Confessions of a Madmare: Volume 1

My name is Synapse Fraud. If you are reading this foreword, then I have met my demise. While this is an unfortunate turn of events, it was not unanticipated—as per my instructions, the following records were to be unsealed in exactly such an event, and compiled in a format to be released to the public, as well as other key individuals whom I shall refrain from mentioning at this time.

While this… 'story'… follows the exploits of another pony, I would like to tell you about myself, and how these records came to be, for there will be no further opportunities to do so. Ever since I was a colt, I have had a fascination with the pony mind… a ceaseless drive to find out just what makes us tick. This drive led me to a predictable conclusion… I became a psychologist.

No… I suppose that's not the whole story. There was, of course, no small degree of influence by my parents. My mother was a businessmare who would constantly busy herself with the minutiae of micromanaging some influential prospects that would supposedly revolutionize life in New Ponyville. Shame, I probably should have paid more attention to what it was, exactly, she was doing… but a lifetime of disinterest has dulled me to the details of her escapades. It was fair, after all, that if she were to ignore the very child she gave birth to, then he would ignore the aspects of her life she actually cared about. She only decided to use her clout to get me where I am because she saw me as an asset. I suppose why she did it is unimportant… I got what I wanted out of her, and as per the norm of my life, we barely ever spoke again.

My father was a renowned surgeon that had practiced in Canterlot before its economy collapsed and ushered in their submission to the Empress. It didn't take him long to find a new job in New Ponyville, and barely any time at all before he was on the Board of Medicine. He wanted me to be a surgeon. Like father, like son, as the saying goes. I suppose that he thought that informing me that my skills were lackluster and that I would never have a hope of becoming a surgeon if my hooves kept shaking like a leaf as I dissected whatever animal he would bring me was some form of encouragement. As I reflect on it, I know full-grown adults that would wither under that tutelage.

As it was, I became… rebellious. Why sully these hooves dissecting and reassembling the body when I could do so much more for the mind! His ridiculous claims that surgery was the ultimate path to healing when I heard stories of mothers and fathers beating their foals, the news of murderers on the prowl, brutal crimes against equinity that would send shivers down the spine. There was much for me to do, and much more I could teach the world. I don't think my father ever forgave me for pursuing psychology. Then again, who can argue with a cutie mark that appears when you make your own mother realize her inadequacies as a parent with a few clever words?

When I finally began my studies proper, my progress did not go unnoticed. Prior to receiving my degrees and license to practice, I received endless praise from ponies who believed themselves to be my superiors. Countless scholarships, and endless offers to join private practices in New Ponyville. A few ponies opposed my right to practice. Many of the theses I submitted were cited as being 'brilliant, but disturbing.' Fools.

I earned my doctorate and my license almost effortlessly… and true to my promise, I became one of the single greatest contributors to modern psychology in pony history. I shouldn't have been surprised that my success would draw in hordes of detractors, led by my former instructors. Apparently they found my methods disagreeable. I told them their methods were inefficient and would take countless eons to produce results. For pony's sake, how dare they call me barbaric when they were still drilling holes in ponies heads’ before my research became prevalent?!?

Regardless, after some… timely intervention and greasing of a few hooves, instead of rotting in a cell, I only had years of my career thrown out the window and became discredited despite techniques I’d developed seeing common usage in institutions and practices around Equestria. Cretins.

Alas, this sent me into a self-destructive spiral for some unknowable span of time. Entire years of my life living off my accumulated fortune, washing it away with all manner of decadence and debauchery. There are still consequences that linger to this day… insufferable chemical dependencies plague me, and try as I might to purge them, I never seem to muster the willpower required to fully recover. Unfortunate.

It was a pointless period of my life, one I am thankful to have mostly forgotten. It took a clever pony by the name of Double Deal to drag me out of the hellish pit of self-loathing I had created for myself. She introduced me to a surprisingly robust network of underground practitioners that preferred to be unfettered by so-called standards of practice and had a psychiatrist-sized hole in their ranks. While the distinction between psychologist and psychiatrist appeared to have been lost on this pony, but I was desperate, and she had assured me that there would be plenty of customers that would prefer to keep their business away from prying eyes. Despite my skepticism, I took the job.

It was this decision that led me to what was a fatal error… having my services enlisted by one ‘Wispy Winds’. When she introduced herself, there were dozens of reasons to tell her no… but as it turns out, Double Deal had greatly exaggerated a back-alley psychiatrist's prospects for clientele, which upon further consideration, seemed painfully obvious. Wispy had a veritable stream of wealth that would have turned my head even before my own had wasted away, and despite warning signs, I agreed.

When she first came to me, she opted to inform me that there was already nothing I could do for her. When I asked why, then, she would seek my aid, she claimed to my masked frustration that it was because I was, and I quote, ‘the quackiest quack in the pond.’ She had a fondness for insanities, as I would come to learn… it was this fondness that had led her to me. As… insulting as such a thing was, I could not deny that after she shared only a short portion of her story, my intellectual curiosity got the better of me.

So, I obliged. I obliged, and learned of a whimsical tale of a band of… ‘heroes’… in a doomed world that would ultimately fall apart and fail. Of horrors that would shake a pony to their core, faced as if they were common occurrences with mere steel and horn. Of catastrophic weather and disastrous shifts of the earth itself to lay waste to the unwary pony.

I asked her why she would tell me such an absurd, fictional tale, as I could not help her if she were to spin fabrications. She responded by threatening me with an armament that I had never seen on her person before. As I stared down the stock of a crossbow, she dangerously intoned, ‘I don’t really like it when somepony decides to call me delusional when they don’t have a leg to stand on in that department, Fraud.’

Fraud… she kept calling me that. While it may be my name, I’ve always been adamant that ponies refer to me as Dr. Synapse. She made a point to never respect that. She told me that it was such a delightful thing that any nickname she could come up would never be as insulting as the name I was given. After the crossbow incident, however, I dared not press the point.

I have matched wits against murderers, soldiers, cultists, and worse without so much as flinching. Wispy Winds? She would go on to explain that she was all of these, and more… and she terrified me.

Apparently, doctor–patient confidentiality is important to her. So important, in fact, that she letting the guard know about my illegal practice was only a start. I would have scoffed at such a claim, were it not for the fact that she cut me off from my dealers for a week. Long enough to make me writhe from withdrawal, but not long enough for me to kick the habit. Smart.

I would be concerned that this violation of her privacy would provoke retaliation, but alas, I am already dead. What would she strike at? My reputation? The world beat you to it, dear Wispy. The last laugh will be mine.

So here, now, are all of my files and records pertaining to my patient, Wispy Winds, presumably edited to a digestible format for a more common pony than myself. Wispy, I hope that the innumerous incriminating files will bring the guard down upon you too fast for you to run away and your rotten soul is damned to Tartarus where you belong.

If you dare to read further, you will find the biography of an individual whose crazed recounting of a dead world and of a streak of crimes against equinity in our own dear city of New Ponyville will chill you to the bone. I present to you, dear reader, the confessions of a madmare.