It started off innocently enough
Marcus had been just sitting back in his nice, cozy home for quite some time. He was sitting in an easy chair, with a good book on constellations and their importance he got from Luna a while ago, and a glass of ice water to chase the mild heat of late summer away.
He treasured every moment of the silence.
I can see you are confused friend. Allow me to elaborate on who this man was and why he was enjoying the silence so much.
He is Marcus the Human. Odd name for a pony yes? Well it's just that, he isn't a pony. In fact, his species does not coincide with any other recorded names of animals, sentient or no, documented in Equestrian history, even from the minds of the country's immortal rulers.
No this man was quite truly an alien. An interloper. An outsider.
A human he called himself. Homo-sapien or 'wise-man' in scientific terms.
He had a similar build to a minotaur or a dragon, but that's where the similarities end. His skull was similar to that of a primate instead of an equine, a lizard, or a canine like most others had. Flat face, triangular nose, and small forward-facing eyes that denounced him as a predator, if not a very good one. He was mostly hairless, save for a large patch of unkempt, short black hair on the top of the head and sparse patches on the arms, legs, stomach, chest, and groin. He had rather striking blue eyes that contrasted nicely with his hair and fairly pale skin (Being a night owl does that to you). On either side of his cheeks, grew some impressive looking side-burns, the only facial hair he seemed to have.
When you get down to the core of it, he really wasn't all that different from a pony. He was able to express a wide range of emotions, he could perform facial expressions, he had hopes, desires, dreams, yadda yadda.
None of that was too much of a far cry from any other creature in Equestria.
No, what really, truly made him an alien, was his mind.
A great man with a lot of great ideas once said: "There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those that we, ourselves, erect."
Contrary to popular belief, the pony mind is actually very one-track and linear, only caring about what needs to get done that particular day, the next week, or in Twilight's case, the next month. It never ventures far enough outside of ones special talent because that special talent cements them a place into society. They focus on that talent like a sniper scope and work at it, contributing to their community until the day they die. That special talent, walls in the pony's curiosity and traps it, never allowing it out to try new things and go new places as the talent they so love consumes them. In a way it's a horrid and wretched existence: having your future laid out for you in a straightforward path of monotony and routine. But ignorance is bliss as they say. Not having to go out into the harsh world and find your talent without knowing what is is afterward by way of a rump-mark can save you the disappointment of never finding it.
It's all a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils in this case.
But back to the matter at hand, however. The human mind is not burdened by such constraints. It is not walled in by a set future. No, the human mind carves out a path to the future of it's own, the road it leaves behind twisting, turning, looping, and sometimes backtracking. The absence of a cutie-mark allowed his mind to be freely curious and outgoing about anything.
This ties into why Marcus was enjoying the alone time so much. It seemed that, not long after his arrival, his state of mind unwillingly called the attention of a certain purple unicorn-turned-alicorn. The way he always seemed to be able to do the odd-jobs around town that would usually require a specialist with the coinciding skill set, fascinated her. When she asked him how his thought process worked however... it didn't go very well for him.
Twilight is very bad at these kinds of things. She always needs some kind of measurable value to put something into. She needs to know that everything has some sort of scientific explanation. It almost broke her fragile psyche when she could not find a solution to the Pinkie Sense fiasco. She was already on edge and pushing her over the cliff by saying "You can't explain it. You just can't." was one of the worst decisions of his life. After that day, she just kept coming back with the same request with a different coating on it. It ranged from surgery to a modified mind reading spell to fit this purpose.
He denied every one of them. From early on in his childhood, he learned that the only place that he could be truly safe from the prying eyes of others, was his own thoughts. For Twilight, his best friend, to basically ask if it was okay to violate his personal space and privacy, was a giant bitch-slap in the face to him. He denied this one even more fervently than the ones before, saying if she ever went snooping around in his mind without consent, he would find a way to hurt her, ignoring any and all consequences and/or backlash for doing so. She relented for a time, respecting him enough not to do that, mixed with a little fear from the threat.
That didn't stop her from asking every fucking day afterward though. So with each passing day, she asked if she could look into his mind for answers, and each day in return, his trust and friendship with her would wane just a bit. Soon enough, there was a huge gap in between them. Twilight, once again, had abandoned friendship for the sake of science.
This is why he was enjoying his peace and quiet. He knew she was away on business for the week and he was to be left alone for the time being.
