Fanfic / Living The Dream (Kickass222urmom)

"You have three choices, you can go straight to heaven or straight to hell."

— God

Starting at left side,top to bottom. Big McIntosh, Zorrow, Seth, Drax, David,Peter, Greg, Rainbow Dash, Lance, Twilight Sparkle, Princess Luna, Frederic,Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Applejack

Living The Dream is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic adventure and slice of life fanfiction written by Kickass222urmom.

On December 21st, 2012, God enacts the Rapture and destroys the Earth. However, a young man by the name Lance Greenfield is given a second chance to live in any world he desires. He chooses Equestria and lives his new life as a zebra-pegasus named Girokon.

Living the Dream was first uploaded to fanfiction.net on November 25, 2011. The fanfiction ran for two years until the final act on November 8th, 2013. The story would get an epilogue posted three years later on September 1st, 2016. As of October 5th, 2022, Living The Dream has been revived and is currently ongoing.

Living The Dream can be found here and here. An ongoing reading of the story can be found here. An animatic of the aforementioned reading can be found here. And finally, an ask Girokon tumblr page can be found here.

Living The Dream has had several side stories written alongside the original. Living the Dream: Love conquers all, Right? is a what if about if God undid the rapture. Living The Dream: Interviews is a Talk Show like story where several characters are asked questions from the commenters. Living The Dream Christmas Special: Lesson's Learned is a Christmas special where Cody Benson learns to forgive Lance and embrace the spirit of Hearth's warming.

Not to be confused with Living Dream or Living The Dream

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Living The Dream contains examples of:

