• Member Since 19th Jun, 2012
  • offline last seen January 3rd

xjuggernaughtx


Only mostly dead.

E

The Apple family has always had close ties, so when Apple Bloom is sad that her friends are all occupied with other things, Big Mac comes to the rescue. Who says there's no fun to be had on the farm?

Cover art by Mandydax

Chapters (1)
Comments ( 62 )

A really nice view into a helpful family day on the farm. Especially when bigMac flipped the rake up like that, when teh standard modus operandi is that the rake is itself a ninja weapon, waiting hidden for its next victim to pass by.

Um, when getting the launcher, theres a double hidden?.. I apologise for not being able to remember where teh other minor error was I spotted, or any others.

Thank you. :pinkiehappy:

3560897 Thanks! I'll go fix it right now, and I'm happy you enjoyed the story!

Now this... This is a very good look at the relaxed portion of their day.

Loved it!

~Skeeter The Lurker

3560993 Thanks! I just really wanted a simple story telling why the Apples are so close. I think Big Mac would be a really good older brother, and I wanted to show that.

3561000

You certainly succeeded.

That's for sure!

~Skeeter The Lurker

Besides the grammar errors, this one was all too cute. Have a smug AJ!:ajsmug:

3561363 Oops! Do you remember any of them? I'd like to correct them if you do.

EDIT: Grrr! I am finding a ton. Man, why can't I ever weed them all out the first go around?! Thanks for the heads up!

Extremely adorable to the nth degree. It really is nice to see a [slice of life] fic that's on the innocent side of things, plus it made me laugh...so there's that.

3561377 Obviously you need an AWESOME :rainbowdetermined2: editor.

Hint hint hint :raritywink::scootangel::scootangel::scootangel::scootangel::scootangel:

That was damn sweet. A cute one shot for sure, and pretty well written to boot. Loved your rendition of mac

3561496 Thanks! I kinda went back and forth about whether this should have a comedy tag or not. Ultimately, I didn't think it was consistently funny enough to have it, but I did want it to be a fun read.

3562412 Well, I may call on you for such services. You just let me know if you see any more errors in this story. I went through and squashed a bunch yesterday, so hopefully it's in pretty good shape. I'm terrible about grammar, though.

3563171 Thank you! I really wanted a story that displayed why the Apples are a close family. I think Big Mac is a hard worker at everything he does, and being a brother is one of those things. He does a good job. :eeyup:

3563684 That just gave me a really funny idea for a story. Imagine a changeling who uses his or her magic to throw lots of little typos into the research papers of various professors at Canterlot University, then gets him or herself hired as a an editor, to fix those same mistakes he or she created. They then feed off of the gratitude ponies have for them and their editing abilities. :P

3563684

“But look!” she said point to the ground around them

Should be pointing.

“There’s traps all over the place!"

Technically this should be "There're" since "traps" is plural, but I can write this off as a character making the mistake, not the author. :raritywink:

“Big Mac!” his sister said, collapsing into another fit of giggles. “Ninjas don’t have alligators!”

does this mean she no longer is "carrying" him?

twisting their necks in unison, they slowly trade sides.

should be "traded"

You go that way,” Apple Bloom continued, point right

Should be "pointing"

Apple Bloom’s head snapped back as a squishy apple smacked into her forehead with a flabby splat.

Ewwwwwww! :rainbowwild::raritydespair:

she scooped of several half-moldy apples.

I that "of" should be "out". Why do the apples have rotten fruit sitting around? I thought they managed their farm better than that. :unsuresweetie:

Tossing one lightly into the air and catching it repeated with her hoof,

I'm not sure that "repeated" should be there?

Big Mac pulled the heavy barrel in front of him, using both as a shield and an ammunition source

Missing an "it" before "both".

half-buried in the cloying slurry.

cloy
kloi/Submit
verb
gerund or present participle: cloying
1.
disgust or sicken (someone) with an excess of sweetness, richness, or sentiment.
"a romantic, rather cloying story"
synonyms: sickly, syrupy, saccharine, oversweet; sickening, nauseating; mawkish, sentimental, twee; informalover the top, mushy, slushy, sloppy, gooey, cheesy, corny, cornball, sappy
"her romance novels are too cloying for my taste"
Origin

used in a sentence

after about three minutes of research I found that cloy can be used both literally and metaphorically, so you're all good.

“Yeah, how do you like it?!”

How do you like them apples? :raritywink:

pointing her hoof as a particularly messy pile

"as" should be "at"

he muscled his way through to a hidden wooden shed that

HEY HEY HEY STAY OUT OF MY SHED! :flutterrage:

rotting tarp

I get what you're going at, I'm not sure tarps can rot? after 5 minutes on Wikipedia, still not sure. "disintegrating" maybe? eh, it's fine how it is.

Beneath it, The Launcher sat, sturdy as the day they’d built it.

most of the other times you have "the" not capitalized.

“Did y’all shoot each other into the air with that thing?” she said, staring up at Applejack.