So that brings us back to his house: with our favorite bipedal as he was reading an engaging book about constellations and their importance, provided to him from Princess Luna's own personal library. It seemed she had been taking a liking to him as of late. Allowing him access to her book collection, inviting him to anything she can that wasn't too boring, the occasional visit from time to time. Perhaps it was time to act on his own growing interest in her and-
*Knock Knock*
He was torn from his thoughts by two curt knocks resounding from his front door. Closing the book and setting it on the glass coffee table with a sigh, he stole a quick glance at the wall clock beside the door to his kitchen.
"9:30? What could someone possibly want at 9:30 at night?" he said more to himself than anyone else as he walked to the door to answer it.
He really wished he didn't.
"Marcus! You never answer the door anymore!" the newly crowned Princess Twilight Sparkle exclaimed from the door way.
He didn't answer. He was just in too much shock. "Why is she here? She only left two days ago!" he thought, still allowing his brain time to processes this information.
Taking his silence as an invitation to let herself in, she plopped down on one of the oversize couches that had been custom-made for his size and weight.
He finally came back to himself long enough to turn around and tell her to kindly fuck off. When he did turn around, however, he noticed she had a rather smug grin on her face.
"You lied." she stated, not even giving him a chance to tell her off.
His brain stopped, mid-thought, again. What had he lied about? She seemed to have nothing more to say, so he took the initiative.
"What?" was all he could spit out in the sheer stupidity of the moment. He honestly had no idea what she was talking about.
"You lied." she repeated with that stupid little grin still on her face.
This was really starting to piss him off. "Yeah I got that. What I don't get is what I lied about." he stated with a little more clarity in his head to work with.
She pinched her snout with a hoof(however that works) in frustration before adopting that smirk again. "I see you are still denying it. Very well then. Let me break it down for you. While I was away at the Crystal Empire, I had an experience: an experience that involved humans. Now I am able to safely say that you lied about yourself."
He ignored her rant about how he was lying and decided to pursue her experience with the humans in order to get more information about it. This he had to hear.
For the next half hour, she regaled to him her time at Canterlot High School. By the time she was done, it was 10:15 and she had left him in a puddle of confusion. What this had to do with his supposed lying, he knew not.
"Twilight," he said cautiously " I don't know what this has anything to do with me lying to you. I will admit it was a good story to listen to though." Perhaps this was her first steps toward fixing the rift between them!
"What this has to do with it is: I was a human for the entire time I was in this other world. I was just like you and I didn't feel any different than how I feel now. So everything you said about your mind being different than a pony's is a big. Fat. Lie." she finished her statement by putting on that smug looking smile again, saying to him "I know everything." She just quashed all chances of that ever happening.
It was the last time she would get to have that smirk before the night ended.
Immediately he got up, walked over to her, grabbed her by the face and hissed two words at her.
"Do it."
"What?" it was her turn to squeak out the word this time.
"Do it. Cast the spell. See into my inner thoughts. Then see that you just made the biggest mistake of your life." he snarled out at her. Call him stupid, call him weird-looking, even call him a whore if you so desire. But never, ever call him a liar.
She put on an incredulous and slightly fearful look on her face when he was finished.
"Your secret is out Marcus. Letting me see into your mind won't change a thing. You're no different than a pony." she stated, while she backed away from him as much as she could.
"Humor me." he retorted, following her until she was trapped against the back of the couch.
She thought about it rather quickly, as he was breathing erratically, his fists were clenched, and his right eye would twitch every so often. All of these were signs that he was holding back a large amount of anger.
"Okay. I'll do it, but this is only going to humiliate you further." she got to her hooves on the couch and prepared the spell she had been meticulously modifying for the past six months.
He didn't say anything in response as a lavender aura encased them both. He watched in silence as a bubble formed between them and two wisps of the aura got closer to it.
He and Twilight both blacked out before they hit the cushions.
He was going to show her what a real Human is.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Twilight 'woke up' in a strange place. Don't get me wrong it was supposed to be strange, she had done this many times before on her friends to test it out. She had even done it to herself the first time to prove that it was safe, that was an enlightening experience.
This place was even more strange than those places however. Instead of a black void like the others, she was placed in a room. A small, gray room with a large mirror that took up most of the right wall. In the middle, was a metal table and chair that were bolted to the floor. As her vision cleared even more, she found a projector on the ceiling, a pull-down projector screen in front of her, and a door on her left. It almost looked like an...
An interrogation room!
