It's quiet isn't it. There's no birds chirping outside nor snores echoing throughout the house. It's just....peaceful. I'm glad I was able to be up at this hour, scrolling through websites on the internet. I wonder whose fault that is?
"It was mine. Most definitely mine."
*sigh* Yeah...I guess so. I mean, you're the one that usually does. Why couldn't you have just stayed asleep?
"It's been over a year, I think that I've slept enough. Now it's time to ruin your evening. It'll let me at least feel like I've done something worthwhile. How's your account holding up? Still want to fulfill your dreams of being exceptional?"
....No not really. I don't think I ever can. I should've acted sooner you know, back when I had the spark, the drive. Now, it's just a little too late, and whenever I start something, someone else usually pulls me away from it.
"Someone? Not somepony? Weird. Didn't think there was another one in here. It's already crammed full to begin with."
There's...not. At least I don't think. It's just...sometimes I'll be here...trying to do something and something like you just comes in and tells me about something else happening right now, or how what I'm doing is worthless and pointless and it's not going to stand against the test of time. At least with you, it's just a feeling of worthlessness and deprivation. With her, I just feel...less than that, and dream up the situations rather than stay up and dwell on them.
"Sounds like this is a horrible one, huh? What'd the doctors call her?"
Usually they say something like Depression, or just Apathy, but I already had those guys around. I was able to push them out for at least most of the year. I think that she's worse than that.
"Really? I mean...I may just be Apnea, but...that doesn't seem like a good situation to be in. Why do you let her push you around?"
I don't know. Sometimes I feel like if I lay down long enough she'll stop berating me after awhile, or if I lash out, she might get physical.
"Well....at least you have your friends around, right? They could probably help push her down like the rest of us."
They...they don't really seem to get what I'm going through nowadays. Even Spirit just thinks I'm faking it now, and he's been with me through it all. My other friends are just too far away to even contact right now, so I don't even know if I can get their help.
"Dang....sorry about that. Well...what about OCD? Did she at least get rid of him? I mean, I liked the stallion, but sometimes he just got on my nerves, you know?"
I think she did. I think that she got rid of the mostly positive ones. And now, apparently, she's strengthening the bad ones.
"...I guess that includes me, huh."
Yeah...I guess since you're finally awake, you too. Why? You disappointed or something?
"Kind of. I didn't really think of myself as negative, per se. Just an aspect of your being. Like how somponies say that you're a night owl, or somepony is just a morning pony. I thought I was that. Something kind of disruptive, but okay once you got to know them."
Well, you're not. You're just making me stay up all night, talking more with Depression, now that he's awake, and scrolling though this abysmal thing I used to call a fanfiction site.
"Wait....I thought you liked it. Why do you hate it now? Did it change or something?"
I guess it did. I mean, I was here since the very beginning, and I knew that it might change a lot, even into something better, but...I didn't assume that it would be like this.
"What's the problem?"
Ponies are abandoning their passions. I mean, I know that most of us have lives, and that there are just some stories that I just don't like ,but...I really hoped it would last longer...you know?
"Well, when do you think it started changing for the worst?
I think it was when Derp_115 quit writing his pet project, really quit writing altogether. I think you were there for him. He was one of the few authors on this site that actually had a great passion for his work, as well as, a cutie mark to go with it. I mean, I could pull it up right now, his magnum opus, but...seeing that hiatus...it just sends tears down my face.
"And...him quitting was the start of it all?"
Yes! I think it was, at least in part. He was one of the earlier big hit staple authors, you know. He just came off the train from all the previous big hit writers that quit, but at least they had finished their stories, with a believable, sometimes heartfelt and deserved, endings. I think he was the first to just...up and go off the face of the planet.
"How did you feel when it happened?"
Usually, at least back then, a story would go on hiatus and, after a couple of months, the author would return, fanfare would be put out, and the begging would begin again in earnest as good a stories as his were hard to come by, so I just held back, put out a couple of comments about it, and went on my way. Then I got invested in other stories, other authors, until one day I got something in my feed about him. He had graduated from college. I knew then that this was bad. Oh not him graduating college, but him just talking about his life in general, because Paranoia came in and introduced himself to me posthaste. I think I pestered him too much. Begged for more replies than I should've. I might've been the cause of his downfall, I don't know. Maybe it was all the other ponies begging him for more chapter. more chapters. MORE BUCKING CHAPTERS!!
"Woah. Calm down. I think it's just Angst coming in. Let it ride out. You'll be back to normal in a minute."
....
"If you're feeling better, we can continue."
.....After that, it was all fun and games, for a bit, but...another author just up and left from the scene, leaving his account to somepony named Engineer, whose story I was already peculiarly familiar with, as his writing style gives mine much to be offered, and I thought I could learn from him better tha I do from the greats, as I do not even know where they pull that talent from, other than their souls. Thankfully his story is still going on, so small blessings I guess. I didn't know the author as much as the others onsite, but he was still a big ticket item. Ehhh, Rusty_Wrench16 I think. He wrote a good couple of stories, and really hit it big with one series, even starting a cult following that wanted to cash in on that type of story, and created one of the first 'shared' multiverse between authors. Sure, there'd been groups here and there discussing the more intimate genres, but this was generated all due to a writing style of a single author. I found out about him too soon, too. I read some of his stories, and they were masterful works of storytelling, which also brought me to the next author, Griffith Hues. He..was also part of the same shared 'universe' as they were friends with the previous author at the time of making this, and I think I saw why this idea appealed to many of the ponies onsite. In the real world, the film industry has just been introducing fans to a series of BF comic characters, and putting them all together in a cohesive whole. This might've inspired him, which inspired other authors to do much the same.