• Aborted Arc: It's revealed in the chapter "Great Day" that bronies are causing untold destruction across the Griffin Kingdom. Tensions between Equestria and the griffins are rising to the point of war. Only for the author to state their will be no war in the authors notes.
• Absurd Phobia: When Lance was four, a tree frog crawled down his throat. Since then he has developed an intense aversion to tree frogs.
• Aerith and Bob: Among the bronies we have Lance, Frederic, David, Greg, Peter, Seth, and... Zorrow.
• Alpha Bitch: Diamond Tiara during the School Arc. She belittles Little Fawn for being a blank flank and Lance for looking weird.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different:
  • During the fight with Violent Inferno the perspective suddenly changes to Alexander and Fluttershy.
  • After the Final Act, the story focusses on Scamp and her obsession with Living The Dream.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: This is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic, so naturally this applies. Special mention to Lance though. He's a zebra with cyan fur, red stripes, and a black mane.
• Amnesia Episode: In the chapter "Who am I!" Lance loses his memories after his consciences Break and Dawn destroy his memory bank. Following this Lance is renamed as Bitch Magnet, loses all his money, and is tricked into rubbing poison joke all over himself.
• Archnemesis Dad: Frederic and his father Richard have a violent history. Back on Earth, Frederic was forced into joining the Canadian Mob by his father. When Frederic tried to go to the police, Richard had him beaten and executed for his unwillingness to join the family business. After the Rapture, Richard wanted to go to wherever Frederic chose as his paradise, with the sole reason being that he wanted to kill him a second time.
• Berserk Button:
  • Lance gets pissed off anytime a mare is hit.
  • Booping Vinetion on the nose is a quick way to be put on her shit list.
• Bestiality Is Depraved:
  • Louie turns himself into a dog in the hopes of wooing Twilight. When that fails he hooks up with Winona, a completely normal and non-sapient dog, and has pups with her.
  • In a nightmare it's revealed that Lance's cousins locked him in a barn and raped him with a horse.
• Birthday Episode: The chapter "Suprise!" has Lance celebrate his 18th birthday.
• Black Comedy Rape:
  • Happens several times throughout the story. Most often Lance Greenfield is the one who suffers this. For example, on Earth his cousins James and Robert force Lance to get raped by a horse.
  • The most prominent use of this trope is chapter 50 "Heat Survival". In which every mare in Equestria goes into heat, and the male characters are picked off one by one until all of them are captured and raped for two days straight.
  • Another significant example of this is when Annabel did a repeat of The Heat mentioned above. She turned the main cast into mares (Except Vinetion) and forced them to survive an entire month in a city with hypnotized sex hungry stallions. Fortunately the event was Cut Short with only two characters getting raped.
• Blaming the Victim: After Cody saves Lance from a mugging, he blames Lance for his lost check. Because if he never saved Lance, he would have never lost the check.
• Burning with Anger:
  • Lance's Breaking Dawn form has fire erupting from his hooves and eyes.
  • Twilight bursts into flames when she hears about how Break and Dawn talk about her.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Lance Greenfield can be considered this. Throughout the story he has had to face several beatings, multiple deaths, rape attempts, and was even made sterile from a Jackass parody.
  • Zorrow is the personification of this trope. He suffers constant beatings, gets castrated, and was raped for a period of two days. The worst part is that his friends are the ones are usually causing his misery. It's not like he is totally underserving of this though.
• Caught Up in the Rapture: This is the premise of the entire story. Everyone on Earth is raptured and given a choice to choose between Heaven, Hell, or any world they wish to live in.
• The Chew Toy: Things never go well for Zorrow. He's constantly beat on, castrated, betrayed, raped, and so on. Rarely is his suffering taken seriously by the other characters.
• Chick Magnet: Somehow, Lance manages to get the attention of Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Princess Luna, Little Fawn, and even Draco.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
  • Early on Zane goes off an adventure to search for someone important to him, but he disappears with his arc unresolved.
  • Louie the brony dog first appears in chapter 8 as a competitor for Twilight's love. When that fails he hooks up with Winona and vanishes from the story.
  • Louie's Pups Weedy, Churchill, and Leonardo are also this trope. They were the pets of Greg, Lance, and David, but quickly fade into obscurity. They do get a brief Cameo in the chapter "Suprise!" though.
