"Most things out here are ambivalent. The animals, the forest, they don't care about you. But the river? The river is trying to kill you."
"I have found that in our darkest days, we judge ourselves not in terms of what we can do, but in what we fail to do."
CW: death by drowning in the background, implied suicide attempt
Entry for the Twilight Files contest. This story is a media fic best read on the site. If any piece of media is not working (and Red is still active on FimFic) please let him know.
Chapters (33)
That last image, wow. I'm loving this so far, the images are a really awesome way to convey the story and the simple 'To Do - Get Your Act Together' is so powerful.
Holy shit Red. This was absolutely fantastic, I love the way you showed Night's gradual decline and then her fight to get better again. I love the variety of epistolary, from newspapers to the calendar, to letters and the receipts, you told the story in a very clever way.
Outstanding work in both storytelling and presentation. Night Glider's fall and rise is heartwrenching and uplifting by turns. The incidental details really make Equestria feel like a rich world that exists beyond the scope of the story. Thank you for a great read, and best of luck in the judging.
I don't find 1 word
saw title, thought of this.
This was a wonderful fic! Had me feeling a lot of things, and I loved the ending.
Talk about going the extra mile for immersion.
This is top tier stuff. Best of luck in the contest!
...stupid kid...
It wasn't her fucking fault!!
Oh shit...I can see where this is going...
...don't do it...
OutSTANDING story! I absolutely loved the format, for I was totally immersed in the story and felt my heart go out to your protagonist with every chapter. This is some bold writing, and if it's for a contest I hope you win.
But if I may, I think this needs to be here as well: The Suicide Prevention Hotline.
For anyone that needs help.
I know how hard you worked on this one, and the effort definitely paid off. Great story, Red, thank you for making it.
While I personally think that the Tragedy tag is a bit misplaced here, that's more of a mechanical quibble about the tag's meaning (if I recall correctly, it's meant for stories where the protagonist ends up failing rather than the fall followed by rise we get here) than one with the story itself.
Speaking of that story, I loved it, both the unique format and the story that format told. The sense of sickening dread eventually leading up to 23rd, and the sense of healing from the latter half of the story, were incredibly evocative, reminding me of the song "To Hell and Back." At some points, I could almost hear the opening whistles of it while imagining Night Glider sitting in bed. And the ending, uplifting while not denying what Night Glider went through, to me captures the spirit of its closing lines, the sense that someone's been through Hell... but they've come out the other side:
She saw gravestones crop on Canterlot,
Where no ranger sleeps and where Hell's six feet deep;
That death must wait, there's no debate,
She charged and attacked, she went to Hell and back!
Alondro shoots a glance at the river near his house... the river swiftly hides a dagger behind its back!
"The story was right!"
"This is all your fault."
You can not control the fate of people who make wrong choices. Failure is always possible and risk of it will be always be there.
Whoa, I haven't seen this story format before.
Glider and Cider's reports aren't quite matching up.
The way the prepackaged, soulless "Have a nice day" message from the receipt contrasts with the grim situation is really good.
Looks like the drinking and isolation isn't helping.
Glider hasn't been submitting the forms huh? That's not good.
Glider's bender ended and they started marking the calendar again!
I’m assuming “rubber duck” is a replacement for “therapy” so Night doesn’t get triggered? If it is, it’s a wonderful detail.
This was great, and you conveyed the story well using this unconventional method. That said, since I was reading this on my phone, in the chapters without any images, I often wasn't sure if that was intended or if my phone just failed to load the images.
Night Glider's situation felt relatable, though I've never been in a situation like that. I'm glad you chose to have her get therapy and have the story continue well into her therapy, rather than going the edgy route and ending with the period where she disappears for a while.