She made to get up and escape, but found herself bound to the table by two metal cuffs. She panicked and tried to magic the cuffs away... only for absolutely nothing to happen. She tried again with the same results. She could not get out of the chair either as is was bolted to the floor. She tried flapping her awkward new wings to try and force her way out... with similar results. She was completely at the mercy of whatever Marcus had in store for her.
...
Marcus!
"Marcus what is the meaning of this? Let me go!" she yelled out as she continued to thrash about in a vain attempt to escape.
"You will hold still." his voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, sending chills down her spine. He sounded like an omnipotent overlord in there. But of course this was his mind, he could sound like Princess Celestia on crack if he wanted to.
Her heart was beating a-mile-a-minute as she obeyed his command, not really knowing why she did at the time.
"First let me ask you a question: Did you happen to read any history books in this so called 'human world'? he asked her in a calm, even tone.
"Yes! What does that have to do with anything?" she managed to stammer out, fighting her instinct to struggle again.
He seemed to ignore her question and continued on. "And when you read this book, did it, or did it not, read almost exactly the same as an Equestrian history book?"
She was about to tell him to release her again when she fully caught on to his question. It had almost the exact same information as one of their own history books, if a little bit of a change in some of the grammar and syntax. Hooves for hands, two legs instead of four, etc.
She answered his question a little more calmly this time around. "Yes. It was almost exactly the same as our... history... books." she trailed off as she realized the one fact that could have saved her the night of torment Marcus had in store for her.
"I see you realize it now." he said with a hint of amusement as she started to thrash about with renewed vigor. "Those 'humans'? Those were just copies of ponies. No real human traits about them. Just a shell with a pony soul and mind in it."
She tried to plead her case "Marcus I'm sorry! I didn't know! I'm sorry I called you a liar!" tears began to form in her eyes. She shut them tight.
"Ah ah ah, can't have that can we?" he lightly chastised as Twilights eyes were forced open and pointed forward with her head, not of their own accord. "Much better. Now you can see what I have to show you!" he spoke with maniac glee evident in his voice. It reminded her of Discord in a way. Not a good thing...
"What are you going to do with me?" she asked as she trembled within her bonds.
He chuckled a bit as the screen on the wall slowly, methodically pulled itself down. "I'm going to show you, an abridged version of human history. I"m going to show you the atrocities, the miracles, the things mankind has done over it's short existence. You should count yourself lucky, for not many get to see this first hand or hoof."
He didn't mean that as a joke.
Tis' a pity none could hear her screams of fright, her cries of joy, and her rage filled bellows except for her and Marcus. By the time they were at the end of Hannibal's reign she was already begging for it to stop from information overload. He didn't. They weren't even halfway through yet!
This was his revenge on her for asking, day in and day out, for access to his mind. For calling him a liar and making him snap like a fucking twig. Now she was getting what she wanted. She hated it and he knew it.
But he also loved it. This was the first time in a long while that he was able to truly express himself. To truly do something bad. To be human.
She had become a whimpering mess by the time the Holocaust had ended, to the end of the 'film'.
"Ready for dessert?" he asked her as her head shot up in alarm.
"There's more?!" she yelled disbelievingly at the mirror.
"No my dear. This is just the beginning. You saw general human history, but that's not what you wanted. Oh no, what you wanted is me, my thoughts, my mind, my curiosity." he paused for a second, seemingly to build tension. "I'm going to give it to you. But this room is no place to do that, oh no we need something much more spacious for that."
As soon as he finished his sentence the room started to melt away, leaving the black void she was so used to seeing when she did this. He hooves were still bound to the table however, so she was forced to sit there and watch as the room gave way to darkness.
"Lets begin shall we?" he said, finally stepping out from behind her.
Her screams from the 'history lesson' were dwarfed by the ones from this... this thing.
I won't even try to describe it. It was just... wrong.
--------------------------------------------------------------
It had been a week since Twilight was over at Marcus' house for some reason. He wouldn't mention why, and every time she asked about it he just said: "All is well now". But ever since that day, every time she saw him, she could not help but shudder just a bit. Even more frightening was the fact that when he caught her shivering, he gave a knowing and somewhat creepy smile. Almost like he knew something she didn't. Maybe it had something to do with the magic fatigue she felt after she woke up the day after...
damn, but twilight did deserve it, its was her own damn fault.
OH SHIT! Seems that she finally got her answers... and maybe some weak legs!
