Stev is an outgoing family man, who loves his wife and his neighborhood. However, he's surprised to find out that the house next to his is being rented out to travellers on holiday... and who should show up but a graceful, elegant, magical pony looking for a nice relaxing trip to the country to unwind.
Like the good neighbour he is, Stev invites her to join him, his wife, and friends, to a barbeque. And like the gracious mare the tourist from Equestria is, she accepts.
But vacations don't last forever.
My submission to the Everfree Northwest Contest. Rated Everyone for ponies.
Chapters (1)
24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mchs5pwbN01raj4f7o1_500.gif
5714698 Everything I do is for Watson's approval.
Glad she liked it!
Misspelled tires(tyres) will add more typos if they occur, just wanna help :P Are you sure you didn't mean for the character's name to be Steve? Those are the only typos I found. If Steve being Stev is even a typo?
It's a parody/remake of the Boy Next Door,am I right or am I right?I could already tell without even needing to read it yet.
Tis a shame that we can't live with equines :( Story is awesome. I love how you portrayed Celestia. I don't like how Celestia is portrayed as an evil scheming tyrant either. Another good read.
5714772 Never heard of it.
Well, I mean, I've met the boy next door (and his family: very nice bunch), but not the show 'boy next door'. If there are any similarities between the story and whatever 'boy next door' is, they are entirely accidental.
5714745 Curses! There's always something! How tyresome! (Geddit?)
Actually, though, british spelling differs on that point. We also put lots of 'u's all over the place, 'cause you can never have too many of those.
5714793 Alright then.Nevertheless a really good story.Also the Boy Next Door is supposed to be a horror/mystery type of movie.9/10.Some mistakes in spelling are found.I'll list them out eventually,because I'm on my phone.
5714805 Cool beans! I await them with anticipatory glee!
I'm familiar with British spelling as well as English just like in America it's favorite and in Britain it's favourite. Just didn't know your origins, ignore me on that. :P
Wow I make a lot of edits to my comments, talk about being a grammar freak. I'm correcting myself! XD
5714793 Well I couldn't find anything because "aging" is spelled differently in Britain.So I really couldn't find it.Another mistake was tyres but that was already corrected,so no mistakes.
5714855 Well, I guess I'm awesome, then. Cheers anyway.
Quite a delightful story. I'm almost jealous of your writing skills.
5714907 'Almost', eh?
I guess I'll have to do better, then.
5714913 Oh Mr. Hazred...I could NEVER say directly that someone is better than me.
It'd ruin me...
5714925 I know the feeling.
That's fine, though. I'm a patient guy, I can wear 'em down.
A bit short but loved it none the less. I've seen a few in which Celestia take a vacation to our world but this is the first I've seen when she does it so overtly yet normally. Gives me ideas
5715098 It kind of came from a problem I have with a lot of HiE: there are entire chapters dedicated to getting the pony or human to integrate into the other's culture.
Whilst I did dedicate time towards having Stev' identify the pony and I guess that qualifies, I really just liked the idea of nobody making a big deal out of a pony wandering around someone's back yard. I don't even mind if it's unrealistic and silly, it just hit me in the right way, I suppose.
5715120
He's seen stranger like that guys misshapen toes.
5715128 That I got from Avatar Legend Of Korra. There was this one firebender who had eleven toes. Well, I didn't want to be shown up, so now Reggie has twelve.
I'm very competitive.
5715141
And sometime you just got to roll with it
I like this.
The best part was that no one made a big deal about her and she got a nice vacation. I would love to go there.
5717805 I mentioned this to another commenter, but that was completely intentional. In almost every story I've read, be it a crossover or HiE, the newcomer is always treated like it's something extraordinary. Now, in reality, I don't doubt that's what would happen, but if I've read it so many times I'm bored by it, I think a lot of other people will be bored too. And that's why I love subverting stuff.
5717792 Thanks! Glad you liked it.
Would love to see it explored more. Daughter meets celestia. They meet twilight. Daughter ends ups in equestria who knows!
