Todd Shome, a human male, is planning on going to Bronycon dressed as the Mysterious Mare do Well. Unfortunately he didn't have the iconic hat, but a quick trip to Craigslist and the problem was fixed. He then tried it on... And everything went dark.
He then realizes some things are... Off. Specifically his, or her gender and no longer being human. Follow along as she(?) becomes Mare do Well and fights off evil and maybe makes friends.
Authors note: This story is the main stage of the MDW universe. It runs alongside The Weathermare and more once the time comes.
P.S The amazing piece of artwork was made by EDVEDD, make sure to check out his Deviantart.
P.P.S The first five chapters start a bit rocky, but I have improved over time.
Chapters (18)
Shadow: A nice story so far. A little advice from a fellow amateur writtter though: Try to not rush things too much, it will make the story more plesant to read.
I am number six on the likes. My reason, your writing is improving slowly with each chapter.
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Thank you kindly. I also revised alot of the early chapters, so check them out again, not just for better writing, but also because a lot of the plot points are more clear. A second reading is recommended.
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I might do that if I get time
As I re-read this story to try and get a grasp of what I was thinking story-wise, I realize just how laughably bad it is. XD
This is going to be more painful than I thought.
Hah! Obviously not enough, buddy.
I understand spelling and grammar mistakes, but this... This is just terrible consistency. Did I write these two sentences in separate writing sessions? Even so, these come from two paragraphs that are right next to each other! And did I not do an editing pass at all, or was I just so incompetent that I missed it?! XD
Ah yes, knock out innocent guards for no reason. It's not as if the fact you were able to sneak behind them at all meant they probably wouldn't notice you anyway!
Here young me is, not knowing how the criminal justice system works at all. First of all, without this feather being taken by the police, there's no way they'd accept it as evidence for multiple reasons; since the only way to receive it would be by MDW giving it to them, it would not be usable in court, as it was anonymously given by an unknown third party. They would have needed to find it themselves on the scene to link it to the crime. And without that, they wouldn't have plausible cause to arrest a suspect with it.
There are so many more problems with this story than I expected...
I'm not even going to get into the fact that MDW fights way too well despite barely any training or practice, and while she's still getting used to the motor functions of her new body. Anyway, like I said before, there's no way the police would arrest Airhead, as there's no way they can confirm his connection to the crime without any physical evidence.
I don't actually have much to say on this chapter. It's definitely rushed, but other than that it's not the worst. I like the idea, and this will probably be the easiest to re-write.
Again, this chapter is... fine. But my main problem stems from the story split. I can't fathom how I ever thought that I could handle two, and later three, parallel stories. It was not a good decision.
I can definitely tell the slow improvement over time. This chapter is much better fleshed out and the writing feels a bit more solid. There's still a few moments that left me thinking I could have explained things better or done some things differently, but overall it was much more engaging.
Been a little while. Anyway, the comment by CroisSunnyPlay is completely spot on. This chapter just rushes into the action, doesn’t it? I definitely could have gone with a slower intro with more description of MDW’s patrol.
A spring-pad is certainly a… interesting solution to this little writing problem. Not the worst, just… interesting. Aside from that, I do like that I gave personality to the computer. I just think it’s neat.
Now was this really necessary, past me? I mean, what’s even the point of Seastar telling the story in the first place? And if I was going with that, why change perspectives like this? It seems so unnecessary.
I know physics don’t exactly work the same in fiction as it does in reality, but how does MDW not get injured at all from this impact? Also, not showing what happened after Rarity was dropped was a bad decision. I know that my intention was to have it described in the Weather-Mare’s tie-in to this. Unfortunately, that just ended up being pretty clunky. It made it look like MDW just didn’t even try to make sure Rarity was okay. Side note: what was MDW’s plan with jumping off of Spike. Did I miss something? Did she learn a feather falling spell?
MDW learning a strength spell felt a bit like a “get out of jail free” card. It simply seems unlikely that someone so new to spell casting could learn a spell like that so fast.
I don’t see why Spike would actually stop to follow where MDW was pointing. At most he would be slightly confused before continuing to attack. To be fair, this is at least slightly in line with the show’s cartoon logic. So this is more of a nitpick.
