Going up to the roof for some fresh air after pulling and all-nighter, our "hero" makes the mistake of closing his eyes for a bit.
When he opens them again, he is no longer on the rooftop in Copenhagen he was expecting to be on... no he's somewhere very different, and extremely unfamiliar.
How will he react? How will the ponies react? Nothing is certain, except for one thing...
He never asked for this.
This story takes place about 8'ish years after the second season of MLP:FiM, the language of Equestria does not match any earth languages (that the main character knows of at least), and the human in question knows nothing of these ponies or the world of Equestria.
He emerges into Equestria on the roof of a building in Manehattan, not the Everfree, not Ponyville and certainly not one of the princesses' bedrooms in Canterlot Castle.
Oh! Spoilers in the comments and all that jazz, not gonna go into a whole spiel about it.
463734 And MOAR you shall have!
Pretty decent.. Abit disconnected but nothing major.. Good enough to earn a track from me =D
any body else notice that rainbowdash is almost allways racist in the beguining of flicks
464439 I know it feels disconnected at first. That's because of the 3rd person viewpoint. That'll change.
464755 I wouldn't call her racist... just aggressive. And everypony is highly apprehensive about the newcomer.
Nice story so far! I kinda hope to get a bit of an explanation as to HOW he got into Equestria rather than simply "POOF! He's in Equestria now!"
Liked the story and looking forward for more.
465244 Why? Is it really that important how he got there? I guess there might be a bit of an explanation coming down the line, but so far nobody in the world knows how it happened. So if there is ever an explanation it won't be in the near future. Most of the explanations usually end up formulaic anyhow... Spell gone wrong, summoned to fulfill ancient prophecy, randomly appearing wormhole or other sort of portal. I could just say that the Bermuda Triangle suddenly and surprisingly jumped across the rest of the ocean and decided to play a prank on a tired Danish IT worker... but I'm not going to.
465269 Ja så er der sgu LURPAK for alle pengene! Thank you and there will definitely be more, as I'm a bit more than a thousand words into the next chapter as I post this.
465318
True enough, I guess you could say that it was my curiosity talking.
465350 Not a problem at all, we humans are supposed to be inherently curious. But really, how he got there has no bearing on the story.
Why, just why? I can't understand.
If I read a HiE story I always got this:
a) the human scares the sh*t outta everypony
b) they try to capture him, like an angry mob.
But you sir, you made the combination.
c) they are affraid of him but then they attack him.
...
Anyway... interesting start, just don't make him a whiny parody of a REAL MAN.
Plus, I don't think that the Wonderbolts, the elite of all the pegasi soldiers (because they are the elite) would be this hot-headed.
They are professionals, not newbies who want to give a kick to every single moving thing.
Just sayin'...
But continue, amuse me.
465638 Fair points, it makes sense that the ponies would be at least fairly apprehensive when confronted with an alien species that is quite a bit bigger than them. And there's more than one reason to attempt to catch the human, one being it could be dangerous if left alone, another being for research purposes.
As the main character is based on myself and I consider myself the second manliest brony on the planet, the last thing I'm going to do is make him whiny.
The way I see it, the Wonderbolts are a performing troupe that may or may not have had military experience, and with two nearly all-powerful rulers, not even the ones who do have military experience have much... or any combat experience. So I based their reactions on what I perceive to be their personalities: Spitfire is laid-back and relaxed, and thus the voice of reason in stressful situations, Soarin' is passionate and at times a bit silly, so doesn't always think his actions through... and Rainbow Dash is just Rainbow Dash... slightly confrontational and oh so hot-headed.
I'm glad you at least seem to have enjoyed it a bit so far. The second chapter is on it's way.
465745
I see your points.
But think about it, we don't know if their army (if they have one) is that 'noob' as you describe them.
Also, I stay at my point about the Wonderbolts. True, their personality may make them act like this but as I said before, they are professionals, they can't make rash decisions. And even if they aren't part of any military organization, they have to be disciplined.
