There are people who live life and enjoy it's ups and downs;
regardless of how high or how low their journey takes them.
Vasili Anatolyevich Maksimov is not such a person. He has lived an exceptional life in a very short time in every sense of the word. It has been both exceptionally traumatizing and exceptionally rewarding. He rose from the depths of an abusive childhood that has left him in possession of a brilliant, if not deeply broken mind to touch the much valued reward of invention and comradeship. Only to find such treasures ring hollow in his jaded world view as his past is always on the tail of his today filling his life with pain.
Events beyond his understanding have trapped the broken misanthrope to a world so much like his own and tie the disaster he considers his life to those of six mares, each one loyal, kind, generous, honest and full of laughter; whose inherent nature may have the magic needed to mend his damaged self once and for all.
Now with Editors! From Chapter 2 Forward!
Open Author's Letter
Finding Home, Discovering Life is an HiE (Human in Equestira) story, the ponies are Anthropomorphic just to let you know. Despite my description of Vasili "Vas" Maksimov above, you will notice the sad tag has been left out, that's because it is my goal to make this a story about hope and healing triumphing over inner darkness and deep emotional scars; it's also why I left out the tragedy tag. The Sex and Gore tags are there because I want to take the story into adult situations that will deal with everything from Vas's child abuse to an exploration of a budding relationship across species and the very real issues that may arise. Finally, while at this time there is no fate of the world adventure planned for this story yet it still has the Adventure tag, I for one can't think of any greater adventure than discovering a whole new world.
The story is a challenge to myself. An exercise in character development, world building and vocabulary. As always I don't have an editor, but I love feedback positive or negative, so feel free to leave it.
I hope you enjoy "Finding Home, Discovering Life"
P.S. Cover Image is by the very talented SuperSheela over on Deviantart.
Great Buffalo of Mark Ruffalo! Featured day one! Thank you all! Your awesome! I hope I can keep you entertained!
Neet.
4621515 Amen.
Good story, good sir -tips hat- I'll be watching for more.
== Before reading ==
Let me just start off by saying that the description and the cover art don't inspire much confidence. If you are really trying for a serious story, not just a silly fetish thing, your cover art shouldn't have the ponies with breasts larger than their heads.
And the description tells me the story is about a guy with a strange name, a tragic backstory, and a brilliant mind, who instantly meets (and eventually gets shipped with) the Mane 6. That's about as cliche as it gets, and usually doesn't turn out well.
== After reading ==
Well, it wasn't too bad for a prologue. You definitely need an editor, though; there's lots of little grammar mistakes and typos. There are several groups on this site who will help you with editing, like this one.
In general, you do a good job of visualizing what's going on in each scene, so I was able to follow along fairly easily. The scene of Ponyville floating up toward the interdimensional rift was well done.
A few specific nitpicks:
There was too much tell, not enough show, in the opening with the human staring at his computer. You are basically giving an exposition dump about his backstory. I skimmed most of it because, at this point in the story, it's not important or interesting. We should start learning about that only after we are already "hooked" (his dramatic entrance to Equestria is a great hook, by the way).
I didn't like how Rainbow Dash was teasing Twilight. Are they actually in a relationship? If not, that was way too over-the-top flirtatious, to the point where, if it is a regular occurrence, then Twilight would be too uncomfortable to be friends with her. It certainly made me uncomfortable just reading it.
I'd probably be the only guy that would drop into Equestria with a parachute,suit, and briefcase, and be completely calm about it.
Of course...that's fantasy me.In reality I'd be screaming "ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit!!!!!!!!"
This seems like a blatant rip off of XY chromozone and the scent lust of mares and other stories with ponies bigger than humans. My advice, add something to this. Built on the world or charachters. But all and all I like it, granted my whole writing style is based around this plot so obviously I am going to like it
. Anyway good luck
4621569
Thank you so much for your detailed response! I love feedback!
4621539
Glad you enjoy it!
4621586 I never even could begin to understand XY cromosome's plot :/
4621586 I've seen XY chromozone when searching, but I have not read it myself, would you recomend it? Personal recomendations have pointed me to some awesome fics in the past. I think I have read secret lust, but I'm not sure. Anywho! Thanks for the feedback!
4621580 haha, I'm still ironing out the response Vasili will have. There are certain things healthy minds do when stressed and things damaged ones do.
Makes it fun to write!
4621604 Yeah it is a good story done by my mate Aramis. He and I sometimes bounce ideas about. He did his story after reading mine and we became good friends. You will like his stuff if giant anthro girls at about 7ft tall is your thing
4621670
I'll add it to my read later, thanks!
the choice of their size for the sake of this story was a tip of the hat to my old D&D days and the Guadinials, just minus the over powered racial traits, lol
4621699 Ah good good. It is good to see that people still like size difference. I have always found it fun as it allows you to play about with gags and jokes. One of my mates, big Ian biggest meanest looking cunt you ever seen short of eight foot, one of the most laid back guys you ever meet.
