You didn't really think it would come to this.
Starlight Glimmer confronts you one evening after she catches you in the act. It's not an easy thing to swallow, considering that you two had just begun your relationship with each other. But like any good partner should, Starlight tries her best to connect with you in a way that would enable her to better understand your position on the matter.
Trigger Warning: Themes of suicide and self-harm, mentions of blood
Cover art by maren on Derpibooru.
EDIT: Featured on 20/1/2023!
Chapters (1)
Hugs for all
~Huggles~
I wonder why there is that voice, what caused us all to hear it I wonder?
As someone who is kind of going through the same things....minus someone like starlight to encourage me to live, this just feels like fake sympathy. I don't know why but I feel like it has become a tradition for others to sympathize with people going through mental health issues whether they actually mean it or not. Its analogous to someone saying "bless you" when other person sneezes. They don't actually mean that the person who sneezed should get actually blessed by some spiritual higher power, they said it because its either their habit or because it has become a tradition for people to do it. In the same vein, others try to spread encouragement and sympathize with people not even knowing the person and they keep saying that so many times to so many people that the encouragement and sympathy starts to lose their values.....at least this is what I think, I don't know, this might just be my severe depression speaking.
As somepony who is not going through what Anon is experiencing, this struck me as a compassionate treatment of a painful topic. It's perhaps made more difficult to appreciate by the second-person POV. I dunno about anypony else, but reading it in in second-person, my brain is constantly rebelling, "no! That's not how I'll do it!" Heh.
Doesn't particularly resonate with me, but seems to me this story is more about feelings of unworthiness than anything else.
Still though, in the context of MLP, Anon talking about "the voices" and how they don't stop...that sounds an awful lot like Anon has been possessed by The Nightmare, and Starlight should be arranging for an exorcism. This turns the story into a Fantastic Aesop, because a human reader who identifies with it probably isn't inhabited by a magical mind parasite.
I'm also a little curious why Starlight was chosen for this story. Given her background, she seems a more natural fit for the "I'm unworthy and deserve to die" role. It's ironic that she's the one doing the comforting rather than the one being comforted. It seems like a missed opportunity to put her in that role reversal, and yet not do anything with it. This story could have shown that she "chose the damaged one" (just like she tried to save Chrysalis) and it could have shown that she was in a singularly unique position to understand Anon's feelings of unworthiness. But this story doesn't do anything with that, and instead casts her in an entirely generic role that could have been filled by anypony.
It's not a bad story. But there are definitely missed opportunities here.
For example, it might have been very interesting to deliberately invoke the Fantastic Aesop angle, and have this story treat entirely non-magical feelings of unworthiness with a magical mind-parasite sort of intervention. "What would happen" if you took somebody with an entirely non-magical affliction, and transported them to a world full of happy colorful ponies with no concept of suicidal depression, but who do have experience with mind parasites like The Nightmare...and suppose they treated it accordingly?
Send Nightmare Moon to Earth and give her therapy and drugs...you maybe wouldn't expect that to restore Luna. But it might if it helped Luna enough and gave her the confidence and self esteem to win her internal struggles. Now take a depressed human and send him to Equestria, surround him by mares telling him they love him and will fight for him, stick him in a magical circles and infuse him with enough magic and love and harmony...that might similarly resolve the situation, even without there being any magical mind parasite to destroy. Do it cleverly enough, and you could even leave both the reader and the character unsure of which interpretation was correct. "The voices, were they real? I'll never know. But they're gone now. Thank you."
It would be interesting to examine that.
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Those are some great ideas. Yes, this story definitely could've gone in a different direction, all things considered. Though my choice to have Starlight be in the "comforting" role was not entirely by chance nor a random decision.
Starlight was chosen for this story simply because she's in a position to empathize with Anonymous' growing feelings of unworthiness and hopelessness. Being a former villain herself, Starlight is all too familiar with the feeling of being unable to change your current circumstances, and how overwhelmingly paralyzing it can feel. That being said, it's heavily implied in the story that that was not the first time that Anonymous had heard those severe intrusive thoughts before, and that Starlight is already aware of his suicidal tendencies as a response to the aforementioned feelings of hopelessness. This story is meant to be a look into a portion of Starlight and Anonymous' relationship as they attempt to deal with an already existing conflict that had plagued them for a long time.
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This story is meant to serve as an encouragement mechanism, not a cure nor some magical means to make everything alright for everyone. Anon and Starlight's relationship is meant to show how things COULD be dealt with, and how a supportive relationship COULD function depending on the circumstances.
