Read it Later story count: 94 (nc)
Words read this week: 40,516
Not much to say about my day-to-day life up here, other than that the blackberry crop on the local hedgerows doesn't seem especially good this year. I blame the miserably wet July. So on to ponyfic we go. Back to Spotlight territory this week, with a story that doesn't have an especially unusual thumbscore (+226/-14) but which has provoked a good deal of discussion since its appearance around a year ago.
Sorry We Missed You by Starswirl the Beardless
Rainbow Dash
G4; Drama/Mystery/Sad; 41k words; Jul–Sep 2022; Everyone
Rainbow Dash slept in on the day the world ended.
That shortdesc caught my attention – more, to be frank, than the longdesc did. Rainbow wakes up one day and gradually realises that she is alone in the world. She travels from place to place, ever more desperately seeking her friends, Princess Celestia, anypony really. What I was hoping for was a look at the emotional effects on Dash, and of course an eventual explanation of what was going on. While there is some of that later on, it's a slow exploration of Rainbow's plight. There's also a bizarre and confusing refusal on the author's part to use her name at all outside direct speech – she's almost always "the mare", which really grates after a while. The later part that has some interesting psychology and reminds me of an old show episode, but for me Sorry We Missed You just takes way too long to get to the point. I might well have enjoyed this more than the highish two-star rating it gets at two-thirds or even half the length, so please bear that in mind when setting against your personal preferences. ★★
It is only fair to point out that the author wrote a very long (around 8,700 words) commentary on the story after reading some of the reactions to it. I have read that in full, but for the most part this review is based simply on my experiences reading the fic itself – largely because I doubt many other readers will go through such a long commentary, and in the end I am here first and foremost to serve readers.
If you read past this line, please be prepared for lots of spoilers...
...though maybe not quite as many as usual, since given the emotional focus relatively little actually happens in this story that isn't predictable from near the start. The main exceptions are the opening, when we're not really sure whether Dash is truly on her own now; and the section involving the Elements of Harmony being attached to "Party of One"-style inanimate objects and Rainbow sinking into a kind of reverie where they talk to her about her quest.
Okay, maybe "quest" isn't quite the right word, since as I said above the break this is a really long-winded story and it's rarely less than obvious, at least in broad outline, what's going to happen next. If you like stories which spend long periods describing what the POV character sees and does, then there's plenty for you here – though do be aware that it goes on and on and on. There aren't the alternating quickfire scenes that could break things up a bit.
So we see Rainbow waking up, gradually realising that time is standing still (as is the sun), then we follow her as she visits everypony's house. I think the story would have felt much more gripping had the pace been picked up at this point, but no. Then Dash flies off to Canterlot, and eventually she travels all over Equestria. This takes her a long, long time and that's clearly taken a major physical toll on her – but oddly for such a slow-paced fic, this potentially fascinating aspect is brushed away quite quickly.
A major theme of Sorry We Missed You is how someone (Rainbow here) deals with loss, and indeed the classic "stages of grief" are clearly in evidence. It's a shame the pace is glacial for much of this, as it's probably the fic's best feature. As you might expect, there's a lot more time spent on it than in the nearest show analogue – "Tanks for the Memories" – which is fine and the kind of thing that's best handled in a written story, though again I think for me it was too much time.
As Rainbow seems about to set off at last for the Frozen North, about three-quarters of the way into the story, there is a sense that we might be in for for a true adventure segment unlike what has gone before. When I got there, the prospect of such a tonal shift intrigued me. In fact, this doesn't happen and we're instead taken towards the beginning of the end of the story, as Rainbow's interactions (in her mind, of course) with the representations of her friends move from her talking to them to them talking to her.
The writing isn't a particular problem – it's not scintillating, and only the occasional section stands out in my mind, such as a passage where Rainbow breaks down and cries. It's generally serviceable at least, though. As I mentioned above, though, the clearly deliberate avoidance of Dash's name in the descriptive narrative just doesn't work for me at all. I still don't understand why the author did that; it feels far more intrusive and awkward than if the text had taken a more conventional route.
Until I read the author's commentary, I wasn't sure whether there was a religious dimension to what happens to Rainbow here – it's not so much the end of the world she sleeps through (since after all the non-living parts persist almost until the end of the story) but more a kind of rapture. I now know that the intention was not to follow any human religion, though the clear inspiration of CS Lewis's The Last Battle will inevitably bring Christianity to mind. I have mixed feelings about that, as something not inspired so obviously by a famous real-world book might have done better.
All in all, Sorry We Missed You feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. It's certainly not a bad story, and I can absolutely imagine that a certain class of reader would lap it up. That class being those who love slow, languid stories where every little experience is described in some detail. The choice of Rainbow Dash as the pony who has to deal with being alone isn't a bad one at all, either. But as I've said before, my own feeling is that the fic (and, frankly, also its commentary) is significantly harmed by being quite a bit too long for what it has to say.
Next week, it'll be back to the usual format of five shorter stories to review. Here's what they'll be:
Muffin's Angel by Short-tale
Midnight Bloo by Impossible Numbers
Pipp of Theseus by Casketbase77
Let the Weather In by gloamish
A Love So Strong by MissytheAngle
I guess sometimes, when you have something to say, you need to go long about it. :)
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