4621659 yep.I love the story, It doesn't have the oquward(<fuck this word) intro that XY chromosome has,it's easier to understand,with vasili not getting raped in the first chapter.
Tell us a story friend.
I'm not normally big on anthro but you're an exceptional writer... so I suppose I'll give it a gander. I hope you update soon and justify my continued interest.
Not bad for an intro but I'm not to fond of the whole ponies being SO much larger than humans, could ya tone it down a bit, make the mane 6 only a foot taller then the human.
4622407 Have you never heard of hyper or macro, trust me, this isn't that bad, well it might be hyper.
More plz.
I like it, good intro but I do agree with some of the other guys what's with making ponies so much bigger then humans? At least make them just six foot or something not giants. still cant wait for more.
Damn it, the coffee's still cold...
That... was nice. Good job.
Damn it. Hes dead and his coffee is still cold.
THis looks like it'll be awesome!
Like and fav, can't wait for the next chapter. :D
Wow! so much activity!
Thank you all so much for your feed back, let's see if I can make a dent in these comments!
4622324 Wrote:
Me too! I'm already about 1,200/~5500 Words into the second chapter. But I've also been mucking about with the outline for chapter 2 as well. Baring any bad reactions to my radiation treatment this week, I plan on trying to have chapter 2 out on or by next week.
4622407 & 4623276 mentioned the size of the ponies as a complaint. When I read your comments initially I had just taken some of my medication for my treatment, I was so confused! It didn't dawn on me until my SO came home. I'm just over 2 meters tall myself (6ft 6in) with all the joys and back problems that come with it. When I wrote Vas, I put him at just under, roughly 6ft 4in. so as they say, write what you know, and I know hitting my head on everything when wandering around and fighting for the one pair of 34 wide, 40 long jeans!.
Now on to my mess up, that if I do a re-write I'll work on Fluttershy finding Vas, In my notes I have "Ponies" built along the lines of the Guardinal's from D&D, specifically the Equininals. I have a height listed for the ponies running between two and a quarter meters tall (About 7ft 3in tall. Pinkie is this in this story) to Two and half meters tall (About 8ft 2in, though this is for exceptionally large ponies such as Big Mac, Bulk Biceps, Shining Armor, etc) The average, is about 7ft, 5in for the scope of the story which puts them a little than a foot taller than Vas and a bit bulkier. I hope this clears up any confusion, consider a better description of that scene on the top for a rewrite!
4623068 Wrote:
I have never heard the terms used with the mlp fandom before, thus when I read your comment at the time today when my meds had me sky high; I did a google search with safe search off on my smart TV with my SO in the room. That apparently was a hilarious conversation over the more colorful parts of the internet.
Thank you all for the comments! and please always feel free to leave them! I enjoy talking to be people; now if I ever respond and it doesn't make a lick of sense, feel free to take advantage for hilarity apparently I channel Chef Brian when my meds hit full swing.
~That Colt
P.S. Featured Day one! Thank you all so much! you guys are awesome!
4624511 Yeah its more common among the furry fandom, which is where I come from. People hate on us, but seriously, even we laugh at our own stuff cause its silly, and for the E and M rated stuff, hey, like I said on youtube, we like it cause we cant help but anthropomorphise things and cause if they were human or even real you know you would get turned on
Or you could not write another Human X Anthro clop fic....just a thought....
Maybe you could write Hie where the protagonist is missing a leg, or woman, or a woman missing a leg.... Or HIE without anthro...just saying.
You said kind TWICE.
4627010
Whoops! Where is the duplicate text, i'll fix it.
Thanks for letting me know!
Oh, so like 90% of the other human OCs we see on this site. Except he gets a fancy name.
4627010 I wonder what he has against Pinkie
4627010 & 4628819,
Lol took me forever on my pain meds to figure out what you two where refering too, my drug addled mind kept reading Chrome's comment as "said kind of twice" not "Kind was said twice" it is now fixed! Thanks for pointing it out!
4628781
I will have to take your word on that, I've only read two or three HiE's myself. As for him getting a fancy name, hehe, I think poor Vas maybe far more mundane than that! Vasili is a fairly common Russian name from the presoviet era, translates to "King" or "Basil" depending on who you ask. Anatolyevich is his patronymic name, his fathers name was Anatoly, another common name from Russia. His last name Maksimov is a common sure name for russian jews or those with jewish ancestry. But this will be touched on later in more depth. I will add one last spoiler that Vas is a first generation american. So hopefully he's only like 88% of the others!
Thanks for all the comments and the attention!
4629259
Well I can certainly tell you that the reason you're getting such a bad ratio of likes and dislikes is because of the story. It's literally the same kind of fic you can find in the next few clicks. Judging by the story description and genre combination alone, I can say that you're probably planning to have the next few chapters be the human doing a "Meet and Greet" with each of the Mane 6, and then you'll plant the seeds of romance as one of the Mane Six will start to think "Huh he doesn't seem so bad and I highly sympathize with his tragic backstory. Am I starting to fall for this guy?"
