Commentary

Whew! I’m back after a hiatus long enough that an admin had to message me and tell me to get back here! Sorry about that.

Anyway, I decided to pick up this story, despite the gore tag. That worried me a bit; I don’t have a strong stomach. However, I was reassured that it’s not overly graphic, so that’s good.

Reading the description, I was hooked. For the past some number of years, I’ve imagined the multiverse exactly as described: an interconnected web of individual universes, constantly moving, folding and unfolding, stretching out past infinity. The only difference between what I imagine and how the story is written is “The Entity”.

Think of the multiverse as a beautifully shaped tree, with main branches being “U1”s, and each subsequent branch being “U2”s, “U3”s, and so on. “The Entity” has designated itself the caretaker of this tree, making sure the branches touch as little as possible, since things can cross between branches when that happens. Apparently, that’s bad.

Now, the story begins in the void between universes, where “The Entity” notices that multiple universes have crossed paths, noting that the U1 at the center seems to be like a magnet for this kind of trouble. It then senses that multiple things have crossed over into this U1, and decides to do some damage control.

Cut to the main character, a human with a unique mental condition. He speculates on whether he is dead or not, only to have a pony poke him with a stick. Yep, he’s alive, and he’s in Twilight’s tree. End of chapter 1.

Chapter 2, we’re more properly introduced to the main character and his condition. I’m trying to not spoil anything here, but his condition caused a six-month-long hallucination once, and he believes that is is happening again. Therefore, he doesn’t think he’s actually in Equestria.

And... I’m going to stop there.

Review

...Wow, I was not expecting something so good to sit in the Submissions folder for so long.

The characters, at least the ones I’ve read about, have very interesting and diverse personalities. Windfall, the main character, is a paranoid wreck, constantly worried he’ll do something bad while hallucinating again. The other OCs have less fleshed out personalities at this point (chapter 7 is as far as I’ve read), but that’ll come in time. The ponies Windfall has interacted with are well thought out, though they are mainly background characters in the show. Windfall has purposely avoided the Bearers, other than Fluttershy, so it’s a little hard to tell at this point how accurate they are, but think about it: Pinkie + mentally unstable guy = TOTAL CRAZY. He has a reason to stay away from them. Characterization score: A.

Next up, the writing. I have not seen a single grammar mistake that I haven’t glossed over so far. Oh, I’m sure they’re there - every writer slips up from time to time - but any in this story are so insignificant that I can’t remember them. The descriptions flow nicely, the pace is great, and dialogue is spot on. The writer even uses “sapient” correctly, instead of “sentient”, which is one of my major pet peeves. Writing score: A+.

Finally, the length. No score to go with this, but I’ll throw it in here anyway. I took a look at the chapter lengths, and no main chapter goes below 2k words. This may sound daunting, especially with some passing 6k, but the chapters go by fast. It’s a fun read, and I only stopped because I was getting hungry. I really wanted to keep reading.

Tips

Nope, got nothin’. Keep going as you are.

Rating:
Must Read!

You, my friend, have earned a like and favorite.

Blaaargh, I started reading this one last night with the intention of reviewing it (but didn't Claim it cause I'm an idiot) and then I woke up to find that someone beat me to the punch.

Although I can't say I would've said anything different. This really is one of the more unique fanfics that I've seen, and that's coming from someone who doesn't even like the HiE genre that much.

4783848

Wow, I was not expecting something so good to sit in the Submissions folder for so long.

6-digit word counts tend to scare reviewers off, as do the "Human" and "Gore" tags. Anthro, Tragedy, and Dark tend to be passed up, too. The problem with Human is that it usually means a Human In Equestria story, and HiE has picked up a bad reputation of being badly-written wish-fulfillment. Gore, Dark, and Tragedy also have an unfortunate expectation that they'll lack the maturity necessary to be done well — that Gore is going to revel in meaningless blood spatter and juvenile efforts at gut-wrenching descriptions of mutilation, that Tragedy is going to beat the reader over the head with "LOOK HOW DEEP I AM", and that Dark will do both.

And with Anthro, of course, everyone expects it to be furry porn.

Anyway, I might have to check this one out. It goes on my RIL, at least.

I'm so happy you enjoyed the story! I honestly thought that it was going to be another run-of-the-mill story for you guys, but this makes me happy in ways that words alone cannot describe. Sorry about the daunting length...and sorry I'm only 1/4 of the way through.

4784003 I like long stories. One story I'm reading for fun has over 260 thousand words, and I can't stop reading it. Even if you pass 400k words, I'll still read it. As for it being run-of-the-mill, well, it definitely is not, at least for me. Maybe another reviewer might not have liked it as much, but you got lucky. As long as you maintain consistent quality, you're good.