cks you designed to be ~exotic~ or whatever, and those rabid jerks at Disney can only grit their teeth now!
Story Recommendation: Relentlessly Mundane, by Jo Walton · 12:31pm Oct 28th, 2015
And for once, its not actually pony related.
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You know that old chest-nut in fantasy, the young child protagonist returning to their mundane life as if nothing happened with just a trinket or two as a memento? If that?
And somehow this is a good thing, instead of something that's going to sap away what little of their innocence survived starving, bleeding, and killing for The Greater Good of the world Bla-Bla-Z'Q'Z'Q'Z-Kerplut?
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Yeah, that one.
I don't want to give much more than that away since its only about five pages long and quite the light read even then, but let us say that Relentlessly Mundane's title is very aptly chosen. 
If you've ever been bothered with the 'reward' for somebody being their magic fading away and everything becoming normal—or if you're just a fan of fantasy in general, I highly recommend it. A bit dark, but not bleakly so. More in the way of choices having consequences way.
That was brilliant! Thanks for the link.
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No problem, glad you liked it.
This indeed was a fun 70 years.
Yep. That is indeed depressing to think about. And it is rare for writers to acknowledge the aftermath. Generally the story ends right when they return home.
Doctor Who did it properly a few times. He left Sarah Jane behind before returning home at some point, which made her decidedly unhappy with him when they met again, since she thought he had died. There was also the part when the Doctor sent Rose back home due to him believing he was going to die. And she was both really upset with that, but also was unable to handle the idea of not traveling with the Doctor any more.
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I think I've seen normalcy as a reward played straight and well only a few times.
In Inception whose ending isn't exactly known for being obvious and clear-cut, and in Coraline where... well, Coraline realizes her real parents have a few advantages over a creepy doll monster in a pocket dimension. Like, say, being sane.
So it can be done, but I have to admit I don't quite get the trope. What's the point of an advanture if the same exact person arrives back home that left in the first place? Doesn't sound like much of a journey if it left no mark except a few memories.
While I cannot think of any specific examples, I know quite a few HIE stories have humans who want to go home, which suggests this as their goal. And naturally they are the least likely to succeed, but might be happy about it if it happened.
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Wayward Currier has the human actually succeed with that in the end.
Of course, just for some dark, ironic chuckles that story's a Fallout crossover of all possible universes, so...
And for a given value of human, there's also DJ in All American Girl I've gushed about a few times before. Caused a lot of trouble in the backstory, both for her and others, but she did get to go home to Earth in the end.
3502897 Ah. I suppose I disregarded any possible examples which weren't a human from *Current Earth*
That first one might qualify.I doubt events had so much effect on him being from the Wasteland. And, he was fully capable of going back whenever, which mostly disqualifies him.
As for All American Girl, I tried reading it a while back, and got stuck, I think, after meeting the parents and their attitudes. Was at least a year ago I think. Never got that far into it.
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I think his transportalponder got broken and needed repairs?
Still, its been a long time since I read Wayward Currier, so I might be mistaken.
Yeah...
I love the world-building and (most of the) characters in that series, but how downright toxic DJ and Rarity's relationship is can be really though to actually slog through.
For both good and ill, they're relationship really feels like a whole barrel of bad vibes that's been allowed to fester with a lid on for decades.
Good for realism, I guess, but hard to read without wincing.
3503353 His "transportalponder" was *Damaged* when he went to Equestria, and later, once recovered, he *fixes* it by putting the battery back in properly. After that, he can use it again whenever he wants. And he does in the sequel.
Yep, thats exactly what I was talking about. I hate those wince-worthy moments. It might be realistic/justified in universe, but many types of scenes are painful for me to read. Some similar moments are in many, many TV shows, MLP included, and I tend to fast-foward through them. Sometimes they are intrinsically linked into the episode however, which is a shame.
Have you ever read The Magician by Lev Grossman? It's a combination of Harry Potter for adults, and Narnia for adults, and it covers this angle really well. It's also an interesting take on what happens when the magical kid doesn't go home. They made it into a trilogy.
Well, yes. That was good. Thanks for sharing
I'm glad you shared this.
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I've heard about it, but it came out just when I was going through a period of being almost burned out on high fantasy. Been so long I don't quite remember why, but I think it was a mix of some seriously cliche books in a row, and me discovering the Dresden Files around that time making me more fascinated with urban fantasy.
I think how depressing the descriptions made the magic system in those book sound was what really scared me away, though. I'm willing to give quite a few variations on magic a try, but 'algebra's duller and harder nephew' just isn't one I think sound appealing to experience.
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Glad you liked it.
3504791 It does make use of cliches, and it does make magic rather dry and technical.... at first. The whole thing is in someways a cynical take on many urban and high fantasy cliches, but it does have hope in the end.