The F-Team

by Silver-Spirits-and-Ales

Raison d'être

Manehattan, Eastern Equestria.

As it did every night, the sun was setting on the big city. The ponies of Manehattan were all doing their thing, going home from work in these yellow taxi coaches, which seemed to be the only things to roam the streets at that time of day.

From his vantage point, Silver Spirit could see all of the ponies. He was so far above them that he couldn't see their faces. But he didn't need to. The ponies of Manehattan were always all the same. Fedoras for the stallions, bonnets for the mares, and all of them were either making faces that showed an anger so hot you could iron your gown with them, or wearing a smile so fake and unnatural that even the plays at one of the Bridleway theaters would seem realistic in comparison.

That was what disgusted Silver Spirit from the world. As evidenced by the different marks that decorated their flanks, every pony in Equestria was different. But they all seemed to be trying to mask that difference, by all dressing and behaving in a similar fashion. There were some exceptions to this flock of eternally similar ponies. This time, on the corner of the road, a cream-coated unicorn stallion was playing the trumpet. His horn was sticking out from under his flat cap, and the cutie mark that ornated his flank depicted a trumpet.

On the other side of the road, a pegasus papercolt was selling newspapers, hovering over the crowd and hollering the name of the periodical: "The Manehattan Times".

Silver Spirit smiled weakly as he saw the foal. It reminded him of all the odd-jobs that he had practiced throughout his life. In his early years, he had been a papercolt, just like the one at the corner of the road. From there onwards, he had gone through several others, never too far from a certain form of writing: bookseller, assistant librarian, and finally the personal typist of a renown journalist.

Silver feebly turned his head around, and looked at his cutie mark: a white quill, and an open blank book. He liked books; they had often brought him solace, throughout his life. Either reading them, or trying to write them, books seemed to be his raison d'être.

So there he was. Sitting at the edge of that ten-floor building. His usually silver fur had given way to a dull gray, and the white sclera around his turquoise Iris was now red, from a great deal of insomnia and crying. The blond mane atop his head had lost its shine, and it had become unkempt, greasy.

Suddenly, the stallion got up, and went back inside.

He wouldn't do it tonight.

Silver Spirit went down one floor, and went down the hall to his apartment, at the very end of the corridor. The least expensive one. And, of course, the smallest. He pushed the door open with his right hoof, and entered. On the coat hook, next to the door, rested his work attire: a generic fedora and an even more generic suit.

The apartment consisted of three rooms: a bedroom, through the door nearest to the entrance; a living room stood behind the second door; and of course, a toilet, at the end of the corridor.

Silver Spirit didn't feel like doing anything. He never did. he just went to his room, lay down on the bed, and looked up at the ceiling, listening to the ticking of his bedside alarm clock.

He didn't know how long he stayed there. It could have been minutes. Maybe hours.

Suddenly deciding that he'd better do something, he got up, went into the hall, and made his way to the living room. A stove stood against the left-hand wall, while, four feet away, a desk with a typewriter on it was placed perpendicularly to the window.

The sun was down, so Silver turned the light on. He went over to his desk, sat down on the cushion, and started typing on a blank sheet of paper, which had been sitting there for a long time. He typed a single line on it.

"Nopony like me..."

And then he stopped. He considered the three words for a moment, shook his head, ripped the paper from the machine, and tossed it into the waste paper basket. And after just a few minutes, the basket was already full to the brim. He poured himself a glass of cheap cider, and drank it down in one gulp.

When the waste basket was finally submerged by a mass of paper about twice its size, and all of Silver's Bit-Store cider bottles were empty, the pony decided to go to bed. He drunkenly made his way to his room, and slumped down onto his bed, where he lay on his side, and tried to fall asleep.

Silver Spirit couldn't remember the last time he'd actually had a good night's sleep. And that night was no exception.
He looked at his alarm clock. It was already two o'clock. He gave out a huge sigh, and reminisced about his past.

Silver remembered the day he'd gotten his cutie mark.
It had been shortly after his sixth birthday (for which he'd received his cherished typewriter), when he'd announced his desire to his parents.

"I wanna be a writer," he'd said to mister and missus Spirit.

And just like that, with a flash of white light, the quill and the blank book had appeared on his flank. His parents had never really forgiven him. Silver had never apologized either. Wasn't everypony supposed to be the master of their own destiny, after all?

Wasn't he?

Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn't. It didn't matter to him, anymore. He knew how he would end. He knew where. The only thing left to know was when.

Serene Quill's office, the following morning.

