Just Fine

by ferret

Just Fine

Yet another student sulked out of her office, with his ears low and his tail drooping. It broke her heart to see him like that, just like it always did, but what else could she do? Work harder, get better grades, do what you like, every pony who walked in her office already knew everything she could possibly teach them. They didn’t come to her because she could help them. They came to her because they needed her help, and that didn’t change just because she couldn’t help them. The signs on her rather plain yellow hindquarters were a clear indication she was good at helping ponies realize their true potential, but ponies had to have a potential to realize in the first place, and even then, sometimes you just can’t do anything to realize it, purely due to factors beyond your control.

It was an impossible task for anypony, when you think about it. She sighed and stepped back from her desk, trying not to think about it and checking the clock. Another ten minutes before the next appointment, enough time for her to canter over to the window and look at her partial reflection in the smudged glass. She was never all that good at figuring out how to accessorize properly, and do something about that garish contrast between her yellow fur and her cherry red mane. Instead of pouting over what she couldn’t do, she focused her gaze instead out at the foals playing around on the pavement outside the ground floor of her office. Ponyville sure had changed a lot these days. Not that she ever had anything to do with it. All these fancy buildings and new technologies; she was still trying to get her lips around using that darned computator thing. It stubbornly fought her efforts even to get student records out, but that didn’t really surprise her.

She never had a talent for that sort of thing, after all.

An impossible task it was, to do what she did every day. Everypony wants to be special, is the problem. It’s just basic statistics that only a few ponies get to be special. The ones who were almost never came to her for guidance obviously, so that meant every foal who walked through her door, they were inevitably going to walk out with their ears low and their tail drooping. You could preach the virtues of humility and modesty all day, and you still saw a light leave their eyes when you had to be the one to tell them that they’re not special, that they’re not going to amount to anything, and they’re just gonna live like any other ordinary pony, forgotten in the background.

So you learned to lie. You lied and lied to them. And every lie you told them meant they were going to be coming into your office again, when the bogus, hoof-waving advice you gave them didn’t work, and—shock and amazement—they weren’t special ponies, after all. She really wasn’t sure what she hated more, the look in a student’s eye when they realized the system could care less about them, and they weren’t going to amount to anything, or the look in a student’s eye when they started to realize that all she could do to help them was lie, lead them on, deceive them with sweet words and empty promises.

Those foals running around out there. She was so sure of herself back then, running around the playground with the whole world out in front of her. Every day seemed like an adventure, like she could be anywhere and do anything. She was as much a fool as any other foal, and truth be told she missed that carefree ignorance. 20 years is a long time, even if she was still considered junior faculty. When you’re faced with the task of corralling hundreds of confused foals, defusing their anger, and absorbing their troubles, even junior faculty starts to wish that maybe they could go back to when things weren’t so terribly, horribly certain anymore.

It wasn’t all bad. There was a time on occasion that something would go really, really right, and a foal would come to her office who just needed a little push in the right direction. It made her feel warm inside when she got to see some smart little filly making something of herself, and discovering her super special talent. The mare standing here at the window, she knew she was darned good at what she did, when there was anything to do. She’d seen more than one student come into her office confused and troubled, and then with careful effort and planning, had left one day to go do great things. But then the day after that one day, they would be gone, and she would be back in her office again, seeing more foals. Maybe sometimes she’d read an article about somepony she inspired, about all the great things that they’re achieving in Equestrian society, and how very special they are. If she did her job right at least, then they lived a life of success, and never needed to come back to see her ever again.

She hadn’t seen her friends in months. Guidance counselor wasn’t exactly the most lucrative occupation, and yet with foals going on about cutie marks day in and day out, there were a lot more guidance counselors in the world than the school in Ponyville had a budget for. That meant the three of them weren’t going to be together all that often, what with the same qualifications and all. She was really the only one of the three who could compete here, and who could take pay cuts with minimum complaints. Sweetie Belle had moved to Canterlot to be closer to her sister, and find better work. Pay was better there, schools were better, but the rent was also through the roof. They were both living out of a tiny little dress shop, basically. Scootaloo was stuck out in Appleoosa, where the number of foals in school could still be counted on four hooves, and the number of foals in school who would ever amount to anything could be counted on zero hooves. Unless by “amount to anything” you meant being a field worker until you were an old granny.

That left this mare out all on her lonesome, left behind, while the others couldn’t stay behind. Though her sister said she’d always have a place for her on the farm, the young-ish counselor’s own stubborn pride just couldn’t accept that. But she never managed to move very far from home. She’d been living on her own, off and on, for... well, 10 or 15 years now. It wasn’t easy on a school guidance counselor’s budget, but it wasn’t like it was ever going to get any better. She was probably gonna have to go sleep in the barn again (they’d converted her old room to storage a while back) because her latest landlord was just getting to be completely intolerable.

