At the end of the day, while I do take constructive criticism to heart, I write primarily for myself, and I was happy with it.
In a nutshell, the story is about that moment you get when you wake up and discover you're older than you thought you were, you don't know where the time went, and you're unconsciously living in the past. People you consider to be your best friends are people you've probably poked once or twice on Facebook in the past five years, and everything happening 'now' doesn't seem nearly as important as things that happened years ago. If you buy into that premise, the story works; if you don't, it doesn't, simple as that. I'm pretty certain that most of the people who disliked it fell into the 'younger' age range where you think 'no, that would never happen', and most of the people who did are a bit older and think 'yeah, that DID happen'.
People change, people drift apart, and the memory cheats. The entire story is about Apple Bloom's disconnect from the life she's living at the moment, and fixating on the life she did have as a child. Of course, Apple Bloom's function in the show is a character trying to 'find' her meaning in life, so it made perfect sense to me that she'd be the one the story would focus on. In this story she's older, she's found (apparently) her 'meaning' in life, but suddenly found that it wasn't satisfying and everything didn't tie itself into a neat bow. When she was young she was constantly looking towards the future as the 'perfect' time, and now she is older and in that future she was dreaming of, she has found herself yearning for an idealised past.
Do people really change that much? Absolutely. We have expectations built around people from how we knew them, which doesn't always reflect reality. We want to think that when people are out of our sight, they are suddenly put into 'storage' only to reappear exactly the same. Of course someone you knew as a child won't be the same person twenty-five years later, their lives would have been completely reshaped by their own experiences. What I did find interesting in some of the feedback were people saying things like "Sweetie Belle wouldn't be like that!" mirroring what Apple Bloom was saying. It's there in the story guys, that's the point. People change, the world moves on and you have to move with it or face being constantly disappointed.
Everyone has a 'golden age' which they look back on fondly, yet at the time I can just about guarantee they didn't think it was. Perhaps at that time they looked back on an even earlier time as the 'golden age' or forward to a time when things would be 'better'. The past is a foreign country we try to contextualise in terms of neat chunks of 'history'. There's a lot of flashbacks in this story, I think some wanted to hear more about the 'past' being alluded to, but it was always meant to be just brief flashbacks, slightly lucid, fantastical ones at that. It isn't a story that is a history lesson, but one about surviving history, contextualising it and moving on. Apple Bloom is unable to do so, she never found her moment of catharsis and so couldn't break free of its weight.
Are we supposed to sympathise with Apple Bloom? In my mind, no. While the story is written from her point of view and asking us the sympathise with her, we should instead feel sympathy for her. Some of her frustrations are valid, and some are inexplicable until the end which does explain a lot of her strange outbursts and actions (and so the story is best read as one chunk). The reader is supposed to feel uncomfortable, the story hangs with a mood of 'this isn't right, this isn't how things are meant to be'.
It's marked sad, but in the end it isn't really. It's hopeful. Like Apple Bloom, to move on we need to recontextualise our lives and connect with the present rather than the past, find out own way to catharsis. After all, life isn't about where we've come from, but where we are going. A lot of people seem to forget that.
I realise some of that may sound a bit waffly, so forgive me! It's a subject I struggle with a lot to be honest, and personally, I find my catharsis through writing. And sometimes, I write about pastel ponies.
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I notice that you changed Chapter 3 today... Was it just proofreading or was it something more important?
919360
Proofreading. Forever proofreading
"While the story is written from her point of view and asking us the sympathise with her, we should instead feel sympathy for her."
What's the difference between sympathizing and feeling sympathy for? I'm having a hard time understanding the sentence, can someone please explain for me?
I'm 14... wait a fucking second, I'm 15.
Anyways, I loved the story, made me cry. I really appreciate you writing this fine piece of work. I guess i could really connect to it. And it's so true. I might be young, but i guess if I looked into it as me being in kinder as in they being little fillies and then now, i guess i have a similar reaction.
Thank you for making it. Thank you so much. It always hurts me to get hit so badly by this realization, but i guess I have to get a grip sooner or later.
Thank you.
920644
As in the story is making us feel sorry for them (not Apple Bloom) but instead we should feel sympathy for her (Apple Bloom).
I liked the story, didnt like aaple bloom and generally enjoyed myself
And what is celestia doing in a school reunion?
1016771
Aw well, in a good way I hope!
wait so who was the statue
1234630
1234634 ohh
Could you do more story using the cannon from this fic it just seems to interesting to leave alone here
i just wanna see Applebloom punch out diamond tiara
Enter Dearsister pie fight here C:
1673548 you DARE insult the Princess of the night?!? THOU MUST DIE! *Snaps neck*
hey, I'm curious, what's Applebloom's REAL cutie mark look like?
Stumbled upon this, nicely done.
This story made me think of these two verses from an old song / older commencement speech that aired as I was graduating high school :
Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you
should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and
lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you
knew when you were young.
Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will
philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize
that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were
noble and children respected their elders.
The first verse has been particularly true for me, as lives and fortunes have change people drift apart into separate universes - your story really resonated with me on this level. My best friend from 1st Grade through middle school I have not seen in 15 years, and probably could not point him out if we passed each other on the street. While I am still connected closely with others that I knew from that time.
Any way - good show on this story, looking forward to reading more of your work in the future.
There's so much past left unexplained, would you explain it more? And what's Apple Bloom's real cutie mark look like?
3040746 Twist most likely didn't forget she had a lisp. She was pry just trying to bury her past.
I would never joke about this but reading this made me almost suicidally depressed. If a story can do that then it must be amazing 10/10.
I really did not like this story. Just not my cup of tea.
Why on earth was this added to the badfic bin?
I still don't buy that Sweetie Belle would give up singing cold turkey after it gave her her cutie mark, but other than that this is a pretty powerful story. Good job.
Eeeeyup, this fic hit home. Reminiscing about the past is such a mixed bag of emotions as you grow older. Poor Apple Bloom, she had a rough go of it.
A good story about an emotional part of life that no one wants to think about, but as with any part of life, still deserves to be noticed and explored. Excellent work!
May I ask why this story is in the Badfic group?
I had a fantastic 12th birthday, so good that I would imagine going back in time for weeks afterwards to relive that day...This story has that same kind of wistful feel.
Congrats you've forced me to make an account, just so I can go on record as saying that marmite is okay.(yes I am British so I know about the love it hate it thing).
When you're younger and you think 'yeah, that DID happen': OOF