Pinkie's used to bad days. She's had an awful lot of them since moving to Ponyville six months ago. She's struggled with being her normal, happy self ever since.
But her life becomes a special kind of hell when Pinkamena drops by for a visit. Which, of course, she's been doing increasingly often of late.
And today, if the feeling in Pinkie's gut is any indication, Pinkamena's already on her way.
A story about mental health and depression.
* * *
Featured on 10/15/2020! Woo!
Rated Teen for heavy subject matter, as well as some mild profanity.
CW: depression, loneliness, vague allusions to suicide. I purposely tried to shy away from anything too heavy.
Special thanks to Krack-Fic Kai for reading an early draft! Your feedback helped a lot 
Written as an entry for FoME's A Most Delightful Ponidox contest. The premise is a slight subversion of the prompt, but FoME has approved it 
Cover constructed of vectors by Hokutto and... I'm not sure, actually. Found Pinkamena unattributed on an image-sharing site, and I can't find her on Derpi. If you have more info, please let me know!
Buy me a Ko-Fi! ko-fi.com/brokenimage321
Half-rational. That makes me laugh.
Pretty interesting take on a depressed Pinkie. Pinkamena isn't even entirely hostile, actually pointing out how things aren't entirely Pinkie's fault and trying to fuel her rage towards others. Ultimately, though, she does more harm than good. And we get an explanation for why Pinkie was so intent on Twilight before they met (though Feeling Pinkie Keen is still a terrible episode).
Thank you for the story
Well, I expected some mention of magic, given that it's in a magical world, but no.
Interesting.
And bringing in Twilight like that. Celestia tipped Rose off??
And she did meet with Dr. Rose! Woo!
...
Typo:
Perhaps ly > Perhaps lie
10483080
Thanks for the typo patrol! got it fixed :)
Re: Twilight--in my head, Celestia let Mayor Mare know she was coming, who passed the information along to Rose. Dr. Rose probably wasn't the only one to know about it--someone needed to clean out the apartment in the library, among other things--but Rose knew who would be best to offer her an official welcome to town.
He said, while trying to alter and shape her mind how he pleased.
This is a marvelously creative interpretation of the prompt and a devastating portrayal of depression. Lead upon the soul indeed. To say nothing of a rock farm girl dropped into the deep end of a larger community; no wonder she almost drowned.
An excellent portrayal of a deeper Pinkie. It's all too easy for these sorts of story to sink into maudlin melodrama, but this strikes a fantastic balance between Pinkie as we know her and Pinkamena at her darkest. Well done. Best of luck in the judging.
(And seriously, what genius let Sour Sweet be a therapist's receptionist?)
This story....bugs me.... Maybe it's cuz I don't feel like Pinkie. I feel like Pinkamena. I am broken inside. Cracked to the core of my cabeza, and someday, it'll all fall apart, like a sad house of cards.
Until then, Im not holding out hope of any real friends to help me out of it, and no therapist I've been too ever really helped me, so I only hope that, one day, no one will be able to stop me.
Good writing quality tho, even if it didn't make me feel any better.
I just realized that I hadn't actually said how good this was. Great job buddy!
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Thanks! Did I get all your concerns addressed adequately?
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Oh totally, especially the beginning! I really liked it.
I see some proper dashes, but those double- and triple-hyphen dashes haven't escaped my notice.
Well, that's a neat way to take the prompt—I mean the manner of existence of Pinkie's other-self, subject matter aside for a moment. Tackling depression is definitely a "Your experience will vary." kind of thing. For all that I've been down that dark alley myself—not much, maybe gone so far as to peek behind the dumpster once or twice—I think you've handled it well here, even with mapping it to Pinkie Pie (though, yeah, arguably Pinkamena's canon existence already opened that door). That said, my main issue is closely related; there's something about the Pinkies' voices that don't seem like Pinkie Pie to me, even at and as her worst. It's not even what they say, just how they say it.
In short, I like it, it works well, but something (relatively minor) seems off, and I don't think it's solely a result of the topic at
handhoof.10489923
Dash issues fixed, sorry for stressing you out
I will admit, I didn't try super-hard to match Pinkie's in-show "voice" in this one, largely as a result of the subject matter. I didn't think Pinkie's normal "lol-randumb" personality would fit with this sort of story, and I didn't want to distract from the main point.
In-universe explanation: she's still a young mare getting settled in a new town. She's under a great deal of stress from a number of different directions, and thus doesn't feel comfortable letting her true self show just yet. That's a good excuse as any, right?
Another potential conflict: initially, this story was set in or around Season 7, with Pinkie being more of an adult (FYI: in the original draft, Pinkie had Pinkamena mostly under control, but her stress had been building over time to the point where she couldn't keep her inside anymore). Most of Adult Pinkie was edited out when I made her younger, but still--there may be some Adult Pinkie dialogue clashing with Teenage Pinkie's personality.
I must admit, I'm not entirely sure how to parse this. Are you referring to Pinkie's deflated, "depressed" state in, for example, "Party of One?"
Either way--I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'll try to pay more attention to character voices, etc., in the future.
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Yes, that's what I meant with "Pinkamena". Definitely a goof on my part to have said it that way.
Great story, I like it so much. Like my therapist from https://trustsession.com/ says, mental health issues need to be discussed in our society and this is a great way. Thanks for this. The more we talk about depression, the more we deal with it.
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Thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
And that looks like a pretty good link, too! Nice find!
Dr. Rose is right about how Pinkamena (and may I say how much I love the names you gave her - Amygdala Hysteria! - that's brilliant!) and depression in general lies to you, and is very good at fooling you.
An excellent story, and an important, valuable one!
This is an amazing line, especially for Pinkie to say.
Her way with insults is terrifying. c.c
I feel like this is a potential aspect of Pinkie's backstory that has never really been explored or even suggested before. :O
Very nicely done. :)
Here's the thing though. Party of One is the only time we ever saw Pinkie anything like the basterdisation of her birth name has become.
Pinkamena is, first and foremost, Pinkie's actual birth name. It was never anything but that. How it got to this level of... Thing, I'll never understand.
Great story. Just had to say that.
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There's a couple other hints that things aren't entirely okay in Pinkieland--for one, the scene in "Smile, Smile, Smile" that provides the title of this story. I've always read her dark little aside as an admission that she has had some of those dark, lonely days that she sings about. This story is an attempt to play off of that idea.