Twilight Velvet is a stubborn pony, and that means the thing she hates most is being told 'no' or anything like it. Unfortunately, when Twilight and her husband Nightlight receive some startling news, they're faced with untested waters. Could their filly still have as bright of a future as her brother, or will their little star never get to shine?
A stand-alone prequel to Her Own Sky. Credit for brainstorming and prereading help goes to I-A-M and TCC56. Contribute to the TVTropes page!
Chapters (4)
Hmm...
Okay, please know I say this with love, but... I don't think this is your best work, my dude. Some of the dialogue felt a bit stilted, and I never really got a grasp of the characterization you were going for. Like, you seemed to be setting up a dynamic of Night Light being a little lovably dense and Velvet the sensible one with him mentioning zebra witch doctors and not catching the Doctor's mention of "physically" healthy. But then Velvet brings up a zebra exorcist and thinks "two brains" with the word neurodivergent, plus her line about, "Twilight doesn't like drawing that much!" So... are they both dumb? I can get not knowing what autism is, but even beyond that they kind of come across as "airhead suburban parents" and not "raised an alicorn princess, one of the best shield mages on the planet, and an adolescent dragon."
Then there was a lot of exposition. The doctor asks about Twilight's abnormal behavior, and Velvet and Light then just word vomit like seven paragraphs of backstory. A better way to do it may have been having the doctor ask questions about specific symptoms, and then they answer. Or maybe a previous scene of them two in the waiting room, discussing things until they get called in.
And then there's the overall "feel" of it. You had the doctor give them a pamphlet. Well... this feels like a pamphlet. Maybe an after-school special or Hallmark movie event are better comparisons. Obviously this is just the first chapter, but I get this vibe that it's not, "Here is a story about Twilight being autistic," but more, "Here is a story about autistic people." Do you see the difference? One is character driven, the other is message driven. And it's not a bad message, of course not! But it just feels... iunno, artificial? Especially after this line:
I'm sorry... what? "Earth pony majority?" Since when? Other than Ponyville, which has been specifically called an earth pony village, every other town and city we've seen has been a roughly equal mix. Moreover, pretty much every pony in Canterlot, the seat of power, is a unicorn. Shit, the only earth pony i can remember seeing in Canterlot is fucking Hayseed Turnip Truck. And what is this about their, "long-standing ideas about the nature of magic?" I mean yeah, Applejack snapped at Twilight for using magic during Winter Wrap-Up, but that was because it broke tradition, not because "t'ain't natural." Plus, earth ponies have lived, worked, and been families with unicorns and pegasi for centuries, hell, thousands of years depending on your head canon. And look, I know people love to dunk on Celestia, and she kinda deserves it. But ignoring the pleas of doctors for 70+ years because ostensibly, "lol not real," isn't incompetent. It's cruel. So yeah, this feels like yet another instance of someone shoving real world human politics and agendas into My Little Pony, even though it doesn't really make sense, because the message demands it.
Look, despite my snarky writing style, I hope you don't take this as me being cruel or mean. You know we're cool, my dude. I mean, I only write these big long comments on stories by people I like and respect that I feel is beneath their usual level. But then hey, who am I? Just some random asshole in a brown hat. Other people seem to dig it, and that's awesome. No story is for everyone. Having never been affected by autism in my life, the message isn't going to resonate with me very well. So maybe it's like a country music fan going to Wacken Open Air and complaining that it's too loud. "Old Man Screams At Cloud," and all that. No downvote, because I'm an asshole, not a fucking asshole. Just ain't my cuppa joe, ya know?
Cheers.
liked everything here but the whole two brains and art kit bit.
Really cool can’t wait for more
Sorry, it took so long for me to reply y'all! I just survived finals and I'm in the middle of moving. This was released because it was polished up and just sitting around for months, I just put a few final tweaks on it and decided to give it a release well ahead of
the Day of the Beasttomorrow in order to not get it confused for a holiday story.10801167
I have some notes and snippets of future chapters, so it shouldn't be too long, though I do have some higher-priority stories on the update line first.
