The ponies of Equestria know Harmony as not just an ideal, but as a force that actively shapes their existence. It guides them through their lives, brings them prosperity and ensures good will triumph over evil most of the time.
However, exposure to it can be unpredictable for those crossing over from other realms. Sufficiently long stays in Equestria can even lead to a change of form to one indigenous to the land.
And those unlucky enough to be slated to become a source of Harmony itself may find themselves unable to leave.
Translation: This fic contains the gradual transformation of a human (male) to a very young alicorn filly.
Set just before Season Five. Non-Earth human and an Equestria that's slightly different.
Cover Art by the talented Mix-up check out his work here: http://amalgamzaku.deviantart.com/
Wow this is well written so far, hope you continue this.
I'm looking forward to seeing more of this. I didn't look as closely as I would if I were editing, but it looks like your editor has done a damn fine job of cleaning things up.
This is pretty good. I look forward to reading more. Up voted and bookmarked.
Good start. Will follow.
I love the concept and when my phone's not during I'ok give it a read!
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What will ultimately determine the length of this fic is how well the human OC works. I tried to distance myself from typical HiE protagonists by making him a non Earth human; however, I now run the risk of writing bad sci-fi instead.
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I'll pass along the praise. Any errors are probably more likely the result of my last minute changes than any negligence on his part, though. Also, thank you for reminding me to close off the old chapter 3 link from that old thread; that chapter needs some serious work but might make it in as chapter 4.
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Thanks for the support. I didn't know it was possible to have so many notifications at once!
6438843 Trust in yourself and try your best and that is all you can really do. I wouldn't fault you for it and so far you done a good job so far. Lets see how well you can voice your story into words.
amazing. Please keep this going and update soon.
I'd like to read more of this, to see where it goes. A non-Earth human might be interesting, or might not, depending on how its done. I certainly hope that the process (and culture shock) is presented in great detail, it's what I enjoy most about these stories.
You accidentally-ed the petitioner's dialogue in the middle there. It's a very common formatting error and a difficult one to spot when editing. That's why I always copy the story into an unpublished story so I can check the formatting after it's gone through FiMFiction's code.
Another messed up italicization.
Here too. So that is three times that narrative immediately following thought has gotten italicized, something to make note of in the future.
...
Probably should have waited till I finished to post the first comment.
What scorch marks? There was no mention of anything that would cause scorch marks. If Twilight is doing something like that it is definitely worth mentioning when describing her actions!
Aren't the other titles between 'Princess of the Night' and 'Princess Luna' supposed to be stricken through as well?
Oh and, right below that you forgot the opening quotation marks for the reading of the 'ps'.
Something... is missing...
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Yikes.
Some of those are pretty bad. Thanks for pointing them out. I should probably work on my irrational fear of reading my own work on the fimfiction page itself.
The scorch marks were from Twilight abruptly stopping her nervous pacing. It's a cartoonish addition.
Liked and tracked.
Pinkie probably has a pinkie sign sense for new princesses, her spacewarping I can't explain other than freaking magic magic.
All I can say right now is that I am interested to see what the guy says when he wakes up. That is where this story will make its identity.
Why the gender swapping it's all I ever see in HiE*. can't ONE protagonist start as a male and stay that way, or better start as a female? Isn't the stranger in a strange land conflict and species change enough?
*Well and clop.
Interesting intro, good work.
That's Equestria for you.
Indeed.
6442842 In a displaced fic I saw a girl turn into a guy. I mean she became a male cat, but that has to count.
6443300 Understatement of the century.
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I couldn't agree more. That's why it's frightening to hit the featured box so early.
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I understand the sentiment. I had a couple of reasons to go this route. The first has to do with the fact that there aren't many well-characterized colts in canon. Sure, Button Mash is okay as a fanon staple, but there's no competing with interacting with the Crusaders in this kind of story. If he's a colt they can definitely still be friends, but they are no longer peers in the strictest sense of the word.
The second reason is a bit of personal preference. Part of the appeal of alicorns is their scarcity, and with an alicorn colt, an unspoken assumption is that he could wait to wed Twilight and have as many alicorn foals as they want.
Finally, when I first starting brainstorming this fic, almost nine months ago, I actually had never seen a human to alicorn filly fic before, but there were a couple of exxamples with colts. Prince of the Sun comes to mind.
However, since I came up with the concept, Living Nightmare came and went, arguably becoming the most popular instance of the sub-genre.
I also don't mind parting with a minor spoiler: the main character will spend some time as a colt before he's a filly.
Giants' Withers........
i.ytimg.com/vi/k8WX1kQ-TNU/maxresdefault.jpg
Hmm..........
Wait, what? She is trying to fit data to a curve instead of fit the curve to the data? Each run needs to be documented and possible errors identified to be worked out in the next experiment.
Hmmm, I'll give this a try, see how it goes.
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Perhaps 11 was a tad too many. I was trying to reference publication bias more than cooking data per se. Plenty can go wrong with live animals, as well. I guess I could have made it clearer that this character was being self-deprecating.