• Cool Shades:
  • Break always wears his badass sunglasses.
  • Lance briefly wears some when seducing Twilight in the "We're Stuck!" chapter.
• Crippling Castration:
  • Lance Greenfield loses the ability to have children in the chapter "Jackflank!". While filming a Jackass parody, he is hit in the groin with a supersonic rock. Twice. Later in the same chapter, his testicles are crushed with a hammer.
  • Zorrow, in the same chapter as above, is warned that if he damages his testicles again that they will have to be amputated. Upon hearing this, Peter tricks Zorrow into exposing himself and kicks bucks him full force in the jewels.
• Crossover: With ''Omnious' Travels: Equestria'' and Three of Me: School Society.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: This happens to Lance nearly anytime he gets into a fight.
• Depraved Homosexual: During the Pleasant Fields Arc, Draco has to constantly be reprimanded for trying to molest Lance before the ritual is complete. Unfortunately, Draco is given an hour to use Lance as a plaything.
• Dimensional Traveler:
  • All the bronies are this due to the Rapture.
  • Special mention goes to Omnius a.k.a. The Traveler, whose job it to travel dimensions.
  • Alexander gained this ability to escape the Portal dimension.
• Disabled in the Adaptation: Downplayed. Early in the story Derpy Hooves is repeatedly mentioned as being mentally disabled as a result of consistent head trauma. She never seems to show this off however.
• Distaff Counterpart: Grace is a gender swapped alternate dimension version of Razor Graze.
• The Don: Frederic's Dad, Richard, is the Don of the Canadian Mob and was in control of downtown Montréal before the rapture.
• Doorstopper: Over 1 million words long and still ongoing.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: All the male characters have been raped at some point in the story with little mention of trauma, punishment, or outcry. There's even a chapter where the women hunt down and rape all the men for sport as a national holiday.
• Driven to Suicide: Mr. Bleak's son Blade took his own life after his lover passed because he couldn't live without her.
• Dung Fu: The chapter "Pleasant Fields: Arrival" has Lance and Frederic escaping a horde of dung flinging monkeys.
• Easily Forgiven:
  • Lance forgives Rainbow Dash even after she tried to rape him and tried to destroy his journal. He even forgave her after she accidentally killed him while she was trying to poison Twilight. The worst part is after Lance forgives her she tries to rape him again.
  • Lance was quick to forgive Luna after she tried raping him because she backed off at the last second.
  • Cody Benson was let free almost immediately even after he killed 13 royal guards and tried to kill Lance.
• Eaten Alive: Lance has multiple chunks of flesh eaten off of him while being attacked by a random cannibal.
• The Exile: Mr. Bleak and his son Blade were banished from Equestria for siding with Nightmare Moon
• Faceless Goons: The Darkness is a group of entirely black and featureless ponies that follow The Nightmare.
• Fantastic Ghetto: In the dark timeline bronies are forced to live in decrepit shanty towns such as New Ripman.
• Fantastic Racism: Bronies are considered a subhuman menace in the dark timeline. Bronies are hated, forced to live in decaying ghettos, and are forcefully branded with a capital B. Even having one drop of brony blood is enough to qualify for such treatment.
• Fatal Family Photo: Lieutenant Brink pulls out a photo of his wife and daughter while searching for a Serial Killer, only to later end up with a knife in the chest.
• Fountain of Youth:
  • In the chapter "Who Am I", Lance is tricked into rubbing poison joke all over himself and is turned into a child for the next several chapters.
  • In the final act, Lance is reverted to his seventeen year old self after The Watcher restarted the timeline.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: All the consciences are this. Dawn and Joy being the good angel, and Break and Kill being the bad angel.
• Go-to-Sleep Ending: Several chapters end with Lance going to sleep.
• Gender Bender: Annabel changes the main cast (Except Vinetion) into mares for the second heat arc. She also changes the mares of Manehattan into stallions so there's a higher chance for the bronies to get raped. She is forced by Twilight to change them back however.
• Green Thumb: Vinetion is capable of growing and manipulating vines by stomping her hooves.
• Hair-Trigger Avalanche: Lance triggers one at the end of the chapter "Getting the News" because he yelled in shock when told that Twilight was going into labor. The next chapter "Stallion VS Wild" shows Lance and Peter trying to survive said avalanche.
• Halloween Episode: "Nightmare Night Part 1"
• Happily Adopted: In the chapter "Adoption", Little Fawn is adopted by Lance and is immediately accepted by the rest of the family.
