• Member Since 7th Mar, 2014
  • offline last seen Sep 5th, 2020

Kuyashii


In defense of our dreams

Sequels1

E

In the wake of a tragic disaster which stole Max's passion for life, he's wrapped himself in mild and mundane routine. The image of one particular pink party pony still haunts him as he navigates deep troughs of depression, wondering whether he will ever recover from his wounds of heart and soul. After a sudden trip through a portal into a land of pastel colors and friendly ponies, Max finds a battleground where the Magic of Friendship abounds. Can it help him to renew his hope for the future?

Special thanks to TwilightVulpix for the cover art - http://twilightvulpix.deviantart.com/
She does commissions! Wonderful commissions! :D

Chapters (16)
Comments ( 31 )

interesting
is somewhat different from the others hie stories
because the ponies live in the forest
because they left their old home

'll wait forward to the next chapter

greetings and good luck

ahhhhggggg curiosity killing me that I really want to know what happened in the old ponyville:pinkiegasp::pinkiegasp:
ok ok I'll be patient:ajbemused:

5089494

I'm glad you're enjoying it! :pinkiehappy:
All will be addressed in due time!

Dissonance so the villain has appeared:pinkiegasp::pinkiegasp:

besides using the bow and some other martial arts skills will our new hero and as defend against magic

Crap. We need a Deus Ex Rainbow Dash.....

Oh, boy. Here comes Great Big Jerk Supervillain......

WOW the plot thickens
dissonance is a villain is doing his job very well

I look forward to the next chapter

and happy Halloween night (in United States)

here in Mexico is happy Day of the Dead

feliz dia de muertos XD

ok but the ponies got a new home

but that happened with dissonance, princesses, discord ???????????

equestria will be under the reign of dissonance ???????????

I feel that many loose ends left unresolved


5254589

Sure sounds like there might be enough content for another story or two, huh? :twilightsheepish:

I was mainly concerned with Max's personal journey in PGMH, which I hope was resolved in a satisfactory fashion.

5448093
Glad you're enjoying it! :yay:

Greetings and welcome to one of our reviews. I am Simon o’Sullivan, and this is my beard, appropriately called Beard. Here are our thoughts on your story.

Before starting, I would like to apologize for how long this has taken; holiday festivities combined with my training/studying for aptitude tests I’m preparing myself for have become a concoction that haven’t allowed me to focus on much. With that out of the way, let’s start with this.

There wasn’t really much to work with when it came to see what issues should I be looking for, save for the fact that it had been rejected from EQD. With that in mind, I started reading. And I read all of it. This is what I found out. I warn beforehand to anyone who decides to give this a read that OBSCENELY HUGE SPOILERS are coming. Because I’m going to dissect the whole fic and I don't feel like making massive blocks of text into black boxes that everyone's going to read anyways.

The first problem I had with the story was the main character, Max. I have gone through depression myself; I still am, actually, but more on that later, since it’s relevant. This teenager is quite a nuisance for everyone who expects to get a memorable character. Instead, what I was unable to forget was the mental image of this guy crying himself to sleep on the floor while hugging a carton of orange juice. Which out of context is a hilarious thing, you probably weren’t going for that. One of the things that shocked me the most was the moment where he runs away from the grocery store at the sight of the Pinkie Pie toy. I really wanted to know what happened. My Beard and I discussed that maybe this was set in the world of Toy Story, so toys might come back to life, and he had read Cupcakes, so he might fear the toy would hunt him down. Part of me wished that was the real reason. Truth be told, that was quite an overreaction, being more believable the second one he has in the same chapter. And then, just after a few scenes, when he gets the toy, he seems so accepting, just shrugging it off. The same toy that, in the very same chapter that is a couple pages long, made him storm out of a building.

Even when he meets Pinkie Pie as a pony, which is still hard to understand how he goes to Equestria, but that’s a different matter I’ll address later, he slowly gets used to her, little by little, to the point that he even makes jokes with her. Again, I wasn’t really aware of what caused him to be so scared/uncomfortable in front of her. It’s not until close to the end of the fic where you find out what all the fuss was about: a small hint about his late sister, probably a newborn, with a Pinkie Pie toy there. Now… I am going to buy the fact that this is a plausible thing for a character to feel like that about Pinkie Pie existing around him, and part of me still thinks I shouldn’t. Because by that rule of thumb, considering how much of a WoW fan my ex was, I would never be able to get close to an orc ever again. Even if we are willing to accept that, though, it still makes his first reaction ever way too overkill. You might feel nostalgic or sad, depending on the memories that came to mind. If his first reaction is fleeing, that sounds like something different from depression. And even then, most of the time I feel that you try too hard to make us feel bad about him, and it comes to the point that it becomes slightly hilarious. I’m sorry, but hugging an empty orange juice carton to sleep was the funniest thing in the story. Considering the tags of the fic, though, that is not a good sign.