I have found my personal pet peeve; unnecessary perspective change. Especially when done in a “cheeky” way.
Repetitive use of “thank you.”
By the way, me going through my old work is purely meant for me to try and learn from it. And I’m mainly learning that I really needed to do more than one draft! XD
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Man, were you right. I was just speeding ahead. I’ve had fun criticizing myself though!
I actually quite like the punny nature of this chapters title. Not half bad past me.
Badger murderer? As in a badger that murders ponies? Man, kids really are creative! XD
Alas, as funny as that idea is, it was definitely meant to be more edgy. Plus, naming it “The Badger” did not help.
Okay, while I don’t think Seastar’s conclusion is terribly farfetched, I think the wording of her conclusion could have been better. For Example: “That, among other strange occurrences, made it clear things weren’t following the events of the show. It’s possible that my appearance here had significantly altered the world in some way, but even that didn’t feel like a sufficient answer. Regardless, it didn’t seem like I could do much about it.”
Ah, the computer. As much as I appreciate how I characterized it, that does not save it from being a glorified plot device that can seemingly do anything. I understand why I did it. I told myself I would come up with a good reason for it existing, but I never did. I do have a few ideas how to make it work nowadays though. It’ll take some brainstorming, but I think I can do it.
With the way I described the “patrol” here, it reads like MDW looked around for a few seconds before getting bored. XD
Most likely, I wanted to make it seem like she had been patrolling for a little while, but in that case I should have made the passage of time more clear. Even then, part of being a super hero is making yourself as available as possible since you never know when danger may arise. Subsequently, that’s where the whole difficulty of balancing hero life and regular life comes from. Of course, I could have made that an intentional character flaw, but that absolutely was not on my mind at the time.
Damn, son! Cold blooded! XD
I could have worded that better with actual reasoning. Like: “but the former is likely still recovering from being attacked and the ladder is normally pretty busy.” I do ironically like the idea of Seastar picking favourites though. That line was unintentional comedy gold.
Woah… Okay, I have to give myself a little actual credit on this one. The entire scene in the library was legitimately pretty good dialogue wise. Could have been better polished and had some different wording, but overall I’m pleasantly surprised.
I don’t know what I meant here by “bad luck”. Was Seastar hoping to find Rainbow Dash here for some reason? Sure Applejack and her hang out a lot, but certainly not enough to just randomly assume she would be there that day.
Extreme nitpick, but AJ probably should have used “yeah” instead of “yes”. It’s more in line with her speech patterns.
Now I’m just more confused on Seastars’ reasoning. Obviously it was just me making up an excuse for her to go there since I had a specific idea for the chapter. Unfortunately, I disregarded what Seastar would actually do.
AJ seems a little off to me. She almost definitely would want to reward someone for helping her, that is if she would accept the help at all. Also, I could have done a bit more describing in regards to where AJ was directing Seastar to.
Ah, I didn’t give past me enough credit. AJ was simply playing the long con. XD
That being said, I could have probably done slightly more with this premise. It could’ve been neat to have them talk a bit more while working.
It’s funny how Seastar says AJ had bad wording, then proceeds to say this. It implies that she’s only following AJ to the farmhouse to correct her, which isn’t the case. I probably could have started the next sentence with, “regardless, I followed her” for ease of reading.
Kind of odd how Seastar didn’t see the Apple family’s kindness coming. Since she was a fan of the show, surely she would have a grasp on how friendly they can be. Especially after AJ mentioned how she helped in the field.
What HAS Seastar been eating? I don’t think I ever brought that up.
Again, I definitely think I should have added more dialogue here. You know, actually take some time to build chemistry.
Honestly, the premise of this chapter felt pretty strong, and had more than a good bit of potential. It still suffers from being terribly rushed, like I had a good idea that I just lazily plopped into the story and called it a day.
I also have evidently been increasing the size of my comments. Mostly because I’ve gotten better at giving criticism to myself. Though the chapters improving has helped me think of more constructive things to say about my old writing. Heck of a lot more work though! XD
Good lord… THIS chapter. From memory alone I am already dreading reading this again. I was simply not prepared to write this subject matter with any tact or care at the time, and I’m equally not ready to experience what that resulted in now.