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I'm glad you like it! As for why those bits were included, I'd refer to the reply to Jake below. Spoilers are for heavy tangents on my part, not so much discussion of future chapters, it's for readers who might be checking comments first w/o wanting stuff too spoiled for them. If there is anything else that you feel could still be discussed or improved for clarity, lemme know.
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Full disclosure: I would have legitimately not given a fuck if this comment had come with a downvote from you or been angry in any way. Why? Because this comment was (okay, first of all, it's longer than many I've gotten on my latest stories in a while) filled with lots of legitimate critique and reasons I wouldn't be angry at a downvote. The ones I've generally gotten so far tend to be for writing ships people don't like, writing mature stories that aren't gross porn, writing trans characters/themes, generally writing non-lesbians, and having stories that don't have happy endings. At least, as far as I've been able to gather over the years. Most don't comment.
This is me being totally dumb, but I'm guessing you mean that in the 'it needs another round of editing for non-technical bits' instead of just it not being up to your taste? I'm not getting the clearest read on your sentence here 'cause my brain is telling me it could go either way.
Are they dumb? No. Ignorant of the subject matter entirely? Yes. Part of this was done to avoid a darker, non-E rated thing that happens with parents in this situation. They're not airheaded per say, both are perfectly normal and healthy suburban unicorns without anything to hide. Both Velvet and Nightlight are in an extraordinarily awkward situation that has flipped their assumption that they are perfectly informed and doing well as parents on their heads. This is exactly why they're fumbling here: not because they're neurotypical, but because they're neurotypical individuals who have been blessed with easy lives and are completely unfamiliar with mental health being something beyond normal behaviors and life experiences. They are the hump of the Bell Curve couple, the Jane and John Doe horses and they're being confronted something that happens to other ponies if it happens at all (and not in a malicious way, it is purely a lack of experience). Velvet and Nightlight are the kinds of ponies/people who aren't really uncommon to find. As an autistic fella (well, originally Aspie before they consolidated the diagnosis to be a spectrum) the number of parents like Velvet and Nightlight that I've met, seen on the news, or read about is stupidly high. They're completely well-meaning, unabusvie types who want to take care of their kids, but are the ones who will be informed of their child's condition and while they never deny that their child has it, will be the first to say (and repeat) that they just 'don't get' autism/ADHD/depression/special needs/early diagnosed mental conditions/learning disabilities. It doesn't mean they won't try and take care of their children and be good to them, just that they're never going to be able to remotely understand the needs of their child (especially the 'why' and 'what' type of explanations) and in really extreme cases the child themselves.
I wanted to show that Velvet and Nightlight weren't bad, because there are way too many parents who will hear their child has a disability/condition or isn't neurotypical and get all flabbergasted with the "But what do you mean, my kid isn't retarded, they just need to try more! That isn't real!" spiel and things get worse from there. I wanted to avoid this outcome of ignorance, both Velvet and Nightlight aren't cruel or ableist, they don't mistake autism for "retarded" but they've never heard of anything like it. To them, health and disabilities are visible things, not something that is in your head. They mistake "autistic" as 'artistic' and "neurodivergent" by interpreting it in the only way someone unfamiliar with the word could: using the root words (and possibly mixing it with parent theatrics of leaping to the Worst and Wildest Possible Thing). Though, ponies have been shown to also have extremely bizarre illnesses, like cutie pox and the gaggle of not-always-equine-accurate ailments from Leap of Faith.
This could be a consequence of my in medias res writing having a range of turn-outs, the typical non-chronological vignette shuffle I give a lot of my pre-S1 novelettes, or that I was deliberately trying to make them come across as rather panicky, rambly types. Having them speak a lot was the best way I thought that could be shown, and hopefully, the voices I gave them came across as concerned and frazzled enough. Maybe that wasn't the case?
Also, sometimes people (er, ponies) can be talked through to arrive at a diagnosis, or to bring them to a point of understanding. Dr. Pieces has already spent time with Twilight, so she knows what's up. She's trying to extend that to Velvet and Nightlight, and talked-through approaches generally mean reviewing the symptoms and connecting them to a bigger picture. (If you've already had this experience before I'm so sorry for rambling about it so much, then.)
(I just base my doctor horses on the behavior of actual doctors, at least most of the time.)