Her rent was affordable; that’s the best you could say about it, but the cottage this counselor lived out of wasn’t much more than a shack, out by where the Everfree forest had gotten fought back with the expanding town. You still had grackle thorns trying to grow through your porch, and you could pull them all day without getting anywhere unless you took apart the creaky rotting porch itself, and built a new one in its place. But when your landlord won’t even fix the water pressure, you learn to put up with some old, warped, bleached wood, since a renter would get in big trouble if they tried to fix things on their own.

But that’s not what had this mare looking for another residence—fast. She shivered at the very thought, and nervously adjusted her modest collar and scarf. Trying not to think about it, she glanced at the door. Wasn’t long before the next student would come in. She figured they could just as well find her standing by the window as sitting at her desk.

No, the reason she had to move was because the poorer districts of Ponyville were having a serious outbreak of bedbugs. She knew the rotten landlord situation was the underlying cause, with Filthy Estates owning and not giving a shit about 90% of the real estate in Ponyville. But she wasn’t real good at any of that torrid town politics, and it sure didn’t solve her immediate problem. She couldn’t even let herself go to sleep anymore for fear of waking up with one of the nasty little buggers...eugh. It was cheap, end of story.

She finally had convinced the landlord to send somepony over to take a look at it. He’d been an older pony, with a steely eye and a no-nonsense personality. Not the fatass landlord, but the contractor. He said in no certain terms that they were gonna have to fumigate. That meant that she literally couldn’t sleep in her own bed, for who knows how long until they killed the things. She couldn’t sleep with anypony else either, because one of them buggers might be clinging on and hiding on her, even now. So mostly she just took naps outside, when the weather permitted. Tried not to take naps in her office. And was thinking very seriously about giving up, and moving back in with her sister again. It was sad that she was 35 years old and she couldn’t even get out of town, much less live on her own. Not with the food prices going up again, and the very thought of a raise something the school board treated like a stand-up comedy routine.

Why should they give her a raise, anyway? All she ever did was teach students how to realize their potential, which almost invariably meant either they had no potential, or they could figure it out on their own anyway. In the end of the day, she really didn’t amount to anything, and that was nothing unexpected, but it was still the truth. She came to this office every day, and it kept her fed, and she just stared out her dirty window between appointments, wishing sometimes that maybe somehow she could have just...

Apple Bloom had asked the pest control pony, if he needed any help. She didn’t know why she did it. Just a crazy, spur-of-the-moment impulse. He just laughed gratefully at that, and told her to sit back and relax, that he’d take care of everything. He didn’t mind her hovering or anything, but it sure wasn’t his job to teach her what he was investigating. So she thanked him, tried not to hover too much or too curiously, and let the pony do his work. Still, she felt like she lost something there, something she couldn’t quite remember.

There was a knock on her door. “It’s open,” she said, turning over her shoulder to see the short, somewhat squat filly creep nervously into her office. It was that emerald haired blue filly, the one with the easy smile and the hollow eyes. The filly wasn’t smiling now, though.

“C’mon in!” the counselor said presenting to the filly a cheery hospitality. She walked around her desk, smiling pleasantly at that filly and saying, “How you been, since we last talked?”

“Fine,” the filly said neutrally, in kind of a whiny voice. The counselor didn’t judge her for it, but this filly did get a lot of flak from other students, what with not being the best at talking, or singing, or... much of anything really.

She asked the filly kindly, “Y’wanna take a seat?” gesturing at the cheap, plastic chair that nopony anywhere ever liked sitting in. The filly sat her rump down on that glorified stool, and stared silently at the ground. “How’d your physics test go?” the counselor then asked, feeling a trifle uneasy about what the answer might be.

“I forgot to study,” the filly admitted uneasily.

After a calculated pause, the counselor then asked the filly, “Y’wanna tell me what happened?” her heart just aching at how casually that filly was coming to say such things.

“I don’t know I just... I always forget!” the filly said in a frustrated tone. “The teacher even lets us bring in a cheat sheet. If you don’t write down the equations... the test just assumes you have a cheat sheet. I just walked in, and she said to get out your cheat sheets for the exam. Didn’t even know.” The filly clammed up again, not from nervousness, but just from sheer lack of ardor.

“Well, maybe physics ain’t your thing,” the counselor said gently to her. “How has your gardening workshop been going?”

“It’s been going... fine,” the filly said, cheerlessly.

