"A hero is someone that does deeds out of the goodness of someone's heart and not for praise."
These are the words that anypony follow when they want to help others for the greater good. When a mysterious hero comes in and steals the thunder of a heroic pegasus, a blue stallion decides to investigate. Discovering their true intentions, he decides to be a hero himself to teach them a lesson. What happens will lead him through many trials and tribulations as Ponyville will experience the rise, fall and rebirth of one of the greatest heroes in Equestria. What will happen? Will this stallion find out the truth? Will Rainbow Dash regain her status as a hero? Or will the actions of everypony lead to something tragic?
917024 Thank you. If you like, I can correct it. Just tell me.
I see where this is going...
"Hypocrisy rots this world" (The Mare-do-well group getting jealous in the future)
918099 I already changed it. I figure it would be quite appropriate.
918151 Very appropriate indeed.
918330 It'll be explained through flashbacks but I can't spoil. Let's just say that you'll see how he did save the world the first time. It shares a connection to another story I'm working on but at the moment, it's on hiatus.
I think Dashie will start to admire this new hero and learn from him about 'humility' (making the Mare-do-well group confront him about his heroics... which they will consider a 'grave error'... hypocrisy I tell you)
The whole episode (along with others) stated on thing in the end "The ends justifies the means"
920858 Yep. However, I hated The Mysterious Mare Do Well. I hated the episode a lot and I feel that something should have happened to those five instead of Dash letting them get away like that. The fic called "The Price of Loyalty" inspired me to do this and I feel that I agree... the ends DO justifies the means.
Oh Twilight... you are such a hypocrite (not only in this but also being a boaster about being the "Princess' Student"... student for what exactly?)
925123 Twilight and the others will feel the burn soon enough. Believe me.
Wow Twilight... I know there's a word for her condition but I can't remember it
930214 Then what is the right word for Twilight?
931394
Bitch?
931397 I knew it. Just wait till the later chapters, she's going to feel a MAJOR burn.
931399
Get a chapter today?
931483 If lucky, I plan to upload the fifth one tonight.
Twilight... hypocrite
951368 Guess you read Chapter 5 huh? Yep, she's a hypocrite but Rob is really in trouble.
952177
I can see that... most people (and most ponies) do not have enough reason to just chat their problems away...
fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/201/f/6/comic__passive_aggression_is_magic_by_sophiecabra-d57y67n.png
952184 Yep. Like you stated already, the ends do justify the means.
924435 Oh, it's one of those fanfics.
Seriously, it's has been seven months since this episode aired and yet people are still writing fix fics and drawing comics about it.
The need for MDW is immensely simple. If it wasn’t anonymous, the lesson is no good. The point is that the action is more important than the person, which is what Dash forgot. There was no cruelty or malice in their actions, they praised someone else, all within the confines of their own skill sets, and they made sure to reveal their deception in a back alley to spare Dash’s reputation. I have yet to see a good reason for all the hate this episode gets.
How else would the Mane 6 have told her to quit the boasting? If they all did heroic acts in the open, one by one, Dash will either see this as an annoyance or as a “I can save more ponies than you guys can” friendly challenge. There had to be this force that surpassed her in every way. That there was an “individual” that was better than her.
Rainbow Dash almost let ponies die because of her arrogance. DIE. Everything she did was her own fault. Her lack of humility was a pretty big sign of callousness.
They didn’t provoke her to due anything. They showed her how a hero should act, and saved lives she would have failed to save because she was bragging. As soon as they saw she was taking it too far, the scene after the dam, they arrange to come clean in a back alley.
I sincerely hope that someday this fandom will let its misconceptions about this episode just die and move on as it did eventually with Pinkie Keen. Of course, that will probably happen after the next episode that doesn’t have a crystal clear moral but at least it will be new.
To gripe that the girls were being hypocritical is a weak argument. The girls weren’t going around town singing and proclaiming Mare-do-Well’s praises. They pointed out examples of what they had done while in-costume and that Mare-do-Well never hung around very long for more cheers than she got.
Bottom line, MDW didn't do anything bad. Not one bad thing.