I think the only thing that would make me hesitant to use this otherwise really good idea was that I've had issues in the past where readers didn't catch on to, ah, characters being infallible, biased, or unreliable narrators. Some of the theatrics of Twilight Velvet and Nightlight might have been taken as totally true without a character outside of their perspective to offer contrast in dialogue and reactions.
Doctor ponies are also fun to write okayThe two reasons I specified Twilight's symptoms were because a) it varies from individual to individual what those on the spectrum are like even if you're in a more defined realm like "high functioning autism" like Twilight is b) this isn't actually a story about Twilight; it's about her parents dealing with having to accommodate something (autism, obviously, Twilight isn't a thing) they never expected in their lives and what that means for them as parents. Twilight isn't tagged. If Twilight appears at all, it will be briefly/as a minor character. I wanted to write something from the perspective of two ordinary neurotypical adults who deal with ordinary parent problems.
I've written this information because it is consistent with how I've depicted Equestria in the bulk of my work. There isn't any way to have the pony races each be born at a totally equal rate, so one pony race would end up being more common just because of how populations work. Canterlot appears to be the only contemporary all-unicorn city, Cloudsdale (and really any sky architecture) the only places where pegasus ponies are the majority, and I've always depicted Equestria as being agrarian outside of a few major cities. For Equestria as whole, if pegasi are generally depicted living mostly in Cloudsdale/cloud cities and scattered/mixed into local weather trades/residential areas more sparingly, only two pony types are left. I've always gone with earth ponies. (Though, if I've ever stated by how much they're the majority, I don't recall what story it would be in.)
I have it as for a little over one thousand years. Again, it's not saying that the other ponies are dying at an alarming rate or anything (this would be a totally different story with a very different rating/tagging/content if it were) but that earth ponies are the majority in the sense that 'Smith' is an overwhelmingly common last name, people with Scots-Irish ancestry outnumber with Moravian ancestry in the US, or that in settings with fantasy races humans always outnumber elves and dwarves.
I made sure to clarify it was known as real and currently is, or else Twilight wouldn't be diagnosed, just that the legislation on it and research is incredibly bad, which results in underdiagnosis and the like. Dr. Pieces doesn't know Princess Celestia personally whatsoever, she's just an ordinary doctor, so while inaction/a lack of awareness is there she (Pieces) isn't perfect either and could be projecting an emotion onto Celestia that the latter doesn't actually have because Pieces is nowhere at the level to be speaking for a horse goddess the way she would be able to speak of citizen peers who display counter-advocacy to what she works with.
I do like to give the ponies politics because it generally is a given if you're writing a more serious/realistic/etc. take on Equestria and want that lore. Though, I've always worked it to be for the whole fantasy world deal. So, any information in here that is political isn't meant to have a human history parallel. Underdiagnosis is a real concept, but what I put here is meant just to be realistic struggles for parents like Nightlight and Twilight Velvet. They don't fight chaos monsters, redeem lunar goddesses, or save the world with the power of love and justice and all that fun stuff. For them, it's helping their kids, being frustrated at politics, and figuring out who forgot hay bacon on the grocery list that makes up what they do because they are... well, they're not their kids. But in hindsight I maybe should have rated this teen despite it not really being teen rated because I'm starting to think that folks went into this expecting fluff but at the same time it's not my fault I didn't stick this in fluff groups aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Though, onto human world politics: I am aware that there was a time when autism was underdiagnosed severely at the ages when it is most important to have help. The problem is, I had no time when that timeframe was except that it was in living memory and well after the condition was first decided upon as "autism" in the 1940s. Since that was such a broad time to work with, you had me wondering: was I born during that time, and did I just have a wildly different experience growing up compared to the situation I've written for Twilight? I checked and suspected that the period began probably around the 1950s or 60s, since there was a lot of social upheaval at the time and generally Bad Shit happening in America's medical and psychology practices. So, of course, there wouldn't be anything like autistic advocacy movements that popped up much later, right? Or, maybe it really was some time when I was growing up despite all the practices and publishing from that era that I've found after the fact and experienced were just way out of the ordinary?
