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Fear, a misunderstanding... betrayal; it all began with those. Ponyville's most energetic, most joyful, most entertaining occupant... imprisoned behind locked doors and barred windows. Even a consummate optimist wouldn't last long in this place, and yet here she is. Trapped in a world where the only escape is the oblivion of sleep; a rose reverie.
I don't know what to think of this story. It certainly didn't squeeze my heart dry like I Might Have Been or The Eternal Gift. But then again it is an entirely different kind of story.
It seems slow, but for me the pacing was just right to properly convey the emotions of the crazy mare and to build suspense. Snails - is it just name coincidence? It's not the same Snails as in the Snips and Snails duo? And yeah, he deserved every bit of what had happened to him, the heartless bastard.
It may be my personal opinion, but I believe the "Sad" tag is a little out of place here. If I were to decide, I would have tagged it "Dark" and "Tragedy". But then again it's your own decision as the author. 
And if we're speaking about technical details - why is the story, even though it consists of 6 chapters, marked as one chapter here on FimFiction? I don't really thinks it matters that much, but you know - to abide by the rules. 
Lastly - congratulations on being featured on Equestria Daily. 
Wow. Talk about painting a vivid picture in my mind. I started it a little over an hour ago and just didn't stop. It was definitely a tragic ending, in my opinion. One that just doesn't seem fitting for our favorite party pony. I just wanted so badly to just jump in, change the course of the story, and end the story on a positive note. But I guess happiness at the end just wasn't in the cards. 
But I'd say that's the mark of a good story. When you get emotionally dragged into it, and that's pretty much what happened here. Fantastic work with this story. 
Hmmmm... I'm kind of between liking and disliking this story.
The progression was amazing, but I knew that Pinkie did kill him, you gave us so much hints that it wasn't subtle anymore. I never 'clicked' it with Applebloom, Scoots and Sweetie Belle, though.
But the conclusion... I think there was a better way to do it. When Twilight disappeared, I screamed "PLOT TWIST" inside my own mind. Sad to say that it wasn't the truth. The way her mane5 personas dealt with her wasn't the best option... I feel there were other ways for Pinkie to experience her epiphany (don't think catharsis applies here...). Her personas were too... explanatory. They explained a lot to her; more than they should.
And the induced come was just... er- I know that if you pulled an "ALL IS WELL IN THE MAGICAL LAND OF EQUESTRIA" people would scream Deus Ex Machina at you. But you still pulled a "ALL IS WELL IN THE FICTIONAL LAND OF EQUESTRIA", which is better than the previously mentioned ending. This is the kind of story that would be better if left open-ended.
Not to mention the Snails is a murderer thing. Not that I couldn't believe it, but the character seems... flat. There could've been better ways for him to be presented to the readers and a better way for Pinkie to kill him.
* Like your obvious inspiration, Shutter Island. In the film when we near the ending, Teddy/Adrew knows the truth. He didn't regress (as you put it) back to his fantasy. And what tells us this, is his last statement: "Which is better, to live as a monster or to die as a hero?" (or something like this). He tells all of us that he's aware of what he had done, but he prefers to be lobotomized in order to forget what happened; consciously choosing to lie to Dr. Sheehan, calling him Chuck and telling him that he'll get them both out of the island.
I also think the dream sequences could've been better written, exploring a more subjective side of her mind and not blatantly giving the reader the details.
I'll give this story a thumbs up because I enjoyed the read, even if the story was predictable.
For real. This story is the most emotional I have read in this fandom. Nothing has brought me this close to crying. Well done.
Ok. This story seems to suffer a similar problem to 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' and by that I mean that it well written enough, but there isn't any sense of context or empathy for the characters. I read it through, and the first thing I would like to ask is where was Pinkie Pie? I kept trying to trace her behaviour, her vernacular, her thought processes back to the Pinkie Pie I am familiar with, yet I couldn't make a connection between her and the Pinkie Pie of this story. They were two separate characters. It was essentially creating an OC, calling it Pinkie and going from there. The other main 6 all suffered from the same problem. They were all OOC. Their dialogue was completely different. Their actions were completely different. I understand that considering the mature tone of this story that things would be different, but you have to tether their characters to behaviour we have seen. Keep their vernacular the same - make me believe that they ARE those characters, and not OC's you have coincidentally given the same names.
I had another significant issue with this story, and that was its conclusion. I am not going to try and position myself onto a 'moral high ground' and expostulate about euthanasia, but what I will say is this: what happened to Pinkie was a horrific abuse of basic rights. I don't think even the most ardent supporter of euthanasia would have supported what they did to Pinkie. As messed up dystopian societies go, you made Equestria one of the worst. It was atrocious and it was unbelievable.