Shouldn't the "said" her be an "asked" or other similar question verb?

looking up at the sun. It was already hanging low in the late summer sky.

great example of subtle scene building.

“Ah mean, NO! she cried as Big Mac jumped from the ridge. “AAAAAAHHHHHHHH! Apple Bloom screamed

two times in a row you miss the end quotation marks.

She could feel the heat rise along his neck as he blushed.

is that actually possible to feel? I'm asking honestly, I don't know.

Big Mac’s shoulder blades and grabbing ahold of the tines on his yoke.

was he wearing it the whole time?

“Wow, Applejack’s amazing! Apple Bloom said,

missing end quotation marks.

“Hey, what’s this?” he said, plucking the filly

again, "said" vs. "asked"


Awwww, a very sweet story :)

3563956 Whoa, man. Thanks for all of that! Seriously, it's a big help.

Sigh, this experiment was certainly a failure. I was hoping I could trust myself at this point to just format properly, but obviously, I'm wrong. Lesson probably not learned, but at least reinforced…

Oh, and tarps can certainly rot. They were made out of canvas before they made plastic tarps. And yes, Big Mac never goes out without his yoke on.

3564086 just for fun, I'd be curious, if you chose one of my own short stories that sounded interesting to you, and went through it like I did to yours, see if you caught mistakes. Right now at least, my stories are 100% self edited.

3564117 I'll try to take a look at one later today.

3564086

Sigh, this experiment was certainly a failure. I was hoping I could trust myself at this point to just format properly, but obviously, I'm wrong. Lesson probably not learned, but at least reinforced…

If you aren't already, make sure you leave at least a several hour gap between proofreading passes (yup, there should be more than one). Helps make you more likely to read what you actually wrote, rather than what you think you wrote :scootangel:

3565022 I read this many times over the course of a few days, but I'm not a great reader. That's the problem. I tend to speed read naturally. It makes me finish books very quickly, but I only get about a quarter of what really goes on. I know the plot, but I often miss details. I have to re-read books several times before I get the whole thing.

My stories are the same, except that I already know what is going to happen, so the speed reading is worse. I should take the suggestion that I've heard many times and read them out loud. That would probably help. I think I may start doing that. Hopefully, this fic has been filtered by now and I can stop feeling embarrassed about it. Never again will I publish a non-Cheerilee chapter without outside editors.

3565113
Well, here's one more for you:

“Ah don’t see nothin’,” Apple Bloom answered, holding her hoof above her eyes as she scanned the barn. “but that don’t mean a lot.

Period after "barn", lowercase 'b' in "but". One of those has to go. :scootangel:

Also, unless I'm mistaken, the first letter of a sentence gets capitalized and an apostrophe doesn't change that. “’ou ’et off of ’im!” ==> “’Ou ’et off of ’im!” Looks strange at times, admittedly. Although, it mostly happens in old books for words like 'tis and 'twas. Oh, and 'cause. That one still gets used even today. That paragraph has an 'ake as well as a sentence starter.

3565370 Oops, yeah. That sentence should end in a comma.

I'll have to look into that capitalization thing. It makes a certain amount of sense, but I've never heard of that rule before. Of course, I've never LOOKED for that rule before, so there's that…

Thanks of the edits. I was just combing through it and I found two more in the last half of the story. I'm reading end to beginning this time.

3565483
It's one of those things where it doesn't come up often enough for there to be a rule, I think. I did some digging for one and failed to find anything anyway. But in most cases where it is used, and definitely in the cases where the contraction is somewhat more common, the letter after the apostrophe gets capitalized.

So, you can go either way, but convention seems to be for the capital letter. No matter which you choose to go with, it'll look a bit strange :scootangel: I guess the best thing to do is to ask yourself if you would write "'Twas the night before Christmas" or "'twas the night before Christmas". That way, you'll be internally consistent.

3565506 Your suggestion makes sense, so I changed it to reflect that. It's a nice thing to add to my growing list of grammar tools.

It's good, I approve.

I read a fic where Mac and Dash weren't in a relationship and I liked it? This story was goood :D

3566777>>3569244 Thanks, guys! I really appreciate when you guys read my stuff. It keeps me inspired! :pinkiehappy:

Finally I see a story doing the best stallion justice! Made my insides feel all warm and fuzzy as well, something that fics don't often do for me, so kudos to writing yet another winner :eeyup:

3571339 Thanks, man! I know it's not an epic tale of epicness, but I like it. I've always seen Big Mac as a quiet hero. Just putting his head down and doing what needs to be done, especially when what needs to be done is being there for his sister.

Dawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! :twilightsmile:

3571891 I'm glad you like it! See, I can do other things besides make Cheerilee miserable! :eeyup:

Mmm, mixed reaction here.