Lol twilights a dumb ass! Human history isn't even that !That's including the wars! Poor inoscent twilight :3
There is a realm of existence so far beyond your own, you can not even imagine it. I am beyond your comprehension. I am Sovereign a human.
Hmm, first bit was well written and quite entertaining, but I felt like it grounded itself at the point where twilight enters his mind. It felt rushed at the end, like you wanted to fit so much more in this chapter but didn't wasn't to boor them.
Criticizing aside though, I'm interested in the aftermath.
3217224
Ehh. I don't know. I might make this a two parter, but i set it up to be a single chapter.
I'll sleep on it.
3217230
two parts please!
This has fantastic potential as a series.
Like next you can have Marcus introduce Rainbow Dash to Linkin Park.
Or maybe he can show Rarity the fashion perfection that is a black hoodie and a pair of tripp pants.
3217230 Sleep~
Raven: ................................................................................... Worst. Story. Ever. I mean, I don't understand a single thing out of it. What the frick happened?!?!?!?!?!?! Explanation please! Gah, I hate it when people make stories so vague like this......... JUST EXPLAIN THE FRICKIN' THING!!!!
3218419 In that case, here's a quick summary for you:
Events of Equestria Girls happen. Twilight assumes she now has experience humanity.
Twilight acts OOC, attempts to antagonize a human with her newfound knowledge. Human is annoyed.
Human convinces Twilight to go into his mind. Twilight does, but is unprepared for the violence of the Holocaust, etc.
End of story implies that human does something Cupcakes-esque, but because it is within his mind, Twilight is unharmed. Twilight's mind censors the memories.
Not difficult to understand, but not a particularly good story either.
3219410>>3218419
Do you both know how new I am to this?
Really. Guess. No? Ok I'll tell you.
A little over six weeks.
Six weeks.
Telling me my stories are bad or not good is like saying the sky is blue in this context.
It is an inevitable fact that my newest stories are going to be amateurish and not well written. That is something I took into account long before I started doing this and braced myself for it. Especially for something like this that was written on the spot to clear writers block.
I do not remember asking for angry or hateful comments either. If they have constructive criticism then I will take said criticism and use it to the best of my ability. But if they are comments like these with nothing to offer other than hateful words, I will ignore them. I responded like this, only once, just to get my point across. You will not be hearing from me on this matter again.
Have a nice day,
Not Luna
3219613 The amount of time spent writing fanfiction is irrelevant, but you're right that I should have been constructive in my criticism, even if it was intended as "this story is... well... meh". With that in mind:
The story seems to skim past too many important emotional changes. The introduction is okay, but once you get to the mind-view scene, you start telling instead of showing. After the long buildup, we readers expect to see Twilight's descent into hell, observe what she does and see how each event affects her. It's okay to fast-forward past emotional plateaus, but every significant change (Smug to crying for example) ought to be justified by a description of how it happened.
So. Major changes that I think you need: Show Twilight's reaction to the history lesson as it happens. Show, don't tell, the aftereffects; a single "Twilight has amnesia now" paragraph insufficient. If these changes are made, your story will end up being 2 pages longer, minimum.
That said, it's okay to leave gaps for imagination, as long as you provide sufficient guidance. In particular, the implied Cupcakes scene is fine.
3219776
That's why I'm leaning toward another chapter for this to show her 'descent into hell'.
Thank you for doing this. It helped to cement my decision on what to do with this... abomination.
3218419>>3219410
Saying that this is a bad story is like saying "Green is the best color." In my personal opinion, green is not the best color. GREEN IS NOT A CREATIVE COLOR! It is your personal opinion, and unless you have reasons to back it up that the author can use to improve upon his story, don't even bother posting it, because NO ONE CARES!
3219996
3219985
I just said that.
No need to make them the bad guys anymore.
3220040
3220477
weheartit.com/entry/51088454/tag/8%20miles?context_user=6512596
3220057
Sorry
I had this story opened in a background tab for a while, and I don't bother refreshing the comments before commenting. I did not see your comment before-*insert appendage here*.
Anyway, I believed this to be a very good story. I related to the character and gave me a topic to discus with the friendly parasitic leach slowly eating my memories. We made a deal, so that I give it some pleasant conversation and he (who named himself Metroid Primus III) would copy everything and eat the copy instead of the original. He will also bring me to his home planet of "Bullshitious Composite" (which is the closest translation in this language). Back on topic, we were talking about how, compared to the history of the human race, the humans imagination can be far more terrifying. I know what happened in the past was absolutely horrible, but humans, who had no real means of self defense beyond their own ingenuity, have a natural sense of paranoia unrivaled by any creature, especially due to the fact that humans know that Death awaits in the future and understand their own mortality. Finally, lets end with a related quote from a book whose title I can not remember.