Wow... shit just got real
983605 Everyone is entitled to their opinion. For me, I HATE that episode and I hate how her friends treated Rainbow Dash. Her friends were complete jerks all for the sake of making Rainbow Dash look bad. That to me really felt not right for an episode like this. People still talk about it to this day and quite frankly, so do I. Although everything was Dashie's fault, it was her friends that contributed to all of this. Hope this makes you understand but if not, that's fine. I just really don't like the episode.
983620 Yep. HE has returned and things are about to hit the fan.
983797
All they did was dress up and save ponies lives. They didn't do a thing to Rainbow.
Again, her friends didn't do jack to her at all. Rainbow made herself look bad. Without MDW, that carriage would've careen of the cliff, those construction workers would've been crushed, and so on. MDW saved Rainbow from herself.
It's been nearly eight months, and people still get the episode wrong. Rainbow doesn't need you or anyone else to white knight for her, especially since you misinterpreted episode .
Exactly. Also, only Pinkie can say "Dashie" without sounding weird.
No, they didn't. They didn't do anything but save ponies lives that Rainbow failed to do so because of her ego. I guess her pride is more important than the other ponies she failed to save because of her pride.
I can understand not liking the episode, but it seems that you either missed a giant chunk of it, or you just made stuff up to complain about, or you twisted it around. Have a real reason to dislike the episode.
All that aside, this fic itself is decently written. I've got to give props for that.
983955 Thank you very much. I worked real hard on this plus Chapter 6 was the most difficult chapter I've ever done. Not to mention, had the help of a proofreader to make it better.
983955
Well I do think Rainbow Dash brought her humiliation to herself... I think her friends could have been a bit more considerate (knowing her and how she would react)... Dashie felt alone and wanted to prove a point (by being a hero, and everypony recognizing her) and not be alone, but this MDW thing made her feel lonelier and made her go out and do things without reason (something her friends should have foreseen, but they were gung-ho on just making sure she got the 'lesson' down, and did not care how she felt)... Though she did got the lesson down, I think the rest of the friends could have thrown in an apology (realizing that maybe they didn't go about it the right way)
*Read the fic "No Hard Feelings" and the last chapter of "Post Nuptials"... helped me clear things with this episode
Please don't stop! I am really enjoying your story so far. Hope you write something good for chapter seven.
1032849 I'm working on Chapter 7. The finale itself is going to be a two-parter because of how intense the situation it is.
Okay... I've read through a few chapters. First, I applaud your ability to take an idea and turn it into a story this long. You have a lot going on and it's apparent you worked hard to keep the action and characters going throughout. That said, there are several things that you could take a look at and work on, divided into two sections: Grammar/writing mechanics and story arc/plot development/character development.
I see a LOT of cases where your grammar needs work: There are misused words, vague and unclear pronoun usage, and a lot of changes in tense:
In that paragraph, the first sentence is present tense; the second is past tense. Then, the third goes back to first and the fourth and fifth are past tense again. At the end of the chapters, the 'cliffhanger questions' break the narrative voice again, shifting the focus from a third-person limited following various characters to a third-person omniscient.
RD's dialogue is contradictory and confusing. There are a lot of examples of this in your text, where it seems you have an idea but the words are misused or the sentences are poorly constructed.
There's an odd dissonance between your character descriptions and dialogue/action- while you spend a lot of time detailing the visual characteristics of characters, you should do a lot more showing of what is happening as characters interact- I see a lot of telling what characters are doing:
The dialogue is dry partly because it lacks good description of what the characters are doing, thinking, and feeling. Especially with the main characters, you can skip the detailed visual description- everyone already knows who they are, so it's not necessary. Spend your words and time showing how characters react to dialogue and events, rather than telling
In terms of characters and plot, I think there are some issues as well. First and foremost, Rob Stallion is... quite the Gary Stu. I can't quite tell what's going on with the character, but I'm getting the feeling it's a crossover from somewhere? The Nova Star thing is very confusing, and some of his dialogue is very stilted. He has a unique costume; flies faster than Rainbow Dash; fires energy bolts; is already a hero (and his secret superhero character becomes revered by Rainbow); does seemingly every job in Ponyville, and manages to lead a double life. This is just far too much for any one character, and it makes him... boring. Flaws and limitations are important for characters. They provide obstacles and internal challenges for characters to overcome (or not- sometimes failure makes for a more dramatic and interesting story) and learn from.