  • Subverted later on. It's later revealed that Lance and Twilight have been neglecting her because of a mind block placed on them by Frederic.
• Hates Being Touched: In Dali's culture, it's highly offensive to touch any one without being close to them, and they will act as if they've been raped if someone so much as taps them.
• Heel–Face Turn: Cody Benson befriends the bronies after he atones during the Christmas Special.
• Heel Realization: In the Christmas Special, Cody realizes that Lance is not the one to blame for his families' death and apologizes to Lance profusely.
• I Know What You Fear: Subverted. The Nightmare shape shifts into a form Lance's uncle used to scare him with. However, Lance is an adult now, and no longer fears bedtime story monsters.
  Lance: How...
  The Nightmare: Simple. I just picked one of the things you feared and took it as my own form.
  Lance: Yeah, but I'm not scared of that thing anymore.
• I'm a Humanitarian: At the end of the chapter "Adoption" Lance is attacked and partially eaten by a random cannibal.
• Improvised Weapon: When Lance is pinned down by a hypnotized stallion, he slams a book into the stallion's face.
• Insistent Terminology: Zorrow will insist that he is observing Applejack, not spying or stalking.
  Zorrow: I'm not spying, I'm observing.
  Seth: Same thing.
  Zorrow: No it is not. Spying is hiding and taking notes on someone so you can give the information away or something along those lines. Observing is where you observe their habits and learn about them. Know everything about them so you will be able to approach them the right way.
• Invisible to Normals: Only people with consciences can see other consciences. Mind readers are capable of hearing them, but not seeing them
• Irrational Hatred: Cody Benson's reason for wanting to kill Lance is entirely nonsensical. Back on Earth, Cody Saved Lance from a random mugging, but during the skirmish Cody lost a check. A check that had the money to save his father from a Loan Shark. Not only does he not realize he can get another check, he also pushes blame onto Lance.
• I Will Only Slow You Down: When Zorrow is tackled by Pinkie Pie during The Heat, he tells the everyone else to run and immediately regrets it.
  Zorrow: Run man, save yourself.
  Lance: Thanks dude, I so owe you!
  Zorrow: What the fuck! I didn't fucking mean it! Get back here and save me!
• Jerkass:
  • Greg has done numerous awful actions during his stay in Equestria. He loves spiking drinks with alcohol or other substances without the consent of others. He often injures towards those around him for his amusement, and gets annoyed when told to stop. He's even responsible for both child labor and sexual misconduct of said children. Why anyone tolerates him is a mystery.
  • Seth is always seen abusing Zorrow. For example, He and Greg threw Zorrow down a flight of stairs, out a window, and rolled him down a hill towards the person who broke all his bones. Zorrow is in a full body cast when this happens.
  • Annabel's defining characteristic is pranking people. To be more specific, her pranks always involve her victims being sexually assaulted one way or another.
• Journey to the Center of the Mind:
  • Several times in the story Lance has nightmares about an incident on a farm. In the chapter "A Trip Into The Mind", Twilight and Lance go inside his mindscape to relive the memory with the intent of finding the source of the trauma. The incident in question happened on Lance's grandad's farm. Lance's cousins locked him in the barn and had a horse forced upon him. Lance never trully overcomes his trauma, but talking about it with Twilight lessened its hold on him.
  • Lance's mind is visited several times after this, mostly as a way for him to show his memories to other characters.
• Large Ham: Frederic's Dad, Mr. Bleak, and Violent Inferno.
• Last Episode, New Character:
  • In the Final Act, The Watcher invades Equestria and restarts the timeline.
  • In the Epilogue, Scamp finishes reading Living The Dream and obsesses with proving Lance innocent.
• Love at First Sight: Nearly every romance in the story is plagued with this.
• Mark of Shame: In the dark timeline bronies are branded with a on their flank.
• Maurice Chevalier Accent: Aaron is given a french accent in the let's read.
• Mayan Doomsday: In the first chapter Lance and his friend group stay up late to see if doomsday would come. Turns out not only was it true, it was actually the Rapture.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Greg's pony name, Mellow Haze, is quite fitting with his stoner habits.
  • Likewise, Greg's stoner dog is named Weedy.
  • The physical manifestation of evil is referred to as The Nightmare.
• Mental World: Lance's mindscape is represented by a blank white void with a computer. It makes the occasional appearance when Lance's memories need to be watched.