At LEAST I had the awareness to give a warning at the start. Unfortunately, it probably wasn’t specific enough as to what it was about. May have been a bit of a spoiler, but I feel like I should have clarified RUTHLESS CHILD MURDER. I have a ton more I can rant about now, but I’ll save it for a little further into this comment.
Blood as part of a cutiemark, eh? Surely I could have tried being more subtle than that? Or at least less needlessly edgy.
I know this is setup for some character stuff for Seastar, but this is still infuriating! Specifically, I don’t think my level of writing had earned the right to create this scene.
Damnit! There’s so much wrong that I can point out here! It’s complete and utter tonal whiplash that I don’t think I properly prepared the reader for! The event itself was horribly paced, making it come across as edgy child murder for the sake of edgy child murder! It feels like such a leap in logic that the killer would kill the filly so suddenly. Even if that was the point, the context of what the filly said makes the killer look like a complete man-child who can’t emotionally handle a simple statement from a kid.
The immature nature of the writing completely detaches the reader from what’s happening, making the impact totally null and void. I wouldn’t be surprised if I learned some readers laughed because of how absurdly bad this was written. This was purely for cheap shock value and to set up this villain as a complete monster without doing any proper legwork. I could have easily had him kill a Stallion for the same reason. It would achieve the same goal without being as unnecessarily cruel.
I’m sure I could go on and on, but I need to give it a rest at some point. The short explanation is that it’s badly written. Child murder can work, but not like this. On a side note, Seastar’s reaction could have been tuned a little better. Maybe being less wordy would have worked. Also, the filly shouldn’t have died instantly. Quickly sure, but I could have either dragged it out for more impact, or had other ponies try and save her.
A lot of repetition with variations of the word ‘hoof’.
None of the ponies in the crowd reacted to MDW showing up at all, which feels a bit strange. Also the narration continues to feel detached, and not in an intentional way.
Repetition of ‘asked’.
I did not write Seastar’s anger very well. It gets the point across, but it’s more than a little wordy.
Lamented Goal isn’t a great pony name.
Why the perspective change again?!
Only a day in advance? What is this, a notice of termination?
Definitely should have had MDW find more info on Lamented in his home. It feels like we’re missing a lot of backstory here. Why is the crowd booing for instance? Is he known to be a bad performer? If so, why did he even get this gig? It all just seems so contrived.
I believe Octavia was chosen at random without putting her hoof up, but I conveyed that very poorly. Also, why is she even here?
Through a wall? I know she has a strength spell, but surely there was a door or even a possible skylight. Or even crashing through the roof would have been more stylish.
The most jarring perspective change yet.
I feel like a more accurate phrasing of the confusion should be: “He’s a Pegasus not a Unicorn, he shouldn’t be able to harness his magic like this!”
Okay… being struck full on by a spear should have definitely been worse, also I think ‘deep too’ was a typo. And where did it hit? Even a shallow wound in somewhere like a leg could be pretty debilitating. It probably should have just grazed her.
This is fine to show that the audience ran away, but I should have described their actions more before that. Especially when the roof collapsed. That’s most likely when they started to escape. I do like Caster’s dialogue though.
Come on Seastar, you should know never to pull out and object that’s been stabbed into you, that just lets the wound bleed more.
I’m assuming he’s not just conjuring these things out of thin air, right? Like, he’s teleporting them from elsewhere, right? But even that raises so many questions. The spear specifically feels out of place for him to have prepared in advance.
Fight could have gone for a tad longer, but it ends fine.
Those are the thoughts that come to mind? Not theorizing on how he could use magic like that? Also, he’s definitely escaping the guards. No way they have a strategy to detain him yet.
Really, only the first part of the chapter was exceptionally bad. The rest was just mediocre. It suffers immeasurably from being rushed to hell and back, giving no time to set anything up or have any sort of pacing. Thus, every beat falls rather flat on its face. The writing itself doesn’t help either. The inner monologue was especially poorly written this chapter. Regardless, I’m just glad I can move on.