Something that bothered me quite a bit was his lack of knowledge regarding basic mythology. I will buy to a point that he is aware of who Pinkie Pie is, and that sums up all he knows regarding the TV show. But the fact that he has no idea what a Pegasus is? Or a unicorn? That is highly unbelievable. Even if he has never read the story of Belerophon, the hero who, riding the legendary Pegasus, killed the chimera, there are many, MANY portrayals of the Pegasus. Disney’s Hercules, the Tristar logo, and other TV shows, games, paintings, sculptures and books where both pegasi and unicorns appear. I can assure you that you don’t really need to watch MLP to know what those animals are. Sure, you can just call Earth Ponies simply “ponies”, because that’s what they are.

A thing I noticed in the story is that everything serves a way too obvious purpose from the very moment they appear. Everyone aware of what a Chekhov’s Gun is will figure out from the instant you mention the gilded arrow that he will use that knowledge somewhere in the story. Mainly because the lack of personality he has makes obvious that, instead, most stuff that will be shown about him will refer to skills he has. He’s not patient, calculating or any other quality that you would expect from a decent marksman. But he happens to be the long-lost son of the gay union of Hawkeye and Green Arrow (or William Tell and Robin Hood, if you’re not that much of a comic nerd). Because not only he shows to be a more than decent archer (which I can dig, that with the trophy and all), but also a bowyer AND a fletcher. And yes, I know that, when learning archery, you’re given some advice about how to check if the bow is in good condition to use. A totally different thing is to walk into the woods, and in less than one day have yourself built a bow. Just let the ponies give him a bow; they know they exist. There’s a marksmanship competition in the Equestrian Games. Hell, they have arrows with heads that freeze whatever they touch. Let him take those. I could’ve bought it if he had asked for a crossbow, in which case I would’ve called bullshit had he built one himself. You can’t make my Beard happy with that sort of thing. Other examples include the magical pond that heals wounds and such.

AUs are a tough thing to do; the fact that you slap Alternate Universe doesn’t necessarily mean you get a blank check for everything you want and expect the readers to nod and carry on. The main issue regarding this comes from the fact that the situation that has everypony go to these new settlements is barely explained, and only halfway through the story. Something regarding an alliance between Tirek, Chrysalis and… sigh… Dissonance, Discord’s brother. It’s really hard to pull the “unknown relative” thing satisfyingly. Much more if they have an important role in the story, as is the case with him being the main antagonist.

Regarding supporting characters, I have a few things I noticed. One of them being Twilight’s overly joyful mood regardless of the situation. One thing is trying to cheer people up in grim times, and another one is being making jokes and laughing openly at almost everything. It was hard for me to think she was Twilight; most characters don’t really have much of a character, if I am allowed to be redundant, themselves. I know who they are because of the names and descriptions, but that’s about it. Speaking of, let’s talk about Lily.

I have little to nothing against her; it was weird at first to see her patrolling with Twilight and Pinkie Pie, I will admit that. I was never one to believe that ponies that never met or talked on the show shouldn’t know each other in fics, so I was fine regarding this. When it was shown that she was Derpy’s sister. A bit out of nowhere, just like Dissonance. After what has been going so far, though, I will turn a blind eye on it. I fail to sympathize with the character, since the only things we end up knowing about her is that she kicks ass and loves her sister.

The most wtf-inducing thing of the story is the ending. Not the epilogue, no; I mean the ending of it. When they send him back home, when it’s obvious he’s still needed. They did NOT win the war; they did not defeat the threats. Dissonance is still out there, as well as Tirek and Chrysalis, who, by the way, we never actually see in the story save for when they’re mentioned. It is already irking enough that Twilight wastes time while in the middle of a war for survival to look for a spell to send Max back. Especially after he has proven to be a competent warrior against their enemies. And then we have Derpy calling him “brother”. Not brother-in-arms, like soldiers in the same battalion or anything like that. Aside from being a way to shoehorn Max’s “cure”, so to speak, this really serves no purpose and is a way too hard to believe scenario. I have called friends “brothers” after over a decade of time and anecdotes together; that word is way too powerful to give it away like that. “My hero” would’ve made more sense, but I see where you were going here; I insist on that is out of place, and a bit creepy.