On the one hand, it's innocent, sweet, and there is quite a bit of heart in the planning. That alone would set it on the scale of good compared to the self-important dreck out there. Yet it failed to draw me in; it's very much Your Mileage May Vary for me, with mileage in this case being acceptance for extended imagination sequences. Kinda like the main theme of most Pipsqueak fics when it first started, and even then I wasn't a fan of it - simply because imagination sequences are always best when they are one's own. Secondhand games, ones that you can't even play along with, just aren't that fun.

To get all technical about it, I'd call it "interactional variety". A variety of interactions creates depth and gives characters the chance to be in more than just one state. For a good deal of the fic, it was "Apple Bloom plays with Big Mac and later with AJ", without much variety in the dynamic. That is what the fic is. It's not to say that the fic, inherently, has nothing interesting. It's just that the fic, inherently, has nothing interesting for me. inb4 "why are you reading this then" - I was expecting... more, I guess, in the way of dynamics.

So I guess it's nice if you enjoy sentiment and evident good will. But for me, the little bit of variety at the end just wasn't enough; aside from those, I couldn't find much else to peruse. You still get a like for clean grammar and good, simple prose, as well as good dialogue.

3602080 Thank you for reading this and taking the time to comment on it. A critical eye is always appreciated.

This story is was an experiment for me. I've never written anything like it before, so I wanted to see if I could get something innocent and sweet onto the page. I think it was a moderate success, but I do agree that it could be better at drawing the reader in. It's really just a meandering series of events, rather than a true story. Now that I feel that I've successfully evoked a lot of the emotion I was going for, I'll work on a better story the next time around.

Approved for the sibling story stockpile.

3615048 if you know of any other stories, feel free to put them in the incoming folder, I want to fill up the archives.

i will have to read the rest of this tomorrow i am a tired teddy :ajsleepy:

I only have one thing to say: D'AAWWWW! :scootangel:

3786976 I'm very pleased that you enjoyed it. It was a really different kind of story for me to write, so it's nice to know that people like it. :twilightsmile:

Well, that was full of feels. I went from laughing and d'awwing to getting all sad but then it ended with a big spoon of sugar. Big Mac doesn't seem to give himself much credit. Good thing Apple Bloom is there to tell him.

Aside from that odd Twist moment that just felt more like "I feel bad for Twist" or "Apple Bloom doesn't abandon a friend for getting a cutie mark" mention in what is otherwise a perfect and adorable story, that one part just felt weird. But its cute to think she still might consider her a friend still. Besides, they both have friends to keep them occupied so it ain't like either of them is a sad pony.

This was a wonderful family episode. If only we got more episodes that would focus on stuff like this. Big Mac needs more screen time to do stuff beyond Eyups and Nopes.

3801941 I'm so happy that you liked this! :pinkiehappy:

As for the Twist, it's never sat well with me that they basically just wrote her out of Apple Bloom's life. Perhaps I could have done her mention a little more elegantly, though. I'll have to go back and read it again.

3801962 To be honest, I never much liked that part either as it left me seeing Apple Bloom and Twist never really being close, or at the very least AB hung out with Twist because she was the only other blank flank in class which makes it all the more probable when you see how she overreacts to Twist getting her Cutie Mark on the day they were going to go to the party.

I'd like to think Twist is happy at least. She never seemed like one who put too much focus on things out of her control. Which is what I like about her since she just puts time into what she can and makes the most of it. She got her cutie mark, a coltfriend, and even if AB and her two friends don't play with Twist, I'm sure Twist has plenty of others to play with.

You should give a Twist story a shot. See what you can do for the little filly. Maybe a how things were when they were all blankflanks. How they met, why they became friends, why they went their separate ways.

Re-watch some episodes like Call of the Cutie and Cutie Pox (Twist appears 07:37 into the episode) and make up your own mind if you want to build off those moments or just make up your own better ones. If you aren't already, there is a Twist group you might find enjoyable. I can get the link if you wish.

But, yeah, Twist here felt like an aside, a *even Twist* wasn't around (last resort) type of mention. Not to mention she being grounded made me chuckle. What did she do I wonder? Eat her mommy's donuts? XD

But believe me when I say it doesn't make me love this story any less. Rather cute she even got a mention at all.

3802095 I'm actually surprised I haven't written a Twist story yet. She's really the kind of thing that I would write about. I like the little unexplored sectors of MLP. Maybe I will start thinking of something involving Twist.

3802138 I'll look forward to it. I am totally with you on the fun one can have with the more unexplored and missed untapped potentials of the ponyverse. And to think I'd end up running a DT group with a couple others. Things sure has evolved in the past months with that group.

Here's to original stories and those poor unsung ponies who are lost in the background and/or vastly underrated!

Awe that was sweet

4094272 Hey, thanks for reading this! It feels like it's been forever since someone had something to say about this little story. I know it's not much, but I really like it. I'm glad you did, too!

4094295 Please write more...I sooooooo love Bic Mac

Sniffle.....it was alright....ok it was pretty damn good. Having siblings makes me relate

That was quite enjoyable to read. Slice of Life at it's finest.

I know this is rather belated, but thanks for writing! :eeyup:

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