And one final thing: don't overuse semicolons. You used far too many and while they were always technically correct, they were often completely unnecessary. You show some talent as a writer, this is true (pacing was pretty good, for example), but keep your characters in-character next time.
Keep writing and best of luck!
I felt obligated to read this because it uses essentially the same opening sequence as one of my fics. (courtrooms, they are dramatic amirite?) Overall, it was interesting. I like fics that try to explore some darker subject matter. But I have some critiques for you.
Critiques:
-It doesn't really seem essential to run through the same ideas (pinkie's defiant attitude and repression of the memory of the murder) with all the rest of the mane 6. This takes up a lot of real estate in the story, and I think that could be used for other good stuff.
-The twist for Pinkie to have killed Snails seemed obvious yet it was presented as a twist. I think that revelation would have been more shocking if we had a complete picture of an augmented version of the events that Pinkie believes (especially if it seems reasonable). If we the readers felt that it was reasonable for her to believe in her innocence, the twist would be shocking.
-Pinkie seemed remarkably OK with being 'put to sleep' forever. We have allusions in the story to her flipping out. I think maybe this would be an appropriate time for one of those freak-outs (this would probably make the story a lot longer though).
-Pinkie x snails REALLY? 
You could have at least put one or two little memories/scenes justifying that crazy ship in some way.
Likes:
-The writing style was really good for the subject matter. It genuinely felt like the attitude of someone who had been wrongly accused.
-The ambiance of the mental institution felt pretty spot on too.
-The scenes where Pinkie gets "put to sleep" were pretty intense. My emotions were emotionsing.
I'm really not sure how people can complain of her being out of character. She's been in a frickin' mental hospital for six years- 'You know what this calls for? A PARTY' Simply, No. It is a great take on her mind, consider that her psyche has been under attack for this long, the attrition will cause her to act a little 'out of character', you try living in 3 rooms for that long and coming back out with a bubbly personality.
this was one of the best stories i have read in a long time, but i imagined pinkie with her straight hair instead of it being curly... it just seems to fit better... and i love how you slowly revealed what happened to get her in the asylum, although i thought Snails was a young colt? why does Pinkie love him?
i loved the ending, it was sadder than having her be executed, which is what i thought was going to happen... to be honest i cried 
congrats on being featured on EQD btw, that is where i found this story
It feels really, really forced and fake. For several reasons.
First, ponies with distinctly human names. Ugh.
Sociopath mass murderer Snails was kind of an unnecessary left-fielder. The least you could've done was make an OC or pick a background pony who doesn't have an established personality. Not to mention there's no attempt to explain exactly what he was getting out of almost marrying Pinkie, then killing Sweetie and Scoots. Without any sort of motive it just feels like a hoof-wavey excuse to stick Pinkie in the nuthouse as expediently as possible so we can get right to the sad ponies.
The asylum doesn't appear to actually be trying to rehabilitate anypony. It appears the extent of their treatment was to simply shove food and drugs down their throats, then leave them in the cell for the rest of the day -- no support groups, no noticeable form of therapy or counseling, or really any sort of actual attempt to do their job and re-acclimate them to social interaction. More than that, the living conditions and staff practices going on are about as hilariously irresponsible, inept, and counterproductive as a mental institution can possibly get. Isolation for long periods of time tends to exacerbate psychoses. You don't approach cafeteria scuffles with zero-tolerance in a setting where certain patients are there specifically because they explode instantaneously, and certainly not when the other party is a day-one newcomer who doesn't know who's unstable enough to do it. Supposedly, Pinkie wasn't exactly lashing out at everypony in sight until long after the abuse started to kick in, and you don't put mostly lucid and nonviolent patients on downers. The kind of heavy stuff that can put a patient in a drooling stupor is not a daily-dose thing. Period. Whoever thought it was a good idea to ram heavy-duty narcotics down the throat of a mental patient you're trying to make more lucid -- much less one whose problem wasn't even behavioral -- should have been fired on the spot and blackballed from the practice forever. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if Pinkie's hallucinations and inability to commit epiphany to long-term memory were caused in large part by the asylum itself bucking her brain chemistry six ways to Sunday.