Not everyone's situation is the same, much the same way how not everyone can empathize or put themselves in the shoes of Anon in this situation. Speaking as someone who suffers from similar things, the vast majority of this story is written around personal insight regarding how it feels to suffer from mental disorders such as severe depression and intrusive thoughts, and how to cope in the face of it. That being said, not everyone's situation is the same, and no matter how accurate or detailed this depiction could be, it won't resonate with everyone in the same way.
Godspeed.
Ouch. As someone that used to have thoughts of suicide, I can relate with Anon. My situation might have been different but the overall feeling, or essence was about the same.
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IMO in addition to what 11484417 said about how it fits Starlight having her role very well here, stories of Starlight being comforted for feeling worthless or the like are more common than her doing the comforting (even if I've personally used a concept with Starlight being in the comforter role), I thought it was a nice change of pace for her to have the role she did in this story.
Although it could have been even better if her potential feelings for feeling the way Anon was explored more, which you already pointed out. Someone being there for you is great of course and can literally be life-saving, but it does add an extra kick when the person/pony doing it can has, at least to a degree, felt it too, Although I can see it possibly happening in the past, making this kinda like a Remember That You Trust Me situation, which in itself isn't that common in one-shot stories.
TBH, again as someone who used to be suicidal, trying to fix suicidal tendencies with magic, even if also done with friendship, downplays how it's really like to overcome suicidal urges in real-life and isn't a good way for a story to handle it. At best, it's taking the easy way out of dealing with it and at worst, disrespectful to the people who had to do it without needing magic to help since meds for mental illnesses don't work like magic and might even work differently than some people might think. For example, the one I'm on for bipolar 2 is an anti-seizure medication that just happens to be able to help with bipolar as basically a beneficial side effect, and if I didn't have bipolar I wouldn't be on them because I've never had a seizure, let alone have epilepsy. And, people with suicidal feelings can have voices in their head like the ones in the story due to how they feel (i.e. strong enough feelings that you're worthless can metaphorically feel like they are telling you're worthless even when you resist it) but they aren't actual voices being heard -- it's your feelings telling you that -- but the story just didn't spell it out.
Lastly, a person that has been there will never forget those voices they used to hear -- I sure haven't -- but simply knows it's not true because those feelings are gone or at least improved. So a story making it like the voices might not have ever been there would cheapen the voices being a part of the story in the first place, since that could apply that the feelings might not have truly been true, even if the fact that the person was worthless or the like was false.
On its own, the idea is good, but not for a story that is dedicated for people that has/had suicidal thoughts
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I kinda know that feeling myself, but given when it's really not fake sympathy, at least it beats the "Get over it" from people who either have low empathy or just don't get it treatment I sometimes see. At least to me anyway.
To be fair, tough love is sometimes needed, but is especially dangerous to give to someone who is suicidal, since it could easily be that last push for them to actually do it. Or, make them suicidal in the first place. If someone was to say "life is tough" too harshly, it would just make the other person think "Then I don't want to play the game of life anyway." Then there's how it can sometimes be best to leave the person alone, though it's tough to tell when someone you don't know but is struggling should be left alone, or when it's better to try to show some kind of support. Especially if, even with the sympathy is genuine, they either won't want to hear it and/or feel like it's fake.
A dilemma to say the least.
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I've been to therapy my therapist wanted to put me in shadow mountain for observation cause of .my thought process didn't fit with those who hadn't live real life n wear rose colored glasses.I
I grew up in south Tulsa Oklahoma 61st Peoria where my mom got drunk n piss on everything and would get rape by my dad when she was pass out drunk my father worked as a phone caller and pulled games all day neglecting his children to be unprepared for the real world I was molested at 5 or 6 yrs old by my female babysitter and called a liar by my father n mother when I told them saying I made up a story for attention I almost burned down my apartment around that age to. I've seen dead bodies I've seen hookers crack heads n gang bangers ect ect and you know what I found? After all that why noone help me or my siblings? We're replaceable notting that happen to me or you matters it only matters cause you make it matter.moving along is the right thing to say. The American's voter for biden who is a pedophile and who's son has literal pictures of getting message by underage girls.the lgbt is a pedophile cult that tries to brainwash kids
My Little Reviews & Feedback I did your review.
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Thanks!
And then you break up because you're not good enough, and you feel more alone than ever.
why is this so relatable
The only difference is that i have no one excepto My mother and she will not be with me forever , the others members of My family seems to hate me or don't care about me and the other difference is that i am a sensitive drama king coward
The only thing that i can do is be a "useful" tool and give my mother the life she deserves