"Life is only precious because it ends, kid."
That was surprisingly good actually. Going into this, I had no idea what to think, I can now safely say that I genuinely enjoyed reading this.
Good work
3221249
THANK YOU! YOU GET IT!
WOULD YOU LIKE A CAPS LOCK COOKIE?!
Sorry about that comment too.
It only seemed that way because you used the color thing. No hard feelings?
3218419 Commit self termination immediately, fleshling.
The mind of a pony who is chained by fate cannot comprehend the mind of a human gifted with ABSOLUTE FREEDOM to be let free, no goal in but what we choose. a pony is locked to whatever there cutie mark is to never change, to follow blindly that anything else is the greatest wrong
this is why equestria has not advanced hardly at all in the last 3000 mabye years yet the inteligence is there, they are doomed to follow endlessly, to be forever chained by fate, by there own cutie marks which they cherish.
3221249very very true
3220498
Well, I've got little to add really.
With practice comes the ability to know what to show and what not to. It was a great start but I do feel a tad unsatisfied - but that's been pointed out.
IN OTHER NEWS: Interesting take on Equestria. I've seen it before but this was a pretty well done look at how that would work. Admittedly, that means AJ would have to call a repairpony to fix the gutters instead of doing it herself so I don't think it's entirely held up in canon but some of my favorite stories involve divergence from canon so that's not a bad thing. I'm confused about Twi's sudden amnesia but I do like how incomprehensible his curiosity is to her that she just can't wrap her mind around it. I suggest dropping that angle (amnesia) and showing some of the end results of her trying to understand that which she has no basis for comprehension - without an end result, what really changed in the world?
It's a great deal better than some other stories but lacks a certain 'punch' that it builds up to. It's just shy of a great story - sits well in the 'good' category though.
I rather like this. The only thing that feels a little less to me is that the end felt a bit rushed.
3219410
Raven: The only part I wanna know is what happened in his mind. That's the thing that ticked me off the most, with Twi calling him a lair being the second thing that ticked me off.
3219613
Raven: Well, I'm sorry for it being so hateful, but I wasn't really in a good mood at the time. Either way, I still wanna know what the shell happened back there.
3219985
Raven: My reasons are obvious enough: Whatever happened is just unexplained. Hate that being done in a story...... or any type of fiction for that matter, like in Final Fantasy VIII.
3221534
Raven: Don't wanna. Yet.
You've all convinced me.
Second bonus chapter explaining some of these important things will be put into the works soon!
3222791 I'm watching you... buddy.
3224344 *Slowly Backs away...*
3224694*sprints after him* You get back here!
3221329
The part about the colors was a reference to a youtube video called "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared". Also, that type of thinking is what I do for fun. Whenever I am commuting from place to place I will either sing rock songs quietly to myself (so no one hears my horrible singing voice) or have conversations with myself about Life, Death, the living dead, Immortals, the human brain, why I think about things like these, and other, varying topics which come and go often halfway in the middle of a sentence. I confuse myself a lot.
3224965 *Gets Sniper from Bag* "They Don't call me I Th3 Kill3r I for nothing *Points sniper at your head*
3225407 Woah... dude... Calm. The fuck. Down... Okay? *Puts hands up and off of revolver inside of boxers.*
3225354 You are an interesting individual aren't you?
3225734
My "Magic 8-Ball" says yes, and the Magic 8-Ball is never wrong.
3225732 Alright now sit down and write the next few chapters of this story before I blow your brains out.
3225912 Already on it s-sir!
3226005 Okay, I'll Be back *Walks Out Door* *Opens door again* Oh I forgot something *Throws Knife @ your head and misses* Shit, Uhhh *Runs away*
3224030 You are weird, I assume pre teenage angst is making you write like a fool.
3227475... What a strange man.
3229552 HEY I HEARD THAT
3227475
Raven: Is right in front of you Scaring off the author makes him unable to focus, which means the next chapter could turn out bad all thanks to you. Pulls out a shotgun and cocks it Payback time.
3227558
Raven: Yeah, I'm weird, and I admit it, even if being weird doesn't always means you're better.