Now, it feels like you're making it that obviously horrible on purpose for sympathy points, but that brings me to the biggest point -- if it's that obviously bad to us, it would be that obviously bad to Pinkie's friends, too. I might actually believe a real asylum was that bad. Up till the end of the 17th century they really were just glorified prisons (though no court in their right mind would send anybody to one for actual recovery like this one did). Even today, that kind of abuse happens every once in a while -- a particularly bad case happened in Brooklyn just a few years ago. The thing is though, that kind of lack of accountability festers in places that have no meaningful oversight, and can veneer its practices in front of what little outside exposure it gets. Institutional abuse runs on closed, isolated circles. But this one didn't have that isolation. It had five high-profile national heroes coming often enough to snap their lost little sixth ranger out of it every single week, even going as far as to camp out there for days at a time to keep watch over her. They've probably seen all this for themselves, much less heard it all from Pinkie's own mouth before, and you can bet your tail Twilight would have obsessed over enough research on the topic to know exactly how much damage was being done. She could have sent a single strongly-worded letter with a line-item list of offenses to certain royals, who in turn have the authority to bypass most of the obstructive bureaucracy that would've protected the place, and gotten a hell of a lot of licenses revoked and Pinkie transferred somewhere more effective a very long time ago.
It might've been more believable if the asylum wasn't such a cartoonish Evil Inc., or if the Manes were getting stonewalled by the staff. But there's basically no way you could have both of those happen at the same time. It just demolishes the framework of the story, and that makes the entire thing feel too dishonest to take seriously. It turns pathos into bathos.
To the author, Josh Meihaus,
I was shocked at the story. It was very good, but, was terribly sad.
But I do have a few questions of the future, none of which are critical to the story:
1. Will Pinkie Pie be the main character in the sequel?
2. If #1 is false, then are we to expect that Pinkie really was euthanized at the end of the story, and that she was simply told the things she was told to keep her calm?
Don't give me the whole overlay of the next one.. I just want these things cleared up about the end of this stoy.
I... I cried. I have never cried for a movie, book, anything. Not even when my cat was put to sleep. And I cried. Why couldn't they wait, and see if she held on this one time? Why? I'm still crying, and I... I... wow. This was heartwrenching. I need to know why. Why this could happen. I understand, but I don't. And what's this about a sequel? Tell me about it, before I go mad too.
First of all, I don't care if I'm spamming.
This Fic was very good in my opinion, truly emotionally engaging. I didn't cry until the end, but that was probably because it was so varying, not like many of the other sad etc fics I've read. This definetively deserves a favourite!
O.O
This made me shed many tears.
I started to read this because i had nothing to do.
But not long after I started one of my friends calls me and asks me
to join him in some mmorpgs.
I turned him down because i couldn't stop reading this amazing story.
I have read this MANY times but the outcome is still the same.
I shed tears.
I thank you for taking time to write this story.
I hate you! As in, you made me cry while reading this. And let me say, I never cried reading a fanfiction. It's so emotional and powerful, it just sucked me in. I suppose some of the characters were OOC, but considering Pinkie has been in an asylum for years and as time passes, people (or ponies, I should say) mature, I'm not nitpicking on that. It was so good, and it's awesome that you're working on a sequel. :)
>>405505 Make it four. I read this fic, and while I have my issues with it (the lack of actual attempts at rehabilitation being one of the big ones, the other being that if the other girls knew why Pinkie did it, why the hell are they trying to get her thrown in the slammer/madhouse when they should have been trying to get her some actual psychiatric help for the actual issue, which is simply that she refuses to believe she acted in what actually would have counted as self defense (Snails was threatening her, after all) when she killed him.) I want to know about the sequel beforehand so I can decide if I want to read it. So anything you can shed on it would be fine over PM if you're willing.
“You mean I’ve...regressed before?” I ask with eyes the size of saucers.
“Every week,” she confirms tearfully. “Every single week, you would come back to us; you would finally see the truth as it really was! But then, you would always snap back to insanity.”
^^That happened for 6 years. That's 312 times she regressed. Would you let a friend of yours suffer that much? That's why it's more humane. In my opinion anywho.
what i do not seem to understand is that the "humane" way of ending Pinkie Pie's "torture" is to put her in a chemical induced coma? err. why not do the really humane thing and kill her, so she can move on, instead of sleeping her way to a slow grave...
thumbs up because it's really well written,but it's a bit predictable and i didn't understand the coma as explained above...
I have not cried for the last ten years of my life. Well, maybe once or twice. I'm just not a crying person.
But.... this..... I think my eyes are too sore from crying.
Also, if I were Pinkie, I would've remained mad at them. I wouldn't care that they were trying to help me, I would go down fighting. I'd have screamed and kicked and yelled it wasn't true, and gone down making their lives miserable. I just feel so mad at everypony now. I want to.... I should stop typing. You probably wouldn't want to know.
My face. Right now.
Well, as she is now, she regresses after a week. In essence, becoming sane causes her to go insane. She's basically trapped in a mental feedback loop.