"Silver," Serene Quill said, as she cantered into the room, waking Silver up from his trance. A stack of paper was levitating in front of her, with a bright blue aura around it, just like the one that shrouded her horn.

"Yes?" Silver retorted, unemotionally.

"I've got work for you." The Journalist dumped the paper onto her typist's desk, next to his hat.

"Okay," Silver answered, picking up a blank sheet and executing the usual rigmarole of inserting it between the roller and the paper table; turning the roller knob anti-clockwise, and finally setting the carriage, before being able to type. As he reached out his hoof to get the first manuscript of the pile, Serene interrupted him.

"Silver?" she asked.

"Is there a problem?" the stallion answered, looking up.

"Dexter Hoof called in sick, a few minutes ago. Would it be too much to ask you to work overtime?"

"Whatever." Silver simply got the hand-written manuscript, and placed it in front of him.

The stallion started typing away, regularly re-setting the typewriter's carriage every time he heard the 'ding'.

"I knew I could count on you, Silver," the mare said, smiling at him before leaving the room. Out of the corner of his eye, Silver caught a glimpse of Serene's pale pink rump, before she left the office entirely.

He simply typed away, trying not to fall asleep on his typewriter.

After about three minutes, he had finished typing the first page. After ten, he'd finished the first article. Sixty minutes later, he'd typed five of them, and so on... Every page seemed to take longer and longer to type. And with every page, every letter, even, his hooves became number and number.

The sun was finally down when the final messily-written page had been typed.

Tired, lonely, hooves hurting worse than ever, Silver Spirit got up from behind his desk, put his hat on, turned off his desk lamp, and left the office, locking the door and placing the key in his saddlebag.

Silver walked out into the street, and felt the cool night breeze caress his face, liberating him from the stuffy and lukewarm air of the building. He walked home, stopping by at a liquor store to pick up half a dozen bottles of mature cider, which together cost about as much as an entire day of work.

Once home, he turned the light on in the living room, and sat down at his desk, just like he had done, the night before. He looked at the pile of paper that covered the bin, and decided he'd better not try, tonight. Instead, he decided to look at his old works, which were all neatly placed in a cardboard box, next to his desk.

There was the collection of crime novellas he longed to publish: "Manehattan Noir". Seeing the blue cover brought a smile to his lips. But all of the editors he'd reached out to had refused it. So much so that Silver felt there was something fundamentally wrong with it himself.

His smile slowly transformed into the sunken-eyed, soulless face he usually made.
He threw the heavy five hundred page novel against the wall, in frustration. Then, to calm his nerves, he uncorked a bottle of cider, and took a huge swig. Deciding it would be best not to turn up at work hungover like he had done that morning, he went to bed in a huff, angry at the world and at himself.

Comments

[Antiquarian]

Will there be a follow-up chapter to this?

[Silver-Spirits-and-Ales]

8644028
There will be a second chapter, possibly a third. I don't know whether you're interested in this story or not, but could you please give me some feedback?

[Antiquarian]

8654766
I'd be happy to. I'll compose my thoughts and post something a little more in depth later this evening. Short version is that it's a good starting premise that I relate to.

[Antiquarian]

8654766
Brace yourself for a long post. I'm one of those people that, when folks ask me for feedback, can't do it half-way. Know that I wouldn't put in the effort if I didn't think it was a good investment of my time and take the length as a compliment.

Alright. First, the premise. I added this story to my 'to read' file because the premise struck a chord. I was suicidal when I was younger, and have struggled with depression on and off since. Also, I know the pain of trying to get published and hitting wall after wall. Even non-writers can sympathize, though, as many people are denied chances at things they really want to do. One thing about depression (and suicide) that I've learned is that it's rather like a war. The home army is the True Self, which intuitively knows that it is worthwhile; the invading force is Depression, which is similar to a cancer in that it creates more of itself from doubt, despondency, and unpleasantness in order to grow. It infects the True Self/the person and tries to convince them that they aren't worthwhile. Taking the medical analogy farther, consider when a person attempts to find joy in life, to do something/anything even when they're just going through the motions and don't really care, or simply deciding to go on with the day when they can't seem to articulate why; these are manifestations of self-respect, and are like the body's immune system fighting the disease/cancer. The person's lack of energy, general listlessness, and apathy are all signals that the immune system is breaking down to the point that it can't fight without outside help. Much like how the body needs medicine to fight illness, the True Self needs help to face depression. This can take many forms, but often comes from other people. As far as how this plays into the story, the Mane 6 are actually the ideal kinds of people you want to have providing that help. They each have ways, individual and collective, of helping the True Self remember its own inherent value, training it to purge the body of the illness. For example, Rarity will make an outfit for anyone, regardless of their appearance or social class, all while giving them the same attention she'd give a princess. Seems like a small thing on the surface, but that polite service she provides is an unspoken way of communicating a sense of value and self-worth. It intrigued me that you intuited that the Mane 6 would be good fits for this, which is the other reason I wanted to read this.