Decent start so far, but wait, does Cloudsdale move location throughout the year? Let me check… Huh. Maybe? In Tanks for the Memories it seems to have moved closer to Ponyville to more easily prepare for winter. That implies that it moves wherever it needs to in order to assist in weather manipulation. How interesting. Okay, I’m willing to run with that theory.
Quick note though; Seastar talks about taking a break, but that feels pretty arbitrary. Why not a summer break? Winter is a prime time for crimes to happen. Plus she hasn’t even been MDW for very long yet, does she really need a break this soon? All of this is admittedly a bit of a nitpick, but it just strikes me as a little odd.
You say you can’t help with the boredom but then proceed to alleviate it with news of something. Somewhat contradictory dialogue… unless it was intentional?
How many? Why have you assumed it’s because of their relationship statuses? Are these the only murders in Fillydelphia recently? More context please. For that matter how did you even look that information up?!
This reads like a dang comedy sketch! It’s really unintentionally funny.
A straight minute of soaring through the air?! How’d you maintain that much altitude? Also, I establish that at least some momentum carries through a teleportation, so that amount of speed should have hurt MDW much more. Oh well, inherent issues of this absurd travel method. On another note, that last sentence was structured weirdly, right?
Conclusions about what?
Kinda odd to immediately assume it’s from the comics and not just a random thing. To be fair though, that is where I got that information from. It must have bled over from what I knew into Seastar’s thought process. It can be hard to separate your knowledge from your character’s sometimes. Also, the ‘spooky’ at the end was so unnecessary. It reeks of “look how quirky my first person narration is!”
Why did the armoured pony immediately attack MDW with lethal intent? We find out later that they’re another vigilante. Why would they decide to kill MDW without knowing if she’s a threat? This is egregiously illogical!
Firstly; I did not establish the fact that the weapons were being telekinetically controlled very well. I mention that there is no magic aura around the objects, but neglect to describe that they are floating. Secondly; why did the armoured pony strike MDW with a hammer? If they had an opening and were willing to kill, why not use the sword?! Oh right, ‘cause then Seastar would be dead and the story would be over.
Oh so now they decide to talk?! How do you know they’re not an automaton? And what do you mean voice changer? We know voice modulation spells exist, but that necessarily needs someone to have cast it on the armoured pony or enchanted their helmet with it. We’ve established that the pony inside the armour is likely not a unicorn, so they would have needed help to achieve this effect. Pray tell, who helped them with that? No one. I hadn’t planned any explanation for the voice modulation.
I know Seastar is just as baffled by this explanation, but that doesn’t excuse how terribly contrived it is. There was no good reason for the armoured pony to try and kill MDW. The only reason it happened was so I could clumsily shoehorn in a short fight scene. Unfortunately, all it does is make the pony in the armour seem pretty terrible.
And now everything is casual? Ugh. And, Seastar, you saw the metal morphing already when the hammer turned into a second sword. Why are you surprised now?
This armoured out pony actually seems a lot more like Batman than MDW does at the moment. I know dynamics change depending on who’s interacting with who, but it still seems strange. To be fair though, MDW doesn’t need to act exactly like Batman.
Repetition of ‘followed’ and ‘down’. Additionally, did you take all that evidence from the crime scene?! Oy vey, that is so dumb! And did you “scan” the magical residue at the scene? Because I doubt you could transport that.
How did you even detect and find out what colour the residue was? And what do you mean “scan the hoofprint”? You can do that without magic? How?!
I’m surprised you’re even trusting her at all after you tried to KILL HER!
You what?! I understand that a few objects might be easier to teleport a long distance than a full living organism, but that still is no small feat! And how does the computer receive the information on the magic residue? Is it described on a note?
Trustworthy? They tried to kill you the moment you made contact with them! Are you really comfortable with sleeping there?
Pretty meh chapter overall. Not offensively bad, but definitely not good.
Excuse me, what?! How did the computer send the stuff back with additional information?! Can it teleport things now?! For that matter what does ‘magic pool’ mean and how can you determine it through analysis of magic residue?! Would that sort of thing even be filed in any records? Stop just throwing random forensic nonsense at us without a proper explanation!