+ One more thing: Spitfire is their leader, the captain of the Wonderbolts so they must obey her. No exceptions.
465846 Maybe the Wonderbolts have been disciplined while the human was out cold. Will we ever know? *shrugs and grins*
And no, nobody knows if the Equestrian military has any real military experience, and I doubt we ever will. Until something else is shown to be canon, I will assume they are mostly for show and act as a police force in what is normally a very peaceful place. No matter which way I assume they are it would all merely be speculation anyways.
In a military unit one must always obey ones superiors yes... but that doesn't always happen... how many alien invasion movies have you seen where human soldiers always follow their leader's instructions to the letter?
It's been awhile since I saw a HiE that would have the expected reaction when meeting a city-full of brightly-colored creatures.
Haul ass.
Is the next chapter coming out anytime soon?
465888
Alright, you are right, but still, I not accepted their behaviour.
465901 Thank you! The second chapter is coming along nicely... working on it in my google doc, got a little over a thousand words into it.
465921
Glad to hear, I can't wait to see how the story shapes up.
465920 That's okay, we all have our opinions.
When I saw "He never asked for this", I was like "OGM DEUS EX MUST HAVE ADAM JENSEN"
466291 Nope... just Chuck Testa.
A grand opening my friend. You are VERY descriptive, in even the little things, and i beleive that is something to be applauded.
I also enjoy how the Man has no idea what the ponies are saying, and that the reactions of the Man and the ponies are dramatic. I find that the more realistic, to a point, the more enjoyable the confrontation stage of a HIE story is.
I look forward to reading more of your work.
To put it plainly, NEED MOAR!!
467954 and 468723
Thank you both. Chapter 2 will be up soon.
Another great chapter my friend. And I have to ask if you have an editor becuase your work so far has been remarkably free of errors grammatical or spelling, especially considering the rapidity that you put this out in .
Looking forward to more.
469148
I have some people I let read through it before I post it up, just to see if they have any issues with it. I'm normally pretty crap at commas, so a friend of mine reads through it to check for punctuation errors and then a couple other just read through it and tell me if there's something that doesn't make sense or is difficult to understand.
I tend to write in long run-on sentences, so making sure I haven't just written something that only makes sense to me is a must.
Strangely there were almost no complaints about the second chapter, despite my being a bit drunk while writing the second half of it. So it came out pretty fast.
Hmmm, interesting, a bit short but good.
I think you should write longer chapters, this story deserves the lenght.
469420 I would have liked this chapter to be longer as well, but keeping in mind the storyline and plot I've thought up for this, I didn't really have anything more to write in this second one.
469501
Alright.
You know, you just made me wondering about the next chapter, about what could possibly happen.
I have a feeling that makes me say: we will see a translator spell soon.
469511 I can tell you that there will be no translator spells in this fanfiction... that would completely ruin the fun of having the language barrier.
469611
Awwwww.....
469628 I mean really... What's the point of having them speak different languages if you just nullify it during the first couple of chapters? Check out a fic called Arrow 18 Mission Logs: Lone Ranger by AdmiralTigerclaw here: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/13616/Arrow-18-Mission-Logs%3A-Lone-Ranger
If you're going to have a language barrier in the first place, this is how it should be handled.
This is a gem of an HiE fic that sadly updates very slowly, but still very much worth reading.
469799
Language barrier and no translation spell? I've only ever seen a very few fics attempt that one (yep, Arrow 18 Mission Logs is one of them). Bravo for taking it on, Cordovan! My inner geek is curious to see how our protagonist office-dweller is going to cope with all of this.
Like Gargoyle mentioned above, your writing is very error-free, making for some very easy reading. Thank you for going to the effort.
One last note: I had to laugh when Fluttershy brought in a raw fish. Poor girl; there really was no way she could've known. I can imagine the question going through her head when it was returned uneaten. "Wait, you're an omnivore and you're hungry... Do you not like fish?"