As far as the chapter itself, it flows well as a setup. From my own experiences, I know that depression has the tendency to rob me of the energy to do even the things that I love (like writing). Of course, this is self-defeating, since often working on something we love helps combat the depression. Silver is stuck in a state that I know all too well: he loves his work (as evidenced by his looking back at it with a smile), but his depression keeps him from doing anything new with it or taking a risk on putting it back out. He's not editing or trying to find an editor; he's drinking and doing things he doesn't care about, knowing full well that he hates doing them, because it feels easier than pouring his passion into something that he has come to associate with failure. There are hopeful signs throughout the chapter, of course. Obviously, the fact that he doesn't kill himself indicates that the True Self is still fighting, even if he's not aware of it. One one hand, his apathy about working long hours is a warning sign; on the other hand, he hasn't quit his job. Doing something productive, even in the most basic sense, helps fight feelings of worthlessness (in the military, they have you make your bed every morning so that you start the day with discipline and accomplishment - I thought it was ridiculous until I started doing it, and it really did help my mental state). While I doubt he recognizes the good sign that he's still working, the fact that he's doing it is still encouraging. Specifically the fact that he didn't want to show up to work hungover is a nice touch. He might think little of himself, but the fact that he cares about professionalism at some level, even when he's thinking about suicide, speaks volumes to an underlying strength that he doesn't recognize. (I have a friend who is convinced that he's an a-hole, which makes me sad because he's the kind of guy who has, quite literally, given homeless guys the shirt off his back in the dead of winter; yet he only sees his bad side). The long and short of this is that you've successfully portrayed a very accurate image of what depression and suicidal thoughts are like, but the fact that there are specific glimmers of hope sprinkled throughout give you a foundation to more readily build on for the story. And, yes, so long as their is life there is always hope to defeat depression, but having specific foundations to build on for storytelling assist in communicating it to the audience without spending too many chapters on exposition.

Thematically, there were a couple moments that stood out to me. His characterization of the 'mask' of the city's inhabitants is a classic depiction and one that I've heard more than once from cynical individuals; to be clear, I do mean 'classic' and not 'cliche.' If it ain't broke, don't fix it, and this mental image is an effective and evocative one. It gives a concise picture of Silver's mental state without spending too much time on the setup. As I said before, I find it significant that he cares enough to not be hungover. I also like that his boss doesn't appear to be a prick. That would have felt like too much. And, of course, people can often be depressed even when surrounded by people who treat them well, so I like that you didn't take the easy route of having his boss be unlikable. That would have been cliche.

Couple edits that I noticed: "Serene Quill's officer, the following morning" I assume you mean "Serene Quill's office, the following morning," and that should probably have a ":" at the end. At the bottom of the chapter he noted that 'most' of the editor's rejected him, but that ought to be 'all.'

Bottom line, I think this story has a lot of potential. I think that stories like this are incredibly important, as suicide is a very real danger and it's so easy for the True Self to become overwhelmed by depression. However, if not handled well, such stories can do more harm than good. Thankfully, you have avoided the pitfalls that I usually see stories like this fall into. Silver is depressed for understandable reasons; his world's not so utterly horrific as to be unrelatable; things are bad, but there are little signs of hope sprinkled throughout. I look forward to seeing what else you do with it. Let me know if you want to pick my brain about future chapters/pre-reading. I like helping other writers out.

[Silver-Spirits-and-Ales]

8656007
Sorry if this reply is a little late, I've been busy these last couple of days.
I am very happy that you liked the first chapter and I'm glad that someone can relate to it. Also, I'm flattered that you took the time and effort to do a thorough analysis of it, and I was pretty proud of myself when you said it was a 'good investment' of your time and effort.
About these edits, I noticed them just after I published the chapter, but I was a bit too busy (or lazy) at the time to do anything about them.

All in all, your feedback is very much appreciated and you've really motivated me to continue this story.

In the words of Elvis (aka Gladmane), "Thank you, thank you very much."

[Antiquarian]

8658951
My pleasure