• Messianic Archetype: Lance Greenfield is the Equestrian equivalent of Jesus. He easily forgives those for their wrongdoings and befriends them. He has a group of loyal companions in the bronies. He was hated at first because of his appearance, before becoming a respected hero. To top it off, Lance has been killed and revived several times, even becoming one of God's angels after sacrificing himself.
• The Multiverse: The story mentions at least four different versions of Equestria. On top of that, other universes like the Portal universe and the Dead Rising universe are visited.
• My Beloved Smother: When Dana Greenfield met God after the rapture, she asked to be sent wherever her son Lance went to. Upon finding him, they got into a shouting match about how Lance doesn't want to live with her anymore. When Lance refused to budge, Dana tried to convince the captain of the Royal Guard to drag him out of his house. Eventually she realized Lance deserved to be independent, but she had this revelation while breaking into his house and watching him sleep.
• Nonindicative Name: Little Fawn is a pony, not a deer.
• Not-So-Final Confession: Lance and Frederic have this exchange while backed up against a cliff.
  Lance: I used swords to dig a ditch... and I used you're tooth brush for a sex toy one night when Twilight was feeling a little extra horny...
  Frederic: You used my swords to dig a freaking ditch? Wait... you did what with my tooth brush?
  Lance: Well Twilight wanted a little extra stimulation on her marehood, so I used it there. She also tied me up and stuck it in my... you get the picture... we had a lot of fun with that little tooth brush that night... We sure do miss it.
• Offing the Offspring: Richard had his son Frederic beaten and killed because he refused to embrace the Canadian Mob back on Earth. Post-rapture, he asks god to send him to Equestria so he can kill his son a second time, but is unsuccessful in killing him again. He tries and fails a third time during the Nightmare Arc.
• One-Drop Rule: In the dark timeline, anyone who has any human blood in them are considered a brony.
  Calypso: If one of your parents is a Brony, you are labeled as a Brony. Same goes for anyone who has human blood in their family tree. It's why so many ponies avoid getting with Bronies, don't want to doom your kids and their kids.
• Overly Long Name: Seth's full name is Seth Sethity Sethinston The Sethinteenth, most just call him Seth.
• Politically Incorrect Hero:
  • Lance seems to have a severe aversion to gay men, even calling one a faggot to his face. He has no problem with lesbians though.
  • Razor Graze's Battle Cry when facing women is to tell them to get back to the kitchen. He's also the only male character to have raped a woman and justified it with the logic that it's not rape if they enjoyed it. His consciences aren't much better.
• Precious Puppies: Louie's pups Churchill, Weedy, and Leonardo.
• Rage Against the Author: In the non-canon chapter "Imagination Unleashed" Lance and the rest of the cast break into the author's room and break every bone in his body.
• Rape as Backstory: Back on Earth, Lance's cousins locked him in the barn and forced a horse on Lance. Despite this, the incident doesn't seem to affect him aside from the occasional nightmare.
• Reincarnated as a Non-Humanoid: Lance dies on Earth during the rapture and becomes a pony in Equestria.
• Reincarnate in Another World: After the Rapture, God gave everyone three choices of where they would like to go. The first two choices were heaven and hell, but the third choice would put you in any world you desired. Naturally, the story follows those who picked the third choice, that being Equestria
• Remembered I Could Fly: Lance is often put into dangerous situations only to remember he can fly. For example, he and Frederic are being chased by a group of enraged monkeys, only to facehoof and fly away.
• Restart the World: In the Final Act, The Watcher invades Equestria with the intent of erasing the tainted world. He succeeds, bringing Lance back to the day of The Rapture, and threatening to give him a fate worst than death if he tries to fix it..
• Retirony: Lieutenant Brink laments that he's busy watching out for a mass murderer instead of staying home with his family. He was even planning to take the next day off for his daughter's ninth birthday and pulls out a family photo to reminisce. He gets stabbed in the chest and dies.
• Sadist Teacher: Mr. Bleak will lock his students in the classroom and hit them if they ever break his Four rules. No talking, no eating (he will offer food and hit them if they accept), no leaving your seat, and to not touch his ruler (unless he is hitting them). On top of that, punishing his students gives him a sort of sexual glee.
• Satellite Love Interest: With the exception of Twilight, the bronie's love interests are rarely show doing anything of note.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • When the bronies were hiding during the "Heat Survival" chapter, Frederic teleported away when the door was being kicked in.
