Hey, Batman. What do you think Applejack got her parents for Hearth's Warming Eve?

This is so beautiful...I'm tearing up poor Applejack

but anyway this made my heart cry of saddness but it was so happy that even in death her parents will still be there.

i had a feeling of that the two stars where her parents

they never miss a single reunion...

Joined deviantart today. Knew this had to be the first thing I favourited. Just wonderful!

I didn't even make the connection between the two shooting stars and AJ's parents until I read some episode reviews today and saw the confirmations on Twitter. I was even curious about why there were two shooting stars (and I honestly overlooked the first time they appeared, which was the most poignant symbolic moment for them) specifically, but this was not only a very clever way of alluding to the fate of Mom Apple and Dad Apple without having to say a word about them, but it added a great extra layer to an already-great episode since it makes Applejack's motives behind going all out for the family reunion (even if her plans were excessive and overly complicated) all the more understandable. And I think a lot of us can relate to her in that respect, so Applejack becomes much easier to sympathize with. The timing with the allusions made it all the better, since it wasn't just AJ's parents being dead that was the focus, but that Granny Smith herself is getting up there in terms of age and it's easy to fear that the upcoming reunion very well could be her last, so naturally out of love Applejack would be all the more determined to put nothing less than 110% into making the upcoming reunion stand out from all the others. It's amazing how such a small detail in an episode can make the message behind it twice as powerful as it was on its own.

That said, I really love this. I also love the nod to the part of the episode in which Applejack covers her face with her hat so no one would catch her crying after the barn was destroyed - but in a scenario like in this picture, it's more sensible and more powerful to have her openly show her tears as she looks to the heavens and thinks of her dearly departed folks. I also like, what I assume to be the invitations/RSVPs from the beginning of the episode, only these are meant for her parents. Even if they couldn't be there in person, they were certainly there in spirit.

It's a very sad picture, but in a good way, since the subject matter behind this is not at all meant to be a cheery thing. But despite being sad, it's also very sweet and almost optimistic in a way, since I can easily imagine this being set right after the reunion (just before it could work too) with Applejack looking fondly to the symbols of her parents in the night sky, where you might say, if this was before the reunion that she's silently telling her parents she would make the reunion the most memorable of all and would make them proud, or in a post-reunion scenario, she would be telling her parents how she managed to bounce back from the flaws she made in the reunion and made up for it by having every living member of the Apple family pitch in and rebuild the barn - knowing how proud her parents would be and only wishing that they could've been there to be a part of the biggest Apple family bonding moment in history.

At first I was miffed because I didn't catch on about the shooting stars' symbolism and figured this would've been the only opportunity for the whole series that we'd get ANY word at all about the fate of AJ's parents - only for that to never come to light - but it turns out it was there all along! And that just makes all the difference in the world. Thank you for drawing this!