This was great, really great, almost horryffing to think she almost ended it for good
im guessing that this is foreshadowing!
yay :)
hey it's Night Glider! guess that is who "Nigh" is, and "Ranger Cider" is "Ci".
don't they have carrot dogs, not hay dogs? literally unreadable! (also, dang, those are some pricey buns!)
i guess waterfallology was yet another subject that Moondancer ended up getting a degree in
oh, so that's what the pony version of her is up to, makes sense!
i'm guessing the medevac system is based on pegasi in Equestria? pegasi like, say, Night Glider, perhaps???
dang teenagers, always ignoring the advice of park rangers and then immediately dying of the thing they were warned about! and oof, i am sure that one's gonna leave a mark on everypony involved, especially Night Glider.
yeah she has been through a lot today!
glad that Wrangler is doing right for her ponies. and augh, why did that teenager just ignore Night Glider like that?
it's easy to think this rationally but hard to let oneself believe it in any way, augh.
it's only on the second reading that i noticed how the incident reports differ here without necessarily contradicting. fascinating how the same events can come off with such a different spin depending on what's being emphasized, and Night Glider is definitely emphasizing the self-blame here.
yeah after this it feels prudent to just not allow tourist ponies anywhere near the river!
oof, the new text is heartbreaking. i couldn't imagine going on a vacation after all that either, augh, poor Night Glider
i'm guessing that all that time in a row of not having anything to do to keep her busy will end up being very Not Good for poor Night Glider...
and oof, yeah, getting a bad feeling about this
now this is environmental storytelling. (also probably a bad sign if my own shopping list ever looks anything similar to Night Glider's blaming-self-for-a-death-depression shopping list)
yeah i hope they get to the bottom of just what is drawing ponies to that river...
well at least she won't be spending a week plus her leave eating microwave pizzas at home
i do wonder if i'm supposed to be able to tell who this researcher is
oof, hope Night Glider hears
well i wonder what bad thing specifically for Night Glider this will lead to
yeah that is probably not what they were looking for...
probably not best for Night Glider right now just how cheap beer seems to be in Equestria...
well even more intrigued how this connects with the rest of the story, but maybe it doesn't at all?
oof, yeah, i can imagine it taking a while to get the words out. a taped interview seems like it would be better for this kind of thing, though i guess that would look more like an interrogation
perfect headline. also hilariously misleading
hey, someponies care a lot about this kind of thing!
oof...
yeah that is not an improvement on the previous attempts
it's the "HAVE A NICE DAY!" at the end that really makes this
oof Night Glider's not gonna take that well
yeah i feel for Night Glider here
well that's not good...
as awful as this spiral is, i am glad to hear anything from her. with the calendar not updating, i was worried that the rest of the story would be Night Glider not responding to things until her body is discovered in her apartment...
and that is an escalation!
yeah i don't know what else Night Glider could be expected to say beyond that
a ray of hope?
i didn't notice the text in the black square until i read the text version, and oof. is this what Night Glider's mind perceives as the newspaper saying?
well that is very not good!
oof, that explains the lack of anything in the previous chapter. glad that Wrangler found her
i gotta say that is a fantastic pony therapist name and business card
aww she sounds very nice!
aww, i believe in her...
aww that is a lot nicer to see than the piling amounts of alcohol (and no food???). the skipped day is a neat way to convey that Night Glider's life has been shrunk down to these sessions with Millie
great poster, and i really do have to read that story
aww, that's right, Sugar Belle lives in Ponyville now! they can talk about the time that they were trapped in a cult together and wow Night Glider really has been through a lot hasn't she
aww, life moving on!
and it's nice to see that Night Glider is beginning to as well! also i just got that the switch from a monthly calendar to a day-by-day is representative of the switch to taking on processing what happened to Night Glider "one day at a time" and augh that is a great touch
aww, nice that Night Glider's coworkers were understanding of her off-screen awfulness. it certainly was a lot to go through
yeah it seems very obvious in retrospect. so easy to think of silence as everything being left best enough alone
aww that is so cute!
aww, the personal touch is very nice. looks like it's all healing for Night Glider!
and yeah, i can imagine wanting to add a personal touch to this
so true
it's a very tough choice to make!
aww, glad to see the return of the to-do list!
and what a sweet note to end it on!