5721038 True, there is a fair bit more I could do, more parallels to explore. Still, a 3K word limit is a 3K word limit, and I kind of like the idea of leaving some things unresolved for some reason.
Glad you liked it, anyways!
I kind of enjoy the thought of "Those strange pony neighbors" on Earth. I mean, Celestia is perfect to play the unflappable straight man to either Luna or Twilight so it'd be fun to see them having a holiday home on Earth.
5722306 True. There's a fair bit that can be done with this kind of set-up, done correctly.
Glad you liked it, and thanks for reading.
Hah! BBQing with a horn-based death ray. I like it! Would have been funny to have Celestia answer, "Yes. It's also a..." (goes on to list all sorts of mundane features)
Not true. Horses walk. Trotting is equivalent to jogging. It's little more than a personal peeve, but I don't think we've ever seen Celestia jog (trot) anywhere.
5722795 I know: I actually used to ride back when I cared about my testicles a lot less (ah, to be young again).
Originally I put 'trot' in there to highlight the fact 'Tia was, well, a horse. I rather sneakily hoped nobody would notice.
Well, no hiding it now, so I might as well fix it.
Yes, Celestia going on about her horn would have been wonderful (wish I thought of it)... but considering I'm skirting the word limit as it is and I don't really see Celly' as much of a bragger, I'll probably have to leave it out. Great thing to think of, though.
In any case, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it.
5722825
Y'know... You could always just say Stev' doesn't know horses - we are seeing it from his viewpoint - which is a bit different than most others that simply have every pony trot everywhere. It's fine to have characters not know things.
5722862 These are true-ish facts. I had my reasons (and still do) for including that bit. I wanted some distinctly horse vocab in there to sort of... ease Celestia in, so to speak. At least for me, having distinctly non-horsey vocab used around a pony reads as a little weird, and I wanted to avoid that.
Did a review of this for the goodfic review to become a story moderator. I hope my criticism helps!!
Okay, so I don't make an idiot of myself in my review, I'd like to know one thing first off: Is there a reason you keep adding an apostrophe after Stev's name?
5744859 Yes. There is. Friend of mine at uni goes by Stev', because it's short for steven. He didn't like the abreviation steve, so went one step further. I loved that logic, and reused it here.
The apostrophe, as far as I know, is used for uncommon abbreviations or slang, like wanna', an' (and), etc. At least, in my experience. Since Stev' is an uncommon abbreviation, I felt it was justified.
Dammit! What's the point of going to the EFNW random entry selector thingy if it's just going to send me to my own story?!
You've got a clear, clean style and the characterization is spot on. Celestia in particular is done well. I'm with you, nobody ever seems to get her exactly right in these fanworks. It was nice to see her relax for a change.
Now, I'm not one for "Human" tagged stories, but it's the one the random number generator gave me, so I put that aside, and overall it's pretty decent. My one complaint is that nothing really happens. They meet, she comes for dinner, and... that's it. I know you were squeezed by the word limit; it gave me trouble with my entry as well, but it feels like this ends abruptly before we really had a chance to see these two become more than acquaintances.
Good luck with the competition! :)
5827748 Nothing happening was rather the point of the whole 'Celestia going on vacation', but that doesn't mean I'm getting at you for not enjoying it as much as I'd have liked (it being my job to provide enjoyable stories and all). I'd probably have a similar complaint myself, although I do treat this a bit more as a character study than a three act story.
Still, glad you enjoyed it, and if you're in this contest, good luck to you too!
5827781 Yeah, thanks! And I'm glad it came through that I did enjoy it. I'd honestly love to read a longer version of the story that shows a little more give and take, and my enjoyment is largely based on the strength of realistic writing and dialogue. Nice work!
5722894
Why is this in Overly Stupid Fanfiction?
5868711
Sorry, I hadn't even noticed. I imagine one of 5 people doesn't like me or the story. If you came here looking for a dumb story, I'm sorry if I disappointed you. I'll try harder next time.