Oh and apparently your human character is mentally disturbed as well, riddled with deep scars from his childhood past, so the girls will have to get to know him and the readers will have to trudge on through his backstory, and after all that talking of how bad his life was is over, the girls will start to love and be compassionate towards him more. Oh and this love will also heal the human emotionally as well and soon he'll be able to let go of his pitiful past, and then the dating happens and we got some other ponies who disapprove of HumanXPony relationships but the human and his soul partner will overcome those social challenges and happily ever after.
Be honest and tell me if I hit any of the marks above. Because honest to goodness sake's, that is all I'm seeing right now.
4629363 Well, I don't want to give away too many plot points; but chapter 2 will contain a meet & greet of all 6 at once. I personally didn't think during outline that it paced very well to have it individually during rough draft phase, just seemed like filler to me.
There will be romance, because the concept of exploring such a thing between two sapient species is something that interests me, blame Spock and Alexander from Star Trek :P. How the relationship begins will be a bit more organic than what you've suggested, at least that is what I have outlined, that and from what I've seen on TV, I don't think a population disapproval of Human/Pony relationship fits with the tone of Equestria as a whole, so I don't plan to go down that route. I mean they can accept Q after all, haha.
Last thing I will touch on is Vas's past. My goal is to construct a character that is severally psychologically damaged, he's got a host of issues that it would take a human professional years to make a dent in, much less cure. It's also my goal to present a past that is traumatic but not pitiful. Like most Heroes in western media, at least in my opinion; it is the inherent exceptionalism that makes their flaws all the more significant and more entertaining. For Twilight Sparkle it's her neurotic nature and tendency to over think, Batman it's his inability to truly live as Bruce Wayne, and for Vas well, I don't want to give that much in the way of spoilers.
I'm treating the over all structure as a double pathed heroes journey, at least at this stage. I can't claim originality with that, and I never intended too; after all I am writing a Fan Fiction. All I can hope is that people like the story and engage me in conversation about it from time to time like we are having now.
Hope this answers your questions!
4629623
It does. And honestly, I can only wish you luck. If you truly believe in your story, you better give the readers a reason on why they should continue reading it.
Can't wait to see the update have a nice day
huh, that's a Russian name. Is the main char Russian, by chance?
human x rainbow dash please:P
4633488
He's a first generation american of russian immigrants.
4634074
uh......okay? that was a little confusing, but okay, cool. Russian was a fun lanuage to learn. Forgot most of it, but retained enough for simple conversations.
4634087
Sorry if I wasn't making much sense, today was a radiation day so that and my meds are getting to me. Vas is russian in the sense that he was born to russian parents who emigrated. He however was born in america; and is a child of two cultures.
4634322
Nah, it's all good. I knew what you were talking about, it just took a few seconds.
The Rainbow Dash Pervert Moment killed the first chapter.
I hope you won't have the Mane 6 who are supposed to be "Friends" lezzing out on each other in future chapters.
Mindless sexual harassment ruins the storyline.
troll.me/images/rainbow-dash-excited/rape-face-activated.jpg
Otherwise the fic looks promising.
4626669 lol this guy.
4638413
I can dream damn it!
This looks like a good read. But before I delve into this, I gotta point out that the cover pic... why do they have such enourmus tits? It's like El-Doc size tits! Rarity in particular. God only knows what Rainbow is hiding under that cloud. ...Well, not that this is a bad thing, I'm just curious and wonder if their sizes compare with whatever they're like in this story.
That's all, I swear.
4641092
Lol, your not the first nor are you going to be the last. Short answer: it was the only anthro mlp image I coukd find with all the mane six and the prespective of looking up at them.
You'll see in this upcoming chapter detailed descriptions that look nothing like the image. Well, maybe excluding fluttershy to a degree I've already established her need to counterbalance when bending over.
If I knew a good artist who had a style I could really dig. I wouldn't mind shooting them $30 to $40 to produce cover art using my notes on the mane six, plus vas.
Quite a few spelling errors. I like the execution of the story, I like the idea. I want to see what you can come up with, with no influence from the comments, asking for a (pony's name)xVas story. Do you want him to be shipped with a pony? If so, make it so that it's not immediate sex, then being awkward with each other for the first week, and then their lives are perfect after that.
Also, don't make him start working at SAA, because that is a cliche in HiEs that has been worn down for quite a while. But he seems smart, so he'll probably work at Twilight's library. Another cliche, but one that is not as common as working at SAA. Anyway, this story has potential. It's mostly great, but the spelling errors will eventually wear on me. Gotta get an editor/pre-reader.
Too much big tits, its friendship, not hentai, but the plot was good, the execution was good.
I'd give it a 8/10.
4644819 & 4641092
Methinks I should upload a Chapter 0: Notes which includes the character descriptions
That or get a gear on the new cover art XD