Talk:Empathy/@comment-24101790-20180917155312

I just sat down and gave this a read after your comment on my story (Influencer) mentioned this and I really enjoyed the premise. It makes an interesting foil to mine by focusing on someone who's forced to experience the suffering around them whereas my character suffers the opposite fate. It ends with an effective catch-22 as they can't necessarily abandon their mother in her time of need, but they know what it's going to do to them by sticking with them. I almost feel like this could delve into feel-pasta territory if the story continued and showed the effects her cancer has on the protagonist, but I do your ending is an effective conclusion.

This reminded me a little of a story by Harlan Ellison called "Try a Dull Knife" in all the good ways. To briefly sum it up, that story focuses on a man who is hounded by his 'friends' because he's an empath and is their only way to experience certain emotions to the point that they become emotional vampires.

All in all, I enjoyed this one was will definitely try to check out some of your other stories when I get some down time (unfortunately, probably in three months when I wrap up this Vet. semester).