“You’re pretty good at growin’ things, huh?” the older mare prompted, standing at her desk and leaning on it to regard the filly.

“Yeah I’m good at it,” the filly said in a slightly more relaxed tone, “I got a lot of tomatoes last week.”

“An’ how are you likin’ it? Do you enjoy gardening?”

“Well I—” the filly said shortly, lifting her head to look into the counselor’s eyes directly. Her expression of distress relaxed then, and she smiled vapidly, saying, “Yeah, I... I do like gardening.” Just going right back into her shell again. Hiding behind honesty and half truths, just like any school guidance counselor.

“But...?” the counselor prompted, refusing to take such a simple answer. “Sounds like maybe you don’t like it all that much?”

“No, I do! I... I do like it,” the filly said with her voice breaking in the confusion of an inner struggle. “But... it just doesn’t seem very important.”

She wanted to argue with the filly, but that was just the way to make things worse, she learned. Heck, she wanted to shout at the filly, for bad mouthing her sister and 87% of the ponies in Ponyville. For being right. But instead, she sat by her desk with a patient smile, while the filly thankfully clarified herself, saying,

“I want to go somewhere. I want to... I want to really be something!” the light was coming into the filly’s eyes, but boy if this mare hadn’t heard that one before. “I can’t just... garden,” she said in frustration. “I’m not good enough to feed myself, and... and I’m not strong enough to make it on a big farm.” And true enough, not many ponies would be up for that thankless task. “I just wanna go places,” the filly said wistfully, “And... I dunno.”

“Have you ever thought about bein’ a travel agent?” the counselor suggested. And there went out the light in the filly’s eyes. Just looking up at her with hopeless surrender, slightly slumping in place.

“That sounds... fine,” the filly said neutrally. Just like every other pony who walked into her office, this filly was gonna walk out sad and unfulfilled. If her own guidance counselor couldn’t offer her something that validated her belief, that she was more special than any other pony, destined for great things, it was just an inevitability. She was probably a Daring Do fan.

“Farmers can travel some,” the counselor suggested. “Going from town to town, where the weather is still good, where there are crops that need to be picked. How would that make you feel?” And like every other suggestion she could possibly give, it sounded... to both of them... fine. Just fine.

Author's Note:

This is dedicated to all those guidance counselors who had to put up with students like me.

Comments

[Griffin Productions]

Very nice; always love stories with hints or themes of realism in them

[Seether00]

Whelp.... Now I'm depressed

[ferret]

6552157
Thanks... I guess. I don't really like stories that make everything bad and horrible because it's somehow more real and legit that way. I just kind of felt sorry about my guidance counselors. I do love empathizing with horrible people, to get an idea of just why they're acting that way.

6552180
Don't worry, if you know me, the next chapter would probably result in the school exploding, and her butt exploding, and aliens invading and then everything's awesome again when Scootaloo ziplines in with a bowie knife clenched in her teeth.

[Griffin Productions]

6552192 Not quite what I meant; by realism I mean how Apple Bloom is portrayed and the way you described the reason for her being this way. Instead of the average fic that goes "she was sad cuz she hates seeing kids cry" type stuff.

[ferret]

6552222
Oh hush. Let me dislike my own story in peace.

[Exuno]

6552192
Okay, that comment just pushed it over the line into favorites.

The fic itself was a neat look at, uh. I dunno. I don't agree with GP that it felt realistic at all - it was kind of aggressively bleak. Gloriously so. I mean, life isn't idealistic, but I'm pretty sure this is an ideal of pointlessness in itself.

The feeling I get from it is that... hopelessness is really easy, and it sucks to be invested in just tiny segments of people's lives. Those sound like accurate messages, yeah.

[Reese]

"the system could care less about them"
[twitches]

"Heck, she wanted to shout at the filly, for bad mouthing her sister and 87% of the ponies in Ponyville. For being right."
Hey, you're an agricultural civilization, right? Or an industrial one, which is built on the foundation of an agricultural one? Don't let yourself forget how vital food production is; without the people who supply the food, all those rich, powerful, brilliant, and important-in-other-ways ponies would either be starving or putting aside their more "important" business to find their own food.

Well, that was a... cheerful story. :)
Sorry about the things in your own past that appear to have inspired it.

[BackgroundNoise]

If I could tell the Applebloom of this story one thing, it would be this: "Everyone is special... everyone, and no one."

"Because you see, there's always going to be someone smarter than you, or stronger than you, more charismatic than you, or just plain better than you, but guess what? They aren't you, and they never will be."

"Any genius could have done what Tesla did, or Hawking, or Einstein, but someone else didn't, they did."

