Author's Thoughts: Just Like Me

Turns out that you can actually kick yourself right in the feels. It was pretty hard for me to write the 'Confession' scene in The Horse Collar. That one really hit me in the gut while I was writing it, but we have a new king of self-depressing.

Just Like Me is a story about the experiences of someone living in the Crystal Empire, back before Luna and Celestia defeated Sombra for the first time, more than a thousand years into the past. It explores the pain of war, but it also explains how people are all connected, and even during a terrible and devastating war, hate isn't the only thing that drives us.

If you haven't read it, you should go ahead. It's a short read, and it's not just sadness porn. I aimed for it to be moving, maybe a little heartbreaking, but not depressing or miserable like some stories. I'm going to share some of my spoilery thoughts below.

To me, the story was about Luna. The entire story, to me, happens right at the end, when Luna and the unnamed protagonist meet eyes and realize that they're not that different from one another. Even though they were both prepared to kill one another, there's something that connects us, and it's hard not to realize that, even though they're the enemy, they're still people.

And that's what the rest of the story was about. I wanted to show you how the soldier was a person, before Luna killed him. I wanted to show you that he had thoughts and feelings and a family.

Despite that, I made it so that Luna didn't know any of that. Luna would never know who this person was that she killed. Perhaps that day, and that soldier's face, will linger with her forever. You'll have to read Sleep Walking to find out, because the events of the two stories share the same universe.

Describing the life of the soldier hit me very hard, especially the conscription scene, where I drew the 'kitchen table' observation from an actual experience I once had with police.

Thank you very much, for following me.