Sometimes life isn't a perfect story. Sometimes it's just one damn thing after another, right up until it ends.
As her mother lies dead in a still-living body, Twilight Glitter is going to have to come to terms with life—with death, with being, and with not.
CW: depictions of self-harm, and mental decay akin to schizophrenia/dementia
Originally written in 2017 (pre-s8) for the Writeoff. Completed slowly and painfully over the past three years. The prompt was Here at the End of all Things.
Thank you to r5h, garatheauthor, Mousse, and Cynewulf for pre-reading and editing.
Coverart by the amazingly talented Zaid Val'Roa.
Chapters (1)
Congratulations for finishing this story, Regi! I hope it gets a warm reception.
It finally lives! 🖤
Oh hell yeah! I cannot wait to read this again.
Twas good. Resonated with me in a lot of ways. My grandmother started acting very much like Twilight at the start of this fic. She was old and principled (I guess?) enough that she didn’t do what Twilight did about it, but I liked this fic a lot. It’s clear this was very personal to you and that worked out in my opinion.
I am not really a person who gets 'the feels', but this was a well-written tale of woe nonetheless. The part where Glitter says 'What the actual fuck' caused a fair amount of bathos for me, but that may have been intentional on your part.
I don’t get too much of what happened, but I guess that’s the point.
What I can say though is that I’m sad. Oh Twilight, you wonderful, brave mare... too much for your own good....
Hello, my hometown is China. I like the novel “twilight under the bodhi tree”very much. Will you allow me to translate this novel? I will know the original author and the original website address. I hope you will agree.(*^ω^*)
I’m a bit slow. So did Twilight develop Alzheimer’s and when her and Starlight Glimmers daughter get sick of taking care of her, drown herself. And at the end was Celestia telling their daughter about Starlight Glimmers life who she never knew anything about? At first I thought Starlight Glimmer was just in Canterlot doing world saving stuff with process Celestia and at the end the daughter asked about Twilights life and was confused as to why she couldn’t just ask Spike but then I think I realized Starlight died which broke Twilight and no one in the family had the heart to talk about it, especially since Twilight keeps mistaking their daughter for her dead wife.
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I think Twilight and Starlight had a daughter but when they were defending the world one day Starlight died in an accident before their daughter was old enough to “know” her and the her death broke Twilight making her insane. So their daughter grew up with one dead mother and the other one insane and having to take care of her but with Spike by her side, until one day she finally got fed up with it and took a break because she was sick of having to be one of the only people to care for Twilight when she apparently had friends and family who should’ve been their to help her and Spike take care of Twilight but weren’t and went off to live her own life a little. But while she was enjoying her childhood like she should Twilight drowned herself while Spike was doing something. Imajine all the implications of little Glimmers life. Being burdened by things she should’nt have to be burdened by and now not even having the hope of getting to truly know her surving mother. But then Celestia comes in and answers her questions she has about her parents and the kind of ponies they were before everything went wrong.
I don’t even fully understand what happened and yet there are tears in my eyes. Why are these characters, these colorful talking horses made to sell cheap plastic figures, such perfect canvases for exploring every corner of humanity in a way I’ve never seen any other shows or fandoms achieve? What is it with this show? There’s some magic to it.
I love, love LOVE this. I lvoe this so much its hard to describe.
Damn... this was definitely rough to get through. But it all had an oddly satisfying conclusion. And honestly, only you Regidar are able to do this to me out of all the other authors here on this site.
Did Twilighr Glitter commit suicide?
Are you...Are you...coming to the tree?
They strung up a man...they said he murdered three...
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Starlight is still alive at the end, through everything. Twilight mistakes Glitter for Glimmer despite the fact that Starlight Glimmer is still alive, and Twilight can't be more than 50ish years old, since her daughter is still a teenager, so she probably doesn't have Alzheimers.
Probably Twilight experienced some serious mental trauma at the hands of a powerful dark-magic using villain (the one making the sky act all crazy when they had to take shelter in the cellar), that just manifested itself as being very similar to dementia.
It's about time another Regidar story ended up in my favorites. This has so many of the quintessential Regi-ness to it. The prose is in top form, the themes are wholly you, and the lyrics/poetry that crop up are lovely. While the ending is satisfying and this story was quite the adventure, I couldn't object to wanting to spend more time with these characters. Glitter and Cloudcrasher have wonderful potential for further stories and this poses a fascinating future to explore. Even aside from really basic things like knowing who Glitter's father is. I'd like to see the before, the after, and the in-between that happens in this 'verse you have.
Thank you for this story, Regi.
(Honestly, the only thing close to a gripe I have is that the cover art is so large I hadn't realized that there were Twi and Glitter sitting below the tree.)
I haven't come across descriptions of the "strings" that Glimmer experiences. Is there a name for this condition so I could look up and learn more?
The scene at the Unifiers makes no sense to me and makes me question Glitter's sanity as well. I'm not entirely sure if this was intentional.
Should this be Glitter?
Again
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Could also be early onset alzhimers (pardon my spelling), but there was a line in the story that makes me feel like it was either a spell that warped her mind, or as you said, a dark magic user that twisted her mind and memories.
That chapter title and subject matter is giving me The Caretaker flashbacks...
And this, is great. It constantly jumps temporally and yet it feels like a huge cohesive build-up towards emotional catharsis. It's written beautifully, it gets so much out of such a simple premise.
Man.
This was such a ride. For one of your longer works, this story both took its time and whipped me like a whirlwind. ~9K words that went by for me in around ~3K. When stories do that, I always consider it impressive. That means you engrossed me without dragging the pacing.
I like how vague so many of the big questions in this story are. How symbolic everything is. The bits on meditation and meaning both outshine and undermine so much of the piece. It's rich and hollow at the same time. There's an almost dreamlike (nightmarish) quality to a lot of the prose.
The characters are brilliantly done. Spike and Starlight's undying loyalty and resolve. Glitter's anger, resentment, and desperation. The brief moment of lucidity Twilight has is utterly heartbreaking, as is Glitter's (initially) rebuked desire for Cloudcrasher. The scars around her inner thighs make me think she experienced sexual trauma; I like how this isn't explained one way or the other though, just like we aren't 100% sure what made Twilight the way she was. I'm fairly certain that Starlight was Twilight's wife (and possibly Glitter's other biological parent), especially when Glitter insinuates that she and Spike should get together now that Twi is a shell of herself. However, I also don't want this answered, because the relationship between these four is significant enough, regardless of the details.
The lyrics and poem inside serve as both breathers and lovely transitions into different scenes. This whole piece breathes experimental, and showing off your writing talent in a few different ways with those styles was a great choice.
Excellent work, Regi. Right up there with your strongest.
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Very beautiful observation, thank you for that.
And this story too, is beautiful, with poured raw heartfelt emotion in it. It might be slightly difficult to read, and leaves many things to interpretations of the reader, but it really grips you and makes reflect. And that is what it's all about.
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<3