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I got the impression the character was almost fabricating data. Like what some Korean companies like to due when testing a drug. Test 18 people, 11 people respond well, nothing happens to 3, and 4 others decline; they then say their study included 14 people.
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I once had a teacher who undersold himself to the point of having to later reassure the class that he actually knew anything about the subject he was teaching. So I may yet be able to turn this ambiguity to my advantage...
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Maybe, I saw it more as a typo not many people would notice. And I am just overly anal about science not be represented correctly.
Wow, that's some nasty fridge horror there. Get hauled to Equestria, and turn into something random based on your magical signature. Often enough an animal or a plant. In a land of herbivores. And Celestia and Luna clearly learned these facts through trial and error.
Regardless, this does look interesting. Please carry on!
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The first version of this idea was actually a parody of the wish-fulfillment in HiE:
Brony gets to Equestria, learns about the assimilation process, and gets stoked about hanging out with the mane six as a pony. So he goes to Celestia and asks her to speed things up; she agrees, and bam! he's a potato. Thus, everypony learns a valuable lesson about assumptions.
Your script got a laugh out of me.
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I think you should be overly anal, because I was trying to represent science correctly.
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This may be my favorite comment.
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Whoa, whoa, WHOA! Did I just get asked to be anal?
...
I could have worded that better.
Well, I'm still on the fence with this. But congratulations. Welcome to the sub-fandom.
Nice chapter!
(For some reason it didn't pop up on my updates... Did anyone else have this problem?)
6465043 it didn't show for me either. I just noticed it by chance when trying to find the update on The Chase.
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After hitting "publish" the front page's entry on the "recently updated" column had a word count lower than expected. Sure enough, the chapter somehow was unpublished despite the story appearing updated on the front page.
My guess is that by double clicking publish, I accidentally took it down an instant later. I imagine fimfiction has some method to prevent "bumping" your story artificially by unpublishing and republishing a chapter. At least that's my guess; it could be a bug as well.
6465043 Same here. This is the second time this has happeened for a story I have watched. I only noticed when I looked at my feed. Seems like a glitch on the site, but I know it almost killed the other story. For the other story, "And its freaking cold up here" by the way, I think it was something due to the fact that the chapter was created a few days prior to being published. I think a similar thing happened here, since the chapter says it was made on the 20th but I only saw it on the 26th...
Well, I didn't think it would affect the poor lad's mind. Once he comes to I'm sure it will be different. I wonder what the foal's colors will be?
I'd have a bit more uneasiness about the whole "alicorn filly" thing myself, even if it is a dream: to me it seems like he accepted it a bit too readily without really pondering on it. Still good stuff though, keep it up!
6465379 I've been a squirrel, the opposite sex, a space commander, a child in a giant clock in the middle of the ocean and I didn't notice anything was weird until I woke up.
The few times where I did notice that I was dreaming and I wasn't myself..... I enjoyed it. (It's fun to lucid dream being a dragon) Seriously, if you were dreaming and you noticed you were dreaming and you were a <insert species here> with an endless buffet of <insert favorite food here>.... would you panic or be upset? I would be thinking.... "This is awesome!" and hope the dream would last.
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I'm writing this part from personal experience. Even if I explicitly remember that I'm on vacation, I still get freaked out by the "test I didn't study for" dream. In fact, I've even gone so far as seeing a beloved pet again, acknowledging he's dead and continuing on without shaking up the dream at all.
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Me too, truth be told
6465666 Meh, usually the moment I realize that I'm in a lucid dream, I end up waking up immediately
Except for this one time where I dreamed I was a pony eating at a fancy restaurant, having a nice conversation with a changeling...
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It's been 5 years since I left college and I still get that dream on occasion. (And so does my dad)
6468898 Thank god, I thought I was alone in that regard!
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YOu studied for tests? *WolfGrin* never had to and always got A's and B's
Nice chapter, good work.
So our human woke up once yet fell back to sleep right afterwards. How long is the time interval between this chapter and the last one? Has it been several hours? Days? Luna stated that the human has had multiple dreams, and yet she hasn't made physical contact yet... Will the human wake up fully before they are fully transformed, or are they going to be in stasis until the transformation is complete?
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He didn't wake up at all. He was dreaming that he woke up from the dream that was the first part.
I probably should have put a hint about the time elapsed though. Maybe next chapter.
The human will wake before any of the changes start. The story would be too easy otherwise.
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Thank you. This one was more nail-biting than the initial submission.
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I can't hold lucid dreams at all; when I do realize, I start doubting my control of it, and it falls apart.
One thing I just realized about this story is that it is one of the few HiE stories where the person actually has a fairly strong obligation to go back home. In most HiE's where the human doesn't die as part of coming to Equestria, the human might bemoan losing their family and friends but more often than not they also have a fairly unremarkable life. This guy on the other hand, is leaving a war behind which is not going too well for humanity. Combined with the fact that he has over a decade's worth of conditioning, I would suspect that he might be incredibly worried about the outcome of that war. I would not be surprised if that war became a point in the "I wanna go home" column when he wakes up.
I like it so far. I'll have to get to the other chapter when I get more time later.
Pinkie knows. "Spike's a bonehead, he's hiding under his bed!"