The music industry in Equestria has some pretty stringent standards. Feather Bangs has to deal with these, and ultimately decide which he cares about more: his living, or his love.
Written for the Quills and Sofas Speedwriting Server's Jun 6 2021 "Gay" contest, where the prompt was Miss Me.
CW: Discrimination against gays
This story is part of the Pride and Positivity 2021 event. You can support the event by donating to one of the following charities:
Transgender Law Center
Palestine's Children Relief Fund
SEWA International (Indian charity collecting funds for COVID relief)
Chapters (1)
Wait wait wait WAIT
Holy shit that ending though, Aurora, why must you do this to my heart
But for real, this was a good one. The emotions are described beautifully in this, raw when needed, yet no less real and with a depth that really puts the reader in Featherbang’s hooves. Man this is almost heartbreaking, as per usual for your stories.
I’m sad I didn’t get to participate in the speedwrite, but I’m glad I could read this.
Okay, okay, okay... wow. Just... wow. You quite literally gutted me in the heart with feels, Aurora. My heart is aching worse than it has during the past few days.
This... the sheer lengths you went to show Featherbang's feelings, the emotion of being lost between his lover and his life, just... everything, it was perfect. Thank you. Thanks for writing this fic.
Not the ending I was expecting, tbh. Shoulda known better. You always liked ripping out hearts to shreds. Good story, don’t get me wrong.
Well, that's one way to rip out my heart and stomp on it. I mean, ouch, man.
This story is sad, people have mentioned it.
However, for me, the saddest part of this story is just how realistic it is. We have a Pop Star who has no true friends. His stage persona is somebody he’s not, and the record labels care only for the bottom line and nothing else. Hell, he might be able to just be gay and have a fanbase like that, but they don’t care.
I guess what I’m saying is that I absolutely love this story. It hurts.
Nobody seems to mention the polysemy* of the last line.
*the coexistence of many possible meanings for a word or phrase.
This was a lot shorter than I'd thought it'd be; Not a problem though!
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I can't say I enjoyed reading this. 'Enjoy' just isn't the right word, but I don't know how to describe the feeling. [Edit: To be clear, this story is good and I'm glad to have forced myself to make time to read it. I will bookshelf it.
I will say that I understand the ending was intended to be ambiguous, but I think some in-text clues were a little too telling:
Well... people who believe in destiny don't often think they'll turn destiny down.
I expect that people with intimate relationships are aware they could end at some time.
It would seem to me that Feather Bangs chose to message ShowTime; to quit fame.
But that's just a 'me' problem.
If I didn't reach a decisive conclusion, then the ambiguity would've torn my mind up for days, and I'd probably find this story the most memorable I've read in a few years!
And here I thought he’d make the right choice, excellent work pulling off this much in this small of a word count. My one issue is that the tech, overtness of the industry climate, demographic of pop fans, and story as a whole feel far better suited for the EQG world than the ponies. Most stories that have larger homophobic behaviors as norms beyond a certain few characters, situations or just a select community work best because it gets ground in the unique climate of the pony world and is tailored to reflect their different history. Here, I had to go and read up multiple times to make sure I was sure if this was pony Feather or a human version of him. I think the latter would have worked much better, since while celebrities in Equestria still deal with alienation, the parallels between their reasons and human reasons isn’t as straightforward or transferable, especially in a one shot.
With the title and cover art I thought this was going to be a Regidar fic
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thank you for teaching me a new word!