• Published 17th Feb 2017
  • 2,088 Views, 38 Comments

Dear Princess Celestia: Letters from a Murderer - Door Belle



Twilight Sparkle sends a series of letters to Princess Celestia after slaying a villain.

  • ...
7
 38
 2,088

Letters Seven and Eight

Dear Princess Celestia,

I'm sorry I didn't respond to your letters sooner. Group therapy has been exhausting. Two days really doesn't feel like enough time to recover between sessions, even though I know from my own study that it should be and that Doctor Fair knows what she's doing. The problem is, it's been hard to connect with anypony there. They've all seen me around, but I don't think they know how to deal with me when I try to put myself on the same level as an ordinary pony and just talk. One of them actually tried to get everypony to kneel when I walked in the first time, and another has done nothing but mock me for "falling." It would make more sense if she was talking about the murder...

The rest simply don't talk to me—they only flinch, make their polite or reverent acknowledgements, and move on. I thought I knew how to make friends with anypony, but I guess I was wrong. Again.

To your most urgent question—yes, it's true. I'm sorry for the upset and worry I've caused you, and it hurt to read how disappointed you were, but that kind of drives home my point. I don't deserve to fly. I don't really deserve magic either, but I have to have something to protect myself once I'm out of the hospital, and I've never been very good at using the earth pony side of being an alicorn. It's so intuitive that it's unintuitive, if that makes any sense.

I still don't know what to say to Fluttershy. I know it's eating her up that I don't have an answer for her yet. She tries to hide it, but every time I equivocate or change the subject she glances away and her ears and wings droop just a little. Maybe she's just worried for me, but I know I would be pretty upset if I liked somepony a lot and they just didn't respond.

I'm going to have to talk to her. I've barely said five words today, anyway.

Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle



Dear Princess Celestia,

I don't understand why you care so much about what happens with Fluttershy, but yes, I ended up dodging the question yet again yesterday. Who knew a killer could be such a coward?

Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle

Comments ( 9 )

I love this story with a burning passion. Have a like and a fave.

I don't know what to feel with this story, but i want more of it none the less. Hope you continue.

8119466

Well thank you! I'm glad you like it.

8119609

I have a few ideas.

Well, that does it. Moving out of Tracked to Faved. You've got me.

Keep up the good work! :twilightsmile:

TL;DR (a little watered down but organized version) below

8119625
Actually, i need to say some things if your going to write this, maybe more for myself than you but i feel like you could maybe gain something from it as well... Or you might not and are being vague in the letters on purpose but either way...

The way she acts, supposedly giving logical reasons to her handlers and not in her letters seems to be a cop out. The thing is that the thing driving her to suicide, to treat herself the way she does, to talk about herself like this, points to more than just the horror of her action itself. The reasons she's a monster is not "i killed someone" but that "i could kill anyone".

This way of thinking isn't the most rational but stems from a largely irrational reaction she probably developed from her fight. She was scared and angry. Those words do little justice to the magnitude and reasons but now this event has been linked to those emotions, emotions that are now harder to control because of the importance of her wanting to know why so many of those things happened and why she acted like that when there were other options.

Then, there is the most important thing to understand now that all that has been brought to attention, and that is that when those feelings flare up again, they bring up memories of that response. How she killed her, the fleeting feeling of it being "the right choice", and now these memories are overlaying the new person that sparked even a small portion of those emotions. Of course fear of one's own anger only brings into sharper focus just what she did, what she is capable of, what should could try to do now and possibly even mistake the feelings of the past for those of the present.

How do you justify yourself when killing your friends over a disagreement briefly feels like "the right choice"? The "only" choice, not logically but emotionally, that's the memory your feelings drag up.

This is just the start of the chains though. Now you feel you're not safe, even if you could stop yourself you're already thinking like a killer, have the instinct even, because "what else could that be, right?". That's what you tell yourself at least. Feelings aren't rational and now they aren't strickly under your control. Someone who values rationality and self control would be scared of this at least and to some it might be as bad as you losing your whole mind.

That me isn't me, that me would kill, that me is struggling to get out and i have to fight it, what if I lose? The future is uncertian and the fear only reminds you of what you did more. In fact, twilight is educated, probably within reason to assume she knows quite a bit on pony physiology, right? The makes it quite easy to know just how to kill someone. Even if you're above using that knowledge to shock someone into shutting up, every time you idly observe the parts you disabled in order to get your first kill you're reminded of just how easy it would be to kill again.

It's not that she would want to, but that now she knows just what to do and that alone is a little unnerving if you let your mind linger too long. "But your a monster anyway right?" And then the "righteous" feeling that you're punishing someone terrible (yourself) by inflicting that misery on them and giving them what they deserve makes things all the more confusing and scary as feeling a mix of fear, curiosity, and "righteousness" at the same time as thinking about how easy it is to murder someone tends to immediately send up red flags in the "sane" part of your mind.

TL;DR (kind of)
Anger reminds her of murder

Fear reminds her of murder (in this case)

Reminding herself of the murder reminds her of the justifications and emotions at that time

(Logic trap) justifying murder in the middle of being scared or angered is something a "monster/murderer/psychopath" would do.

(Logic trap conclusion if she doesn't catch herself) "I'm a monster who justifies killing people who scare or anger me." Evidence: the previous murder, current emotional termoil.

The more these thoughts are triggered, the more reinforced they are.

Understanding how someone is murdered may cause reminders when the opportunity presents itself to murder again.

Even if there is no intent, thinking about murder just as someone is vulnerable to it is "monsterous/psycopathic".

8120026
8119718

Things worth thinking about. Thank you both. :pinkiesmile:

Comment posted by horses are fuckin weird deleted Jul 12th, 2020
Comment posted by horses are fuckin weird deleted Apr 22nd, 2021
Login or register to comment