I wonder… That being said, how have the police not caught her yet if she’s this bad at covering her tracks?! And if this is enough to catch her, why do you even need to be involved? Surely the authorities aren’t that incompetent.
I’m surprised she knows of MDW. Seastar’s probably not THAT famous yet. Also saying that Ocean is either timid or nervous feels pretty redundant.
Still a bit of an assumption that that’s the M.O but sure.
What do you mean by ‘there’? If there’s been a string of murders, wouldn’t there be multiple locations? A more accurate thing to say would be “there’s evidence of you being present at one of the scenes”.
So we’re referring to the most recent murder specifically then? Could’ve made that more clear sooner.
I actually like MDW’s strategy here. Pretend you’re on the suspect’s side so they’re more likely to open up to you.
Why do you assume she even saw the victim? The only explanation would be if you were trying to trap her into a specific timeframe, but that clearly isn’t the case judging by the following paragraph.
Ah, the need to comfort someone crying. Seastar’s empathetic side got the better of her skeptical one. To be clear, this isn’t a criticism. I think it’s actually a neat character trait/possible flaw.
When did you discover what the public has nicknamed her? Also, Ocean didn’t say anything about having told the police, unless that happened off-text.
Whoops. Spoilers Seastar! We’re not suppose to know Alloy’s gender yet. XD
Pfft. As if it’s much of a mystery. Don’t get on your high horse, past me. You’re too short for it.
I’m gonna need you to stop pulling spells out of no where. And how does that projection even interact with doors?
Valid. Though judging by how Ocean Star knew of MDW, you’d think someone working for a police department certainly would as well.
Hmm. F.P.D seems fine, but I like F.D.P.D more. Fun fact: the police force in Fillydelphia are actually fully comprised of Unicorns in the comics. While this can be interesting in its own right, I’m fine with the bit of canon breaking I do here to make it more diverse. Plus, this fanfiction isn’t suppose to be the exact same universe as the show or comics canon anyway. Oh, and typo on ‘Filliedelphia’.
Why can’t they analyze it to the same extent? Seems pretty arbitrary that they can’t. You’d think they’d have at least a couple really well trained forensic Unicorns.
This would be a fine observation… IF you didn’t recently come up against a literal Pegasus who could use magic! You know this is possible now, why are you doubting Ocean Star on this specifically?!
I’m surprised she ran off. I don’t see why she would think she was under any serious suspicion with how others were acting around her.
What do you mean by that?
What’s that? Actual character intrigue? I didn’t think past me could do it.
Are bandit attacks really as common as you make it sound? Especially since we have no prior knowledge of you encountering one?
Again, just… casually landed that. Somehow.
How many bombs does this guy have? And where does he keep them? XD
Ah, good thing it was the comedic type of burning. Thought it was serious for a second! (Tonal whiplash from injuries in previous chapters being taken seriously. I know it was intentional from past me to make Tick-Tock seem like less of a serious threat, but still. Also, don’t even get me started on Tick-Tock’s name, mine came first.)
Oh no, there better not have been time travel planned! (Thankfully, that isn’t really the case.)
Just a simple filler action chapter that has possibly huge story implications. Not very much to analyze.
Missing a question mark after “how petty do you have to be to do something like that”.
The launch pad premise will never stop being funny to me.
… Must I say anything here?
Hmm. Not much specifically to criticize here. I do wonder where Alloy is though. I forget if she’s in the next chapter or not.
I feel like the ice golems, especially the one MDW bucked in the leg, went down too easily. Could have had one or two more beats to play out.
The only real criticism I can give here is that the writing continues to feel rushed. Like it’s worried about slowing down to let things sink in. It’s honestly kind of cathartic to see my writing improve like this. It’s still nowhere near good, but I don’t find the newer chapters as painful to read. It’s a big meh with good moments, which is fairly high praise for my younger self.
Of course, if anyone else reading has anything else to add, let me know. I haven’t pointed out literally every flaw in this story, and I’m sure there’s plenty more. For now though, I’ll be moving on to reviewing my other works.