None of the other main characters seem to be in-character, especially Twilight, and that makes the story hard to stick with. I understand that it's all designed around the idea that the actions of Twilight and the others was wrong, but... I don't think it works. The change in characters is too sudden, without enough supporting backstory. To be brutally frank, it feels like the images of the main characters were simply pasted onto villanous characters in order to support a story demonizing the Mare Do Well episode.
In general, I think working with an editor would help a lot- if not for the entire text, just working through a few sections to get a solid idea of what would improve the mechanics of your writing. I would also discourage crossovers in general- unless very carefully done, it's just not possible to meld the rules/powers/conventions of other universes with the Poniverse, and this story, like many others, suffers for it. If you want an example of a well-integrated crossover, I'd recommend The Thessalonica Legacy. There's a good balance of science and magic and careful attention is paid to making character reactions and interactions realistic and integrating the physics/rules/social conventions of the two worlds in a way that's plausible.
For all I've said, you should write for yourself. Take criticism and give it some consideration, but remember that (especially here) you're doing this for the love of telling a story (well, not everyone does- some people just want recognition, and then you need to change accordingly), so do what pleases you.
Best of luck in whatever you work on!
that ending called for this.
"DISCORDIA YOU HAVE FAILED ME ONCE MORE. FIRST I SEND YOU TO DO A SIMPLE TASK NOW THE SAME ONE AND STILL YOU FAIL ME. DO NOT EXPECT ANY MERCY FROM ME THIS TIME!"
2311828 That is a great choice to have. Very appropriate.
2311855 Good choice of words. Only thing remains is the Epilogue.
I hope you do well, I hate the "Mysterious Mare Do Well" episode, so I hope you teach those five a lesson.
2361540 I know I will.
I'm sorry to say this, but I'm afraid I'm gonna have to agree with NaturalGlitch on this one. To me, this entire fanfic felt like one huge Revenge Fic all because you hated that one episode. I mean, you give good points, but you were way off there.
Don't get me wrong, this story was good and the writing was fantastic, but even that wasn't enough to win me over. Im sorry again, but to me, this fanfic just felt like a Revenge Fic and it escalated worse and frankly, that was the big turn off for me. I wanted to give it more of a chance, but I couldn't. I'm sure you have other better fanfics out there that are much better so if you can show me those, I'd be more than happy to read them. as for this, this isn't one I would recommend to some people. That's just me.
In short, Love the Writing, Didn't Love the Story and reasoning behind this creation.
2377723 I do have to say that I appreciate the praise in the writing. This shows that I'm getting better. I will say this though that I will never ever write something like this again. This fic here is a testament to that... my failure. And I appreciate the criticism. Why? Because you are honest with it and I'm not like other people who would take it the wrong way. I accept all criticism because I want to improve as a writer.
Did the rest of the citizens of Ponyville ever apologize?
2732402 Yes, they do. I still need to add that part but I was in such a rush to finish it that I forgot. :( So that's my fault.
2361540 Black Kyurem has a story that does just that, but only if you're interested.
Turns out a lot of people didn't really like my story. It's to be expected. I consider it personally my failure. It's a failure and it serves as a reminder why it is so. If you guys want to bash it for what it is, go right ahead. I'm more better with writing Mega Man fanfiction than this. At least there with a story I have, I can decide how it goes.
3356963 Actually It's a Awesome Story, Appreciated the Writing, the Story, and The Feeling You Did. Good Job. (also gave you a pinkie pie, since You Love Pinkie Pie.)
3583889 You are too kind. That I appreciate though I feel it could have been better.
3787803 Thanks man.
To be honest, I don't like this story. It vilified the Mane Five just because of them trying to teach Rainbow Dash a lesson of being humiliated. You could've done better than that. I hate it when the girls are acting different or being treated like crud. Thumbs down.
5236398 And I most certainly agree. The Mane Five shunned off like that by almost all of Equestria? That's a terrible idea!
5236398 but that's exactly how they were in that episode. Face it the episode is THE worst in the series because of the actions of the other 5 memebers of the mane 6. MAre Do Well should only be a last resort yet it was the first thing they tried.