Thursday, November 17, 2011

Story: The Passing of Childhood


[Sad]

Author: HikariAkai
Description: Twilight Sparkle has grown up, a fact Smarty Pants has long accepted. But inside Twilight's chest, Smarty Pants still finds herself longing for those sweet days of childhood past, and dreaming of the day somepony will hold her close again.

The Passing of Childhood

Additional Tags: Smarty Pants, short, nostalgia, growing up, childhood

27 comments:

WizardShy said...

Still no comments? It's been 2 minutes. Guess there aren't any firsters/first impressionists?

Omega_code said...

this look like a toy story...story

Cameron Strathdee said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wik2uc69WbU

Relevent methinks.

WizardShy said...

I just read it. Eeyup.

Luna lover said...

Dawwwwwwwwwwwwww,that's so sad and yay I'm 5th for once:D

Luna lover said...

Oops miscounted actully 6th or 7th as of right now

Salzvatik12 said...

For anyone wondering if they should read this:

READ IT.

I'm not sure what makes me connect with this story so much. Maybe it's the fact that when I was a kid I used to have toys I treated as my best friends, and looking back on them now, it's kind of bittersweet.

This story really gets to me. It's a great, short, bittersweet read. Do yourself a favor and and read it.

YetAnotherBrony said...

Made me weep manly tears. Just like "Today, Tomorrow, and Forever" and "Memories".

Rainbow Smashly said...

That banner is frickin awsome!

Everlasting Joy said...

It's Toy Story summarized with ponies, and it's absolutely beautiful.

So many of us have experienced something like this. Our escapes from this world were something we held near and dear to us. We created our paradise, channeled it through tangible things (our toys for instance), and tried to merge it with reality. Unfortunately, reality isn't very friendly.

We abandon our paradise because our likes change, we grow older, new things come into our lives, somethings leave and so on. Eventually, this paradise is destroyed and replaced with nothing, and all that's left is reality.

We struggle to figure out just what in the heh happened, where the magic died, where the unadulterated joy is. In short, we try to recreate that paradise we once had. Sadly, so many of us forgot it, destroyed it too well, or are too ashamed to return to it. Some of us however, are just brave enough to try to recapture that feeling of pure innocent joy, completely free for the darkness of reality.

To those of you who have, I applaud you. To those of you who have not, I ask you, what do you have left to lose? It is worth holding on to?

. . . forgive me, I kept typing and typing and typing.

I'll stop now.

Brittany said...

@Everlasting Joy

Author here, and not going to lie, this comment made me cry. Simple little "this was nice" comments make me very happy, but this, this I'll keep locked up in my heart.

Thanks so much, for reading, for commenting, and especially for pulling something meaningful away from my little story

Everlasting Joy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Everlasting Joy said...

@Brittany
You are welcome.

Know this, knowing what you pulled away from my comment has made my night.

It is nice to know I made someone happy. It's even better knowing I made a difference to them.

Haze said...

You must be kidding, yesterday I was thinking: what about if they made a fic about smartypants and Twilight's childhood? A sad fic about the good times spent with her toy when she had almost no friends?.. And now this. Thanks whoever made it, I'm sure to give this a read.

Mr Bronc said...

@Everlasting Joy thank you for that beautiful comment. It struck something deep in my heart. I'm feeling something I haven't felt in a while.

GlassAlicorn said...

Gah, Toy Story memories...

Everlasting Joy's comment about sums it up for me. This was so...IDK how to describe it...so I'll just settle for 'Good', since all other words escape me.

Brittany said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Everlasting Joy said...

@Mr Bronc
You are most welcomed. I bet it fells good to feel that emotion again, doesn't it?

Haze said...

Finally had time to read it, I loved this, it was very touching to me. I used to have lots of toys when I was young, some of which I can still remember very clearly. Even today I find it hard to leave behind some of the things that in some point of my life were treasured, even if I find them meaningless the way there are now, and that's because I hold dearly the memories linked to them, because maybe, I owe them for making me who I am today.
Thanks for this story, it has made my night.

Shadow Dragon said...

Reminds me so much of Toy Story. Particularly Jesse's Song from Toy Story 2.

Mr.Brony said...

Good story, made me remember all the toys that I used to play with that are know just scattered around the house.

Two Ton Toongaloonga said...

Great story! kinda makes me regret throwing out a bunch of toys when i was much younger

Alondro said...

@Everlasting Joy

A very few of us never lost it. We knew the truth of 'reality' long before most children knew how to speak. And we knew before we gave into the pressure to 'mature' the wisdom of C.S. Lewis, who paraphrased and made a lightly mocking addition to a quote from an obviously very lonely and depressed philosopher, if not in so many words: "When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

It is, in very large part, this desire for the things of 'adulthood' which have continually led our world into the path of savagery, sadism, and slaughter.

When I saw, at age 2 when I began to watch the news and things such as "Nova" and "National Geographic", the things adults did when they 'grew up', I knew then I wanted no part of it. So, though I have never refused knowledge and wisdom, I shun forever the foolishness and selfishness of grown-ups. I may have to always face reality, but never will I bend to it.

And this perhaps it why I find it so easy to tell everyone I love Friendship if Magic. It's the innocent joy that still lives within me, now accented with experience that only heightens my appreciation of its 'unbridled' (pun!) joy and yearns to share it.

On another note, I still have all my favorite old toys. They help me remember the long-gone days of my youth, so that my aging mind and body won't lose them simply due to the processes that even a youthful attitude cannot halt.

Everlasting Joy said...

@Alondro
How I could forget folks like you only highlights how narrow minded I can be. What I wrote originally was not intended at wise folks such as yourself Alondro, but I could say it wasn't intended to be.

Regardless, what took you 2 years took me 18, and you sound like you are still miles ahead of me. I too have seen the atrocities of "grown ups" and still to this day, I wish for no part of it as well. However, I tell no one of such things as my love of MLP:FiM due to a couple of reasons: I wish not to attract unwanted attention from those monsters and some of these animals know me personally.

What I wrote was for people who were once in my shoes, those looking to answer the question "who am I?" I asked them not to let the world (read "others") define themselves, but to ask them how they define themselves, and in my opinion, the best place to start is to ask yourself what makes you happy. When we were young, our world was easily defined by ourselves because all we knew was ourselves (and some other outside things but very few.) As we got older, others came into our lives, our likes changed, etc. and eventually, most of us let the world define us because we are ashamed to be anything but what the world wants.

Wise people like yourself know of reality, they are not afraid to face it, but they are not to bow to it. They don't (and of course can't) define reality, but instead, make the best of it, and you clearly are a self-made person, and for that, I applaud you with nothing but the utmost respect.

Some of use (me) know of the outside world, and while we are not afraid to face the invisible and intangible, it's the creatures that inhabit the place that scare us the most. . . and now I have begun to realize how pathetic holding it in is. It's, in a weird way, a denial of the self.

. . . I think I'll stop here for now. I need to self-process this.

N.1.S. said...

One stage of your journey is over, another begins, Smarty Pants. As short as this story was I think it did an excellent job of telling a whole life story. Even though this story did make me feel sad for Smarty Pants, the end of the story took that feeling away when she started her life anew with Big Macintosh. I do however kinda think it's unfair that she has to forget Twilight.

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