"The only way to lose at life is to stop trying, to give up, to settle for less, to stop moving forward, or even progress backwards; so long as there is life, there is hope, perhaps not what you were looking for, but quite possibly what you need."

You want to travel? Get a job as a grunt worker on an archaeological survey; the pay'll be shit, and don't expect more than the most basic of amenities, but I doubt you need a butt-mark to shovel dirt. You want to change the world? Find something you're passionate about, find other people that share your passion and start a movement. Can be about anything you want. Want to change your life? Get a new job, move, or even quit and go into business for yourself.

Will you fail? Yeah, probably, most people do after all. But it's up to you to pick yourself back up and try again, or even give up and try something different. In the end the only thing holding back you is you.

Wish I could say more, but I'm not particularly eloquent.

[ferret]

6552258
The point of it was that I had some shitty guidance counselors, and I'm trying to speculate on why they were so messed up. I was aiming for a feeling of how unbearably frustrating it is for active people to be put in a supportive role, when you can only feel special vicariously, through the talents of others.

6552287
Sure, food production is absolutely vital, but it's not exactly in high demand. When you perform an important service that someone else would easily step in for, were you to expire on the spot, you don't exactly feel very important. Especially since it's an economy of scale, so you only have talent as a combined group, being ineffective as an individual.

And yeah I once had a counselor unironically decide that the solution to my shitty prospects was to go on their website where various scholarships are listed. That was all they could do for me, is tell me to go to a website. Struggling with falling grades and failing motivation, and another counselor I had to beg for did nothing but review the mechanics of how to drop classes. Fairly recently, one was trying to find a solution to my increased disillusionment with socializing by doing internet searches on her phone for fun groups for me to join. Not that any of them could do anything like magically make tuition more affordable, or convince others in the community that social downtime after an activity is more important than the activity, but damn are they some useless individuals.

6553469
It was the filly who wanted to be good at Physics, and to travel, as a metaphor for her true desire to be someone with somewhere exciting to go. But I think it's unfair to heap all the blame on Apple Bloom for her discontent. The changing landscape of Ponyville had no effect on her? None of the people behind the budget cuts or the inflationary economy had any part of the blame? All those awful students giving her a hard time, and the only problem is that she's not a good pony who can weather that stuff without being hurt by it? The freaking bedbugs are just an attitude problem on her part?

Individualism is such a massive complex of victim blaming. People are so beguiled by the stigma against arrogance and irresponsibility, that they'll ignore the people chopping your legs off and tell you that your problem is that you don't have a positive enough attitude. As if someone can't both accept responsibility for their actions, and hold accountable everything else in the world that's forcing them into a bad situation.

And on that note hey, if you want to change the world, you can always get someone else to do it.

[BackgroundNoise]

6553895
I'm not blaming Applebloom, or any little colt or filly, for anything but their attitude. Life still sucks sometimes, hard times are still hard times, and good people/ponies are still being ground down a little more each day by a vast, uncaring system, that nobody really controls anymore. You can't always change the world, but you can change how you react to it.

I'm not offering platitudes, so much as I'm say she should do something about it. If it hurts so much, if life sucks and she can't take it anymore... tell life exactly where it can stick itself. Take a break, move back in with friends or family, get back in touch with those you may be somewhat estranged from and reevaluate your life. If people can "fall out of love" with their spouses, I don't doubt they can "fall out of love" with their jobs too.

If you're lucky enough to have a support network, use that network. Not everyone can be so lucky. I don't know, I'm just talking as someone who's had to go through a lot of stuff themselves. Maybe what works for me just doesn't work for other people, but that doesn't me I shouldn't try and offer some advice from time to time.

*On a different note, I like your idea and where you're coming from. It's interesting to try and put yourself in someone else's shoes and see where they come from. And you really captured that sense of malaise and helplessness.

[ferret]

6554121
Well, yeah, that's what she's gonna do, again. Doesn't help the fact that her special talent toooooootallly suuuuuuuuuuuuucks

"My special talent is being a guidance counselor?! Can't I just muck out the sewers instead, or break rocks all day or something?"

[BackgroundNoise]

6554220
Heh, your talent is what you make of it. Rarity's talent wasn't dressmaking by a country mile, and I'll eat my hat if she didn't "creatively reinterpret" her Cutie Mark at least a bit. Fluttershy got an etymology Cutie Mark, but decided that extended to all other animals just fine. Pinkie Pie's Cutie Mark has little to do with baking, or dancing, or singing, or playing instruments, but that doesn't seem to stop her. Featherweight doesn't have a photography Cutie Mark, but that doesn't stop him from taking his camera with him just about everywhere.