5868721
Oh no, I just happened to find a Diamond in the Rough.
When I get bored, I scour the bad fics for fun comments. Good times.
5868724 I imagine. Still, it's free publicity! I'll take it.
5868729
Yeah... I scour them for the most downvotes. Here was me a few minutes ago by the way.
*Checking Generic Stupidity Folder*
Only 44 downvotes
13
54
5? Wait what.
*Looks at upvotes*
HOLY CHRIST ON A BIKE 84 UPVOTES?! Well something's wrong here.
5868738 I got into generic stupidity? Well that's a shame. I'd have hoped I'd have made it further than merely 'generic'. That just feels... hollow.
Anyway, glad you thought I didn't belong in the Overly Stupid Fanfiction group.
5868748
Some people I just refuse to believe will willingly write badly.
There are two main types. Both have earned my respect, but on varying degrees.
Respect to you: You belong in this one. You're quite influential, and your stories are of good quality, if you tell me something is bad, I'll probably weigh your opinions more heavily than other average joes.
Followers: These are generally reserved for people whose fics are seriously good. Sadly enough, I seriously prefer long, drawn out and complex stories. (Unless its Anthro, then IT MUST BURN IN HELL.) So far, there are few that have earned this. In fact I can count them all with two hands!
Official EFNW Pre-Con Contest final round review
First of all, congrats for making it this far. It means you're in the top 10%. Secondly... I know I have a strong bias against these sorts of stories... you know, with humans and ponies. Nevertheless, I'll try to be fair. Can I start off with some weird grammar issues? Like when you used both a dash and an ellipsis at the end of the same sentence: how can it both trail off and cut off abruptly? Not to mention that I was wincing every time I saw an apostrophe in Steve's name. (Because 'Steve' is short for 'Steven'. I don't know how to pronounce what you did.) As for redeeming features... I'd like to see more of the guy's wife being fascinated by the pony. That could be fun... rather than watching a bunch of people pretty much ignore what's probably the strangest thing that will ever happen in their lives. I'm sorry... but I just don't see where this story gets fun; maybe in that it bucks some of the usual pony x human trends?
5874840 Obviously, if I have to explain it it means I've failed in some regard, but I'll try anyway, because what else am I going to do with my evening?.
Not much in this story was meant to be fun. In a sense, it was supposed to be boring, because I wanted to do that with Celestia's character, who despite a lot of fanon, always struck me as being incredibly boring (which was what ironically made her interesting). She struck me as a sort of dull, normal parent who's only real characteristic was caring for her children (or nation) and I wanted to draw a parallel between that and a very ordinary man who's also far less interesting than the people around him (who either have crazy weird toes or are borderline mad scientists). I guess I found Celestia's rather dull personality endearing, and charming: all she is is somepony who cares for her little ponies, and is very little besides.
As for Stev', well, that's me doing my very best to be different. Pronounce it as you will (although I pronounce it St-eh-v)
I hope that at least explains my intentions behind this story (that and being a contest entry). I'm of course very glad to be in the 10%, which is a wonderful percent to be in (as opposed to the 33% who barely even have basic facilities), so thanks a bunch.
An excellent story, never give up in writing stories, trust me, I say that I am the worst writer ever but my mentor say's that I have really good way with words, and this skill can only be achieved through tones of practice. And I say you have a excellent way with words and an good way with describing the scene's. Just AWESOME and AMAZING, keep on going, you will get there.
"
p.s I really love this story, just imagining if that actually happened, I would be like "WOW, this is AWESOME
5907808 Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
Have a good one.
I must admit (to my shame) that I skipped over this when it originally came out. I was only tempted back because your review in the final results Everfree Northwest blog mentioned "magic realism". I knew I had to try this after that - ponies and my favourite writing style? Together? Surely not.
And yet it surely is so. This is absolutely perfect. I love it. You have captured that wonderful juxtaposition (whether you meant to or not) between the most mundane and fantastical of things, and the whimsical, almost lyrical prose that goes with it. Brilliant job.