  • When asked to help fight against The Nightmare, Malbatorus flew away and hid until it was over.
• Secret Identity: Averted. Most of the bronies are introduced with their pony name to hide that they are human, but in most cases they get quickly dropped in favor of their human names.
• Self-Insert Fic:
  • Averted. While one might call Lance a Mary Sue, he was never written with the intention of being a self insert.
  • Played straight with the other OCs. Many of the original characters are insertions from reviewers and commenters.
• Sex Miseducation Class: In the chapter "Mr. Stoner Teacher Man", Greg takes it upon himself to teach Sex Ed in Miss Cheerilee's class. First he shows porn of various people drawn by David, of which includes relatives of those in the class. Secondly, Greg brings out a realistic doll of himself, and then proceeds to fornicate with it while the class is forced to watch.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Most of the OCs will casually swear, but the top contenders are Break, Kill, and Razor Graze.
• Slipping a Mickey: Lance tricks Greg into drinking a glass of water full of sleeping pills that David left lying around.
• Solid Clouds: A natural effect of being set in the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic universe. Characters will occasionally be seen sleeping on clouds.
• Song Fic: The story has a plethora of songs scattered throughout the various chapters.
  • The chapter "The Grand Galloping Gala Part 2" has Peter singing "The Poet And The Muse" by Poets of the Fall.
  • The chapter "Wedding Reception" has Aaron and Vinyl perform "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO.
  • The chapter "The Long Awaited Wedding" has Lance sing "Paralyzer" by Finger Eleven at his wedding.
  • The chapter "Love For A Musician" has Peter sing "Carnival Of Rust" by Poets Of The Fall for Rarity
  • The chapter "TSSCS 6000" includes the "Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000" song.
  • The chapter "A Talent Duel!" has Lance sing three songs for a talent competition. In order, the songs are "Good Riddance (Time Of Our Life)" by Green Day, "Higher" by Creed, and "Lil Pip" by Pinkie Guy.
  • The chapter "Split Personality" has a song written by one of the OCs owners called "Luckiest One Around".
  • The chapter "A Day With The Family" has Lance sing "Wiccan Lullaby" by Inkubus Sukkubus for his family.
• Split Personality:
  • In the chapter "Split personality" Lance is hit by a Split personality spell and as a result he gets... a split personality. These two personalities are called Consciences, and their names are Break and Dawn. Break is the violent, loud, and sexually aggressive conscience, While Dawn is the Calm, Collected, and good conscience...Supposedly. The consciences are capable of taking over Lance's body and powering it into a super form called Breaking Dawn.
  • During the "Crossover of Consciences" arc Razor Graze from Three of Me: School Society shows off his consciences Kill and Joy. Graze can fuse with his consciences to go into his Killjoy form.
  • Pinkie Pie has her Consciences Pinkamena and Suprise, but they only appear briefly in Living The Dream. They have a much larger role in Three of Me: School Society though.
• Stalker with a Crush: Zorrow towards Applejack. He is often seen hiding in the bushes at Sweet Apple Acres while watching her work unaware of his presence.
• The Stoner:
  • There's not a moment where you will find Greg without a blunt. He learned Transmutation for the sole purpose of bringing weed to Equestria. Weed is not the only substance he's willing to get high on though, seeing as he broke into a hospital to steal morphine.
  • To a lesser extant is Greg's dog Weedy, who was chain smoking blunts at only a month old.
• Talking to Themself: Lance is the only one who can hear Break and Dawn other than Razor Graze. He will occasionally talk or yell out loud while conversing to his consciences and be gawked at.
• Time Skip: There are several minor time skips through out the story that are at most a few months long. However, in the final act there is a several year time skip that takes place eleven years after the start of the story
• Those Two Guys: Seth and Zorrow. These two are rarely seen without the other one nearby. They only appear for comedic relief. Usually at the expense of Zorrow.
• Undignified Death: At the end of chapter 4 Lance accidentally eats a poisoned cupcake meant for Twilight and dies. He gets better though.
• You Mean "Xmas": The Christmas special "Lesson's Learned" starts with Cody Benson being released from prison. Hatred still burning in his heart, he sets off to attempt to kill Lance once again. On his way, he encounters several ponies that challenge his beliefs, and make him feel the spirit of Hearth's Warming.