Point being; her Cutie Mark isn't "for" anything, unless she says so herself.

[Reese]

6553895
Oh, yes, I can see how it might not feel very important. I was just remarking on that feeling's inaccuracy.

Ah, sorry again.

[ferret]

6554247
Oh I agree. But I don't think it's unreasonable to think that the CMC came to the conclusion that their talent was helping other ponies realize their special talent. Sure her mark might mean that she's code name Apple Heart secret agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. but if she already decided it meant she was a guidance counselor in the episode, well... that can take special intervention to set her straight. Maybe she should go see a guidance counselor.

[Fluttercheer]

Wow, this story is depressing.....
I'm not 100% sure what happened here. Have ponies largely gotten dissatisfied with their special talents and grown a desire to be truly unique, to be like nopony else is? Or have they gotten simply become megalomaniac, yearning for a destiny that can change Equestria from the ground up and turns them into national heroes?
Whatever it is, it's really depressing.

[ferret]

6576418
I think it was a consequence of the "me" generation "Doctor Spock" sort of attitude. Too much affirmation to their children, as a backlash reaction to the horrible degradation of the baby boomers. People are just reluctant to admit the world isn't a nice place, and that lots of people get raw deals, through no fault of their own. So kids grow up thinking things are going to work out, for every single one of them, only to find out that there's only enough space for the top 3 to make it, so the bar's set higher than they could possibly achieve. But it's also a problem of diminishing opportunities for kids, that they live very structured, restricted lives with little room for diverse talents. You can waste your whole childhood on the promises that if you put your nose to the grindstone now, and do what others expect of you, you'll look back on it later and thank yourself for doing so. I dunno about anyone else, but I have never thanked myself for doing so.

Oh, and school guidance counselors get to deal with the fallout from all this. Sort of explains why counselors all seem so carelessly dead inside.

[Fluttercheer]

6579391

But you're still talking Equestria here? That sounds like something you would expect from Earth, but also like something Equestria's society has learned to avoid.
Now I think this should get an Alternate Universe tag.

[ferret]

6579651
Eh, personally I think every story is an alternate universe. I save that tag for when I've actually got them going through a crackling portal into an alternate universe. This story scenario makes strong parallels to reality.

[Griffin Productions]

[ferret]

7356553
That was terribly beautiful!

[PresentPerfect]

Well, that was depressing, mostly because I know this feel.

[ferret]

7379907
As the counselor, or as the student?

[PresentPerfect]

7381656
The student, sadly. I'm probably not a good enough judge of character to know when people don't have potential.

[ferret]

7381751
The student was practically my self insert.

[Loganberry]

Fuller review here, but in brief: an interesting portrayal of Apple Bloom, and the story nicely skewers the (to me) deeply annoying "You can do anything if you want/try enough" trope. It's a bit too downbeat for me to really enjoy as much as I'd like to have done, but have an upvote for something interestingly different.

[ferret]

9076846

Thanks! I was feeling pretty down when I wrote that, so I guess it might not be obvious, but the story was a sort of double satire. Yes it was making fun of the attitude that everyone's special, and that everyone's a high achiever, and a positive attitude is your ticket to success and fame. But it was so over-the-top glum, because it was making fun of that "The Incredibles" attitude, like "Oh no I'm not special. How traumatic!" Apple Bloom was obsessed with making her students think they're special, when she could've done a lot more good trying to help them be who they are.

Fewer people want to be special snowflakes than you'd think. What most of us want is not to be a hero, but to have a hero, who's there to save us, when we're in trouble. Why would anyone want to be a hero? Heroes suffer.

And yeah, it was totally a reaction to that "amazing" episode, where the CMC's destiny was to be the pony equivalent of high school guidance counselors.

[Loganberry]

9077186
Hmm, maybe that double bit was too subtle for me. A lot of things are! Clever. As it happens, I love "Crusaders of the Lost Mark" -- though there are external issues bound up in that, not least that it aired while I was at a hugely enjoyable convention. I don't think that affected how much I enjoyed your story, though of course I can't be certain.

[ferret]

9077354
Well, quite honestly the biggest disappointment I felt with that episode is it wasn't an adventure where the CMC meet Daring Do. But yeah I know most people thought it was the bee's knees. I honestly didn't mind it, outside of stylistic nitpicks, except for the one really disturbing part when the magic of Harmony raped their cutie marks onto them. All that's unrelated to this story though, which is just poking edgedark fun at some silly fridge horror, where ponyland sharply contrasts with reality.

...also I'm too friendless and poor to go to conventions.