Our main heroine, Hidden Gem
LandFall
is an imageboard-based Interactive Comic that is inspired by My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. It is currently still ongoing, having begun on September 3, 2016. Potential readers should be warned that the story contains a notable amount of Mature content, particularly lewdness, despite its youthful protagonists.
A pegasus filly with a knack for finding things named Hidden Gem, and her best friend Dusty Miller, used to play around in the local landfill and pretend to have epic space adventures. But now, they must try to save their town from destruction after an actual space meteorite crashes into a nearby hill, which begins to make household objects come to life, and may possibly be driving ponies crazy. And this is just the first incident in what will be a world-spanning adventure...
Tropes:
- Alien Invasion: It turns out that an actual alien was inside the meteor, and is just the first in a series of invasions across the world.
- Animate Inanimate Object: Gem and Dusty are forced to fight against an animated vacuum cleaner and chest of drawers soon after the meteor crash, which they quickly realize is connected. Other normal objects try to impede their path later on, such as a couch and some bushes.
- Batter Up!: Gem's initial means of offense when things start getting strange includes a lacrosse stick and a bat she hammers some nails through.
- Children Are Innocent: Gem and Dusty start as this, having almost never seen any scary movies, and barely knowing anything about a "back massager" they find in an adult's room early on. However, as the meteorite starts to heighten the emotions of living beings, they end up learning about adult matters quickly, if only out of necessity.
- Chivalrous Pervert: Crystal Lattice is first encountered trying to take advantage of the supernatural crazed lust affecting various ponies, immune to its effects but hoping to hook up with someone in the chaos.
- Disappeared Dad: Gem's father had left for a business trip right before the mayhem began, though Gem is able to call him, and learn he's also fighting back against the supernatural mayhem. Dusty's father is also absent, but in his case, it's due to his parents being divorced.
- Enemy Scan: There's a bunch of RPG sequences during the story, and in them, Dusty's special ability is to spend a turn Observing enemies in order to identify their attacks and weak points.
- Gladiator Games: Clever Buttons was forced to participate in some in the past, after being abducted by aliens.
- Gondor Calls for Aid: One goal that persists across multiple Threads of the story is to try and get help from the vaguely-related Changelings, Breezies, and Moth Ponies (the latter of which is Dusty's race).
- Love Is in the Air: Another effect of the meteor is to drive ponies into a state of frenzied Mad Love, with the first and most notable example being Dusty's mom.
- My Greatest Second Chance: Clever Buttons, former schoolteacher and doomsday prepper that failed to both predict and prevent the alien invasion, gets the opportunity to try and find the source of the world's current problem.
- Only a Flesh Wound: After a couple of fights, Gem realizes that neither her friends nor her opponents are taking much visible harm in battle, even after upgrading to gear that should cause some bloodshed.
- Opaque Nerd Glasses: A pair is worn by Crystal Lattice, a female alchemist that befriends the kids.
- Shout-Out: The cover art for Thread #15 depicts Hidden Gem as The Batter from OFF.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: After the story takes them to Las Pegasus, Gem and Dusty end up splitting up for concurrent plots; the former to deal with the local Changelings, and the latter to befriend the Moth Ponies by going on a vision quest.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: Crystal Lattice speaks in broken sentences, and ends them with "yes" enough for it to be a Verbal Tic, but never makes it clear if she grew up using a different language.
- Whole-Plot Reference: The plot is very EarthBound (1994)-esque, with its kid protagonists, the major dangers being possessed objects and people, the protagonist's dad only able to be contacted by phone, and the main threat being completely alien.