It's possible they may be keeping her in a drug-induced coma in case - or likely until - they find a way to keep her from regressing.
You know, this was my first ever My Little Pony fanfiction, for real. And it really enticed me at the time to look more into Fimfiction, even having me get an account just to comment a while ago. It's so beautiful and so saddening.
Of course, the flaws are obvious. Seriously, I hate the human names. It's not how you see ponies in Equestria. It's like seeing non-crossed species in Avatar: the Last Airbender. You just don't like it.
I'm not sure how I feel about Snails/Pinkie Pie. It's... so random and odd. And now he's a murderer, too. Hmm, okay then. But, eh, nothing I will go to crazy about. In the end, it's amazing simply because I really feel for Pinkie in this story, and it feels so real. How Pinkie deals with all of this, her regressions, I cried several times reading this again. I faved and liked it like I should have done months ago.
Hey there. This story was suggested for High Quality Fictions, and I actually read this whole thing. I have a bit to say about it:
The writing is pretty good. You clearly know how to construct a sentence and use some great descriptive language. A lot of these scenes were powerful and emotional. Some of the lines were even poetic really. It's an interesting kind of narrative because it's as if Pinkie is having a conversation with the reader, not just telling a story. The concept was a great idea, and I liked how you revealed things at a slower pace to build up tension. There weren't a lot of grammatical errors (though I spotted a few).
There are a few issues though. The obvious one is that you need to break the story up into chapters with FiMFiction's chapter system. The way the story is now makes it appear as though it's a one-shot and it's actually not.
The second issue... The ending. It kind of ruins an otherwise powerful and thought out story. Now don't get me wrong it was twist, and powerful emotion wise, but there's kind of one MAJOR flaw: you didn't really give it a justifiable reason. Celestia just ordered to put Pinkie into a coma? I mean if they have court, then Celestia can overrule the court and decide to administer her own punishment? On top of that, it seems completely inhumane to put someone in a coma as a form of treatment or punishment. It would never happen in real life, and it kind of makes Celestia out to be a heartless witch. That's worse than killing her, she's going to keep her alive on life support forever? Plus it's not a practical decision from the point of a government official. That's going to drain taxpayer's money for no real reason. Plus when it comes to mental health in reality they wouldn't end treatment just because of regression. If the patient was dangerous they would just have them restrained all the time, but putting them into a coma or even killing them wouldn't even be a suggestion. I know it sounds like I am picking at this one flaw, but it's kind of a MAJOR flaw that makes the entire ending unbelievable.
There are a few other parts that irk me, considering I have known people in these types of hospitals. For example, they wouldn't allow patients who are there for murdering someone in the same room as visitors, unchecked. They would have a guard in there, and that person would be restrained if they had records of previous bad behavior, which Pinkie did. Also they don't let you out of their site after they give you medication until a certain time period to ensure you've digested it. ESPECIALLY if you are in a hospital that deals with dangerous patients. Another one is the fact that they put her in a hospital that is in the same town where the crime was committed. That's a bit insensitive of them. Snails family more than likely lives there, and she may have traumatized the whole town, but they stick her right there so that they have to look at her through her window and be reminded again and again?
Also Snails... You really didn't give an explanation as to why he killed them. That's kind of a "big" thing to just leave out. Also what did he "use" Pinkie for? Sex? Money? We don't know. You've left a bit too much open considering the entire plot revolves around that specific flashback. It begs for a deeper explanation.
I mean if you go back and fix that stuff and make the justification for the ending a bit more... Believable then I would GLADLY put this into our group. As it stands now though I can't because it feels like this story was amazing up until that ending (and of course the points I mentioned above). It was a lot of fun reading it though!
Only a few more minutes went by, and I was tied down to my bed with those horrible leather straps.
Surely this place isn't that barbaric?
“The court wants to drop the charges.”The court wants to drop the charges, eh? Now this I have a hard time believing. “And what do they want in return?”
“A confession,” Applejack replies. “But it wouldn’t mean anything, I swear! Under the circumstances, they just want to have it on file for the sake of the legal proceedings.”
This had better be a lie, because it makes less sense than a socially awkward changeling.
The ending . . . I don't like it. I don't know what it should be, but as it is, it doesn't feel right. It doesn't resonate on the same frequency as the rest of the story. I like how Apple Bloom is implied to in a way be Pinkie's projection of herself, but even that doesn't seem to quite mesh. I don't know if it seems poorly written as a result, or if it actually is poorly written and that's a cause (nor am I sure those are even distinct options), but it just seems weak.
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I'm curious as to why Pinkie is in an insane asylum. Sure she's crazy, but not dangerous.
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