The epilogue really serves no purpose, and ruins whatever the story could have as an ending. Max is super-duper happy, even calling his parents, the same ones who would apparently disown him if he got fired. And then he meets a girl name Lily, just like the mare he befriended and felt bonded with because of the little sister thing. Okay, I will admit that it would’ve been much harder to believe if, instead of Lily, the mare’s name was Honeypuff, Sugar Treat or any other name like that. Still, it serves no real purpose aside from saying how awesome his life is now, all while the other ponies are probably getting obliterated by Dissonance’s forces or the draconequus himself. And Tirek. And Chrysalis. All probably dead or dying, but who cares? Max is happy and non-depressed anymore!

If I had to give reasons why the story wasn’t approved, the main one will have to be the dullness and predictability of the story; it’s not really hard to figure out what’s going to happen, and that might pull many readers away. Sometimes that’s not that much of a problem, because even if we know what’s going to happen, it’s HOW it will happen what might keep our attention. Chapters are short, which usually come with fast-paced storytelling, which is rare here; the slow flow, usually found in fics with stories with larger word count, combined with small chapters, makes for a story with little room for events to take place. There’s a lot of telliness; we’re told the emotions characters are feeling instead of having body language give it away. If you want to work on it to make it worthy of EQD or not is up to you. If you are willing, there is a lot of work to do, as in, probably rewrite the whole thing from scratch.

Even with all that, you seem to have touched quite a few hearts with it, which is no small feat. So don’t my words discourage you. With that said, keep on writing and up the good work.

Simon o’Sullivan and Beard, WRITE’s Manly Reviewers of Manly Fics, signing out.

5497272
Thank you for your review! I really appreciate you taking the time to read the story =)
Hopefully, as I have established characters and an ongoing conflict to work with, I can make good on leveraging your feedback in the sequel. I've improved significantly in my understanding of writing theory and mechanics since I started this story, nearly three years ago, and I'm excited to venture back into my little slice of Equestria with all the perspectives I've gained on my own writing!

At the end of the day though, like you said, I was given the rare privilege of touching hearts with my first venture into fan-fiction. I'm cautiously optimistic that the sequel will be a worthy follow-up, and an better story if I can manage it. ;)

I am hooked!!!!!!! So going to read this on the three hour drive to Chicago!!!!!!! This is amazing!!!!!!!!!! :pinkiehappy:

Just guessing here that there was some sort of great pony war or something? :trixieshiftright:

What happened to princess Celestia? Okay theory time! She turned evil and tried to destroy all of Equestria. How did I come up with that you ask? Not sure I answer........ :derpytongue2:

Max's sibling was into the show until they were killed/left home and are now gone and Pinkie was their favorite pony? Am I even a little bit close? I guess not lol :rainbowwild:

This is going to be awesome!!!!!! Too bad the ride to Chicago isn't longer......... lol JK :raritywink:

I am so in love with this story........ God really throw awesome things your way when you pray........ :heart:

:fluttercry: is what sums up what I feel right now.

Plot twist!!!!!!!! Time to do the plot twist dance!!!!!!! :duck:

I loved this!!!!!!!!! Sequel? :twilightsmile:

Though it was short, this is one of my favorite chapters, we finally get to meet the main villain.

When this happened, I screamed 'plot twist' at the top of my lungs, and scared away my friends who were coming over. It was a great day. :twilightsheepish:

6972459

I'll be curious to hear your reactions to the sequel, then :raritywink:

Pinkie Pie promptly burst into song the second we crossed into the huge meadow, but I was experiencing a sensory overload; I didn’t hear a word she said. The four of us made our way through the growing throng, having to travel in single file until we arrived at a small hut made of mud and sticks with a tall chimney in the center of the roof.

“Zecora?” Twilight called, knocking on the makeshift door with her hoof. There was the clatter of glass and the sound of something wooden falling over, before the door opened to reveal a black and white striped pony with a tall, spiky mane. The zebra smiled, glancing around at the massive collection of ponies that had gathered at her door, all of them studying me.

Zecora lives in a tree somewhere in the Everfree.

10362922
In the show yes. Prior to the events of this story, she fled her former home along with the rest of the ponies. They're all out of place.

10365746
Did you notice that I said a rhyme that time?

10365957
Ah haha, no I didn't. It was so subtle and natural that I missed it. Well done!

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