Anon is at the end of his rope. Just as he is about to end it all, a mysterious party intervenes. He soon finds himself in the life of an amnesiac pony with a doting sister.
The twist here was very obvious, probably something to do with having seen plenty of similar stories over the years, but I have to say that this has been an exceptionally enjoyable read so far. You've done a very good job working everything together and making the contrast between the pleasant and comforting imagery and the disturbing undertones and implications in a way that makes it all just a little bit more jarring in the best way possible.
There are a few issues I've noticed, some with the writing itself and a few grammar mistakes here and there, but none of it has been enough to detract from this story in any meaningful way so far. As such I certianly hope you continue working on this, though I recommend that you consider submitting your work to an editor for review to clean it up slightly from the grammar side, since like I said it's pretty clean, but there are occasionally missing words here and there.
Oh, and fun fact
If a pony went to a different planet, or just to outer space, would they be affected by time the same way as we are here?
The awnser is technically yes, if you didn't know. If you made two identical clocks that were perfectly accurate and both had a sufficiently high degree of precision, then synchronized them, you would find that if you left one on earth and took one on a trip to space and back that the one that went to space would end up ever so slightly ahead of the one that was on earth the whole time.
This is due to an effect called "gravitational time dilation", there's tons of literature available on that if you want to look into it.
Edit: Clearly looking into the next chapter you're very much so aware of time dilation at least in a basic sense, so sorry to lecture!
you notice a staircase that led to upstairs. Hrm…that’s strange. Where did that lead?
you notice a staircase leading up. Hrm... that's strange. What's upstairs?
The door boar a placard near the top
Is there such a thing as a past and a future, or is it always the present?
Well, since the future is in a state of quantum uncertainty, it can be said there is no such thing, at least not yet. And according to thermodynamics the most likely past is a mirror of the future, not the past we remember, so there's no such thing as the past either. And according to relativity, in the present, you can only observe the state of things far away some amount of time in the past, with no limit to how short "far away" is down to the planck length. So the present doesn't exist either, at least not in any other than a 0 dimensional sense. Isn't physics fun?
What’s the point of continuing if nothing exists? Why bother if there’s no meaning to any of it?
Because if everything is meaningless, then it's also meaningless to end it all? Why stop continuing, if there is no point to continuing? There's no point to not continuing, either. People are so desperate for meaning they'll delude themselves into thinking suicide accomplishes something, when it's just as meaningful, or meaningless, as anything else. There's no point to killing yourself because life has no point, because life has no point.
“…how are you enjoying Dr. Money’s Virtual Dream Machine?”
Not helping! Not helping at all! At least it's not Crankmaster
The twist here was very obvious, probably something to do with having seen plenty of similar stories over the years, but I have to say that this has been an exceptionally enjoyable read so far. You've done a very good job working everything together and making the contrast between the pleasant and comforting imagery and the disturbing undertones and implications in a way that makes it all just a little bit more jarring in the best way possible.
There are a few issues I've noticed, some with the writing itself and a few grammar mistakes here and there, but none of it has been enough to detract from this story in any meaningful way so far. As such I certianly hope you continue working on this, though I recommend that you consider submitting your work to an editor for review to clean it up slightly from the grammar side, since like I said it's pretty clean, but there are occasionally missing words here and there.
Oh, and fun fact
The awnser is technically yes, if you didn't know. If you made two identical clocks that were perfectly accurate and both had a sufficiently high degree of precision, then synchronized them, you would find that if you left one on earth and took one on a trip to space and back that the one that went to space would end up ever so slightly ahead of the one that was on earth the whole time.
This is due to an effect called "gravitational time dilation", there's tons of literature available on that if you want to look into it.
Edit: Clearly looking into the next chapter you're very much so aware of time dilation at least in a basic sense, so sorry to lecture!
you notice a staircase leading up. Hrm... that's strange. What's upstairs?
Well, since the future is in a state of quantum uncertainty, it can be said there is no such thing, at least not yet. And according to thermodynamics the most likely past is a mirror of the future, not the past we remember, so there's no such thing as the past either. And according to relativity, in the present, you can only observe the state of things far away some amount of time in the past, with no limit to how short "far away" is down to the planck length. So the present doesn't exist either, at least not in any other than a 0 dimensional sense. Isn't physics fun?
Because if everything is meaningless, then it's also meaningless to end it all? Why stop continuing, if there is no point to continuing? There's no point to not continuing, either. People are so desperate for meaning they'll delude themselves into thinking suicide accomplishes something, when it's just as meaningful, or meaningless, as anything else. There's no point to killing yourself because life has no point, because life has no point.
Not helping! Not helping at all!
At least it's not Crankmaster
I love the story. Too bad the Main 6 aren't in the story. It'd be interesting for Radiance to meet them.