Twilight thought it was all so real. The ponies, the grass, the air, the shining light of the day. With the breaking of a single connection, everything comes crashing down, leaving a very confused human girl wearing a VR headset.
Good thing she can relog.
Preread by Babroniedad, Twilight Connor, Drakos779966, and Doggyshakespeare.
Now featured in GMBlackjack's The League of Sweetie Belles!
Formerly preread by Silence_EXE, deadpansnarker, TRIBOT 3000, and Naga is alive.
Original fiction spinoff edited by Undyne Devotion, EverfreePony, and RQK.
Join the Pony-Me discord server! Or try the group, if that's more fitting.
Cover art drawn in collaboration between Momoruuu and myself.
Based off of a chapter from What If...?
Read Pony-Me™: Outtakes for scrapped content, sneaky references, and more!
Now with a (somewhat) spinoff story by Undead Equestrian Writer!
Reviewed by The Reviewers' Cafe!
Reviewed by My little Reviews & Feedback!
Table of Contents:
Wake up. - Bonus #2: Epilogue 1: Part 1
...Or go on. - Bonus #5: Epilogue 2: Part 2
The Pony-Me Universal Framework (As of the beginning of Part 3)
You have taken an existentially dark story concept and managed to remove the "Dark" tag entirely, that is impressive.
Mechanical keyboards RULE!
Weirdly enough at Ciderfest someone had a VR set where you could play as a pony. I maybe spent a minute or two blowing up Changlings that ran by
8602713
This guy?
http://ponyvilleciderfest.com/guests/igor-bass/
8602740
8602713
Whoops. Forgot to add the tags.
And yes, this story isn't intended to be dark, even if it does touch on the idea that everything you know and love has, and will not ever exist.
8602740
Yep that's him
WHERE IS CTRL, ALT DELETE IN REAL LIFE!!! or ALT F4 or the fucking Power Button or anything!!!
I want to write a story like this were a human gets put back into the pony world after the pony realized it was virtual reality but most of Ponykind is dead or missing... or probably zombified or robotified? The pony goes on a long quest to do something or save someone and a giant adventure... kinda like SOMA... minus the really weird plot and enviroment... actually keep the enviroment (maybe)
8602815
I know a cure to waking up in a body not so much your own... suicide... or if you want to be a "grown-up" you can and live a life, but I mean who wants to do that Equestria's way more awesome... I mean theres magic and shit... so yeah...
8602831
This is just a side note and warning... please don't commit suicide, I have don't have the time for a lawsuit...
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pinkie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/rsz/mlfw5602_huge.jpg
8602841
dont worry about him, he is just a practicing logical extremist.
Somehow not dark dispite the premise. Interesting.
8603005
And all at the same time pretty much throwing everything I've written before out the window. This is the first time in quite a while that I've tried writing in a new style, as well as a new genre.
I'm interested in reading more. This is a strange setup in that it's not being treated as dark, and it does have a lot of implications and questions. Twilight Sparkle is rather smart, after all.
A very interesting little story, and I am interested to see more. One thing I would suggest doing, however, is describing things. If I were to read the story alone, and not look at the tags, I would be hard pressed to tell if this was an earth-human or an EqG-human.
More, please?
It was a pleasure pre-reading this and offering suggestions, and I hope it turns out to be as intricately fascinating as the prologues would suggest. Thumbs up.
8602841
Don't worry about...
Lisa Garnet, what happened to your memories?
You seem to remember the feelings of your surroundings, but nothing else.
How long were you in the Equestrian virch-world?
Is the passage of time even 1 to 1, or faster?
Did the experience of memory spells in Equesrtria genuinely modify your physical body's memories?
8604533
She does have memories of her past life outside of Equestria, but at this point, she's been within Equestria for so long that she no longer remembers that anything outside of it has ever existed.
She needs a friend.
Can I be her friend?
8604852
idunno.
8604869
Please
8604890
What do you mean by being her friend? I intend on having the story being pretty short, and ending with her returning to the virtualized Equestria.
8604898
Maybe a old friend from her past who she convinces to join her
8604902
The only character that I had planned for her to meet as a human was gonna be Spike.
8604975
Welp I tried
8604991
Sorry. :P
8604992
Whatever. Still a goid story
8605011
Interesting so far...
Why did she choose this? That's what I want to know.
8606332
Choose what?
This reminds me a bit like the matrix in a way.
8609196
I've been told that several times now by my friends. Funnily enough, I've never even watched The Matrix myself.
8609210
Give them a watch, there's three of them, matrix, matrix reloaded, and matrix revolutions. Who knows? Perhaps it'll give you some inspiration or ideas.
8609220
Maybe. But I'm enjoying the path that this story's taking at the moment, so I don't plan on taking ideas from that anytime soon. ^_^
8609226
I didn't say take ideas from it, I said inspiration, the muse to write, etc.
8609276
I guess. Right now my biggest drive to write is the fact that my current "flagship" series of sorts, my Lab Horse trilogy, has been stagnating after months of writer's block. This is just the result of me using ideas that I haven't been able to use before and putting them into an entirely new story.
8609281
I know how you feel, writer's block is a pain in the behind, especially when you want to write.
8609286
Yup.
Is this base on that movie where humans stayed home controlling robots to do everything in the outside world?
8609421
Nope. Like I said in a previous comment, this is completely original, and drawn from ideas I never was able to use previously.
Not one of these people remembers who they were before they were plugged in? That's pretty strange. I wonder what would happen if she were to run into somebody that did remember.
8609829
Remember that technician/medic guy?
Pretty peculiar.
Who has been managing the physical world?
You would expect a bit more automation present.
How did the technician not know the entire town was hit with connection lost errors?
I suspect the technician was flown in/driven in by an automated vehicle from stop to stop and never noticed the passers by, or maybe he is just one of many?
The biggest reveal in this entire chapter: TWILIGHT SPARKLE CAN SPRINT WITHOUT LOSING HER BREATH DESPITE UNTOLD TIME IN A VR POD!!!!!
8610791
The tech is one of many, called in because of a city-wide outage.
8610334
Does he count? I don't think he was plugged in... Or was he?
8611020
He's one of the few who stayed behind to keep things running.