"Well...I don't really see the problem here. From what you're saying, isn't it just the site reneigssance?"
Yes, it is. But you got to understand something here. We hadn't even had a Discorded Age before this. We kept thinking it was all going to go up, and up, and up until we hit a peak of in perpetuity, and all the authors on the site would make amazing content, as the earlier stuff, just served to make their writing skills better and better. But it was beginning to crash down, beginning with the ones who started the trend in the first place. Then, others tried to copy the style. Ones that introduced their own take on things. They too are in the process of falling down. Those Transplaced.
"You seem to think, that just because a couple of stories that everypony universally liked have been dropped, kicked, or just given up on, the site is just going to be bull forever?"
...I certainly feel like it. All of the favorite stories that I grew up with are just gone now. All the ones that I liked have been abandoned forever, and even if something good comes along, it might just get cancelled, so what's the point anymore?
"Depression and Angst are teaming up on you now, huh? Well...good thing I'm here then. What about the stories that didn't die? Were they just having shitty enough endings to discredit them?"
No!...no of course not. There's been many great things that have happened since you've been gone. Some have changed me in a way that I feel can't really be explained all too well. Plus, I can always read them again, since they've been finished and saved in my document folders.
"So....let me see if I have this straight. You're afraid that the stories you're currently reading are just going to disappear on you without warning. You're scared that it might be like that forever, and that any story that does come out, except those one-offs who, let's be honest here, often have little to no...hold on the reader throughout it, are just going to end up as plain old shit, am I right?"
.....I guess.
"Well then, STOP ACTING LIKE A DAMNED FOAL! If there's been stories out there that haven't decayed under the test of time since all of this, thing you insist is happening began, than why, oh why, dear Arid, is it still here? Why haven't the administrators just up and left this project of theirs that they invested so much time in, huh. Why? I'll tell you why....we're still in a kind of reneigssance, just not one that's overly obvious."
....Thanks Apnea. I think that I've had Paranoia's hold on me ever since she came into the picture.
"You know we just can't keep calling her, her and she right. She needs a name, or all the other diseases are going to get confused."
I've been thinking about it for awhile now....How about Corruption? At least till the doctors name it.
"Ehh good enough....You know, you never told me how that whole author thing was going?"
...Yeah.
".....So...how's it going?"
Well, after you left, I think I got a lot of work done, you know. Had a lot of likes, even better than that horrid story I tried to write a while back, which got more dislikes than likes. I think I understand now why that is, since the writing's just horrible and the subject matter wasn't nearly dealt with in a tasteful fashion.
"You know you were just 14, right? No one could fault you for writing clop."
Yeah...that's not how I really feel...Anyway, I also finally was able to write down all of my thoughts into actual story's and plots. I even ended up having one that got 12 chapters with ponies following me. It was great.
"From how you're talking about it, you seem to think something went wrong."
Yeah...after awhile the buzz finally stopped working. I wasn't getting any ideas, and I had absolutely no direction for any of my stories. All I had was a faded sense of what I should put down. That's when I became what I feared most. I, a somewhat decent, at the time, author, cancelled a story.
"Oh heavens forbid. You think that any other author doesn't have rough patches?"
Do you know any authors that have rough patches for a year at a time?
"You know that question is moot since I only know what you know."
Exactly. So why are you even asking-
"Just continue."
Well, alright...In between then, and now, I also tried writing a....piece that was meant to compliment a book I read that inspired me greatly, and I wanted to commemorate that. I tried to keep the book's tone and atmosphere the same in the first few chapters of the story, and even added a few more on to the end of it, but I think I just got bored of writing, the one thing that I actually want to do as a hobby. I mean, I had it all planned out, the number of chapters, what kind of style I would write for each of them, but I just....gave up on it.
"I think that's why our cutie mark is flight related,and not writing-related."
Yeah, but I at least wanted to try. I wanted to do something with this foalhood dream of mine, instead of forget about it and just do what I'm good at like all the other ponies in the world.
"And nopony can fault you for that."
......I'm sorry for just unloading all of this on you. I know that's--
"That's exactly what I'm here for, Arid. I'm here to get all of your thoughts out in the open and rationalize them. I'm here to give you a somewhat outside point of perspective. I'm also here to antagonize you whenever you're just trying to get a restfull sleep. I'm here for all of these tasks, and more. But most of all, I'm here for you."
....Thanks.
"Your welcome."
......So....now what? We've read all the updates.
"Why don't we check ponstub? Might be some good videos around before we hit the hay."
Really? You've kept me up all night with those, why should I trust you after that?
"Look. I'm as tired as you are sometimes, and I feel like I've done my job enough. I just want to see something fun before I go back under, whether from the medication, or just from my tiredness."
Alright if you say so...........Heh, this looks fun.
"Really? A new vine compilation? That's not fun. That's downright hilarious!"
Alright. But we only are going to watch this one, alright. It should help us get out of that bummer mood from before. Deal?
"Tartarus Yeah! I need to watch some mindless inanity for once instead of focues on dealing with Depression over there."
Author's Note
This is just something that I wanted to get off of my chest, and out of my head. Take that for what you will.
(Made when I was exhausted of life's hassles. I'm putting up with them now, and I think I'm better than I was.)