I'm not entirely sure how to word this, so I'll just start off saying thank you for such an amazing story.
I have never cried this much, for any reason, but this story made me cry more than ever; for every reason a person would cry. Whether it was tears of joy, tears of laughter, or tears of sorrow, I had a lot of them. More than I would've ever thought possible from anything outside of my own personal life.
I can relate to Big Macintosh in almost every way. Everything I did, I buried myself in it to keep social contact to a minimum. I would almost always try to avoid any situation involving more than the people already close to me. Even if it meant missing out on something, I would try to avoid it if it involved any real social interaction. In that respect, I think this story actually might have saved me from myself. Seeing another(yes, even a pony) going through what I was going through, and then overcoming it like this inspired me to do the same. I never had expectations of things going as well for me as they did for him, but the way his life just turned around like that made me feel like I was missing out on more than I thought. Everyone always told me I should get out more, and there was more to life than staying at home, but their words never meant as much to me because they couldn't relate to what I was feeling. But this story was different. I never had the rough childhood, and both of my parents are alive and well, but in every way other than that(and physical strength, and awesome accent), I can easily imagine myself as him. If it weren't for this story I might never have taken a chance and gone for what I wanted with my life.
I've read fan-fiction that made me cry before, but nothing I couldn't hold in when I wanted to, but even when I was tired, sweaty, and frustrated after a long day at work, I could pick a moment from this story, think about it, and it feels like everything is better, and I can just smile through the crap.
And on to the writing, it was just brilliant. The fact that almost everything, had a noticeable effect was amazing. I mean, even the tinniest details could eventually have an effect many chapters after they show up, and I just love that in a story. All of the characters were believable, the descriptions were detailed enough to let my mind form a good mental image without overdoing it. And it just had that perfect, and I mean perfect, mix of comedy, sad(really, really sad) stuff, and amazingly deep uplifting stuff. Everything about this story was as good as can be to me.
There's more I want to say, but I feel like I should stop with what I told some people on a forum who were also reading it. This story means so much to me, and has effected me in such a way, that it doesn't just deserve a spot on my top fan-fic list, or in the forefront of my mind, but it deserves a special place in my heart.
I did not mean for this to come out nearly as sappy as it was, but it's how I feel, so the words just kind of flowed, anyway, thank you for such an amazing story, and sorry for the gigantic comment.
up to chapter 11 of macintosh 