Well, both were wrong. Autism was historically wildly underdiagnosed in the 1970s and 1980s and it makes sense I didn't find this as a familiar political situation because I was born in the 1990s. This article covers it pretty well, if you're curious, and describes the situation of the "Lost Generation" who never got the help they needed when they needed it. Autism was definitely better known when I was growing up, but it sure was not treated as common or well-understood until I was in... I want to say junior high? So, 2013 onward. I know now that it is one of the most common diagnoses for children, and the autistic kids of today are growing up in very different situations than I knew. Thank fucking goodness.
TLDR There appears to be a vaguely similar (in some respects) period in American history when autism was wildly undiagnosed, but one that was well before I was born.
Oh no, I'm afraid I took it as an educational oppurtunity, which is far worse.
Detailed feedback is always my cup of joe.
Wonder what they saw at the open house that made them cross it off their list?… perhaps it wasn’t as well thought out as they made it look in the brochure? The part about Twilight Sparkles grandparents not understanding her condition is spot on too sadly…
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As implied from the last exchange of letters, the special education support program was something that cost extra.
Some reason I got confused if this was a real “TV” or just Twilight Velvet for short lol
It’s kind of rare seeing stories about autism which I have and completely relate to the parents worries and experiences since my parents faced this back in the 90’s and throughout 00’s. Trust me, there wasn’t that many helpful options for me back then and I’m glad that homeschooling helped. Sadly not everyone is able to do homeschool which I understand that both or one parent has to work a job to have a roof, food, and pay for school and IRS.
I believe dancing like ballet, jazz, tap and Piano helped a lot with my autism. Sure, I still have social issues when talking to others face to face even as a 29 year old I still have those issues. But not in text messaging which I would tell you how I’m talking on here is very different when speaking face to face.
Not sure how far you’ll make this story go. I hope it keeps going for as long you can make it to be since I really like it so far of what you created.
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It's Twilight Velvet's initials.
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This story is pretty short; it's going to be four chapters. So, this is halfway done. I grew up in the early 2000s, so I drew some inspiration there, other parts were filled in with research because my family was not so kind. The rest is just me doing my best to make Equestria alien in how their society and educational systems work.
I think this story works very well because in the show Twilight is not autistic, just an awkward nerdy loner who has many of the same struggles that autistic people do. And when dealing with Equestria, it's weird when tragic stories try to make out their healthcare system to be as cruel and arcane as like the USAs, but the struggle of parents to pick out the right school for their challenging foal is going to remain in any fantasy setting.
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None of the characters are explicitly autistic, but the show portrays her as heavily showcasing behaviors that could be considered autistic-coded throughout the series.
before I forget, when you are done writing this story
can you look at my Friend's ?
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/427265/3/the-misadventures-of-light-heart/when-my-dad-met-a-bad-teacher
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I don't usually take random recommendations, sorry.
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I understand
Both your story and his are about the same thing
Kind of thought we would get the parents view about learning that Twilight can take the test, during, and after what happens at the test. But I do like these letters.
Poor Sunset… I guess she goes into the mirror soon or has?
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All I can say is to stay tuned for the last chapter.
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Ominous.
Thank you for the wonderful story about Twilight having autism and how the family handles it. It’s definitely sad about Sunset which… does make me wonder does she have something mentally wrong with her as well?
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You’re quite welcome. As far as Sunset’s side of the story goes, I’ve explored that in other stories before. One of them is linked in the description of this one.
I've always had the head canon that by Unicorn standards Twilight is a nero-atypical Unicorn but is a nero-typical Alicorn. Standards of what is normal would be different for each pony type thanks to brain structure having small differences to accommodate horns, wings or increased muscle. After her transformation parts of her brain would recieve proper sensory input and previously odd unicorn behavior would be replaced with typical pegasus and earth pony behaviors.
I do still think in a Twilight's unique case(this being a fantasy setting) her autism has a likely source, namely her potential for becoming an alicorn. Being born a Unicorn with the mental wiring of a Alicorn could be described as nothing but Nero-divergence.
Is that an Equestria At War reference or is there a piece of official media that lists Tall Tale as Sunset's birth town that I'm not aware of?