470624 I almost felt sorry for Fluttershy at that point too, but it was too logical and too cute, so I just had to do it. I've got a feeling you're going to like Chapter Three, for which I put a little bit of a teaser in my latest blog post.
470783
A teaser, you say?
Color me intrigued.
471260 You're free to read it... it's on this very same site.
You posted it before I could give my commentary... Waaahhhh.... wait I had no critic stuff to say? oh, ok.
471406 Sorry... I gave about 10 hours I think... I could have waited longer, but the others on the team had little to no critique as well.
Yeah, I kinda got distracted... I was at work when I got the link and I only had time for a quick readthrough, I sometimes wonder why you need us proofing in the first place, you write so well aside from the whole comma issue which I'm probably just as guilty of.
471538 I have a tendency to write long run-on sentences. It's good to have a couple of people reading through my stuff just to tell me if a few sentences stop making sense along the way. General feedback from different viewpoints is also very helpful. That basically the gist of it.
Poor Twilight... rubbing day old underwear on her face and then getting sprayed with sticky lemon soda.
Oh well she did deserve it, stealing pens... for shame Twilight, for shame
471861 Twilight: "But... it's for research! I swear!" *shifty eyes*
Yeah Twilight! Go to town on those pens! If she figures out the secret of the ballpoint pen, she could be a rich mare.
So Mr. Human did bring a cellphone with him, a smartphone in fact. I'm actually glad that you didn't have Twilight immediately figuring out how to turn the thing on. There was too much other interesting stuff there, and on the surface something like a deactivated smartphone wouldn't seem quite as important (just like you described it: a little block of metal, glass, and plastic with a few odd symbols and bits on it, but fairly unassuming otherwise).
One question, though. Where was the guy's wallet in all of this? Did he leave it back at the office?
Another fine chapter my friend.
The reactions from Twilight, and the explanation of things by Rarity were awsome! And I pray the Man gets his stuff back alright, that would piss me off if i was him; well then again i suppose he has bigger things to worry about at the moment.
I'm still really appreciating your use of heavly detailed description, and the absence of any mistakes in the passages (good job editoring).
As always looking forward to more.
471996
His wallet was in his pants pocket, and Rarity didn't seem to think it was as interesting as the clothes, so she forgot to tell Twilight about it.
And yes, a smartphone does seem fairly unassuming to the eyes of someone who has never known that level of electronical engineering before.
472017
Thank you very much for your words of praise, and I'll pass on some of it to my team of proof-readers (one for grammar and a few others for general feedback).
472083 Good point there, Cordovan. She would find the clothes more interesting than the little odds and ends tucked into the pockets.
And I agree with Gargoyle above, that one of the strengths of your writing is your use of detailed descriptions to help the reader visualize what is going on. The way you painted Twilight was also pretty interesting. I enjoyed how she was actively having to keep her inner geek in check so that she could stay on task.
I know that you're breaking up your chapters based on conclusions of events in the story, but don't be afraid to make those chapters longer if you need to. I think it'd be a fair guess to say that most of us aren't afraid to read a 5,000+ word chapter (I actually get excited by something that length).
In any event, though, keep up the good writing. I hope we'll get to see this story run its course all the way to the conclusion.
472622 I would love to write a 5000 word chapter, but so far I've just felt like the plot I have planned for each one was sucked dry long before that... I could just put in a bunch of irrelevant filler, but I'd much rather make sure everything I write has a certain amount of significance.
mother of god this story is awesome.
moarmoarmoarMOAR. NAOW.
473058
Gah! Alright alright! *drags himself back to the keyboard*
472768 That's good to hear, that you want to make sure everything you write carries weight in the story. Keep with that mode. The 5000 word thing was just a thought. Don't ever sacrifice quality for the sake of quantity, though I think you already know that.
Keep being awesome!